[halcyonrichard]

Looks like plug ins are not as good as they appear in official tests.

Analysis from pressure groups Transport and Environment and Greenpeace suggest they emit an average of 120g of CO2 per km.
That compares with the 44g per km in official "lab" tests

Plug-in hybrids are a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'

Although marketed as a green option, the cars cause more polluting than is claimed, campaigners say.

www.bbc.co.uk

The advice to take a shower instead of a bath uses less water is still believed by many. Then some one actually checked with water and temperature monitors and proved the opposite.

Face masks will end up in a similar category. Seems some "scientists" use olympic class coughers and sneezers to justify their use. Real life will prove otherwise.

 

[DragonQ]

Looks like plug ins are not as good as they appear in official tests.

Analysis from pressure groups Transport and Environment and Greenpeace suggest they emit an average of 120g of CO2 per km.
That compares with the 44g per km in official "lab" tests

Plug-in hybrids are a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'

Although marketed as a green option, the cars cause more polluting than is claimed, campaigners say.

www.bbc.co.uk

Could be true, it completely depends how you drive them. If you're using the battery 90% of the time surely they'd have low emissions, but you could use the engine 90% of the time too.

The advice to take a shower instead of a bath uses less water is still believed by many. Then some one actually checked with water and temperature monitors and proved the opposite.

Erm, how long are the showers you're taking??

 

[mrdr_ev]

Aye. "Normal" users of vehicles tend not to drive very efficiently, and I can well believe that a car that weighs 2 tonnes because it adds batteries and electric motors would probably wind up using more fuel per mile than the same car weighing 1.6 tonnes.
As with all things; take a short shower and it does use much less water than a bath; drive a PHEV in a suitable way without invoking the ICE and it will have very low CO2 output; the responsibility is on the user, as always.

The difference is that when I drive my EV "not very efficiently" I still don't emit CO2, and I can charge it from rainbows and unicorn farts...

What is incorrect is to assume that the science is wrong. The rating system isn't designed by scientists, it's designed by car manufacturers .. the two don't really mix.

 

[halcyonrichard]

Erm, how long are the showers you're taking??

Not me. They monitored a number of houses in the real world and found that having a shower used more water than having a bath. Seemed that the "researchers" asked people how long they spent in the shower. Joe public can't measure time very well - but that#s another research project.

 

[halcyonrichard]

What is incorrect is to assume that the science is wrong. The rating system isn't designed by scientists, it's designed by car manufacturers .. the two don't really mix.

These things do not relate to science at all. That's why I put it in quotes. People usually take a piece of evidence and extrapolate anything they want. The article relates to the quoted CO2 consumption (usually used to make policy decisions) to what Greenpeace measured in the real world.

"The pressure groups have analysed what they say is "real-world" data on fuel efficiency collected from some 20,000 plug-in hybrid drivers around Europe. "

 

[BabyEVDriver]

Could be true, it completely depends how you drive them. If you're using the battery 90% of the time surely they'd have low emissions, but you could use the engine 90% of the time too.


Erm, how long are the showers you're taking??

I was thinking that. i takes about 10 mins to 1/2 fill a normal sized UK bath with both taps or mixer tap flat out. Try filling a batch 1/2 full with a showerhead, minimum of 30 mins i reckon. !0 mins in a shower is plenty of washing time. I suspect peeps who take long showers are masturbating for at least 1/2 the time in there.

 

[halcyonrichard]

Well there are a lot of wankers about.

 

[Jeffrey Cooper]

Weve been using the "Company drivers don't charge their plug-ins" and only bought them for the tax benefit for ages, and then lo and behold, a survey completely without any bias manages to use a load of them for data to rubbish PHEVs - what is it with this world of people who think their clever tactics will get them something.

 

[Tooks]

Does any vehicle with an engine meet its tested emissions when driven in the ‘real world’?

I doubt it.

Still, all the BIK avoiders who couldn’t be arsed to plug in for the last 3 years will soon be releasing their company hacks onto the used market for people who can and will plug them in to enjoy.

 

[halcyonrichard]

I think they want policy to have a real effect on CO2. So policy would say encourage BEV by better tax incentives and a fantastic charging infrastructure.The fact that humans do not behave as we would expect should be taken into account when deciding policy. Or just get Putin to run the country for us.

 

[Tooks]

Or just get Putin to run the country for us.

I thought he did?! 😳

 

[whereswally606]

nobody take bowers? you have a shower over the bath and so technically no wasting the water. People don't tend to share baths maybe much now. Not so cool if someone has spaffed in your bath before you though. I think the plugin hybrid thing is silly to lump them all in the same basket. Some have largish batteries and so can do alot more ev only range than others. There is a chap in france who has a prius which is an ev only one (it still can drive on the gas) but he has put more lithium in the back and can use public charging so takes it on long journeys. can do 55mph on the ev and its a 2nd gen prius. Sad that all prius' arent retrofit. Technically thats a plugin but i bet he gets better efficiency than most of the leaf drivers on here.

