Electric cars

You should get a few good bites with that bait Marc .
They will never be as popular as internal combustion engine vehicles unless there are some serious advances in the technology involved, mainly in both the car and storage batteries at home that could be used to charge them overnight when the sun isn't shining. At the moment, they are too expensive, don't have the ideal capacity and have a low charge rate from the panels on overcast days.
There are people charging them with coal powered electricity and they think they are saving the earth .
There will also need to be a hell of a lot more fast chargers scattered around this vast land of ours. Quite often you have to queue for fuel which only takes a couple of minutes to fill the tank, imagine waiting 30 to 60 minutes for drivers to top up their batteries?
The only way I can see them being viable and sensible now is if you have a storage battery and panels that can power your car completely for ALL of the driving that you do, and even then, this will cost close to $100,00 for the equivalent of a $30,000 petrol powered car.
If people want to save the planet, have less offspring as population explosion is the root cause of all the planets problems.
Let the arguments begin !!!

We bought an electric car to save money. We live off-grid and charge the car from a supplementary solar panel array I put together from secondhand solar panels for a cost of around a couple of months fuel, coupled with no regular service costs - in fact no regular service required. I'd heard that people who own electric cars don't buy ICE ones again, and now we have ours I absolutely understand why.

BTW - fastest car up Pike's Peak - that would be an electric Volkswagen, 0-100kph in less than two seconds - that would be an electric Aspark from Japan, fastest car around the Nurburgring - that would be an electric Porsche, land speed record for a wheel driven vehicle at 550 kph - that's electric as well, want a 4WD with payload of 2 tonne and a towing capacity of over 3 tonne - that would be an electric Bollinger made in Detroit. Even a diminutive Nissan Leaf electric compact car can embarrass traffic light hoons in their ICE dinosaurs.

Originally Posted by John2b

We bought an electric car to save money. We live off-grid and charge the car from a supplementary solar panel array I put together from secondhand solar panels for a cost of around a couple of months fuel, coupled with no regular service costs - in fact no regular service required. I'd heard that people who own electric cars don't buy ICE ones again, and now we have ours I absolutely understand why.

BTW - fastest car up Pike's Peak - that would be an electric Volkswagen, 0-100kph in less than two seconds - that would be an electric Aspark from Japan, fastest car around the Nurburgring - that would be an electric Porsche, land speed record for a wheel driven vehicle at 550 kph - that's electric as well, want a 4WD with payload of 2 tonne and a towing capacity of over 3 tonne - that would be an electric Bollinger made in Detroit. Even a diminutive Nissan Leaf electric compact car can embarrass traffic light hoons in their ICE dinosaurs.

Yep, agree 100%.

I have been following electric car progress in other countries for the last few years, and the rollout is staggering, countries like Australia are full of bogans (just like the US) who are scared by their lack of knowledge and understanding of how the whole electric car / future energy system will work, so their way of dealing with it is to put it down and say how crap it all is.

European countries are light years ahead of us in electric uptake / rollout, this will only be to our determent.

John2b, Australia is the only country to have a fully off grid electric train system, (small scale in Byron Bay) but we were the first to implement it, now other countries see it can work they are scrambling to electrify their smaller systems, plus electric ferries are already up and running, electric planes are in the final production stages.

Battery technology is changing overnight, new systems are in development, when they hit the market the entire system will change.

Anyone that says it's all rubbish and is powered by coal burning stations it just living in denial and needs to open their eyes to what's happening outside their own little ICE world.

This is the future, like it or not, it's here now, and it will be in your backyard sooner then you think.

Personally I can't wait for a commercially available UTE for the masses that does 0-100 in 3 seconds.

Toyota won't have one available because they are living in the dinosaur word, even though they have a lot of hybrids they are dragging the chain with fully electric.
Ford will be the first with their investment in Rivian.

If you need any proof living in ICE world is doomed, go back and follow the entire TESLA story from start to now, THE US bailed out ICE companies to the sums of multi billions of dollars and some like GMC never paid that money back.

TESLA borrowed money from GOV'T to startup, and is they only company to have paid all that money back and is now a multi Billion $ company,do a search and you will see what's happening in the background it's quite impressive.

