Motoring Teeds needs to go out and buy a V8 immediately...

[DaGaffer]

...he has nine years left

 

[Moriath]

They need to get a lot better to challenge long distance and refill times tbh.

 

[Embattle]

A possible alternative - Discover Dyson V8 Cord Free Vacuum Cleaner - Overview | Dyson.co.uk

 

[throdgrain]

Never wanted to go there anyway

 

[Scouse]

Good on the dutchies for being at the forefront. It's happening sooner or later so we should stop pussyfooting about and just plough on into the future full steam ahead.

 

[Moriath]

Good on the dutchies for being at the forefront. It's happening sooner or later so we should stop pussyfooting about and just plough on into the future full steam ahead.

When the tech is up for it. At the moment imo it isnt.

 

[Ormorof]

Considering how small and flat netherlands is it would be perfect for electric cars

 

[Gwadien]

When the tech is up for it. At the moment imo it isnt.

Yes it is.

Problem is, it's still niche, so therefore the cars are expensive, if more Governments took this initiative and gave car companies a deadline, I'm sure they'll quickly get affordable leccy cars on the go.

End of the day, oil stimulates the economy, if every Government did this, there's be a huge financial slump.

Economy trumps the enviro- everything... every time.

 

[Tom]

My hybrid only goes for half a mile on the battery (it's a buffer/power boost not a means of propulsion) but once you've driven down the road on electricity, you'll never want a fossil fuelled engine again - sports cars excepted. They're fucking brilliant. I can't wait to get a Tesla or similar.

 

[Moriath]

Yes it is.

Problem is, it's still niche, so therefore the cars are expensive, if more Governments took this initiative and gave car companies a deadline, I'm sure they'll quickly get affordable leccy cars on the go.

End of the day, oil stimulates the economy, if every Government did this, there's be a huge financial slump.

Economy trumps the enviro- everything... every time.

No it isnt. The batteries are way expensive and dont last long enough. And when they are flat it takes hours to charge.

Now a hydrogen cell would be different. Just filling up with hydrogen would be ok.

 

[DaGaffer]

Seems a bit premature given they only expect the country to be powered by 10-15% renewables by 2020. So electric cars will be powered by coal...

 

[Bodhi]

My hybrid only goes for half a mile on the battery (it's a buffer/power boost not a means of propulsion) but once you've driven down the road on electricity, you'll never want a fossil fuelled engine again - sports cars excepted. They're fucking brilliant. I can't wait to get a Tesla or similar.

I drove my sister's Leaf. It was the most spirit crushing experience ever. 15 minutes of utter tedium only punctuated by a bong from the dash to tell me how much carbon I'd saved (on the road obviously, we'll ignore all the evil carbon produced to make the thing. And to make the electricity for it to amble 5 miles down the road).

I'll stick to petrol until someone comes up with an idea that's actually better.

 

[Bodhi]

No it isnt. The batteries are way expensive and dont last long enough. And when they are flat it takes hours to charge.

Now a hydrogen cell would be different. Just filling up with hydrogen would be ok.

Hydrogen is in theory a better solution - you get the range and refills of a real car, a theoretically infinite supply of fuel, and rather than your house charging the car at night, a fuel cell could easily power your house for the evening.

Sadly at the minute cracking hydrogen takes more energy than it releases as fuel, and it's a bugger to store and transport, but if we can get round those obstacles then it's an even cleaner future than EVs as it sidesteps that pesky issue of where we get all the Lithium for the batteries.

 

[fettoken]

Have heard that Lithium prospecting greatly ruins nearby landmass due to it taking place in third world countries in which they exploit the earth. Also the enrichment process seems really nasty.

 

[TdC]

lol. queue incoming taxes on carbofuel based engines....AND on battery cars. yet another political excuse to tax the shite out of road users. I wonder if the price of mass transit tickets will go down?

 

[fettoken]

Unrelated question: Is there any difference in terms of emission between regular petrol and LPG?

When i Turkey the last time i noticed that a large portion of cabs runs off of LPG.

lol. queue incoming taxes on carbofuel based engines....AND on battery cars. yet another political excuse to tax the shite out of road users. I wonder if the price of mass transit tickets will go down?

Wouldn't it be counterproductive to tax battery cars if the same government wants to promote that sort of transportation?

Also, mass transit ticket prices in Sweden have steadily risen in the last decade. They say it's due to employment costs, though, bus/subway personell have been on strike several times on account of low salaries. Hm.

 

[Syri]

I think what TdC means is that when it becomes the most popular form of transport, the government will decide it's bad all of a sudden, but the next big thing is great, so tax the old one, as we've seen with petrol and diesel. When cars came around, it was great, so in the UK at least, they tore down the railways and built loads of roads for these great cars. Then they're all over the place and suddenly evil, so must be taxed. Then diesel cars get more popular, because they don't emit the flavour of the month evil gasses, but what they do emit is suddenly even worse, so tax that one... It's been a constant cycle of just having some excuse to slap taxes on whatever becomes more popular, for whatever reason they can find, or at least it can seem like it at times...
As for me, I just go with what I can afford, which at the moment is a slightly old but hanging in there Mazda, with a 1.5l petrol engine. If someone will give me the cash to run a prius or a tesla or whatever else is currently considered environmentally friendly, I'd happily give it a go, especially the tesla as the ludicrous mode looks really fun. But until then, if I need to use a car, I'll just be stuck with what I can afford to use.

 

[Tom]

I drove my sister's Leaf. It was the most spirit crushing experience ever. 15 minutes of utter tedium only punctuated by a bong from the dash to tell me how much carbon I'd saved (on the road obviously, we'll ignore all the evil carbon produced to make the thing. And to make the electricity for it to amble 5 miles down the road).

