02-16-2022, 12:45 PM
This was just posted by one of our Maserati forum members from Switzerland , thought it’s worth sharing .
“ Recently I read this article, take a moment to read it as well. It still seems to me that the topic of 100% electromobility is too ideologically charged; reality will catch up with us and overtake us. It will not be as easy as some left-wing forces imagine electrification to be. I still watch all the sick discussions about the climatic end of the world relatively calmly and enjoy my popcorn.
The world's best engine builder puts a damper on electric car euphoria
Mario Illien shows: Electric drive is more of an elitist dead end than the solution to exorbitant human mobility.
(Source "Infosperber, Niklaus Ramseyer, 27.07.2021")
"Socket beats gas pump!" So cheered TV presenters recently on SRF news. Specifically, more electrically powered cars are now being sold than diesel cars for the first time, other media also reported. This is very good news for the environment, they said. Which is certainly true if you only look at exhaust and CO2 pollution - and only when comparing diesel and electric cars. And it's a minority problem: In June, just over 14 percent of newly sold cars in Switzerland were "fully electrified" - and thus emission-free in operation.
Electric cars: "A disaster for the environment"
There is a broad consensus in the media that the future belongs to electromobility. Electricity is "the historic opportunity for environmentally friendly motorized individual transport," they say.
A man who knows more about mobility and drive systems than almost anyone else in the world has little sympathy for such euphoria: if you calculate the total environmental impact (of which CO2 and exhaust gases are only a part) precisely, the well-known electric car from the U.S. brand Tesla, for example, is ecologically "a disaster," says Mario Illien, an engineer from Graubünden. He states, "Electric cars are not a solution for the global climate."
After all, "The whole efficiency of a system is important, and not just a sub-area to cultivate the image and soothe the conscience." And even in the often-emphasized "sub-areas," things look rather bad for the electric car by comparison: Illien calculates that of the energy that flows into electricity plants to charge their batteries, electric cars ultimately deliver just 11 percent to the road in the form of thrust via their drive wheels. At over 20 percent, the much-maligned diesel is already twice as efficient. The engines of the most efficient gasoline burners are 50 percent efficient. It's the Formula 1 engines where efficiency makes the difference between winning and losing a race.
A life for car engine efficiency and performance
In auto racing, it's as hard as nails to ensure that the lightest possible engine delivers maximum power to the race track with the least amount of fuel. Illien, who will soon be 72 years old, has spent his life working on this issue - and has continuously applied his findings as a designer to the world's best high-performance engines. Currently, for the F-1 racing team "Redbull": If their racing cars with their Honda engines are now suddenly outrunning the previously leading Mercedes cars, this success has a name: Mario Illien.
The reserved and rather modest man from Graubünden (a Swiss mountain canton) studied mechanical engineering at the Engineering School in Biel after completing an apprenticeship as a draftsman at Ems Chemie. Even at a young age, he built highly efficient and successful racing engines for Simca. With his company Ilmor (Illien-Morgan), he eventually helped to establish Mercedes' success in Formula 1 from Brixworth in Great Britain - all the way to the world championship title. Today, the honorary doctor of the University of Leeds still runs a small research and development company for engines under the name "Ilmor Engineering". He is currently testing a new, extremely economical five-stroke engine. He is also available to the world's largest engine manufacturers as a consultant and problem solver. Right now, he is optimizing the turbocharger for the Honda engines in the "Redbull" Formula 1 racing team.
E-mobility at most for the urban traffic niche
Illien is used to tackling detailed problems holistically and comprehensively. This is also the case with electric cars. For him, it is clear that electric vehicles have "at most a certain justification in urban traffic. In other words, in a niche where well-heeled elites can soothe their guilty consciences (because of their large ecological footprint) with their Teslas. The "abysmal" (Illien) efficiency of the e-engines is still the lesser problem: the eco-balance of the electric cars becomes "catastrophic" when they are produced and especially because of their batteries, which weigh tens of kilograms.
On July 17, the NZZ (a well known Swiss news paper) calculated what it takes just to build the battery of a single Tesla: 85 kg of copper, 56 kg of nickel, 7 kg of cobalt and 6.6 kg of manganese. The paper calculates: To replace diesel and gasoline vehicles with electric cars in Switzerland alone, "40,000 tons of cobalt would be needed - a third of the world's annual production." Subtitle of the article: "Electric cars have a weak point: batteries made from raw materials that are becoming scarce worldwide."
