Noted!
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I saw the BBC News 10 second snippet this morning at c.0550 my thought was here we go another way to have a pop at motorists, (I doubt the report had made it to the website) as the govt etc know that we have so little choice as unless you live in a large town/city, we nearly all commute a decent distance to work and public transport is poor and cripplingly expensive. It seems to be a never ending onslaught unless you run a car using rocking horse poo.
I would intrigued as to what the solution to this would be;
Brake and tyre tax?
Hover cars?
Make tyres out of metal, wood, unicorns, water or some odd recycling solutions?
Donât use your brakes? With cameras watching you and being fined if you used your brakes more than x times in y minutes.
I know youâre joking, but: yeah, pretty muchâŚ
While it would be great for driving standards to improve through driver education and other means, therefore reducing revving and repeated and/or heavy braking⌠The more likely scenario is continuing improvements in reactive control and self-driving vehicles will lead to a reduction in brake use and therefore wear. I believe thereâs also a different âengine brakingâ effect in electric cars.
Because, quite frankly, people are rubbish drivers - idle too long, stick too close, inch forward, hold on the clutch, brake more than necessary, wrong gear downhillâŚ
Tyre technology is always changing too, so there could well be further improvements that ease pollution.
Of course, thereâs also options to improve public transport networks and commuter schemes to encourage a reduction in vehicles on the road on a daily basis - not discourage ownership outright, but reduce use in urban areas where most of this is aimed at anyway.
All the article is saying, is there will still be A problem even once weâve fixed the emissions problem, so letâs not celebrate too much too early and get complacent.
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Improve and subsidise public transport whilst simultaneously encouraging and facilitating active transport options (cycling, walking etc)
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@Giminion I was joking on the not braking point, but Iâve seen enough studies and so on with daft ideas over the years, that politicians latch onto.
For me to use public transport it would need to be dramatically improved and much, much, much cheaper. For me to forgo the 19 mile round commute, the journey would need to be shorter than the 1½ to 2 hour one way trip if everythingâs ontime (3 buses) and not ÂŁ13.50 return. Iâm not the only one like this. Plus public transport would remove the flexibility I have.
So yes improve public transport, but not just in towns and cities.
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Indirectly, we wonât.
Looking ahead to 2040, & only new electric cars = a huge increase in generated energy will be required maybe even another nuclear power station (Chinese reactor??) in the UK.
Distribution of that power at âlocal sourceâ will require huge investment / tech changes to cope with the loading / capacity / demand. Not so easy as turning on a hydro-electric generator to provide the surge demand when everyone puts their kettles on during the advert break in Coronation Street! Home storage will not be sufficient to charge an electric vehicle (or more than one!) over-night. Multi-accommodation living (blocks of flats, etc), will have huge problems in supplying enough charging points.
Local town garages will not have the footprint to allow more than a few cars to charge up - currently, drive in, fuel (liquid from the pumps), pay at pump or kiosk, out in 5-6 mins.
Donât forget, the lithium has to come from somewhere - not always with positive knock-on effects. Who dominates lithium-ion battery production? Have a guess! Battery life / recycling - not really under consideration. Tesla quote 70% retention of capacity in their warranty = a big hit on range:
" * Model 3 - 8 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period."
All the current Government tax revenue from liquid fuel, etc, will disappear. All the current VED âbenefitsâ for zero emission cars will have to change.
All for being âgreenâ but we need to tread very carefully.
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The problem of overall environmental impact is certainly far broader, extending beyond direct emissions from emissions from vehicles. And we do need to consider methods and means of product and infrastructure development and fabricationâŚ
However the specific point I was referring to was dealing with direct vehicle emissions - and the steps (or potential steps I can foresee being taken that will mitigate other forms of vehicle pollution such as brake and tyre âdustâ) following thereafter.
It makes me laugh how people will scoff at the idea of solving one problem, just because it leaves or creates another. Necessity is the mother of all invention - we will find a way, just like programmers who fix one bug to uncover 3 more find solutions.
