PART 1 - THE GENUINE ARTICLE Rowan Atkinson's Brilliant Article Explained ua-cam.com/video/Yiga3atlTRs/v-deo.html PART 2 - THE DEBUNK... DEBUNKED Debunking Simon Evans' Article that attempted to Debunk Mr Atkinson ua-cam.com/video/U74P36S5T64/v-deo.html PART 3 - PREBUNKING THE DEBUNK OF THE DEBUNK... Looking back at a 2010 Guardian article that itself debunked Simon Evans' article. ua-cam.com/video/c-I2IxhEyXs/v-deo.html
Yep, common sense. I agree. But some details were forgotten. -Synthetic fuel is three times less efficient than batteries. (maybe twice if we weight the manufacturing also) -In cities synthetic still means fumes. (I personally like to se no cars at all in cities. ) Go fucking underground if you want fast. Sure this mean investment in tunnels. But this will mean no more crossings an waiting at red lights, so faster transit. Also with tunnels there, cables and pipes can have a place there, and be replaced without ruining the roads every decade. -And I forgot something. It is not about electric cars themselves, but about fossils, burning stuff. We know that oil is not infinite, and that is bad burning it. This was promoted since long time ago, I grew up half a century ago with this idea. We knew it, but nobody was doing anything to solve the problem. Eh, almost anything. More filters, less pollution. But the consensus was that burning oil is bad, nobody took the side of oil industry, but we all acted like there is still plenty of time, and is the problem of future generations to solve it. Now, a future generation is here, and started to solve it, but also there is fighting against the transition even meantime the global warming has became an pressing issue. Somebody is feeding bullshit to the public opinion. Like the cobalt and child labor. Come on. why this became so pressing, and nobody raised the issue 50 years ago? it was there back then too! Other bullshit is that there is still plenty of oil and coal. And that there are undiscovered deposits. Sure, we will find for 50 more years, 500 to push it to absurd, but then what? No more fossil to kickstart the renewables and humanity just revert to stone age? There is even an claim that oil is regenerating. Who TF would push this idea? And it hurts me to see smart and educated people repeating it to me. Outraged I dismiss it, and the man admits, Oh, sure, but I want confort. And I want it now, and I want it cheap. Sure, than say that you do not care, not that oil is regenerating. I know that some oil may be generated as was for millions of years, but how many seconds will cover an year of such production at global level? Anyway, the transition costs a lot, and should be made with the money that belong to those who got rich in oil and coal, not with students money. But the rich use their money to make stupid propaganda about how bad are the electric cars and solar panels instead of using the money for research and transition. And this is why electric cars are still expensive and not good enough. So, not buying an electric car, not yet, is just passing the cost of transition to somebody else. Buying a new car at every three years sure has its bad part, but tell me, how many students bought a new car in first year and then another one at graduation? I bet that majority of them bought an used one, and could afford it precisely because those could afford new cars, replaced theirs, and flooded the used car marked, making them cheap. Let assume that suddenly now, everybody stop for two years to buy a new car. in few months the stock of used cars will be gone. The price will hike up, and those just becoming independent today will have to walk, or get a loan for an expensive car. In other words they will finance the transition with a loan. So yeah, common sense. But also common sense is that if you can afford to buy an electric car you should buy it, to finance the transition. Better now, when there is still oil to make the transition smooth. If we wait 50 years, and oil will get scarce than the transition will be a lot more expensive. Sure, will be not us to pay the price. Will be our grandchildren. It is common sense to let our grandchildren pay the price?
My euro5 diesel car ( which I bought to be eco friendly) is 11 yrs old does 50 MLS per gallon around town 70+ on motorways and nowadays does 3000 MLS a year. That's about as eco friendly as any vehicle can be but will fall foul of the ulez scam. What a scam sad k,* nt is advocating.
He has exactly the same degree as me. I have work in the electric car industry and I can tell you it’s the real deal. It’s one thing to have a degree. It is entirely another thing to have practice the art and science of the engineering. So sorry, Mr. Bean has not i’m going to give you a thumbs down not because I dislike you. First of all your video is unprofessional, just sitting in a car and reading from a script. Secondly, the person you are using as a credible reference is not really credible. Lots of people have all kinds of college degrees. When I finally went to work, I can say that my college education helped me, but, I was astonished by what I learned in the practice of engineering.
@@Flyingdutchy33 : hydrogen car in whatever form is not economical. Electric cars are here to stay using battery chemistry, and I don’t want to be a Luddite like you guys. Sad to say, somebody has to play the Fall guy. Thanks for volunteering!
I have two Toyotas, one is 21 years old, the other is 12 years old, both running like clocks. I've never felt comfortable getting rid of a perfectly good car.
Exhausting perfect combustion gas, probably ? If so, try locking yourself in a garage with the motor running... let's see how long you shall be able to breath "perfectly". 🤔
I have a 30 year old Vauxhall Cavalier 1.8, which runs perfectly well,is cheap to fuel and maintain and rarely has issues. It is light at 1205kg, which is half that of many EVs and thus reduces wear on brakes and tyres, the pollution from which is frequently ignored.
@@Robin-zf3wx Most people don't know that tyres can't be recycled in the normal sense, i.e., broken down into their component materials due to the vulcanizing process.
I've been in the UK for the past 2 weeks and I was stunned by the fact that there's a lot of new (or almost new) cars on the roads. Here in The Netherlands the average car age is around 11 years old and you still see plenty of pre-2000 era cars. Not so in the UK.
That’s one thing I noticed in Japan when I lived there in 2007, though it’s hard to date the cars since the models are completely different, they all looked newish
Alot of our pre 2000 cars dissapeared after the 2009 scrappage scheme to keep the car industry afloat. They gave people £2k for any old car against a new one
Also don't forget that UK and Japan are one of the few countries with a strong economy at least, that drive on the left side of the road, which means most cars will have the the wrong configuration to be viable to export for most emerging markets (that usually import used cars). That means that the prices are lower and the supply often outweighs the demand, and they would be even lower if there wasn't for the people changing their cars every few months like they are bedsheets (something I noticed here in the UK compared to my country) which tends to create a fake economy of sorts (and this applies to everything, electronics etc). Since the economy is better, new cars are still being manufactured, which in turn pushes for schemes and legislation to replenish the existing pool of cars.
@@martij30 As Six said above, the scrappage scheme or "scam" as I prefer to call it was a travesty for older car lovers. However not all cars got the £2k, it HAD to be road legal with an mot. They also had to be certified with a destruction notice, meaning they were't allowed to be returned to the road. The opposite of what "green" really is. The amount of really rare old cars traded in was staggering. I believe a lot are still being stored in the open rotting away on an airfield, have a little search for them, Porsches, BMWs, Mercs, Morris Minors, all sorts.
Excellent video Geoff! In Australia, we have a Mercedes ML320 cdi (V6 3.0 diesel) with 280 000kms on it and it runs beautifully because it has been properly maintained. We also have a Hyundai iLoad 2.5 diesel with 275 000 kms and is incredibly driveable, comfortable and economical on long drives. I was raised to look after things I worked hard to own. This practice has saved me a lot of money over the past few decades. I believe that the worldwide automotive industry has, for some time been geared towards high turnover. The "agency model" with many Australian dealers provides very slim profits on the sale of new vehicles. The profits for a dealership today are: - finance - upsell to a swankier model in the range, - fixed price servicing (thereby hoping for customer retention after the warranty runs out) or - -better still, trading in for the latest model. Why this madness these days? Could it be to keep salespeople, service departments and "suits" in jobs? The cars we drive are well made, solid, have many safety features, are relatively inexpensive to maintain and very enjoyable to drive. Best part of all... we own them 100%.
I doubt that you do - own them. If the model is similar to the UK You are only the registered keeper - responsible for taxes and fines. Ultimately the system owns the vehicle. DYODD
Old diesels are OK in rural areas. But I wouldn't make a habit of driving them in towns, as they are really bad for air quality. It not too bad in rural areas, as emission dissipate to safe levels, but in the enclosed street on built up areas, and combined with other vehicles they are not good. I drive a diesel.
Whatever the question, 'diesel' is never the answer. They are the most dangerously polluting of all ICEs. If you want to your bit to reduce that problem, ignore EVs (for now), but switch to petrol asap.
I love my car. It's 11 years old and well maintained. It just can't be replaced now, there's nothing like it on the market any more. I'm hanging on to it for as long as it is feasible.
Imagine trying to replace a sedan with a 3.9 V8 twinturbo diesel. Low revving, locomotive torque, makes the eight cylinder noises and barely uses fuel. There is no equivalent on the current car market. The wide adoption of 3-cylinder engines makes you think of motoring in communism. The world in which you are lucky to have a car at all.
I have 2 cars a 1991 landcruiser - still going. And a Saab 900s convertible (hasn't been driven for 10 years but kept in garage and should be good after a it of maintenance) I figure I've had less impact over 30 years than most people who've had 4 or 5 cars in the same time.
@@davefroman4700 In a word “yes”. Liquid fuel will be with us for a long time yet. I’ll pay what it costs, it will still be cheaper than buying an EV (sunk costs of an EV outweigh most if not all extra petrol costs)
@@MrButtonpresser BS. Ive got 250,000 miles on my Tesla. The only thing Ive had to do is fix a couple of broken trim pieces, tires, and shocks. Even the brakes are like new still. And the battery is still at 92% capacity. It cost me $400 to put a charger in my house. And it costs me 60% less in fuel compared to my Dodge Journey I got rid of. My uncle has one he is using as a taxi in Montreal. And even with being on the super charger twice a day it still lasted almost 380k before he had to replace the battery. Which incidentally cost him $8k and took all of an hour. Its costing him half as much as his Prius used to cost to run. And a Model 3 and Y are now less than the average selling cost of a new car in the US. Some states a Model 3 is $27,500 after rebates.
Back in the 1960's inner wings and sills would rust through in three or four seasons. But, our 09 plate Vauxhall Astra estate has virtually no rust, due to the fantastic bodywork protection these days. My Dad was toolmaker at the Luton factory and used to say that as long as the bodywork/chassis was sound you could replace mechanical parts indefinitely!! Our Astra has 140,000 miles on the clock and goes like a 'cat over watet'! This also begs the question - 'Who is driving the rush to electric vehicles???' I sense a hidden adgenda...
There's no conspiracy theory. You can keep your ICE vehicles as long as you want. Most people don't care what they drive and use a car purely to get from A-B with their families and other stuff. On PCP etc which is how nearly all cars are bought now as the fuel costs are significantly less especially when charging at home then the higher monthly cost (due to higher purchase price) isn't an issue. Over the finance term they'll have saved money. So they 'buy' or PCP the EV.
There is always a hiddene agenda, like the 15 minute citys keeping people locked up, and have to ask permission to travel, I'll keep my ice car thanks, these EVs, and charging points are not working.
Wonderful article. I heartbreakingly had to sell our 1996 Honda Civic because low emission zones rendered it unusable. It had 144k KM on the clock, and ran like a kitten with zero issues in the 20 years it was with us. We always buy sensible 2nd hand cars, drive them frugally, and keep them for over 5 years. While my neighbors are switching cars every 2 years on lease contracts, most BMWs and large SUVs, and amongst whom one just got a Tesla Model Y. Yet to the government, our family would be environmentally less friendly, with a 2011 Hyundai i20 and a 2017 Honda Civic. That makes zero sense.
They can`t make all the new cars in the EU (OK somehow UK is still there) electric by 2035! Ok, we got all-electric cars...FREE. THe electric energy is Free. How the F*** are we gonna charge them with the current power infrastructure ?! Will not handle it at all! All the fuses will blow up and all the transformers will be overloaded in a short time! This is simply utopia.
@@foppo100 I wish more people would see this! But no such luck. The average imbecile who buys EV is all puffed up and virtue-signalling (remember the plan-demic?!), but when you ask them anything about their machine they'll parrot the marketing mantra or they'll stare at you blankly. The "climate crisis' is the next step in returning Western populations to a medieval lifestyle under a techno-Communism. The "capstone event" as it has been called by those behind the agenda was the plan-demic which turned out to be the greatest transfer of wealth in all of history. In any case, I thank you for your comment and we must continue to hammer away at the thick heads that surround us to make them see this crucial fact which they seem incapable of understanding: The elite hate us. Thanks and God Bless!
The fact that is overlooked with EVs is the extra weight and performance producing more pollution from rubber and more wear and tear on the road surface. I think they should pay more road tax I am surprised they haven't banned motor racing yet one formula one race must produce more pollution than a small town of people driving to work and back in their family cars. Just saying. A bit like Theta Grunberge sailing across the Atlantic for a conference in the USA saying it was a carbon 0 footprint but forgetting to tell us that 7 of the crew that sailed over there then flew back on a commercial jet. Would have been a better footprint for her to fly over in the first place
@ianmcnulty3279 doesn't our government support the War in Ukraine with our money? I wonder what the carbon footprint of that will tot up to? A s£#t ton more than the average family sedan I would wager.
I have a 1998 Buick Regal with about 191000 km. It was my mom’s and when she passed I kept it. I drive it 4-6 times a month, I keep up with the maintenance. It does not have any rust, paint is still in great shape and the interior still looks brand new. I will drive it as long as I can.
Us taxi drivers in West Sussex have just been hit with the inevitable bombshell. We received an email saying the consultation/survey has begun to force us into EV's. We will even have to attend a course, at our expense on the benefits of having one. This is going to devastate the industry in my area which has lost around 60% of drivers since Covid-19 and residents are up in arms they can never get a taxi. It is also hurting our town centre pubs and restaurants as numbers are down due to transport problems. Net Zero is rapidly becoming Zero Jobs.
I think what you will see is similar to what is happening in Manchester where private hire is bypassing our local licencing and regulation by having cars registered in Wolverhampton, I think the safety of passengers comes into the question when the local licencing authority has no jurisdiction over the fleet.
Is the loss of drivers due to low availability of man power after Brexit or is it the pay that is to low? If it is the last, would a higher pay increase the number of taxi drivers?
It is so easy, is it not, to introduce new regulations as the people in charge don't have to pay for the changes. Sadly another example of poor government.
Right to repair is also of great importance, where manufacturers should provide diagnostic tools, spare parts and manuals for people and shops to maintain cars for a very long time. Current trends, not just for EV's, are going away from this. Secondly though, I am very skeptical about the new e fuels, I think they still have to cost a lot of energy to make and might not be realistically produced in the quantities required.
eFuels is gonna be something for super rich people. Even if we ever manage to produce enough, it is simply to expensive to produce. And there is not much room for scaling up production, you won't get a liter for under 10 Euro same as hydrogen. Though hydrogen use in cars is extremally stupid anyway, especially if you burn it.... Right now, the planed world wide production of eFuels by 2035 isn't even enough to cover 10% of the yearly needed eFuels in germany, and that is if you limit it's use to commercial use in ships, airplanes and the industry. If we add cars, trucks, busses and trains to that it's even far far less.
Being in the repair industry, There is a balance of value/cost to repair. And in order to innovate an industry has to have sales of new inventory or capitol.
@@louissabo3191 yes and that is exactly not the way forward for the environment. I can't see it happening but this really would have to change, along with our sometimes silly consumption habit. I will buy a hat and eat it if there are signs of this happening though. We prefer to pretend to be green after all.
@@louissabo3191 That's the thing though, technology and innovation is what got us here in the first place If it wasn't for innovation and technology advancements over the last Century+ of time, we wouldn't have many of the problems we face today. All the advancements do not truly fix anything because often times what they fix, they cause equal and sometimes worse problems elsewhere.
It's why I always get scared when government starts taking stands, is that they're almost always unproductive and often detrimental knee-jerk reactions by people who don't really know what they're doing, and are thus not that good at identifying the actual problems, let alone the solutions.
They know the actual problem extremely well. The problem is ignorant masses believing them when they tell their lies about what the problem is. Hint: it's not emissions.
@@varmastiko2908 no, it is emissions, among other human things. That much has been objectively demonstrated as a fact countless times for over a decade already, and not by people in governments. Carbon signatures leave no room for interpretation or doubt.
@@skaruts I'm afraid you don't quite understand how the control system works. The truth is not publicly spoken about and is also a forbidden subject in science institutions. Essentially everyone is bought off because everyone needs to retain their job to pay their bills. And the media system only lets out what their owners allow.
@@skaruts Emissions are much more than what comes out of the tailpipe, Electric has an emissions cost and so does building cars, a car that carries on working for 25 to 30 years has one set of build emissions wheras an EV will last 10 years if you are lucky and 3 will be required in the same timeframe, as the cost of a battery pack will financialy write off EVs prematurely.We need a huge leap forwards in battery technology to make longer lasting (300% longer) batteries before the build emissionms equalise and ofset the tailpipe emissions.We also need to ban massive overweight cars and move back frm SUV types to smaller engined lighter cars, as fuel burnt is directly proportional to mass moved.The thing about vehicle emissions is, most people actualy need a vehicle, wheras we seem to give a free pass to the aviation and cruise industries that facilitate and encourage frivolous unessessary travel for foreign hollidays.Prioritise tha right targets please!
Great video! I totally agree on this.. And, I can add a few things to this issue: I also am an early adopter, with a beautiful Tesla Model S P90D, which I sold a few months ago to go back to the very reliable older Volvo V70. Here is why: At the age of 7.8 years, our Tesla began to create weird noises at the back. Rear drive unit (electric motor) needed to be replaced, which was just within warranty, so no problem. After the necessary surgery, the Tesla performed great, till some two months later: Suddenly a message appeared on the main computer screen: “Car needs service, might not start the next trip!” Other than that, no weird things! It still drove like new! So, back to Tesla Service.. “Yep, Rear Drive unit needs to be replaced!” No warranty! And no: “The warranty on parts does not apply on parts that are renewed inside the warranty of the car!!” So, If something is replaced one day before the end of warranty of the car, and it needs to be replaced again two day’s later, you must pay the bill! 7800 euro’s later, I, for the first time in my life, totally lost the feeling, that the car I bought, actually was ‘MY CAR’, It wasn’t!! These EV’s are constantly in contact with the manufacturer! Which means that It is not you, who determines when you want to go to a service point, no, its them! Call me paranoid, but If I can come up with the thought that they easily can call in a few cars when they need some extra money, than they can come up with that too! The point is, that with conventional cars, the issue mostly is clearly visible, and can be pointed out by service personel, but with electronics its different! On top of that, they will never open modules to replace a tiny cheap resistor, NO WAY! They will force you to buy a new module. Its already happening with ‘conventional’ cars: Example: The newer nice LED tail lights, of which everybody thinks that they will run for a life time. Well, they could easily do that, if not the manufacturers would include unnessesary electronics to make them “work better” And there it is again, they are not going to replace a few LED’s that flipped out, no, it will be a minimal 1500 pounds bill for a new tail light module! That’s why I think, apart from Rowan’s reasons, you should think twice if you are about to buy an EV that will be out of warranty soon! I even did not mention the battery, also full of electronics, if part of it flips out?? Well, lets just say you absolutely won’t be happy when you see the bill! And a car that is able to give you the message that it probably will not start the next time, even if I would be at the grocery store nearby, absolutely will not be my car ! The Tesla gave me a few years of great driving fun, yes there are very good reasons for electric driving, too bad that they are overshadowd by so many negatives !!
Rowan Atkinson is a force to be reckoned with. I can also recommend his speech about freedom of expression. The public sees him mainly as a commedian, but he holds some very strong oppinions that he can pour into words that, if need be, hit like a wrecking ball. I think it's called a jester's license.
@@paulreid2223~ I have seen the Beans and the entire Black Adder series. Knowing he is a man with a scientific bent has caused a new level of admiration and respect in this viewer.
Spot on . Kept my current car for 8 years ( longest I've kept one for ) . It has full service history, runs impeccably ( honda hybrid ) and I've seen nothing I fancy to change to. EV will be an option for me but only when it makes sense.
There is not enough energy in elec. to run EV cars for the nation. USA needs 9560 petaJoules of energy to run all the passenger cars per year. A nuclear reactor, large one, makes 17 petaJoules. Math not looking good.
@Jon VB In terms of CO2 emissions, the production of a Tesla class battery is estimated to be about the same as driving a gasoline car for 8 years. This is mostly due to sourcing of raw materials. Also, Tesla's price is partly subsidized by taxpayers. Though this doesn't necessarily make a Tesla a poor choice in all use cases, there are cases where it isn't the best choice.
I don't doubt the 3 year lease system was designed purely to keep money flowing to car brands. I've had my car for 11 years now and it's still just as great to drive despite the odd dent and a few scratches thanks to supermarket car parks. If I could keep it for the rest of my life I would.
@@Gary-bz1rfbc we built shocking products. Shocking. Take the Morris Marina. Basically a straight forward use of a design that was penned in 1947 (by Isigonis). Meanwhile the Germans and Italians were all moved onto twin cam engines, independent live geometry suspension and style.
As a person who averages 80,000 plus klms a year the lease system works well for me, So basically what happens is I trade or sell the vehicle before the depreciation gets to low to which increases by balloon payment at the end of the lease also if my car is worth for example 25k at 190,000 klms when it clicks over to 200,001 its probably worth 10k to 15k that's a huge loss for not many ks yea, Also in Australia as you would know it's great distances from cities to cities so klms ad up real quick so leasing works well here, Cheers.
I run a 2004 Audi A2 now on 258K miles, eco motoring at it's best, no rust to be concerned about with an Aluminium chassis and body, frugal 62mpg long term average and fun to drive. A small footprint and being light and aerodynamic with a three cylinder 1.4 diesel it makes perfect sense.