Not even 1 percent e-cars yet - and already raw materials are running short
"Already running short," it should probably read. Because with just 10 million e-cars out of a total of 1.4 billion vehicles worldwide, only just one out of 140 motor vehicles is an electric car. That's a paltry 0.7 percent. Illien takes such sobering facts into account in his efficiency calculations. He says: "Replacing the other 99 percent - well over a billion cars, most of which still have good explosion engines - with electric cars long before their maximum service life would be a gigantic waste. And battery production for this would never be ecologically sustainable. After all, "Our resources are limited, and we should have an interest in using them sparingly and wisely."
Overexploitation, pollution, destruction of landscape, environment and life.
Battery cars that use 1000 or even more horsepower to accelerate a single person from 0 to 100 km/h in just under 3 seconds certainly have nothing to do with such common sense. But these electric cars already exist. With nasty consequences for the environment: "Overexploitation, pollution and the destruction of landscapes and lives should concern us in connection with electromobility," demands engine builder Illien. Specifically, he notes, "Lithium is flushed out of the rock with water. There are deposits in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile or Peru, i.e. in rather dry areas where there is not much water anyway. And now the local population is also being deprived of groundwater for this process. There's no consideration there, whole valleys are being turned upside down." And battery disposal is another largely unsolved problem at the other end of the chain: Just from the fashionable e-bikes (popularly but aptly called "Viagra-Velo") alone, last year in Switzerland brought 44 tons of used batteries that have to be disposed of somewhere.
Subsidies for the elites - punitive taxes for the weakest.
In view of these facts, it is clear that, viewed holistically, e-cars cannot be a solution to the enormous problems that excessive human individual transport is now creating. At best, e-mobility is a particularized bogus solution for wealthy executives worldwide. And the political elites subsidize them (and thus themselves) this trendy bogus solution massively with tax money.
At the same time, heating oil and fuel are to be made more expensive for the entire population as a "market economy control". This is once again a policy of the (urban) elites for the elites (who hardly feel it in their fat wallets), while the poorest in the countryside with their small diesel vehicles have to foot the bill. But in this country, too, free-market lifestyle leftists and greens think that making combustion engine fuels more expensive will help the environment. This is not only antisocial, but also ecologically nonsensical. Illien, the expert, clearly states: "The most sensible thing is still a diesel car." This is especially true for small cars with catalytic converters, if they are driven as long as possible and repaired again and again.
On this point of the problem, the world-famous Swiss engine builder is in astonishing agreement with the well-known German left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht: In her new book "Die Selbstgerechten" (The Self-Righteous, published by Campus, Frankfurt), she writes in the chapter "Ehrliche Umweltpolitik, statt Preiserhöhungen und Lifestyle-Debatten" (Honest environmental policy instead of price increases and lifestyle debates) that the affected little people see through the outlandish "environmental policy" very well: "It does not escape their notice that the high-sounding world-saving rhetoric ultimately amounts to making their heating, electricity, fuel, food and vacations more expensive. " And if they ever have anything to say about it at all, these people fight back - as they did recently in Switzerland with the people's "no" vote on the new CO2 law.
"Then the lights go out in the houses".
Sahra Wagenknecht makes a political plea for an economical "two- or even one-liter car" instead of "sinking tax money into promoting Teslas and E-Porsches with heavy chassis and big batteries." Illien argues technologically: "I have in mind a so-called serial hybrid. In other words, an internal combustion engine that generates electricity with synthetic fuel in the optimal efficiency range." The decisive factor, he says, is "that kinetic energy is recuperated when braking and driving downhill" (as is already done to some extent in rail locomotives). In other words, used for battery charging instead of being wasted in heat and brake pad wear.
Either way, a general switch to e-mobility would simply not be feasible - either in terms of resources or for power operation. And certainly not if environmentally harmful nuclear and coal-fired power plants were to be dispensed with at the same time. Solar energy is also not a widely applicable solution. Mario Illien calculates: To charge a single electric car in the Zurich area with solar power from November to February would require a system with 175 square meters of solar cells (the production of which would also have to be "eco-balanced"). Asked how he sees the future when everyone only has electric vehicles (and they have to be recharged every night), he answers laconically: "That will solve itself. Then the lights in the houses will simply go out in the evening."
