Jaffa's Juicy Bits

I got home from what felt like the longest day of my life to find I had forgotten my house keys and couldn't let myself in.

No problem, I thought, my wife will be home and I'll just ring the doorbell. I rang. Nothing. I rang again. Still nothing. I checked my watch...bathtime! A quick glance at the bathroom window confirmed the light through the cracks in our window shutters.

Oblivious to me being stood on the dark doorstep, my wife was upstairs with my son splashing around in the bath whilst listening to the latest Jessie J album via Spotify. Alright for her, but the volume was so loud she couldn't hear my attempts to attract her attention.

What to do? I sent her an sms message knowing full well that it would fail as she wouldn't take her phone in the bathroom. So I headed back to the car to sit it out, hoping she didn't put Frazer to bed before she came down. Then it struck me...

She was listening to music in the bathroom using our whole house Sonos music system. She takes its splashproof controller into the bathroom with her and Frazer has a boogie whilst splashing in the bath. Maybe...just maybe?

I pulled out my phone and checked that I could connect to the home wifi from outside. The signal was weak, but enough. I then loaded up the Sonos Controller for Android. It worked and I could clearly see Jessie J on the "now playing" screen for the bathroom, and bedroom, and en-suite. No wonder she couldn't hear me, it was blasting out through the entire first floor of the house.

I touched the music button and decided Napster was the best option, as its library is much bigger than Spotify. Search...tracks..."locked out". Within fractions of a second, an unfamiliar Crowded House track appeared from their best of album..."Locked Out". I hit Play Now and hoped it would work.

Indoors, Frazer was no longer in the bath and they were in fact brushing his teeth when the music stopped. At first my wife thought the Virgin Media internet connection had gone down...again...but then the music resumed. But a totally different track, one that wasn't even in the playlist she had created.

The song opened with the line "I been locked out" and she glanced at the controller to confirm it was indeed called "Locked Out". A few seconds later, she opened the shutters, saw me sat in the car on the driveway and came downstairs to let me in...laughing her head off.

Funny, I was just queueing up "Baby it's cold outside".

The year was 2010 and, with a PR budget some can only dream of, Volvo Car UK launched its Emissions Equality campaign. Aimed at "providing all motorists with a broader range of emissions information when they buy their next car" the new think tank would "help combat the UK’s rising problem of poor air quality."

As an active campaigner to reduce pollution and improve air quality I naturally took an interest and was impressed by its alleged proposals, although at the same time perhaps rather sceptical that it was just a thinly veiled marketing campaign with the aim of convincing the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to exempt its vehicles from the London Congestion Charge.

Sadly, as an ecologist, Volvo Car UK truly let me down. As soon as they managed to turn Boris around, and its particulate emitting diesel cars were exempted from the charge, the campaign seemed to completely lose focus. Worst of all, the Emissions Equality app that they had launched lay abandoned in the middle of the iTunes store without an update.

In March 2011, I called them out on this situation in my post entitled Emissions Inequality. I explained about the campaign, its apparent lack of focus and the fact that the app was completely useless to new buyers as it contained only very old data - despite daily updates being available from the VCA that take into account all new car models that are launched.

I received a fairly prompt response from both Jay Negley at Redspy (who developed the app whilst running the Clean Green Cars website promoted within it) and Duncan Forrester from Volvo Car UK who informed me that an update would hopefully be available soon. In March 2011, the month I wrote my inequality post, the app was indeed updated.

Fast forward to January 2012 and there have been dozens, probably hundreds of unique car models released since then. Car buyers may be keen to compare the emissions of these new vehicles with others that are on sale, in order to help reduce some 50,000 premature deaths a year that are caused by air pollution. (Source: Volvo Car UK).

So what will the Emissions Equality Think Tank offer them in 2012?

1) The application has not been updated since I last queried it in March 2011 - almost one year ago.

2) The Emissions Equality Facebook page hasn't received an update since July 2010.

3) Volvo Car UK hasn't released any information on the topic since October 2010, when they were celebrating their victory in changing the London Congestion Charge rules.

So, is Emissions Equality a campaign to help improve air quality and reduce all types of pollution from vehicles in the UK? Or is it just a long forgotten Volvo marketing campaign? You decide.

For years, ecologists have been encouraging us to turn off electrical appliances that aren't in use. Turn off lights in unused rooms, wash laundry at lower temperatures and ensure you don't overfill the kettle. All because using electricity is bad for the environment.

There’s a massive CO2 footprint for electricity production. Generating just 1kWh of electricity in the UK releases around 525g of CO2 and other emissions into the atmosphere from our coal and natural gas fired power stations.

Naturally, this made me cast a critical eye over the recent boom in electric vehicles (EVs) and I previously examined the hidden emissions that come from driving an EV like the Nissan LEAF after the seemingly constant claims that these vehicles are “Zero Emission”. In fact, just last week, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn was making big claims around the CO2 that hasn’t been emitted as a result of people driving the LEAF.

