This page is only if you are not sure why to change to electric driving at all…
You can skip this page if, like us, you are convinced we will drive electric in the near furture. Because it has to be to help the earth against human pollution.
For petrolheads only page
And for those who think there is nothing wrong with polluting the earth. That was also an ice age and high water levels 2 million years ago, right? So what?
Bottom of this page all about batteries and petrolheads’ blabla stories about them too.
Consideration: drill crude oil, refine it and bring it to your petrolstation allready costs a lot of electricity, before you buy it (6.000 watt per litre). if you buy 40 litres it consumes (without you knowing it) 240Kw (240.000 watts). Every week?
Conclusion: if we don’t drill up oil, we can put the same amount of electricity (which we save now) right into a battery and start driving without emission ?
YES
It’s weird that it takes so much electric power to make fuel for your car. And we don’t know? But if you look into the refining process, you will understand that it does need a lot of electric power (and burning gas) to do so. Refining is heating, pumping, filtering, distilling, purifying, heating and distilling again etcetera. This whole process is all electric driven. Roughly speaking, each litre fuel requires 6,000 watts of power to make. That’s the same electric power a hoover uses in an entire hour. So if you buy 40 litres, this is the same electric power consumption as 40 hours of consecutive vacuuming ……. 2 days?
It is annoying to spend so much text on this matter below. But it is important to get this clear for now and always in the discussion at parties.
It is important to recognise that generating electric power also produces pollution. But if you use that electric power to pump up oil, or instead driving right away electric, you see why EV driving is so wise to do. For batteries the same story: you use them for 25 years, instead of burning them right away and need new batteries every week. As you do with fuel. reed it all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery
WHAT TO BELIEVE
There is a lot of bla bla around on socials about the state of the Earth and whether we are polluting or not. Petrolheads, keep reading now. Be strong. This page is all about it. This is much data that the oil companies are reluctant to share with you.
“Science is not an opinion”
“Wissenshaft ist keine meinung”, quote Claudia Kemfert, feb2024.
In a nutshell, the rate of climate change is so high that nature cannot keep up. So from an ice age to todays speedy warming up has never been exhibited in the entire time the earth has existing. That is why the argument by petrolheads that it is just a natural process wrong. How do we know this?
After research by universities around the world since 1965, all new data is double-checked, peer-viewed and published worldwide. All these studies are ranked by the United Nations called the IPCC Panel.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/
Governments
Do you see the yellow pick up picture above? If you read on behalf of a Government or NGO, please go to menu Specs & Price later, we do have information for you to discuss in your organisation. Don’t wait for a OEM manufacturer for a strong electric 4×4 truck, that will take a very long time. We are happy to give a lecture on converting and go electric.
The GoGreen page we dig into “unknown” facts for you. We start with measurement results. For a very long time, these rather negative outcomes have not been told to us. Below from 1850 to 2020 peer-viewed temperatures:
Unknown data
Secret #1:
One (1) litre fuel has already consumed 6 kW (= 6.000 Watts) of electric power to make it from the oilwell to petrolstation. (Gallon is 4,45 litre so 26.700 Watts = 26.7 kW) Think about this carefully. On 6.000 watts any electric car drives 35 km/22 miles. It makes little difference in pollution whether you drive on petrol or diesel oil. We use fuel for both.
Note: the proof that refining costs/uses so much electric power comes from the UK where a refinery is connected to a power station, which allowed Greenpeace to accurately calculate the power used on the amount of fuel made, in 2015.
Secret #2:
In every 4-stroke fuel engine, the combustion takes place in only 1 part of the 4 cycles. This explains the low yield of 35%, so 65% waste is lost in heat, flushing and compresion out of the potentional energy in fuel.
Secret #3:
A gearbox consumes a lot of energy, without you noticing it. Loss of 25% up to 35% because of wear & tear of the gears moving and bearings. 4×4 trucks has bigger loss than smaler cars that is obvious , up to 45%. (tested by Land Rover factory in 1996)
Wellnown non-secret #4:
It will be forbidden to drive your truck in more and more cities in the World. This movement is speeding up getting the pollution out of crouwded cities on earth.
Figures indicate that sectet 1 to 3 we are busy throwing away most of the available oil in inefficiency. These are data that the oil companies are reluctant to share with you. The fuel still has to burn in the engine and blow the polluting gases into the atmosphere.
Day after day, year after year. Totally in-efficient and then we also light it on fire to use the exploding energy.