That advice goes with what I tell people about a lot of things: If you don't have to produce it again, you don't need to use double the resources. Recycling always uses energy and in many cases doesn't give you the same product you used the first time (except for glass, aluminum and a few others). Repairing things is always more environmentally friendly. Way to go, Rowan Atkinson. From one engineer to another. I definitely have a lot more respect for him now. Thanks for the video GBC.
@@peeteebee123 Not any new vehicle, just producing an endless stream of disposable garbage. Make something that will last a lifetime (besides repairs), and the number of things that will need to be produced will be drastically reduced. If it NEEDS to be completely replaced every couple years or so, its garbage from the start. And its often not even recyclable. "Green" = Wasteful.
it's funny how people always get nervous when you extrapolate the "double the resources" argument to having children. Doubling your own consumption footprint in an already overburdened planetary system is much more harmful than buying so-called sustainable or repairable products and services. Repairing a product that consists of mined and refined materials is never as environmentally friendly as not buying it in the first place. The most important argument for or against EVs is how renewable the batteries and the energy used to charge them are. More people equals more primary industry equals more destruction of the planet. You, as an engineer, forgot the most circular material, literally requiring scrap "recycling" in the most popular production processes, that is also essential to car manufacturing and building in general: Steel. Steelmaking and the logistic chains required for it are utterly destructive despite the fact that the product is perfectly recyclable.
Love the article. Just found your channel. Friends and I have all said the same thing. I am an electronics, control systems and computer Hardware/Software engineer. So I agree with Rowan on these points. I recently replaced my old car, gearbox fault, cost more to replace than the car cost. I didn't want an SUV, everyone has one.. so I got a 2011 E-Class estate. 93k on the clock. It's big it's practical for Family camping trips. It's quiet for a big Diesel well maintained and Immaculate inside. It will last another 10-20 years if it's looked after. Everyone talks about the money saving of EV. But that does not take in the buying as most are long-range EVs are 40-50-60k+ how can it be a cost saving when the monthly amount to buy the car is vastly more than I spend buying and running my older diesel. Even. Factored in Maintenance cost it's cheaper. Environmental friendly fuels are a big step in keeping these great cars going and helping against environmental impact. We need more than just EV cars. If we are really said to be for the environment. The whole ecosystem of cars needs to adapt in new ways.
@@paulhaynes8045 No. I will not be dictated by you or anyone. So I will keep my car as I like it and I keep very well maintained. So if you took your time and read about the amount of harmful pollutants from the electrical generation plants around the world then you should badger the Energy company's and not motorists which incidentally only contributed 12.6% harmful emissions compared to Global Emissions from Energy and industry of 59.6%. Stop blaming Car drivers and start blaming the real sources of the pollution. All of this information is available if you took the time to research and read about it. So sod off and go hassel them.
I have a 2015 Ssangyong. My wife said to me would you like a newer vehicle, she was surprised when I said no. Why! Well it's a great tow car, comfortable 40mpg and since I purchased it 3 years ago second hand has only cost me 3 services. 4 new tyres and 2 Mots, what's not to like. Great article as always
@@problemchild1976 love to know where you and others get your data from. You have more chance of being knocked down by a bus. I'm going to be honest here. I couldn't care less , you make your own decisions in life. Don't listen to all you read the scare mongers will put you in your grave with all the worry . Live life to the fullest, and stick a finger up to the doo gooders
@@OM617a ah but the last time I looked, there weren't heards of cows or huge ships in towns and cities. Overall global pollution won't even be fixed by banning all cars - that's not what it's about surely
Still driving the same car I bought 17 years ago. 266k miles. The only repairs to this vehicle I've ever had to do are replacing the belt and two of the wheel bearings. The rest has just been routine maintenance. I'm still on the original clutch though that is nearing its end of life. 2006 Scion xA. 35-40 mpg for daily driving. Highway speeds (70 mph and above) the efficiency drops to around 30 mpg.
I have a Benz W210 that my father bought in 1998. 2.9 diesel, 6l/100km, and still drives strong. It's nothing special, but spare parts are cheap, easy to repair and will always take me where I want.
My car is a 2012 Nissan Qashqai diesel 1.5dci, bought used in 2016. It has a super-eco engine with very low emissions (allegedly - as the owner I don't care if Nissan fiddled the emissions figures or not - that's their problem) that means I only have to pay £30 per year in road tax. As both myself and my wife are over 50 we also get cheap insurance to boot and we have no plans to replace it anytime soon. An EV would be of no use at all to us as we live in rural Wales where the charging infrastructure is almost non-existent and we regularly make journeys of 150 miles or more, so most of the time we couldn't complete a round trip without having to spend ages recharging. And of course that's the next big issue that nobody seems to want to talk about - charging times. Even rapid chargers tend to take 20-30 minutes, whereas I can fill the tank and be on my way in less than 3 minutes. Are we going to see miles-long queues at the charging stations? The government simply haven't thought this out properly (no surprise there of course - when do they ever?)
@@countzero1136 the points you make here have been entirely overlooked. I am from the Southwest US, where sometimes even finding a gas station is a challenge. The market needs to drive the adoption of EVs, not government mandates.
Thank you for sharing this fantastic article. I would have never come across it otherwise not having membership of the telegraph. I will certainly be sharing it with friends and can only hope it becomes widespread
There are articles written in there which they know that the masses won't ever see or hear because of it being behind a pay wall. I don't pay for it, but just listened to what other's have said having read from it.
Free on the guardian's site! Amazing that it's in both Torygraph and Grauniad! Literally on Sunday I was droning on about the weight of electric cars at a barbecue. 😂 God bless Mr Atkinson ❤
@@edwardwharton7107 He wrote it in the Guardian. The Telegraph only ran the story because they see it as supporting their anti-EV, anti-net zero agenda.
Thank you for reading out the article by Rowen Atkinson. I have very similar thoughts, not least on EVs, Hydrogen, synthetic fuels and (outside congested cities) running cars on for as long as is reasonably sensible so giving time for replacement technologies to become commercially available. I have been following JCB's hydrogen engine development with interest and see this as probably the most promising technology for the sort of plant they produce; ie large heavy plant often operating in remote areas on long duty cycles, but also many large trucks, coaches and busses. Not so convinced of hydrogen in domestic cars where I believe synthetic fuel is likely to prove to be the safer and more usable solution, including in many cases over EVs. EVs will still have a place, especially if solid state batteries become a commercially viable solution, most obviously for city runarounds in heavily built up areas. So the future that I see has different technologies dominating use in different types and uses of vehicles. I agree that that future is not here yet, and it still needs much more leadership and support from governments (not just in the UK) to make tgem all viable. There just is not enough drive, enabling and facilitation from the top. And yes CO2 is decidedly a very serious problem, but so are particulates, NOX, and other vehicle related pollutants. (Retired marine engineer)
I can happily endorse everything you've said here, apart from your claim that CO2 is a problem. Please look up Prof William Happer of Princeton university for further details.
Totally agree - push for EVs has nothing to do with care for environment. It’s all about money and control. Billionaires can’t be bothered making products people want they now create propaganda to guilt people and lobby politicians to mandate their products 🤬 My car is 14 years old, I love it more now than I did when I bought it because it’s been so reliable and is exactly what I need.
Interesting article yeah, even if he didn't really said "EV = NO" tho like in the tittle here, but yeah for the rest his article is disapointing, he might be right about the fact that EVs aren't a perfect solution and it should be obvious to most people now that EVs have also some problematic parts even if they are a great solution to solve most of petrol related problems (air pollution, fossile fuel dependancy, geopolitical dependancy to oil and so on.... as well as reduce by a good chunk the amount of energy wasted for car transportation, given how incredibely efficient EVs are in comparison...). The last part of the article is plain disspointing, quoting hydrogen as a solution while it's more carbon intensive than petrol cars currently when produced from fossile gas, and just a giant waste of electricity when produced from renewable electricity ("green" hydrogen requires 2.4x more electricity per km driven than a battery EV).... and yeah same about synthetic fuels, it's just a scape goat of germans car manufacturers with something unrealistically way to expensive and who will be a niche for elites whop want to drive ICE Porsches and so on.... so yeah. The only part where I fully agree with him is when he says we should avoid using our cars as much as possible, and he's very right here, there's so many problems, especially in cities linked to how everyone use their car alone for anything, it goes from trafic congestion, air pollution, deaths on the road, making cities too hot (too many roads keeping heat, not enough green space and trees) and even the obesity and sedentarity epidemics is rooted to car dependancy, it's really the downfall of our societies, so yeah he's right we should make sure people stop using their car for nothing and we build better public transport and safe pedestrian and biking infrastructure 👍
As another engineer, I agree. Keep cars longer. Embedded carbon is a large part of overall carbon emitted. Not that I am overly concerned that CO2 is the scale of the problem that is portrayed.
agreed and all to the good, but there are still a staggering number of people online that cannot hear anything negative about EV's above their own piety.
It is sad. I'm an insurance broker and see this daily. The fact I gave up driving in 2008 has absolutely NO impression on people. They think I am strange, but then again, don't own a cell-phone or cable. Buy the best top model older car you can find, they make them better.
I love how they are trying to "ban" gas powered cars. Imagine telling that to someone who works minimum wage, who drives a reliable 1999 Honda Civic that they will have to get rid of their *perfectly fine and functional* car and get this...BUY A BRAND NEW ELECTRIC for $30K, just because the powers that be want to fight climate change.
Love this article, I've always had a massive problem with the new car culture that the UK has. I've been saying since the government announced no new ICE cars from 2030 it's either gonna be pushed back or we will start to see less new EV car sales and much older petrol and diesel cars on the road.
I keep my cars as long as they don't start costing me lots of money to keep on the road. My current vehicle is 12 years old. Still going strong. Since I bought it new I've spent about £1200 on repairs. Not including servicing. That's cheap Motoring in my mind. And no plans to change in the near future. Great video.
Nobody who drives under 10-20k miles a year should be considering a new EV, or a new car of any sort, to be honest. Some will, because of the neighbours, or the wife's demands. The real issue is that people who are in the second hand market have a budget. There aren't a lot of second hand EVs, and those there are are not in that budget. So ICE cars are the only option right now for the majority of car owners looking for a new second-hand car. That includes me, a high earner who doesn't drive a lot. Why throw away money on a driveway decoration! But I can only pick from what's available. In 2030, there will be a lot of second hand EVs on the market. New EVs will be far more mature too, better batteries, longer range, cheaper. An 8 year old second hand EV should be within the budget of more people. In addition, most cities will probably have banned (by 2nd generation ULEZ rules) most ICE cars, or be in the process of banning them, forcing those people to EVs. Current ULEZ bans are just for more polluting ICE cars. This is for valid air quality reasons within the cities. This is when the transition to EVs will be very mature. Right now it's still a transition, and for many people that transition isn't mature enough for their needs - valid or not.
A: it may well be true for him, for last year specifically. B: Starter batteries last a lot longer than that in the Uk generally. I’ve heard folks from the US say they needed to change the battery every couple of years but you’d get closer to 10 years in the Uk typically, so it must be something other than vibration that is the issue for you.
@Enrique A Thiele Solivan Well I bought a classic car 10 years ago, battery was already some years old, I still got that car and the battery is still fine after I guess 13-14 years at least.
Brilliant points! The insanity of the Canadian government in pouring billions of tax dollars in attracting ev manufacturing and ev battery plants that may be causing unforeseen environmental problems boggles the mind, and one fears the tax payer will be left paying the consequences of a failed paradigm in the future, when these politicians have retired on their generous pensions. The alternatives proposed in Rowan Atkinson’s article ought to be given serious consideration. I especially appreciate your idea of carefully maintaining and keeping cars long term, as a way of making better use of the energy and resources required in producing them.
Geoff you're right on point about the longevity of cars. I've noticed that they design cars nowadays with style and not robustness in mind. You can still find cars from 80's and 90's in more or less impeccable condition on the road today. Cars from that era seems almost everlasting as long as you keep the rust in check.
The industry is not about selling cars it's about keeping investors. You can't maintain growth with a shrinking population and a shrinking economy by building durable products.
'90's cars or '90's style cars are the best. '80's were good but I think by the '90's the car had reached perfection. Since then all they've done is try to make them cheaper without making them worse. They are making them worse but you don't find that out for 3 years.
@@celtics2008champs1 No we don't... THAT is the point. I can't buy whatever I want as I have no money. I invested what I had in a very good second-hand diesel car a year ago, and it is now NOT ALLOWED in the 4 largest Scottish cities where I did most of my work before being forced to retire this month. So NO... I CAN'T buy whatever I like... I am being forced to buy something I can't afford when I have a perfectly good vehicle which I had planned to use for a few more years. I can't even go back to the dealership where I bought the car to have it serviced as it is in the new zone in Glasgow. At least the dealer recognised this and announced plans to move out of Glasgow this week. The AIR in Glasgow is not polluted... it is NOT killing people... in fact it has improved massively with the removal of the thousands of buses which were replaced by electric ones... THEY CAN AFFORD THAT.... I CAN'T. PS..it is only about ten or twenty years ago that the government ran advertisements to GET PEOPLE INTO DIESELS, so I did. I have paid through the nose for it since, with high fuel tax, constant servicing to keep it friendly, and even paid £500 on road tax when I could afford a better car just 5 years ago. That went with Covid and the lack of support for self-employed, so I bought second-hand to cut my cloth accordingly. ALL THOSE CHOICES NO LONGER EXIST.
The amount of C02 needed for optimum plant growth is 2000 parts per million. A recent scientific study found that the current amount of C02 in the atmosphere is just over 400 parts per million. Once those levels drop to 200 parts per million, the natural world will die off. Now, why would our government want to reduce levels of C02 when they're this low already? And why do the BBC never talk about this?
@@foppo100 You're absolutely right on that. Unfortunately, if you voice those opinions you get labelled a racist antivaxer climate denier conspiracy theorist. Which personally I wear as a badge of honour.
CO2 doesn’t heat up the atmosphere by trapping heat itself, it changes the chemistry of other molecules within the atmosphere so they trap heat. The problem is that CO2 doesn’t get used up in this process, it can keep doing that forever. The are some natural processes that extract CO2 from the atmosphere, but if the amount that’s added exceeds the amount that’s extracted by a tiny fraction, then that tiny build up of CO2 in the atmosphere will be able to cause a lot of heating. Scientists have determined that as little as 450 ppm could increase global temps by 2 degrees C. In 2018 the CO2 levels in our atmosphere passed 400 ppm for the first time in 800,000 years.
Hi Geoff, I've enjoyed your take on modern motoring & the threats to take away our freedom of travel. I'm from Lincolnshire but have lived in Brasil for many years. Synthetic fuels are the way forwards whilst still using the proven tec of the piston engine. Back in the 70's here in Brasil they decided with the fuel crises that growing fuel was the way forward. Alcohol from sugar production is available at all service stations at nearly half the price of petrol. All the major car manufacturers here give the same warranty on dual fuel cars. You can mix petrol & Alchol together & the only downside with Alcohol is that it needs a small washer bottle type container under the bonnets that you put a little petrol to start the car on cold days or if living in high altitude. This is done automatically. Technically i guess this isn't fossil fuel , because it's a renewable source & I've been told 3 crops per year. Ps this product also keeps the farmers happy 😅 .
But where is all this extra requirement for sugar grown? On land 'reclaimed' from the rain forest, perhaps? No 'solution' is cost/problem free, I'm afraid.
@paulhaynes8045 The amazon area represents a small fraction of land available in Brazil, there's no requirement in Brazil to have extra need of the Amazonian land , The French have an Interest there , & busy logging huge areas, don't believe all you here on the BBC ' s of the world, The climate in Brasil can produce 3 crops of sugar cane per year, & solves a good percentage of fuels for cars. Without using oil.
This was in the Guardian so no paywall, anyone can read it. Today the Guardian also published a rebuttal of Rowan Atkinson’s piece and I wonder if you’ll cover that in the same way?
I read the rebuttal and some good points challenged but it was funny how the guy from Carbon Brief correctly says no rare earth metals are used in the batteries but conviently "forgets" to mention they are used in the electric motors!
I’ll have to look for the rebuttal article. No disrespect to Geoff or Rowan but there’s a lot of misrepresentations or incorrect information stated here. For one, mandating battery recycling reduces the energy needed to produce a new battery by about 80%, and current recycling technologies are able to recover about 85% or more of the original material. The point about battery vehicles being used then set aside earlier in the history of the automobile is completely irrelevant and a red herring. Given that mentality, there’s thousands of technologies that we would not be enjoying today because you know… technology *advances*. Materials science advances from 1990 to current day are like night and day, batteries continue to charge faster and hold more charge per unit volume. The Porsche synth-fuel is interesting, but likely to cost around triple what gas / petrol currently costs, possibly only double at large scale production. However, it’s an incredibly inefficient way to produce fuel, I’d have to look up the numbers but I believe only around 20% of the input energy becomes fuel. Whereas using the electrical output to directly charge an EV would result in above 80% of the input energy being used by the vehicle. Furthermore, people cannot produce their own synthetic fuel, unlike rooftop solar which allows consumers to literally power their own cars, requiring no complex production processes or distribution networks to deliver to consumers. Finally hydrogen, which is a non-starter unless it can be made into some other form, such as mixed into a gel that can be used by vehicles. Hydrogen embrittlement of metal containers, valves etc. is a huge problem if attempting to scale to what exists today for regular consumer motoring, not to mention the danger of explosion. It seems Rowan is neglecting to consider the maturation curve that any technology undergoes when it finally becomes mainstream (for EVs and their dramatic improvements over the last decade). Hydrogen *could* play a significant role in decarbonizing large fleet transport such as trucking, ocean freighters and even possibly air travel, but I believe it won’t be cost effective for non-commercial motorists. The one part of this post I wholeheartedly agree with is that vehicles should not be disposable as we treat them nowadays. Not sure how to change that mentality without trampling on people’s rights, but there’s a large contingent of people who simply have to have the latest and greatest car (or insert consumer product here) and that behaviour is difficult to change.
@@sjsomething4936 well even though production costs for synthetic fuel will tumble massively as the technology matures, even if it’s triple what current petrol costs are today we’ll be paying roughly the same as we are now given the tax on fuel (certainly here in the UK) until recently was 75%. Factor in the cost of having to manufacture 1.5 billion new EV’s (@ 9 tons of CO2 to build each one) and it’s obvious going the EV route makes no sense vs. developing synthetic fuel and keeping old ICE cars on the road where the CO2 cost for them was sunk years ago.
@Jon VB the LFP batteries are mainly for the China market and entry level vehicles. All of the extended range batteries are cobalt based due to higher energy density. "The company also notes that in the coming years, its absolute cobalt demand will increase, because the production growth of batteries and vehicles is forecasted to outpace the overall rate of cobalt reduction on a per-cell basis." Lithium and nickel mining is energy intensive and bad for the environment. If we are to attain Musk's goal of universal EV ownership and use of Tesla batteries for power grid storage, it would require more lithium than the human race has mined in the last century.
Glad to see Rowan going to the effort of pointing out what options are. I've worked in the medium to high voltage industry, it's not always what is best but is long term economically sound and sustaining. We have a lot more coal than the precious elements, just saying. A rude awakening awaits.
But all burning all that coal ain't so great for the quality of air that we breath. It's directly responsible for literally thousands of early deaths and millions of people with health issues every single year. Regardless of what one thinks of the climate impact and how inefficient combustion engines are. 2/3's of your energy input (and thus your money) goes right out via the radiator.. it's crazy.
You know what... I'm pinning this comment. Because you just nailed EVERYTHING in 20 words. Thank you. Oh also, everyone please subscribe if you liked this video. There's plenty more of this style in my 'important videos' playlist. You'll probably learn something, and definitely have a laugh.
@@GeoffBuysCars This is not a new tax, drivers already pay this tax through fuel duty. It's just now the tax will need to be collected via a new mechanism; there's no "red diesel" electricity.
Contrary to popular belief, the climate "science" isn't settled. the West is caught between two ideologies, on the one hand GDP and growth line must go up, on the other we must produce and consume less because green.
@@John_Smith100 climate science is settled, unless you consider the less than 5% who disagree. Atmospheric CO2 is 33% higher now than in 1970. Any person who has ever owned a greenhouse knows that greenhouses work by making it warmer by trapping heat. CO2 traps heat, anyone who claims that "science" doesn't prove that doesn't understand science. Science doesn't care about ideologies; this is why some people get so upset about science because science doesn't care about whether you agree or how you feel about it.
Firstly Geoff, how can you not like Mr Bean? That’s criminal. Rowan Atkinson is a legend, him saying for people to stick with their older cars and don’t change to an EV makes him even bigger of a legend.
My already high level of respect for Mr Atkinson has been further raised. If ever there was an unbiased, educated article that made sense on the EV vs ICE debate, that was it.
@@sparkymark75greed - it takes a hell of a lot of electricity to create hydrogen. People are moaning about lithium batteries burning but how about compressed hydrogen tank that's probably got to be cryogenically cooled to stop it seeping through the molecular skin of the tank ;) And as for ICE.... they remain only 30% efficient no matter what they burn. While an electric motor is 80% efficient. Why don't factories that run production lines use little petrol engines to drive the lines instead of electric motors :) He concluded with electric propulsion is the future but that was glossed over
@@problemchild1976 A good percentage of diesels are now over 40% efficient, and Weichai Power claims to have broken the 50% barrier!! With EV the Traction motor itself may be over 80% efficient but you ignore how the power gets to the car…. A gas power station is about 50% efficient, coupled with power transmission losses (about 8%) and battery charge/discharge losses (li-ion 10-20%) you are at best about 45% efficient with an EV, and this is ignoring other losses in the system like lugging the additional weight of the heavy batteries…. The reason why factories use electric motors is because they are perfect for this application, and they don’t have to lug around their power source. Batteries are heavy and compared to liquid/chemical fuels not particularly energy dense. I have no issue with EVs but first we need to find a better way to store their fuel!!
