Perhaps this is why Suzuki have dropped the Jimny

l've got a friend with an electric car.

He's invested in solar panels, with storage.
The "storage" is recycled Tesla electric car batteries!
lt's enough to supply most of the electricity needed to charge his electric car. And he can charge it at night from the stored energy.

Maybe that's the answer?

He did have a wind turbine which produced around 1Kw (when it was windy) but his neighbours complained about the noise so he took it down.

I hadn’t intended this thread to be a debate about the pros and cons of electric vehicles, if an electric vehicle met my needs I would have one in an instant but no one makes a electric Jimny and my other car is 23 years old.

I am all in favour of clean electric power, we have solar panels on the roof and a large battery bank in the garage and for more than six months of the year export power nearly every day.

The reason for the post was to show how much money car manufacturers are loosing by converting to EV and expect more manufacturers to drop or slim down their range when converting to EV.

Just to put it in comparison Tesla only started making a profit in 2020, their best year was 2022, profits last reporting period were 60% down, they must be the most successful EV manufacturer.

There's nothing especially wrong with the Jimny engine in terms of toxic pollutants or CO2.  Even the gen3 has CO and HC almost too low to show up in the test, and the gen4 is quite a bit more economical.  The reason Suzuki took the gen4 car off sale is simply that, as the only non-hybrid in the range, it avoided them paying a fleet CO2 emissions charge, because hybrids have artificially low CO2 for regulatory purposes.  In practice, a Vitara mild hybrid probably emits more CO2 than a Jimny, but it's all about regulations, not about common sense.

I think the Jimny will return in some form if New battery technology will allow. With 400km range in half the size and weight of todays batteries it will be much easier to make the Electric Jjimny.

And that is Just a few years away.

Motacilla wrote:

Today's average power price in Norway: about 25€. In Germany: 81€, UK 88€. Norway has always been interconnected. But the connections do not at all levelise prices across the region. Norway, a lucky country, still marinates in extremely cheap hydroelectricity. And the benefits are not one-way either: Swedish and Danish power during certain hours reduces Norwegian prices.  You can see this yourself by looking at the Nordpool power flow diagrams each day.

Government revenues are fungible.  The existence of an oil-financed pension fund means that Norway does not need to use tax revenues to meet pension requirements and has more money available to spend on other things.  You may or may not call it a direct subsidy -- although the fund does indeed send large amounts of cash to the budget each year -- but it is unquestionably a subsidy.  (If the fund and Equinor vanished tomorrow, would your taxes and government services stay the same?)  

I like Norway, and I am not criticising your system!  I am just pointing out that a small, rich country with energy coming out of its ears is not really a model for the rest of us.

Agree.
Would go bankrupt in a few hours without the energy. There is a law saying how much and for what the fund and oil income can be used for. Very strict max 3% per year for the fiscal budget, regulated by the state of the economy. 
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A Very good thing is that unlike most countries we do not give the income from the oil and hydroelectric away to rich multinational companies, it mostly still belong to the people. 


Funny thing is private motor vehicles produce 10% of the co2 emissions in the world but for you and me it looks like this is where the big change must come first. 
We could just stop producing junk we do not need with low quality and high energy use, stop the too fast growth in the economy that makes most of us work 20 to 30% of our lives just to make rich people richer, stop the stupid cruise ship tourism and stop half of the air planes.
Then we could really cut emissions. 

On my whole two week 3000km trip alone with my Jimny I will release 480 kg co2. If I spent my holiday in Spain by plane the flight alone would be 1000 to 1500kg. 



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yakuza wrote:

I think the Jimny will return in some form if New battery technology will allow. With 400km range in half the size and weight of todays batteries it will be much easier to make the Electric Jjimny.

And that is Just a few years away.

400km range won't get me to my destination in the rainforest, and I can guarantee you there are no charging facilities when I "go bush", perhaps I could tow a trailer with a petrol powered generator, but wouldn't that defeat the purpose?

EVs might eventually fit in a urban environment, once the power generation & distribution challenges are sorted out, but, an "E-offroad-V" just seems like a half-baked idea.

yakuza wrote:

Half of every car in Norway is Electric and most of those charge at home. Charging is done at night when other consumption is low.

Certainly not knocking this. But also bear in mind, Norway’s entire population is only about 2/3rds that of London!

lightning wrote:

l've got a friend with an electric car.

He's invested in solar panels, with storage.
The "storage" is recycled Tesla electric car batteries!
lt's enough to supply most of the electricity needed to charge his electric car. And he can charge it at night from the stored energy.

Maybe that's the answer?

He did have a wind turbine which produced around 1Kw (when it was windy) but his neighbours complained about the noise so he took it down.

Sounds interesting and not knocking this either. But that also sounds very expensive, so only for the wealthy and only those that own suitable large houses/properties. Which has to be the vast minority of the populous.

300bhpton wrote:

lightning wrote:

l've got a friend with an electric car.

He's invested in solar panels, with storage.
The "storage" is recycled Tesla electric car batteries!
lt's enough to supply most of the electricity needed to charge his electric car. And he can charge it at night from the stored energy.

Maybe that's the answer?

He did have a wind turbine which produced around 1Kw (when it was windy) but his neighbours complained about the noise so he took it down.

Sounds interesting and not knocking this either. But that also sounds very expensive, so only for the wealthy and only those that own suitable large houses/properties. Which has to be the vast minority of the populous.

But every little bit counts. I have a large-ish house and now use 15000kwh/year and used to consume 29000kwh. Over the years I have insulated, now I chop my own firewood, use smart controls of the power usage to peak shave and, move the use to avoid price peaks during the day. Stupid rich people use stupid much power too but very few of those do these things. That minority is responsible for the majority of the emissions. 
Thinking of solar and a battery but I cannot get the calculation to make it worth the investment yet. I would be closer to net zero if I filled my roof with panels but too cheap power now. If I needed an EV maybe, but I do not need a New car. 
If there was an EV Jimny I would create a need of course. 
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We have 12 solar panels on the roof and a 11kWh battery bank. Over the course of a year we expect to generate 3,600kWh, much more in summer than in winter. Our payback is about 9 years, after that everything we generate is for nothing, we are 2 1/4 years in. Or look at it another way, it’s return on investment is about 11% per year.

For example we generated 21kWh today, more than half of it went back in to the grid, I jet washed a patio so used a fair amount, but we do get 15p per kWh. If we had an EV the 12kWh that went in to the grid would have gone in to the car, that would have got us about 45 miles, not a full charge, but it would have helped.

Of course we don’t generate much in winter, may be around 3-4kWh depending how gloomy it is, so we draw from the grid then.

As we have a battery we can choose when we draw power and program the charging to use power when it is cheap (we are a variable tariff that changes every 30 minutes).

Robin