Do you realise that our atmosphere is only 200 km high, about 6 hours of cycling straight up? (125 miles only)
The petrol lobby is trying to use all sorts of arguments that electric driving is very dirty that we don’t have enough lithium and that it is not at all possible for all cars to go electric to give the inveterate petrol drivers an anti lobby.
Sentiment is turning. If we ask anyone: how will we drive in 50 years, there is a unanimous answer: electric.
So the question is not, if we will drive electric, but when. That is called transition we read about everywere.
NO MORE GEARBOXES WITH US
The non-visible box of resistance. We dig dieper now (techtalk) to explain if only the fuel engine is replaced by an electric motor (others do), the power must be transmitted to the wheels via many gears. Hirin is a lot of loss which you do not see or know. The most efficient way to avoid this is you should be able to build an electric motor flush to the wheel.
No gears at all is the best way, is our opinion. But then, what are the technical possibilities? We are going to explain to you what is possible and what is not.
There are in-wheel electric motors avaiable, but then you have to change the original design of your truck, approved for the registration plate. The existing suspension is not designed to absorb an extra 65+ kg per wheel. In addition, you are limited in the Kw power output, due to the size of the wheel. And then there is the 450 to 600 Volt wiring that has to be routed to the wheel safely. This is very problematic to do well and keeping reliable in the furture.
Of course, we have looked at this from all angles and decided not to design this. That’s why we build an e-motor INTO the axles, to be more precise in the same place as the original differentials (front + rear).
The high torque & low revolutions electric motor we searched for in every nook and cranny of the World was not for sale. This shifts the problem a bit. We had either to abandon our idea or design this e-motor ourselves. We did with a bonus: we are now independent on third parties for availability. Or buy second hand Tesla’s or Nissans e-motors.(most others has to do).
In general a Land Rover has a bad name in terms of maintenance and often breaks down. And always leaking oil on the ground. If your truck is converted to electric, then you have no maintenance at all. Still an extra hopeful idea for a green future.
The Simpson’s drawing we couldn’t resist posting this one. Should you (as an investor) find the link to Land Rover one of “always breaking down and leaking oil everywhere”, you can drop this idea now.
NO GEARBOXES WHY?
What does a gearbox do? Eating up your power made by your fuel engine. A picture, a drawing and a movie to explain for an important reason: we pay a lot of attention to it here. Just as the fuel producers don’t tell you the whole story, neither do the car manufacturers. They withhold this information: the non-visible box of resistance.
Everyone “forgets” about that big thing under the car, you don’t even see it, but anyone who is going to convert to electric should remove this big power waster. We do it. Others take the easy way out by just bolting some kind of electric motor onto the gearbox. Be sure and ask.
First picture is all moving parts inside a gearbox and transfer case, the splitterbox for front axle and rear axle. The second picture is the same, but you can see the outside when climbing under your truck. The third is a movie just explaining a single gearbox, so excluding the transfer case and splitter for front axle and rear axle (where the same gears are also rotating extra). You may now understand that this takes a huge cut in power between the engine and your wheels on the road. About half is lost if your truck is 200.000 km old (125.000 miles). Even on a new truck, this loss of power will be a minimum of 25%. Those new cars have the three gear boxes in a four-wheel drive car as well.
Drawing: Top right is the shaft to the fuel engine. Bottom left and right are the shafts to the differentials (front and rear) via an intermediate shaft to the wheels.
Watched Jordan movie? For your sense and perception of this resistance, the same thing happens as hanging 3 buckets on a rope behind your sailboat. Or put the skibox on your roof in case of headwind and leaving it on the car all year. Or put an enclosed trailer behind your car. And all fuel engines need desperately a gearbox, because no power from the start. An electric engine has a lot of power from the start, so no gearboxes needed. No non-visible box of resistance needed with our electric convertion set.
We hope that with this explanation you can understand why we wanted a design from the start, without all those energy-consuming additions. It is the hardest way of designing within the legal rules without having to approve and test a new chassis whether the suspension. At our place, the old axles go off and the new ones on. Job done. The same shock absorbers, brakes, linkages and rims go on charge and drive. A one day job.
Financially, it is also a forgotten issue, but by keeping all gears in the powertrain, you do have to compensate with a bigger and heavier battery to be able to drive the same distance as we do (400km/250mile/range). And the battery is the most expensive part to increase the distance. Think about this carefully. We compensate a more expensive small-series electric axels with saving more on the battery in weight and costs of the battery power packs. And a smaller foot-print too.
Converting your offroad car to 100% electric is harder to do than many people think. It took a lot of designing, thinking and test engine building.
This explanation is difficult to explain hence this big piece of text above.
