Electric vehicles

[Trainee neophyte]

I haven’t owned a car for 4 years.

That will please the nice people at the World Economic Forum: they want us to end up owning nothing, and renting everything. It's a great economic model for the asset owners, but possibly not so nice for the dispossessed masses.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/shopping-i-can-t-really-remember-what-that-is/

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that there is a lot to commend renting as a dispossessed mass rather than ownership - however emotionally atractive ownership may be. A couple of examples:

• some years ago on relocation to Somerset I had to rent for a year or so before the rest of the family could move down. Renting was more attractive than bridging loans, and any problems weren't mine. Drains blocked, call landlord, fixed etc.
• We have now got into the habit of spending 3-4 months in southern Spain. I could buy an apartment, use in winter, rent out in summer. On balance I prefer to rent - I just don't need the hassle of managing a property 1500 miles away.

 

[Rorschach]

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that there is a lot to commend renting as a dispossessed mass rather than ownership - however emotionally atractive ownership may be. A couple of examples:

• some years ago on relocation to Somerset I had to rent for a year or so before the rest of the family could move down. Renting was more attractive than bridging loans, and any problems weren't mine. Drains blocked, call landlord, fixed etc.
• We have now got into the habit of spending 3-4 months in southern Spain. I could buy an apartment, use in winter, rent out in summer. On balance I prefer to rent - I just don't need the hassle of managing a property 1500 miles away.

I don't think I would equate renting property to renting vehicles.

 

[Spectric]

You need to look further ahead and on a bigger scale, we all know that our planet does not have endless supplies of raw materials and that the scale of the damage is accelerating, basicaly the way we live must change and drastically. This will mean that cars will eventually become historic, it is not feasable for everyone to own a car which spends a lot of time either sitting on the drive or parked at work that has consumed resources and energy to build. The way society works and are economic models are already obsolete, people need to work local and use cheap, reliable, green public transport. Think about your journey to work, lets say Liverpool to manchester and how many people are doing the opposite, thats a lot of needless miles. The other aspect is choice, we think of it as a freedom and our right but again do we really need to have so much choice, which has only occured to support the economic model. At the end of the day we are in far more trouble than many realise because the only solution to our problems are not electric vehicles but global unity and that is not going to happen. If you think of our Earth as a boat, electric or diesel then like any boat if you keep putting more and more people on it, it will eventually capsize and sink.
There was a Tv program not so long ago and it talked about extinction events, the one we all know is the dinosaurs but there have been others which I never realised and they believe we are now entering the sixth.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

The holiday industry appears to be in tatters, intercontinental travel mostly forbidden, commuting has transmuted to working from home - it looks like the "Great Reset™" is well underway. A conversation yesterday about East Germany brought up the point, unknown to me, that most East Germans had never seen a banana or an orange. Are you ready to go back to a life of salt pork and pickled cabbage as the only food available? It's already grim up north, but if you force them to subsist on only locally produced goods then life is going to get interesting.

 

[paulrbarnard]

If you live anywhere outside a major town or city you're still going to need your own transport. We get 2 busses a day - if they turn up. If I wanted to get to the office by bus it'd take 2.5 hours each and it's only 15 miles away, plus I'd be gambling on the bus actually turning up oh and I'd have to leave at 6:30am.

Sure I can do shopping online and get that delivered but other than that we'd be stranded. Uber et al aren't available here, it's £20 for a taxi to the nearest large town (5 miles) - so £40 before you've done anything. That's more than the cost/month of my car tax & insurance gone in one round trip.

My fuel cost would be roughly £2.50. Let's double it for wear and tear, £5. It's still cheaper for me to own the car.

Prices will need to drop hugely for it to be even remotely practical but not only that, remoter areas will need a massive increase in other options and this increase wont be particularly profitable for those doing it.

Personal transport isn't going away anytime soon - or even remotely soon-ish.

Don't underestimate the cost of your car. Doubling fuel isn't anywhere near enough. Most research shows running a typical car costs you about 40p per mile when you consider all the associated costs, fuel, depreciation, maintenance, tax, insurance etc.

I completely get the rural challenge. We have two busses a week and our nearest town, and that's a small one, is 4 miles away. We do walk to the local village shop which has seen a resurgence in use since Covid.

It might be controversial but I think vehicle usage charging needs to go up rather than down. Only then will it encourage people to shift to different modes where they are available. An increased demand for public transport might even result in more rural transport options. The thought that shifting from IC to EV will have any marked difference in city congestion and traffic problems is a false assumption. Only modal shifts will acheive that goal. Ironically it needs a substantial reduction in vehicle traffic to encourage people to get out of their cars and consider it safe to walk or cycle where that is possible. It's a chicken and egg problem. "There are too many cars on the road for Roger to walk to school so I drive him in my large collision protected SUV..." .

