Guardian spread on electric cars (5 October)

CXR94Di2 wrote:

I'm an EV convert. I have been using a 40KW Nissan Leaf for 18 months. We have driven 30000miles. Our electric is sourced on renewable tariff. We have moved over to Tesla now, the eldest gets the Nissan

They may not be the perfect, solution but are a step in eradicating ICE vehicles. Also they go like stink and are super smooth to drive.

I have to agree on the driveability. I recently had an i3 for a day, and despite being an ugly duckling, was great to drive. And if you stick to urban and motorway use, the infrastructure is getting there. But last time I looked at places I might want to go on holiday, like the Highlands of Scotland, or the alps, charging options seem to be limited to random hotels.

Griff500 wrote:

CXR94Di2 wrote:

I'm an EV convert. I have been using a 40KW Nissan Leaf for 18 months. We have driven 30000miles. Our electric is sourced on renewable tariff. We have moved over to Tesla now, the eldest gets the Nissan

They may not be the perfect, solution but are a step in eradicating ICE vehicles. Also they go like stink and are super smooth to drive.

I have to agree on the driveability. I recently had an i3 for a day, and despite being an ugly duckling, was great to drive. And if you stick to urban and motorway use, the infrastructure is getting there. But last time I looked at places I might want to go on holiday, like the Highlands of Scotland, or the alps, charging options seem to be limited to random hotels.

We have a 15 meter extension lead plus the 5 meters of charger lead when stopping at remote places. plug it in to wall socket. We are going beyond Inverness in our Tesla, the nearest Supercharger is Inverness. after that we will use 13amp plug

CXR94Di2 wrote:

Griff500 wrote:

CXR94Di2 wrote:

I'm an EV convert. I have been using a 40KW Nissan Leaf for 18 months. We have driven 30000miles. Our electric is sourced on renewable tariff. We have moved over to Tesla now, the eldest gets the Nissan

They may not be the perfect, solution but are a step in eradicating ICE vehicles. Also they go like stink and are super smooth to drive.

I have to agree on the driveability. I recently had an i3 for a day, and despite being an ugly duckling, was great to drive. And if you stick to urban and motorway use, the infrastructure is getting there. But last time I looked at places I might want to go on holiday, like the Highlands of Scotland, or the alps, charging options seem to be limited to random hotels.

We have a 15 meter extension lead plus the 5 meters of charger lead when stopping at remote places. plug it in to wall socket. We are going beyond Inverness in our Tesla, the nearest Supercharger is Inverness. after that we will use 13amp plug

Interesting, didn't know that was doable. How long for a full charge from a wall socket?

Griff500 wrote:

CXR94Di2 wrote:

Griff500 wrote:

CXR94Di2 wrote:

I'm an EV convert. I have been using a 40KW Nissan Leaf for 18 months. We have driven 30000miles. Our electric is sourced on renewable tariff. We have moved over to Tesla now, the eldest gets the Nissan

They may not be the perfect, solution but are a step in eradicating ICE vehicles. Also they go like stink and are super smooth to drive.

I have to agree on the driveability. I recently had an i3 for a day, and despite being an ugly duckling, was great to drive. And if you stick to urban and motorway use, the infrastructure is getting there. But last time I looked at places I might want to go on holiday, like the Highlands of Scotland, or the alps, charging options seem to be limited to random hotels.

We have a 15 meter extension lead plus the 5 meters of charger lead when stopping at remote places. plug it in to wall socket. We are going beyond Inverness in our Tesla, the nearest Supercharger is Inverness. after that we will use 13amp plug

Interesting, didn't know that was doable. How long for a full charge from a wall socket?

Quite a while, it's around 11 miles per hour. You generally don't go below 20% and above 80… Dedicated 7kW chargers around 10 hours and Supercharger 35 mins

hawkinspeter wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I'd say they're both valid types of logical fallacies.

I don't think I agree.  The latter (like Godwin) gets misused almost universally.  Pointing out hypocrisy, or pointing out that there are drawbacks to both of two possible choices, are valid things to do, but tend to get dismissed as 'whatabouttery' (the latter seems to be the way it's used in this thread).  Why should hypocrites get to use the term to avoid acknowledging or addressing their hypocrisy?