“The world has improved enormously. The world is still terrible. The world can be much better. All three of these statements are true” Quote: Max Roser, book Our World in Data 2023.
After researching how many 4×4 cars are driving today, we came up with at least 3 million off road cars, all of which can be used to make electric, 70% cleaner than continuing to drive fuel. You could further calculate that those converted electric off-roaders prevent the need to make 3 million more new electric cars.
We also explain that the new off-road cars that are sold tomorrow will also be eligible for our conversion later on. Even the mild-hybrids, which can only drive 60km/38miles electrically now, will also come up in a few years. Consider this too invester(s).
BATTERIES IN GENERAL
One of the largest costs of electrification has been the battery costs. In many instances the production, ownership and maintenance (TCO) of a Battery EV are cheaper than the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle today. (quote QAD.COM)
While a kilowatt-hour of storage in a lithium-ion battery cost 721 euros in 2013, it was only 109 euros last year. BloombergNEF expects the price to be another 40 per cent lower in 2030 than in 2023.
Note: Lowering Battery Costs are Cranking Up the Pressure to Electrify. The break even time decreases significantly. From 8 to 5 years today.
OUR BATTERIES
The battery pack is the real “bottle neck” for range (driving distance). The size is limited by weight and money. We will use the latest design in cells. Today we testing lithium LG-Chem (VW/Audi), SAFT, CATL or Super-B batteries.
We started testing dutch NoWoS cells, used data and hospital back-up batteries. This is an additional circular step in our conversion. This puts us at 2/3rds circularity of the entire product unsurpassed 4×4 EV.
At NOWOS, we are experts in litium-ion batteries. Our goal is to respond to the global transition to a circular economy and contribute to the European Green Pact.
BI-DIRECTIONAL CHARGING
One of the most interesting developments in electric driving and home power. This technology transforms electric vehicles into mobile energy storage units. In addition, you want to show what customers can earn by charging or discharging at the right time. This is a complex task, as there are several energy markets on which the power provided by bi-directional cars can be traded.
Cars that both charge and feed power back to the grid can play an important role in a more dynamic energy system.
Thus, the electric car becomes a ‘battery on wheels’ that can help solve problems on the congested grid. The first models capable of bi-directional charging are now entering the market.
These are SAFT cells. We can use various types as power storage. We keep a keen eye on the market. Remember that we develop drive systems, not batteries. all cells can be used in a bi-directional charging system. no special batteries are required.
NEW (continuous) OPPORTUNITIES ABOUT RECYCLING
Waste Management Company builds recycling machine for electric car batteries The French multinational Veolia has announced that it is building a recycling plant for electric vehicles in the United Kingdom. The factory should be able to recycle discarded electric car batteries into new batteries by 2024. Through a consortium with the Belgian chemical company Solvay, the companies want to process sustainable, recycled materials in electric cars. (Sebastian Maks, march 2024 for ChangeInc)
The reason lithium-ion batteries lose their power is that they lose charged ions and electrons as the batteries go through several charging cycles. By injecting the battery cells with a special liquid – a liquid that creates ions and electrons through a chemical reaction – the battery can last longer again. In effect, the ageing process is reversed for a while.
Injecting lithium-ion batteries with this Japanese elixir can make them last even longer. Japanese scientists (Toyota) have found a way to breathe new life into ageing batteries. By injecting a battery’s cells with a chemical substance, up to 80 per cent of its original capacity could be restored. (March 2024, ChangeInc)
Dutch TU Delft Technical-University has created in 2022 an attractive recycling method based on magnetism in a special liquid. Crushed up batteries (of all kind) and left in the liquid. After a while, it magnetism automatically sorts the different metals for reuse, per depth. Result 96% clean re-use of lithium, cobalt, nickel, aluminium and iron in one process. Because of magnetism, different materials stay at different heights in a bath. and are then easily separated. More on this later.
What are manufacturers doing?
Scientists at the KIT Energy Center at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology say there is enough lithium dissolved in the groundwater extracted by German geothermal heating and electricity… So no mining needed. This groundwater is in western germany, where the warm pumped-up water also heats houses ánd gives off lithium. That’s how bright the future can be … if you look for it.
SOLID STATE FURTURE
Unlike traditional lithium-ion batteries we use today, which use liquid electrolytes, the solid-state technology batteries electrolytes are not. This fundamental difference enhances safety, cycle life, and overall performance. They can be overcharged, heated to extreme values, and even punctured with a projectile with no ill effects. Today they are very expensive and rare, so we cannot use them.
SOLID STATE AND CLEAN LITHIUM
Lithium from below the Rhine? No mining?