 

[mikegs]

I was thinking that. i takes about 10 mins to 1/2 fill a normal sized UK bath with both taps or mixer tap flat out. Try filling a batch 1/2 full with a showerhead, minimum of 30 mins i reckon. !0 mins in a shower is plenty of washing time.

You'd better stop thinking then. These people actually instrumented homes and measured what people did in terms of water use. This isn't 'thinking', which is where all the wrong information came from in the first place, it's scientific data.

As it happens having fitted a mains pressure shower over the bath in our previous house I did an experiment. It took 6 minutes to fill the bath (about the same in our current house). Having a normal length shower but with the bath plug in filled the bath to the same sort of level.
So those findings didn't surprise me at all.

If you have a trickle shower it probably does use less, but any kind of high pressure shower will use a lot.

 

[starquake]

cough having experience outlanders plugging in but not charging for a use of a charging space becuase the charging is paid for, I can see why this is occurring. It's not all PHEV's that do this -> but some definitely do, and I've seen it now twice in first month of EV ownership. (and were taking space from real EV's who wanted to charge in the last case). And I've now seen 2 Outlanders in specific doing this so they are "worst" in my book. I have a feeling we'll see Electric (not PHEV) signs appearing in next 5 years.

 

[SkippyKitten]

method: run 5.5kW mains pressure shower with plug in bath. Include warm-up time. Measure depth immediately afterwards at 2 visibly deepest locations using steel rule

result: 28mm and 30mm recorded.

Conclusion: nowhere near as much water used.

 

[halcyonrichard]

Conclusion: nowhere near as much water used.

Conclusion: nowhere near as much water used by one person out of 60 million.

Its the other 59,999,999 buggers that mess it all up in the real world tests.

 

[IRadiate]

Not me. They monitored a number of houses in the real world and found that having a shower used more water than having a bath. Seemed that the "researchers" asked people how long they spent in the shower. Joe public can't measure time very well - but that#s another research project.

They? You posted a source for the PHEV story but not for the shower. My bath takes about 10 minutes to fill. I can take a shower in 10 minutes. If I use my shower to attempt to fill my bath it takes far longer Conclusion: shower uses less water than a bath.
Obviously a smaller bath and a shower that throws out lots of water will make the two converge until you get a bath size and shower flow rate that use the same amount of water.

 

[BabyEVDriver]

You'd better stop thinking then. These people actually instrumented homes and measured what people did in terms of water use. This isn't 'thinking', which is where all the wrong information came from in the first place, it's scientific data.

As it happens having fitted a mains pressure shower over the bath in our previous house I did an experiment. It took 6 minutes to fill the bath (about the same in our current house). Having a normal length shower but with the bath plug in filled the bath to the same sort of level.
So those findings didn't surprise me at all.

If you have a trickle shower it probably does use less, but any kind of high pressure shower will use a lot.

That's bollocks. I dont beleive it. Your definition of a "bath" must not even cover the tops of your legs. A Bath is half full so when an adult gets in the water displacement covers the legs and rises at least up to the belly button. When laying down the water dispalcement should then be up to your shoulders. Absolute now way you can put that much water in a bath in 6 mins through a shower head. There is no way the shower head has the same flow rate as a tap full chat. Easy to measure, take a 2 litre saucepan, and time it with your mobile how long to fill up with the bath taps. Then repeat with the shower head. 100% the shower head will be slower if both are mains pressure only.

I cant do the bath / shower test as i'm not poor enough, 3 bathrooms in our house and each has a seperate bath and shower, and ours is a pressurised megaflo water system.

 

[IRadiate]

Agreed. Also depends on the size of the bath. The variables are the size of the bath and the flow rate of the shower and how long you take to have a shower. The smaller the bath the quicker taking a bath and shower achieve parity.
My definition of a bath is slightly more than half full so that when I get in, the water covers me up to my shoulders. Furthermore, you can add a gadget in your shower to aerate the water thus reducing your water usage even further.
There's thinking and there's experimentation and there's flawed experimentation and there's mis-interpretation of the experimental results.

 

[SkippyKitten]

Conclusion: nowhere near as much water used by one person out of 60 million.

Its the other 59,999,999 buggers that mess it all up in the real world tests.

I did this actual measurement. It’s valid. What it tells us is that for me, shower is noticeably more efficient than bath. What you should consider is doing an analogous measurement for yourself and not rely on ‘they’ since it is straightforward to produce an accurate result. If you’re suitably equipped you could include energy use and estimate CO2.

I love papers published by ‘They et al’. Especially when it’s in the renowned journal the Daily Mail. Care to cite your source?