 

[ScaredyCat]

Don't underestimate the cost of your car. Doubling fuel isn't anywhere near enough. Most research shows running a typical car costs you about 40p per mile when you consider all the associated costs, fuel, depreciation, maintenance, tax, insurance etc.

There's no cost calculation I can make that will have me paying £40 to run my car on a round trip that's 10 miles. That's how much it costs me to use the other transport option.

If you want people to use public transport, fix public transport FIRST. and that means rural locations too. I'm not giving up my personal transport options (car/motorcycle) until there's an option. Why would I struggle to travel on the off chance they might improve public transport and I can be pretty sure they wont?

Quite frankly I get fed up with people in London complaining that they've had to wait 8 minutes for another bus or tube train when the rest of the country, outside big cities, has little choice but to wait hours for their next bus. I'd use public transport round here if it was available and reliable - it isn't and until it is it's not a viable option.

"There are too many cars on the road for Roger to walk to school so I drive him in my large collision protected SUV..." .

I don't think that's why they do it, I think it's more that they're dropping their kids off then going to work. I mean, that's what's going on round here. In cities it might well be different.

 

[Rorschach]

Don't underestimate the cost of your car. Doubling fuel isn't anywhere near enough. Most research shows running a typical car costs you about 40p per mile when you consider all the associated costs, fuel, depreciation, maintenance, tax, insurance etc.

I completely get the rural challenge. We have two busses a week and our nearest town, and that's a small one, is 4 miles away. We do walk to the local village shop which has seen a resurgence in use since Covid.

It might be controversial but I think vehicle usage charging needs to go up rather than down. Only then will it encourage people to shift to different modes where they are available. An increased demand for public transport might even result in more rural transport options. The thought that shifting from IC to EV will have any marked difference in city congestion and traffic problems is a false assumption. Only modal shifts will acheive that goal. Ironically it needs a substantial reduction in vehicle traffic to encourage people to get out of their cars and consider it safe to walk or cycle where that is possible. It's a chicken and egg problem. "There are too many cars on the road for Roger to walk to school so I drive him in my large collision protected SUV..." .

It could cost me £1 per mile and my car is still far cheaper and more convenient than pubic transport.

As to safety, that's nonsense. Hardly anybody is using a car because it's safer, you are far safer walking than driving. People use a car because walking isn't an option unless you live within 1, maybe 2 miles of your workplace.

 

[billw]

I think the rural argument is totally valid, but the vast majority of people live in cities, and it's there that the change should begin. The end game should be an overall reduction in car ownership, with cities pushing for removal of car ownership where possible, and more rural areas ensuring that electric vehicles are viable.

Yes, the car as a status symbol thing won't be going away any time soon, but it probably will longer term especially since consumerism itself is changing with the generations. Who knows, there might even be a return to stuff being built to last!

 

[Rorschach]

I think the rural argument is totally valid, but the vast majority of people live in cities, and it's there that the change should begin. The end game should be an overall reduction in car ownership, with cities pushing for removal of car ownership where possible, and more rural areas ensuring that electric vehicles are viable.

Yes, the car as a status symbol thing won't be going away any time soon, but it probably will longer term especially since consumerism itself is changing with the generations. Who knows, there might even be a return to stuff being built to last!

I live in a city and while I certainly could use my car less than someone living in a rural area, I could not get rid of it entirely. The daily commute is not viable by public transport and is very expensive, not withstanding all the other reasons we use the car.

 

[billw]

I live in a city and while I certainly could use my car less than someone living in a rural area, I could not get rid of it entirely. The daily commute is not viable by public transport and is very expensive, not withstanding all the other reasons we use the car.

Yeah it won't work for everyone, but things like taking kids to school in a car when it's 200 metres down the road are the things that definitely need to be stamped out. Commuting itself will reduce as home working is retained, flexible working will allow the rush hour to be more spread out and mean more off-peak capacity being utilised on public transport.

Using it less is still a start though, if everyone reduces use by 10% it makes a big difference. There's probably other people like me who can totally forgo car ownership too, they just "don't want to".

 

[Rorschach]

How many people do you think are driving their kids 200m to school?
And even if every parent were stupid enough to be doing that, does that mean they don't need a car for other reasons as well?

If my partner could practically walk to work, she would, indeed we have specifically tried to find a house within 2 miles of her office so she can do that. Does that mean we suddenly don't need a car though? No of course not, we need it for plenty of other journeys as well.

I suspect if you really looked at the numbers of people who own a car but realistically don't need one the number would be vanishingly small. Cars are expensive, require maintenance, take up space and are generally a liability, I don't think there are many people that put themselves through that if they don't need to.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Leaving aside cycling and walking which work for reasonably active folk, on short journeys, in preferably clement weather:

• A small car costs ~ 12p per mile for fuel, ~25-50p all up cost
• A bus costs ~ 100p per mile - although very journey, ticket type dependant
• A taxi costs ~500p per mile - variable depending on time and location

Even if the price of fuel doubled, or a tax of 10p a mile imposed it would make almost no difference to the attraction, both cost and flexibility, of personal transport.