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Iâve long thought that the diesel/petrol thing ought to be looked holistically - which may not change the end decision, but still - diesel is certainly a dirtier fuel, but you burn much less of it than you do petrol for the same journey.
On a 600 mile motorway journey Iâll use about 50 litres of diesel. In a petrol car of similar size and age I might burn 70+ litres.
Less is pumped out of the ground, less is refined, less is transported, less is distributed and stored - and, of course, less is bought from either unfriendly or unpleasant states that weâd rather not be beholden toâŚ
Very true - BUT it does seem to me that there are many âfull circlesâ being turned by nervous governments responding in a knee-jerk way to unproven environmentalist claims.
Donât forget that back in 1998, the EU promoted diesel as a more environmentally friendly fuel, with lower fuel taxes than petrol, etc. Now, improved design of petrol engines means diesel no longer holds any climate change advantage, so diesel is the fuel of the devil! However, against all expectations, sales of diesel cars in UK havenât plummeted as forecast. Emission level changes may have been an indirect cause here. That said, there was a large drop in 2017.
So, what will change / reverse in the next 20 yrs?? 
The grid will be fine - a little known electric car fact is that refining the petrol for an average petrol car uses around the same electricity per mile as directly powering a battery-electric car. The end-user infrastructure will need some work though to be most effective.
Not net greenhouse gas increases without a lot of different projects. Mazda have finally released their evolved petrol engine as one example.
The diesel/petrol situation is an example of ever evolving tech and knowledge that displays the desire and inclination towards innovation through necessity - either market forces or legislative pressures. Diesel is now âbadâ because of NOx, not because it is any different to what it what it was. NOx wasnât considered a necessary focus in 1993 - itâs only now really relevant in the most urban and congested areas where the levels build without dilution. Itâs less of an issue outside of metropolitan areas.
Even in that area, innovation has continued and Bosch has done some promising work in reducing NOx emissions from diesels.
This is important work as these vehicles will still be around for a long time.
So - battery life and life cycle is a problem⌠Innovation occurs and better batteries are created. Recycling⌠How many more materials are able to be recycled compared to 20 years ago? It wasnât that long ago that large-scale/large capacity power storage (and delivery) wasnât yet feasible and now we are at the point where a battery installation can almost instantaneously pick up the slack when production is interrupted or a surge in demand occurs.
I have no doubt that we will meet all of the necessary challenges.
Not so sure, even OFGEM suggest that flexible charging might be necessary.
From a House of Commons reportt:
- Rather than increases to peak demand, the most problematic impacts of EVs on the
electricity grid are likely to be experienced on distribution networks, where the majority
of charge points are expected to be connected. If clusters of EV charge points emerge
** without sufficient planning and mitigation measures, then charging could overload local,**
low voltage networks, leading to power outages or âbrown-outsâ. The âMy Electric
Avenueâ EV trials found that that over 300,000 UK networks could be at risk of overloading
> from EV charging, with some local networks overloading when as little as 30â40% of
customers charge their vehicle. Separate analysis by the Green Alliance has found that
âas few as 6â8 cars charging in a small cluster, at peak time through dumb chargers,
could result in significant disruptions to the local electricity distribution system.â The
risk of overloading will vary according to local conditionsâparticularly the amount of
âspare capacityâ that is available to deal with additional loads. Rural networks may be
particularly at risk, since they typically have lower resilience (being connected to fewer
neighbouring networks), and because motorists in rural areas are likely to rely heavily on
home charging.
See also 3. EV impacts on electricity networks:
Our distribution and
transmission networks
were not designed for
EV demand from homes
with off-street parking and
potentially we do not have
sufficient network capacity
for mass-uptake.⢠It takes time to realise new
capacity, and gaps could
emerge that would lead
to power outages or other
constraints unless action
is taken
Not so much an overall capacity issue, but a localised issue of clustered increases in demand in areas not previously âscaledâ for it.
