[Bigmc]

I recently watched an episode of the hit British motoring TV program Top Gear that my step son sent me a link to , It was about synthetic fuel.

Synthetic fuel at present is expensive to produce and the at pump cost is something like a staggering £20 per litre I believe …. BUT….It is completely carbon neutral in both its production and emissions, in fact the F1 series is going to run all their cars on it from 2024 so I have been told ?

The beauty of it is that any petrol ICE from any era can run on it.
Porche have already said that they have a plant in Germany producing it and it will be available at all their franchises.

I don’t buy all this EV hype I’m afraid, it is a bunch of unelected Multi Billionaires pulling the strings of our bent and corrupt politicians who have huge financial interests in getting EVs into the market and the entire World running on them.

The environmental impact of both mining the rare Earth materials required for the manufacture of the batteries and the hideous problem of disposal is frightening and not forgetting the huge amount of electricity generation required to charge them, in fact at the moment in the UK it is more expensive to fully charge an EV at a charge point than it is to fill your car up with fuel.

I don’t know about the super bowl but here in the UK they struggle with everyone putting the kettle on during half time of a major football final, just imagine when everyone gets home from work and plugs their car in ! And say in a family of four where they all drive, who gets to charge their car first ?

If all the car manufacturers got behind synthetic fuel and abandoned this EV hype , the price would become cheap and we would most definitely get a new Burgman 650 Executive and that is something I would definitely be up for

Link to the Top Gear episode HERE

 

[Bigmc]

Sadly, Top Gear lie quite a lot and their “experiments” are scripted, so not experiments at all, and often give misleading information.
They claim “entertainment” rather than “information”

They faked a race with an electric car - it ran out of charge and suddenly stopped. Except that didn‘t happen, petrol cars go from full throttle to stop, electrics fade. People who knew this complained and they admitted it was staged.

They faked a Tesla breakdown, various jealousy and Jeremy Clarkson went to Vietnam to learn to ride motorcycles “for the first time ever” to create an oh so funny situation...except there are other programs filmed 25 yrs earlier where he comfortably rides motorcycles including a Ducati 916 around Grand Prix circuit.

I would’t take anything they say seriously.

I agree and Top Gear isn’t my cup of tea either it is a program for entertainment purposes in fact I don’t watch it and especially when it was with motorcycle hating Clarkson at the helm. My post however wasn’t about Top Gear, I just gave a link to a section featured on the program about Synthetic Fuel which being a petrol head interested me.

That dispatches program was interesting, but with Boris ( Pinnocio ) Johnson featuring and him himself banning ICE sales from 2035 I questioned the Governments real reasons why they want to ban them ? A work colleague of a friend of mine got rid of his EV because in real World driving, ie winter time, lights and heaters on , playing the radio and windscreen wipers going , distance anxiety became a real issue and the drain on the battery was significantly noticeable. Private sales of Electric Cars are still very poor in the UK, the vast majority are company cars whom of course get good tax breaks to buy them so those figures are very misleading.

That emissions test was also very interesting especially stating diesels we’re a lot cleaner than hybrids on cold start ups , I own an adblue diesel car which is exceptionally economical on fuel ( 70 miles to the gallon ) does around 450 miles on a full tank and takes about 3 minutes to fully fuel. They can ( and do ) produce bio diesel in large quantities and modern diesel cars running with all the latest technology in emission reductions run almost if not 100% clean.

Also used values will be very poor that Nissan being a prime example, I equate it to an iphone, buy the latest model today but in 5 years time the battery will be next to useless and the used sale value next to nothing, they too have unserviceable batteries, but perhaps there lies the answer ? Universal standard fittings and easily swapped out battery packs like with Electric Scooters in Italy.

I have to say I am still not a fan or advocate of battery operated vehicles and would dearly love to see a massive drive towards Synthetic Fuel.

 

[Bigmc]

Lets face it people who have an EV supplied by their company aren’t going to complain too much about their car. I too would have anything for free , I’ve even had Covid twice.

Private owners however I have found, are very vociferous in the defence of their expensive purchase but they make up a tiny fraction of overall private vehicle purchases here in the UK and lets not forget the environmental cost of all the other components in and are on the car it’s just not about emissions and its drive plant.

Would I ever consider owning an EV ? Well yes I have to as over here it is being forced on us so there is no choice although I’m likely to be well gone before it’s the norm , but as I previously said I am not a fan or advocate of them however when a battery lasts for say ten years, is reasonably priced to change, can easily cover a 300 mile range and takes just a few minutes to charge then I would be listening.

Going back to post #4 by Charbroil who mentions distributed power , wasn’t that the concept of Nikola Tesla , free energy from the ground ? Perhaps the company who hijacked his name should move towards developing his brilliant idea.
For me though my car is my A to B mode of transport but my Burgman is my fun machine and that can only be driven by an ICE 😈

 

[Bigmc]

On distribution of power -
There are some interesting bleeding edge technologies that might do away with batteries and traditional charging concepts.

Super-capacitors take less than a minute to fully charge. At the moment they are only capable of short journeys, but that was true of lithium batteries only a little while ago. There is an ongoing experiment with buses using them. Every time they pull up at a bust stop to pick up passengers they get topped up. If super-capacitors can be developed to a 300 mile range it will change everything.

Batteries can be made with 10 or more times the capacity we now have. The problem is they can’t be mass produced.
Vapour deposition technology allows material to be created in molecule layers at a time, allowing very high density storage but the technique is still on its infancy. Plus, if your battery/capacitor is also your frame/chassis - your weight problems reduce enormously which increases range and acceleration still further.

And not forgetting the Holy Grail …Nuclear fusion.
That would change absolutely everything.

 

[Bigmc]

I’m still waiting for the Raleigh Chopper the old man promised me in ‘74 !

 

[Bigmc]

Going back to my OP..This sounds quite promising for us two wheel petrol heads , sounds very much like the Japanese bike manufacturers are planning synthetic fuel for future bikes ?
See HERE

 

[Bigmc]

Yeh, Hydrogen in an ICE instead of gasoline or diesel, problem is, the production of hydrogen is still currently 95 percent from fossil fuels. I have a hard time getting excited about hydrogen.

No there is a part on there Yamaha in particular about hydrogen but if you read to the end it says Quote :

“Japan’s major motorcycle manufacturers are already working on alternative fuels that allow internal combustion engines to produce zero CO2 emissions at the tail pipe, so if FEMA is correct and these types of motorcycles are approved for sale after 2035, there will be models ready for production, and throttle twisters will still be able to enjoy their vroom vroom.”

 

[Bigmc]

This is interesting:
BMW CEO says reliance on EV’s is a dangerous thing.

HERE