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Not As Environmentally Friendly As Promised

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Mythopoeika said:
They're going on about the sheer weight of the cars, but the biggest problem is the spontaneous combustion of an electric vehicle in close proximity to other vehicles.
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Although to be fair car fires have always been a problem in car parks. Remember that area one, was it Birmingham? Of course it’s even worse with electric cars and their ferocious burning.
 
MorningAngel said:
Although to be fair car fires have always been a problem in car parks. Remember that area one, was it Birmingham? Of course it’s even worse with electric cars and their ferocious burning.
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Yes, it always was a potential problem... but it was more controllable.
 
Stormkhan said:
Heh.
The day after this thread, I saw a Smart Car ... then the day after that, an entirely different one.
Perhaps Smart Car owners are also the internet masters who saw our posts! ;)
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My best friend drives a Smart Car - this is their second one. She lives in the South Hams and drives to work in Plymouth 2 days a week. She also drives it to visit family in Shrewsbury. They're not just town cars.
 
bugmum said:
My best friend drives a Smart Car - this is their second one. She lives in the South Hams and drives to work in Plymouth 2 days a week. She also drives it to visit family in Shrewsbury. They're not just town cars.
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I don't like the idea of a 28 mph limit for inter city driving.

Sometimes you have to accelerate away from danger.

I am not talking about being reckless, but on a dual carriage way the limit can be 60 mph.


For central London though, most cars would seldom get above 30 mph anyway, so I can see a limited appeal for that.
They are not family cars though, being only two-seaters.
So aimed at a fairly well off young singles or early marrieds' market still living in Zones Two and Three (20 mph limits Camden, Islington, Hackney etc) before the move out to Zones Four and Five suburbia and children.
 
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Green councillors oppose green EV charging points

According to [Norwich] councillor Liam Calvert and his fellow local Greens, the planned installation of 46 charging points across Norwich is problematic because they might make life “more difficult for pedestrians“. He proved this by drawing a scaled virtual ‘impression’ of an EV point on the pavement near his house…

Calvert said:

“Electric cars are a step in the right direction for reducing climate change but we can’t accept that life should be made more difficult for pedestrians. Chargers must not be placed on pavements at the expense of wheelchair users or parents with buggies.
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Calvert then used his artistic skills to mock-up evidence proving his point:

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https://order-order.com/2023/06/05/green-councillors-oppose-green-ev-charging-points/

maximus otter
 
Yup. It looks like his outline of the charge points takes up less pavement.
Though, it's predictable that residents who want to use the chargers will moan about 'strangers' taking up 'their' access rights.
You already get those misguided folks who think paying vehicle tax entitles them to parking on the road, right outside their house.
 
Victory said:
I don't like the idea of a 28 mph limit for inter city driving.

Sometimes you have to accelerate away from danger.

I am not talking about being reckless, but on a dual carriage way the limit can be 60 mph.


For central London though, most cars would seldom get above 30 mph anyway, so I can see a limited appeal for that.
They are not family cars though, being only two-seaters.
So aimed at a fairly well off young singles or early marrieds' market still living in Zones Two and Three (20 mph limits Camden, Islington, Hackney etc) before the move out to Zones Four and Five suburbia and children.
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Smart cars aren’t limited to 28. They’ll do 70+ quite easily. My friend’s son had one for a while & liked it. I can see the attraction for town driving - small, auto, economical etc. Mind you he’s now got a petrol BMW.
 
It's the Citroen Ami that is limited in speed. However I'd say that due to traffic many people are not driving faster than 28 mph to work anyway.
 
Xanatic* said:
It's the Citroen Ami that is limited in speed. However I'd say that due to traffic many people are not driving faster than 28 mph to work anyway.
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Yes I know but Victory was replying to a post about Smart cars.
 
