Is the EV motorhome starting to look to be a viable prospect ?

[AndyPK]

The Aim? Who's Aim?

Governments and ‘Big Tech’ of course!
Come on, Gromett , get with the conspiracy theory……..

 

[2GB Racing]

When I was a young lad and petrol was just passing four gallons per £1 so four gallons was one fifteenth of my weeks wages, I remember well on a Friday night over a shandy we where always looking at a way to fuel an ICE cheaply.
The car magazines often ran articles on home built methane plants from pig manure or human waste, blending petrol with paraffin then into the 80s and bio-fuels from oil seed rape, sugar beet, wheat, then LPG conversions .
But all the best ideas and patents were bought up by the fuel producers to keep them off the market place I presume. I remember reading about an engine which was up and running and was a massive step forward in clean burn, mpg and was not water injected either.
Close to my location a massive digester has been built which consumes everything and anything which will ferment from dead livestock to maize stalks and is feed primarily with chopped maize stalks via a forage harvester and a whole fleet of artic bulk wagons to transport this fuel.
Basically it is a large concrete lined hole in the ground covered with a rubber membrane the fuel is feed into the hole in the ground and fermentation raises the rubber membrane of which the methane gas is withdrawn to power a generator which feeds the national grid.
Basically just a larger version of what the magazines were promoting back in the day but just thinking every town has a sewage disposal plant so why could we not use human sewage for the same / similar process, the end by product is a garden compost with a very high nitrogen contact to grow your own veg etc.

 

[Coolcats]

The big issue I see is that it is an ICE vehicle converted to BEV. So it has a lot of extra weight that reduces range.
Also they have not done anything for the aerodynamics. Internal Air con and kept the roof height down should have been a priority. do something with the wing mirrors as well.

Which s why Hydrogen would be a great fuel.

 

[AndyPK]

I disagree.
The ‘aim‘ is to do away with ‘personal-owned’ transport (cars, etc), and to be reliant on autonomous self-driving vehicles summoned in much the same way as Uber cabs……but this is still some way in the future…….

As an aside, once ‘autonomous vehicles’ are a proven concept and are allowed on all roads, would anyone even consider driving themselves? I can imagine scenarios whereby personal liability insurance for ‘self’ drivers would be astronomically high, and that, in the event of a collision between a ‘self-driver’ and an autonomous vehicle, the onus will be fairly and squarely on the human driver to prove that they did not cause the collision………….

 

[Otter Spotter]

If EV's are so efficient, why are all the emergency services, councils, delivery companies, post office, supermarket home deliveries etc not all using them.
Also if Solar is so effective and profitable why are all supermarket, warehouse, factory etc roofs not covered in them, (Tesco never miss a money making trick}
No just Joe public conned into making the sacrifices and paying the costs ,
How many MP's in London use EV's, they should be setting the example.

Amazon and many councils are slowly switching to EV’s but it’s going to be a 3 to 4 year switch as they tend to keep their existing vehicles for that length of time.

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[joe and sue]

Amazon and many councils are slowly switching to EV’s but it’s going to be a 3 to 4 year switch as they tend to keep their existing vehicles for that length of time.

I beg to differ, about Amazon, last October i was at the Peterboro' showground, which Amazon use to store their new delivery vans, there must have been over a thousand brand new vans there, all sign written and every one was a DIESEL, Ford Transit. Not an electric one in sight.
I had taken Sue to a Craft show, so had plenty of time on my hands, they were swapping old vans for new all day long.
Joe

 

[Otter Spotter]

I beg to differ, about Amazon, last October i was at the Peterboro' showground, which Amazon use to store their new delivery vans, there must have been over a thousand brand new vans there, all sign written and every one was a DIESEL, Ford Transit. Not an electric one in sight.
I had taken Sue to a Craft show, so had plenty of time on my hands, they were swapping old vans for new all day long.
Joe

I believe they are starting to use them in London short journeys in a congestion zone.

 

[joe and sue]

I believe they are starting to use them in London short journeys in a congestion zone.

Only so that they save paying the congestion charge, still using the infrastructure though, so CC is just another tax burden on those with petrol / diesel power !!

 

[Raul]

I don’t know about the van yet, but, we live off grid with solar. We just ordered a EV, hopefully comes in sept-Oct. Most of the time will be charged at home from own production. Just as well victron brought a nice charging station out, that integrates beautifully with existing victron system we already have. I hope in the future, conversion kits will be available for most budgets.

