The future of diesel. What should I do?

[Rob H]

I've dreamed of a van conversion, to my own specification, for years. I've just seen Rhale conversions at Peterborough and an upcoming pension payout is burning a hole in my pocket, but ...

Suppose I spend it all on a nearly new van and a smart conversion, the way things are going I won't be able to move it in a few years. I imagine more and more places will make it difficult or more expensive to enter certain zones, and gradually our world will get smaller. Aside from that, I'd love to be a bit greener.

I'm no techie but I'm guessing there won't be a future diesel to electric conversion available, and a van bought for business would simply be scrapped and replaced by a greener version. A camper is different though, as we'd be spending more on the interior than the shell. We want a big van so are looking at the Citroen L4H3, which I believe only comes in diesel anyway. Could it be converted to run on LPG (I know that's still a fossil fuel)?

What do people think? We travel in Europe as well as the UK.

Hi Lyonnesse, If you bought an electric Camper / Motor home today, notwithstanding that it's construction produces more environmentally damaging and depleting issues than a diesel or petrol vehicle ... that the power station that produces the energy to propel it, uses the same amount of earth resources and carbon release into the environment. And finally that your electric vehicle will be out of date performance wise in five years ... buy yourself an economical diesel van, and a cheap electric bicycle, Enjoy your retirement realise your dreams.

 

[Rumour]

ALEXA, how do we save the world ?
Answer .......sorry no matches found for your search .

You must have got the wrong system. Google comes up with a few things on how to save the earth!

 

[Deleted member 2784]

Buying a euro 6 is is the best option , it is not feasible to fit LPG to a diesel engine

Sorry but...it is possible to convert a diesel engine to LPG, hydrogen or CNG, it's been done for years with lorry engines. To keep it brief... the compression is reduced to around 12.5 :1 [which is ideal for LPG] - often by simply making a thicker head gasket, then an ignition system is fitted once the diesel injection gear is removed. This isn't as complex as it sounds as a 'copy cat' laser cutter can produce the necessary head gasket. Standalone ignition kits have been around for donkeys years now so in reality you'd require a decent mechanic, an engineering shop and a motor electrician... ! So I'd buy a diesel and enjoy it but make some serious enquiries so as to make forward plans and be ready. I'm 'mentally designing' a rear wheel drive diesel electric hybrid setup for my Sprinter. You've just got to think outside of the box!

 

[Deleted member 2784]

Edinburgh Council could quite easily ban vehicles from the city centre but they have chosen for years not to do so - I worked in the Police in the city centre back in 87 - 89 and patrolling Princes Street during the day resulted in streaming eyes and a smelly uniform. They allowed the constant nose to tail old bangers of buses to belch out fumes and 2.5 litre bangers of taxis to patrol 24/7 looking for fares. Like London, Scotland see the answer as charging motorists to use centres - why not just ban them? Everyone, even the poorest and most disadvantaged (SNPs pet subject) has a phone - call up a taxi from a static point instead of them still patrolling looking for fares. The London mayor has posters from his office displayed telling motorists in old diesels that they are affecting children's lives so is his answer to ban them - no - he wants another £12 on top of the current 'congestion' charge, so like Scotland are they serious or just looking for more cash from motorists. No one can argue about cause and affect, but as usual everything is more geared to income. (Edinburgh centre has been allowed over the years to become rather seedy and the once proud Princes Street is but a shadow of its former self so not sure why it still attracts so many pedestrians/tourists) Bob

Also... have a read up on how much filth is churned out by cruise and container ships, some claim that between them they're ranked as bad as all the pollution put out by some countries... Most burn the dirtiest of oil but are not subject to much control... so.. keep bashing the motorist, it must be easier than shooting rats in a barrel....

 

[Deleted member 2784]

Hi Lyonnesse, If you bought an electric Camper / Motor home today, notwithstanding that it's construction produces more environmentally damaging and depleting issues than a diesel or petrol vehicle ... that the power station that produces the energy to propel it, uses the same amount of earth resources and carbon release into the environment. And finally that your electric vehicle will be out of date performance wise in five years ... buy yourself an economical diesel van, and a cheap electric bicycle, Enjoy your retirement realise your dreams.

I think change is coming in pretty fast and electric vehicles have to be taken seriously. The good news is that the UK is doing rather well with renewable energy. Sadly though, often wind turbines are switched off due to over-production. The cure is storage, the best way being to use that excess power is to crack water into Hydrogen which in turn can power our beloved infernal combustion engines or electric vehicles via fuel cells. Of course there's a lot of work to be done but how nice would it be to use a fuel that produces clean water as an exhaust and was itself produced by the wind or solar? To think that in one hour enough solar energy hits the Earth to power it for a year one wonders why this is taking so long... or does the dire status quo of fossil fuel usage suit fatcats and fat tax takes alike. Surely we're witnessing a 'Worldly' version of the band playing on as the Titanic sinks.....

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Some interesting views there, an electric Moho would be a nice idea, but the 3.5t van would never happen due to battery weight, not to mention distance, and where wild campers would plug in, you can only get so much solar on the roof.

A courier friend a few years ago had a new VW LT35 converted to add LPG to the mix by the dealer, it spent most of its time off road, even had to have a new engine fitted.


I like the idea of converting them to run wholly on LPG though.

 

[IJenk52]

A couple of items really p--- me off about all of this:
1 The 16 most polluting ships pollute more than ALL the world's cars: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html
2 I have a diseasal Dacia as a run around. It produces 90g CO2 per km. This equates to just over 11 km/kg or around 1100 km/tonne. This is around 6900 miles. 1 tonne of concrete produces around 1 tonne of CO2 as it sets. 1 tonne of concrete is a block about 75cm x 75cm x 75cm. The CO2 produced from the 15 tonnes of concrete used in my drive is the equivalent of me driving the Dacia for over 100,000 miles. All this completely ignores the pollution produced by producing concrete in the first place!

 

[Millie Master]

Thank you IJenk52 for that very meaningful comment, boy oh boy don't the governments of the World have a thing or two to learn about selling the idea of global warning rather than always taking the cheapest cop out route of blaming the motorist!

 

[Deleted member 2784]

It's a wonder the sky hasn't caved in years ago...

 

[IJenk52]

OOPS tryping error 11 km/kg is 11000 km/tonne. I missed a zero off, the miles are correct though.