Electric cars.

I have to make separate journeys for fuel. There are no filling stations anywhere near where I normally go. If I want petrol it is 15 minutes there and 15 minutes back.
I think the 3 minutes Hanglow was referring to was just the time spent on the forecourt.
When I stayed in Burntisland I had to go to the nearest big town for petrol, Either Kirkcaldy or Dunfermline. As a result, I would top up anytime I was in either town even if it was only a couple of gallons. At one time Burntisland had four petrol stations/garages.

 

If we are going down the route that having an electric car saves time on fueling up, then why venture out in the first place. You would save far more time doing all your shopping online than you would going in to town weekly regardless of the means of transport.

 

It's being marketed as a city vehicle. I once read that the average speed in central London for example is 8 miles per hour.

 

When my late mother-in-law was alive I was back and forward to Edinburgh, from Fife, every day and sometimes twice a day. I was filling my tank twice a week.

 

They are blaming the long lead times for electric cars on Covid and the conflict in the Ukraine. I know in Thailand there was a delay, (Covid) to when the largest floating solar farm would go into operation, it was put back until June this year but a shortage of solar panels put it back further.

The supply chain and infrastructure is not ready for us to go all electric, blaming everything on Covid and the Ukraine does not stack up anymore. People have the power to change things for the good but it can also have a negative impact. We seen what happened when the media kept pushing there was a shortage of tanker drivers, it was not long before fuel stations had long queues and started running out of fuel due to panic buying. The more people that switch to electric cars and solar panels increase the pressure on the supply chain. Blaming everything still on Covid and the Ukraine does not cut it with me.

When I first went to Thailand over 20 years ago there was no room in the boot for my suitcase as there was an LPG tank. Seeing HGV trucks with these tanks behind the cabs was the norm in the far east.

Even when you rented a vehicle, there was 6 different types of fuel when you went to fuel up, they were selling E10 and bio fuel long before us. LPG use in Thailand has decreased over the years but they expect this to treble by 2030 as they bring new LPG trucks onto the roads. They know they are not ready to go all electric but are still trying to reduce their carbon footprint in the process.

 

LPG is cleaner as far as the vehicle is concerned but I don't know if it is any greener overall.

 

I looked into LPG conversions when I had my lovely old Volvo 940. I loved that car, but at an average of 21mpg even on mostly fast roads, I didn't love my weekly fuel expenditure, so I looked into LPG conversions. It all sounded great. The circa 2k investment would have paid for itself in a year, but then I read about the extra maintenance overhead. I don't know if it's changed in recent years but back then the recommendation was that you get the system checked and serviced at a specialist LPG place every 6 months, in addition to your regular service, and the presence of a new fuel rail and injectors can in some cases mean you can't even do a spark plug change at your regular garage. It's not even as though the additional service is optional really, because they warn that the LPG system is under so much pressure that a fault can result in a leak, which in turn can lead to spontaneous explosion. I didn't fancy that.

 

I am no expert on LPG but there is plenty of websites, Auto car, RAC etc etc, state that using LPG not only reduces co2 but can also double the lifespan of the engine compared to a petrol or diesel powered vehicle.

Even if a HGV truck is using dual fuel, a 25% reduction in diesel for LPG can reduce emissions by 6% even more if you use Bio LPG.

Gas-powered trucks | Volvo Trucks