Electric Cars Good for planet or just bad?

Ectophile

Supersonos wrote: »

Unfortunately, I don't think that's possible. Imagine you could suddenly turn every one of the 40m cars in the UK into electric. Where on earth would they all charge? A lot of people don't have a driveway or somewhere they can guarantee to park/charge.

I just don't think electric cars are the answer. I don't know what is, but batteries will never supply what we need (and battery tech hasn't advanced in about 20 years and, as I believe it, has reached it's peak power storage per kg).

It will work if there are a lot more chargers, where people tend to stop anyway. That would be shops, offices, factories and so on.


You drive to the supermarket to do the weekly shopping. You plug the car in. By the time you come back out of the shop, the car is 80% charged. That should be enough for the next few days.



What isn't going to work is if people have to get into their cars, drive to a charging station, wait half an hour, then go on their journey.

couriervanman

Ectophile wrote: »

It will work if there are a lot more chargers, where people tend to stop anyway. That would be shops, offices, factories and so on.


You drive to the supermarket to do the weekly shopping. You plug the car in. By the time you come back out of the shop, the car is 80% charged. That should be enough for the next few days.



What isn't going to work is if people have to get into their cars, drive to a charging station, wait half an hour, then go on their journey.

:rotfl: Can't see Tesco car park being full of charging points as previous poster said its not going to happen

TooManyPoints

Listen to Prince Harry.

I don't think so:

https://pagesix.com/2019/07/31/prince-harry-gives-speech-about-climate-change-at-mysterious-google-summit/

I agree 100% that excess population is the root cause of many of the environmental problems seen today. Continued population growth simply cannot be sustained. But I don't need Prince Harry to tell me that - especially from a summer party venue that has probably seen more pollution to get its guests there than I will be responsible for in my lifetime.

Electric cars are the equivalent of snake oil. The problem is everybody wants their very own ton and a half of metal with armchairs to get them to wherever they want to go. Electric cars simply move the pollution caused by their IC counterparts to elsewhere. But as mentioned, when China, India and the USA take significant measures to curb their pollution I'll think about getting rid of my Citroen 2CV.

Supersonos

Ectophile wrote: »

It will work if there are a lot more chargers, where people tend to stop anyway. That would be shops, offices, factories and so on.


You drive to the supermarket to do the weekly shopping. You plug the car in. By the time you come back out of the shop, the car is 80% charged. That should be enough for the next few days.



What isn't going to work is if people have to get into their cars, drive to a charging station, wait half an hour, then go on their journey.

Every single parking space would need a charging point (street, supermarket, train station, multi-storey etc.) and I can't see that happening.

Can you imagine the carnage on city streets if every parked car needed a cable running to it to charge it?

Nothing beats getting 600 miles of energy pumped into a car within two minutes. And I don't think battery cars will ever get to that.

oscarward

Supersonos wrote: »

Nothing beats getting 600 miles of energy pumped into a car within two minutes. And I don't think battery cars will ever get to that.

They may not be there yet but the technology is being developed, interesting article link.



https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air


I did read about a company developing a battery where you could change the electrolytic fluid to give you another 300 miles so possibly leading to 'refueling' in minutes at a filling station.

I think the idea of conventional batteries which take > 30 minutes to get 80% charge is not practical for a number of people as discussed above. But the day of fossil fuels vehicles is drawing to a close so sitting twiddling thumbs is not a realistic option.

DrEskimo

TooManyPoints wrote: »

I don't think so:

https://pagesix.com/2019/07/31/prince-harry-gives-speech-about-climate-change-at-mysterious-google-summit/

I agree 100% that excess population is the root cause of many of the environmental problems seen today. Continued population growth simply cannot be sustained. But I don't need Prince Harry to tell me that - especially from a summer party venue that has probably seen more pollution to get its guests there than I will be responsible for in my lifetime.

Electric cars are the equivalent of snake oil. The problem is everybody wants their very own ton and a half of metal with armchairs to get them to wherever they want to go. Electric cars simply move the pollution caused by their IC counterparts to elsewhere. But as mentioned, when China, India and the USA take significant measures to curb their pollution I'll think about getting rid of my Citroen 2CV.

Well there isn't anything we can do about the growing population. It is estimated to grow to about 11-billion, where it will plateau.

This is nothing to do with increased brith-rates. Child population has been constant at around 2-billion for a few decades now, with the average number of children per family around 2 world-wide (higher in Africa, and expected to increase, and higher in China, but expected to decrease). So-called 'peak child population'.

So why will the population continue to increase? Well it's is due to the lagged effect of increase life expectancy. As the current younger generations grow older, they will 'fill in' the top of population pyramid, so the population growth is from increased number of adults. This will account for around an extra 3-billion, and improved life expectancy will contribute to even more people living beyond the 70/80 year old mark.



You can see from this diagram how child populations since about 1990 has remained the same, but there is a projected 'fattening out' at the top end of the pyramid as the current generations grow older with improved life expectancy.

So anyone suggesting we need to control population levels, then they have two choices: 1/ kill older generations, 2/ Force people to only have 1 child.

I'm not sure many will support either of these options....

motorguy

Supersonos wrote: »

Every single parking space would need a charging point (street, supermarket, train station, multi-storey etc.) and I can't see that happening.

Can you imagine the carnage on city streets if every parked car needed a cable running to it to charge it?

Nothing beats getting 600 miles of energy pumped into a car within two minutes. And I don't think battery cars will ever get to that.

The reality is we've become too dependent on having our own little boxes to drive about in. In every household there is now the expectation that everyone of driving age has their own little box each. 3-4+ car households are common.

It needs an entire cultural change before it will all truly work.

I think we'll see a movement towards electric cars for whom it can work - charging points @ home, viable journies, etc to the point where that will common. Petrol cars for perhaps people living more rurally, diesels for the big commuters until such times that electric tech catches up.

The problem is currently nobody wants to be bothered. We are all quite happy to point the finger at everyone else and "the system" for not giving us an easy alternative, when in reality electric cars could work for 50% of the population if we put our minds to it.

People are too concerned with "whats in it for me?" and want to do it only if its going to save them money, rather than for the greater good.

From my own perspective, we've went from two new cars every 3 years down to 1 car which we plan to run for a good few years. I'm certainly not claiming to be an eco hero for that. By the time we do change it i expect we'll go to an electric car or a hybrid at worst.

DrEskimo

Supersonos wrote: »

Every single parking space would need a charging point (street, supermarket, train station, multi-storey etc.) and I can't see that happening.

Can you imagine the carnage on city streets if every parked car needed a cable running to it to charge it?

Nothing beats getting 600 miles of energy pumped into a car within two minutes. And I don't think battery cars will ever get to that.

Why would it? It would just need enough charging posts relative to the normal spaces. I don't charge every time I park somewhere. It would be completely dependent on my battery capacity, my typical journeys, and my access to other chargers. Most people with home charging hardly ever charge from public chargers. It doesn't make any sense unless you are doing a very long journey. It's far cheaper and more convenient to just charge at home over night.

There are solutions being proposed for off-street parking that include narrow charging posts by pavements (just like bollards), charging ports on lamp posts and digging trenches underneath the pavement that houses the cable from the house to the curb edge. For me, I just charge when I am out and about, or when I visit my parents. Me and my partners weekly commute is less than the battery range, so I only need to do it once a week. Generally do it when I visit my parents because it's easier and cheaper.

The issue for non-EV drivers is that they struggle to think about charging without drawing parallels with petrol and their ICE. You don't run an EV to empty and need to suddenly charge in 5mins. You keep the car topped up over the week, and charge as and when you can. The car will spend typically 90% of it's life parked up. It's about shifting your thinking and treating 'fuelling' differently, using all those hours when it's just sitting there.

6-months in with an EV, with no home charging, and I don't even think about charging. It just fits in with my day to day life. In fact, the idea of going out of my way to fill up the car with petrol seems so inconvenient and archaic now!

TooManyPoints

Well there isn't anything we can do about the growing population.

Yes there is

I'm not sure many will support either of these options...

I would certainly support the second and would go further as to positively reward people for having no children at all. The Earth needs a reduction in the number of humans it has to put up with. There are various factions traipsing round the world prattling on about "climate change", "global warming" or whatever the current metamorphosis has produced. They all have hare-brained schemes aimed at "reducing carbon" or whatever varying from the ridiculous to the truly absurd. But none of them - absolutely none of them - grasp the bull by the horns and publicly recognise that the root cause of all the pollution that humans produce is caused by one thing - there are simply too many of us. When that is accepted and measures are taken to address it, then I'll worry about what light bulbs I use.

Johno100

shinytop wrote: »

Listen to Prince Harry. The only way to save the planet is to have less people. Cars are the proverbial pimple on the backside.

But I bet he won't stop at having just one kid.