“ Recently I read this article, take a moment to read it as well. It still seems to me that the topic of 100% electromobility is too ideologically charged; reality will catch up with us and overtake us. It will not be as easy as some left-wing forces imagine electrification to be. I still watch all the sick discussions about the climatic end of the world relatively calmly and enjoy my popcorn.
The world's best engine builder puts a damper on electric car euphoria
Mario Illien shows: Electric drive is more of an elitist dead end than the solution to exorbitant human mobility.
(Source "Infosperber, Niklaus Ramseyer, 27.07.2021")
"Socket beats gas pump!" So cheered TV presenters recently on SRF news. Specifically, more electrically powered cars are now being sold than diesel cars for the first time, other media also reported. This is very good news for the environment, they said. Which is certainly true if you only look at exhaust and CO2 pollution - and only when comparing diesel and electric cars. And it's a minority problem: In June, just over 14 percent of newly sold cars in Switzerland were "fully electrified" - and thus emission-free in operation.
Electric cars: "A disaster for the environment"
There is a broad consensus in the media that the future belongs to electromobility. Electricity is "the historic opportunity for environmentally friendly motorized individual transport," they say.
A man who knows more about mobility and drive systems than almost anyone else in the world has little sympathy for such euphoria: if you calculate the total environmental impact (of which CO2 and exhaust gases are only a part) precisely, the well-known electric car from the U.S. brand Tesla, for example, is ecologically "a disaster," says Mario Illien, an engineer from Graubünden. He states, "Electric cars are not a solution for the global climate."
After all, "The whole efficiency of a system is important, and not just a sub-area to cultivate the image and soothe the conscience." And even in the often-emphasized "sub-areas," things look rather bad for the electric car by comparison: Illien calculates that of the energy that flows into electricity plants to charge their batteries, electric cars ultimately deliver just 11 percent to the road in the form of thrust via their drive wheels. At over 20 percent, the much-maligned diesel is already twice as efficient. The engines of the most efficient gasoline burners are 50 percent efficient. It's the Formula 1 engines where efficiency makes the difference between winning and losing a race.
A life for car engine efficiency and performance
In auto racing, it's as hard as nails to ensure that the lightest possible engine delivers maximum power to the race track with the least amount of fuel. Illien, who will soon be 72 years old, has spent his life working on this issue - and has continuously applied his findings as a designer to the world's best high-performance engines. Currently, for the F-1 racing team "Redbull": If their racing cars with their Honda engines are now suddenly outrunning the previously leading Mercedes cars, this success has a name: Mario Illien.
The reserved and rather modest man from Graubünden (a Swiss mountain canton) studied mechanical engineering at the Engineering School in Biel after completing an apprenticeship as a draftsman at Ems Chemie. Even at a young age, he built highly efficient and successful racing engines for Simca. With his company Ilmor (Illien-Morgan), he eventually helped to establish Mercedes' success in Formula 1 from Brixworth in Great Britain - all the way to the world championship title. Today, the honorary doctor of the University of Leeds still runs a small research and development company for engines under the name "Ilmor Engineering". He is currently testing a new, extremely economical five-stroke engine. He is also available to the world's largest engine manufacturers as a consultant and problem solver. Right now, he is optimizing the turbocharger for the Honda engines in the "Redbull" Formula 1 racing team.
E-mobility at most for the urban traffic niche
Illien is used to tackling detailed problems holistically and comprehensively. This is also the case with electric cars. For him, it is clear that electric vehicles have "at most a certain justification in urban traffic. In other words, in a niche where well-heeled elites can soothe their guilty consciences (because of their large ecological footprint) with their Teslas. The "abysmal" (Illien) efficiency of the e-engines is still the lesser problem: the eco-balance of the electric cars becomes "catastrophic" when they are produced and especially because of their batteries, which weigh tens of kilograms.
On July 17, the NZZ (a well known Swiss news paper) calculated what it takes just to build the battery of a single Tesla: 85 kg of copper, 56 kg of nickel, 7 kg of cobalt and 6.6 kg of manganese. The paper calculates: To replace diesel and gasoline vehicles with electric cars in Switzerland alone, "40,000 tons of cobalt would be needed - a third of the world's annual production." Subtitle of the article: "Electric cars have a weak point: batteries made from raw materials that are becoming scarce worldwide."