I have not got an EV, but I have driven one and been a passenger in one, I and I think they are brilliant perhaps the batteries are taking some unsound parts but they do help to keep the air particularly in cites a lot cleaner

The elephant in the room is (especially in the UK) is the lack of infrastructure and I can't see it being anywhere near ready for the next 20 or 30 years or even longer, I have always thought the best idea was to roll out plug in hybrids and let the infrastructure catch up from there
 
Robbrent said:
I have not got an EV, but I have driven one and been a passenger in one, I and I think they are brilliant perhaps the batteries are taking some unsound parts but they do help to keep the air particularly in cites a lot cleaner

The elephant in the room is (especially in the UK) is the lack of infrastructure and I can't see it being anywhere near ready for the next 20 or 30 years or even longer, I have always thought the best idea was to roll out plug in hybrids and let the infrastructure catch up from there
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If they're going to do it at all, there has to be some real planning involved.
But... planning? Nobody is taking any responsibility for that.
 
Robbrent said:
they do help to keep the air particularly in cites a lot cleaner
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Only 2 problems with that though.
The batteries themselves rely on rare earth elements such as cobalt and lithium that are massively polluting to produce and are often obtained using large amounts of child labour in some of the poorest countries in the world.
And the electrical power doesn't appear in the car by magic - it has to be generated somewhere, so unless it is coming entirely* from 'renewables' (wind, solar etc for which the turbines and panels are also polluting to produce) then it is coming from gas/oil/nuclear/coal.


*as previously stated, it's extremely rare that 'renewables' provide very much of electrical supply. At time of writing it is an overcast, still, day so 'renewables' are only giving us around 32% of our supply.
https://grid.iamkate.com/
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Robbrent said:
I have not got an EV,

The elephant in the room is (especially in the UK) is the lack of infrastructure and I can't see it being anywhere near ready for the next 20 or 30 years or even longer, I have always thought the best idea was to roll out plug in hybrids and let the infrastructure catch up from there
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Other elephants are:

How to recycle their batteries

Fire risk of the batteries in the cars

Massive amount of energy needed to build them i.e. see Rowan Atkinson's article here

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...pter-petrol-car-ev-environment-rowan-atkinson
 
Trevp666 said:
Only 2 problems with that though.
The batteries themselves rely on rare earth elements such as cobalt and lithium that are massively polluting to produce and are often obtained using large amounts of child labour in some of the poorest countries in the world.
And the electrical power doesn't appear in the car by magic - it has to be generated somewhere, so unless it is coming entirely* from 'renewables' (wind, solar etc for which the turbines and panels are also polluting to produce) then it is coming from gas/oil/nuclear/coal.


*as previously stated, it's extremely rare that 'renewables' provide very much of electrical supply. At time of writing it is an overcast, still, day so 'renewables' are only giving us around 32% of our supply.
https://grid.iamkate.com/
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I did not say that there were not issues with them, just that they are good to drive

I quite sure that the battery technology will improve to exclude rarer types of materials in time (interestingly many other processes and technologies rely on rare earth materials)

As for your point about renewables, the big issue is we don't have enough and the UK is ideally places for things like tidal barrages which would create unlimited amounts of cheep power, but alas the government does not want to invest in them
 
I can't help but think that just calling EV an environmental cul-de-sac is being a bit short-sighted.
Charging point scarcity can be addressed by consumer pressure on the authorities to supply them.
Not producing their batteries won't stop the horrific exploitation of children to extract the rare Earth metals. But said horrors could be a goad to developing more benign technology to replace the batteries.
Same goes with scrapping of old 'dead' batteries.
As far as the energy required by EVs, well ... solar power and wind energy aren't the only renewables available. We should rely on one only but have a range of production sources available. Sadly, this needs political will.
I know this is an optimist point of view and relies on tecnology that doesn't exist at this time but surely it's valid to keep looking for ways of addressing the issues rather than shrugging and saying "nice idea but it won't work, so forget it"?
 
Robbrent said:
As for your point about renewables, the big issue is we don't have enough and the UK is ideally places for things like tidal barrages which would create unlimited amounts of cheep power, but alas the government does not want to invest in them
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Probably because (as with windmills) they need a LOT of maintenance.
 
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