# Clive Matthew Wilson up to his old tricks again...



## KiwiEV (Jul 26, 2007)

It seems the Dog & Lemon Guide's Clive Matthew Wilson is trying to get into the public eye again with his old "Electric cars are a gimmick" routine.

http://transportblog.co.nz/2010/03/26/the-emperors-new-car/

It seems he knows just enough about electric vehicles to gain media credence, yet as usual he tells a biased one-sided story, carefully omitting financial or green incentives to using electrons instead of burning gas.

I predict he'll be getting worse and worse as electric cars (and their benefits) become more and more predominant.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

just put a reply on the site
"_duncan cairncross
March 27th, 2010 at 11:42 pm · Reply
One of the main things that is missing in this assessment is the massive advantages to the country as a whole and to each of us when there are a large number of electric cars on our road.
Energy Storage!
The problem with electricity is that it is difficult to store, most renewable power sources operate when they like rather than when we want then to work
Wind, Solar, Tidal, Wave
If a substantial amount of cars in New Zealand were electric there would be a huge amount of electrical energy storage that could be “rented” to the grid
If your car had 100 Km (20Kwhours) range but you were only going to the shops tomorrow you could rent out that surplus capacity
1 million cars with 20Kwhours capacity means 20 GigaWatts for an hour!
This would mean that intermittent power sources could easily be integrated into the grid and the grid would become massively more robust
The main transformer into Auckland goes BANG! Use the stored power until its fixed!_


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## Green Machines (Mar 4, 2009)

This guy is an absolute ***. His dog and lemon guide is poorly researched and no more than a representation of his own prejudices - which are against anything that is not mainstream. OK - it is good advice to tell you mum to buy a Corolla, but I put mine in a Peugoet and she's had no trouble. Very nice car too.

What I would add is: 
- the NZ generation system is greener than most
- hybrids are a transition vehicle where we are testing the technology, we don't expect them to stack up 
- the Tesla is a grossly expensive sportscar, so not a good test subject at all 
- Evs are not the whole solution, but an important part of it 
- I'm sure a used car ev conversion with lead acid batteries would stack up


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

He seems to be a mass transport proponent and very much against the private car as a form of mass transport in other words using your car for the work commute = bad.

Quote: _“When either a petrol or electric powered car is compared against the alternative (such as modern, efficient urban electric trains), it becomes immediately clear that the real issue is not so much how the car is powered, but the use of the private car versus efficient mass transport.”_

The electric car attracts his ire as due to its lack of (local) emissions, greater efficiency in traffic jams etc. it is seen by many as the ideal city car for the work commute = bad. 

Quote: _"Throughout the Western world there are strong calls for public transport to be made more widespread and convenient. Running against this tide is the electric car lobby: the major personal advantage of electric cars and hybrids is that they are more efficient in stop-start traffic."_

NZ’ers shouldn’t have them either even though they sort of make sense here because that'll give the electric car worldwide credibility .

Quote: _"Arguably, the widespread introduction of electric cars in New Zealand would legitimise the use of such vehicles in the vast majority of other nations that practise an unsustainable system of energy production and wastage."_

It's a very long report at 167 pages long.


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## DIGGER11 (Mar 16, 2010)

My understanding of public transport - or electric powered trains, is that they produce far more greenhouse gases per person per mile travelled. They make a petrol driven car seem to be green.


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## KiwiEV (Jul 26, 2007)

DIGGER11 said:


> My understanding of public transport - or electric powered trains, is that they produce far more greenhouse gases per person per mile travelled. They make a petrol driven car seem to be green.


I don't think you'll get any argument there. An entire electric train would certainly produce more CO2 per kilometre than a standard gas car.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

Hi Kiwi
Nonsense!
An electric train produces much less per passenger mile
*IF well utilized*

Trains in our (few) biggish cities would be very efficient!

I would love to be able to catch a train cross country its so much more relaxing than any of the alternatives!

Unfortunately train travel has to cover the cost of the tracks when roads are heavily subsidized from general taxes.


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## KiwiEV (Jul 26, 2007)

Duncan said:


> Hi Kiwi
> Nonsense!
> An electric train produces much less per passenger mile
> *IF well utilized*
> ...


What I meant was this: If you compare 1 electric train (maybe 10 tonnes) versus 1 petrol powered hatchback (1 tonne), then even with electric, the train would put out more CO2 per kilometre than the car.

However you're right, trains the overall winner because you can fit 300 people into 1 train, whereas a car can only take 5 at a pinch. Therefore the carbon output per person is lower if everyone went on a train.