I wanted to buy a secondhand electric car in Australia but couldn't find a suitable one due to their scarcity, so I bought one in Japan. 2½ years old, 30,000 km, battery condition and range still 100%, spec'ed with just about every possible option and cost AU$14,000, plus ~$8,000 for shipping, duty, compliance including new tires, GST, registration, etc. - a bit under $23,000 for a new car that seats five adults, delivered in showroom 'new' condition. Running cost zip, service costs zip.

Owning an electric vehicle does not mean you have to forego all ICE vehicles. We still have a diesel 4WD for what the electric car doesn't do like pulling out trees (two wheel drive isn't much chop for that) and getting down the 4WD cliff track to the coast, but the 4WD only gets 1/10 the use these days. As far as towing, electric vehicles are superior having 100% of rated power and 100% of rated torque available at all times from standstill to flat out, irrespective of road speed or revs, and you are never in the wrong gear because there aren't any.

And we went off-grid to save money, not the planet. Buying an electric car was inspired by pondering what to do with our 'spare' electricity on sunny days, as we can't export back to the gird. The extra panels which face southwest are to give us enough spare capacity for cloudy winter days when the direction the panels face makes next to no difference, and to insulate the roof from the afternoon sun on those stinking hot summer days.

Originally Posted by Marc

Unless we, like most of the rest of the world, go nuclear and hydro. But hey .... no no no, the green index finger is wagging right to left repeatedly...

The rest of the world is retiring from nuclear and it is not the "green agenda" driving this, it's fundamentally a consequence of the laws of physics and economics. The International Energy Agency expects a “wave of retirements of ageing nuclear reactors” and an “unprecedented rate of decommissioning” and anticipates 320 gigawatts (GW) of retirements from 2017 to 2050, which is about 80% of the current worldwide reactor fleet. There will likely be an average of 8‒11 permanent reactor shutdowns annually over the next few decades. This will add up to about 200 reactor shutdowns between 2014 and 2040.

The era of nuclear decommissioning, which will entail:

• A decline in the number of operating reactors.
• An increasingly unreliable and accident-prone reactor fleet as ageing sets in.
• Countless battles over lifespan extensions for ageing reactors.
• An internationalization of anti-nuclear opposition as neighboring countries object to the continued operation of ageing reactors (international opposition to Belgium’s ageing reactors is a case in point ‒ and there are numerous other examples).
• Battles over and problems with decommissioning projects (e.g. the UK government’s £100+ million settlement over a botched decommissioning tendering process).
• Battles over taxpayer bailout proposals for companies and utilities that haven’t set aside adequate funds for decommissioning and nuclear waste management and disposal.
• Battles over proposals to impose nuclear waste repositories and stores on unwilling or divided communities.

According to Nuclear Energy Insider, European nuclear utilities face “significant and urgent challenges” with over a third of the continent’s nuclear plants to be shut down by 2025, and utilities facing a €118 billion shortfall in decommissioning and waste management funds.

for those readers (not ranters) interested in cradle-to-grave analysis of cars, here's a relatively old but nonetheless pertinent and interesting LCA by Renault:

https://group.renault.com/wp-content...e-acv-2011.pdf

(for the ranters - freely ignore the above, the cognitive dissonance would create meltdown!)

Originally Posted by InsaneAsylum

They've mentioned that the Leaf really struggles to get over hills

I don't know what is the problem with your inlaw's car if it struggles on a hill. When I put the boot in going up a steep hill in our Leaf the standard reaction of new passengers is a very loud "F*%rkkk"! It would easily exceed the pull of my previous BMW 330i up to 100kph or so. If fact it has the same torque throughout the entire rev range as the the E46 330's peak torque and is 500kg lighter.

They have not yet needed to replace the batteries, although I hope they're sitting down when they see the bill from what I've heard

With about ½ million Leafs sold around the world there are plenty of aftermarket replacement battery developments underway. What's more, the old battery is a valuable commodity, for example in the US Nissan buys back old batteries for reprocessing and the changeover cost is about the same as the cost of 1 year of fuel for an ICE car.

Originally Posted by DavoSyd

for those readers (not ranters) interested in cradle-to-grave analysis of cars, here's a relatively old but nonetheless pertinent and interesting LCA by Renault:

The goal posts have moved quite a bit since that 2011 study because of the "greening" of electricity generation worldwide*, so the lifecycle CO2 emissions of current electric vehicles have decreased to an even smaller fraction of that of ICE vehicles.

