Some interesting work has been done on solar roads, but can’t say it’s promising at this stage with the cost implications and drawbacks.
There was a “smart” solar road prototype, which I do like.
Perhaps in another 50-100 years these will be revisited.
My favourite idea which shouldn’t be that difficult to implement with current tech, is car parks shaded with solar panels. Could surely help alleviate some of the strain of recharging points too…
consider what we now see with mobiles phones i have to agree.
in the 20 or so years i have been using mobile phones which are working harder/doing more/greater capability the batteries are getting smaller.
much the same has been seen with handheld radios/walkie talkies.
I recall as a Cadet batteries on a “handheld” were the size and weight of a tin of baked beans. nowadays the “spare” battery is as slim and lightweight as a smart phone, and with internal technology/chemistry that they are more user friendly due to the number of cycles they can be charged and the manner in which that charging needs to be managed
Personally, i think hydrogen fuel cells are a better long term proposition; providing the creation of hydrogen at required scale can be achieved economically - we already have a fuel distribution infrastructure and it will keep more people in jobs. Also, in many places, the local petrol station is the only corner shop!
Would a hydrogen/battery hybrid be the best long-term solution (until Mr Fusion comes onto the market)?
Charge overnight for short commutes, but with the on-board fuel system for long trips and quick refuels?
Don’t forget the huge loss of revenue to the UK Government from duties on “liquid” fuels (& the VAT on top!) & the fact the currently all electric cars are VED-exempt.
So £28+ billion duty (VAT) on fuel + £6+ billion on VED…
on the assumption that the transition to electric vehicles will not see a transition of the Govt applied charges.
we see it already today, cars that were once free to tax are now £30, those that were £30 new are now £50-60 or more…
The Govt will still get its pound of flesh from the motorist, it will just move who is targeted to charge it too…
there is no way that the lost revenue of tax from fuel and car tax will not be recovered in other ways - the motorist will remained “taxed” regardless of the propulsion system…
I understand your point, but I think that hauling the weight of additional batteries would negate any benefits. With the HFC it makes no difference whether you’re going on a long journey or just clogging up local roads - like an ICE (oh how we love our TLAs!), when you get low on fuel, you pop on to a “petro station” and fill up (and buy a jumbo mars bar and bag of tangfastics).
Hydrogen is dangerous and difficult to store and transfer, and expensive to engineer, and once you get past the charging issues with plug-in cars (which we will within a decade or two) will have no real advantage over the competitor.
I do not have your confidence.
I’m not sure hydrogen is any more difficult to store and transfer than electricity, in fact, electricity is very difficult to store. Like all flammable substances, if handled correctly, there’s no real danger - in vehicles, I believe the fuel tanks are much stronger than petrol tanks. Yes, hydrogen is currently expensive to produce, but once it can be produced at scale and economically, then I still believe it is the best option for the future - the critical element will always be the time it takes to re-fuel - it might not be a problem for us ordinary people, but I’d hate a FRS to say “we can’t send an appliance because they’re all on charge”. Okay, that’s a frivolous example, but if we had another Buncefield where at times there were 40+ vehicles in attendance then ease of refuelling or transit distance become critical.
Electricity is very easy to transfer (certainly compared to hydrogen) and stores well (and the storage media are getting ever more effective).
It’s not the production of the hydrogen that’s particularly expensive, it’s the making of the fuel cells.
As I said earlier, re-charging won’t really be an issue once we’re at the stage where a battery vehicle can operate in normal conditions for a full waking day. For certain applications (fire is an interesting one, but military and shipping are the main ones that spring to mind) ICE or ICE hybrid will likely remain for a while - and it’s where I’d like to see more research in to synthetic fuels.
Compared to hydrogen they have huge advantages - the infrastructure to use and transfer them already exists, the technology to use them is cheap, simple and plentiful, and they’re far safer and easier to store and handle. The only real advantages of hydrogen is a slightly better efficiency rating and no NOx.
That’s just right now though. And an average given here quotes 12 tonnes in the production of a ICE car and a quick squiz at an online calculator puts my car at spewing out just over 4t of CO2 per year. It’s a medium-efficient diesel and I used 20000 miles. So, bearing in mind potentially higher than average efficiency but an above average mileage… Can’t be far off. I tried to find a true average, but my Google skills failed me.
In the long run, the energy used in those production processes will be produced differently.
So it’s not going to be as bad, comparatively speaking.
Currently electric cars are niche, quirky and the domain of the well off chattering classes in the developed world. Something for them to become all self righteous about, akin to vegetarianism and veganism.
Electric vehicles are expensive and more environmentally damaging in terms of the rarer metals and elements they use, which are in some of the more remote places on the planet, which means more expensive to produce. Recycling like all recycling will be expensive and a heavy user of the electricity we would all need power everything.
But the problem is more widespread throughout the transportation world; HGVs, ships, long haul aircraft and availability and affordability in the more remote and difficult areas of the world.
You could see the second-hand car market becoming less of an option, unless the batteries could be guaranteed for say 100000 miles, as they will be expensive to replace. While the running costs maybe low at the moment to suck people in, these will rise exponentially. I recall in the ‘old days’ diesel as a fuel was 10p-20p less per gallon than petrol. Then someone said diesel is the way forward and over a couple of years diesel became 10p-20p more per gallon than petrol. You can see this with electricity at charging points, where at home it might be £8 at the moment as it’s niche and other places doing it free to score brownie points, but as soon as it becomes the norm, the companies and governments will find ways to make it more expensive, especially in-home where overnight electricity can be much cheaper.
Just because the developed world has got a bee in bonnet about carbon emissions and then parliaments never wanting to lose a vote and or seeing an easy quid to screw out of the poor taxpayer jump on the bandwagon. There needs to be more thought about this. At home we have gas heating and cooking, because as yet I’ve never heard of a ‘gas cut’.
Electric cars are a bit dull forget Tesla as that’s not really mainstream. Could you imagine a car chase in a film with electric cars? Instead of ‘fast & furious **’, it’d be “slow and passive” with no sequels. Where’s the roar of the engine, turbo whine etc that for many people are part and parcel of owning cars. Our children and grandchildren etc are going to have a very dull motoring experience.
The Met Police have some fully electric cars already
I bet they aren’t the traffic division’s motorway patrol vehicles.
iRobot a suitable example?
I am sure the same was once said with the transition of the motor car from horse and cart…
the exclusive toy of the rich and wealthy who could afford the new tech and to hell with the environment (not that exhaust emissions would have been a factor back then)
look at Car tax over the years - cars which were once free or £30/year are now more than that.
the Govt will always recover costs from the motorist and i wont matter what the motorist is in, the Govt expectation on what it can raise from the motorist will remain…
They are using them on response teams, I’ve seen them in Central London, not noticed them on any outer boroughs yet.
I’d bet only because of the new emission zone imposed by the mayor.