Why is the second-hand car market booming?

[DominicBest]

DB, I am not against battree(sic) cars but feel they are being over advertised and pushed for what they can actually do. In a few years, maybe, if hydrogen doesnt get them first and there are a.ready a few hydrogen cars running around though refilling is a major problem, unless the oil majors decide to adapt their service stations which they could do very quickly.
Hydrogen is dangerous stuff though and needs careful handling, so may only ever be reserved for heavy and or public transport.

In that case you are behind the times. La Rochelle trialled hydrogen engines on one of its passenger ferry routes for a year. They’ve reverted to electricity. JCB have done a lot of research into hydrogen engines and have got several in use. It’s areas like that that might well drive the progress because the sort of machinery that the build just can’t cope with the weight of the batteries that they would require to rely on electricity.

[tagh]

Yes, I knew about the La Rochelle experiment. I hardly think that the little ferry across the harbour is gonna shake the world, DB, but a worthy experiment. It seems a classic place for batteries.
There are trains now using hydrogen and trucks plus a few cars. My guess is that there will be a mixed use, hydrogen for the big stuff and, for the present, batteries for small stuff.
What happens with shipping, a big polluter, is another matter as several experiments are under way.

[DominicBest]

Why devalue the LR experiment? It was an interesting idea and was used on an important route, was very reliable and took a lot of setting up because they needed to have a secure fuel store close to hand.
You might find this interesting,
And this,

[tagh]

Yes, DB, I know about JCB. Dont they now own the bus company in Belfast that is developing hydrogen buses? Cant remember the name of the company though.

[RobertArthur]

About electric cars and recharging them, what about the capaciy of the grid and power outages? There are already cities in Europe where they have to say no to new industries or businesses: we are already at our maximum, no room avalilable. The demand for electricity is growing very fast. Can we double (2030) or quadruple (2045) the capacity of a grid that took a century to construct? No more fossil fuels, no more natural gas (Netherlands). In several cities in Europe they are transforming the E-charging infrastructure into a "smart-one". Sounds promising, but in reality it means throttling down the charging current of the public chargers in the streets after six p.m. when everybody returns from work and the energy demand in households rises sharply. Another example of the limits of the existing infrastructure.

[Doug]

Exactly what I posted [mention]RobertArthur[/mention] at the start of this post.

[exile]

Just looked in on this thread for the first time.

A couple of points for the Hydrogen supporters:
1. Currently 95% of all hydrogen produced is by the decarbonisation of methane.
CH4 + O2 --> 2 H2 + CO2
so this route is just as carbon dioxide producing as burning petroleum based products. Of course we could in the future create H2 by the electrolysis of water - but that needs the electricity that is becoming in short supply.

2. On combustion, hydrogen produces water - as vapour - and water vapour is a greenhouse gas.

Things may well progress but as of now hydrogen is a con.

[Spardo]

Thank you Andy, I think you have made that point before elsewhere, but I could not remember the detail.

[DominicBest]

A lot of the anti electric car brigade are also anti wind turbines. The long term plans for hydrogen production often include the production of electricity using wind farms. That’s a lose lose situation for those people.

[tagh]

Who are “A lot” please, DM readers?