*For example UK doesn't burn coal for electricity anymore: Live monitoring of the UK electricity National Grid

Originally Posted by John2b

The goal posts have moved quite a bit since that 2011 study because of the "greening" of electricity generation worldwide*, so the lifecycle CO2 emissions of current electric vehicles have decreased to an even smaller fraction of that of ICE vehicles.

*For example UK doesn't burn coal for electricity anymore: Live monitoring of the UK electricity National Grid

absolutly! it actually used 2007 power grid mix data:

No one is telling people what to buy. Even if half the cars sold from today on were electric, fossil fuelled vehicles will outnumber electric vehicles for more than the next decade. It seems it will take a while for everyone to realise that unlike fossil fuel vehicles which must be refuelled "on the road" (unless you have a bowser at home) battery electric vehicles are refuelled when they are not being used, thus avoiding the inconvenience of having to find a service station whilst commuting.

Originally Posted by Marc

John, it's not that at all, just the limitations of the battery technology. Eventually it will become possible to drive an electric car for 500 km between charges and charges be able to be done by swapping batteries on the run, or some other way that makes them less of a trade off.

Your experience is very interesting. I imported a 4wd from Japan and remember how difficult it was to register. The NSW compliance mafia made it really hard for no real reason other than they could. I was a delinquent for the time the charade lasted.

What was your experience in SA ? I notice that Nissan Leaf sell for less than 30k second hand with very little KM.

Did you use TS export or someone else?

I used J-Spec as an import agent. We had no problems whatsoever in complying, registering and comprehensively insuring the car. When I decided to import there were almost no secondhand Leafs in Australia, in fact there only 2 were listed on CarSales.com Australia wide in Nov/Dec 2018. The Nissan Leaf AZE0 model only acquired SEV accreditation in September 2018 allowing it to be imported to Australia, so I was a relatively early purchaser in December 2018. Now there are lots of dealer imported Leafs under the SEV scheme however I paid about $8-10k less than a similarly specified car to ours available from any dealer in Australia today.

There are quite a few 4WD/off-road battery electric vehicles on the way. We will keep an eye out for a BEV4WD that gets SEV approval and may well buy one as soon as it happens. Apart from the obvious ownership cost savings of BEVs, they are a much better type of vehicle to own and operate because of their lack of service requirements and innate reliability. To be honest, recharging a BEV really isn't the issue that people who don't own one think it is - you charge it when you are not using it.

Originally Posted by John2b

To be honest, recharging a BEV really isn't the issue that people who obviously don't own one think it is - you charge it when you are not using it.

Exactly. There is a lot of over-focus on the recharge times, and some expectation that they should somehow recharge in the same time it takes to refill an ICE powered vehicle before they are viable.

The reality is that EVs are mostly easier, cheaper and more convenient to recharge than it is to refill an ICE powered car. There is no need to drive to a petrol station, fill up, and pay. For most, it is simply drive home (or work?) and plug it in - and no detouring to ‘fill up”.

Sure, most EVs are probably not going to be used for a long interstate trip, nor will they tow a big boat, but they again, most small city run-around ICE vehicles wouldn’t do it either.

Its a little bit like comparing a mobile phone to a landline phone - they are similar in their basic function, but they are not the same. Mobile phones can go flat whereas you can talk for as long as you like on a landline without it going flat. Yet, most people are very happy to use a mobile phone as their main (only?) phone once they have tried one.

Originally Posted by John2b

To be honest, recharging a BEV really isn't the issue that people who obviously don't own one think it is - you charge it when you are not using it.

100% correct.

People with petrol or diesel vehicles don't seem to know much about electric vehicles. I bought an electric car new in late 2014. It has been checked each year, and every second year they replace the brake fluids. Never needs to replace oils and other stuff like filters etc. The electric car goes fast, and goes slow when reduce the power on your foot. Hardly ever needs to use the brakes.

It's fine for driving around the city, would be a bit harder to drive for long trips. I bought it for driving around the city.

We put solar panels on the roof 2011, and it costs NOTHING to run the car or the house each year. It gets more $$ from solar during summer and not as many $$ in winter but over each year it is costing nothing to run the car and the house.