 

[Jamesh]

When I was a young lad and petrol was just passing four gallons per £1 so four gallons was one fifteenth of my weeks wages, I remember well on a Friday night over a shandy we where always looking at a way to fuel an ICE cheaply.
The car magazines often ran articles on home built methane plants from pig manure or human waste, blending petrol with paraffin then into the 80s and bio-fuels from oil seed rape, sugar beet, wheat, then LPG conversions .
But all the best ideas and patents were bought up by the fuel producers to keep them off the market place I presume. I remember reading about an engine which was up and running and was a massive step forward in clean burn, mpg and was not water injected either.
Close to my location a massive digester has been built which consumes everything and anything which will ferment from dead livestock to maize stalks and is feed primarily with chopped maize stalks via a forage harvester and a whole fleet of artic bulk wagons to transport this fuel.
Basically it is a large concrete lined hole in the ground covered with a rubber membrane the fuel is feed into the hole in the ground and fermentation raises the rubber membrane of which the methane gas is withdrawn to power a generator which feeds the national grid.
Basically just a larger version of what the magazines were promoting back in the day but just thinking every town has a sewage disposal plant so why could we not use human sewage for the same / similar process, the end by product is a garden compost with a very high nitrogen contact to grow your own veg etc.

I have a large pond made of concrete maybe I should repurpose it!!!
5x chicken poop
1x dog poop
6x human poop
What could possibly go wrong!

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[Raul]

I have a large pond made of concrete maybe I should repurpose it!!!
5x chicken poop
1x dog poop
6x human poop
What could possibly go wrong!

Easy to build a plastic barrel macerator for domestic (kitchen) waste, plenty of ppl done it. No need to poo in it.

 

[SteveRallye]

I agree with Coolcats, Hydrogen is the way as it is the only pollution free (almost) that is viable for pulling and carrying high loads. Once they get that sorted Motorhomers will have the power and range as good as they are getting now !

 

[TeaBiscuit]

Just because the technology isn't here on a customer level right now, doesn't mean it will never exist. Progress is pretty rapid. It won't be long until we will have EV lorries - EV motorhomes will be small beer.

 

[Guigsy]

I beg to differ, about Amazon, last October i was at the Peterboro' showground, which Amazon use to store their new delivery vans, there must have been over a thousand brand new vans there, all sign written and every one was a DIESEL, Ford Transit. Not an electric one in sight.

Centre of Birmingham. Every Amazon van is a Merc Sprinter electric. A few parcel delivery vans are using Nissan eNV200s too.

I agree with Coolcats, Hydrogen is the way as it is the only pollution free (almost) that is viable for pulling and carrying high loads. Once they get that sorted Motorhomers will have the power and range as good as they are getting now !

For bigger vehicles (less aerodynamic, heavier), hydrogen makes sense. The issue is going to be critical mass. If there's not enough customers, they won't build the infrastructure required for hydrogen. And if there aren't the pumps, you aren't going to buy a hydrogen powered vehicle.

For cars, BEV is much more practical. And it didn't need the infrastructure critical mass because enough users can get by with charging at home. Now there's a big enough customer market, public chargers are being deployed and all major manufacturers are building BEVs.

Batteries have already won the race for the car market. Therefore they won't bother investing in hydrogen at filling stations because there won't be enough customers. Which leaves the best solution for motorhomes out of reach.

 

[buttons]

The Post Office in this area have recently changed their entire fleet of red vans over to electric. Many being transit sized vehicles. Mail is a highly competitive business so they must have a good business reason for making this change at this time.

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[Coolcats]

The Post Office in this area have recently changed their entire fleet of red vans over to electric. Many being transit sized vehicles. Mail is a highly competitive business so they must have a good business reason for making this change at this time.

Manufactures will give corporates such as the post office great deals it gets their product in the face of potential customers, savings on short journeys are things like fuel and of course currently massive savings on VED...for the moment. Vans are still Milage limited so local runs are OK national distances would be a challenge.

 

[Coolcats]

Centre of Birmingham. Every Amazon van is a Merc Sprinter electric. A few parcel delivery vans are using Nissan eNV200s too.


For bigger vehicles (less aerodynamic, heavier), hydrogen makes sense. The issue is going to be critical mass. If there's not enough customers, they won't build the infrastructure required for hydrogen. And if there aren't the pumps, you aren't going to buy a hydrogen powered vehicle.

For cars, BEV is much more practical. And it didn't need the infrastructure critical mass because enough users can get by with charging at home. Now there's a big enough customer market, public chargers are being deployed and all major manufacturers are building BEVs.

Batteries have already won the race for the car market. Therefore they won't bother investing in hydrogen at filling stations because there won't be enough customers. Which leaves the best solution for motorhomes out of reach.

If you distribute Hydrogen for Lorries the the same fuel will be available for smaller vehicles Diesel was one the preserve of heavy vehicles and then we know it changed so that even small passenger cars could benefit from this fuel so its not a mind leap to consider that Hydrogen could be an alternate for all vehicles at some point.