I bought a second hand Jaguar XJ nearly four years ago, the car is now eight years old. It has been regularly serviced and still runs beautifully. The 3ltr diesel engine gives me up to 54 mpg on a long run. I have no plans to change it as it still puts a huge smile on my face.
Dear Cupid Crack on, the XType is an excellent car and extremely well made. When it farts its last an XF is an ideal replacement. I have had two 3ltr diesels and loved them both. The S is a lot of fun and goes like a stabbed rat!
Strangely enough I looked into this, a full service on a Tesla was quoted at £238. This included a tyre rotation, but to my mind it is quite a lot considering the minimal moving parts. My XJ for a full service that included fully synthetic oil, coolant, all filters etc £220 at the independent garage I have been using for years. I considered buying a Tesla but was put off by the build quality, very evident in the shut lines. Pretty sure I'll be sticking with ice rather than ev for the foreseeable future.
Jaguars converted to electric are more reliable, run better, perform better and will suffer very few maintenance issues. Jaguar's official best ever performance cars were both electric. The professional test driver that trialled them advised tuning back the performance as they were so quick. They certainly put a smile on his face.
"Keep your old car until you need another" is always good advice. EVs have been brilliant at funneling money to upper-income customers so they can feel smug without making them sacrifice.
You highlight smug EV owners but same human attribute is present in owners of ICE cars, where some folk buy a budget ice brand and others spend more for a brand which screams look at me in my new Range Rover, Mercedes or BMW, I’m posh I’m rich.
Problem is a lot of new cars are starting to need work after only a few years, expensive trips to the dealer for fault finding that cannot be done at home as you need expensive custom scan tools for it. They don't want you to keep it on the road, they want it scrapped and you buying a new one.
Lol…man you guys and always having these conspiracy theories. A grand group of “they”, always out to get us. You don’t have to change ever. But EVs are here to stay and getting better every single year.
My EV a BMW i3 is now 7 years old and not one problem in that time. Before this in 2012 bought a Leaf electric but sold it after two years and purchased a plug in Hybrid Ampera which was sold to a neighbour after two years, She is still running it every day with no problems. My i3 a 2016 is still providing the same range as when initially purchased with no problems. For those who are weary of garages I suggest buying an inexpensive scan tool, plug it into the diagnostic socket and if not capable of troubleshooting yourself at least you will be able to communicate with the dealer.
the replies to you highlight the 'always an exception...' but you are right. i have 30 yr old cars- motorbikes twice that. ie my 94 mitsi mirage has very little to go wrong. in nz it is punished by needing a wof- [warrant of fitness-] twice yearly, where everything possible is done to get her off the road; while a new car has a gratis 5 years of wof free- assumed safe. repair costs after a new car fender-bender are massaged thru the roof- with insurance writing off eminently repairable & safe cars in a blink. we have been rear ended twice- left with perfectly driveable mechanically sound cars- taken off us by insurance with enough compensation to buy a pedal tricycle- because a crumple zone in the rear subframe has a small buckle. is there an agenda? of course there bloody is.
@@justinstewart3248 in 2017 the Volkswagen group had to pay a criminal fine of $2.8 billion for cheating the emissions tests. Is it too far a stretch to imagine they may be a little self serving in making their cars? Seems like a healthy suspicion to me. Plastic inlet manifolds surely are about profit over durability. EV's are here to stay, what's not to like about a car with way less parts to go wrong. But probably better to wait till the technology has matured a bit more and they can be made with less impact on the environment. BTW ''they' are out to get me, they told me so on the mothership 😵💫
Had my first car in 1989 and used it for 30 years. Overhauled the engine twice. The car ran an average of 24k kilometres per year. Love the car, no problem. Perhaps, I had an exceptionally good mechanic.
yes, as long as you managed not to breath in the exhaust fumes over 30 years of driving. Can you imagine how many 55 gal drums that would be - leaking in a warehouse or being spilled onto pristine beach or floating in a hundreds of miles of open ocean. Wake me up the first time a solar panel or a EV battery fouls a beach for the next 20 years.
Have been a huge fan of Rowan from his Not The Nine o' Clock News days. He speak so much intelligent sense. I've always said the same - keeping older, good order cars on the roads is far less polluting and not the CO2 monsters that green agenda want us to believe. Great video Geoff
The "green agenda", whatever and whoever you think that is, does NOT want you to buy a massive new CO2 monster car every couple of years, whether it's EV or ICE. This is Rowan Atkinson's point, not an anti-environmentalist one.
Intelligence doesn't make you an expert in all fields. His views are extremely uneducated. Batteries are recyclable, one company is even making conversion kits for ICE fiat 500s. We need to rethink transport for sure, so EVs are not a panacea, but we absolutely must stop burning stuff. NOW.
@@stighaaland5357 The air may be cleaner in Norway but the polution caused during the production of the EV's/batteries is left behind for the people of China to condend with. EV's may be good options for our local enviroments but they are not good for the planet as a whole, we are simply exporting our pollution to another country!
@@11235but the answer is "no", because even the people who do the recycling projects admit it's much "easier" to make a new one,it's in the same situation with solar panel
I live in the same village as Rowan and I see him driving a little vw polo 90% of the time. Very sensible with the narrow rough roads and very economical.
Unfortunately it’s not about doing anything that “benefits” our environment, but rather status seeking virtue signalling by the wealthy, who have the bonus of forcing the peasants back to walking…..
Kudos for reading exactly what is displayed. It's annoying when people have one thing on the screen & are saying something else. I always have to pause to read it, making it a jolting & frustrating experience. Also, interesting & poignant article & your car is in great shape. Double kudos for it being a manual. I’ll definitely watch your video on the F1. Best car ever made & the one car I would “marry”.
The fuel density of batteries is the big problem for plant machinery and large agricultural machines. JCB made a 20 t excavator that required 8000kg of batteries which gave only about 5 to 6 hours use. John Deere tractors came up against the same problem but then built a computerised electric cable system and just plugged it into the convenient wall outlet at the edge of the field….this is not a joke by the way👍😋
@@bigjd2k well done!!!!…I can’t see any problems with that at all… and then of course there’s cable operated tanks for environmentally friendly carbon neutral warfare…on a foggy day of war how could you possibly find them with those whisper quiet motors….
Both volume and mass of batteries decrease with each year so those problems will solve themselves with time. If we take Tesla Semi as an example, it offers moving 80 thousands LBS at the distance of 500 miles and the batteries are estimated to be below 1 MWh which would make it at most 10 times bigger than Model S battery so it would be about 5 tonnes. And this will only improve with time, as it has been doing for years now.
My thoughts exactly every morning I get into my 2003 Jaguar S-type and drive to work. The car does everything I need and still looks great. I will drive my Jaguar for another 10 years here in the States.
I had a 230E Merc for 21 years and a Toyota Hilux for 17 years and sold both in working order. Currently I have a 16 y/0 Honda and a 17 y/o Toyota which are in good working order and requiring little expenditure other than normal servicing and fuel. The engines in all are easily recycled because they made of metals whereas batteries are more costly to recycle and leave a lot of non-recyclable waste. I agree with RA there are less polluting alternatives without scrapping ICE vehicles.
Growing up in New Zealand , in the 50's and 60's not many could afford a new car. We kept them going for 20 - 30 years no problem. My first car in 1966 , was a little 1938 Ford 8. That was 8 HP not 8 cylinders. Previously owned by a mechanic , it was in great shape.
I still have my granfathers and my father's 73 and 74 Ford F series. Till 4 years ago they were still on road. My current ones are a 2001 Chevy 1500 with 350000 miles that is just our farm use now and a 2001 suvaru legacy.
I remember my Dad buying a new Standard 10 in the late 1950's. The "10" also referred to the hp. Great little car. Regular journeys Nairobi to Mombasa return.
In the 50's and 60's the problem was less to do with the cost of a new car but the governments import controls restricting the number made here.And in those days cars had to be imported in parts and assembled here. Unless you had a source of overseas funds for the deposit it was very difficult to get on the waiting list.Dealers used to give priority to people like farmers who might also buy a tractor from them -it was all very unfair.I bought a new Ford Anglia with overseas funds in 1964 and sold it for the same price in 1967 when I went overseas. The system kept the price artificially high . But the first car I bought in NZ was 1961 a !955 model Austin ute but it was a rust bucket 2 years later .
Yep, in NZ my first car was my grand fathers car...which when he died became my fathers car...which when I turned 15 became my car. ......50 years later my current car is a 30 year old Nissan Patrol. Will most probably still be going come the Zombie apocalypse
EVs were always a scam. Not the concept or idea, but the execution. Just like an undercooked chicken, it could have done with an extra 10 more minutes in the oven. Who knew. Oh wait, everyone who wasn't trying to greenwash things.
So spot on! I always keep my cars a minimum of 5 years and look after them. Car 1 was my dad's Renault 11 hand me down. Loved it. Car 2 was a second hand TVR 350i. Had both 5 years. Car 3 was an e30 BMW 318 (rubbish so sold it quickly). Then I replaced the TVR with a Caterham 7, which I had about 5 years. Eventually I bought a new Leon Cupra R in 2002... I had that 14 years and did 180k on it. Then I bought a mk2 Leon Cupra. Had it for 6 years. Now I'm 49 and recently bought a low mileage 2018 Leon Cupra 300. 300bhp. Amazing to drive and on a long run on a light throttle, I get 47mpg!!!!!! Wow! Bring on synthetic fuels and down with the awful EV abomination.
back in the day, the same whining was heard when horses & carriages are being prohibited from using highways & major streets, to give way for the new king of the road - the petrol cars. Fast forward to the future, No matter how much youve become inlove with intenal combustion vehicles, the times are changing (again). And theres no stopping it. EVs are here to stay.
@loydireyes5054 I was just thinking the other day that weird EVers keep saying this. It's a rubbish comparison. It's more like the difference between a shire horse and cart and normal horse and cart. It's nothing like the difference between horse and cart and petrol car! That makes EVs sound like some wonderful new invention, which they most certainly ARE NOT. In fact, they tried EVs back then and realised they were rubbish, even then. EVs are dying a slow death that is speeding up day by day. The more people realise they are excrement, the more people don't buy them. There is not one single good reason to buy an EV. Mark my words, and remember I said this: 10 years from now, in 2034, EVs would have died a death a long time ago. Look into it. People are even developing combustion engines that run on water now, and also hydrogen combustion engines, not to mention synthetic fuel. Anything is better than a car powered by a BATTERY! The battery power is the issue.
@@alivekicking6247 thank you for the heads up. honestly, im not too sure if we are still here in 10 yrs time :) i mean i do pray for your health & mine. if battery is the problem, well, theres an infinite ways to kill a cat, or to address the issue. the main idea here is to move away from oil cartel & combusting fossil fuel. maybe at the very least we can have a combustion engine of hydrogen but not directly connected to the drive train, instead it charges a smaller battery pack (just an example). the100+ yr old technology of combustion engine directly pushing the drive train is inefficient & obsolete. and more than 3/4 of the cars functionality is already electric! therefore electric motors powering the wheels torque is the way to go. of course you can keep your beloved ice vehicles to your hearts content. after all its a free world.
He makes a lot of great points and hopefully more people besides yourself share it to help inform everyone. First video of your I’ve seen, I’ll check out the F1 videos later I’m a sucker for anything F1 related, it’s my wet dream car.
Excellent video Geoff !!! When I retired I bought myself a new petrol car with the idea that it could well be my last. That car is now six years old and has just passed 24k miles. I live in a village with no off street parking so could no charge an EV if I wanted to. I would really like to know what governments would do if we all went over to electric - where would they recover the lost revenue from petrol and diesel - scarey thought !!!
I'd sooner get billed by the mile than have to pay £300 VED for a project car I do maybe 100 miles a year in. Seems the fairest solution to bill based on usage - seems like a no brainer to add a little bit to fuel. But then again, that would cost them some revenue from people like me...
@@BlackLines You think that until the cost per mile increases to more than it costs to take a taxi. Government need a new fleet of armoured NON ULEZ compliant RangeRovers and Limo's because the old ones are getting dirty.. Lets double the cost per mile to pay for those and let's forget to drop the price once the vehicles are paid for? Of course those that fix the costs will be exempt from paying them.
@@BlackLines you're correct that a VED replacement that bills on usage would be far fairer than the current system where an old ICE car incurs a high cost, even if it's barely used, and a new highly-used 'efficient' car is barely charged, despite emitting tyre particulates still, wearing the road (batteries are heavier, but lorries still do the majority of damage). There can still be an emissions multiplier on the per-mile usage.
In my opinion, a lot of people get tired of their cars after a while, because to most people, they're just something to get from A to B, and they happened to like their car more than other ones at time of purchase (maybe a better price, or better design). After they have it for a while, they just simply get tired of it, and when the repairs make an appearance, they decide that rather than fixing their suspension or sinking over a grand into repairing the engines, they'd rather use that repair money for a down payment and get something newer and shinier and looks more modern. My solution: find something in your budget that you can get passionate about and will want to keep for ages. Obviously that only really works if you're an auto enthusiast to begin with.
You are singing my song friend! I have owned 3 cars in my life, all were Mustangs. My current steed is 10 years old and taken care of. I'll drive it until the wheels fall off, then put the wheels back on and drive it further!
Brilliant. I would agree with every word. I've had the same car for more than a decade and it is still excellent, reliable and hugely enjoyable to use. So to Rowan and your good self I send a huge 👍👍
@@tatradak9781 assume you own an EV? Thank you for trying to do the right thing but synthetic fuel now means we don’t need to manufacture 1.5billion new cars so although your white elephant EV won’t be worth much in the future that is the price one pays for being an early adopter of new technology sometimes.
@@sultanoftippoo3857synthetic fuel hahhaha you honestly haven't got a clue.. Don't worry about the facts as it will hurt your brain.. Just troll away to your hearts content. SAD
Totally agree with the article and your views. One of the main issues with the approach is that manufacturers are not encouraged to build vehicles designed to last - any thoughts how we might change that? I drive a 57-plate Merc A150 and today its still going strong, and I haven't bought a 'new' car since the early 90s and I have no regrets, I still have had good, fun cars. So you are right, its a 'fashion accessory' discussion.
‘They’ don’t want to consider any other things because that’s not the end game- the end game is to electrify everything- that’s the route to direct control - that’s why gas and oil etc are on the hit list because you can’t ’switch’ off remotely a gas/ oil ch home or a petrol/diesel car- price the public out of the cars and those that are left can be controlled from a distance in those battery powered cars- remove gas/oil ch from homes and impose electric heating only and hey presto, it becomes controllable remotely. I am surprised that the car manufacturers aren’t pushing back harder because ultimately, if the powers that shouldn’t be get their way, their industry will be over🤷♀️
And here I am, as a degreed electrical engineer, designing and programming machine automation systems, just now learning that Mr Bean is not only funnier than I am, but he could also take my job. Time to start upping my game.
Quite right about keeping cars longer. I've got a 7 year old Fiat 500C, about 35k on the clock. 3 years ago I thought about replacing it and had worked out most of a PX deal with a local dealer. Then I looked at it and thought, what am I getting, apart from a newer plate and minor tweaks, colour, slightly different dials and lights etc, and decided, well, what's the point (It also has the grandfathered ultra cheap Road tax). It let me down for the first time about a month ago - not a major fault. Until it actually becomes a problem I doubt I'll change it.
And it won't - become a problem. In fact the opposite. Your car is fixable, more and more modern cars aren't. I hear that fuel injectors for some newer BMW cars are upwards of £560 EACH injector. Then there's the electronics 🤦♂️
My daily around the town car is a 51 year old Ford Courier pickup (made by Mazda). It has been meticulously maintained and with a very well tuned aftermarket Weber carburetor I average 23 mpg.
That is one of the best videos as far as common sense that I have ever watched on UA-cam. Great reading and breakdown mate👍🏻 expat in the US but same policies with both countries all in all and also applicable to the UK and US.
Over 20 years ago I worked on the production line at ERF Sandbach fitting electronics to trucks with Detriot engines that were fuelled from hydrogen cylinders. They were being built for a supermarket chain as they avoided the congestion charge. I often wonder what happened to them.
The expensive, complex fuel tanks become unsafe after a few years (around five years or so) and have to be replaced, which is also very labor intensive, because the tanks are shielded from the outside world and impacts inside the vehicle structure itself. Hydrogen atoms are incredibly small, and infiltrate and compromise the molecular structure of the tanks. Hydrogen is not going to be the answer because of this problem alone.
@@joelcarson4602 these trucks used a rack of standard BOC gas cylinders mounted behind the cab. No refueling station required, the prime mover just sent to. BOC depot and swapped bottles. Couldn't do that in a car, there isn't the height to stand up a bottle and you can't lay them down and use them. Bit like an West Australian plumber, who are normally identified by the oxygen and acetylene bottles strapped to there back of their Ute cab.
Great video! I knew Rowan was into cars, but didn't know he had a degree in electrical engineering. I had the same vehicle for the last 20 years. A 2003 Toyota Tundra pickup truck. I recently had to buy a new car for a few reasons. One was that my mechanic told me it just passed inspection this year, but wouldn't next year due to corrosion in the frame. The other was it started leaking oil out of the rear differential case. Toyota designed it with a welded on differential cover, instead of making them removable by being bolted on. Therefore the cost to fix it is far more than the worth of the truck. Still, I can't complain, considering it's got 275,000 miles on it and the engine still runs strong. My new truck is a 2023 Honda Ridgeline. I love the truck, but it's got too much electronic nonsense in it that is useless and so I turned it off.
@@Landfill-703 my mechanic drained the diff oil and attempted to seal the leak with JB Weld. It worked for a few months, but then started leaking again.
@@kenhanson1819 if it’s still possible to do Ken I’d try ATP-AT205, it’s regarded as the best, unless we’re too late and the vehicle has gone and/or the seals were beyond saving ? When I do gearbox, diffs, transfer boxes oil change, (still to add to an engine ), I add the recommended amount to catch the tired rubber seals 'before' they leak.
@@Landfill-703 it's not the seals that are leaking. It's the metal differential cover, which has corroded over the last 20 years to the point that small pinholes developed and oil is leaking out. Since the cover is welded on at the factory, it's not removeable or replaceable. Bad idea on Toyota's part.
Rowan Atkinson is an extremely intelligent man and should be listened to, given his academic qualifications and excellent knowledge of Motor Cars. BTW, I'm sure that the motor manufacturers, and money hungry car sales industry, play on the pathetic EGOs of people who want to be seen with 'the latest model' , which also goes for smart phones, laptops, etc. etc. All driven [excuse the pun] by afraid of being seen as less 'successful' financially than their neighbours, "THE JONESES"!
Id like to see cars that can be upgraded, swapping of brake systems, engine upgrades, software and sensor packages, a modular design car would enable us to upgrade and keep cars relevant for longer. this will enable to keep the car and update it to suit the current tech
thios is already possible with many popular car brands as they have a huge aftermarket one being LS vehicles as you can always swap a older or new ls type engine in it incuding the very brand new ultra eco type engines. plus put in your own super charger or turbo etc diffrent bodystyles as you can change the body kit to whatever the hell you want.
@@TAKIZAWAYAMASHITA That's fine for individual cases and car enthusiasts, but i am talking more of a wide spread industry adoption that can make it easy for non car enthusiasts or every day people to be able to purchase an off the shelf upgrade and have it professionally installed, just as if you were to upgrade a PC with a new graphics card, we do not need to throw out the whole PC to get better graphics.
@@TAKIZAWAYAMASHITA it probably is already available but not offically supported, companies like audi, vw, skoda share the same parts so why cant they offically be made available to allow for cars to be used for longer as well as been safer and more fuel efficient. at the moment if you were to upgrade the infotainment system in a golf, you need to research the hardware, then turn on features in the software (coding) this is all out of reach for the everyday person. but i agree it is very much do able currently hence why dont they make it a feature, it is a lot more sustainable for the planet.
It's a good idea but that puts huge onus on the manufacturers to do full risk management on all the possible interactions of multiple various systems including making the vehicle's software management systems cross-conpatible for all the options. They may have to try and prove all the various combinations through crash/safety testing etc. I suspect it's just way more effort than manufacturers will likely see a return for.
even though I agree with a number of things in your report ( i drive a 9 yr old focus) the volvo article has been de bunked , among a number of problems in the report one thing was it did not take into account the refining of petrol/diesel.
my first and only banger I bought back in the day when I got my license is an 18 year old civic (2005) and it flies through the MOT. treat it right with a regular service and get the big items done when needed (timing belt etc..). the thing is so reliable, especially considering 2nd hand car prices are going up, I'm really considering a refurbish rather then getting a replacement. will get a price first ofc and if reasonable I may consider it or just run her into the ground as they used to say 🤣
if you keep it - you'll be running it for a veeeeeeeery long time.. I brought a (rough) Skoda 18 mth ago for £1250 - it's THE most loaded car I've had - just done 5233kms around Europe in it (inc thrashing up the Alps) no problems and just less than £400 in fuel
Something to note with JCB; not only have they come up with a hydrogen ICE, but they can convert any existing diesel vehicle to hydrogen in just a couple of days. Their hydrogen engine uses a regular diesel bottom end, and JCB put their hydrogen head on it. I saw a video where they took a 12.5t truck and converted it.
Hydrogen has a very long way to go before it can be considered a viable alternative to fossil fuels. A very, very long way. ua-cam.com/video/egTCIyNBpQw/v-deo.html
The head conversion basically lowers the compression ratio and has a spark plug in place of an injector, kinda sounds like a petrol engine that we used to convert to LPG, could our petrol engines be converted?, now there a thought!!.
