Electric cars - where is the current position ?

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
The population of Scotland is 10% of that of England.....presumably, it is easier to make these changes with an infrastructure 1/10 of the size?
I'd have thought about the same , with circa 10% of the budget ?

Although , in fairness , we probably have much lower population per unit of land area , hence the potential for proportionately more onshore wind farms ; but you do have a much longer coastline with the possibility of offshore wind generation , and you have over 2000 reservoirs with dams ( compared to our 800 ) with the possibility of adding hydro electric capability .
 
I'd have thought about the same , with circa 10% of the budget ?

Although , in fairness , we probably have much lower population per unit of land area , hence the potential for proportionately more onshore wind farms ; but you do have a much longer coastline with the possibility of offshore wind generation , and you have over 2000 reservoirs with dams ( compared to our 800 ) with the possibility of adding hydro electric capability .

"In the budget for financial year 2016–17 , proposed total government spending was £772 billion. Spending per head is significantly higher in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland than it is in England." :)

I would imagine that "economies of scale" have an impact in the division of budgets.

When updating infrastructure systems it is usually easier & cheaper to update a smaller infrastructure.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Reactions: 219
I like the idea. But the basics seem to be so far off......

How do we generate the electricity to charge them? Fossil fuels or nuclear....

Current grid capacity is not there if we were to all switch over.

What about all the waste generated at end of life. Lithium etc. Pollution issues seem potentially huge.

How do you charge one when so many people don’t have driveways? I’ve heard all the theories of pads under the road and wireless charging. But you are talking billions to make this reality. The UK is broke. We can’t find the NHS....how are we going to fund the e-infrastructure in a matter of a few years??

Whose going to create the network of charging stations in the next few years?

I totally get that things have to change. But we don’t seem to be there with the basics yet.....and the government is committing us all to moving over already. All seems very ill-conceived.

This is my thought. It’s all about having low emission areas where pollution is high and cleaner air to breath...massive thumbs up to that! But are we really saving the planet? As you say, where is the electricity coming from, what happens at the vehicles at the end of their life, etc,etc. It doesn’t feel as if anyone is really considering the bigger picture. As usual it’s the here and now.

Then there’s the distance to charge issue. We drive from the South to Scotland almost every year for a holiday and regularly drive over to France and sometimes Spain. I don’t want to have to stop all the time to charge my vehicle, particularly when I can drive to the South of France on one and a half tanks of fuel.

And the government is not stupid. once everyone has concerned they’ll find a reason for charging you £200 road tax or something similar. Where else are they going to plug the massive deficit of no longer having ICE vehicles on the road.

Don’t get me wrong, we won’t have any choice in the matter sooner or later and I think thats a good thing, particularly as technology improves. But for now I’m not convinced.
 
This is my thought. It’s all about having low emission areas where pollution is high and cleaner air to breath...massive thumbs up to that! But are we really saving the planet? As you say, where is the electricity coming from, what happens at the vehicles at the end of their life, etc,etc. It doesn’t feel as if anyone is really considering the bigger picture. As usual it’s the here and now.

Just to put the energy production part of this to bed :

UK_renewables_generated.PNG


And in 2019 for the first time EVER the total energy production for the UK for a 24 hr period was 100% renewable sourced. Coal produced energy is almost completely finished. The world IS changing already.

Then there’s the distance to charge issue. We drive from the South to Scotland almost every year for a holiday and regularly drive over to France and sometimes Spain. I don’t want to have to stop all the time to charge my vehicle, particularly when I can drive to the South of France on one and a half tanks of fuel.
You're not really saying that you drive from the south of Scotland to the south of France with only one stop??? Good driving practices suggests a stop every 200 miles. Crikey my bladder demands that much. Todays Ev's will charge more than 200 mls in 30 mins - time enough for a pee and a coffee.

And the government is not stupid. once everyone has concerned they’ll find a reason for charging you £200 road tax or something similar. Where else are they going to plug the massive deficit of no longer having ICE vehicles on the road.
A substantial amount of the lost revenue will be recouped by better health as a result of breathing cleaner air. But we all pay all sorts of taxes now for our personal transportation and will almost certainly do so in the future. For this once a year trip you could always hire a suitable gas guzzler if you insist, whilst keeping an EV for the other 340 days per year.

Don’t get me wrong, we won’t have any choice in the matter sooner or later and I think that's a good thing, particularly as technology improves. But for now I’m not convinced.
EV's for the vast majority of people's journeys are viable and happening right now.