To reduce congestion and pollution needs a far more thoughtful and integrated strategy:

• reduce the need for travel. Smaller local schools, surgeries, hospitals, shopping, etc
• one teacher travels to a number of smaller schools, not 30 kids to a larger school
• change planning rules to sensibly mix employment, restaurants, etc with housing - not zoned as at present
• plan for imminent driverless on demand "pods" to reduce the need for vehicle ownership and parking
• reconfigure local services to meet new demands for work from home - local office pods, coffee shops, cafes etc
• and lots of other things I haven't even mentioned!

If you are truly rural or small settlement this will probably not work - but for larger villages upwards (population 2-3000+?) bringing more services locally minimises travel demand.

 

[ScaredyCat]

Imagine the chaos on a bank holiday weekend when everyone tries to rent a car to go to the beach.

 

[paulrbarnard]

It could cost me £1 per mile and my car is still far cheaper and more convenient than pubic transport.

As to safety, that's nonsense. Hardly anybody is using a car because it's safer, you are far safer walking than driving. People use a car because walking isn't an option unless you live within 1, maybe 2 miles of your workplace.

The KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) risk for pedestrians vs car occupants is 22 times higher. source

Over 500 pedestrians are killed by vehicles a year. Over 100 cyclists are killed by vehicles a year.

3000 CHILDREN were KSI as pedestrians in 2000.
Road incidents are the highest single cause of child deaths in the UK.

A final stat in case you still think the problem isn't vehicles, between 2005 and 2018 5,835 pedestrians were killed ON Pavements by vehicles.

So yes perfectly safe walking.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Leaving aside cycling and walking which work for reasonably active folk, on short journeys, in preferably clement weather:

• A small car costs ~ 12p per mile for fuel, ~25-50p all up cost
• A bus costs ~ 100p per mile - although very journey, ticket type dependant
• A taxi costs ~500p per mile - variable depending on time and location

Even if the price of fuel doubled, or a tax of 10p a mile imposed it would make almost no difference to the attraction, both cost and flexibility, of personal transport.

To reduce congestion and pollution needs a far more thoughtful and integrated strategy:

• reduce the need for travel. Smaller local schools, surgeries, hospitals, shopping, etc
• one teacher travels to a number of smaller schools, not 30 kids to a larger school
• change planning rules to sensibly mix employment, restaurants, etc with housing - not zoned as at present
• plan for imminent driverless on demand "pods" to reduce the need for vehicle ownership and parking
• reconfigure local services to meet new demands for work from home - local office pods, coffee shops, cafes etc
• and lots of other things I haven't even mentioned!

If you are truly rural or small settlement this will probably not work - but for larger villages upwards (population 2-3000+?) bringing more services locally minimises travel demand.

Terry to add to your costings there the indirect cost to society need to be added. That's to cover things like the cost of infrastructure, health cost of poor air quality or direct injury etc.
Recent data shows that for every £1 pound spent by a person on travel there is an additional cost covered by society as a whole through taxation
Walking society pays 1p
Cycling society pays 8p
Bus society pays £1.50
Personal car society pays £9.20

I completely agree the problem is lack of alternatives but that because people perceive the car as being a cheap option. This won't change until people have to pay the full cost of their choices.

 

[Spectric]

Hi all

If we are completly honest and remove any rose tinted specs then anything we do is like peeing in the ocean, we could all use bicycles, public transport and have no petrol or diesel vehicles but the difference it would make is insignificant when you look at the Asian countries who are all becoming more industrialised and the American people probably produce more methane from eating junk food than all our cattle in the uk. There is no solution until everyone works as a single body and can anyone see that happening, we have enough issues getting on with our so called allies let alone getting places like North Korea onboard. The solution will be delivered by nature, whilst we continue to talk and squabble nature will just cleanse the planet like a giant etch a sketch.

 

[Rorschach]

The KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) risk for pedestrians vs car occupants is 22 times higher. source

Over 500 pedestrians are killed by vehicles a year. Over 100 cyclists are killed by vehicles a year.

3000 CHILDREN were KSI as pedestrians in 2000.
Road incidents are the highest single cause of child deaths in the UK.

A final stat in case you still think the problem isn't vehicles, between 2005 and 2018 5,835 pedestrians were killed ON Pavements by vehicles.

So yes perfectly safe walking.

You can't really equate the figures of deaths in a car vs deaths walking in the same way you can with cycling. The report there is very poorly designed.

 

[ScaredyCat]

The KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) risk for pedestrians vs car occupants is 22 times higher. source

Look at the KSI stats for horse riders. They're worse off than motorcyclists.

 

[Rorschach]

Look at the KSI stats for horse riders. They're worse off than motorcyclists.

Another one where comparisons are almost impossible but for different reasons. I was almost killed by a Horse when I was a teen and I had travelled less than a mile!