@@SRB28 Problem with Lithium and Cobalt is that you have to destroy the ecology of the planet, to make the environment clean. Ironic or just plain stupid? Anyway, the whole green thing is a complete money making gimmick and only a certain percentage of the global population will ever benefit financially. As for Third World Countries, well it is hardly going to do anything for them as a good 3 billion don’t have a decent means to cook their food let alone buy an electric car. Never mind, we can always revert to slaughtering every animal on the planet which burps and farts its way through life. That should cure the problem eh?
Things I hadn't considered. Thanks for the information. Keeping cars (and anything we use) longer, is always a great idea. Maintenance, not replacement. 🙂
Clearly you also havent considered the fact that people actually sell their old cars to someone else when they buy a new one. Its not about keeping a car for as long as possible, its about buying the most efficient vehicle for your budget and use.
It will be hard to stop the consumerism lifestyle of those with the money for new cars every 3 years. But in really if they have the money let them keep subsidizing the used market so the rest of us have cheaper options in the future. If you want to help the environment and longer lifecycles then get behind right to repair.
Yes, but they continue to pollute from the exhaust. There are two levels of pollution global and local. Much of the focus is in local pollution in cities and towns (NOX) and keeping a car for longer doesn't solve this issue.
It's all not as bad it sounds. The funny part is, EVs will last longer, because they have a lot less moving parts. Only the battery will be replaced and the old battery reused for other purposes.
Geoff my car is a 1995 Diesel Mercedes 220. It is cleaner than all the modern Diesels I've had on the MOT check. It paid it's carbon footprint off years ago. Phil from Droitwich
@@benhockley Because around half of the carbon footprint is during production, The rest is from driving it, so the more you drive it the lower the percentage is from actually making the car in the first place. for example, if my car takes 50 tonnes of carbon footprint to make, and makes 5 tonnes a year driving it, in 10 years your at 50/50 emission from driving it, then you buy another car, which is another 50 tonnes used. Keep the car for 20 years Ive produced 100 tonnes of emmisions, so its now 33/66 emissions, and the making of the car has less of an effect, and also Ive not added another 50 tonnes of making another car in that timeframe.
@@sneekeruk Regardless, you cannot “pay back” the carbon footprint. At no point will an ice ever go into reverse emissions and neither will an ev ever “pay back” the production footprint.
@@benhockley Well if you replace that old car with a brand new electric you will then own something that has already produced an enormous carbon footprint, whilst driving the old car will just release small amounts every year compared. New electric cars are not the best quality, loads of problems with all sorts of things, the result is that no one can probably afford to keep them going once the warranty is out. Resulting in a very short lifecycle, most batteries will have died within 10 years which is quit bad as producing a new battery will release a huge carbon footprint once again, I could go on.
@@truxton1000 Yeah, you could go on, as you've clearly missed my point and have driven off a cliff. My four year old car is electric, with 45,000km, and no battery or mechanical issues, and it paid off its slightly higher carbon footprint ages ago, and will continue to do so as I'm fortunate my rental has solar.
Making bio-ethanol using algae that feeds of co2 and lives in big lakes still needs the product to be refined in expensive and complex facilities. Plus burning the fuels still produce harmful gases and bio-ethanol has 30% less energy density than petrol so you need to burn 30% more to do the same miles
If they knew, they would know that it isn't perfect, but definitely LESS worse. Look at the research done by e.g. Auke Hoekstra, director of energy transition research at the Eindhoven University of Technology. In a paper published in 2020, Mr. Hoekstra writes that batteries will most likely last more than 500,000 kilometers, or 310,000 miles; that research shows gasoline and diesel pollute more than previously thought; and that the energy needed to create batteries has already declined while electricity production from renewable sources is growing.
Atkinson is wrong If an EV is run on electricity from renewable sources the total emissions over its lifetime is a fraction of an ICE one. EG www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths Synthetic fuel, if it ever happens, will be very expensive and inefficient
He makes perfect sense, except on two points. 1) hydrogen is a dead end. It has very low energy density (poor range) and is very polluting to make. Also very hard to keep it inside tanks and pipes. Synthetic petrol or simply ethanol or methanol or methane make much more sense -- as long as we don't make then from FOOD. 2) while it is indeed a stupid financial decision for the first owner of a car to sell it after two or three years, this has *zero* effect on the environment, as long as SOMEONE buys and uses that car rather than scrapping it. I usually buy cars with 80,000 to 100,000 km on them and keep them for 150,000 to 200,000 more km. I tend to buy motorcycles new, but I've owned my current road/touring bike since October 2015 (almost 28 years) and it's done 130,000 km.
@@BruceHoult I'm not an expert on hydrogen by any means, but I think there are many reasons to keep exploring and engineering in that segment. About your second point, it does make sense IF people keep the cars they buy for longer, and not replace it with a newer one. The 3yr lease model makes for a high turnover, which leads to high production numbers because of demand. If the demand would slow down (people keeping their cars longer), production numbers would slow down and with it all the pollution it creates for the manufacturing of said cars. But people can twist and turn it as they like, fact is that all these insane regulations only affect the western world. Our older cars will still go to 3rd world countries who don't care about pollution. We slow down while they ramp up. Same with energy. The western world is doomed to go full electric because it's a feel good thing, yet we can't even supply the electricity needed to power all this. Same people who want to go green are also against nuclear power plants. So again, we reduce pollution, while we purchase energy from other countries, who in order to meet the demand have to ramp up production, and with it -> pollution. Makes no sense to me, there's got to be a common-sense middle ground here. But too many politicians, and a handful of select businesspeople, are becoming too wealthy by implementing such nonsensical rules and regulations, so be prepared to hear about it for longer.
Thank you for this contribution which adds a great deal of clarity to the debate. For myself I'm keeping my 27 year old 190,000 miles, Audi Tdi for now - it does about 2000 miles a year and is remarkably corrosion resistance. I had already figured out that there are many evil things about lithium batteries - such as they catch fire, - and I didn;t know the carbon cost of making them. Recently I have been thinking a lot about the carbon cost of making things in relation to the carbon cost in use. Car manufacturers do not divulge the carbon content of new car manufacturing. Until quite recently most of our electricity in the UK has been made from gas turbines when the wind isn't blowing (See Drax Electric Insights). Rowan Atkinson has spent a bit more time than myself looking into the engineering and has better academic qualifications but we both have degrees in Electrical & Electronic Engineering. Hydrogen from renewables seems like a better alternative than lithium batteries if it can be stored safely. There needs to be a profitable industry in keeping things sustainable - car repairers get some of my money.
@davebarrett5168 Sadly, it is the problem storing it. Either at super high pressure or at super low temperatures, it just wants to get out and so tanks have to vent or blow. Venting in an underground garage or the EuroTunnel could be the next disaster to kill hundreds. Did you know that liquid hydrogen is so cold the fuel pumps last about 4 hours. If only hydrogen wasn't such a sneaky little molecule and could be controlled. Carbon capture i.e. cleaning up the mess we have made is too expensive for even the Green party so all politicians don't want to go there.
Re: the carbon cost of making things in relation to the carbon cost in use. The emissions of manufacturing EVs is higher than manufacturing an ICE, but once they leave the factory, an ICE catches up rather quickly - within 1-4 years (depending on the EVs electricity source). After that point, the only emissions the EV makes are from whatever the grid makes (which are small), and the ICE continues to accumulate tailpipe emissions for the rest of its life. (And if you want to count EVs battery minerals & grid emissions, you should probably also count emissions from oil drilling, refinement, and transportation toward to ICE) That would seem to indicate that every ICE is only "cleaner" than the EV for at most the first 1-4 years of its life, and every ICE vehicle older than 1-4 years is a net polluter vs the EV and should be taken off the road as soon as possible, would it not? I say grid emissions are small, because even if the grid is powered by gas turbines which run on the same fossil fuel as the ICE car, those giant turbines can run at peak efficiency 24/7, whereas the ICE car is jumping up and down the rev range all day, shutting off and restarting, and rarely hitting the sweet spot. And over time, the grid gets cleaner. Coal plants get decommissioned and replaced by gas generators, or even solar and wind. 10 years ago, an EV may have got most of its charge from a grid powered mostly by oil & gas, but now a good portion of that electricity comes from wind or sunlight, and in another 10 years, maybe all of it. I think that's what a lot of people don't realize when they say "But I've been driving this car for 10 years! how can that be wasteful?". And I don't blame them, it's just not what people are used to thinking about. Most of ICE emissions simply come from driving it. Sure, keeping it for a long time saves some metal from the scrapyard or recycling plant, but it's still pumping out exhaust every time you drive to work, the same as a new ICE would. The engine doesn't care that it's 10, 20 years old - it still runs on the same petrol.
@@jiraph52 Yes and no. Some people put the EV environmental break even at 60,000 miles. In countries with 100% wind/solar energy that may be lower but Australia and US are not good on non-fossil grid energy and UK is half-ish. An EV makes most sense in a city where driving high mileages is difficult when the average is 6-8mpg. The point is how long does it take to get to 60,000? My usage would take 17 years long after the a battery warranty has ended and probably long after it retains meaningful charge. Yes some people do still drive 20,000 miles a year but the question is why when it is clearly so bad for the environment?
@@robi4387 Who puts it at 60,000 miles? Are you sure that's not km? Pretty much every reputable source I can find puts it at half that or less: 30k, 20k, even 15-16k miles. Of course, it does depend on the size of the vehicle/battery. An ID.3 will break even much earlier than a Hummer EV. The average yearly mileage in the US is around 14,000 miles (it was even higher pre-pandemic). Even at such a high break-even point of 60,000 miles, that's just over 4 years. If the break-even is 30,000, that's only 2 years. In the UK, the average mileage is less than half that, around 6,500 per year. You'd reach 60,000 in about 9 years, and 30,000 in less than 5. If you personally are only driving 3,500 miles/year, you're significantly below the average and you'd probably be better off with a plug-in hybrid that you could use in pure EV for most short trips if that's all you do. The UK is pretty small, so I'd say it's fair to measure its grid as one, but the US, Australia, Canada, etc. are very large countries and the energy mix within varies enormously from state to state. Washington's grid is 84% renewable, meanwhile West Virginia runs on 80% coal. My "local" grid is 95% renewable. It's extremely varied, and it's disturbing to me to see so many people talking as though it's one and done, EVs are bad in every way for every person in every situation, when in reality it really is a net benefit for the average person, and probably even for most people. An EV may not be a good fit for you in your situation, but I think it's really harmful to make out as if EVs are the devil and complete trash, and to try and dissuade other people from even considering them (not that you specifically have done this, but some of the other comments here on Geoff's channel are awful).
@@jiraph52 A man with a whiteboard and US marker pens so DEFO WAS MILES. Every credible source - oh do share! The problem I have with EV protagonists is their religious almost cult like message that EV is the new way and that ICE is the very devil. So to say that to make out EVs are the very devil and then say 'not that you do' fits nicely. Indeed, the level of critical reasoning on UA-cam is not as high as in a pub on Friday evening, but folks are entitled to opinions in pubs and on UA-cam. IT is just that people in pubs seem more open to reason and seeing the other person's point of view. What I object to is being deprived of choice and facing disproportionate taxation. I also object to our wet behind the ears PM Rishi Sunak sitting down with people who think AI will mean humans won't have to work. Mega corps won't make battery cars for free and won't pay plebs to sit on their A's. Nor will AI feed the sick in hospital or wipe their B's in the community or teach our kids. EVs are a panacea for some people. We just haven't realised what problems they will bring. We know the problems burning fossils fuels but won't clean up the air or drive less - selfish lot aren't we. Not cleaning up after all the coal, oil and gas burnt is like saying we'll leave the garbage on the streets. Finally, whilst every one seems agreed that burning fossil fuels will turn the world in to Mars 2.0, has anyone paused to wonder where all the carbon in all the coal, oil and gas was before it got embedded in the earth? Yep, it was in the atmosphere as CO2.
Great video Geoff and what an article from Rowan Atkinson 👍🏻 Personally a EV wouldn’t work for myself so not even a option and if a change is to made I’m screaming out for synthetic fuels. Synthetic fuels are good to go now you can even purchase it although currently limited in supply and costly at around £10 a litre, companies like P1 Fuels have even said if the market and investment was there they could upscale manufacture, reduce costs in line with fossil fuels but currently the market or push from governments isn’t there, can even be put into regular petrol stations without any additional alterations to the tanks or pumps and I’m sure it would even help with the dependency issues with other countries like Russia for oil, studies although limited have even shown that it increases the life of an engine because it’s cleaner and we’ve developed the combustion engine to such efficiency over the last century that you’d need little of it.
Lets not forget, if a truly viable EV design is ever found, the big oil companies will fight it tooth and nail, they will not go down easy, it would be just as hard as banning cigarettes. One of my biggest gripes is having my freedom of choice removed by over reaching government
And control. They can easily control the electric grid down to individual houses. Electric cars have a limited range before needing charging overnight. Great for a control-hungry government who doesn't like the idea of its serfs having the ability to travel without their permission.
@@celtics2008champs1 if it wasn't about money why is there no basic no frills electric car made with a cheap price tag. Like under 10 k. I'm not gonna count quadracycle citroeon ami 8.a useful family hatchback I'm thinking. Thanx for the like. UA-cam not shown it.
Excellent video! I have kept my BMW for 20 years but only because I can make my own repairs. High repairs costs push people to trade in for a new car. I have considered the Tesla Y as my next car but this article does make some good points.
Same. I love my BMW. Nothing like it anymore. And just for weekend trips it's perfect. I tried to sell it but people are interested in huge SUVs which are inexplicably HYBRID or electric mincars. Sensible sedans are out. Nope! People want a " crossover " (aka a car that can do nothing well) which has 20 inch wide door panels so the outside looks big, tons of electronic features you'll only use once before it breaks just after warranty, etc..
@@captainLoknar I moved to the UK not long ago and picked up a great 1 Series for £1400! It's great, runs very well, and with the back seats down I can load my downhill bike in the back and go anywhere in the country. My bike cost 6x what the car is worth, but that's pretty typical for this hobby! Nice bike, cheap car :)
@@----.__ exactly the same. I can put two bikes in my 335i and it's a real struggle on "bigger" new cars because the boot opening is ridiculous and other details are missed. I listed 15 things I like about my BMW. But I'm also moving to a right-driving country so my canadian car is not practical here. Can't find any buyers like you except for less than 7000$ although I put 20,000$ on it. A lot of private used cars are a great deal. Usually people selling them because they want an EV lol
@@captainLoknar 335i's are great cars, you'll be sad to see it go no doubt. My last two cars have been ridiculously cheep and I've never been happier. I had a 60k car in Australia and I used to stress every time I went shopping, but with a £1400 car I really don't care what happens to it. It's a freedom I never expected, and I highly recommend it. I had a Jag as my last cheap car and gave it to my cousin when they fell on hard times. I don't think I'll ever spend more than 5k on a car again if I can help it, I'd much rather put the money in to property. Nice to meet you mate, have a great weekend coming up.
Have a test drive in an i4. It’s a terrific car. It drives beautifully, has astonishing acceleration and this summer I’m getting over 300 miles of range on long trips.
Always had older cars and looked after them, I think if you’re a ‘car’ person and understand them you don’t get scared of maintaining them, but most people just buy a new one because they don’t understand cars, I knew a girl who traded her car in every time something needed doing and lost thousands rather than just replacing a £200 part 😢
PART 1 - THE GENUINE ARTICLE
Rowan Atkinson's Brilliant Article Explained
ua-cam.com/video/Yiga3atlTRs/v-deo.html
PART 2 - THE DEBUNK... DEBUNKED
Debunking Simon Evans' Article that attempted to Debunk Mr Atkinson
ua-cam.com/video/U74P36S5T64/v-deo.html
PART 3 - PREBUNKING THE DEBUNK OF THE DEBUNK...
Looking back at a 2010 Guardian article that itself debunked Simon Evans' article.
ua-cam.com/video/c-I2IxhEyXs/v-deo.html
Yep, common sense. I agree.
But some details were forgotten.
-Synthetic fuel is three times less efficient than batteries. (maybe twice if we weight the manufacturing also)
-In cities synthetic still means fumes. (I personally like to se no cars at all in cities. ) Go fucking underground if you want fast. Sure this mean investment in tunnels. But this will mean no more crossings an waiting at red lights, so faster transit. Also with tunnels there, cables and pipes can have a place there, and be replaced without ruining the roads every decade.
-And I forgot something. It is not about electric cars themselves, but about fossils, burning stuff. We know that oil is not infinite, and that is bad burning it. This was promoted since long time ago, I grew up half a century ago with this idea. We knew it, but nobody was doing anything to solve the problem. Eh, almost anything. More filters, less pollution. But the consensus was that burning oil is bad, nobody took the side of oil industry, but we all acted like there is still plenty of time, and is the problem of future generations to solve it. Now, a future generation is here, and started to solve it, but also there is fighting against the transition even meantime the global warming has became an pressing issue. Somebody is feeding bullshit to the public opinion. Like the cobalt and child labor. Come on. why this became so pressing, and nobody raised the issue 50 years ago?
it was there back then too! Other bullshit is that there is still plenty of oil and coal. And that there are undiscovered deposits. Sure, we will find for 50 more years, 500 to push it to absurd, but then what? No more fossil to kickstart the renewables and humanity just revert to stone age? There is even an claim that oil is regenerating. Who TF would push this idea? And it hurts me to see smart and educated people repeating it to me. Outraged I dismiss it, and the man admits, Oh, sure, but I want confort. And I want it now, and I want it cheap. Sure, than say that you do not care, not that oil is regenerating. I know that some oil may be generated as was for millions of years, but how many seconds will cover an year of such production at global level?
Anyway, the transition costs a lot, and should be made with the money that belong to those who got rich in oil and coal, not with students money. But the rich use their money to make stupid propaganda about how bad are the electric cars and solar panels instead of using the money for research and transition. And this is why electric cars are still expensive and not good enough. So, not buying an electric car, not yet, is just passing the cost of transition to somebody else. Buying a new car at every three years sure has its bad part, but tell me, how many students bought a new car in first year and then another one at graduation? I bet that majority of them bought an used one, and could afford it precisely because those could afford new cars, replaced theirs, and flooded the used car marked, making them cheap. Let assume that suddenly now, everybody stop for two years to buy a new car. in few months the stock of used cars will be gone. The price will hike up, and those just becoming independent today will have to walk, or get a loan for an expensive car. In other words they will finance the transition with a loan.
So yeah, common sense. But also common sense is that if you can afford to buy an electric car you should buy it, to finance the transition. Better now, when there is still oil to make the transition smooth. If we wait 50 years, and oil will get scarce than the transition will be a lot more expensive. Sure, will be not us to pay the price. Will be our grandchildren.
It is common sense to let our grandchildren pay the price?
My euro5 diesel car ( which I bought to be eco friendly) is 11 yrs old does 50 MLS per gallon around town 70+ on motorways and nowadays does 3000 MLS a year. That's about as eco friendly as any vehicle can be but will fall foul of the ulez scam.
What a scam sad k,* nt is advocating.
I said almost literally word for word the same thing over 10 years ago on the mighty car mods forum. That includes everything said about hydrogen.
He has exactly the same degree as me. I have work in the electric car industry and I can tell you it’s the real deal. It’s one thing to have a degree. It is entirely another thing to have practice the art and science of the engineering. So sorry, Mr. Bean has not
i’m going to give you a thumbs down not because I dislike you. First of all your video is unprofessional, just sitting in a car and reading from a script.
Secondly, the person you are using as a credible reference is not really credible. Lots of people have all kinds of college degrees. When I finally went to work, I can say that my college education helped me, but, I was astonished by what I learned in the practice of engineering.
@@Flyingdutchy33 : hydrogen car in whatever form is not economical. Electric cars are here to stay using battery chemistry, and I don’t want to be a Luddite like you guys. Sad to say, somebody has to play the Fall guy. Thanks for volunteering!
I have two Toyotas, one is 21 years old, the other is 12 years old, both running like clocks. I've never felt comfortable getting rid of a perfectly good car.
Being paid off feels good to boot.
Exhausting perfect combustion gas, probably ?
If so, try locking yourself in a garage with the motor running... let's see how long you shall be able to breath "perfectly". 🤔
@@gillesmatheronpro yep running perfectly, i.e., like the day they came off the showroom floor. No need to be snarky, mon ami.
I have a 30 year old Vauxhall Cavalier 1.8, which runs perfectly well,is cheap to fuel and maintain and rarely has issues. It is light at 1205kg, which is half that of many EVs and thus reduces wear on brakes and tyres, the pollution from which is frequently ignored.
@@Robin-zf3wx Most people don't know that tyres can't be recycled in the normal sense, i.e., broken down into their component materials due to the vulcanizing process.
I've been in the UK for the past 2 weeks and I was stunned by the fact that there's a lot of new (or almost new) cars on the roads. Here in The Netherlands the average car age is around 11 years old and you still see plenty of pre-2000 era cars. Not so in the UK.
That’s one thing I noticed in Japan when I lived there in 2007, though it’s hard to date the cars since the models are completely different, they all looked newish
Alot of our pre 2000 cars dissapeared after the 2009 scrappage scheme to keep the car industry afloat. They gave people £2k for any old car against a new one
@@six7529 I never knew they did that! That might explain it, thanks for the info.
Also don't forget that UK and Japan are one of the few countries with a strong economy at least, that drive on the left side of the road, which means most cars will have the the wrong configuration to be viable to export for most emerging markets (that usually import used cars).