Over our nearly 5 years, the cost of fuel for a petrol or diesel car has increased, but the cost of running our electric vehicle remains nothing, zero.

The solar was installed in 2011 and the value from the the sun has not significantly changed over 8+ years.

Originally Posted by Marc

John, it's not that at all, just the limitations of the battery technology. Eventually it will become possible to drive an electric car for 500 km between charges and charges be able to be done by swapping batteries on the run, or some other way that makes them less of a trade off.

Marc, things have changed since you last looked at what range the current crop of electric vehicles can do on a charge, the decent ones can also do 0-100 in under 5 seconds, the best ones are doing it in 2.6 seconds, with Tesla Roadster II to be doing it in 1.9 sec !! with figures like these the time of ICE cars is coming to an end.

Tesla Model X 594 Km
Tesla Model s 565 Km
Jaguar I-Pace 470 Km
Hyundai Kona 449 Km
Kia Niro 455 Km

The biggest hurdles we face here are.

1: Having the infrastructure in place for charging the vehicle, the best ones are able to charge at 150Kw with 100Kw becoming the normal on the latest generation, Australia has dragged it's feet with setting up any infrastructure to support these vehicles, this coupled with the exorbitant high price of these vehicles and they are also hit with 33% LCT.

2: Offering incentives to buy them, currently Australia gives a $100 reduction on rego for an electric vehicle, and you can get some low interest loans for purchasing them, this is such a joke in the US and Europe there are incentives as much as $7500, plus some countries offer 50% rego discount, or free rego, we are so far behind the 8 ball.

3: Having a gov't who is not so tied up in pushing dead technology coal fired stations, electric cars are not something new, people who don't follow the progress of electric commonly say, we are just pushing the problem from fossil fuel to coal fired stations, this is the problem because the uptake of electric vehicles means we need to look at new ways of generating electricity, these ways are there and these ways are not Nuclear.

4: The privatisation of our electricity, this is one of the biggest hurdles, not only for charging at home but for charging stations as the cost of electricity in Au is a joke

The nay Sayers are just scared of the technology because they don't understand it, and they believe the crap put out by the petroleum industry, because they are the ones who will be the biggest losers from this.

I look at it as a great time to be alive as we are witnessing a worldwide industry change from fossil based propulsion to electric based propulsion, bring it on I say.

“We have really focused on the off-road capability of these vehicles,” he said. “We have 14-inches (350mm) of dynamic ground clearance, we have a structural underbody, we have all-time all-wheel drive so we can go up 45-degree inlines, and we can accelerate from zero to 60mph (98km/h) in 3.0 seconds.
He added: “I can tow 10,000-pounds (4500kg). I’ve got a tent that I can throw onto the back of the truck, I’ve got 400-miles (640km) of range, I’ve got all-time all-wheel drive so I can do anything another vehicle can do, and then some.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/rivian-electric-ute-confirmed-for-australia-121205

Originally Posted by John2b

“We have really focused on the off-road capability of these vehicles,” he said. “We have 14-inches (350mm) of dynamic ground clearance, we have a structural underbody, we have all-time all-wheel drive so we can go up 45-degree inlines, and we can accelerate from zero to 60mph (98km/h) in 3.0 seconds.
He added: “I can tow 10,000-pounds (4500kg). I’ve got a tent that I can throw onto the back of the truck, I’ve got 400-miles (640km) of range, I’ve got all-time all-wheel drive so I can do anything another vehicle can do, and then some.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/rivian-electric-ute-confirmed-for-australia-121205

These look like a winner, the storage compartment behind the back seats with integrated step is such a good / simple idea, the design possibilities of an electric vs conventional vehicle open up a whole new ballgame.

For 4WD having less mechanical crap to get in the way allows the smart designers to utilize this new space better and allow the vehicle to have better specs, such as inclines, towing capacity, payload etc etc

The only limiting factor on these, is if you really want to go offroad and do a trip that will require multiple fill-ups then this would be a problem as there ain't no charging stations in the bush.

It's funny, Rivian were in discussions with GM to help them move out of the dinosaur age and into the future, GM became greedy and didn't want Rivian to supply technology / vehicles to any other manufacturers, in the end the deal fell through, so Ford and Amazon jumped in.