The term has very political roots, after all, as wiki demonstrates.

(The fallacy is surely Tu quoque, and that term doesn't carry the same political undertones and whiff of concealing hypocrisy or ignoring the drawbacks of the proposed alternative choice...the 'whatabouttery' term has too much extra baggage for my liking...it irritates me...almost as much as the overuse of the word 'narrative')

pastyfacepaddy wrote:

I'm quite surprised by the degree of whatabouttery and misinformation being floated around on here with regards EV's. For a moment I almost mistook this for the Daily Fail website!

There is no magic bullet to solve the climate change issues or congestion issues. Yes we need an increased emphasis on and enabling of public transport, we need to remove the sense of entitlement towards the right to owning a car etc but EV's are a valid step towards minimising the environmental impact of transport as a step along the way. Battery technology is constantly developing as are charging technologies and battery recycling with the two former leading to massive increases of range, efficiency and reductions in charge times. Also increasing is the green generation sector meaing many EV's will be powered by renewable sources.

The fact that many of these new EV's have additional safety features such as pedestrian detection and increasingly autonomous functionality is all leading (hopefully) to increasingly safer roads for all of us whether we can afford the new EV's or not.

I'm currently looking at an EV as a replacement for a deisel and having a green tariff already in place means there would be no running CO2 costs for it.

I hate the term 'whattabouettery', incidentally.  Like Godwin's Law or accusations of 'politicial correctness' or 'virtue signalling' or invocations of 'common sense', it might have a rare valid use, but 90% of the time it gets used a a lazy short cut to avoid addressing actual arguments.   Wish people would stop using those terms/phrases.

And talk of 'magic bullets' is a straw man.  The question is to what degree electric vehicles are going to help or distract from the better solutions.  I honestly don't know, but in urban areas I'd put far more emphasisis on restricting the use of cars of any kind.  Increasing fuel tax and congestion charging, and installing more bollards.  I'm not opposed to EVs, but I'm just not wildly evangelical about them either.

  The proposal that they be allowed to use bus lanes, for example, was disengenous, and clearly about the profits of the manufacturers rather than doing anything for the environment.  Taking resources from the least polluting travel modes and giving it to more polluting ones (and at the same time freeing up more space in the rest of the road for the most polluting ones) would not be a 'green' policy.

Also I'm skeptical about 'green tafiffs'.  There's no specifically 'green' electricity, it's all interchangeable.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

pastyfacepaddy wrote:

I'm quite surprised by the degree of whatabouttery and misinformation being floated around on here with regards EV's. For a moment I almost mistook this for the Daily Fail website!

There is no magic bullet to solve the climate change issues or congestion issues. Yes we need an increased emphasis on and enabling of public transport, we need to remove the sense of entitlement towards the right to owning a car etc but EV's are a valid step towards minimising the environmental impact of transport as a step along the way. Battery technology is constantly developing as are charging technologies and battery recycling with the two former leading to massive increases of range, efficiency and reductions in charge times. Also increasing is the green generation sector meaing many EV's will be powered by renewable sources.

The fact that many of these new EV's have additional safety features such as pedestrian detection and increasingly autonomous functionality is all leading (hopefully) to increasingly safer roads for all of us whether we can afford the new EV's or not.

I'm currently looking at an EV as a replacement for a deisel and having a green tariff already in place means there would be no running CO2 costs for it.

 

I hate the term 'whattabouettery', incidentally.  Like Godwin's Law or accusations of 'politicial correctness' or 'virtue signalling' or invocations of 'common sense', it might have a rare valid use, but 90% of the time it gets used a a lazy short cut to avoid addressing actual arguments.   Wish people would stop using those terms/phrases.

 

And talk of 'magic bullets' is a straw man.  The question is to what degree electric vehicles are going to help or distract from the better solutions.  I honestly don't know, but in urban areas I'd put far more emphasisis on restricting the use of cars of any kind.  Increasing fuel tax and congestion charging, and installing more bollards.  I'm not opposed to EVs, but I'm just not wildly evangelical about them either.

