Look no taxes !! Will electric cars really be tax free?

[Deleted member 37751]

Am I allowed to ask about trucks, buses and shipping?

In Shanghai most buses are electric. Most mopeds are electric.

In london?

Our battery supplier, BYD, made the London electric bus.

They also make cars but they're not exactly lookers...

 

[GeeJayW]

Having spent much of my working life in r and d, those who insist upon change for it's own sake generally have only tenuous contact with reality. The losses involved in inductive charging? If they were trivial, we would already have abandoned plugs and sockets

Yep, get that (spent much of my working life in R&D too).

 

[Druk]

Range/recharge time is certainly one of issues around the acceptance of EVs. Drivers are very sensitive about this even when they don't really need to be. Many motorists do short journeys, which could easily be met by EVs. However the concern about running out of 'juice' and not being able to quickly and conveniently 'top-up' is a worry for most.

This same concern kicks in whenever there is a petrol/diesel shortage. Drivers that are normally happy to drive around with less than half a tank of fuel, suddenly feel the need to keep their tank full just in case.

Range can be very important to those who live in tower blocks, or even two or three storey blocks. They can't do a nightly top up as many others can.

I can put over 500 miles of range in my diseasel in around ten minutes, maybe 400 when it's mostly short journeys. Mrs. Stratman's i10 has a realistic range of around 300 miles. If EVs can come close to matching those figures they'll be accepted by all except the Clarksons of this world.

Adding 250 miles in 10 minutes has to be the target, does it not?

I'll add my tuppenceworth. Lecky with a theoretical range of 200-300 miles is just fine if you happen to live/spend most of your time in London or the Somerset Levels. Try that If you live in the Lakes or darkest Scotland or have to regularly negotiate Shap and Beattock summits. 50 miles of that and the battery is flat. These London centric twerps have thought nothing through properly.

 

[Darrell]

^^ Hopefully by the time 2040 comes along things would've got a bit better. ^^

 

[AMV]

How will the government cope without the 58p/per litre on fuel.

Thats my question, its fair enough saying we need evolution but how will they make up the deficit of no fuel duty.

 

[Deleted member 6183]

How will the government cope without the 58p/per litre on fuel.

Thats my question, its fair enough saying we need evolution but how will they make up the deficit of no fuel duty.

I hear the the government plan on charging forum users by the word.

 

[artyman]

On the subject of a 10 minute recharge, perhaps a modular battery unit that can be swapped in and out, standardised fitting, drive into a garage, battery is removed from the underneath of the car and replaced with a charged unit, pay for the energy contained, drive off, the removed battery unit is then recharged and put back in the system fro the next vehicle.

Considerable investment would be required for this type of infrastructure, and then there is the question of battery unit life, ie drive up in a new motor, swap battery and get one from a xx year old banger vehicle, the cost of units would need to be incorporated in the cost for the energy it contained.

 

[Dryce]

How will the government cope without the 58p/per litre on fuel.

Thats my question, its fair enough saying we need evolution but how will they make up the deficit of no fuel duty.

Charge 'vehicle' electricity duty.

Or start road pricing.

So the lost tax will be made up elsewhere. Should we be worried? Probably not as we pay high taxes on fuel already so they'll just get it from us by other means.

What we should be worried about is where they tax to change consumer behaviour - that's when silly things may happen.

 

[Darrell]

I hear the the government plan on charging forum users by the word.

There's a few blokes here that are gonna be skint then.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Hybrids will be exempt.....

I'll add my tuppenceworth. Lecky with a theoretical range of 200-300 miles is just fine if you happen to live/spend most of your time in London or the Somerset Levels. Try that If you live in the Lakes or darkest Scotland or have to regularly negotiate Shap and Beattock summits. 50 miles of that and the battery is flat. These London centric twerps have thought nothing through properly.

a) Hybrids are exempt, so in 23 years time, you'll still be able to buy 400 miles of petrol (at who knows what low price) to supplement the 400 mile range of the battery in your Prius.

b) It's the country folk who'll have easier access to overnight charging points than city dwellers, who won't be able to run cables from the apartment homes to the roadside.

 

[Druk]

I hear the the government plan on charging forum users by the word.

That's easy. Just change your username every so often. They won't have a clue who you are.

 

[GeeJayW]

a) Hybrids are currently exempt....

FIFY

 

[190]

All the issues being discussed here just confirm to me that pure electric vehicles are not going to be the final solution in the foreseeable future. As a 2nd car commuter yes but for everyone certainly not, even in 23 years time. While I'd love a Tesla we are still a very long way from an unsubsidised electric vehicle being affordable for the mass market. The government couldn't even afford the subsidy let alone low electricity tariffs if the take up grew exponentially.