 

[RetiredPope]

I agree with Coolcats, Hydrogen is the way as it is the only pollution free (almost) that is viable for pulling and carrying high loads. Once they get that sorted Motorhomers will have the power and range as good as they are getting now !

One issue with Hydrogen is cost. Diesel costs around $0.49/gallon to refine, Hydrogen costs around $2/gallon to produce. Then you have to add distribution and other costs to get a pump price.
Hydrogen has less energy storage than diesel, so a same sized tank of fuel will cost 400% more and give less range than the tank of diesel. There are real issues producing hydrogen powered vehicles that need addressing if its to play a part in the future of green transport.

 

[Coolcats]

One issue with Hydrogen is cost. Diesel costs around $0.49/gallon to refine, Hydrogen costs around $2/gallon to produce. Then you have to add distribution and other costs to get a pump price.
Hydrogen has less energy storage than diesel, so a same sized tank of fuel will cost 400% more and give less range than the tank of diesel. There are real issues producing hydrogen powered vehicles that need addressing if its to play a part in the future of green transport.

I see you have used a US $ argument here and is that a us Gallon or an imperial one? $2 is £1.50 so my guess is the source will be either EV or hydrocarbon industry knocking hydrogen.

Here is one source for you, so that 1 kg of Hydrogen is expected to be £0.75p

Green hydrogen prices will crash to $1 per kg by 2030: Study​

I should add ultimately all technology is politically shaped and all technology is only an intermediate intervention therefor we may even find in the next Century all vehicles being fusion powered or maybe the world will be virtual move the experience to the person rather than the person to the experience.

 

[minesapint]

The Genie popped out of the bottle the many years ago and then realised what it faced was in reality a long hard and slow slog for technology to catch up. Other technology may well superseed it.

JCB are converting the ICE engines in diggers etc to run on Hydrogen, there is a good video on You Tube ,[[jcb hydrogen engine how it works]] it is well worth watching.

So no fuel cell and complicated electronics, just a good old ICE engine working on a different fuel, with only water coming out of the exhaust. Plus the price of Hydrogen if mass produced will probably drop.

This makes so much more sense than EVs, and we will get the same range as our current ICE vehicles, without stopping every 100 miles to recharge the heavy battery pack.

Well done JCB, but I wonder if it will be taken up by others, or have they put too much into EVs.

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[Skipper43]

A few have mentioned how cheap an EV is to run but there is little mention of the replacement battery costs, which are significant. You need to add that cost to every mile you travel, whilst the going is good. Posts also discuss rapid charging. I don’t think the infrastructure is going to be there for three phase electric supply.
Are EV’s any good for long distance?: A motoring journalist recently tried a long distance real world run in a ‘high end‘ German Car. The sales blurb claimed 290+ miles on a charge but the true world driving test indicates less than 200 miles.
For a heavy Motorhome read half that distance, if you could get one with sufficient payload for the battery bank. Sorry, I don’t see EVs as viable. Hydrogen however has real potential and I for one will be hoping for rapid development of that as an alternative

 

[HectorsHoose]

I fear you are correct. We will have to get used to vastly inferior vehicles. Certainly not an advance in motoring.
Shorter range, less payload, longer to recharge. Certainly not progress.
This why they’re having to ban the building of new ICE vehicles in a few years. If electric vehicles were really better we would all want to move over to them without being forced into it.

These EVs are totally useless in cold environments & we live in Scotland! Completely impractical for us at present…not fit for purpose & that’s just the cars!

 

[63720]

A few have mentioned how cheap an EV is to run but there is little mention of the replacement battery costs, which are significant. You need to add that cost to every mile you travel, whilst the going is good. Posts also discuss rapid charging. I don’t think the infrastructure is going to be there for three phase electric supply.
Are EV’s any good for long distance?: A motoring journalist recently tried a long distance real world run in a ‘high end‘ German Car. The sales blurb claimed 290+ miles on a charge but the true world driving test indicates less than 200 miles.
For a heavy Motorhome read half that distance, if you could get one with sufficient payload for the battery bank. Sorry, I don’t see EVs as viable. Hydrogen however has real potential and I for one will be hoping for rapid development of that as an alternative

Agreed. I read the same story and historically I've also read of one owner being quoted €17k, another owner £16k and a third owner £8k for replacement batteries and EVs having to travel up to 70k miles to reclaim the Co2 emitted during manufacture. Fill the tank on a 20 year old diesel and it will still go 500 miles. The best way to reduce levels is to stick with the car you own and not buy another whatever it's fuel.

