Is petrol dead now?

[muddyfox]

I’m not anti “E”.
Indeed I own an electric cycle.
Bought purely for local trips it’s superb. It has active peddle technology which assists you depending on the effort you’re putting in and the drive mode you’ve selected.
It works perfectly for me and I highly recommend it.
And yes, I also agree that a small “city” type car or scooter would be fine for the very short commutes where applicable.

However I’m extremely sceptical about the current vehicles being touted as longer distance transport.

I also own an electric bicycle. Use for everyday runs to golf club, visiting my Mam, bit of light shopping, lesiure use ect. Ironically commuted by bicycle for 18 years before retiring and ebikes back then we're not available. Easier to get in and out of the garage than either my scooter or car. No scooter clothing to don before a ride either. Certainly the way forward. In fact this ebike may be the reason my scooter will be sold in the spring of 2020.

[XP500FUN]

The floating wave Duck/Snake tech was here in the 70`s/80`s I think, but was trashed by wrong figures etc so we could of had that for decades by now.

But we are still going to be stuck with the limiting thing mentioned regarding costs of the high tech new electric etc on cars and so on.

4.5 Million children alone are now living in poverty here and its rising.

A huge section of the population won`t be involved in much of this, and will still need to depend on cheap cars, most of them in work too.

The cutting of buses etc has been savage outside of cities.

I suppose the UK could really be a world leader here if we got a grip, though the timing is really bad sadly.

We could also have used wave power to make hydrogen and sorrted it all out years ago as well as reducing the crazy battery thing.

I did read for some of the precious type metals needed for all of the batterries they intend to litterally bugger the sea bed big time.

We really do a have to hope the Hinkley thing and HS2 are dropped but depends on the bungs etc I suppose.

Myself I think we are far more at risk of various other far far worse and much quicker things than climate change, one particularly of course about a million + times worse, but there is a certain hysteria too CC t at the moment.

[Ralph]

Not much point in the UK forcing more people into poverty , food banks and freezing pensioner to death
when much bigger countries don't pull their weight, all the so called green taxes do nothing for the environment
and the rich can afford to carry on it only really affects the poorer people, rationing by price but they don't like
to call it that.

https://gridwatch.co.uk/

[Data]

Am I missing something somewhere ?

Aren`t we at the point in the UK at least where we are barely able to produce enough electricity as they rushed the last coal fired ones out early etc.

There aslo are barely enough clean things planned to keep the lights on, or so it reads.

if everyone quickly starts switching to electric vehicles somehow, where on earth !!! are we going to get the power from ?

Just a point. Earlier this year the whole of the Uk was run for 24hrs exclusively from just "clean" wind and solar power with some nuclear thrown in. No oil or gas stations were used. This was carried out during the week to see how we fared on just clean energy. It was an important experiment to allow technicians and network designers to see exactly what needed to be done to further our clean energy.

Amazingly, none of us actually noticed just how good the experiment was. It worked perfectly. They learned a lot. The only thing that was asked of the big energy using industries was to tone down exactly how much "juice" they used for 24hrs. In reality it didn't matter that much how much the factories used, but was a precautionary note making it less likely there would be a problem.

Worth noting that in just 9 year from now 88% of all our electrical energy will come from wind and solar. In spite of what some people think, we are leading the world in this area concerning our technology. The Dutch have helped us enormously to get to this position but we are now very much forging ahead on our own in many green areas.

[Data]

There is talk of graphene based batteries (don't ask me about the science!) which are supposed to give a greatly increased vehicle range compared to today's batteries and a huge reduction in charging times.
When they can guarantee a 300 mile range for a vehicle at M-way speeds with the heating, lights, wipers etc on - at a price I can afford - I'll be interested. Until then, I'm not, at all.

Agree. They’re trying to promote sales of e vehicles before the technology for the real world exists.
My brother in law bought a £70k Jaguar for his business, on the first run out he had to travel to Cornwall from Kent. Took him 15hours whilst also incurring charges for overstaying in certain services while recharging.
Plus, apparently, you get the first hour of charge free but incur extra costs if takes longer.

Batteries also need replacing every few years at huge cost.

They’re way too far off getting right for me to even consider it.

To be honest, he should have done his homework before buying a EV Jag. They are good but lack charging points. The Jag doesn't use compatible charging points like most of the other EV's do. Teslas use a different charge point too.

Battery costs have more than halved over the last 5 years. The Nissan Leaf battery pack used to cost £19,800, but now costs £8,500. These battery packs will further drop hugely in cost over the next 3-4 years too. Nearly all battery packs have a guaranteed life cycle of 10 years. Some have longer.

EV ownership, even allowing for the current higher price of the vehicle, is actually pretty good and you can't currently go wrong if you buy one. EV's don't devalue hardly at all. Many still sell for their original retail price at one year old and with 30,000 miles on the clock. EV service costs are ONE THIRD of that charged for a petrol car. The cost per full charge on the Hyundai Kona to cover 305miles is £6.60 on the standard overnight charger or just a bit more if you fast charge it. £13 to fast charge at a public service charger. Very cheap. It's very interesting that the folks that are most often buying EV's are high mileage business users and owners. Quite a surprise. Check out some of the online EV videos especially by EV man. He puts it all into perspective and tells the figures for running his Leaf over 50,000 miles. Quite amazing and it sells the EV concept really well and dispelling the myths that surround EV's, as do many other online videos.

A good example is the Hyundai Kona EV, It's amazing with a range of around 305 miles. Many online testers have gone 320 miles on one charge and it charges up from flat in just 54 mins on average. A 15min charge will put 140 miles in the tank so to speak, so you don't have to hang around too much for charging. The engine is a 204hp electric motor with 400nm of torque. It goes 0-60 in 6.9 seconds. You can drive it at 70mph where possible on motorways and it will still return a range of 250-270 miles depending on ambient temperature. There are online videos showing this. One guy drives from Scotland to Northern France with his family doing 70 mph when he can, doing just that. Although he did encounter road works like on most motorways that limited his speed to 50 or 60mph for some parts of the journey. He charged up once for 20 mins, and once for 25mins to complete the journey. Total journey was 546 miles with wife and 3 kids plus luggage.

[Ralph]

If I did 546 miles no matter what the car I would stop more that that so wouldn't look on that range as limiting.

[Data]

Yeah, agreed. Then of course there's the VW id3 EV coming out in February next year. It has. 215hp engine with a range of up to 341 miles. It's a new generation sized Golf type car. Charging times are low, prices start from £25,000. It's pretty amazing.

[Stibbs]

Helpful information there Data thanks
I’ll look up some of the Vids.

[Deleted User 7142]

I have been driving a Lexus hybrid for the last 5 years and we also have a Mini Countryman Phev and a home charger.We find the Mini great for local driving as we just switch to full EV when we get to town or built up areas.
There are so many EV's coming out in 2020 from Peugeot,Vauxhall,Volswagan,Bmw just to name a few and this will only increase in the next few years.
I would love to see a Phev with a real world range of 50 miles as nobody seems to have got past 30 miles as yet.
i'm a huge Lexus fan and have owned a few over the years and there first EV will be the UX which won't be available here until 2021 apparently, so we are looking at changing our Hybrid lexus for a Ev in the new year but just not sure which one yet.

[Stibbs]

I’d love to “buy into” E cars but find the initial cost way above my pay grade.
How many of us can afford £30k + for a car?
I’ve always been a £6-£8 k man. They're going to have to come down a lot, lot further for me.