Not even 1 percent e-cars yet - and already raw materials are running short
"Already running short," it should probably read. Because with just 10 million e-cars out of a total of 1.4 billion vehicles worldwide, only just one out of 140 motor vehicles is an electric car. That's a paltry 0.7 percent. Illien takes such sobering facts into account in his efficiency calculations. He says: "Replacing the other 99 percent - well over a billion cars, most of which still have good explosion engines - with electric cars long before their maximum service life would be a gigantic waste. And battery production for this would never be ecologically sustainable. After all, "Our resources are limited, and we should have an interest in using them sparingly and wisely."
Overexploitation, pollution, destruction of landscape, environment and life.
Battery cars that use 1000 or even more horsepower to accelerate a single person from 0 to 100 km/h in just under 3 seconds certainly have nothing to do with such common sense. But these electric cars already exist. With nasty consequences for the environment: "Overexploitation, pollution and the destruction of landscapes and lives should concern us in connection with electromobility," demands engine builder Illien. Specifically, he notes, "Lithium is flushed out of the rock with water. There are deposits in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile or Peru, i.e. in rather dry areas where there is not much water anyway. And now the local population is also being deprived of groundwater for this process. There's no consideration there, whole valleys are being turned upside down." And battery disposal is another largely unsolved problem at the other end of the chain: Just from the fashionable e-bikes (popularly but aptly called "Viagra-Velo") alone, last year in Switzerland brought 44 tons of used batteries that have to be disposed of somewhere.
Subsidies for the elites - punitive taxes for the weakest.
In view of these facts, it is clear that, viewed holistically, e-cars cannot be a solution to the enormous problems that excessive human individual transport is now creating. At best, e-mobility is a particularized bogus solution for wealthy executives worldwide. And the political elites subsidize them (and thus themselves) this trendy bogus solution massively with tax money.
At the same time, heating oil and fuel are to be made more expensive for the entire population as a "market economy control". This is once again a policy of the (urban) elites for the elites (who hardly feel it in their fat wallets), while the poorest in the countryside with their small diesel vehicles have to foot the bill. But in this country, too, free-market lifestyle leftists and greens think that making combustion engine fuels more expensive will help the environment. This is not only antisocial, but also ecologically nonsensical. Illien, the expert, clearly states: "The most sensible thing is still a diesel car." This is especially true for small cars with catalytic converters, if they are driven as long as possible and repaired again and again.
On this point of the problem, the world-famous Swiss engine builder is in astonishing agreement with the well-known German left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht: In her new book "Die Selbstgerechten" (The Self-Righteous, published by Campus, Frankfurt), she writes in the chapter "Ehrliche Umweltpolitik, statt Preiserhöhungen und Lifestyle-Debatten" (Honest environmental policy instead of price increases and lifestyle debates) that the affected little people see through the outlandish "environmental policy" very well: "It does not escape their notice that the high-sounding world-saving rhetoric ultimately amounts to making their heating, electricity, fuel, food and vacations more expensive. " And if they ever have anything to say about it at all, these people fight back - as they did recently in Switzerland with the people's "no" vote on the new CO2 law.
"Then the lights go out in the houses".
Sahra Wagenknecht makes a political plea for an economical "two- or even one-liter car" instead of "sinking tax money into promoting Teslas and E-Porsches with heavy chassis and big batteries." Illien argues technologically: "I have in mind a so-called serial hybrid. In other words, an internal combustion engine that generates electricity with synthetic fuel in the optimal efficiency range." The decisive factor, he says, is "that kinetic energy is recuperated when braking and driving downhill" (as is already done to some extent in rail locomotives). In other words, used for battery charging instead of being wasted in heat and brake pad wear.
Either way, a general switch to e-mobility would simply not be feasible - either in terms of resources or for power operation. And certainly not if environmentally harmful nuclear and coal-fired power plants were to be dispensed with at the same time. Solar energy is also not a widely applicable solution. Mario Illien calculates: To charge a single electric car in the Zurich area with solar power from November to February would require a system with 175 square meters of solar cells (the production of which would also have to be "eco-balanced"). Asked how he sees the future when everyone only has electric vehicles (and they have to be recharged every night), he answers laconically: "That will solve itself. Then the lights in the houses will simply go out in the evening."