That means that the prices are lower and the supply often outweighs the demand, and they would be even lower if there wasn't for the people changing their cars every few months like they are bedsheets (something I noticed here in the UK compared to my country) which tends to create a fake economy of sorts (and this applies to everything, electronics etc).
Since the economy is better, new cars are still being manufactured, which in turn pushes for schemes and legislation to replenish the existing pool of cars.
@@martij30 As Six said above, the scrappage scheme or "scam" as I prefer to call it was a travesty for older car lovers. However not all cars got the £2k, it HAD to be road legal with an mot.
They also had to be certified with a destruction notice, meaning they were't allowed to be returned to the road. The opposite of what "green" really is.
The amount of really rare old cars traded in was staggering.
I believe a lot are still being stored in the open rotting away on an airfield, have a little search for them, Porsches, BMWs, Mercs, Morris Minors, all sorts.
Excellent video Geoff! In Australia, we have a Mercedes ML320 cdi (V6 3.0 diesel) with
280 000kms on it and it runs beautifully because it has been properly maintained. We also have a Hyundai iLoad 2.5 diesel with 275 000 kms and is incredibly driveable, comfortable and economical on long drives. I was raised to look after things I worked hard to own. This practice has saved me a lot of money over the past few decades.
I believe that the worldwide automotive industry has, for some time been geared towards high turnover. The "agency model" with many Australian dealers provides very slim profits on the sale of new vehicles.
The profits for a dealership today are:
- finance
- upsell to a swankier model in the range,
- fixed price servicing (thereby hoping for customer retention after the warranty runs out) or -
-better still, trading in for the latest model. Why this madness these days? Could it be to keep salespeople, service departments and "suits" in jobs?
The cars we drive are well made, solid, have many safety features, are relatively inexpensive to maintain and very enjoyable to drive. Best part of all... we own them 100%.
I doubt that you do - own them. If the model is similar to the UK You are only the registered keeper - responsible for taxes and fines. Ultimately the system owns the vehicle. DYODD
Old diesels are OK in rural areas. But I wouldn't make a habit of driving them in towns, as they are really bad for air quality. It not too bad in rural areas, as emission dissipate to safe levels, but in the enclosed street on built up areas, and combined with other vehicles they are not good. I drive a diesel.
Whatever the question, 'diesel' is never the answer. They are the most dangerously polluting of all ICEs. If you want to your bit to reduce that problem, ignore EVs (for now), but switch to petrol asap.
Parts are another source of revenue for dealers
All to no avail when there is no fuel.
He is Dr Atkinson, and has a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering
If he has a doctorate, so he his a doctor, no doubt👍
I love my car. It's 11 years old and well maintained. It just can't be replaced now, there's nothing like it on the market any more. I'm hanging on to it for as long as it is feasible.
Imagine trying to replace a sedan with a 3.9 V8 twinturbo diesel. Low revving, locomotive torque, makes the eight cylinder noises and barely uses fuel. There is no equivalent on the current car market. The wide adoption of 3-cylinder engines makes you think of motoring in communism. The world in which you are lucky to have a car at all.
You love it enough to pay $10-15/gal in 5-6 years when an EV costs 1/3rd of what a gas car does today?
I have 2 cars a 1991 landcruiser - still going. And a Saab 900s convertible (hasn't been driven for 10 years but kept in garage and should be good after a it of maintenance)
I figure I've had less impact over 30 years than most people who've had 4 or 5 cars in the same time.
@@davefroman4700 In a word “yes”. Liquid fuel will be with us for a long time yet. I’ll pay what it costs, it will still be cheaper than buying an EV (sunk costs of an EV outweigh most if not all extra petrol costs)
@@MrButtonpresser BS. Ive got 250,000 miles on my Tesla. The only thing Ive had to do is fix a couple of broken trim pieces, tires, and shocks. Even the brakes are like new still. And the battery is still at 92% capacity. It cost me $400 to put a charger in my house. And it costs me 60% less in fuel compared to my Dodge Journey I got rid of. My uncle has one he is using as a taxi in Montreal. And even with being on the super charger twice a day it still lasted almost 380k before he had to replace the battery. Which incidentally cost him $8k and took all of an hour. Its costing him half as much as his Prius used to cost to run. And a Model 3 and Y are now less than the average selling cost of a new car in the US. Some states a Model 3 is $27,500 after rebates.
Back in the 1960's inner wings and sills would rust through in three or four seasons. But, our 09 plate Vauxhall Astra estate has virtually no rust, due to the fantastic bodywork protection these days. My Dad was toolmaker at the Luton factory and used to say that as long as the bodywork/chassis was sound you could replace mechanical parts indefinitely!! Our Astra has 140,000 miles on the clock and goes like a 'cat over watet'! This also begs the question - 'Who is driving the rush to electric vehicles???' I sense a hidden adgenda...
Dangerously high and illegal levels of air pollution which creates respiratory diseases that cost the tax payer billions
There's no conspiracy theory. You can keep your ICE vehicles as long as you want. Most people don't care what they drive and use a car purely to get from A-B with their families and other stuff. On PCP etc which is how nearly all cars are bought now as the fuel costs are significantly less especially when charging at home then the higher monthly cost (due to higher purchase price) isn't an issue. Over the finance term they'll have saved money. So they 'buy' or PCP the EV.
There is always a hiddene agenda, like the 15 minute citys keeping people locked up, and have to ask permission to travel, I'll keep my ice car thanks, these EVs, and charging points are not working.
@@Jamessansomesure,just ingnore blackrock owner admiting he is trying to force culture change with his company
It's more about the new steel alloys they use now. They didnt even exist ten years ago
Wonderful article. I heartbreakingly had to sell our 1996 Honda Civic because low emission zones rendered it unusable. It had 144k KM on the clock, and ran like a kitten with zero issues in the 20 years it was with us. We always buy sensible 2nd hand cars, drive them frugally, and keep them for over 5 years. While my neighbors are switching cars every 2 years on lease contracts, most BMWs and large SUVs, and amongst whom one just got a Tesla Model Y. Yet to the government, our family would be environmentally less friendly, with a 2011 Hyundai i20 and a 2017 Honda Civic. That makes zero sense.
They can`t make all the new cars in the EU (OK somehow UK is still there) electric by 2035! Ok, we got all-electric cars...FREE. THe electric energy is Free. How the F*** are we gonna charge them with the current power infrastructure ?! Will not handle it at all! All the fuses will blow up and all the transformers will be overloaded in a short time! This is simply utopia.
Isn't there a car indirectly powered by beans? Surprised RA didn't mention it.
@@foppo100 I wish more people would see this! But no such luck. The average imbecile who buys EV is all puffed up and virtue-signalling (remember the plan-demic?!), but when you ask them anything about their machine they'll parrot the marketing mantra or they'll stare at you blankly. The "climate crisis' is the next step in returning Western populations to a medieval lifestyle under a techno-Communism. The "capstone event" as it has been called by those behind the agenda was the plan-demic which turned out to be the greatest transfer of wealth in all of history. In any case, I thank you for your comment and we must continue to hammer away at the thick heads that surround us to make them see this crucial fact which they seem incapable of understanding: The elite hate us. Thanks and God Bless!
The fact that is overlooked with EVs is the extra weight and performance producing more pollution from rubber and more wear and tear on the road surface. I think they should pay more road tax I am surprised they haven't banned motor racing yet one formula one race must produce more pollution than a small town of people driving to work and back in their family cars. Just saying. A bit like Theta Grunberge sailing across the Atlantic for a conference in the USA saying it was a carbon 0 footprint but forgetting to tell us that 7 of the crew that sailed over there then flew back on a commercial jet. Would have been a better footprint for her to fly over in the first place
@ianmcnulty3279 doesn't our government support the War in Ukraine with our money? I wonder what the carbon footprint of that will tot up to? A s£#t ton more than the average family sedan I would wager.
I have a 1998 Buick Regal with about 191000 km. It was my mom’s and when she passed I kept it. I drive it 4-6 times a month, I keep up with the maintenance. It does not have any rust, paint is still in great shape and the interior still looks brand new. I will drive it as long as I can.
Us taxi drivers in West Sussex have just been hit with the inevitable bombshell. We received an email saying the consultation/survey has begun to force us into EV's. We will even have to attend a course, at our expense on the benefits of having one. This is going to devastate the industry in my area which has lost around 60% of drivers since Covid-19 and residents are up in arms they can never get a taxi. It is also hurting our town centre pubs and restaurants as numbers are down due to transport problems. Net Zero is rapidly becoming Zero Jobs.
Net Zero means Everything Zero
I think what you will see is similar to what is happening in Manchester where private hire is bypassing our local licencing and regulation by having cars registered in Wolverhampton, I think the safety of passengers comes into the question when the local licencing authority has no jurisdiction over the fleet.
Is the loss of drivers due to low availability of man power after Brexit or is it the pay that is to low? If it is the last, would a higher pay increase the number of taxi drivers?
It is so easy, is it not, to introduce new regulations as the people in charge don't have to pay for the changes. Sadly another example of poor government.
Benefits of BEV? I cannot think of one and I too have qualified in electrical and electronic engineering as well as IT.
Right to repair is also of great importance, where manufacturers should provide diagnostic tools, spare parts and manuals for people and shops to maintain cars for a very long time. Current trends, not just for EV's, are going away from this. Secondly though, I am very skeptical about the new e fuels, I think they still have to cost a lot of energy to make and might not be realistically produced in the quantities required.
eFuels is gonna be something for super rich people. Even if we ever manage to produce enough, it is simply to expensive to produce. And there is not much room for scaling up production, you won't get a liter for under 10 Euro same as hydrogen. Though hydrogen use in cars is extremally stupid anyway, especially if you burn it....
Right now, the planed world wide production of eFuels by 2035 isn't even enough to cover 10% of the yearly needed eFuels in germany, and that is if you limit it's use to commercial use in ships, airplanes and the industry. If we add cars, trucks, busses and trains to that it's even far far less.
The amazing Niels Heusinkveld of SimRacing fame and Jimmy Broadbend long support status =D
Nice to see you here and interested in your opinion!
Being in the repair industry, There is a balance of value/cost to repair. And in order to innovate an industry has to have sales of new inventory or capitol.
@@louissabo3191 yes and that is exactly not the way forward for the environment. I can't see it happening but this really would have to change, along with our sometimes silly consumption habit. I will buy a hat and eat it if there are signs of this happening though. We prefer to pretend to be green after all.
@@louissabo3191 That's the thing though, technology and innovation is what got us here in the first place If it wasn't for innovation and technology advancements over the last Century+ of time, we wouldn't have many of the problems we face today. All the advancements do not truly fix anything because often times what they fix, they cause equal and sometimes worse problems elsewhere.
It's why I always get scared when government starts taking stands, is that they're almost always unproductive and often detrimental knee-jerk reactions by people who don't really know what they're doing, and are thus not that good at identifying the actual problems, let alone the solutions.
Government solutions nearly always involve raising taxes and spending our money.
They know the actual problem extremely well. The problem is ignorant masses believing them when they tell their lies about what the problem is. Hint: it's not emissions.
@@varmastiko2908 no, it is emissions, among other human things. That much has been objectively demonstrated as a fact countless times for over a decade already, and not by people in governments. Carbon signatures leave no room for interpretation or doubt.
@@skaruts I'm afraid you don't quite understand how the control system works. The truth is not publicly spoken about and is also a forbidden subject in science institutions. Essentially everyone is bought off because everyone needs to retain their job to pay their bills. And the media system only lets out what their owners allow.
@@skaruts Emissions are much more than what comes out of the tailpipe, Electric has an emissions cost and so does building cars, a car that carries on working for 25 to 30 years has one set of build emissions wheras an EV will last 10 years if you are lucky and 3 will be required in the same timeframe, as the cost of a battery pack will financialy write off EVs prematurely.We need a huge leap forwards in battery technology to make longer lasting (300% longer) batteries before the build emissionms equalise and ofset the tailpipe emissions.We also need to ban massive overweight cars and move back frm SUV types to smaller engined lighter cars, as fuel burnt is directly proportional to mass moved.The thing about vehicle emissions is, most people actualy need a vehicle, wheras we seem to give a free pass to the aviation and cruise industries that facilitate and encourage frivolous unessessary travel for foreign hollidays.Prioritise tha right targets please!
Great video! I totally agree on this.. And, I can add a few things to this issue:
I also am an early adopter, with a beautiful Tesla Model S P90D, which I sold a few months ago to go back to the very reliable older Volvo V70.
Here is why:
At the age of 7.8 years, our Tesla began to create weird noises at the back. Rear drive unit (electric motor) needed to be replaced, which was just within warranty, so no problem. After the necessary surgery, the Tesla performed great, till some two months later: Suddenly a message appeared on the main computer screen: “Car needs service, might not start the next trip!” Other than that, no weird things! It still drove like new! So, back to Tesla Service..
“Yep, Rear Drive unit needs to be replaced!” No warranty! And no: “The warranty on parts does not apply on parts that are renewed inside the warranty of the car!!” So, If something is replaced one day before the end of warranty of the car, and it needs to be replaced again two day’s later, you must pay the bill!
7800 euro’s later, I, for the first time in my life, totally lost the feeling, that the car I bought, actually was ‘MY CAR’, It wasn’t!! These EV’s are constantly in contact with the manufacturer! Which means that It is not you, who determines when you want to go to a service point, no, its them! Call me paranoid, but If I can come up with the thought that they easily can call in a few cars when they need some extra money, than they can come up with that too!
The point is, that with conventional cars, the issue mostly is clearly visible, and can be pointed out by service personel, but with electronics its different!
On top of that, they will never open modules to replace a tiny cheap resistor, NO WAY! They will force you to buy a new module. Its already happening with ‘conventional’ cars: Example: The newer nice LED tail lights, of which everybody thinks that they will run for a life time. Well, they could easily do that, if not the manufacturers would include unnessesary electronics to make them “work better” And there it is again, they are not going to replace a few LED’s that flipped out, no, it will be a minimal 1500 pounds bill for a new tail light module!
That’s why I think, apart from Rowan’s reasons, you should think twice if you are about to buy an EV that will be out of warranty soon! I even did not mention the battery, also full of electronics, if part of it flips out?? Well, lets just say you absolutely won’t be happy when you see the bill!
And a car that is able to give you the message that it probably will not start the next time, even if I would be at the grocery store nearby, absolutely will not be my car ! The Tesla gave me a few years of great driving fun, yes there are very good reasons for electric driving, too bad that they are overshadowd by so many negatives !!
Rowan Atkinson is a force to be reckoned with. I can also recommend his speech about freedom of expression. The public sees him mainly as a commedian, but he holds some very strong oppinions that he can pour into words that, if need be, hit like a wrecking ball. I think it's called a jester's license.
I agree. I enjoyed reading his article on the freedom of expression and agree that this Cambridge-educated gentleman has a Jester’s License!
Yep ... and the "jester" has common sense, and a brain to drive it !!!
I had no idea Rowan studied engineering and electronics!
@JoseLopez-tk4tq Many people don't - he's a sane analytical mind, and a brilliant comedian to boot !!!
@@paulreid2223~ I have seen the Beans and the entire Black Adder series. Knowing he is a man with a scientific bent has caused a new level of admiration and respect in this viewer.
Spot on . Kept my current car for 8 years ( longest I've kept one for ) . It has full service history, runs impeccably ( honda hybrid ) and I've seen nothing I fancy to change to. EV will be an option for me but only when it makes sense.
I drive a 2014 Prius with almost 200k miles. I plan to buy a 2023 Prius sometime around 2028 haha
I average about 1 car every 10 years. Treat them nice and they will repay the favor. Car number 3 is currently 11 years old and still going strong.
The only older hybrids i see around here are Honda's. They seem to just keep going.
There is not enough energy in elec. to run EV cars for the nation. USA needs 9560 petaJoules of energy to run all the passenger cars per year. A nuclear reactor, large one, makes 17 petaJoules. Math not looking good.
@Jon VB In terms of CO2 emissions, the production of a Tesla class battery is estimated to be about the same as driving a gasoline car for 8 years. This is mostly due to sourcing of raw materials.
Also, Tesla's price is partly subsidized by taxpayers. Though this doesn't necessarily make a Tesla a poor choice in all use cases, there are cases where it isn't the best choice.
I'm a massive fan of Rowin Atkinson, and I loved his article! I'm hoping to keep my old car for years and I don't want to replace it really ever.
What car do you have?
Mine is a 2005. Still rolling.
2006 RS50 here
How much do you all give to your mechanics to fix your vehicles yearly ?? Bet it is fun doing that....
Hoping ? Grow a backbone.
Tried posting this article on Facebook and they classed it as "partial false information" unbelievable
I don't doubt the 3 year lease system was designed purely to keep money flowing to car brands. I've had my car for 11 years now and it's still just as great to drive despite the odd dent and a few scratches thanks to supermarket car parks. If I could keep it for the rest of my life I would.
Also older cars, you're less worried about scratches, etc.
@@Gary-bz1rfbc we built shocking products. Shocking. Take the Morris Marina. Basically a straight forward use of a design that was penned in 1947 (by Isigonis). Meanwhile the Germans and Italians were all moved onto twin cam engines, independent live geometry suspension and style.
Well at least it is unlikely to be stolen, just like my 23 year old 406
As a person who averages 80,000 plus klms a year the lease system works well for me,
So basically what happens is I trade or sell the vehicle before the depreciation gets to low to which increases by balloon payment at the end of the lease also if my car is worth for example 25k at 190,000 klms when it clicks over to 200,001 its probably worth 10k to 15k that's a huge loss for not many ks yea,
Also in Australia as you would know it's great distances from cities to cities so klms ad up real quick so leasing works well here,
Cheers.
I run a 2004 Audi A2 now on 258K miles, eco motoring at it's best, no rust to be concerned about with an Aluminium chassis and body, frugal 62mpg long term average and fun to drive. A small footprint and being light and aerodynamic with a three cylinder 1.4 diesel it makes perfect sense.
Hold on to that A2
You could run it for another 50 years and produce less pollution than the manufacture and transport of a single EV battery.
That advice goes with what I tell people about a lot of things: If you don't have to produce it again, you don't need to use double the resources. Recycling always uses energy and in many cases doesn't give you the same product you used the first time (except for glass, aluminum and a few others). Repairing things is always more environmentally friendly. Way to go, Rowan Atkinson. From one engineer to another. I definitely have a lot more respect for him now. Thanks for the video GBC.
Your argument is correct, in my view. But that's an argument against producing ANY new vehicle - EV or otherwise.
@@peeteebee123
Not any new vehicle, just producing an endless stream of disposable garbage. Make something that will last a lifetime (besides repairs), and the number of things that will need to be produced will be drastically reduced. If it NEEDS to be completely replaced every couple years or so, its garbage from the start. And its often not even recyclable. "Green" = Wasteful.
@@SvendleBerries Absolutely agree. My point was that this is not argument against EVs specifically.
it's funny how people always get nervous when you extrapolate the "double the resources" argument to having children. Doubling your own consumption footprint in an already overburdened planetary system is much more harmful than buying so-called sustainable or repairable products and services. Repairing a product that consists of mined and refined materials is never as environmentally friendly as not buying it in the first place. The most important argument for or against EVs is how renewable the batteries and the energy used to charge them are. More people equals more primary industry equals more destruction of the planet.
You, as an engineer, forgot the most circular material, literally requiring scrap "recycling" in the most popular production processes, that is also essential to car manufacturing and building in general: Steel. Steelmaking and the logistic chains required for it are utterly destructive despite the fact that the product is perfectly recyclable.
Answer = ULEZ the environments enemy.
Love the article. Just found your channel. Friends and I have all said the same thing. I am an electronics, control systems and computer Hardware/Software engineer.
So I agree with Rowan on these points. I recently replaced my old car, gearbox fault, cost more to replace than the car cost.
I didn't want an SUV, everyone has one.. so I got a 2011 E-Class estate. 93k on the clock. It's big it's practical for Family camping trips. It's quiet for a big Diesel well maintained and Immaculate inside. It will last another 10-20 years if it's looked after.
Everyone talks about the money saving of EV. But that does not take in the buying as most are long-range EVs are 40-50-60k+ how can it be a cost saving when the monthly amount to buy the car is vastly more than I spend buying and running my older diesel. Even. Factored in Maintenance cost it's cheaper.
Environmental friendly fuels are a big step in keeping these great cars going and helping against environmental impact.
We need more than just EV cars. If we are really said to be for the environment. The whole ecosystem of cars needs to adapt in new ways.
But it's a diesel - the most dangerously polluting of all ICEs. Forget EVs (for now), but please (I speak as a parent) replace it with a petrol car.
@@paulhaynes8045 No. I will not be dictated by you or anyone. So I will keep my car as I like it and I keep very well maintained. So if you took your time and read about the amount of harmful pollutants from the electrical generation plants around the world then you should badger the Energy company's and not motorists which incidentally only contributed 12.6% harmful emissions compared to Global Emissions from Energy and industry of 59.6%. Stop blaming Car drivers and start blaming the real sources of the pollution. All of this information is available if you took the time to research and read about it. So sod off and go hassel them.
@@paulhaynes8045 I agree. I will never buy a diesel. I had one once.
I have a 2015 Ssangyong. My wife said to me would you like a newer vehicle, she was surprised when I said no. Why! Well it's a great tow car, comfortable 40mpg and since I purchased it 3 years ago second hand has only cost me 3 services. 4 new tyres and 2 Mots, what's not to like. Great article as always
Reuse is part of the process. But so is reduce.
I feel for people who live in areas with dangerous and illegal levels of pollution caused by vehicles
@@problemchild1976 you can ride or drive whatever you feel is right, I will stick with what I've got because I like it
@@dawdawes even if that is poisoning people in towns?