I'll stick to petrol until someone comes up with an idea that's actually better.

I know what you mean. Just the other day I stepped out of my Tesla and into my sister's Renault Kangoo. Taking 17 seconds to go from 0-60 really was dreadful, these fossil-fuelled engine manufacturers need to up their game.

 

[Scouse]

The only thing holding my back from electric cars is recharge time.

Crack that and they've nailed it.

 

[Moriath]

I know what you mean. Just the other day I stepped out of my Tesla and into my sister's Renault Kangoo. Taking 17 seconds to go from 0-60 really was dreadful, these fossil-fuelled engine manufacturers need to up their game.

But all the same you burn charge like a bastard in a tesla. And a lot of the weight of the car is batteries.

A tesla is 60k plus. Which leave a lot of room for the 10k normal persons car to use fuel before its paid back.

Speed isnt everything. As i thought u would know seems u cycle.

 

[Moriath]

The only thing holding my back from electric cars is recharge time.

Crack that and they've nailed it.

which iis where hydrogen could come in.

But if you can refill a battery in ten minutes even. And a range of 300 miles. All is good.

If you have a 300 mile range and 12 hours to refill its gonna take u two days to go the length of the country. Nope not gonna work.

For small regualr trips around town it might be ok but for the business man and even for going on vacation its a night mare

 

[Scouse]

Yup.

300 mile range, ten min recharge (the time it takes to have a piss and grab a coffee).

Better still - completely driverless, then it'd be sod the coffee and your holiday could start on the way to your destination.

I love driving fast, but it isn't suited to cramped roads. Take it off me And I'd pay to drive at tracks, in the manner I actually enjoy driving, regularly. The novelty of being behind a wheel would swing it.

Of course, we had driverless eco-cars that would take you home drunk and comatose over a hundred years ago. They were called horses

 

[Job]

The slight problem with the Tesla is that in it's entire life it will use produce 1 ton less co2 than a comparable fossil fuel car because of the enormous energy used to make the batteries, which is about half the co2 made by a normal cars fuel burn in it's life, take into account the energy needed to charge the batteries and the recycle costs, bearing in mind the equivalent to the battery in a petrol car is a plastic fuel tank.
Electric cars will reduce smog and if we charge them off nuclear reactors then it starts looking better, but at present battery tech they are just as bad for co2.
Also Teslas 300k production run for the 3 will use the entire worlds present lithium production up.

 

[Raven]

Will cause huge waste, huge impact on the environment, but not local so its fine! Simply a headline grabber.

Completely unworkable.

 

[Tom]

But all the same you burn charge like a bastard in a tesla. And a lot of the weight of the car is batteries.

A tesla is 60k plus. Which leave a lot of room for the 10k normal persons car to use fuel before its paid back.

So what, you burn petrol like a bastard in a supercar. And a lot of the weight of the car is an engine and drivetrain, neither of which are required in an electric car. And of course it's expensive, all new technology is expensive. Come back in five years when everyone is building them.

Speed isnt everything. As i thought u would know seems u cycle.

I love this idea people get that enjoyment of cycling and driving is mutually exclusive.

And I don't understand why people are so concerned with range. The majority of trips in the UK are in the single digits of miles.

 

[Moriath]

I need range because of the work i do. Its a personal thing for me. Not saying anything about the rest of the population.

Also i dont think i would have the confidence in an electric car because if you run out of juice or get low its not like you can just pop to the fill up station of which there are many. Your stuffed for a good few hours.

 

[Raven]

I need range because I like to just think about fuel every couple of weeks, not every day.

It boils my piss that I have to charge my phone every couple of days, doing the same with a car would be a nightmare.

 

[DaGaffer]

I need range because I like to just think about fuel every couple of weeks, not every day.

It boils my piss that I have to charge my phone every couple of days, doing the same with a car would be a nightmare.

Would it? If you had a charging station at home you'd just plug it in at night and forget about it. It's not like your mobile where you need it all the time.

Having said that, I now live in a house with my own parking; for large parts of my life I've had to park my car on the street, and you're not going to be allowed to run cables across the pavement.

 

[Raven]

Would it? If you had a charging station at home you'd just plug it in at night and forget about it. It's not like your mobile where you need it all the time.

Having said that, I now live in a house with my own parking; for large parts of my life I've had to park my car on the street, and you're not going to be allowed to run cables across the pavement.

My car is parked about 20 metres from my house, in a protection area. I can't even put a satellite dish on the front of my house without some jobsworth getting pissy. We could put a drive in but it would involve knocking down an ironstone wall that has been there for 300+ years.

 

[Bodhi]

I know what you mean. Just the other day I stepped out of my Tesla and into my sister's Renault Kangoo. Taking 17 seconds to go from 0-60 really was dreadful, these fossil-fuelled engine manufacturers need to up their game.

I was more referring to your assertion that once I'd tried electric propulsion I'd never want a fossil fuelled car again. I was just pointing out that I have tried an electric car, and it was awful, and I couldn't wait to get back into a proper car. I'm sure a Tesla is lovely, but they don't strike me as a quality bit of kit (the interior is horrible and they've had a lot of reliability issues in the US) and are a bit of a one-trick pony, dynamically speaking.

Speaking personally, the range is a massive issue as well - whilst Tesla claim 320 miles from a charge from the P90D, real life figures are closer to 200, which is about the journey I did this morning up to Newcastle. That appears a little close for comfort, and there certainly wasn't time to pull over for half an hour to fill up with electricity.

Nice idea, just seem a bit of a dead end to me. Just trades one finite resource (oil) for another (lithium) whilst being less practical in the real world.