Ford with $500 Million, Amazon with $700 Million, GM were too busy trying to strangle what Rivian could do and keep the pie all to themselves, Rivian said get stuffed we don't wan't to be tied to one brand as we are a technology company and want to sell the technology to whoever requires it, same as Rimac, so in the end GM has lost out (again).

Here is a good article on the US bailout of the auto industry and what GM actually cost the gov't, Ford borrowed under $6Billion, and is on target to have it all payed back by 2020, GM borrows $51 Billion, when the bailout ended in 2013 the gov't lost 11.3 Billion in the deal, they should have just sold GM for scrap.

https://www.thebalance.com/auto-indu...rysler-3305670

Originally Posted by Marc

They should be called cordless cars

The most useful thing I ever bought was a cordless drill.

Originally Posted by Marc

So if you plug in a charging bay at the supermarket, how much does it cost to recharge.
And if you plug in at home? The bill will be atrocious. And how long till the excise tax will be added to the electricity because a few people charge a vehicle to the grid

Electricity cost for a BEV car is about 1/5 of the fuel cost of an equivalent ICE car, but don't forget that unlike an ICE car there are next to zero service costs for a BEV car.

Our BEV gets >7.5 kilometres per kilowatt hour on the hilly dirt roads around our place. A litre of petrol contains 9 kilowatt hours of energy, so our car gets the equivalent of about 70 kilometres per litre, or consumes the equivalent of 1.4 lt / 100 km. Internal combustion engines struggle to achieve a real world efficiency of 25% conversion under the optimum condition namely highway cruising and the rest of the time the efficiency is much, much worse, plus the energy in momentum is thrown away as waste heat every time you brake. An electric car is near 100% efficient all of the time and regenerative braking returns the energy in momentum back to electricity to recharge the battery - the disk brakes don't get used much and pads last >>100,000 km.

Toll roads and congestion charges don't discriminate whether a vehicle is ICE or BEV - you can expect more of those charges, with or without a cordless car revolution.

Originally Posted by Marc

Why do people buy electric cars?
"Because they are idiots" would be my comment, but no, let's be honest, they deep down believe that they have a moral obligation towards "the environment".
So they ignore and look the other way of the hundreds of components that pollute the many other countries that manufacture them, ignore the price tag that makes it an impossible proposition, ignore it's enormous limitations and trade ins, and then ... they run out of juice.
Not to worry, there is always the generator.

Looking at your comment above Marc, is really disappointing and makes no sense.

Manufacturing is manufacturing, it doesn't matter what you are manufacturing it's going to have waste and byproducts, to simply say an electric car is making components which are polluting the environment is such a backwards thinking comment.

You can't seriously think the manufacturing process for a conventionally powered car is an environmentally clean manufacturing process ?, because it's not.

If certain countries have polluting manufacturing processes this is something the country needs to deal with, these countries pollute making anything, not just parts for electric cars.

Comments like your's are put into peoples heads by the petroleum industry, and are then spread by the uneducated, get with the times Marc, do some research and you will find it's not all doom and gloom, that stupid picture is a classic example of propaganda.

People that buy electric cars are people who actually want to do their bit for the environment, and understand we cannot continue to burn fossil fuels for energy.

The rapid adoption of electric vehicles is highlighting a global problem of where we source our energy from, and how we have become complacent that it's ok to source energy from polluting sources, some will say Nuclear is the answer, no it's not, yes it's classified as clean energy, but it has waste products that are highly toxic for 1000 - 10,000 years, so it's definitely not clean, and we have seen what happens when you get greedy / stupid humans in charge of these power plants, Fukishima currenly has 250,000 tons of untreated waste stored and the pile is getting bigger every day, waste like this is far more serious than byproducts of manufacturing electric car components.

Electrification of transport is only a good thing, as gov'ts worldwide (yes even our dinosaur gov'ts) have to rethink how we supply supplying energy, not just for the transportation shift but as a whole, we cannot continue the same path we have done forever, something 's gotta give, either we run out of resources or we kill ourselves trying.