@@problemchild1976 love to know where you and others get your data from. You have more chance of being knocked down by a bus. I'm going to be honest here. I couldn't care less , you make your own decisions in life. Don't listen to all you read the scare mongers will put you in your grave with all the worry . Live life to the fullest, and stick a finger up to the doo gooders
@@OM617a ah but the last time I looked, there weren't heards of cows or huge ships in towns and cities.
Overall global pollution won't even be fixed by banning all cars - that's not what it's about surely
Still driving the same car I bought 17 years ago. 266k miles. The only repairs to this vehicle I've ever had to do are replacing the belt and two of the wheel bearings. The rest has just been routine maintenance. I'm still on the original clutch though that is nearing its end of life. 2006 Scion xA. 35-40 mpg for daily driving. Highway speeds (70 mph and above) the efficiency drops to around 30 mpg.
I own a 1976 triumph spitfire restored it twice since i bought it almost 30yrs ago.
I have a Benz W210 that my father bought in 1998. 2.9 diesel, 6l/100km, and still drives strong. It's nothing special, but spare parts are cheap, easy to repair and will always take me where I want.
My car is a 2012 Nissan Qashqai diesel 1.5dci, bought used in 2016. It has a super-eco engine with very low emissions (allegedly - as the owner I don't care if Nissan fiddled the emissions figures or not - that's their problem) that means I only have to pay £30 per year in road tax. As both myself and my wife are over 50 we also get cheap insurance to boot and we have no plans to replace it anytime soon. An EV would be of no use at all to us as we live in rural Wales where the charging infrastructure is almost non-existent and we regularly make journeys of 150 miles or more, so most of the time we couldn't complete a round trip without having to spend ages recharging.
And of course that's the next big issue that nobody seems to want to talk about - charging times. Even rapid chargers tend to take 20-30 minutes, whereas I can fill the tank and be on my way in less than 3 minutes. Are we going to see miles-long queues at the charging stations?
The government simply haven't thought this out properly (no surprise there of course - when do they ever?)
@@countzero1136 the points you make here have been entirely overlooked. I am from the Southwest US, where sometimes even finding a gas station is a challenge. The market needs to drive the adoption of EVs, not government mandates.
Great car!
Thank you for sharing this fantastic article. I would have never come across it otherwise not having membership of the telegraph. I will certainly be sharing it with friends and can only hope it becomes widespread
There are articles written in there which they know that the masses won't ever see or hear because of it being behind a pay wall. I don't pay for it, but just listened to what other's have said having read from it.
Free on the guardian's site! Amazing that it's in both Torygraph and Grauniad!
Literally on Sunday I was droning on about the weight of electric cars at a barbecue. 😂
God bless Mr Atkinson ❤
@@edwardwharton7107 It's not a Telegraph article.. Geoff got it wrong.
@@edwardwharton7107 I realised that after writing! I was happy to be able to read the essay in full on the guardian website
@@edwardwharton7107 He wrote it in the Guardian. The Telegraph only ran the story because they see it as supporting their anti-EV, anti-net zero agenda.
Thank you for reading out the article by Rowen Atkinson. I have very similar thoughts, not least on EVs, Hydrogen, synthetic fuels and (outside congested cities) running cars on for as long as is reasonably sensible so giving time for replacement technologies to become commercially available.
I have been following JCB's hydrogen engine development with interest and see this as probably the most promising technology for the sort of plant they produce; ie large heavy plant often operating in remote areas on long duty cycles, but also many large trucks, coaches and busses.
Not so convinced of hydrogen in domestic cars where I believe synthetic fuel is likely to prove to be the safer and more usable solution, including in many cases over EVs.
EVs will still have a place, especially if solid state batteries become a commercially viable solution, most obviously for city runarounds in heavily built up areas.
So the future that I see has different technologies dominating use in different types and uses of vehicles.
I agree that that future is not here yet, and it still needs much more leadership and support from governments (not just in the UK) to make tgem all viable. There just is not enough drive, enabling and facilitation from the top.
And yes CO2 is decidedly a very serious problem, but so are particulates, NOX, and other vehicle related pollutants.
(Retired marine engineer)
I can happily endorse everything you've said here, apart from your claim that CO2 is a problem.
Please look up Prof William Happer of Princeton university for further details.
Mr Atkinson always speaks from a point of logic.
Ahh - No.
Unfortunately he hasn't the tiniest clue what a 'rare earth' is and is completely WRONG on that point !
Totally agree - push for EVs has nothing to do with care for environment. It’s all about money and control. Billionaires can’t be bothered making products people want they now create propaganda to guilt people and lobby politicians to mandate their products 🤬
My car is 14 years old, I love it more now than I did when I bought it because it’s been so reliable and is exactly what I need.
@TuataraAggressor With a degree in electrical engineering and a masters in control systems
@@hayd7371 From the 70s and zero experience in the automotive industry.
The very fact that Rowan Atkinson's article was published shows that things are changing. Reality is kicking in at last.
THE MEDIA INCLUDING UA-cam ARE STILL CENSORING EVERYONE WHO PUTS THEIR HAND UP TO QUESTION THE CLIMATE RELIGION!
As a follow Engineer and classic car owner - Rowan you hit the nail on the head.
Interesting article yeah, even if he didn't really said "EV = NO" tho like in the tittle here, but yeah for the rest his article is disapointing, he might be right about the fact that EVs aren't a perfect solution and it should be obvious to most people now that EVs have also some problematic parts even if they are a great solution to solve most of petrol related problems (air pollution, fossile fuel dependancy, geopolitical dependancy to oil and so on.... as well as reduce by a good chunk the amount of energy wasted for car transportation, given how incredibely efficient EVs are in comparison...).
The last part of the article is plain disspointing, quoting hydrogen as a solution while it's more carbon intensive than petrol cars currently when produced from fossile gas, and just a giant waste of electricity when produced from renewable electricity ("green" hydrogen requires 2.4x more electricity per km driven than a battery EV).... and yeah same about synthetic fuels, it's just a scape goat of germans car manufacturers with something unrealistically way to expensive and who will be a niche for elites whop want to drive ICE Porsches and so on.... so yeah.
The only part where I fully agree with him is when he says we should avoid using our cars as much as possible, and he's very right here, there's so many problems, especially in cities linked to how everyone use their car alone for anything, it goes from trafic congestion, air pollution, deaths on the road, making cities too hot (too many roads keeping heat, not enough green space and trees) and even the obesity and sedentarity epidemics is rooted to car dependancy, it's really the downfall of our societies, so yeah he's right we should make sure people stop using their car for nothing and we build better public transport and safe pedestrian and biking infrastructure 👍
As another engineer, I agree. Keep cars longer. Embedded carbon is a large part of overall carbon emitted. Not that I am overly concerned that CO2 is the scale of the problem that is portrayed.
agreed and all to the good, but there are still a staggering number of people online that cannot hear anything negative about EV's above their own piety.
Unfortunately people don't want to keep their car's to long because they're to busy keeping up with the Jones.
This.
That's true of people who buy new or nearly new cars. Some of us just want the most cost effective transport we can get.
It is sad. I'm an insurance broker and see this daily. The fact I gave up driving in 2008 has absolutely NO impression on people. They think I am strange, but then again, don't own a cell-phone or cable. Buy the best top model older car you can find, they make them better.
I love how they are trying to "ban" gas powered cars. Imagine telling that to someone who works minimum wage, who drives a reliable 1999 Honda Civic that they will have to get rid of their *perfectly fine and functional* car and get this...BUY A BRAND NEW ELECTRIC for $30K, just because the powers that be want to fight climate change.
Love this article, I've always had a massive problem with the new car culture that the UK has. I've been saying since the government announced no new ICE cars from 2030 it's either gonna be pushed back or we will start to see less new EV car sales and much older petrol and diesel cars on the road.
That “climate crisis” narrative dates back to the 70’s. That narrative is going to keep being kicked down the political road.
Thanks for trashing the planet
I keep my cars as long as they don't start costing me lots of money to keep on the road.
My current vehicle is 12 years old.
Still going strong.
Since I bought it new I've spent about £1200 on repairs.
Not including servicing.
That's cheap Motoring in my mind. And no plans to change in the near future.
Great video.
Nobody who drives under 10-20k miles a year should be considering a new EV, or a new car of any sort, to be honest. Some will, because of the neighbours, or the wife's demands.
The real issue is that people who are in the second hand market have a budget. There aren't a lot of second hand EVs, and those there are are not in that budget.
So ICE cars are the only option right now for the majority of car owners looking for a new second-hand car. That includes me, a high earner who doesn't drive a lot. Why throw away money on a driveway decoration! But I can only pick from what's available.
In 2030, there will be a lot of second hand EVs on the market. New EVs will be far more mature too, better batteries, longer range, cheaper. An 8 year old second hand EV should be within the budget of more people. In addition, most cities will probably have banned (by 2nd generation ULEZ rules) most ICE cars, or be in the process of banning them, forcing those people to EVs. Current ULEZ bans are just for more polluting ICE cars. This is for valid air quality reasons within the cities.
This is when the transition to EVs will be very mature. Right now it's still a transition, and for many people that transition isn't mature enough for their needs - valid or not.
@@p80t5turbo
Yes I had a friend with a volvo estate that had done nearly 300.000 miles when I used to see him.
Never had one but good cars.
My Audi S8 is 23 years old, and I did 500 miles in it last weekend.
How much do you spend a year on maintenance, considering you drive it daily....I bet a lot....
@@celtics2008champs1 Last year- not a bean.
A: it may well be true for him, for last year specifically.
B: Starter batteries last a lot longer than that in the Uk generally. I’ve heard folks from the US say they needed to change the battery every couple of years but you’d get closer to 10 years in the Uk typically, so it must be something other than vibration that is the issue for you.
@Enrique A Thiele Solivan Well I bought a classic car 10 years ago, battery was already some years old, I still got that car and the battery is still fine after I guess 13-14 years at least.
@@robinclaidlaw Probably lives somewhere very hot. Heat kills batteries.
Brilliant points! The insanity of the Canadian government in pouring billions of tax dollars in attracting ev manufacturing and ev battery plants that may be causing unforeseen environmental problems boggles the mind, and one fears the tax payer will be left paying the consequences of a failed paradigm in the future, when these politicians have retired on their generous pensions. The alternatives proposed in Rowan Atkinson’s article ought to be given serious consideration. I especially appreciate your idea of carefully maintaining and keeping cars long term, as a way of making better use of the energy and resources required in producing them.
Geoff you're right on point about the longevity of cars. I've noticed that they design cars nowadays with style and not robustness in mind. You can still find cars from 80's and 90's in more or less impeccable condition on the road today. Cars from that era seems almost everlasting as long as you keep the rust in check.
The industry is not about selling cars it's about keeping investors. You can't maintain growth with a shrinking population and a shrinking economy by building durable products.
'90's cars or '90's style cars are the best. '80's were good but I think by the '90's the car had reached perfection. Since then all they've done is try to make them cheaper without making them worse. They are making them worse but you don't find that out for 3 years.
I had a '97 Subaru Legacy with almost 330K miles on it...ran great up until Thursday, when somebody totaled it hitting me on the freeway 😭
@@j3ffn4v4rr0 Yeah and the insurance company value it at net zero. It was practically an antique.
Geoff is right on? This is just a guy ripping off a newspaper article. It’s not Geoff, it’s Rowan Atkinson.
It does help when very rich, successful and privileged people begin to understand the catastrophic unfairness in society outside of their own comfort.
what do you mean by "catastrophic unfairness", people still have choices currently to buy whatever they want, consumers drive the market.
Fool !
@@celtics2008champs1 No we don't... THAT is the point. I can't buy whatever I want as I have no money. I invested what I had in a very good second-hand diesel car a year ago, and it is now NOT ALLOWED in the 4 largest Scottish cities where I did most of my work before being forced to retire this month. So NO... I CAN'T buy whatever I like... I am being forced to buy something I can't afford when I have a perfectly good vehicle which I had planned to use for a few more years. I can't even go back to the dealership where I bought the car to have it serviced as it is in the new zone in Glasgow. At least the dealer recognised this and announced plans to move out of Glasgow this week.
The AIR in Glasgow is not polluted... it is NOT killing people... in fact it has improved massively with the removal of the thousands of buses which were replaced by electric ones... THEY CAN AFFORD THAT.... I CAN'T.
PS..it is only about ten or twenty years ago that the government ran advertisements to GET PEOPLE INTO DIESELS, so I did. I have paid through the nose for it since, with high fuel tax, constant servicing to keep it friendly, and even paid £500 on road tax when I could afford a better car just 5 years ago. That went with Covid and the lack of support for self-employed, so I bought second-hand to cut my cloth accordingly.
ALL THOSE CHOICES NO LONGER EXIST.
@J Doe customers drive the market is oversimplifying and not considering monopolies and corporate capture.
How is Rowan privileged? Do you know his life story? He is very good at what he does and has been paid well for it.
The amount of C02 needed for optimum plant growth is 2000 parts per million. A recent scientific study found that the current amount of C02 in the atmosphere is just over 400 parts per million. Once those levels drop to 200 parts per million, the natural world will die off. Now, why would our government want to reduce levels of C02 when they're this low already? And why do the BBC never talk about this?
@@foppo100 You're absolutely right on that. Unfortunately, if you voice those opinions you get labelled a racist antivaxer climate denier conspiracy theorist. Which personally I wear as a badge of honour.
Do you perhaps have a link to this study so I can read it.
CO2 doesn’t heat up the atmosphere by trapping heat itself, it changes the chemistry of other molecules within the atmosphere so they trap heat. The problem is that CO2 doesn’t get used up in this process, it can keep doing that forever. The are some natural processes that extract CO2 from the atmosphere, but if the amount that’s added exceeds the amount that’s extracted by a tiny fraction, then that tiny build up of CO2 in the atmosphere will be able to cause a lot of heating. Scientists have determined that as little as 450 ppm could increase global temps by 2 degrees C. In 2018 the CO2 levels in our atmosphere passed 400 ppm for the first time in 800,000 years.
What a load of anti-science rubbish, just a simple search of "optimum CO2 for plant growth" shows you this is wrong
Hi Geoff, I've enjoyed your take on modern motoring & the threats to take away our freedom of travel. I'm from Lincolnshire but have lived in Brasil for many years. Synthetic fuels are the way forwards whilst still using the proven tec of the piston engine. Back in the 70's here in Brasil they decided with the fuel crises that growing fuel was the way forward. Alcohol from sugar production is available at all service stations at nearly half the price of petrol. All the major car manufacturers here give the same warranty on dual fuel cars. You can mix petrol & Alchol together & the only downside with Alcohol is that it needs a small washer bottle type container under the bonnets that you put a little petrol to start the car on cold days or if living in high altitude. This is done automatically. Technically i guess this isn't fossil fuel , because it's a renewable source & I've been told 3 crops per year. Ps this product also keeps the farmers happy 😅 .
But where is all this extra requirement for sugar grown? On land 'reclaimed' from the rain forest, perhaps? No 'solution' is cost/problem free, I'm afraid.
@paulhaynes8045 The amazon area represents a small fraction of land available in Brazil, there's no requirement in Brazil to have extra need of the Amazonian land , The French have an Interest there , & busy logging huge areas, don't believe all you here on the BBC ' s of the world, The climate in Brasil can produce 3 crops of sugar cane per year, & solves a good percentage of fuels for cars. Without using oil.
This was in the Guardian so no paywall, anyone can read it. Today the Guardian also published a rebuttal of Rowan Atkinson’s piece and I wonder if you’ll cover that in the same way?
I read the rebuttal and some good points challenged but it was funny how the guy from Carbon Brief correctly says no rare earth metals are used in the batteries but conviently "forgets" to mention they are used in the electric motors!
ua-cam.com/video/sytWLB4-W-M/v-deo.html&ab_channel=TheCarGuys.TV
I’ll have to look for the rebuttal article. No disrespect to Geoff or Rowan but there’s a lot of misrepresentations or incorrect information stated here. For one, mandating battery recycling reduces the energy needed to produce a new battery by about 80%, and current recycling technologies are able to recover about 85% or more of the original material.
The point about battery vehicles being used then set aside earlier in the history of the automobile is completely irrelevant and a red herring. Given that mentality, there’s thousands of technologies that we would not be enjoying today because you know… technology *advances*. Materials science advances from 1990 to current day are like night and day, batteries continue to charge faster and hold more charge per unit volume.
The Porsche synth-fuel is interesting, but likely to cost around triple what gas / petrol currently costs, possibly only double at large scale production. However, it’s an incredibly inefficient way to produce fuel, I’d have to look up the numbers but I believe only around 20% of the input energy becomes fuel. Whereas using the electrical output to directly charge an EV would result in above 80% of the input energy being used by the vehicle. Furthermore, people cannot produce their own synthetic fuel, unlike rooftop solar which allows consumers to literally power their own cars, requiring no complex production processes or distribution networks to deliver to consumers.
Finally hydrogen, which is a non-starter unless it can be made into some other form, such as mixed into a gel that can be used by vehicles. Hydrogen embrittlement of metal containers, valves etc. is a huge problem if attempting to scale to what exists today for regular consumer motoring, not to mention the danger of explosion. It seems Rowan is neglecting to consider the maturation curve that any technology undergoes when it finally becomes mainstream (for EVs and their dramatic improvements over the last decade). Hydrogen *could* play a significant role in decarbonizing large fleet transport such as trucking, ocean freighters and even possibly air travel, but I believe it won’t be cost effective for non-commercial motorists.
The one part of this post I wholeheartedly agree with is that vehicles should not be disposable as we treat them nowadays. Not sure how to change that mentality without trampling on people’s rights, but there’s a large contingent of people who simply have to have the latest and greatest car (or insert consumer product here) and that behaviour is difficult to change.
@@sjsomething4936 well even though production costs for synthetic fuel will tumble massively as the technology matures, even if it’s triple what current petrol costs are today we’ll be paying roughly the same as we are now given the tax on fuel (certainly here in the UK) until recently was 75%.
Factor in the cost of having to manufacture 1.5 billion new EV’s (@ 9 tons of CO2 to build each one) and it’s obvious going the EV route makes no sense vs. developing synthetic fuel and keeping old ICE cars on the road where the CO2 cost for them was sunk years ago.
@Jon VB the LFP batteries are mainly for the China market and entry level vehicles. All of the extended range batteries are cobalt based due to higher energy density.
"The company also notes that in the coming years, its absolute cobalt demand will increase, because the production growth of batteries and vehicles is forecasted to outpace the overall rate of cobalt reduction on a per-cell basis."
Lithium and nickel mining is energy intensive and bad for the environment.
If we are to attain Musk's goal of universal EV ownership and use of Tesla batteries for power grid storage, it would require more lithium than the human race has mined in the last century.
Glad to see Rowan going to the effort of pointing out what options are. I've worked in the medium to high voltage industry, it's not always what is best but is long term economically sound and sustaining. We have a lot more coal than the precious elements, just saying. A rude awakening awaits.
But all burning all that coal ain't so great for the quality of air that we breath. It's directly responsible for literally thousands of early deaths and millions of people with health issues every single year. Regardless of what one thinks of the climate impact and how inefficient combustion engines are. 2/3's of your energy input (and thus your money) goes right out via the radiator.. it's crazy.
If the solution to a problem is more tax, then you can usually guarantee that the problem does not exist.
You know what... I'm pinning this comment. Because you just nailed EVERYTHING in 20 words. Thank you. Oh also, everyone please subscribe if you liked this video. There's plenty more of this style in my 'important videos' playlist. You'll probably learn something, and definitely have a laugh.
@@GeoffBuysCars This is not a new tax, drivers already pay this tax through fuel duty. It's just now the tax will need to be collected via a new mechanism; there's no "red diesel" electricity.
Contrary to popular belief, the climate "science" isn't settled. the West is caught between two ideologies, on the one hand GDP and growth line must go up, on the other we must produce and consume less because green.
@@John_Smith100 climate science is settled, unless you consider the less than 5% who disagree. Atmospheric CO2 is 33% higher now than in 1970. Any person who has ever owned a greenhouse knows that greenhouses work by making it warmer by trapping heat. CO2 traps heat, anyone who claims that "science" doesn't prove that doesn't understand science. Science doesn't care about ideologies; this is why some people get so upset about science because science doesn't care about whether you agree or how you feel about it.
@@John_Smith100 WOAH there John. U can’t talk common sense on YT, you’ll fry a leftwaffer loons little brain in Silly CON Valley 😂👍✌️🇬🇧
Biggest issue is politicians telling us what we need to buy
Firstly Geoff, how can you not like Mr Bean? That’s criminal.
Rowan Atkinson is a legend, him saying for people to stick with their older cars and don’t change to an EV makes him even bigger of a legend.
He'd be a real legend if he called out this climate crisis crap for the complete bullshit it is.
He's not saying no, just to not be in such a rush to switch. Keep your old car going.
He isn't saying no to EVs; he is saying you should not have one!
I generally like Rowan Atkinson but I find Mr Bean annoying.
Lol Mr bean is so unfunny it's tragic,however rowan is a legend
My already high level of respect for Mr Atkinson has been further raised. If ever there was an unbiased, educated article that made sense on the EV vs ICE debate, that was it.
There was nothing educated about that article whatsoever. It’s the same old tropes that have already been trotted out and debunked.
@@sparkymark75 Thank you.
You're right. What was he thinking? Perhaps he wasn't.
@@sparkymark75greed - it takes a hell of a lot of electricity to create hydrogen.
People are moaning about lithium batteries burning but how about compressed hydrogen tank that's probably got to be cryogenically cooled to stop it seeping through the molecular skin of the tank ;)
And as for ICE.... they remain only 30% efficient no matter what they burn. While an electric motor is 80% efficient.