And one final thought, if you have panels on your roof, you could charge up your house battery such that there is sufficient energy to run your house during the evening and even put some charge into your car for the next days commute. Completely OFF-GRID.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 219
...at least here in Scotland the cost of recharging an electric vehicle can be zero , unless you’re daft enough to plug it into your own electricity supply , since all public and workplace charge points are free at point of use.
I love the way this sort of thing gets bandied about. "Ooh, I can charge my electric car for FREE!".

No you can't. Everybody, including the person charging their car "for free", is paying for it somewhere down the line. It's just one of the host of distorting hidden subsidies that are being deployed to encourage a switch to EV's. Another is the lack of usage-based taxation that IC vehicle users pay at the pump every time they fill up.

Without subsidies, EV's make no economic sense whatsoever. Whether they make environmental sense is a separate question.
 
The graph shoing energy production is an interesting one. I would really like to know who generated it. Coal isnt dead yet in the UK there are still a few plants going, Ratcliffe power station in Notts is still going strong on good old coal.
And saying the the UK produced enenergy in a 24hour period from nothing but renewables is a little hard to believe, When was the last 24 hour wall to wall sunshine windy day?? And this isnt sustainable given our climate.. Nuclear would need to step in most of the time. And if EV's are the future power generation HAS to increase to cope with demand.
I'm all for Clean energy but its not quite there yet. We are getting there.
And an 8KW Home solar installation wont charge your car for free unless its bright sunshine for 13 hours!

We have an 8KW system and at most on average it puts out about 2-3KW which will only just boil a kettle... not bad for £20K cost for the install????

As for the range on EV's there is of course the case where the new nissan leaf was taken on a LONG journey and had to be charged twice, the first fast charge was ok 40 mins, second charge, it will not allow a fast charge due to the damage it does to the batteries, so the second charge took 2.5 hours, where the owner got a parking ticket for staying over 2 hours at a motorway service station..Great LOL....
There is still along way to go..... I think there are a lot of rose tinted glasses on green energy... it works but slowly...
 
A quote from the Mercedes EQ thread which is worth repeating.
It's an interesting phenomenon that the imminent introduction of electric car technology has seemingly made the supporters of ICE propelled vehicles suddenly become acutely aware of the environmental impact of electric vehicles. :p Like all new personal transport propulsive technology there is an inevitable environmental price to pay and it could be argued that the owners and manufacturers of electric cars tend to play this down to the extent of ignoring it when extolling the virtues of electric propulsion. :( That said this new found concern for the environment would be a mite more convincing if before this Damascene moment the ICE critics of Electrical propulsion had been expressing similar environmental concerns about the global impact of ICE vehicle production and use. ;) Sounds otherwise a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?
 
The motor manufacturers have royally screwed this up with their cheating on diesel emissions. They sought to hide pollution at the local air quality level and when caught have forfeited their voices as to what comes next. So anxious are they to appease (and avoid sanction) they are eager to go with the electrification programme while seemingly oblivious as to how it will pan out for end user customers. Impossible to believe they are actually oblivious, so then the only conclusion that can reasonably be drawn is that the regulators have the upper hand and the manufacturers are too scared to challenge. Showrooms full of cars no one wants to buy is the potential scenario here. How can they be blindly committing to this? Do they know something we don't?
 
Like all new personal transport propulsive technology there is an inevitable environmental price to pay and it could be argued that the owners and manufacturers of electric cars tend to play this down to the extent of ignoring it when extolling the virtues of electric propulsion. ?

But when the sole reason to shift to electric propulsion is environmental, ignoring this aspect is absurd.
 
The concept of electric propulsion is very appealing. I would love the smooth and fast and quiet way of getting around.
And with zero emissions its even better. I never understood why the govement decided to promote diesels as at the time of doing so you could physically see the clouds of black soot emitted from them before the days of DPF's and decent emissoins control system. I know they are more efficient but I am sure petrol cars could have been cleaned up to reduce Co2.

However it happened and now here we are.. at a cross roads with no viable solution. A battery as a power source is flawed. It has huge environemntal impact (mining, shipping, manufacturing) but zero emissions on the road. The problem is only shifted not solved.

Battery cars are not a solution and have too many draw backs. Fuel cells are much better but hydrogen production isnt easy and is very energy hungry.

Anybody got any ideas? LOL

Dylithium crystals? ;-)
 
Just to put the energy production part of this to bed :



And Coal produced energy is almost completely finished.

Yes, instead they are burning wood pellets imported from Germany in a diesel powered cargo vessel..........not to mention the fossil fuel powered equipment that would have harvested the wood and the coal powered (Germany) energy to produce the pellets.