Everybody is jumping on the EV bandwagon now, with many manufacturers having a pure EV or plug-in hybrid on sale or coming to market. Last week I was invited to the Volvo HQ in Gothenburg to see the new V60 plug-in hybrid vehicle. Naturally, I sat there doing sums about how much CO2 would be generated in charging its 11.2kWh battery pack and then put the question to Volvo about how exactly this was going to help the environment. I wasn’t ready for the answer.

It seems that Volvo has done a nice little deal with Swedish electricity provider Vattenfall which will give buyers the option of taking the car along with three years of renewable energy supply. Generated from hydro-electric or wind, this supply has a carbon footprint of approximately zero meaning that, on a full charge, the V60 plug-in hybrid will go up to 32 miles with no CO2 emissions from the tailpipe or the power station. Rather different from simply pretending there aren’t any emissions from the use of electricity.

Perhaps things have changed at Nissan in almost two years since I first looked into EVs? I asked Nissan UK if it was prepared to discuss why it continually fails to acknowledge the carbon footprint of electricity production whilst promoting EVs. I submitted the following questions to its press office:

1) How does plugging something in and leaving it turned on overnight help save the environment?

2) Doesn't this go against the messages we've been receiving from ecologists for years?"

3) Why aren't other products, like tumble dryers and fridge/freezers being marketed as "zero emission" if a car, that uses considerably more power, can be.

4) What is Nissan doing to help reduce the environmental impact of electricity production?

Nissan responded by saying that “Unfortunately, we are not in a position to comment on your questions.”

Meanwhile, Volvo is looking into providing a renewable energy option in all locations they plan to sell plug-in vehicles.

Regular readers of this site will likely have read some of the previous articles featured on this site around the Nissan LEAF and electric cars in general. So imagine my surprise when British Gas contacted me to let me know they run Nissan LEAF models as pool cars from there offices in Windsor and Staines.

Not only that, but they claim that these cars are truly zero emissions as they are each powered by some dedicated solar panels - recharging the vehicles using just the power of the sun.

Needless to say I was keen to take a look so I packed my camera, a Surrey Police Inspector and the MilesPerLitre.com team and we headed over there for a special report.

Are these Nissan LEAF pool cars truly zero emissions from usage? Or is British Gas trying to sell us a load of hot air? Take a look at the full article over on the MilesPerLitre.com site.

The UK is buzzing with news from the AA that drivers are using 15% less petrol than three years ago in 2008 which has led to a number of media outlets putting in their usual political spin on the numbers. The BBC even claim that  “the fall in sales has deprived the Treasury of nearly £1bn in fuel duty between January and June this year”.

Sure there is no denying that, in the first six months of 2011, retailers have sold 1.7bn less litres of petrol compared with 3 years ago. But what else has happened over that same period?

In 2008, the  AA reported that “Fuel price falls to 21- month low”. If we look at the middle of that six month period in 2008, the AA fuel price report March 2008, we’ll see that the UK average prices were 106.8 and 114.3 pence per litre respectively for petrol and diesel. Of this they claim tax of 62% (66.2p) for petrol and 58.94% (67.4p) for diesel.

Fast forward to March 2011 and we now have a UK average of 132.9p for Petrol and 139.0p for Diesel. With tax of 61% and 59.08% that equates to 81.1p per litre tax on petrol and 81.9p per litre tax on diesel. So, in the 3 year period being reported on, the tax on a litre of petrol has actually gone up 14.9 pence or 22.5%.

So they’re selling 15% less fuel, but the Government is actually taking home 7.5% more tax - helped in part by the increase in VAT. Not exactly that £1bn reduction in fuel duty you may have perceived, is it?

In reality, the last 5 years has seen the introduction of Euro 5 and other emissions legislation which has resulted in significantly more economical diesel cars. We now have family sized cars from the likes of Volvo that will do around 1000 miles on a single tank of diesel. With more than half of cars now being sold on PCP schemes, that result in a new car every 3-5 years, in this 3 year period a large proportion new cars buyers will have switched from an older Euro 4 car to a Euro 5 compliant diesel with economy improvements of up to 50%.

This would have resulted in significantly reduced diesel sales but the migration of petrol drivers to DERV has pretty much matched the economy improvements in this area, with a 0.5% drop in diesel sales since 2008. The overall loser is petrol. No surprise as supply and demand is clearly displayed in the pump price which has risen much less than diesel in recent times.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that the Government didn’t see this one coming and, with diesel taxes up 21% in the same period, they’re clearly raking it in.

Dear HSBC,

I have been a customer of HSBC since 1991, when I was 16 years of age.

Since then I have been able to manage my account a number of ways. I could use my Debit card at an ATM to check my balance, transfer funds or even print off recent transactions.

I could use telephone banking to check my balance at my convenience from any telephone, 24 hours a day. I could even speak to a friendly human being, until you moved the call centre to India and things started to go downhill.

That's OK, I still had the friendly people in my local Addlestone branch. I could drop in there and talk to them with any queries and pay-in cheques as required. But then you turned it into a lobby style branch, pretty much removing all the people unless I pressed a buzzer to get one out of the back office. They were quite helpful for showing me how to use the machine, which couldn't handle my enquiry, or directing me to the internal courtesy phone that would connect me free of charge to your call centre...in India.

Thankfully Internet Banking was available which has allowed me, for many years, to access my accounts on-line. I can check balances, transfer money, make payments etc. as required. I just need to sign-in with my user ID, date of birth and random characters from my password. It works well and has done for years.

Presumably people started going into my local branch less and less, as you closed it - along with my nearest cash machine. Quite ironic that a company with the strapline "the world's local bank" would go ahead and no longer be local thousands of customers. To pay-in cheques, which lets face it will be in Birthday cards from Grandparents for years to come, I now have to drive many miles to find a branch that's open on a Saturday morning as I can't get to the nearest branch during its limited opening hours. Thankfully most people transfer money electronically these days so I've put up with this minor inconvenience for quite a while. The irony that a relative's gift to my son is actually a trip to the bank with his mum to pay in the cheque. She can no longer walk to the branch with her buggy. Instead, she has to load the children and buggy in the car, drive to an open branch, pay to park and then line up to pay in the cheque.

This wasn't really very practical, so we opened an account for our son at the local Nationwide. We became familiar with that branch as it is now our closest cash machine, since you closed ours. They provide us with a service so they get our custom. That's how it works. HSBC may be the world's local bank, but ours is a small branch of Nationwide. They also got our Mortgage business when we moved house because not only were their flexible mortgage deals great value, they were also...you know...open.
Continue Reading "Dear HSBC" »

Examining the total cost of ownership of a vehicle can be hard. When you add in the fact that this car has two different energy sources, it gets very difficult. So instead of trying to estimate the true running costs, based on unknown servicing prices and unpredictable residual values, I'll simply look at running costs and related emissions.

The easiest car to compare the Plug-in Prius to is its own hybrid predecessor. They are, after all, the same car - the plug-in variant just has a bigger battery pack that uses Lithium instead of NiMH in the older Prius. It also requires an on-board charger and a few software tweaks.

We know from our measurements that the Prius Plug-in Hybrid uses around 3.3kWh of electricity for a full charge. For technical reasons, related to battery management, it's rumoured that this model actually carries around 5kWh of Li-ion battery cells on board. This, using our ballpark figure of £500 per kWh of battery modules, equates to a wholesale battery pack cost of around £2500. This pack also replaces the smaller NiMh battery pack in the normal hybrid Prius - so we're saving on that cost too. It's probably fair to say that the cost saving of removing the NiMh battery pack probably covers the cost of the new charging unit in the plug-in model, so the only real additional cost in this car is the £2500 Li-ion pack. No surprise then, that Toyota claim the Plug-in Prius will go on sale in the UK for under £26k (after subsidy) - about £2000 more than the current Prius T-Spirit model.

So what extra do you get for your money? Well, you should get lower running costs. If you frequently do short journeys, the 13 miles of plug-in range will put a significant dent in your fuel bill. Compared to the 60mpg you will likely get in the standard Prius, Toyota are claiming a combined fuel consumption of 108.6mpg in this prototype model. As with the Ampera, this is based on a highly unrealistic testing cycle and your results will vary considerably. Counting miles that don't actually come from the gallons is a bit misleading and pointless. I could pull the car with husky dogs and that would also increase my mpg, it's all nonsense.

In real terms, the hybrid Prius will use around a litre of fuel when travelling 13 miles. Instead of burning that litre of fuel, at a current cost of around £1.35, the plug-in hybrid Prius allows you to use electricity instead; at a rather cheaper cost of 35 pence. You then need to charge for a couple of hours, after which you can save another litre of petrol and another pound in cash. Every time you charge, you save a quid. If you can only charge at home, you may only save a quid a day. If you're fortunate enough to be able to charge at work, you may save another quid - or more if you don't pay the electricity at that end either. If the saving really is only a quid, in the pouring rain you really aren't going to go rooting around in the boot looking for your charging cable and plugging in. If you're in your suit for work, you'd likely rather spend the extra quid under a canopy at the petrol pump next time you fill up.

So, over the course of the year, you may manage say 400 charges - a saving of £400. Over the 3-5 years you might own this car, this equates to £1200-2000. How much are you paying for this privilege? About £2000. Like a lot of current plug-in car maths,you may not see a clear benefit.

Why would I want to pay an extra £2k for the privilege of messing around with a charging cable in bad weather if the overall saving was only £2000? That's no benefit and we've not even considered the ever increasing cost of domestic fuel, which is rising faster than petrol prices.

Of course, you may be interested in this car as you are an environmentalist - so let's look at the CO2 footprint.
Continue Reading "Prius Plug-in Hybrid Part Six - Running Costs & Emissions" »