 

 

  The proposal that they be allowed to use bus lanes, for example, was disengenous, and clearly about the profits of the manufacturers rather than doing anything for the environment.  Taking resources from the least polluting travel modes and giving it to more polluting ones (and at the same time freeing up more space in the rest of the road for the most polluting ones) would not be a 'green' policy.

 

Also I'm skeptical about 'green tafiffs'.  There's no specifically 'green' electricity, it's all interchangeable.

Wish people would stop using those terms/phrases. Like strawman?

As you can see I didn't use it to avoid any of the points but I think it fits perfectly when something is used as a distraction away from the question being asked such as uninsured drivers and whether increases of EV's would impact that completely unrelated issue. I also don't mind using  the other terms you've listed as I think they absolutely have a place  in calling out fakery and distracting from the initial question being asked.  (yes I acknowledge the irony there given the reason for your dislike of them)

Ideally i think the move away from private ownership is key especially in urban areas as you mention and for the remaining I'd prefer to see Hydrogen fuel cells as the preferred fuel for transport but that seems to be a long way away and I honestly think EV's are a useful and necessary step towards honing the technology required and adjustment of people's attitudes and habits.

EV's should not be allowed anywhere near a bus lane unless the bus is an EV. 100% agree on that one.

I'm not sure why the skepticsm about green tariffs though? I use X amounts of units and my supplier (Bulb who supply 100% green energy) either generates or acquires that same amount of units from other generators produced using renewables.  The more demand for green energy the more energy is produced using green means. The level of micro generation is increasing and some people now are producing over 90% of their own energy using storage. They produce and charge battery storage during the day while they're out and then use that to power their homes during the evening including topping up their EV's at night.
 

pastyfacepaddy wrote:

Wish people would stop using those terms/phrases. Like strawman?

As you can see I didn't use it to avoid any of the points but I think it fits perfectly when something is used as a distraction away from the question being asked such as uninsured drivers and whether increases of EV's would impact that completely unrelated issue. I also don't mind using  the other terms you've listed as I think they absolutely have a place  in calling out fakery and distracting from the initial question being asked.  (yes I acknowledge the irony there given the reason for your dislike of them)

Ideally i think the move away from private ownership is key especially in urban areas as you mention and for the remaining I'd prefer to see Hydrogen fuel cells as the preferred fuel for transport but that seems to be a long way away and I honestly think EV's are a useful and necessary step towards honing the technology required and adjustment of people's attitudes and habits.

EV's should not be allowed anywhere near a bus lane unless the bus is an EV. 100% agree on that one.

I'm not sure why the skepticsm about green tariffs though? I use X amounts of units and my supplier (Bulb who supply 100% green energy) either generates or acquires that same amount of units from other generators produced using renewables.  The more demand for green energy the more energy is produced using green means. The level of micro generation is increasing and some people now are producing over 90% of their own energy using storage. They produce and charge battery storage during the day while they're out and then use that to power their homes during the evening including topping up their EV's at night.

I'm going totally off-topic, but I'd suggest "straw man"  is a well-defined, long-standing label for a logical fallacy, whereas "whataboutery" is a much more recent invention (Americans seem to think it's to do with Russia and the Cold war, while here the term clearly came out of arguments about Northern Ireland) that 90% of the time isn't a valid objection.  It's perfectly reasonable to point to analogous issues in order to try and clarify what general principle, if any, the person making an argument is appealing to, and that's what usually seem to elicit an accusation of 'whataboutery'.  In this case I just am not clear what you are referring to by the term.

Anyway, with environmental issues the main thing is I believe they have to be addressed at the governmental/legal level or above, not left to individual lifestyle choices.

  With green energy, most cases when you pay a 'green tariff' the supplier still produces the same amount of renewable or non-renewable power, they can't distinguish between different types of electricity they are sending you.  The whole competitive market in utilites is weird anyway, all they are are competing billing agencies, for the most part, they don't send individual customers their own special electricity, it's all thrown in together.  _Maybe_ its a sort of 'signal' to indicate a desire for more renewable generation, but that really needs to be done through the ballot box and government/legal action, it seems to me.

I  also distrust the 'feed-in tafiffs' thing - that seems to come down to those who don't have large houses with roofs, and the capital to pay for solar panels etc, having to pay a premium to subsidise those who do.  It can become a very regressive tax.