Statistics are a wonderful thing:)
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Everyone is failing to mention that even though now we are producing a lot of our energy from renewables, the demand for electricity is about to sky rocket with all these super fast chargers in use that we hear so much about. Where is the extra capacity going to come from? I still don’t buy it on any level. 100% flawed at the moment. But it will eventually get resvolved. Just not at the speed we are all led to expect!
 
The concept of electric propulsion is very appealing. I would love the smooth and fast and quiet way of getting around.
And with zero emissions its even better. I never understood why the govement decided to promote diesels as at the time of doing so you could physically see the clouds of black soot emitted from them before the days of DPF's and decent emissoins control system. I know they are more efficient but I am sure petrol cars could have been cleaned up to reduce Co2.

However it happened and now here we are.. at a cross roads with no viable solution. A battery as a power source is flawed. It has huge environemntal impact (mining, shipping, manufacturing) but zero emissions on the road. The problem is only shifted not solved.

Battery cars are not a solution and have too many draw backs. Fuel cells are much better but hydrogen production isnt easy and is very energy hungry.

Anybody got any ideas? LOL

Dylithium crystals? ;-)

Heres a solution. Everybody uses vehicles less! As we've done for most of human history. We're all going to be living in a virtual world and give it 10 years, no-one will want to go near the South of France as it will be an extension of the Sahara. But seriously, if everyone drove around less, we'd need less energy. How many unnecessary journeys do people make. If you get more organized you can reduced the trips to the shop, or even get stuff delivered by a planned delivery truck saving even more energy. Plan things so you can work from home for 1 day a week. Use a bicycle or an electric scooter/bike. Even walk! Cycling to work once a week reduces your fuel bill by 20% and gets you fitter. Of course there is all the uncounted environmental cost of building bikes, and the yet untaxed increased CO2 emissions from the rider.
If we don't like this idea then the Car-as-a-service does the same thing. If everybody used something like Uber (ie a taxi) there would be a lot less vehicles needed in total. Make them robotic and self driving and you can power them from what you like - specific refueling stations can be strategically placed - car parks of out of town shopping centres for example as no-one will be going to the shops at this point. Sure you pay for every journey but you save 1) the planet 2) the capital cost of a depreciating asset.
 
DrNick said:


Heres a solution. Everybody uses vehicles less! As we've done for most of human history.


“We're all going to be living in a virtual world and give it 10 years, “

Bring it on, but as it’s not ready yet I will have to make do an drive to work!


“no-one will want to go near the South of France as it will be an extension of the Sahara.”


I pay a fortune every year to visit somewhere very hot as I like the Sun, as no one will want to visit the SoF there will be plenty of cheap Holidays on the go!


“But seriously, if everyone drove around less, we'd need less energy. How many unnecessary journeys do people make. If you get more organized you can reduced the trips to the shop”

I tend to let my Wife do the Shopping Trips, she has retired so has now’t else to do! I look on it as Halving our Household Carbon Footprint!


,” or even get stuff delivered by a planned delivery truck saving even more energy”

So stuff being delivered by a Heavy Good Vehicle, that is highly likely to be an ancient Oil Burning Smoker, helps save the Planet!

.” Plan things so you can work from home for 1 day a week.”

Fortunately for me but NOT for the Planet the System I work with can’t be mobilised to work from home!

“Use a bicycle or an electric scooter/bike. Even walk! Cycling to work once a week reduces your fuel bill by 20% and gets you fitter. Ofcourse there is all the uncounted environmental cost of building bikes, and the yet untaxed increased CO2 emissions from the rider.”

Good idea, but I work 50 odd miles away from my home, I would have to get up before I went to bed, cycle all night then do a full day’s work when I got there, I wonder what my next Appraisal would be like?

“If we don't like this idea then the Car-as-a-service does the same thing. If everybody used something like Uber (ie a taxi) there would be a lot less vehicles needed in total.”

I don’t see many of these Services available where I live

“Make them robotic and self driving and you can power them from what you like”

Most drivers I encounter in the early mornings think they are ALREADY sitting in self driving vehicles!

“ specific refueling stations can be strategically placed - car parks of out of town shopping centres for example as no-one will be going to the shops at this point.”

This has been done before, there are these Off Road places called “Filling Stations” and most of them have small shops attached, some even have Supermarkets next door, so you can shop at your convenience all day long if you wish, saves you going out later

“Sure you pay for every journey but you save 1) the planet 2) the capital cost of a depreciating asset.”


I appreciate your thoughts on saving the Planet, but until someone can come up with a better solution, I will still enjoy spending lots of my well earned on my lovely depreciating MB Asset!

:);):(:D:rolleyes:
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom