Car (or bike) Chat!

[Macca]

There is certainly a lot less traffic on my street, I especially notice it on weekday mornings. Maybe more people thinking twice now before getting in their cars and driving around pointlessly? Or lots still working from home?

I noticed that the local primary school has a campaign going to encourage parents to walk their children there instead of driving them.

[AJSki2fly]

I think it depends on how much driving people want/have to do. Other factors include whether work is going to pay. I have met people on different sides of the ICE/plug-in/EV discussion who find that if their work pays for fuel/electricity in some way that affects their behaviour. Some have EVs with very low range, but they don't care as it's just enough to get them to and from work, and work is going to pay. There are other people who don't even know how to drive a plug-in hybrid in EV mode, and they don't care as if they get the fuel paid for by their employer they are really not that bothered.

The fuel factor is not completely insignificant though. Although the Tesla Model 3 costs more than a Prius, and in some ways they are similar [though the Tesla has far more instantaneous power] there is likely to be a £15k difference in price if bought from new. However for any one doing the basic maths- and there is quite a bit of variation and wiggle room there - the likelihood is that comparing cars over (say) a 9 year period, the total cost of an EV will turn out to be less - based on comparing initial costs and fuel costs alone. Additional factors are likely to be maintenance plus taxation, which seem likely to favour EVs over shorter periods, plus as has been noted petrol costs are likely to increase. Electricity costs will also increase, but the likelihood - at least in the short term - is that they won't rise faster than petrol prices.

For people who can afford new, or nearly new, EVs those will tend to have a price advantage over ICE vehicles in the years to come. OTOH until ICE cars are totally banned, less well off people may find that they can afford an older 2nd hand car, but not be able to switch to EVs as some vehicles will maintain high prices even in the after use markets.

Re the state of the roads, there are many people right now trying to go round the NC500, and I'm guessing that trying to get to Applecross the hard way (over the very steep mountain road) is going to be hard just now.

You make some interesting points, but I think that the majority of the general public have just not woken up to the EV evolution yet or understand it is coming fast whether they like it or not.

We still have the Top Gear boys who believe the only proper propulsion method is a powerful ICE driven vehicle that makes lots of noise and puts out gasses. Then there is the frightened of new technology and stick in the muds who fear change, probably quite a few of these.

In fact most of our friends and relatives fall into that bucket, all we hear is we couldn’t have one we’d worry about the battery going flat, there is not enough chargers, EVs are unreliable, how could you leave it at the airport didn’t the battery go flat, they are expensive to run, I like my ICE car I know how it works, ICE vehicles will be here in 20 years. All complete utter rubbish, they just do not understand them in any real world way, and what really makes me laugh is hardly any of them have the faintest idea how their ICE vehicle works, all they understand is they drive it to a filling station put fuel in drive it around for 400-600 miles and refill it(usually locally 95% of the time) and repeat.

The Tesla and Tesla UK owners club earlier this year had a meeting with the Dept. Of Transport(DOT) to raise and discuss a number of issues on EV roll out/take up, charging infrastructure, semi-auto and fully autonomous driving. What was very clear from the meetings report was that the government was making clear steps to ensure:-

Electric DNOs (district network operators) prioritised and brought new charging stations online in much shorter timescales, the finance from industry and government and kit is there it just needs rolling out and is seen as a major DOT priority.

The 2030 no more new ICE cars (certainly in the UK) is a will happen as far as the government is concerned and further measures will be taken to encourage the move to full EVs, it is part of the zero carbon plan and the move away from fossil fuel reliability long term. I think this will not necessarily be EV incentives to own more likely making the cost of ICE vehicles new or old more expensive to buy and run.

Moving to semi and fully automated driving in the not too far distance future is seen by the government as a major step in lowering road accidents substantially and saving lives and major costs from accidents. I think fully automated will at least initially be predominately on motorways and major dual carriageways. In fact the DOT said that legislation was already in place for it to happen now, and said Tesla and other manufacturers were holding back on this and should be pushing forward. It was stated that Grant Shapps has taken part and experienced fully automated driving on UK roads and has seen test results from a variety of vehicle test bodies(manufacturer independent) showing that autonomous driving is safer than human driven vehicles. Discussions are also underway with insurance bodies to show the risks are less with semi and fully autonomous driving. I personally was quite surprised by this DOT position, but having experienced Tesla auto-pilot and knowing the Fully Autonomous Driving(FAD) adds only a little more it is not surprising really.

I am sure some of the points/facts I have posted here will annoy or even worry some but whether people like it or not the EV revolution is happening and is accelerating very quickly. If anything sadly the impact of the Ukraine war whilst it has it has slowed car production generally in the short term it has also as we know forced fossil fuel prices up and resulted in EV sales doubling in one year. If you don’t believe it’s happening then go and ask the CEO of the VW group why they have stopped all development of ICE across the group and are stopping production of ICE vehicles when practical for each line(this may be sooner than planned due to parts supply issue, better to focus on the future). VW is just one example, other major manufacturers are also making the shift.

I would like to point out that I have been a petrolhead all my life, and without going into them all have owned at least 35 sports cars over the past 46 years. I have personally worked on and maintained many, I rebuilt an E-Type over 6 years, did some sprinting, track days, and hill climbing. I have loved petrol cars and still do but recognise that in this modern world they are of the past not the future, we as a society and human race need to clean up our act and going as green as possible as soon as possible. Getting rid of ICE vehicles is not going to solve all the planets global warming issues, but it is part of the puzzle and will play a big part in that.

Think about it, if you have children and/or grand-children what do you want to leave behind for them to inherit?

An unbearably hot planet with totally erratic extreme weather systems, large areas of the planet inhabitable due to extreme temperatures resulting in over-population in liveable parts of the world, increased sea levels causing mass population migrations and so on. Alternatively we can all do something to help stop that happening, it’s not an easy move or necessarily cheap(at the moment) but everything everyone does does will help in the short and long term.

[struth]

You make some interesting points, but I think that the majority of the general public have just not woken up to the EV evolution yet or understand it is coming fast whether they like it or not.

We still have the Top Gear boys who believe the only proper propulsion method is a powerful ICE driven vehicle that makes lots of noise and puts out gasses. Then there is the frightened of new technology and stick in the muds who fear change, probably quite a few of these.

In fact most of our friends and relatives fall into that bucket, all we hear is we couldn’t have one we’d worry about the battery going flat, there is not enough chargers, EVs are unreliable, how could you leave it at the airport didn’t the battery go flat, they are expensive to run, I like my ICE car I know how it works, ICE vehicles will be here in 20 years. All complete utter rubbish, they just do not understand them in any real world way, and what really makes me laugh is hardly any of them have the faintest idea how their ICE vehicle works, all they understand is they drive it to a filling station put fuel in drive it around for 400-600 miles and refill it(usually locally 95% of the time) and repeat.

The Tesla and Tesla UK owners club earlier this year had a meeting with the Dept. Of Transport(DOT) to raise and discuss a number of issues on EV roll out/take up, charging infrastructure, semi-auto and fully autonomous driving. What was very clear from the meetings report was that the government was making clear steps to ensure:-

Electric DNOs (district network operators) prioritised and brought new charging stations online in much shorter timescales, the finance from industry and government and kit is there it just needs rolling out and is seen as a major DOT priority.

The 2030 no more new ICE cars (certainly in the UK) is a will happen as far as the government is concerned and further measures will be taken to encourage the move to full EVs, it is part of the zero carbon plan and the move away from fossil fuel reliability long term. I think this will not necessarily be EV incentives to own more likely making the cost of ICE vehicles new or old more expensive to buy and run.

Moving to semi and fully automated driving in the not too far distance future is seen by the government as a major step in lowering road accidents substantially and saving lives and major costs from accidents. I think fully automated will at least initially be predominately on motorways and major dual carriageways. In fact the DOT said that legislation was already in place for it to happen now, and said Tesla and other manufacturers were holding back on this and should be pushing forward. It was stated that Grant Shapps has taken part and experienced fully automated driving on UK roads and has seen test results from a variety of vehicle test bodies(manufacturer independent) showing that autonomous driving is safer than human driven vehicles. Discussions are also underway with insurance bodies to show the risks are less with semi and fully autonomous driving. I personally was quite surprised by this DOT position, but having experienced Tesla auto-pilot and knowing the Fully Autonomous Driving(FAD) adds only a little more it is not surprising really.

I am sure some of the points/facts I have posted here will annoy or even worry some but whether people like it or not the EV revolution is happening and is accelerating very quickly. If anything sadly the impact of the Ukraine war whilst it has it has slowed car production generally in the short term it has also as we know forced fossil fuel prices up and resulted in EV sales doubling in one year. If you don’t believe it’s happening then go and ask the CEO of the VW group why they have stopped all development of ICE across the group and are stopping production of ICE vehicles when practical for each line(this may be sooner than planned due to parts supply issue, better to focus on the future). VW is just one example, other major manufacturers are also making the shift.

I would like to point out that I have been a petrolhead all my life, and without going into them all have owned at least 35 sports cars over the past 46 years. I have personally worked on and maintained many, I rebuilt an E-Type over 6 years, did some sprinting, track days, and hill climbing. I have loved petrol cars and still do but recognise that in this modern world they are of the past not the future, we as a society and human race need to clean up our act and going as green as possible as soon as possible. Getting rid of ICE vehicles is not going to solve all the planets global warming issues, but it is part of the puzzle and will play a big part in that.

Think about it, if you have children and/or grand-children what do you want to leave behind for them to inherit?

An unbearably hot planet with totally erratic extreme weather systems, large areas of the planet inhabitable due to extreme temperatures resulting in over-population in liveable parts of the world, increased sea levels causing mass population migrations and so on. Alternatively we can all do something to help stop that happening, it’s not an easy move or necessarily cheap(at the moment) but everything everyone does does will help in the short and long term.

alas this will happen irrelavent of fad evs. the planet as we know it is doomed as most of the polluting countries wont change in time if at all. power stations burning coal, gas, oil etc will go on for decades at a similar rate. USA isnt really interested and africa, asia, russia etc; well they wont either for whatever reasons. Unfortunately its a global issue and us doing our bit is laudable but wont really scratch a pimple.

[AJSki2fly]

alas this will happen irrelavent of fad evs. the planet as we know it is doomed as most of the polluting countries wont change in time if at all. power stations burning coal, gas, oil etc will go on for decades at a similar rate. USA isnt really interested and africa, asia, russia etc; well they wont either for whatever reasons. Unfortunately its a global issue and us doing our bit is laudable but wont really scratch a pimple.

Unfortunately if you are correct in that doom laden analysis then our planet is likely become rather ungovernable, people will be migrating all over the place to try and get a better life, its bad enough as it is already driven by wars, poverty and persecution. Sometimes I really despair at the human race, so immensely clever yet hugely stupid. Perhaps the world is destined to become a dystopian world something along the lines of 'The Hunger Games' or a solar system something like that portrayed in the Expanse series. Perhaps those who are rich enough and are aiming to get their kids or grand-children to off-world in the next 30 years have it right?

[struth]

Unfortunately if you are correct in that doom laden analysis then our planet is likely become rather ungovernable, people will be migrating all over the place to try and get a better life, its bad enough as it is already driven by wars, poverty and persecution. Sometimes I really despair at the human race, so immensely clever yet hugely stupid. Perhaps the world is destined to become a dystopian world something along the lines of 'The Hunger Games' or a solar system something like that portrayed in the Expanse series. Perhaps those who are rich enough and are aiming to get their kids or grand-children to off-world in the next 30 years have it right?

soylent green comes to mind for me. thats if we dont blow world up first

[Macca]

soylent green comes to mind for me. thats if we dont blow world up first

[walpurgis]

Do they do a vegan version?

[struth]

Do they do a vegan version?

thats the vegan version... lots of extra vegan girls in it

[Pigmy Pony]

Where are we on electric aeroplanes?

We can all do our bit to save the planet, in fact we are being made to do our bit. Which I'm fine with, but without the rest of the world getting on board (not just industry but also all those who like to tear-arse around the globe in jets to attend "important" meetings (jollies really) to chat the same shit they could just as easily say via web cam, then we are really (in the words of late comedian Sean Locke) just turning up to the aftermath of an earthquake with a dustpan and brush.

In fact lets do away with all foreign travel and embrace staycationing. Britain is enjoying warmer summers thanks to climate change, and even the crappiest ev will have enough range to make it to the seaside and back. If we did this we really would be doing our bit, but I doubt it will happen.

[CageyH]

Where are we on electric aeroplanes?

We can all do our bit to save the planet, in fact we are being made to do our bit. Which I'm fine with, but without the rest of the world getting on board (not just industry but also all those who like to tear-arse around the globe in jets to attend "important" meetings (jollies really) to chat the same shit they could just as easily say via web cam, then we are really (in the words of late comedian Sean Locke) just turning up to the aftermath of an earthquake with a dustpan and brush.

In fact lets do away with all foreign travel and embrace staycationing. Britain is enjoying warmer summers thanks to climate change, and even the crappiest ev will have enough range to make it to the seaside and back. If we did this we really would be doing our bit, but I doubt it will happen.

Why just electric?
Several studies of hydrogen fuelled aircraft are being carried out.
I was offered a job down here to go and convert an ATR to hydrogen.