Goodbye to private motoring...from just 9 years?

treeroy

John_ said:

treeroy said:

Oh also have you actually driven a Twizy? They are absolutely terrible, even ignoring their stupid price tag I really doubt you would want one as a run around.

I spend a lot of time in Amsterdam, and as well as there being good charging points all over there is also a good electric car hire scheme where you pay by the minute to use electric Smart ForTwos.

They are brilliant. Nippy, fun, silent, easy to park. I wish that the same scheme existed in London.

A Smart for2 EQ is not really equivalent of a Twizy. A smart fortwo is still an actual car.

Smart For2 EQ has 85bhp; a Twizy has 17bhp, it's basically a bike/quadbike. You can't drive it on the motorway (and you wouldn't want to) as it can't go over 45mph. Even at low speed it is very very slow.
Pretty pointless thing and it is extremely sluggish and bad to drive. 

Twizy also does not have proper doors  which means that you get very wet if you drive it in the rain, and you also have very little crash protection. Because its not registered as a car, it doesn't have to have the same safety requirements that a car has. I wouldn't want to be T-boned in a Twizy that's for sure.

Mickey666

Personally, I think the government - indeed the entire climate change/global warming/environmental movement - is barking up the wrong tree.  Until something is done about the human ‘plague’ afflicting our planet all these ‘green’ things are a dangerous diversion.  Dangerous because it fosters the belief that we’re doing something about the problem of human sustainability.  

Unfortunately, population control is too hot an issue for most governments, nay people, to handle so it is largely ignored.  But the fact is that 7billion people is ALREADY too large a population for the planetary resources to support sustainably at the standards of living that everyone aspires to.  But our economic systems depend on continuous growth and our population continues to grow (it has TRIPLED in my lifetime!) and this is simply not sustainable. 

Yes, we can and will find smarter ways to do this or that but it’s not enough when we’re already living beyond our ecological means and there are billions of people TODAY living poorer lives than we (in the ‘west’) enjoy and who aspire to get to our standard of living = consumption.
If we could somehow get the global population back to what it was in the middle of last century then we would not have to worry about our carbon economy.  As someone once said ‘there is no environmental issue that could not be improved by  reduction in the human population.’

ToxicWomble

Hmm kill of a couple of billion people so we can carry on driving petrol cars — radical but tempting.
Natures having a good go atm
Maybe she drives a V8 🤫

Sea_Shell

Mickey666 said:

Until something is done about the human ‘plague’ afflicting our planet all these ‘green’ things are a dangerous diversion.  

Maybe we just need a global Pandemic or something....oh hang on! 😉

Herzlos

fallen121 said:

And what am I going to do at a filling station whilst waiting on an electric car charging?

Depending on your job, you could leave a bit earlier and do paperwork in the cafe at the filling station. Or do some shopping or so

fallen121 said:

 But doing a 104 mile commute I'll probably need to charge every day. Let's assume I can charge the car in an hour. That's another hour you've added onto the 3 hours I spend getting to the office every day as it is.

Fast chargers on the current generation cars can add over 200 miles charge in 30 minutes, with charging speed and range increasing every generation. Your 104 mile round trip won't be a big deal in 30 years.

There's also park and rides on a few sides of Edinburgh, so you could make some of your commute more productive.

AdrianC

Mickey666 said:

Unfortunately, population control is too hot an issue for most governments, nay people, to handle so it is largely ignored.

As far as I'm aware, only one major government in recent times has had a serious attempt to restrict birth rates, with a single-child policy strictly enforced...
Yet birth rates have fallen in the UK. Total fertility rate of 3.5 children per woman at the start of the 20th century, 1.7 immediately pre-war, 2.7 immediately post-war, 2.9 in the early 60s, 1.6 today.

Of course, the real issue with population growth is the other end of the age range. People do insist on living longer and longer... Life expectancy now is around 82, about twice that of the middle of the 19th century, and about 50% longer than the 1930s.

But the fact is that 7billion people is ALREADY too large a population for the planetary resources to support sustainably at the standards of living that everyone aspires to.

And therein lies the problem.
Our expectations.

So should we in the developed world insist on ever more toys and consumerism and consumption?
Or would it be fairer for the entire world to head to a level that is sustainable, even if that means a reduction for those of us way ahead of that point?

And, of course, it's not just consumerism - it's medical technology, too. We in the developed world get ever more money spent on prolonging our poor-quality, poor-health last years, while the growth in the world population is largely due to massive reductions in infant mortality and deaths from easily preventable causes, including simple malnutrition.
Who could possibly argue against that?

...our population continues to grow (it has TRIPLED in my lifetime!)

Gosh. You must be very old.
The UK's population is now about 66m - a third of that is 22m, a level last seen in the 1860s.

Oh, you mean the world's?
Yes, it's tripled in the last 70 years or so... since about 1950 - a time when average life expectancies in the UK were just under 70 years of age...

Herzlos

ToxicWomble said:

My main issue with the majority of electric vehicles is that they have no “soul” (and a lot of petrol/diesel)
There are exceptions but they are few and far between.
I don’t want a futuristic looking thing with gadgety digital iPad style displays.
Leave the design as it is and just make it electric (and 20% cheaper) and you would have my interest 
None car people just don’t get car people and vice versa 

Depends on how you define soul, or an engaging driving experience.
I do know that very few EV owners are keen to go back to petrol. Fairly mundane Teslas (like the family model 3) can beat muscle cars in drag races, even a Nissan Leaf can beat a lot of things away from traffic lights. Admittedly they don't make any vroom noises but most people can get over that.

JustAnotherSaver

Haven't read the thread but skimmed the first page. 

There was a time when there weren't many cars on the road and could inky be afforded by the wealthy. 
There was a time when TVs could only be afforded by the wealthy. 

These things are so commonplace now and affordable. 
Electric cars will no doubt go the same way.

And no I'm not even pro electric. They'd have to cover more miles to a charge for me to be interested for a start but it'll get to a point eventually when we have no choice. Or at least only 2 choices. 

JustAnotherSaver

Interestingly I've just watched a tik tok video by an American mechanic talking about a tesla model x, whatever one of those is. His opinion is with how heavy the battery is, the tyres are wearing so bad on the insides. New control arms after 40k he said, so where you save on 'gas' you'll lose on maintenance. 

His opinion. I've no opinion as I've never ran an electric car. Just throwing it out there. 

EdGasketTheSecond

What the governments and Greta's of this world don't get is that the enjoyment of a car is not to get from A to B but about the throb of the engine, the smell of the exhaust, the vrrooom as you rev up in the driveway or at the traffic lights; the oil and grease on your hands when you service the car. Where's the fun in driving a souped up milk float?