Why don't factories that run production lines use little petrol engines to drive the lines instead of electric motors :)
He concluded with electric propulsion is the future but that was glossed over
@@problemchild1976
A good percentage of diesels are now over 40% efficient, and Weichai Power claims to have broken the 50% barrier!!
With EV the Traction motor itself may be over 80% efficient but you ignore how the power gets to the car…. A gas power station is about 50% efficient, coupled with power transmission losses (about 8%) and battery charge/discharge losses (li-ion 10-20%) you are at best about 45% efficient with an EV, and this is ignoring other losses in the system like lugging the additional weight of the heavy batteries….
The reason why factories use electric motors is because they are perfect for this application, and they don’t have to lug around their power source. Batteries are heavy and compared to liquid/chemical fuels not particularly energy dense.
I have no issue with EVs but first we need to find a better way to store their fuel!!
I bought a second hand Jaguar XJ nearly four years ago, the car is now eight years old. It has been regularly serviced and still runs beautifully. The 3ltr diesel engine gives me up to 54 mpg on a long run. I have no plans to change it as it still puts a huge smile on my face.
Dear Cupid
Crack on, the XType is an excellent car and extremely well made. When it farts its last an XF is an ideal replacement. I have had two 3ltr diesels and loved them both. The S is a lot of fun and goes like a stabbed rat!
How much did you have to spend on servicing that car? I BET an ev equivilant will be a fraction
Strangely enough I looked into this, a full service on a Tesla was quoted at £238. This included a tyre rotation, but to my mind it is quite a lot considering the minimal moving parts. My XJ for a full service that included fully synthetic oil, coolant, all filters etc £220 at the independent garage I have been using for years.
I considered buying a Tesla but was put off by the build quality, very evident in the shut lines.
Pretty sure I'll be sticking with ice rather than ev for the foreseeable future.
Jaguars converted to electric are more reliable, run better, perform better and will suffer very few maintenance issues. Jaguar's official best ever performance cars were both electric. The professional test driver that trialled them advised tuning back the performance as they were so quick. They certainly put a smile on his face.
They’ll wipe that smile of your face with insanely increasing Diesel prices the coming years.😩🥴
"Keep your old car until you need another" is always good advice. EVs have been brilliant at funneling money to upper-income customers so they can feel smug without making them sacrifice.
thats why most new EV sales are giant luxury trucks and not nissan leafs.
You highlight smug EV owners but same human attribute is present in owners of ICE cars, where some folk buy a budget ice brand and others spend more for a brand which screams look at me in my new Range Rover, Mercedes or BMW, I’m posh I’m rich.
Problem is a lot of new cars are starting to need work after only a few years, expensive trips to the dealer for fault finding that cannot be done at home as you need expensive custom scan tools for it. They don't want you to keep it on the road, they want it scrapped and you buying a new one.
Lol…man you guys and always having these conspiracy theories. A grand group of “they”, always out to get us. You don’t have to change ever. But EVs are here to stay and getting better every single year.
My EV a BMW i3 is now 7 years old and not one problem in that time. Before this in 2012 bought a Leaf electric but sold it after two years and purchased a plug in Hybrid Ampera which was sold to a neighbour after two years, She is still running it every day with no problems.
My i3 a 2016 is still providing the same range as when initially purchased with no
problems.
For those who are weary of garages I suggest buying an inexpensive scan tool, plug it into the diagnostic socket and if not capable of troubleshooting yourself at least you will be able to communicate with the dealer.
the replies to you highlight the 'always an exception...' but you are right. i have 30 yr old cars- motorbikes twice that. ie my 94 mitsi mirage has very little to go wrong. in nz it is punished by needing a wof- [warrant of fitness-] twice yearly, where everything possible is done to get her off the road; while a new car has a gratis 5 years of wof free- assumed safe.
repair costs after a new car fender-bender are massaged thru the roof- with insurance writing off eminently repairable & safe cars in a blink. we have been rear ended twice- left with perfectly driveable mechanically sound cars- taken off us by insurance with enough compensation to buy a pedal tricycle- because a crumple zone in the rear subframe has a small buckle.
is there an agenda?
of course there bloody is.
@@justinstewart3248 in 2017 the Volkswagen group had to pay a criminal fine of $2.8 billion for cheating the emissions tests. Is it too far a stretch to imagine they may be a little self serving in making their cars? Seems like a healthy suspicion to me. Plastic inlet manifolds surely are about profit over durability. EV's are here to stay, what's not to like about a car with way less parts to go wrong. But probably better to wait till the technology has matured a bit more and they can be made with less impact on the environment. BTW ''they' are out to get me, they told me so on the mothership 😵💫
@@griffenthedog That's what I hate about insurance pay-outs, never enough to replace the car.
Had my first car in 1989 and used it for 30 years. Overhauled the engine twice. The car ran an average of 24k kilometres per year. Love the car, no problem. Perhaps, I had an exceptionally good mechanic.
What sort of car was it?
@@tomkeegan3782 proton saga 1989-2019 stop using because of covid-19.
@@tomkeegan3782 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_Saga
Sorry, i do not know much about car.
yes, as long as you managed not to breath in the exhaust fumes over 30 years of driving. Can you imagine how many 55 gal drums that would be - leaking in a warehouse or being spilled onto pristine beach or floating in a hundreds of miles of open ocean. Wake me up the first time a solar panel or a EV battery fouls a beach for the next 20 years.
Hooray a very notable person on our side, I but we won't see Rowan on the BBC
To add more salt to the wound, An Electrical Engineer feels DUPED by ELECTRICAL VEHICLE.
Hi Geoff , now if you could get an interview with Rowen that would be a vid I would pay to watch . He is also bang on with free speech to .
Have been a huge fan of Rowan from his Not The Nine o' Clock News days. He speak so much intelligent sense. I've always said the same - keeping older, good order cars on the roads is far less polluting and not the CO2 monsters that green agenda want us to believe. Great video Geoff
The "green agenda", whatever and whoever you think that is, does NOT want you to buy a massive new CO2 monster car every couple of years, whether it's EV or ICE. This is Rowan Atkinson's point, not an anti-environmentalist one.
Thei air is so much cleaner in the cities in Norway after alot of people have changed to EV now.
Intelligence doesn't make you an expert in all fields. His views are extremely uneducated. Batteries are recyclable, one company is even making conversion kits for ICE fiat 500s. We need to rethink transport for sure, so EVs are not a panacea, but we absolutely must stop burning stuff. NOW.
@@stighaaland5357 The air may be cleaner in Norway but the polution caused during the production of the EV's/batteries is left behind for the people of China to condend with. EV's may be good options for our local enviroments but they are not good for the planet as a whole, we are simply exporting our pollution to another country!
@@11235but the answer is "no", because even the people who do the recycling projects admit it's much "easier" to make a new one,it's in the same situation with solar panel
I live in the same village as Rowan and I see him driving a little vw polo 90% of the time. Very sensible with the narrow rough roads and very economical.
I think a better way to reduce pollution would be to limit households to 2 cars, Instead of 3 or 4 or more like there are today ....
I've been shouting this from the roof tops for so long the greens are creating huge problems for the environment, thanks for bringing this 👍
Unfortunately it’s not about doing anything that “benefits” our environment, but rather status seeking virtue signalling by the wealthy, who have the bonus of forcing the peasants back to walking…..
??? 🤡
Does your shouting involve going on about lithium? How's your mobile phone powered. Lithium mining was driven by mobile phones
Kudos for reading exactly what is displayed. It's annoying when people have one thing on the screen & are saying something else. I always have to pause to read it, making it a jolting & frustrating experience. Also, interesting & poignant article & your car is in great shape. Double kudos for it being a manual. I’ll definitely watch your video on the F1. Best car ever made & the one car I would “marry”.
Watch a video on running an F1 and the sheer cost of doing so even if it never moves, and you’ll change your mind!
@@fatfreddyscoat7564 Cost of marrying.
The fuel density of batteries is the big problem for plant machinery and large agricultural machines. JCB made a 20 t excavator that required 8000kg of batteries which gave only about 5 to 6 hours use. John Deere tractors came up against the same problem but then built a computerised electric cable system and just plugged it into the convenient wall outlet at the edge of the field….this is not a joke by the way👍😋
Surely we could do the same with aeroplanes, they just need a long extension lead 😂
@@bigjd2k well done!!!!…I can’t see any problems with that at all… and then of course there’s cable operated tanks for environmentally friendly carbon neutral warfare…on a foggy day of war how could you possibly find them with those whisper quiet motors….
Both volume and mass of batteries decrease with each year so those problems will solve themselves with time. If we take Tesla Semi as an example, it offers moving 80 thousands LBS at the distance of 500 miles and the batteries are estimated to be below 1 MWh which would make it at most 10 times bigger than Model S battery so it would be about 5 tonnes. And this will only improve with time, as it has been doing for years now.
@@bigjd2kLMFHO brilliant comment 😂
Electric is great for vehicles that can be plugged in all the time like trains or trams.
My thoughts exactly every morning I get into my 2003 Jaguar S-type and drive to work. The car does everything I need and still looks great. I will drive my Jaguar for another 10 years here in the States.
I had a 230E Merc for 21 years and a Toyota Hilux for 17 years and sold both in working order. Currently I have a 16 y/0 Honda and a 17 y/o Toyota which are in good working order and requiring little expenditure other than normal servicing and fuel. The engines in all are easily recycled because they made of metals whereas batteries are more costly to recycle and leave a lot of non-recyclable waste.
I agree with RA there are less polluting alternatives without scrapping ICE vehicles.
Growing up in New Zealand , in the 50's and 60's not many could afford a new car. We kept them going for 20 - 30 years no problem. My first car in 1966 , was a little 1938 Ford 8. That was 8 HP not 8 cylinders. Previously owned by a mechanic , it was in great shape.
I still have my granfathers and my father's 73 and 74 Ford F series. Till 4 years ago they were still on road. My current ones are a 2001 Chevy 1500 with 350000 miles that is just our farm use now and a 2001 suvaru legacy.
I remember my Dad buying a new Standard 10 in the late 1950's. The "10" also referred to the hp. Great little car. Regular journeys Nairobi to Mombasa return.
In the 50's and 60's the problem was less to do with the cost of a new car but the governments import controls restricting the number made here.And in those days cars had to be imported in parts and assembled here. Unless you had a source of overseas funds for the deposit it was very difficult to get on the waiting list.Dealers used to give priority to people like farmers who might also buy a tractor from them -it was all very unfair.I bought a new Ford Anglia with overseas funds in 1964 and sold it for the same price in 1967 when I went overseas. The system kept the price artificially high .
But the first car I bought in NZ was 1961 a !955 model Austin ute but it was a rust bucket 2 years later .
We could make our cars last 30 years if we wanted to. We just decided people need to change instead of fixing their car.
Yep, in NZ my first car was my grand fathers car...which when he died became my fathers car...which when I turned 15 became my car.
......50 years later my current car is a 30 year old Nissan Patrol. Will most probably still be going come the Zombie apocalypse
The crime is also putting that behind a paywall. Rowan should publish that everywhere.
The article was also in the Guardian which is not behind a paywall.
It's not behind a paywall.. it's a Guardian article, not Telegraph; Geoff got it wrong.
@@petesmitt great!
@@nekite1 and it was debunked within weeks
EVs were always a scam. Not the concept or idea, but the execution. Just like an undercooked chicken, it could have done with an extra 10 more minutes in the oven. Who knew. Oh wait, everyone who wasn't trying to greenwash things.
So spot on! I always keep my cars a minimum of 5 years and look after them. Car 1 was my dad's Renault 11 hand me down. Loved it. Car 2 was a second hand TVR 350i. Had both 5 years. Car 3 was an e30 BMW 318 (rubbish so sold it quickly). Then I replaced the TVR with a Caterham 7, which I had about 5 years. Eventually I bought a new Leon Cupra R in 2002... I had that 14 years and did 180k on it. Then I bought a mk2 Leon Cupra. Had it for 6 years. Now I'm 49 and recently bought a low mileage 2018 Leon Cupra 300. 300bhp. Amazing to drive and on a long run on a light throttle, I get 47mpg!!!!!! Wow!
Bring on synthetic fuels and down with the awful EV abomination.
And more driving pleasure than a soulless EV. Win Win
They should let people pick their mind petrol, hybrid, diesel, EV
back in the day, the same whining was heard when horses & carriages are being prohibited from using highways & major streets, to give way for the new king of the road - the petrol cars.
Fast forward to the future, No matter how much youve become inlove with intenal combustion vehicles, the times are changing (again). And theres no stopping it. EVs are here to stay.
@loydireyes5054 I was just thinking the other day that weird EVers keep saying this. It's a rubbish comparison. It's more like the difference between a shire horse and cart and normal horse and cart.
It's nothing like the difference between horse and cart and petrol car! That makes EVs sound like some wonderful new invention, which they most certainly ARE NOT.
In fact, they tried EVs back then and realised they were rubbish, even then.
EVs are dying a slow death that is speeding up day by day. The more people realise they are excrement, the more people don't buy them.
There is not one single good reason to buy an EV.
Mark my words, and remember I said this: 10 years from now, in 2034, EVs would have died a death a long time ago.
Look into it. People are even developing combustion engines that run on water now, and also hydrogen combustion engines, not to mention synthetic fuel.
Anything is better than a car powered by a BATTERY!
The battery power is the issue.
@@alivekicking6247 thank you for the heads up. honestly, im not too sure if we are still here in 10 yrs time :) i mean i do pray for your health & mine.
if battery is the problem, well, theres an infinite ways to kill a cat, or to address the issue. the main idea here is to move away from oil cartel & combusting fossil fuel. maybe at the very least we can have a combustion engine of hydrogen but not directly connected to the drive train, instead it charges a smaller battery pack (just an example).
the100+ yr old technology of combustion engine directly pushing the drive train is inefficient & obsolete. and more than 3/4 of the cars functionality is already electric! therefore electric motors powering the wheels torque is the way to go.
of course you can keep your beloved ice vehicles to your hearts content. after all its a free world.
私は日本人です。TOYOTAの方向性は世界中には認められていないというような報道が日本国内では横行していますが、海外の著名人がこういった方向性で賛同を示してくれることを快く、とてもありがたいと思っています。Mr.Atkinsonさんとともにチャンネル運営されているGeoff Buys Carsさんに感謝をささげます。
He makes a lot of great points and hopefully more people besides yourself share it to help inform everyone.
First video of your I’ve seen, I’ll check out the F1 videos later I’m a sucker for anything F1 related, it’s my wet dream car.
ewww.....
Excellent video Geoff !!! When I retired I bought myself a new petrol car with the idea that it could well be my last. That car is now six years old and has just passed 24k miles. I live in a village with no off street parking so could no charge an EV if I wanted to. I would really like to know what governments would do if we all went over to electric - where would they recover the lost revenue from petrol and diesel - scarey thought !!!
Even if it happens there still going to bill you by the mile
And that's the 3rd video that was filmed today...
I'd sooner get billed by the mile than have to pay £300 VED for a project car I do maybe 100 miles a year in. Seems the fairest solution to bill based on usage - seems like a no brainer to add a little bit to fuel. But then again, that would cost them some revenue from people like me...
Cashcow.
@@BlackLines You think that until the cost per mile increases to more than it costs to take a taxi. Government need a new fleet of armoured NON ULEZ compliant RangeRovers and Limo's because the old ones are getting dirty.. Lets double the cost per mile to pay for those and let's forget to drop the price once the vehicles are paid for? Of course those that fix the costs will be exempt from paying them.
@@BlackLines you're correct that a VED replacement that bills on usage would be far fairer than the current system where an old ICE car incurs a high cost, even if it's barely used, and a new highly-used 'efficient' car is barely charged, despite emitting tyre particulates still, wearing the road (batteries are heavier, but lorries still do the majority of damage). There can still be an emissions multiplier on the per-mile usage.
In my opinion, a lot of people get tired of their cars after a while, because to most people, they're just something to get from A to B, and they happened to like their car more than other ones at time of purchase (maybe a better price, or better design). After they have it for a while, they just simply get tired of it, and when the repairs make an appearance, they decide that rather than fixing their suspension or sinking over a grand into repairing the engines, they'd rather use that repair money for a down payment and get something newer and shinier and looks more modern.
My solution: find something in your budget that you can get passionate about and will want to keep for ages. Obviously that only really works if you're an auto enthusiast to begin with.
I agree. Decide in your teens if you like a VW or a Subaru or Toyota, buy a car and stick with it for life.
i got rid of cars and love riding a motorcycle
You are singing my song friend! I have owned 3 cars in my life, all were Mustangs. My current steed is 10 years old and taken care of. I'll drive it until the wheels fall off, then put the wheels back on and drive it further!
I purchased my car, an MX-5, in 2003. Hoping to keep it for another 20 years.
Brilliant. I would agree with every word. I've had the same car for more than a decade and it is still excellent, reliable and hugely enjoyable to use. So to Rowan and your good self I send a huge 👍👍
He is infact totally wrong..
@@tatradak9781 assume you own an EV?
Thank you for trying to do the right thing but synthetic fuel now means we don’t need to manufacture 1.5billion new cars so although your white elephant EV won’t be worth much in the future that is the price one pays for being an early adopter of new technology sometimes.
@@sultanoftippoo3857synthetic fuel hahhaha you honestly haven't got a clue.. Don't worry about the facts as it will hurt your brain.. Just troll away to your hearts content. SAD
Thanks again Geoff for this and all your other videos - common sense
Totally agree with the article and your views. One of the main issues with the approach is that manufacturers are not encouraged to build vehicles designed to last - any thoughts how we might change that?
I drive a 57-plate Merc A150 and today its still going strong, and I haven't bought a 'new' car since the early 90s and I have no regrets, I still have had good, fun cars. So you are right, its a 'fashion accessory' discussion.
If they don’t design EVs to last, why does they give 8 years warranty on them? Never bought an ICE car with that.
In Japan they are designed for a 3 year life and recycling. With the right spares back up a 20 plus year life is possible.
There are plenty of second hand EVs on the road too you know.
‘They’ don’t want to consider any other things because that’s not the end game- the end game is to electrify everything- that’s the route to direct control - that’s why gas and oil etc are on the hit list because you can’t ’switch’ off remotely a gas/ oil ch home or a petrol/diesel car- price the public out of the cars and those that are left can be controlled from a distance in those battery powered cars- remove gas/oil ch from homes and impose electric heating only and hey presto, it becomes controllable remotely.
I am surprised that the car manufacturers aren’t pushing back harder because ultimately, if the powers that shouldn’t be get their way, their industry will be over🤷♀️
And here I am, as a degreed electrical engineer, designing and programming machine automation systems, just now learning that Mr Bean is not only funnier than I am, but he could also take my job. Time to start upping my game.
Quite right about keeping cars longer. I've got a 7 year old Fiat 500C, about 35k on the clock. 3 years ago I thought about replacing it and had worked out most of a PX deal with a local dealer.
Then I looked at it and thought, what am I getting, apart from a newer plate and minor tweaks, colour, slightly different dials and lights etc, and decided, well, what's the point (It also has the grandfathered ultra cheap Road tax). It let me down for the first time about a month ago - not a major fault.
Until it actually becomes a problem I doubt I'll change it.
And it won't - become a problem. In fact the opposite. Your car is fixable, more and more modern cars aren't. I hear that fuel injectors for some newer BMW cars are upwards of £560 EACH injector. Then there's the electronics 🤦♂️
Bravo.
My daily around the town car is a 51 year old Ford Courier pickup (made by Mazda). It has been meticulously maintained and with a very well tuned aftermarket Weber carburetor I average 23 mpg.
That is one of the best videos as far as common sense that I have ever watched on UA-cam. Great reading and breakdown mate👍🏻 expat in the US but same policies with both countries all in all and also applicable to the UK and US.
Over 20 years ago I worked on the production line at ERF Sandbach fitting electronics to trucks with Detriot engines that were fuelled from hydrogen cylinders. They were being built for a supermarket chain as they avoided the congestion charge.
I often wonder what happened to them.
they probably were boiught and shut down by Conoco... I have seen it in a similar case 25 years ago.
I elect that they couldn't make Hydrogen cheap enough or in sufficient quantity?
The expensive, complex fuel tanks become unsafe after a few years (around five years or so) and have to be replaced, which is also very labor intensive, because the tanks are shielded from the outside world and impacts inside the vehicle structure itself. Hydrogen atoms are incredibly small, and infiltrate and compromise the molecular structure of the tanks. Hydrogen is not going to be the answer because of this problem alone.
@@joelcarson4602 these trucks used a rack of standard BOC gas cylinders mounted behind the cab. No refueling station required, the prime mover just sent to. BOC depot and swapped bottles.
Couldn't do that in a car, there isn't the height to stand up a bottle and you can't lay them down and use them.
Bit like an West Australian plumber, who are normally identified by the oxygen and acetylene bottles strapped to there back of their Ute cab.
Great video! I knew Rowan was into cars, but didn't know he had a degree in electrical engineering. I had the same vehicle for the last 20 years. A 2003 Toyota Tundra pickup truck. I recently had to buy a new car for a few reasons. One was that my mechanic told me it just passed inspection this year, but wouldn't next year due to corrosion in the frame. The other was it started leaking oil out of the rear differential case. Toyota designed it with a welded on differential cover, instead of making them removable by being bolted on. Therefore the cost to fix it is far more than the worth of the truck. Still, I can't complain, considering it's got 275,000 miles on it and the engine still runs strong. My new truck is a 2023 Honda Ridgeline. I love the truck, but it's got too much electronic nonsense in it that is useless and so I turned it off.