An already current example is heat pumps - over a certain size you have to inform the electricity board and they may deny installation or require changes to your supply to deal with the demand. Larger charging stations already meet or exceed those supply levels.
Thatâs not an over reaction - I have known cases where installations have not only affected the ownerâs house, but also neighbours when the unit is running during peak consumption times.
Umm how bout you all get your own eco car thread? 
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Fair point, grid was probably the wrong word.
What I meant was that the power generation capacity wonât be the problem, rather that the transmission to the user (including the local network) might be.
Yes. But most refineries, and by most read ALL can generate their own power on site.
So if fewer refineries are required, there will be fewer small power stations.
What is needed are government incentives both financial and legal to encourage every roof in the uk to be fitted with solar panels and every home and office to be fitted with a home battery.
Essentially the future is to keep the centralisation of the grid, but to decentralised power generation.
A bonus of this is of course greater power generation redundancy.
The Government gave the wrong message when they scrapped solar panel subsidies / loans / grants. Same for the scrapping of the Feed-In tariffs. The new âSmart Export Guaranteeâ doesnât seem to be so attractive - for some Feed-In tariffs, companies would install the panels for free, the consumer would get the energy savings, but then the provider would get the Feed-In benefits; everyone was happy.
A typical solar panel installation could cost around ÂŁ5000 or more; payback time for the energy savings can be up to 10 yrs. Obviously, building âgreenâ technology as part of original housing construction phase is simpler, cheaper & much more cost effective. Mandate such technology = cheaper prices per unit.
In EU, they are way ahead of use for eco-friendly legislation relating to housing construction. The Dutch have been leaders on this for a while - they even want to stop the use of gas within houses!
However, you canât build carbon-neutral / 100% energy efficient housing in the middle of nowhere - the transport âfootprintâ would totally negate the housing energy benefits`!
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Iâve moved all of this out of the âLaughâ thread. Feel free to continue it separately.
What makes me laugh with e-car users in cities and thatâs about the only place they are of any use, is they plug their toys in and magic happens and they can drive around for a couple of hundred miles until they need some more magic to happen. It annoys me that many workplace and public charging points in supermarkets are free how does that get allowed, surely there has to be a cost attached and whoâs paying? Thereâd be hell to pay if you went to Tesco got your shop, filled the car up and just drove off, yet thatâs exactly what happens at car park charging points.
Thatâs why I think the people with electric cars are oblivious to the fact that the electricity has to be created so they can live in their eco bubble. They are going to come down with an almighty bump when the number e-cars increases and all of a sudden itâs going to start to cost them to charge their toys.
Personally I need to cost of decent sized electric cars to come down. Iâve driven saloons all my life as the insurance was cheaper and you didnât get pulled by plod, compared to mates in little cars. Iâm not into hiring cars as seems to be the modern trend. Battery life needs to be like that of normal carâs tank of petrol, ie gives around 400 miles plus running lights, radio, wipers, heaters etc etc, even if sitting in traffic jams. Also the boot needs to be able accommodate a family holidayâs gear and not resort to the silly boxes on the roof. I got all of the requirements of many family holidays and trips (not to mention DofE) in the boot and fully laden would get 45 mpg from the 2L Sierras and Mondeos Iâve had for the last 30 years on a run. Not really sure if an e-car of any decent size can do that.
I quite like the idea of hybrids but the cost especially those that recharge batteries, but the jap ones look over designed like something a kid would draw, with funny shaped lights and angles all over the place. I would love a Mondy hybrid but the cost is prohibitive, so looking for a petrol one, but there are not that many around, like there used to be.
@MikeJenvey As for the Dutch wanting to go gas free in homes, not so sure. We have a gas cooker, my wife likes gas as it gives you immediate heat control when cooking and weâve never heard of a gas cut like the power cuts we get every so often and like we experienced as kids in the 70s. We were affected by the big power cut the other week and several neighbours have said they had food and meals ruined as they were part cooked in their electric ovens and then it went off. We said we were fine as we have a gas cooker, all we needed was some matches as the electric ignition didnât work.