Of course the truth is A: we love our cars, and B: the train network in NZ is a comedy routine!


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

_the train network in NZ is a comedy routine!_

Too true - unfortunately!

The train is by far the most comfortable way of travelling medium to long distances

60-1000Km

Saying that as we don't have a good train network could we develop a Train-2 network
with an optimum gauge and appropriate strengths - do trains need to be as heavy?


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## KiwiEV (Jul 26, 2007)

Oh man I would LOVE a rail link between New Plymouth and Auckland. As much as I love cars, I'd use it in a flash. I can't stand driving the 4.5 hours from NPL to AKL. I'd much rather put my feet up, read a book or watch something on my laptop. Bliss!
There was a rail link to NPL but it was shut down around 1977 and it's freight-only now. Grrrr.

I'd like to take the plane but it's often cheaper to fly from Auckland to Sydney than it is to fly Auckland to New Plymouth (no competition down this way).


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

For me the biggest argument for electric light rail is a logistical one rather than an environmental one. Once a city reaches a certain population and commerce density it starts to drown in cars and it needs to move on to an effective, coordinated, and efficient public transport system. Auckland got there years ago but through successive local governments has failed to put in place a descent public transport system. The three year term has proven insufficient to put a solution in place before the next administration comes along and tips it on its head. I've heard it said that if London didn't have the tube it wouldn't work as a city. By the time you put in enough motorways and parking lots to cope with all the cars that would be needed it would be all paved over and there would be nowhere for the office buildings and shops. As the city grows an effective public transport system becomes a necessity.

I can't really affect the Auckland public transport situation or its environmental impact but I can build an electric car and reduce my own footprint. Since I live in a small town on the outskirts of Auckland Public transport will always be thin to non-existent without the population density to support it. A person needs to concentrate on what they as an individual can do sometimes.

Getting back to Clive Mathew-Wilson's report, using the Tesla roadster as an argument against electric city commuter cars doesn't sit well with me. The car just doesn't fit the profile of a city commuter car. It's a long range electric sports car and as such has a large and heavy battery to furnish it with the range and performance that a city commuter wouldn't need. A genuine city commuter would have a much smaller battery and consequently be more efficient (it takes energy to move the weight). Tesla's choice of battery chemistry was for its energy density to achieve their range ambitions. This choice consequently requires that the battery have an active cooling system which makes charging and discharging the battery less efficient. The Mitsubishi i-MiEV would have been a much more suitable candidate to make the argument but I doubt it would have yielded the results Clive wanted. I believe that the Tesla Roadster is about 42% heavier than the Elise where as the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is about 20% heavier than the i kei car it's derived from (1080kg verses about 900kg). The electric version should be more aerodynamic due to its lack of cooling drag which should help offset the weight penalty. Don't forget this is a first generation design and so is going to be overly conservative with large factors of safety built in and will consequently be sub-optimal. Subsequent generations will get lighter and more efficient. Electric cars aren’t as good as they are going to be yet but ICE vehicles have had countless years of refinement. This does make comparisons abit skewed.

One of the reasons people who want to bash electric cars link them to coal fired power stations is that coal contains about twice as much carbon per unit of energy contained in the fuel as say oil. It is also burnt in power stations with a current average efficiency of just 33%. New coal power stations aren't much better than this and aren't as good as they could be. Coal stations could reasonably be built to achieve 55% efficiency. The consequence is that coal power stations pump out a lot more CO2 than any other type. It would probably require an act of government to force utilities companies to build the more efficient coal stations. With the advent of large natural gas liquification plants making natural gas transportable in bulk and cheap we could see more new generation being natural gas instead of coal. This would destroy the link up and the argument.


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

I would also like to say that if Clive points the coal powered finger at electric cars he must also in the interests of fairness also point the coal powered finger at his beloved electric light rail. While its true that the inefficiencies of the battery only apply to the electric car these same batteries also move the electric car load to off peak times reducing the stress on the grid and allow the car to take advantage of the spinning reserve capacity of off peak times.

It’s a very broad assumption that electric cars are going to be used in the place of public transport. This will clearly be untrue in many instances. In my case it is entirely untrue.

It is also a broad assumption that all new power generation will be coal fired and that electric cars will be adopted in sufficient number to require the construction of that new power generation capacity. The Labour government when they were in power had an undertaking that no new coal power generation would be built in NZ. Now we have a National government this has gone out the window. People could still see new coal power as a politically risky venture in NZ.


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