  And I don't think micro-generation is generally much use, micro-wind in particular seems to be useless in urban areas (what's that big building at elephant and castle with wind turbines that I've never seen move since the building was constructed?).

I'm sure it's cost-effective, even without subsidies, for people fortunate enough to live in the right places, where there's a lot of sun and/or wind).  But I don't think it should be subisidised to the point where it's more about regressive redistribution than actually helping the environment.

pastyfacepaddy wrote:

I'm quite surprised by the degree of whatabouttery and misinformation being floated around on here with regards EV's. .

This from the same guy who said lithium is produced commercially from seawater!

hobbeldehoy wrote:

When our local council uses an electric car it frequently has to be towed back by a diesel powered tow truck because the battery couldn't make the distance. But councillors and the council management don't have to live in the real world. Electric car peters out on a cold, wet, windy day? No problem just call out the tow truck, council tax payers will cover it and we can continue to feel ever so warm and special with our morally superior attitude.

That's one of those things I can either believe or be skeptical about, and I just can't tell, dammit. 

Pointless gestures by councillors who want to feel virtuous vs dodgy Daily-Mail-style anecdotes that are misreported or true but not at all representative?  Both are entirely possible.

  Needs some properly-conducted study on use of electric vehicles by councils generally to work out where the truth lies.

hobbeldehoy wrote:

Electric cars as a mode of mass private transport is pie in the sky. The infrastructure to support the mass uptake of electric cars is not there and no attempt has been made to begin the countrywide installation of charging points. Furthermore, they cost around 30k for a small EV. Few can afford that. Not only that charging points would have to be installed across rural areas including the trunk roads connecting towns and cities. Then you have to consider charging time. Even rapid chargers take the best part of an hour to provide a full charge. I can imagine a lot of tailbacks waiting to charge. Then there is the 20 or so new nuclear power stations needed to provide the energy. Those take around 20 years to build at around 15 billion pounds each. Perhaps the reality is that less car ownership is the objective and people being pushed onto public transport.

Actually incorrect on a number of points.

Infrastructure:
Tesla have a superchraged infrastructure already across the country and are rolling out more charging locations and upgrading their superchargers all the time. Ecotricity, Podpoint etc are doing likewise. There are numerous methods of charging from home chargers using home generated solar to Tesla superchargers and even popup and lampost mounted chargers for areas with no off street parking.
With the exception of Tesla, the roll out of infrastructure will follow the increased adoption of EV's.

Cost of EV's:
To buy yes they represent from £20k upwards but as a lease option they are more affordable especially given the fuel savings achievable between the 13p per mile for deisel and the 3-4p per mile on some EV's.

Charge times:
Again Tesla are leading the way here with 20-80% charge times of 20-30minutes. This is also a bit of a red herring because the idea is that there is a shift in mentality away from filling up as you need it and moving towards a keep charged up mentality i.e. charging at home / work etc where possible.

pastyfacepaddy wrote:

hobbeldehoy wrote:

Electric cars as a mode of mass private transport is pie in the sky. The infrastructure to support the mass uptake of electric cars is not there and no attempt has been made to begin the countrywide installation of charging points. Furthermore, they cost around 30k for a small EV. Few can afford that. Not only that charging points would have to be installed across rural areas including the trunk roads connecting towns and cities. Then you have to consider charging time. Even rapid chargers take the best part of an hour to provide a full charge. I can imagine a lot of tailbacks waiting to charge. Then there is the 20 or so new nuclear power stations needed to provide the energy. Those take around 20 years to build at around 15 billion pounds each. Perhaps the reality is that less car ownership is the objective and people being pushed onto public transport.

Actually incorrect on a number of points.

Infrastructure:
Tesla have a superchraged infrastructure already across the country and are rolling out more charging locations and upgrading their superchargers all the time. Ecotricity, Podpoint etc are doing likewise. There are numerous methods of charging from home chargers using home generated solar to Tesla superchargers and even popup and lampost mounted chargers for areas with no off street parking.
With the exception of Tesla, the roll out of infrastructure will follow the increased adoption of EV's.

Cost of EV's:
To buy yes they represent from £20k upwards but as a lease option they are more affordable especially given the fuel savings achievable between the 13p per mile for deisel and the 3-4p per mile on some EV's.

Charge times:
Again Tesla are leading the way here with 20-80% charge times of 20-30minutes. This is also a bit of a red herring because the idea is that there is a shift in mentality away from filling up as you need it and moving towards a keep charged up mentality i.e. charging at home / work etc where possible.

I'm seriously agnostic about this one (as opposed to self-driving cars, which I think will either never happen or will make things worse if they do).

  I can't really figure out the total environmental impact (which involves a lot more than just CO2 emissions and seems like a hugely complicated calculation) and they definitely won't solve all the other problems, but from a selfish perspective, the removal of local street pollution is a huge plus.

I can imagine the cost of EVs may fall quite a lot, though they are too costly for mass use right now.

  But I don't see much sign of this charging infrastructure reaching anywhere near the scale it would have to be to make mass adoption of EVs viable.  There's the occasional street charging point I see, but more often I see electric vehicles being charged with long leads draped out of windows and across pavements, which does not seem a good solution.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

pastyfacepaddy wrote:

hobbeldehoy wrote:

Electric cars as a mode of mass private transport is pie in the sky. The infrastructure to support the mass uptake of electric cars is not there and no attempt has been made to begin the countrywide installation of charging points. Furthermore, they cost around 30k for a small EV. Few can afford that. Not only that charging points would have to be installed across rural areas including the trunk roads connecting towns and cities. Then you have to consider charging time. Even rapid chargers take the best part of an hour to provide a full charge. I can imagine a lot of tailbacks waiting to charge. Then there is the 20 or so new nuclear power stations needed to provide the energy. Those take around 20 years to build at around 15 billion pounds each. Perhaps the reality is that less car ownership is the objective and people being pushed onto public transport.

Actually incorrect on a number of points.

Infrastructure:
Tesla have a superchraged infrastructure already across the country and are rolling out more charging locations and upgrading their superchargers all the time. Ecotricity, Podpoint etc are doing likewise. There are numerous methods of charging from home chargers using home generated solar to Tesla superchargers and even popup and lampost mounted chargers for areas with no off street parking.
With the exception of Tesla, the roll out of infrastructure will follow the increased adoption of EV's.

Cost of EV's:
To buy yes they represent from £20k upwards but as a lease option they are more affordable especially given the fuel savings achievable between the 13p per mile for deisel and the 3-4p per mile on some EV's.

Charge times:
Again Tesla are leading the way here with 20-80% charge times of 20-30minutes. This is also a bit of a red herring because the idea is that there is a shift in mentality away from filling up as you need it and moving towards a keep charged up mentality i.e. charging at home / work etc where possible.

 

I'm seriously agnostic about this one (as opposed to self-driving cars, which I think will either never happen or will make things worse if they do).

 

  I can't really figure out the total environmental impact (which involves a lot more than just CO2 emissions and seems like a hugely complicated calculation) and they definitely won't solve all the other problems, but from a selfish perspective, the removal of local street pollution is a huge plus.

 

I can imagine the cost of EVs may fall quite a lot, though they are too costly for mass use right now.

 

  But I don't see much sign of this charging infrastructure reaching anywhere near the scale it would have to be to make mass adoption of EVs viable.  There's the occasional street charging point I see, but more often I see electric vehicles being charged with long leads draped out of windows and across pavements, which does not seem a good solution.

 

It's not easy to work out and whatever you think is involved to calculate inevitable there will be other factors missed.

Have a look at Electric Highway (Ecotricity), Podpoint, Zap map etc and you'll see there are an ever increasing number of charge points for away from home charging. As the number of EV's increases so will the number of charge points and probably with less additional space i.e. more spaces on car parks will be for charging or have chargers next to them.

As I've mentioned there's a shift in mentality required away from the fill up now and more of a constant drip / trickle charging and topping up whether that's at home, work, school, local amenities etc. When you look at it charging by electric, it actually frees up time because typical an EV will be charged during that 90% of the time it's unused either while the user is sleeping, working, shopping etc.