Originally Posted by Marc

I notice you say no service costs, however, it may have an electric motor but it is still a car, with brakes and a million relay and switches to go wrong and in need to service and repair. And don't forget battery life. Is there a place to service your car that does not rip you off?

i imagine driving in BMW and tripping a timer at the driveway. $10 a minute

Battery warranties are typically 8-10yr / 100,000km for electric vehicles, and that is performance warranty - they are considered faulty not for failure but for loosing more than a specified % of range/capacity. Anecdotally Nissan Australia stopped selling the first generation leaf because there was no money in after-sales service. Nissan Japan is not giving Australian Nissan dealers the option of not selling the second generation Leaf.

With few moving parts electric cars are proving to be quite reliable with the Nissan Leaf battery electric rated one of the most reliable cars worldwide and one of the most reliable cars of the decade by Consumer Reports USA.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember reading that Nissan Leaf has fixed price servicing at $120 with a two year interval - maybe that's in the US? The main item needing attention is the air-conditioning filter.

Originally Posted by Marc

The only real debate is how do we produce our electricity abundantly and cheaply.
And the answer is all around the world. Coal. Because the CO2 boogeyman is false and a fraud
Nuclear? I don't know enough to rubbish nuclear, only that Europe has had nuclear for a long time. Eventually we will find a way to reuse the nuclear waste.

Actually the proportion of electricity produced from coal and nuclear has been in decline for some decades and the decline is accelerating.

https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/

Originally Posted by METRIX

Looking at your comment above Marc, is really disappointing and makes no sense.

Marc is one of the 74 people left on this planet ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ that have faith that Earth is not being negatively impacted by the increasing amount of carbon dioxide emitted by humans in their day-to-day lives.

Originally Posted by John2b

Actually the proportion of electricity produced from coal and nuclear has been in decline for some decades and the decline is accelerating.

https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/

some decent numbers there...

Originally Posted by Marc

I notice you say no service costs, however, it may have an electric motor but it is still a car, with brakes and a million relay and switches to go wrong and in need to service and repair. And don't forget battery life. Is there a place to service your car that does not rip you off?

i imagine driving in BMW and tripping a timer at the driveway. $10 a minute

You might be confusing ‘service’ and ‘repair’. ICE cars have many moving parts that wear and will eventually require ‘repair’.

Regarding electric vehicles, the motors are typically 3-phase induction motors - no brushes, no slip rings, and only bearing to wear out. They are pretty simple and very durable - like most 3-phase motors commonly used in industry.

The only relay in the drive train that I can recall is the battery-pack isolator which is used to isolate the battery if the car is involved in an impact. Everything else is electronic.

The highest mileage by a Tesla electric car owner is now 880,000km. The long life is owed mostly to some particular traits of the battery-powered car. For example, unlike gasoline cars, Tesla vehicles require no traditional oil changes, fuel filter, spark plug replacements, or emission checks. For Tesla Model S owners, even brake pad replacements are rare, as the regenerative braking both returns energy to the battery and decelerates the vehicle. No moving parts within an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) also decrease vibration, one of the most impactful items towards the health of the car.

In most ordinary situations, the only work done by the Tesla service staff within the inspections performed on these cars is simple wheel alignments, checking the tire condition, assessing replacement parts like key fob batteries and windshield wiper blades, and finally, installing the latest software update.

Originally Posted by Marc

I like this one.



Although $250,000 compared to $40,000 for the nissan, must think about it ...

Ohhh, looks like someone has been doing some googling

Originally Posted by Bros

Are these VW figures or real ones.i remember Hans Tholstrum drove an astounding distance at some way out fuel consumption.

There are standard driving cycles for estimating energy consumption for BEVs, however the difficulty with quoting range for electric vehicles is that range can vary quite a lot due to load, speed, weather, heating, air conditioning, etc.

More than 80% of the fuel energy in a ICE vehicle produces waste heat in the radiator, the tailpipe, and even the brakes, so the effect of load, speed, weather, etc doesn't cause that much variation in an ICE vehicle's range. The same is not true for a BEV vehicle which wastes very little energy, so every little bit used affects range.

To give an idea of the amount of energy an ICE vehicle uses, 60 litres of fuel has the equivalent of 540 kWh of energy which is about 5 times as much energy as the electric cars with the biggest batteries, namely 5 times as much energy as electric cars that typically have ranges ~500+km.

The equivalent energy of 60 litres of petrol or diesel in kWh would give a range greater than 4000 kilometres for our Leaf on the roads around us.