EV Discussion thread

paul991

it says its powered by burning waste so not exactly green power

1961Nick

JKenH said:

Petriix said:

We've seen various incentives for buying and running EVs but it's probably time we started phasing in penalties for selling polluting vehicles to help balance the market.

I think we need to be clear just what our objectives are. Is it to reduce carbon emissions, is it to reduce pollution or is it to put the legacy car manufacturers out of business? It may be wrapped up as the former but may end up just being the latter and end up aggravating both pollution and CO2 emissions. 

The government, sadly (bear with me), are already thinking along the lines you propose. The sale of non BEVs which is the government plan starting next year (22% of all cars sold here in 2024 have to be EVs rising to 80% in 2030). At the moment fleets account for somewhere in the region of half of all new car sales so technically with the increasing move to EVs the 2024 target is attainable but to reach the 80% target will require about 60% of private new car purchases to be EVs. Given the current take up, that isn’t going to happen and prices would need to rise a lot to to make reluctant private motorists make the switch from ICEs to EVs. That impact will be most probably be felt by home manufacturers like Toyota who are only progressing very slowly to EVs (and unlikely to be manufacturing them in the UK). Why would they want to invest here if they can’t sell what they manufacture here? Great, you may say, we don’t like Toyota anyway (but that is a perspective unique to EV owners). 

The bigger problem, though, in attempting to achieve your objective by this route,  is if you stifle the market for new ICE cars by making them more expensive people just hold onto their old ones longer and we lose the trickle down effect of newer cleaner ICE cars coming on to the market. As the general public do seem reluctant to buy new EVs, I don’t see a mass migration to used EVs nearing the end of their battery warranty. The result is a shortage of 8to 15 year old cars for the lower end of the market and ICE cars that are currently 15 years old and due to be taken off the road as new cleaner ICE cars come on to it will get an extension of their life. They will become more valuable and worth repairing and last longer. If you think modern diesels are dirty then you aren’t going to improve things by extending their lives for another 5-10 years. It will be just like Cuba. By 2040 instead of virtually all the old ICE cars being Euro 6  (or 7 if it happens) we will still have a significant number of Euro 3, 4 and 5 cars on the road emitting more pollution and CO2 than if a more tolerant regime of transition were implemented. 

The link between government policy & real world CO2 emissions seems to be tenuous at best. Policy is driven by the need to collect taxes & for environmental virtue signalling. Imported carbon emissions are largely unaccounted for in the UK & it makes you wonder just how much is 'lost at sea'?

Petriix

New ICE cars aren't less polluting than older ones. The growing penchant for SUVs means that new cars are trending towards higher CO2 per mile. It's obvious that new ICE (and hybrid) SUVs need to be rapidly phased out if we want to reduce overall car emissions. Punitive taxation is an obvious path towards this.

There's no agenda other than attempting to minimise the catastrophic effects of global heating. That should be everyone's top priority. 

Reed_Richards

JKenH said:

*Of course I say this just after a fire that started in a diesel Range Rover destroyed 1400 vehicles and a car park at Luton airport ...

Yes, I was thinking about that.  If the contents of the Luton Airport car park were representative of vehicles on the road then there must have just been a massive increase in the estimated probability of any car being destroyed by fire, be it fuelled by diesel, petrol or electricity.  

Grumpy_chap

Petriix said:

New ICE cars aren't less polluting than older ones. 

Yes they are.
When I began driving, my old banger would do mid-20's mpg on a good day.  
It was spoken with disbelief that the company fleet cars then would do 30 mpg.
Since, we have been through the whole diesel thing and come out the other side.
Today, even the big, full-fat SUVs will do 40 mpg fitted with a petrol engine..
Massively better than an ICE of old.

TBH, who cared about fuel economy before the oil crisis?  It then took a cycle of car model evolution before marketing would even mention efficiency, just in time for the energy crisis.  Even then, marketing was far more focusing the message that buying a car would boost your libido.

1961Nick

Petriix said:

New ICE cars aren't less polluting than older ones. The growing penchant for SUVs means that new cars are trending towards higher CO2 per mile. It's obvious that new ICE (and hybrid) SUVs need to be rapidly phased out if we want to reduce overall car emissions. Punitive taxation is an obvious path towards this.

There's no agenda other than attempting to minimise the catastrophic effects of global heating. That should be everyone's top priority. 

Top priorities are things like food, clothing, housing, employment, education, job security, healthcare... AGW comes way down the list of things that really matter to anyone alive today. Whatever mess the human race makes of the planet, both will survive in the long term. Humans are very adaptable as we have proved by inhabiting every corner of the earth regardless of the climate. Net Zero should be an ambition, but not at any cost imo.

Netexporter

 AGW comes way down the list of things that really matter to anyone alive today.

It take it you don't have children.

Cutting down on greenhouse emissions is adapting. We've left if 50 years too late, as it is.

Petriix

1961Nick said:

Petriix said:

New ICE cars aren't less polluting than older ones. The growing penchant for SUVs means that new cars are trending towards higher CO2 per mile. It's obvious that new ICE (and hybrid) SUVs need to be rapidly phased out if we want to reduce overall car emissions. Punitive taxation is an obvious path towards this.

There's no agenda other than attempting to minimise the catastrophic effects of global heating. That should be everyone's top priority. 

Top priorities are things like food, clothing, housing, employment, education, job security, healthcare... AGW comes way down the list of things that really matter to anyone alive today. Whatever mess the human race makes of the planet, both will survive in the long term. Humans are very adaptable as we have proved by inhabiting every corner of the earth regardless of the climate. Net Zero should be an ambition, but not at any cost imo.

Sadly your response is rather typically... And that's why we're probably ****ed. 

Petriix

Grumpy_chap said:

Petriix said:

New ICE cars aren't less polluting than older ones. 

Yes they are.
When I began driving, my old banger would do mid-20's mpg on a good day.  
It was spoken with disbelief that the company fleet cars then would do 30 mpg.
Since, we have been through the whole diesel thing and come out the other side.
Today, even the big, full-fat SUVs will do 40 mpg fitted with a petrol engine..
Massively better than an ICE of old.

TBH, who cared about fuel economy before the oil crisis?  It then took a cycle of car model evolution before marketing would even mention efficiency, just in time for the energy crisis.  Even then, marketing was far more focusing the message that buying a car would boost your libido.

No, they're not...

I'm not talking about the ancient relics of yesteryear but the very real and measurable trend towards less efficient vehicles:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/28/new-cars-producing-more-carbon-dioxide-than-older-models

https://www.iea.org/commentaries/as-their-sales-continue-to-rise-suvs-global-co2-emissions-are-nearing-1-billion-tonnes

1961Nick

Netexporter said:

 AGW comes way down the list of things that really matter to anyone alive today.

It take it you don't have children.

Cutting down on greenhouse emissions is adapting. We've left if 50 years too late, as it is.

The children aren't deluded enough to think that the UK reaching net zero will make any measurable difference to AGW.