Try changing the diff oil and adding a rubber seal rejuvenating liquid like ATP-AT205 Re-Seal. A very cheap option and could work.
same here, ran toyota hulux for 23years no issues, but getting a bit rusty so just got a diesel Landcruiser which should see me out...
@@Landfill-703 my mechanic drained the diff oil and attempted to seal the leak with JB Weld. It worked for a few months, but then started leaking again.
@@kenhanson1819 if it’s still possible to do Ken I’d try ATP-AT205, it’s regarded as the best, unless we’re too late and the vehicle has gone and/or the seals were beyond saving ? When I do gearbox, diffs, transfer boxes oil change, (still to add to an engine ), I add the recommended amount to catch the tired rubber seals 'before' they leak.
@@Landfill-703 it's not the seals that are leaking. It's the metal differential cover, which has corroded over the last 20 years to the point that small pinholes developed and oil is leaking out. Since the cover is welded on at the factory, it's not removeable or replaceable. Bad idea on Toyota's part.
Some PR company will release an article that totally debunks that one and it will get a hundred times more exposure that what we’re up shainst
Rowan Atkinson is an extremely intelligent man and should be listened to, given his academic qualifications and excellent knowledge of Motor Cars. BTW, I'm sure that the motor manufacturers, and money hungry car sales industry, play on the pathetic EGOs of people who want to be seen with 'the latest model' , which also goes for smart phones, laptops, etc. etc. All driven [excuse the pun] by afraid of being seen as less 'successful' financially than their neighbours, "THE JONESES"!
In the IT industry, we refer to extending the life of equipment as 'sweating assets'. Best thing ever.
Id like to see cars that can be upgraded, swapping of brake systems, engine upgrades, software and sensor packages, a modular design car would enable us to upgrade and keep cars relevant for longer. this will enable to keep the car and update it to suit the current tech
thios is already possible with many popular car brands as they have a huge aftermarket one being LS vehicles as you can always swap a older or new ls type engine in it incuding the very brand new ultra eco type engines. plus put in your own super charger or turbo etc diffrent bodystyles as you can change the body kit to whatever the hell you want.
@@TAKIZAWAYAMASHITA That's fine for individual cases and car enthusiasts, but i am talking more of a wide spread industry adoption that can make it easy for non car enthusiasts or every day people to be able to purchase an off the shelf upgrade and have it professionally installed, just as if you were to upgrade a PC with a new graphics card, we do not need to throw out the whole PC to get better graphics.
@@DeanBateman Thats technically already available just not by the manufacturer
@@TAKIZAWAYAMASHITA it probably is already available but not offically supported, companies like audi, vw, skoda share the same parts so why cant they offically be made available to allow for cars to be used for longer as well as been safer and more fuel efficient. at the moment if you were to upgrade the infotainment system in a golf, you need to research the hardware, then turn on features in the software (coding) this is all out of reach for the everyday person. but i agree it is very much do able currently hence why dont they make it a feature, it is a lot more sustainable for the planet.
It's a good idea but that puts huge onus on the manufacturers to do full risk management on all the possible interactions of multiple various systems including making the vehicle's software management systems cross-conpatible for all the options. They may have to try and prove all the various combinations through crash/safety testing etc. I suspect it's just way more effort than manufacturers will likely see a return for.
GREAT video, all makes sense. Some common sense for a change in the EV universe. Thank you! Cheers from Sydney Australia.
even though I agree with a number of things in your report ( i drive a 9 yr old focus) the volvo article has been de bunked , among a number of problems in the report one thing was it did not take into account the refining of petrol/diesel.
my first and only banger I bought back in the day when I got my license is an 18 year old civic (2005) and it flies through the MOT. treat it right with a regular service and get the big items done when needed (timing belt etc..). the thing is so reliable, especially considering 2nd hand car prices are going up, I'm really considering a refurbish rather then getting a replacement. will get a price first ofc and if reasonable I may consider it or just run her into the ground as they used to say 🤣
if you keep it - you'll be running it for a veeeeeeeery long time.. I brought a (rough) Skoda 18 mth ago for £1250 - it's THE most loaded car I've had - just done 5233kms around Europe in it (inc thrashing up the Alps) no problems and just less than £400 in fuel
Something to note with JCB; not only have they come up with a hydrogen ICE, but they can convert any existing diesel vehicle to hydrogen in just a couple of days. Their hydrogen engine uses a regular diesel bottom end, and JCB put their hydrogen head on it. I saw a video where they took a 12.5t truck and converted it.
Hydrogen has a very long way to go before it can be considered a viable alternative to fossil fuels. A very, very long way. ua-cam.com/video/egTCIyNBpQw/v-deo.html
The head conversion basically lowers the compression ratio and has a spark plug in place of an injector, kinda sounds like a petrol engine that we used to convert to LPG, could our petrol engines be converted?, now there a thought!!.
Hydrogen is stupid for so many reasons , do look it up
problem with Hydrogen is Iridium and Platinum.
It is also highly inefficient.
@@SRB28 Problem with Lithium and Cobalt is that you have to destroy the ecology of the planet, to make the environment clean. Ironic or just plain stupid? Anyway, the whole green thing is a complete money making gimmick and only a certain percentage of the global population will ever benefit financially. As for Third World Countries, well it is hardly going to do anything for them as a good 3 billion don’t have a decent means to cook their food let alone buy an electric car. Never mind, we can always revert to slaughtering every animal on the planet which burps and farts its way through life. That should cure the problem eh?
Things I hadn't considered. Thanks for the information. Keeping cars (and anything we use) longer, is always a great idea. Maintenance, not replacement. 🙂
Clearly you also havent considered the fact that people actually sell their old cars to someone else when they buy a new one. Its not about keeping a car for as long as possible, its about buying the most efficient vehicle for your budget and use.
That's the James May philosophy, it's a pretty good one.
It will be hard to stop the consumerism lifestyle of those with the money for new cars every 3 years. But in really if they have the money let them keep subsidizing the used market so the rest of us have cheaper options in the future.
If you want to help the environment and longer lifecycles then get behind right to repair.
Yes, but they continue to pollute from the exhaust. There are two levels of pollution global and local. Much of the focus is in local pollution in cities and towns (NOX) and keeping a car for longer doesn't solve this issue.
It's all not as bad it sounds.
The funny part is, EVs will last longer, because they have a lot less moving parts. Only the battery will be replaced and the old battery reused for other purposes.
Rowan Atkinson is awesome. This is as you say a very sensible common sense approach, I wouldn't expect any less from him. Good report Geoff
Geoff my car is a 1995 Diesel Mercedes 220. It is cleaner than all the modern Diesels I've had on the MOT check. It paid it's carbon footprint off years ago. Phil from Droitwich
How can an ICE vehicle "pay off" a carbon footprint, if it emits more carbon every time you drive it?
@@benhockley Because around half of the carbon footprint is during production, The rest is from driving it, so the more you drive it the lower the percentage is from actually making the car in the first place. for example, if my car takes 50 tonnes of carbon footprint to make, and makes 5 tonnes a year driving it, in 10 years your at 50/50 emission from driving it, then you buy another car, which is another 50 tonnes used. Keep the car for 20 years Ive produced 100 tonnes of emmisions, so its now 33/66 emissions, and the making of the car has less of an effect, and also Ive not added another 50 tonnes of making another car in that timeframe.
@@sneekeruk
Regardless, you cannot “pay back” the carbon footprint. At no point will an ice ever go into reverse emissions and neither will an ev ever “pay back” the production footprint.
@@benhockley Well if you replace that old car with a brand new electric you will then own something that has already produced an enormous carbon footprint, whilst driving the old car will just release small amounts every year compared. New electric cars are not the best quality, loads of problems with all sorts of things, the result is that no one can probably afford to keep them going once the warranty is out. Resulting in a very short lifecycle, most batteries will have died within 10 years which is quit bad as producing a new battery will release a huge carbon footprint once again, I could go on.
@@truxton1000 Yeah, you could go on, as you've clearly missed my point and have driven off a cliff.
My four year old car is electric, with 45,000km, and no battery or mechanical issues, and it paid off its slightly higher carbon footprint ages ago, and will continue to do so as I'm fortunate my rental has solar.
If only more people knew the actual facts about electric car production 🤦♂️. Great video content 👍👍
Shame the article doesn't have any facts in it.
And wind turbines. To make those, cost more on the environment than they will ever help.
Making bio-ethanol using algae that feeds of co2 and lives in big lakes still needs the product to be refined in expensive and complex facilities.
Plus burning the fuels still produce harmful gases and bio-ethanol has 30% less energy density than petrol so you need to burn 30% more to do the same miles
If they knew, they would know that it isn't perfect, but definitely LESS worse.
Look at the research done by e.g. Auke Hoekstra, director of energy transition research at the Eindhoven University of Technology. In a paper published in 2020, Mr. Hoekstra writes that batteries will most likely last more than 500,000 kilometers, or 310,000 miles; that research shows gasoline and diesel pollute more than previously thought; and that the energy needed to create batteries has already declined while electricity production from renewable sources is growing.
Atkinson is wrong
If an EV is run on electricity from renewable sources the total emissions over its lifetime is a fraction of an ICE one.
EG www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths
Synthetic fuel, if it ever happens, will be very expensive and inefficient
Great article with good advice, thanks for sharing, it’s something I’d probably never see without you help 👍
I have an 8yr old 330d, brilliant motor, think I’ll hang onto it a few years yet after listening to this 👍🏼
Mr. Atkinson makes perfect sense, he's a true car guy but sadly underrated.
He didn't dare call a spade a spade though, even though he alluded to it: "environmentalism" is a grift.
He makes perfect sense, except on two points. 1) hydrogen is a dead end. It has very low energy density (poor range) and is very polluting to make. Also very hard to keep it inside tanks and pipes. Synthetic petrol or simply ethanol or methanol or methane make much more sense -- as long as we don't make then from FOOD. 2) while it is indeed a stupid financial decision for the first owner of a car to sell it after two or three years, this has *zero* effect on the environment, as long as SOMEONE buys and uses that car rather than scrapping it. I usually buy cars with 80,000 to 100,000 km on them and keep them for 150,000 to 200,000 more km. I tend to buy motorcycles new, but I've owned my current road/touring bike since October 2015 (almost 28 years) and it's done 130,000 km.
@@BruceHoult I'm not an expert on hydrogen by any means, but I think there are many reasons to keep exploring and engineering in that segment. About your second point, it does make sense IF people keep the cars they buy for longer, and not replace it with a newer one. The 3yr lease model makes for a high turnover, which leads to high production numbers because of demand. If the demand would slow down (people keeping their cars longer), production numbers would slow down and with it all the pollution it creates for the manufacturing of said cars. But people can twist and turn it as they like, fact is that all these insane regulations only affect the western world. Our older cars will still go to 3rd world countries who don't care about pollution. We slow down while they ramp up. Same with energy. The western world is doomed to go full electric because it's a feel good thing, yet we can't even supply the electricity needed to power all this. Same people who want to go green are also against nuclear power plants. So again, we reduce pollution, while we purchase energy from other countries, who in order to meet the demand have to ramp up production, and with it -> pollution. Makes no sense to me, there's got to be a common-sense middle ground here. But too many politicians, and a handful of select businesspeople, are becoming too wealthy by implementing such nonsensical rules and regulations, so be prepared to hear about it for longer.
Thank you for this contribution which adds a great deal of clarity to the debate. For myself I'm keeping my 27 year old 190,000 miles, Audi Tdi for now - it does about 2000 miles a year and is remarkably corrosion resistance. I had already figured out that there are many evil things about lithium batteries - such as they catch fire, - and I didn;t know the carbon cost of making them. Recently I have been thinking a lot about the carbon cost of making things in relation to the carbon cost in use. Car manufacturers do not divulge the carbon content of new car manufacturing. Until quite recently most of our electricity in the UK has been made from gas turbines when the wind isn't blowing (See Drax Electric Insights). Rowan Atkinson has spent a bit more time than myself looking into the engineering and has better academic qualifications but we both have degrees in Electrical & Electronic Engineering. Hydrogen from renewables seems like a better alternative than lithium batteries if it can be stored safely. There needs to be a profitable industry in keeping things sustainable - car repairers get some of my money.
@davebarrett5168 Sadly, it is the problem storing it. Either at super high pressure or at super low temperatures, it just wants to get out and so tanks have to vent or blow.
Venting in an underground garage or the EuroTunnel could be the next disaster to kill hundreds.
Did you know that liquid hydrogen is so cold the fuel pumps last about 4 hours. If only hydrogen wasn't such a sneaky little molecule and could be controlled.
Carbon capture i.e. cleaning up the mess we have made is too expensive for even the Green party so all politicians don't want to go there.
Re: the carbon cost of making things in relation to the carbon cost in use.
The emissions of manufacturing EVs is higher than manufacturing an ICE, but once they leave the factory, an ICE catches up rather quickly - within 1-4 years (depending on the EVs electricity source). After that point, the only emissions the EV makes are from whatever the grid makes (which are small), and the ICE continues to accumulate tailpipe emissions for the rest of its life. (And if you want to count EVs battery minerals & grid emissions, you should probably also count emissions from oil drilling, refinement, and transportation toward to ICE) That would seem to indicate that every ICE is only "cleaner" than the EV for at most the first 1-4 years of its life, and every ICE vehicle older than 1-4 years is a net polluter vs the EV and should be taken off the road as soon as possible, would it not?
I say grid emissions are small, because even if the grid is powered by gas turbines which run on the same fossil fuel as the ICE car, those giant turbines can run at peak efficiency 24/7, whereas the ICE car is jumping up and down the rev range all day, shutting off and restarting, and rarely hitting the sweet spot. And over time, the grid gets cleaner. Coal plants get decommissioned and replaced by gas generators, or even solar and wind. 10 years ago, an EV may have got most of its charge from a grid powered mostly by oil & gas, but now a good portion of that electricity comes from wind or sunlight, and in another 10 years, maybe all of it.
I think that's what a lot of people don't realize when they say "But I've been driving this car for 10 years! how can that be wasteful?". And I don't blame them, it's just not what people are used to thinking about. Most of ICE emissions simply come from driving it. Sure, keeping it for a long time saves some metal from the scrapyard or recycling plant, but it's still pumping out exhaust every time you drive to work, the same as a new ICE would. The engine doesn't care that it's 10, 20 years old - it still runs on the same petrol.
@@jiraph52 Yes and no. Some people put the EV environmental break even at 60,000 miles.
In countries with 100% wind/solar energy that may be lower but Australia and US are not good on non-fossil grid energy and UK is half-ish.
An EV makes most sense in a city where driving high mileages is difficult when the average is 6-8mpg.
The point is how long does it take to get to 60,000?
My usage would take 17 years long after the a battery warranty has ended and probably long after it retains meaningful charge.
Yes some people do still drive 20,000 miles a year but the question is why when it is clearly so bad for the environment?
@@robi4387 Who puts it at 60,000 miles? Are you sure that's not km? Pretty much every reputable source I can find puts it at half that or less: 30k, 20k, even 15-16k miles. Of course, it does depend on the size of the vehicle/battery. An ID.3 will break even much earlier than a Hummer EV.
The average yearly mileage in the US is around 14,000 miles (it was even higher pre-pandemic). Even at such a high break-even point of 60,000 miles, that's just over 4 years. If the break-even is 30,000, that's only 2 years.
In the UK, the average mileage is less than half that, around 6,500 per year. You'd reach 60,000 in about 9 years, and 30,000 in less than 5.
If you personally are only driving 3,500 miles/year, you're significantly below the average and you'd probably be better off with a plug-in hybrid that you could use in pure EV for most short trips if that's all you do.
The UK is pretty small, so I'd say it's fair to measure its grid as one, but the US, Australia, Canada, etc. are very large countries and the energy mix within varies enormously from state to state. Washington's grid is 84% renewable, meanwhile West Virginia runs on 80% coal. My "local" grid is 95% renewable.
It's extremely varied, and it's disturbing to me to see so many people talking as though it's one and done, EVs are bad in every way for every person in every situation, when in reality it really is a net benefit for the average person, and probably even for most people.
An EV may not be a good fit for you in your situation, but I think it's really harmful to make out as if EVs are the devil and complete trash, and to try and dissuade other people from even considering them (not that you specifically have done this, but some of the other comments here on Geoff's channel are awful).
@@jiraph52 A man with a whiteboard and US marker pens so DEFO WAS MILES. Every credible source - oh do share!
The problem I have with EV protagonists is their religious almost cult like message that EV is the new way and that ICE is the very devil.
So to say that to make out EVs are the very devil and then say 'not that you do' fits nicely.
Indeed, the level of critical reasoning on UA-cam is not as high as in a pub on Friday evening, but folks are entitled to opinions in pubs and on UA-cam. IT is just that people in pubs seem more open to reason and seeing the other person's point of view.
What I object to is being deprived of choice and facing disproportionate taxation. I also object to our wet behind the ears PM Rishi Sunak sitting down with people who think AI will mean humans won't have to work. Mega corps won't make battery cars for free and won't pay plebs to sit on their A's. Nor will AI feed the sick in hospital or wipe their B's in the community or teach our kids.
EVs are a panacea for some people.
We just haven't realised what problems they will bring. We know the problems burning fossils fuels but won't clean up the air or drive less - selfish lot aren't we.
Not cleaning up after all the coal, oil and gas burnt is like saying we'll leave the garbage on the streets.
Finally, whilst every one seems agreed that burning fossil fuels will turn the world in to Mars 2.0, has anyone paused to wonder where all the carbon in all the coal, oil and gas was before it got embedded in the earth?
Yep, it was in the atmosphere as CO2.
Great video Geoff and what an article from Rowan Atkinson 👍🏻
Personally a EV wouldn’t work for myself so not even a option and if a change is to made I’m screaming out for synthetic fuels.
Synthetic fuels are good to go now you can even purchase it although currently limited in supply and costly at around £10 a litre, companies like P1 Fuels have even said if the market and investment was there they could upscale manufacture, reduce costs in line with fossil fuels but currently the market or push from governments isn’t there, can even be put into regular petrol stations without any additional alterations to the tanks or pumps and I’m sure it would even help with the dependency issues with other countries like Russia for oil, studies although limited have even shown that it increases the life of an engine because it’s cleaner and we’ve developed the combustion engine to such efficiency over the last century that you’d need little of it.
Hi,
I'm just wondering, why wouldn't an EV work for you? I'm trying to come up with scenarios in which an EV is a definite no go.
Thanks,,
F
Sorry - synthetic fuels are not going to work. Good expalanation on YT from fully charged.
ua-cam.com/video/egTCIyNBpQw/v-deo.html
Lets not forget, if a truly viable EV design is ever found, the big oil companies will fight it tooth and nail, they will not go down easy, it would be just as hard as banning cigarettes. One of my biggest gripes is having my freedom of choice removed by over reaching government
It's not about the environment, it's all about money (us, spending it).
yup climate change is a scam to shift money about
It has A LOT to do with the environment, how does it only have to do with money??
@@celtics2008champs1 Please wake up, you are in a dream.
And control. They can easily control the electric grid down to individual houses. Electric cars have a limited range before needing charging overnight. Great for a control-hungry government who doesn't like the idea of its serfs having the ability to travel without their permission.
@@celtics2008champs1 if it wasn't about money why is there no basic no frills electric car made with a cheap price tag. Like under 10 k. I'm not gonna count quadracycle citroeon ami 8.a useful family hatchback I'm thinking. Thanx for the like. UA-cam not shown it.
That’s why I want my old Merc C250TD to survive!
Excellent video! I have kept my BMW for 20 years but only because I can make my own repairs. High repairs costs push people to trade in for a new car. I have considered the Tesla Y as my next car but this article does make some good points.
Same. I love my BMW. Nothing like it anymore. And just for weekend trips it's perfect. I tried to sell it but people are interested in huge SUVs which are inexplicably HYBRID or electric mincars. Sensible sedans are out. Nope! People want a " crossover " (aka a car that can do nothing well) which has 20 inch wide door panels so the outside looks big, tons of electronic features you'll only use once before it breaks just after warranty, etc..
@@captainLoknar I moved to the UK not long ago and picked up a great 1 Series for £1400! It's great, runs very well, and with the back seats down I can load my downhill bike in the back and go anywhere in the country. My bike cost 6x what the car is worth, but that's pretty typical for this hobby! Nice bike, cheap car :)
@@----.__ exactly the same. I can put two bikes in my 335i and it's a real struggle on "bigger" new cars because the boot opening is ridiculous and other details are missed. I listed 15 things I like about my BMW.
But I'm also moving to a right-driving country so my canadian car is not practical here. Can't find any buyers like you except for less than 7000$ although I put 20,000$ on it. A lot of private used cars are a great deal. Usually people selling them because they want an EV lol
@@captainLoknar 335i's are great cars, you'll be sad to see it go no doubt. My last two cars have been ridiculously cheep and I've never been happier. I had a 60k car in Australia and I used to stress every time I went shopping, but with a £1400 car I really don't care what happens to it. It's a freedom I never expected, and I highly recommend it. I had a Jag as my last cheap car and gave it to my cousin when they fell on hard times. I don't think I'll ever spend more than 5k on a car again if I can help it, I'd much rather put the money in to property. Nice to meet you mate, have a great weekend coming up.
Have a test drive in an i4. It’s a terrific car. It drives beautifully, has astonishing acceleration and this summer I’m getting over 300 miles of range on long trips.
Always had older cars and looked after them, I think if you’re a ‘car’ person and understand them you don’t get scared of maintaining them, but most people just buy a new one because they don’t understand cars, I knew a girl who traded her car in every time something needed doing and lost thousands rather than just replacing a £200 part 😢