Then there is the problem of batteries running flat and causing traffic chaos. Imagine being in a 2 hour tail back on the M25 and the stress of the battery meter falling slowly. Thousands of vehicles could end up stranded with flat batteries. How would that situation be recoverable in a reasonable time. I'd want to carry a cheap portable electric generator in the boot as get you home insurance. A sort of DIY hybrid.

Hybrids have to be the mainstream future until something better comes along. I see mild hybrids becoming commonplace very quickly and in time the bias towards stronger hybrids when battery technology and price make it viable without subsidy.

 

[Deleted member 6183]

That's easy. Just change your username every so often. They won't have a clue who you are.

Rumour has it that there will be supertax levied on posts containing poor grammar and spelling.

 

[BTB 500]

I don't get the hype about non plug-in hybrids that get all their energy from a petrol engine.

In stop/start urban driving you can recover some of the energy that would otherwise be lost in frequent braking. But against that you are carrying the weight of two power units, so you're using more energy to accelerate each time.

If you took a Prius (for example) and stripped out all the batteries and electric drivetrain and instead used the same engine to drive the wheels conventionally via a CVT gearbox or whatever, it would surely be far lighter and therefore use less petrol overall?

 

[whitenemesis]

I don't get the hype about non plug-in hybrids that get all their energy from a petrol engine.

In stop/start urban driving you can recover some of the energy that would otherwise be lost in frequent braking. But against that you are carrying the weight of two power units, so you're using more energy to accelerate each time.

If you took a Prius (for example) and stripped out all the batteries and electric drivetrain and instead used the same engine to drive the wheels conventionally via a CVT gearbox or whatever, it would surely be far lighter and therefore use less petrol overall?

It's as much to do with emissions as mpg though.

MY hybrid FC is only ~65kg heavier than the non-hybrid version.

 

[GeeJayW]

I don't get the hype about non plug-in hybrids that get all their energy from a petrol engine.

In stop/start urban driving you can recover some of the energy that would otherwise be lost in frequent braking. But against that you are carrying the weight of two power units, so you're using more energy to accelerate each time.

If you took a Prius (for example) and stripped out all the batteries and electric drivetrain and instead used the same engine to drive the wheels conventionally via a CVT gearbox or whatever, it would surely be far lighter and therefore use less petrol overall?

The basic idea is that the hybrid battery is charged up whilst driving outside of the city, say during the trip on the motorway on the way to work. Then whilst in the city, at least some of the driving could be done on battery only. Non plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) used entirely in the city are a poor solution to improving road transport derived emissions.

In addition, the hybrid electric power can under acceleration on the road or when climbing hills fir example be added to the ICe power to augment performance which is more enjoyable to drive. If this got more Americans to move away from big V8 engines towards smaller V6 engined hybrids, this would make a significant impact on city emissions in the US.

Used solely out of the city and on the highway with speeds above 30mph, HEVs are again a fish out of water. Apart from being used to recover energy via regenerative braking and then providing improved acceleration they are not as good as a comparative diesel or down-sized boosted gasoline engine.

 

[Doodle]

Then there is the problem of batteries running flat and causing traffic chaos. Imagine being in a 2 hour tail back on the M25 and the stress of the battery meter falling slowly. Thousands of vehicles could end up stranded with flat batteries. How would that situation be recoverable in a reasonable time. I'd want to carry a cheap portable electric generator in the boot as get you home insurance. A sort of DIY hybrid.

Range extender. If electric is to be the future I predict we'll see more and more EVs with them. Strikes me as potentially a great application for a small gas turbine.

 

[GeeJayW]

It's as much to do with emissions as mpg though.

MY hybrid FC is only ~65kg heavier than the non-hybrid version.

In part because the emissions cycle and test method used/allowed for hybrids is different than it is for conventional ICe vehicles. So the resulting official test figures are (IMHO) biased towards HEVs.

Where the emissions are made is affected of course. So if city driving were conducted in EV mode, then HEVs contribute less to the urban air quality problem. Out on the road, the ICe component of an HEV may be more optimised to give lower emissions because it doesn't have to deliver all of the performance envelope. But it does have to propel more weight (65kg is equivalent to a small passenger) in addition to charging the battery which has become discharged due to EV operation or performance assist.

It's a close thing from an overall emissions viewpoint. Generally speaking emissions correlates well with fuel consumption.

 

[Stratman]

With vehicles like the Prius it isn't an either/or choice of power source, with an electric only range of just a mile or two it couldn't be. The electric motor assists the petrol engine during moments of high power requirement such as pulling away from standstill (a huge contributor to poor fuel consumption) and demands for a bit of acceleration for instance.

If your car has instantaneous fuel consumption readout, take a look when you pull away from the lights or when you open the throttle just a bit. The electric motor rather than the fuel pump makes up the shortfall. Regenerative braking keeps it topped up instead of producing waste heat and dispensing brake dust particles into the atmosphere.

Some rather clever people have thought about this in some detail.