Rich_cb wrote:

Read a recent review of the new Renault Zoe, they were quoting lifecycle CO2 per Km of 60g. That's pretty impressive and an indication of where EVs are headed in terms of CO2 emmisions. (Obviously depends on which country you're driving it in). EVs aren't going to change any of the behavioural problems associated with mass car ownership but they can make motoring less harmful in terms of local pollution and CO2 emissions. A step in the right direction at the very least.

Does that 60g/km include the CO2 from mining Cobolt - most of the worlds cobolt comes from DRC* where children digging by hand isn't uncommon in artisanal mines, how about that from Lithium mining , does it take into account the CO2 generated from dirty energy production  - we in the UK use over 46% carbon based fuel over the whole year (averaged out so higher winter/lower summer) to generate our electricty? Does it also take into account the Lithium that is not recycled because it's cheaper to mine/use virgin?

*Minerals from DRC are now considered to be 'conflict' minerals by some organisations whilst other motor manufacturers talk about ethics but won't actually say where they get their resources from cough Mercedes/VW/VOLVO etc, at least Jaguar LR admitted that they did as did BMW.

CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Does that 60g/km include the CO2 from mining Cobolt - most of the worlds cobolt comes from DRC* where children digging by hand isn't uncommon in artisanal mines, how about that from Lithium mining , does it take into account the CO2 generated from dirty energy production  - we in the UK use over 46% carbon based fuel over the whole year (averaged out so higher winter/lower summer) to generate our electricty? Does it also take into account the Lithium that is not recycled because it's cheaper to mine/use virgin?

*Minerals from DRC are now considered to be 'conflict' minerals by some organisations whilst other motor manufacturers talk about ethics but won't actually say where they get their resources from cough Mercedes/VW/VOLVO etc, at least Jaguar LR admitted that they did as did BMW.

Apparently, yes, it does take all that CO2 in to account.

It doesn't state what country the car would be based in to generate those figures so can't comment on whether they would be true in UK.

An EV in the UK will, however, see its CO2 emissions decrease year on year as more and more renewable electricity comes on line.

Oil production has enough ethical implications of its own so I'm not sure the impact of cobalt/lithium mining is any different in that regard.

Of course it would be better if everyone walked and cycled as much as possible but that sort of cultural change will take decades, switching to EVs is a very useful interim measure that should reduce a lot of the harm associated with car use.

Rich_cb wrote:

Apparently, yes, it does take all that CO2 in to account.

Depends who's data you believe. No need to go into the detail here as there are some very detailed analyses online supporting both sides of the debate, all of course generated by bodies with vested interests in one side or the other. One of the biggest points argued over is assumptions made on battery recycling, which currently is not taking place. A bit like all that supermarket packaging carrying a recycling label (black plastic, plastic film etc), correct in theory, yet your local council says otherwise.

As for your comparison of cobalt mining with oil production? I don't think you've read about the kids in DRC.

Griff500 wrote:

Depends who's data you believe. No need to go into the detail here as there are some very detailed analyses online supporting both sides of the debate, all of course generated by bodies with vested interests in one side or the other. One of the biggest points argued over is assumptions made on battery recycling, which currently is not taking place. A bit like all that supermarket packaging carrying a recycling label (black plastic, plastic film etc), correct in theory, yet your local council says otherwise.

As for your comparison of cobalt mining with oil production? I don't think you've read about the kids in DRC.

I have read about the mining.

I've also read about the ongoing atrocities in the Middle East.

Oil production is associated with huge amounts of human misery.

The sooner we wean ourselves off it the better.

Rich_cb wrote:

Griff500 wrote:

Depends who's data you believe. No need to go into the detail here as there are some very detailed analyses online supporting both sides of the debate, all of course generated by bodies with vested interests in one side or the other. One of the biggest points argued over is assumptions made on battery recycling, which currently is not taking place. A bit like all that supermarket packaging carrying a recycling label (black plastic, plastic film etc), correct in theory, yet your local council says otherwise. As for your comparison of cobalt mining with oil production? I don't think you've read about the kids in DRC.

I have read about the mining. I've also read about the ongoing atrocities in the Middle East. Oil production is associated with huge amounts of human misery. The sooner we wean ourselves off it the better.

I think you'll find the human misery remains long after oil is replaced. That's because it's not the oil that causes the misery.