 

[Coolcats]

A few have mentioned how cheap an EV is to run but there is little mention of the replacement battery costs, which are significant. You need to add that cost to every mile you travel, whilst the going is good. Posts also discuss rapid charging. I don’t think the infrastructure is going to be there for three phase electric supply.
Are EV’s any good for long distance?: A motoring journalist recently tried a long distance real world run in a ‘high end‘ German Car. The sales blurb claimed 290+ miles on a charge but the true world driving test indicates less than 200 miles.
For a heavy Motorhome read half that distance, if you could get one with sufficient payload for the battery bank. Sorry, I don’t see EVs as viable. Hydrogen however has real potential and I for one will be hoping for rapid development of that as an alternative

I had mentioned farm machinery before and some say just swap the batteries out in the field but my guess is a farmer would prefer Hydrogen for its range and not having to have a 2nd vehicle and staff to swap out batteries.

 

[Tonks]

As an aside, once ‘autonomous vehicles’ are a proven concept and are allowed on all roads, would anyone even consider driving themselves? I can imagine scenarios whereby personal liability insurance for ‘self’ drivers would be astronomically high, and that, in the event of a collision between a ‘self-driver’ and an autonomous vehicle, the onus will be fairly and squarely on the human driver to prove that they did not cause the collision………….

I suffer very badly from motion sickness so I will nearly always drive myself whenever possible as being a passenger is frequently a dire experience even on very short journeys.

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[richard burkinshaw]

I've been driving an electric car over 6 years, a fantastic success of a superior vehicle. I'm looking forward to an electric Moho. The prospect of not having timing belts, clutches, dmf, alternator, coolant leaks, water pump failure, oil changes, fuel filter leaks, the ability to preheat excites me. All the negative in this thread they said about wheels on suitcases. Font knock it til you've tried it.

 

[denisejoe]

When I was a young lad and petrol was just passing four gallons per £1 so four gallons was one fifteenth of my weeks wages, I remember well on a Friday night over a shandy we where always looking at a way to fuel an ICE cheaply.
The car magazines often ran articles on home built methane plants from pig manure or human waste, blending petrol with paraffin then into the 80s and bio-fuels from oil seed rape, sugar beet, wheat, then LPG conversions .
But all the best ideas and patents were bought up by the fuel producers to keep them off the market place I presume. I remember reading about an engine which was up and running and was a massive step forward in clean burn, mpg and was not water injected either.
Close to my location a massive digester has been built which consumes everything and anything which will ferment from dead livestock to maize stalks and is feed primarily with chopped maize stalks via a forage harvester and a whole fleet of artic bulk wagons to transport this fuel.
Basically it is a large concrete lined hole in the ground covered with a rubber membrane the fuel is feed into the hole in the ground and fermentation raises the rubber membrane of which the methane gas is withdrawn to power a generator which feeds the national grid.
Basically just a larger version of what the magazines were promoting back in the day but just thinking every town has a sewage disposal plant so why could we not use human sewage for the same / similar process, the end by product is a garden compost with a very high nitrogen contact to grow your own veg etc.

There’s a farm near us that has what looks like big green balloons coming out of the ground wonder if that’s the same?

 

[dunnah01]

I'm old enough to remember EVs first time around - I wonder why they didn't gain any traction then?

 

[rrowe]

The only viable way to avoid fossil fuels is hydrogen power as being championed by Toyota and JCB (Although JCB use a modified ICE rather than a fuel cell and electric motor)
The downside at present is the lack of filling points and that not much hydrogen is yet from green sources (PV or wind power driving hydrolysis)
But this will improve.
I don't quite remember the early days of motoring when you bought your motor spirit in a can from the chemist
Now that filling stations have developed we can buy diesel anywhere, eg Abington Services for just £193.9 per litre

 

[frenchie46]

Soycd has the right of it. Predicting future technology is fraught with dangers, but there is little doubt in my mind that in the future electric vehicles will be very much cheaper (they are so simple, so few moving parts, so little to go wrong, so much scope for modular mass manufacture), much more reliable, great range, and quick, cheap and ubiquitous charging. Soycd's analogy with the mobile phone is a good one. Do you remember when they first came out? How can I carry a great brick like that around? Who can afford one? I can only get a signal in London. It'll never catch on with ordinary people, etc etc.

All the drawbacks with electric vehicles others have noted here are real in the here and now, but they will disappear as manufacture steps up and technology improves. My only regret is that at my age I am unlikely to ever own one.

And as Soycd says, what's the alternative? Be ransomed to Russian and Saudi oil? Destroy the planet?

An aside: back in the 60's, I drove an electric vehicle every day for work - I was a milkman with the COOP, and my electric milk float carried me around Bristol all morning lugging dozens of crates of milk, stopping and starting every few seconds, no pollution, no noise (well, a bit of a whine to be honest). Four wheels and a motor. They hardly ever broke down.

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