Where are we heading with Diesel?

It's a fascinating situation, air quality is an important issue and we should all recognise the need to support strategies to deliver this.

Equally I do think there is a sector of car buyers swayed by the PHEV and full electric options who see it as guilt free motoring blissfully ignorant of how the energy needed to both manufacture and charge their "emission free" vehicle. How environmentally friendly are the raw material mines supporting battery production, and is it truly sustainable?

In terms of the original post about the future for diesel, taxation, lots of taxation! Not to support innovation but to push consumers to buy new(and with it a nice 20% bonus on a £20k sale for the treasury).

More cities will introduce congestion charging, again making a change to new 'compliant' vehicles an attractive acquisition.

The times are changing, IC traction propulsion is under threat, not of absolute extinction in the short term, but it's use will become stigmatised in the next 25-30 years. Let's enjoy it while we can.... Best get that over lander built now.

Thats an impressive response sb, I take my hat off to you, but as for new technology, I'm guessing you know how a nuclear power station produces its energy, and how old a technology is steam? My argument really hinges on the fact that just because a technology is old it doesn't mean that it is obsolete. We are all likely to get forced out of what we want to drive, and possibly even out of car ownership altogether, so I'm damn sure I'm going to drive what I like for as long as I possibly can.

As the saying goes, you will get me out of my Range Rover when you pry my cold dead fingers off the steering wheel.

And sorry but I still don't agree that building new cars with modern technology will be more EF than running old cars for longer.

Right, I have said my piece, and I'm going to stop arguing now, because this is one of the reasons I don't do facebook et al because I need to find better things to do with my life!

Not to belabour the point but just because turbines are still turbines doesnt mean the technology is the same. Turbines much like the ICE have not significantly changed in a long time but in that time we have increased their economy a lot. The 1.3 a series derivative in my truck is a whole different world to a new 1.3 turbo eco motor. 

The part that is missing from my quote is that peer review papers state categorically that a new EV over its life will be better for the environment, including its manufacture, over an average ICE. Note I still have not found a detailed answer for what a lifetime is or what an average petrol is.

So that brings me to the graph, if you live in one of those states from the very first second your car is started until the day it dies it must average that mpg. Now if what the national grid says is true that they peaked 50% renewable you would need over 100mpg average on your ICE to equal the dirty power for the EV. Because new technology turbines are very efficient.

For every mile you drive under the required offset MPG the EV catches up and with some of those numbers it is really not hard to see how the EV will easily overtake an ICE. Now consider this is the start of this tech, we can only move up so every year your ICE would have to get more and more efficient.


I'm not telling you to move to the woods and only eat leaves, I own a rotary so I'm not winning any environmental awards! But don't lie to yourself that youre helping the world by keeping your old car running. While the argument may work for other new ICEs the EVs will win.

Last time I looked at this in detail (about 5 years ago), in the small print was the assumption that battery technology would advance within 5-10 years, such that the precious metals in them could be recycled. As far as I’m aware, that hasn’t happened yet?

Of course, we’re not looking at it from “an average” vehicle lifespan viewpoint, we’re all driving/repairing/rebuilding vehicles that would have been long gone if it wasn’t for people like us

Similar story here. Live roughly 12 miles from work. Officially work 07:30-16:00 but my hours vary all over the place, can be in 04:30-19:00 on a bad day.

Nearest train station is a 3 mile walk from our house, then 2 miles to work.

Bus station, 1 mile from house, 2 from work.

Timetables don't work either. First bus would get me into work late, and I'd get home an hour or so later unless I left work earlier.


Looking to car share, which on principle is great as 2 or 3 of us at 50mpg makes a 150mpg travel rate.

But, all of us work in the same industry. If 2 are finished at 4, and the other ain't... Leave him to walk 12 miles home?


So for now, I'll keep my £1k diesel car that provides for my needs.



Oh yeah, and I work on an industrial site which is 5 miles wide, at various locations on it.

So public transport would only ditch me 2 miles from one end. Meaning I'd be 6 or 7 miles from the other side.

On foot I'd need full PPE on, so that'd be on the bus/train in steelies, hard hat, hivis coat, and ovvies..


Electric car, would be ok. Except at home it's street parking in a village, and work has no charging points.


Bike? Possible. But it's 60-90 minutes each way depending upon the wind. And the only "safe route" takes you the opposite way to loop around the main road (unlit fast flowing single carriages A road).... On gravel paths. So no skinny tyres on a racer.

That illustrates the point that lots of people were basically miss-sold cars that were inappropriate for their needs. It's much the same as what the financial services sector did with PPI and similar. In those cases, the banks were made to compensate their customers, but I've not seen the car companies handing over cash yet, except in the form of erroneous scrappage schemes which benefit the manufacturers in the sale of new cars. 

I drive a Diesel because having a metric curse word tonne of torque and two turbos is hilarious. However my usage is 50/50 between short commute to my train station three times a week and loooong journeys across the country for car shows, family stuff and board games. I definitely notice the difference on fuel consumption.

As for alternative fuel stuff. I like EVs, I was discussing with rmad this on the way from Vegas to LA in a Camaro SS (ha!), I think they do just move the issue of pollution and resources up stream to the energy supply, but that does make it more solvable as diffuse issues are difficult to fix (it is easier to fix a bug on a server, than it is to ensure everyones web browser is up to date as way of a computer example). I really want to build an EV hillclimb car too. There are a bunch of places doing electric classics already which are pretty cool. I'm also interested to see how they hydrogen fuel cell stuff goes.

As sb points out one of my big issues with current talk of emissions is the whole life cycle stuff hasn't had published research, or at least readily available published research. What is the environmental impact from a 15 year or 20 year life cycle of an EV car, compared to a current modern car, both will require the mining of materials which are horrendous in order to get the electronics etc. working, however an EV has that whole battery thing, but then it could theoretically be powered by renewable, or coal, or burning whale fat, or whatever. It would be good to know how these different things effect the whole life cycle of these cars and what the aim should be and the net benefit in relation to petrol, diesel etc.

This thread could do with a partner thread of electric retros

My son showed me a pic of a Mk1 fiesta with an electric motor in it the other day
I'll see if I can find it.........

Ooh... Design life, a fresh subject on its own. I work in the rail industry and the subject is prominent there.

Historically a train was expected to have a 'life' of between 30-40 years(and have delivered that), but there's a feeling that the new stock is possibly nearer to 20-25 years. For the leasing companies this creates an interesting challenge, previous planning assumed guaranteed income and recovery on investment over those extended periods.

Coming back to cars I'm not sure what design life is, I'd say that 15 years is at the upper end and that will come into 10-12 years for 85-90% of private cars with anything older being for the niche/enthusiast market(such as RR members).

The failure modes will be different, dominated by electronic obsolescence rather than corrosion or mechanical wear that dominated vehicle life cycles previously.