Electric cars by 2035

[Nathan penney]

So they’ve brought the deadline forward by 5 years to ban the sale of petrol, diesel and now hybrid cars by 2035.
Be interesting to see how the infrastructure is going to be in place by then Boris?
My sister in law bought a Nissan Leaf 3 months ago.
She loves the car but hasn’t had the fast charger installed yet on her house as they will be moving soon.
It costs around £700 to get one of these things fitted but as it would be her first one she gets a grant towards it so would only cost her £250.
As she’s hopefully moving soon she didn’t seem the point in getting one yet then have to pay another £750 so she charges it overnight using a normal 3 pin plug. Takes about 11 hours then she can drive for about 115 miles in real driving conditions.
Is that really saving the planet??
Also she has to plan every journey, where it can be charged, how long it will take and make sure she’s not relying on the last charging point incase it’s not working which has happened on more than one occasion.
Then there’s people who just ignore the specific parking spaces for electric cars and park their normal cars there. That really winds her up.
I’ve suggested letting 2 tyres down but she wouldn’t do that. Lol
The whole idea is a farce that needs sorting before saying you can’t buy a fuel powered car after this date.
Until then I shall drive my daily diesel Volvo and my LCR at weekends and thoroughly enjoy it and looks like try find another hobby within the next 15 years. Maybe a couple of holidays abroad a year on a plane.
Cause planes are okay apparently!!

 

[The Daily Meme]

Hi, I work in the green energy industry and whilst I agree that there aren't enough chargers about, the technology for car charging is rapidly improving.

There are two car charging companies now that are rolling out 300kW charging stations across the country. This would charge most electric cars on the market these days in less than 10 minutes. The issue being that these 300kW chargers require a certain type of plug to be able to charge that quickly. So unless the car has been designed with that capability in mind, you will have to charge at normal speed.

The most significant issue with eletric cars is lack of charge point infrastructure. There arent enough, convenient charge points to allow people to charge their car. If you live in a flat, or a terraced house with on street parking. You can't charge your car, unless there is a public charge point on the street. The alternative is to plan your driving around visiting a convenient charge point.

Charge points are inconsistant. When EV's were first around, charge points sprung up offering 50kW 75kW and 100kW charge capablities, these are now far too slow to keep up with the market of EV and their increasing battery charge ranges. They are likely to be avoided by people travelling long distances.

If there was an increase in infrastucture then EV's may become more viable. I could make sue of an EV as my commute to work is ~40 miles each way, and my office has eletric charge points in the car park. However, there are more EV's than there are charge points...

The alternative to planning your long journey is to use public transport, overcrowded and overpriced trains, buses that do not have dedicated bus routes to avoid traffic and if there isnt a public transport route to where you need to go. Well suprise suprise, the solution is a combustion engine taxi...

Battery lifetimes are 6-10 years tops, by which point they will need to be replaced at likely 30%+ of the retail value of the NEW car. (screams write off to me). Plus with this rapid fast chargers being made available, I question how they are not in some way reducing the lifetime of the battery.

Producing the battery is actually very carbon heavy. The extraction of the minerals that go in to the battery, transport of the heavy battery to its assembly point. The fossil fuels burned to charge the battery... They aren't as green as people think, however, they do significantly reduce emissions from private car ownership (which is what the government is trying to reduce) but does not reduce overall emissions significantly.


Conclusion
Whilst i would by an EV if I could afford one, Electric vehicles are not a solution, they are a short term, stop gap that is being hailed as the solution when alternatives such as either hydrogen fuel cell, or hydrogen combustion vehicles are the real solution. Product of hydrogen combustion is water. Hydrogen fuel cells do not burn hydrogen, rather generate electricity by passing hydrogen over a catalyst. Both require a source of hydrogen, a highly flamable gas.

IF technology for producing, storing and transporting hydrogen is improved, then hydrogen powered cars would be a viable solution. Infact you can buy them now, but they are by now means cheap (toyota Mirai priced from £46,000, Hyundai NEXO £69,000, both prices inclusive of the £3,500 government incentive), and hydrogen refueling stations are much much rarer than EV charge points.

 

['Little' John]

The trouble is that the government clearly doesn't agree with your conclusion. There is almost zero incentive coming from the government in trying to extend the hydrogen refuelling infrastructure in this country or to encourage makers to build affordable hydrogen cars. Also, storage of hydrogen has issues as it tends to leak through most things. Imagine going on holiday for a fortnight and coming back to find all your petrol had evaporated...

 

[martin j.]

If I’m still driving then I’ll be buying a new ic engine car just before the cut off to see me to the end, production of battery cars will have to seriously ramp up in the next 15 years if there is to be no alternative, whilst I’m sure the car is easy what about battery production, deliveries of some all electric cars are painfully slow now so there will need to be changes if this is to happen to timescale.

 

[The Daily Meme]

The trouble is that the government clearly doesn't agree with your conclusion. There is almost zero incentive coming from the government in trying to extend the hydrogen refuelling infrastructure in this country or to encourage makers to build affordable hydrogen cars. Also, storage of hydrogen has issues as it tends to leak through most things. Imagine going on holiday for a fortnight and coming back to find all your petrol had evaporated...

Would certainly agree with the government aspect. Also the captial investment isnt there in this country to allow small time companies with the know how to roll out the tech on a large scale. I think the trend for hydrogen powered cars is lease agreements that include fuel. There is a company developing a hydrogen powered truck fleet. Logistics companies are able to pay a subscription where they are supplied with trucks and fuel to run them.
When i was made aware of this in 2018, there were already 6 figure order nnumbers. However, theyw ere running in to the same issue of infrastructure. Where they werent able to pipe the hydrogen, they had to develop special tankers that could transport large amounts of hydrogen to the tranport depots.

Cool concept... no idea if it will ever materialise.

 

[Legojon]

I reckon the AA / RAC will see a massive increase in recovering stranded cars. More so than running out of petrol / diesel.

 

[Nathan penney]

I reckon the AA / RAC will see a massive increase in recovering stranded cars. More so than running out of petrol / diesel.

That’s after you’ve waited longer than normal while they charge up their vans.

 

[nc30rider]

I’m going to miss this.

 

[Nathan penney]

Maybe it’s not all bad news after all!
Watched top gear earlier and enjoyed watching Chris Harris driving the new electric Porsche Taycan.
He had nothing but praise for it, fast, obviously quiet, it actually went round bends and looked fun to drive.
Oh, it’s 140 grand though!!
It also only takes 20 mins to charge it up for 200 miles of driving from a fast supercharger. There are the grand total of 4 in the country!
This is going well Boris.

 

[The Daily Meme]

Maybe it’s not all bad news after all!
Watched top gear earlier and enjoyed watching Chris Harris driving the new electric Porsche Taycan.
He had nothing but praise for it, fast, obviously quiet, it actually went round bends and looked fun to drive.
Oh, it’s 140 grand though!!
It also only takes 20 mins to charge it up for 200 miles of driving from a fast supercharger. There are the grand total of 4 in the country!
This is going well Boris.

There’s actually only 3, 350kw charging stations in the UK. One in Carlisle, one in Maidstone, and one in Milton Keynes. IONITY are building more this year in Perth, Leeds, Blackburn, Exeter, slough, letchworth and Peterborough. supposed to be 400 sites across Europe by the end of 2020. Most of the mainland Europe ones are already online.

The next best option is Tesla charging stations that supply 270kw but it’s going to take you longer, there does seem to be a lot more of those about though. Nearly every filling station on a main road near me has at least one.