A solid-state battery that can charge and discharge ten times as often, lasts longer, does not catch fire and, because of its long life, is cheaper than traditional lithium-ion batteries. Germany’s High Performance Battery (HPB) has successfully tested one and plans to market it in two or three years.
The HPB battery does not use metals such as cobalt, but it does require lithium. Mining that metal causes significant environmental pollution around the world. HPB could also use lithium, which, among other things, can be filtered from water from geothermal sources in the Rhine region. A research project for this is already underway. “Lithium is not a scarce resource. It can also be extracted from water pumped from boreholes in the Rhine region,” says Heinz. HPB Technology wants the raw materials for its batteries to come from the most environmentally friendly sources possible. Quote: CEO Sebastian Heinz van HPB Technology (www.highperformancebattery.ch)
MINING 2.0
“If you’re moving rocks anyway, can you move some more rock for resources needed for the energy transition? That’s this model.” This is how Utah University researcher Lauren Birgenheier sums up the proposal. “In these old coal fields, we have found that rare earth elements are concentrated in muddy shale that is above and below the coal seams.”
WE ALSO TACKLE THE NEW FUEL CARS
We expect to be making our sets for a long time to come. Sounds funny, but our sets can be used in the 4×4 trucks made tomorrow. Picture above a brand new 2024 Land Rover Defender diesel or fuel. They don’t really come electric yet. Mild-hybride some models, drive 50 miles electric, at the most, a small electric motor as support. The same story for 4×4 Toyota, Mercedes-G, Jeep, Bronco, Grenadier, GM, VW Amarok, Nissan, Mitsubishi etc.
It takes many more years befor they OEM sell proper electric 4×4 trucks. Our sets are ready to support you today to change to 100% electric driving.
HYDROGEN
Alternative energy storage like green hydrogen (H2) are clean on the road but cost & Kw power prohibitive with the current technology. Engineering this to the max in the next 20 years, will never reach below 50% loss of energy. This makes the Battery EV already the best option: practical, affordable and with plenty of range for daily use.
All our convertions are prepared and plug and play for hydrogen storage (read below) because of our back-bone-engineering. We have taken this into account in the development period. We work closely together with other hydrogen companies and TU universities in this field. Our “backbone design” ranges from 280 to 700 Volts to connect.
ENERGY COMPARISON “FUELS”
EV put 100% into a battery and get 93% out to the road (to drive, effectively measured).
Hydrogen you put in 100% energy and get only 22% out to the road (to drive, effectively measured).
Fuel you put 100% in and 23% comes out on the road. (to drive, effectively measured). With the highest amount of emissions of all.
Note: electricity 100% put in the net/grid (to your home) gives 96% effectively. Right now, it is better not to use the power to make Hydrogen (H2), but to put it directly into the grid.
We collaborated and co-initiated the Race the Green project for Paris-Dakar project in 2019. To race in 2021. We gained H2 expertise. Project stopped 2022.
However, whether hydrogen is the holy grail for the entire energy transition? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. But if deployed where it has real value, it can certainly help us make the world a lot more sustainable. (H2Storage.nl)
We follow closely the hydrogen stack-improvements worldwide since 2017, as the Dutch Technical University: https://www.forze-delft.nl
Only when there are so many solar fields in deserts (sun & space), that the generated electricity can no longer be transported to the west, only then is conversion to hydrogen and recovery from hydrogen (with the energy loss of 65%) probably an attractive use of hydrogen as a storage for electricity.
Japanese companies working on a tanker that can transport 160,000 cubic metres of liquid hydrogen. A Dutch company, related to our H2 racing Daker buggy www.h2storage.nl are producing strong tanks to fit in any container to transport safely around the world.
SYNTHETIC FUELS
According to economist Claudia Kemfert www.claudiakemfert.de synthetic fuels are hardly suitable for making the transport sector climate-friendly. The discussion about e-fuels is supposed to suggest that people can continue to drive combustion cars. The market, however, has long since decided in favour of e-cars.
Electrofuels, also known as e-fuels, a class of synthetic fuels, are a type of drop-in replacement fuel. They are manufactured using captured carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide, together with hydrogen obtained from sustainable electricity sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power.[1]: 7
The process uses carbon dioxide in manufacturing and releases around the same amount of carbon dioxide into the air when the fuel is burned, for an overall low carbon footprint.
Electrofuels are thus no option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport, particularly for long-distance freight, marine, and air transport. (source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel). Check sites below:
https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/politik/kemfert-e-fuels-klima-100.html
https://fullycharged.show/episodes/e-fuels-wont-work-this-is-why/
Should you, as a petrolhead, start to doubt your idea that it is all just left-wing talk, we will end this page with what can be done, already today. Look your grandchildren in the eye and remember that you are never too old, to change your mind (lernen) . It is called growth….
