Little Things That Irk You: The Hateful 08

[Blobcat]

I have to book mine in for next week. I'm bricking it now!

My Micra has been pretty much perfect the last 6 years I have had it but in the last 2 its been slightly less than perfect with weird central locking probs and weirdly issues only when I turn Right ( indicators go crazy not consistently , when changing lanes at speed the engine gets a bit rhythmic).

We would love an electric now they can do more miles to the charge but we can rarely park the car near our flat so its not practical to have just yet. We are hoping to have our car for at least another year so I hope my MOT doesn't try and crucify me.

Had a Ford KA years ago which was a last minute trade in when my first car's first MOT spectacularly failed and that car just destroyed my bank balance the 3 years we had it, must have cost around 3K in problems in the time I had it not to mention still coping with issues with it (the heating, the constant engine warning light, eating through coolant etc). I HATED that car so much!

[Cassius_Smoke]

Mine is a Nissan. Which are usually well made. I have to assume this was a Friday night rush job.

[vanpeebles]

Too much french in Nissan's now.

[Mayhem]

Three years ago, a week after passing the MOT, my car’s cat converter failed completely. Half way through its average life span. That was expensive to replace.

[Anpanman]

Ours is a Wagon R+, the plan is to keep it for at least a year when the daughter turns seventeen she can then get some practise in with me and then she can have it assuming she passes her test.

We'll then get a new one, we've also been looking at leccy cars though I would personally prefer hydrogen but leccy will probably be the cheapest of the two.

[CMcK]

The car enthusiast in me says hydrogen fuel cell powered cars would be good as they would be much lighter than a BEV. But fuel cells aren’t very efficient and costly to produce. And the methods of manufacturing hydrogen are quite energy intensive. Steam cracking needs a lot of energy , probably a fired heater, to generate the steam. There’s some method involving electricity. Which you could just put straight to the battery in BEV. The last method is the one I’m most familiar with as I used to work on this plant. The hydrogen rich gas that’s surplus to a catalytic reformation process is dried and cooled to -160 degrees to purify the gas.
Then there is the issue of installing hydrogen pumps at petrol stations everywhere. That’s a massive investment. At least electricity is all over the country and even available at people’s homes and workplaces. Plus there’s a lot of electricity generated via renewable sources in the UK, especially in Scotland, these days with more capacity being added.
I think my next car will be a BEV.

[Anpanman]

That's really interesting thanks.

From my own observations and from what I've heard in the industry, you're right about weight. EV's have the torque to power a 38ton MU plus trailer but the extra weight of the battery would mean the logistics/freight industry would have to provide a lot more journeys to deliver the current amount of goods to shops and supermarkets.

We do have a lot of wind turbines which could be used to provide the electrolysis to get the hydrogen, I did see the results of a study into EV v hydrogen and the whole life efficiency came down in favour of hydrogen but to only the third decimal place so it was really close, however the costs of hydrogen fell through the floor when using say wind to generate the hydrogen in the first place.
I believe a lot of the wind turbines are stood down or at least on reduced output during the summer, it could be that during the summer months these could be employed generating hydrogen.

Whilst we do have electricity everywhere and as you say there would need to be a huge investment in current petrol stations to convert to hydrogen, the issue I see is that many people who live in flats, tower blocks might struggle with charging, those in terraced housing could also face issues with the local riffraff running round pulling out charging cables at night-time.
There is also the issue with infrastructure, we don't have the capacity at the moment to charge lots of vehicles at night, we also don't have the capacity to charge up the fleets from the large vehicle operators.

Still, it's interesting times and as with you I can see us getting an EV vehicle as well, we quite like the look of the Honda one.

[CMcK]

The National Grid can easily support charging loads of vehicles at night. It's not like everyone will be charging their car every night anyway. Most home chargers max out at around 7kw which is about the same as having the oven, washing machine and kettle on after work in the evening. Wind turbines are still generating at night and there's a fraction of the demand from business premises at night too. Some energy providers, such as Octopus, offer electricity tariffs that track the wholesale price to the half hour and prices get very low at night. Sometimes they are paying you to take electricity. It helps balance the grid. The notion of being paid to fuel your car seems nuts to me.

[gunrock]

I just don't have a car. The pressure from the wife and kids is getting stronger, though.

[Dogg Thang]

I would love to not have a car. I hate cars. They’re a flaming money pit. I don’t like driving. Roads aren’t safe and bad drivers are everywhere and it’s just not a good system. I’ve often tried to talk my wife into getting rid of ours.

[Neon Ignition]

I love driving, generally decent at it too without being all



Too many think speed is the measure of a good driver when any flat flooted ape can push the accelerator down. We'll have our car for a few more years yet but an electric one is off the table, the infrastructure is a very long way from ready and thanks to Brexit/Covid/Johnson/Reality it isn't going to get there any time soon either

[Cepp]

My uncle died two weeks ago and my gran died Saturday night (in her sleep thankfully). My dad's a mess. I'll be happy to see the back of this year.

[QualityChimp]

My uncle died two weeks ago and my gran died Saturday night (in her sleep thankfully). My dad's a mess. I'll be happy to see the back of this year.

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you can be a rock for your dad.

2020 really has been awful.

[Dogg Thang]

Like I said in the other thread, I truly am sorry for your loss. It's such a crappy time and, with restrictions and needing to be safe for our older family members, we can't even help comfort people properly either. Everything about this situation sucks. Try to look after yourself and your family.

[Cepp]

Thanks both, its been rough. I haven't been to see her since February because she was having cancer treatment, and I didn't want to risk giving her COVID on the off chance I was a carrier without symptoms. She spent most of the year self-isolating thanks to this **** of a government while dealing with the side effects. I did get to speak with her on the Saturday afternoon via phone at least, but yeah.