Diesel & petrol alternatives? Your thoughts please

That's probably down to the hot air generated on this site. 

Boff - Our son's Passat was within the group of vehicles which fell foul of the law, and I do know that his car was recalled for "rectification".    The cheating you refer to is old news, and has nothing to do with later developments. Ad Blue has nothing to do with actual emission levels - it simply converts poisonous gases into harmless ones.

I only mentioned Ad Blue because that is one of the most recent technological improvements in the quest for still cleaner diesels.  Ad Blue was not introduced to repair the damage caused by the cheating behaviour, and was not around (as far as I know) when our son's Passat was built.

We are all aware that worn-out/badly maintained engines will always produce harmful exhaust gases, which is why the MoT test was tightened to apply stricter control on emissions. 

Cheating is not that old news Fiat Chrysler were fine $800 million last week.   VW were the ones that were caught cheating and they have admitted it.  But unfortunately if you look at testing results VW engines in real world conditions don’t seem to any worse tHan any other make.  Draw your own conclusions!    

SCR catalyst (AdBlue) do have the potential to reduce harmful emissions by turning NOx into Nitrogen and water. As the atmosphere is 80% Nitrogen this isn’t  going to harm anything.  I wouldn’t describe that process as nothing to do with reducing emissions,  doesn’t reduce CO2    problem is on a lot of passenger cars the systems were manipulated to reduce AdBlue consumption.   Leading to the rediculous situation were your Passat could be more polluting than the 38tonne truck sitting next to you at the traffic lights.  

The real problem is buyers have lost faith in the makers, therefore  people aren’t buying Diesel engined vechicles that might have perfectly acceptable emission levels. 

As far as I can see electric cars with a towing capacity will not be a problem as science increases their range and power. Tessla already have one that can tow, although with a fairly short range, but this will improve. What needs to be overcome is the refueling problem.

As I understand it a motorway services petrol station can refuel 270 cars an hour. Given that to get a decent range when towing we will need a lot longer stay than to fill a fuel tank, the only solution would seem to be literally dozens of plug in points at what cost. Similar criteria would apply to petrol stations and the room needed to get a car and caravan in might be prohibitive. Time will tell though.

Where mass use of EV's is concerned, the immediate problem is one of demand (charging points) and time span to achieve the recharge - points which Wildwood has clearly recognised.  Technological improvements may reduce this problem, but nobody yet knowns how far that improvement will progress.   The extra weight of a caravan in tow, and the resultant severe reduction in range between charges, currently leaves a question mark in towing caravans.  Once in continental Europe, towing distances between charging points would probably be much greater, and all caravaners do not prefer extensive reliance on the Peage.  Preplanning, particularly in rural France, to be aware of where charging points are located will become an essential practice if being stranded is to be avoided.  And what happens when being faced with the dreaded 'route barre'?  Where a prudent diesel/petrol owner will have sufficient fuel to deal with the diversion, it could be a totally different matter for an EV.

Will the heavier motorhomes - 3.5t plus - convert to EV?  We have driven our camper van and motorhome for miles through the Pyrenees, and always refilled at the last large town because we never saw a fuel station at all. 

I did look at the Mitsubishi PHEV, but discounted it on other owners stating that, when towing, battery power soon ran out and it then ran solely on petrol.

The RAC gives a fairly balanced view of the present situation regarding electric/hybrid vehicles and towing. What we miss most of all with our EV is a tow bar for ordinary trailers so it looks like this consideration is still a long way off.

RAC LINK

I have had diesel cars for years, and I will continue to do so. Why do people listen to governments and believe everything they say? Another conveinient truth. Say they will ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040, then declare diesel as the new satan fuel a few weeks after diesel was cheaper than petrol in decades, and years after saying diesel was best as it was cheaper and you got more MPG, then upped the diesel prices not long after. Well done.

I hate driving my Daughter's petrol car, it has less power than our hoover and needs to be revved to make it go anywhere quicker than walking pace. I would hate to try and tow anything other than a small camping trailer with it.

Keep using diesels, they have so much enviromental stuff on them now, that they are cleaner than ever, and towing is much better with a big diesel than with a big petrol. It is all a new exercise in making money, or rather, tax. Now they will put up diesel prices.

As for eletric cars, great, if you live in a city and don't have children, or dogs or tow a caravan. Otherwise, completely pointless. And where will the electric come from? We barely have enough of it now. Wind farms? Great, ruin the countryside, or the sea side for what is not an environmental way of producing electric. Don't forget, those huge turbines have to be built using vast energy resources, then taken out to sea on huge ships that burn thousands of litres of oil an hour.

Electric cars themselves are not carbon footprint free. They have to be built, components shipped around the world, sometimes dozens of time in the case of batteries. Then the cars are put together in some far flung part of the World then shipped here. Electric isn't the mecca that everyone thinks it is, but believe what governments tell you because they seem to have all the answers, until 20 years time, then they will have been wrong...Again.

My wife, who isn't that interested in cars so long as they get her from A to B in moderate comfort, made a comment the other evening that  made me think a bit. She said, "If they can ever make an electric car that is capable of towing a caravan, would it be suitable for a holiday in France? Many caravan sites in France have a very limited power supply to each pitch, 6 amp being the most common but some as low as 2 amps". (I didn't think she took much notice of mundane things like that other than when the microwave trips the power out!). She may well have a good point. I don't know how advanced, if at all, France is in the conversion race to electric cars.

France is ahead of us in adopting EVs here's a LINK which gives you a general picture.

Regarding a previous post there is a cost to all types of car building both to the economy and the environment. Our EV was built in Germany and the carbon fibre used in it's build came from the USA. We buy our electricity to run it from sustainable power eg wind, solar, hydro-electric. Fossil fuels will not last generations and need to be reserved for more essential services. This is why many countries are trying to preserve their stocks.

Some of you may have seen a programme about the River Dart the other day, Totnes now gets some of it's power from a turbine project on the Dart. If they can do it on the Dart let's hope we see further investment on even bigger rivers. 

We wanted a Forester last year but found the seats about as comfortable as sitting on a bus shelter bench.  Back to Nissan to save our backs!