Sriracha wrote:

I think you'll find the human misery remains long after oil is replaced. That's because it's not the oil that causes the misery.

We'll have to wait and see.

The damage to societies may be permanent.

Hopefully it won't be.

Rich_cb wrote:

Read a recent review of the new Renault Zoe, they were quoting lifecycle CO2 per Km of 60g. That's pretty impressive and an indication of where EVs are headed in terms of CO2 emmisions. (Obviously depends on which country you're driving it in). EVs aren't going to change any of the behavioural problems associated with mass car ownership but they can make motoring less harmful in terms of local pollution and CO2 emissions. A step in the right direction at the very least.

lifecycle CO2 is very much a function of where in the world you live and the type of power generation used. In my neck of the woods coal fired generation dominates and as such the lifecycle CO2 is far less favourable. Here a Nissan Leaf has a lifecycle CO2 rating of 154g/km, on par with my diesel Berlingo van. Tailpipe emissions is one thing, but the power they use has to be generated and they’re only as clean as the source of electricity.

Likewise, oil will still be mined given the myriad uses. There are literally hundreds of products produced from oil, even pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. I don’t expect that to stop.

It can be more effective to replace car use with bicycles, even pedelecs or ebikes. I’ve done that, one because electric cars are unsubsidised and expensive (Leaf or Zoe are fifty thousand dollars) and because they’re still inefficient compared to bikes. They’re using 15 kWh per 100km, my Tern GSD covers that in eco mode on a 400 Wh battery with a bit of help from me. I’ve cut my car use by around two thirds. I can recharge it in a few hours from rooftop solar.

This is where the value equation comes in, I reduce emissions and save money by riding instead of driving. Because I drive much less, it’s harder to justify an EV car. Eliminating consumption is more effective than substitution.

Philh68 wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

Read a recent review of the new Renault Zoe, they were quoting lifecycle CO2 per Km of 60g. That's pretty impressive and an indication of where EVs are headed in terms of CO2 emmisions. (Obviously depends on which country you're driving it in). EVs aren't going to change any of the behavioural problems associated with mass car ownership but they can make motoring less harmful in terms of local pollution and CO2 emissions. A step in the right direction at the very least.

lifecycle CO2 is very much a function of where in the world you live and the type of power generation used. In my neck of the woods coal fired generation dominates and as such the lifecycle CO2 is far less favourable. Here a Nissan Leaf has a lifecycle CO2 rating of 154g/km, on par with my diesel Berlingo van. Tailpipe emissions is one thing, but the power they use has to be generated and they’re only as clean as the source of electricity.

Likewise, oil will still be mined given the myriad uses. There are literally hundreds of products produced from oil, even pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. I don’t expect that to stop.

It can be more effective to replace car use with bicycles, even pedelecs or ebikes. I’ve done that, one because electric cars are unsubsidised and expensive (Leaf or Zoe are fifty thousand dollars) and because they’re still inefficient compared to bikes. They’re using 15 kWh per 100km, my Tern GSD covers that in eco mode on a 400 Wh battery with a bit of help from me. I’ve cut my car use by around two thirds. I can recharge it in a few hours from rooftop solar.

This is where the value equation comes in, I reduce emissions and save money by riding instead of driving. Because I drive much less, it’s harder to justify an EV car. Eliminating consumption is more effective than substitution.

Eliminating consumption is more effective than substitution.
That's beautiful dude.

Simon E wrote:

Further thoughts:

1. Will electric cars mean that there are no longer 1,00,000 uninsured drivers on British roads? Uninsured drivers kill 130 people a year and injure another 27,000.

2. Does driving an electric car mean people change their habits and decide to obey speed limits? Do they tailgate less often? Do they drive more cautiously on narrow country lanes? Does it have a calming effect on driver aggression, including towards women?

1. I wouldn't expect it to be any worse than ICE cars and possible as most people will be leasing EV's I would expect less chance of them being uninsured.

2. Not specifically but yes in so much as most EV's are newer cars and as such they come with much more safety built in such as crash assist systems, adaptive cruise control, lane keeper, Blind spot warnings etc. 

Also due to the less moving parts and servicing requirements it's likely that EV's have less to go wrong with them so represent safer vehicles on the roads.