Exploring wild nature tomorrow
We can drive 100% electric in the Wild Nature today. A solution previously mentioned: 2nd pack batteries you charge at daylight/solar/wind in the outbacks, and give this energy to your truck at nigh while sleeping and camping. Ulaya does.
These Mercedes-Gs or not clean. Yet.
What are green skills?
What will our youth, Generation Z, do for work later on? Green skills refer to all the knowledge and skills needed for the transition to a sustainable society, where resources are used efficiently.
These range from technical skills – knowing how to install solar panels or heat pumps – to the competencies needed to achieve companies’ sustainability goals like e-Rovers. How to integrate sustainability strategy into the business, measure progress and report on it.
“Companies in all sectors are increasingly expected to make sustainability a part of their business model,” says Sue Duke, head of public policy at LinkedIn. “Green skills help with that. We expect these skills to eventually become as ubiquitous in business as digital skills already are.” Do they prefer to work for a company like e-Rovers or MUD jeans, or yet again for oil companies or a-social multinationals? That is also the change within generation-Z that is already taking place.
PRESS
The comment of Tata JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) self in the press recently:
“Whilst it is obvious that Land Rover will produce a BEV Defender (and maybe later a hydrogen FCEV), I would imagine it will figure much later in the plan (post 2028), especially with annual investment capped at £2.5 billion and all those Jaguars to design and tool up first“. (Charles Tennant, former Land Rover chief engineer, speaking to Coventry Live)
The new Defender we can refit in a 100% BEV today, earlier than the JLR. The new GRENADIER, the new Toyota, Jeep, Hummer,Suzuki, Nissan, VW all.
5 sustainability thinkers every leader should know
We all know Al Gore, but which other international leaders and thinkers have (been) decisive on the road to a more sustainable world? We list five. Quote Change.Inc, march 2024 (translations: DeepL.com)
‘We don’t have a shortage of solutions, we have a shortage of leadership.’ quote Paul Hawkins (known from: The Ecology of Commerce en Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.
‘The free market is not a natural phenomenon, but a political construct.’ quote Naomi Klein (about: devastating impact of multinationals on people and the environment)
German chemist and designer Michael Braungart. Pioneer of cradle to cradle design, a concept aimed at designing products that are fully recyclable and reusable. Author of the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. quote: ‘We should not consume less, but design better.’
Belgian economist, entrepreneur and author Gunter Pauli. Founder of the Zero Emissions Research and Development Initiative (ZERI), a think tank developing sustainable solutions for various sectors. Author of the book Blue Economy: 200 projects implemented, 4 billion euros invested, 3 million jobs created. He inspires people to think about the impact of their choices and commit to a circular economy.
Patagonia founder: Yvon Chouinard believes companies have a responsibility to minimise their impact on the environment. He is a pioneer in the use of sustainable materials and practices in the garment industry. Chouinard has been called a visionary leader who combines the power of business with activism to protect the planet. He inspires people to think about the impact of their choices and commit to a more sustainable future.
We have great news! MUD YEANS.eu
The Sustainable Brand Index 2024 shows that Dutch consumers consider MUD Jeans to be the most sustainable clothing and fashion brand in the Netherlands. This survey, Europe’s largest independent brand research focused on sustainability, asked 12000 Dutch people how sustainable they think brands are. For the second year in a row, MUD Jeans achieved the highest score and this recognition confirms our position as a sustainable leader.
DATA CHECK YOURSELF
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/ IPCC report march 2023
https://www.iea.org/reports/international-shipping the complete storyhttps://www.iea.org/ https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/ulez-payments City of LONDON: the ULEZ charge: forbidden to go in city not clean, named Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), will be around the world in a few years.
https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/
https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Global-LCA-passenger-cars-jul2021_0.pdf
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43714029 about sea ships bringing goods around the world without legislation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er9yHLH14ho
EXPLANATION TERMS
EV (BEV) = (Battery) Electric Vehicle,
Hybrid = Vehicle that is powered by an ICE and another source of power such as a battery or H2,
H2 = Hydrogen, another storage of energy, car run electric (BEV),
ICE = Internal Combustion Engine burning fuel, (bio-) diesel, LPG/GPL gas, LNG, blue diesel etc.
OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer
JLR = Jaguar Landrover
DeepL.com we used for translations, among friends and family. We work on this issue.
WE GO GREEN WITH FUEL ENGINES …
