Blackswanwood
Still Learning
I agree - it may be different in Finland but most of the UK population do not live in remote locations.
Electric vehicles
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Jonm
Established Member
I worked in Turkey in the late eighties and in Istanbul they had a very effective way of enforcing road fund license collection. As you went through the tolls on the Bosphorus bridge the police would sometimes be there checking for tax discs. No current disc and you parked up nearby. Apparently you then had to deal with the bureaucratic system to actually pay your tax and get the car back. Real deterrent seeing lines of empty parked cars with the occupants getting in taxis. No messing about with prosecutions etc. but loads of bureaucratic hoops to jump through and no vehicle to use.
sounds about as big of a hassle as some of the inner city public/private schemes here where a private towing company trolls an area sometimes taking cars to the impound on behalf of the city (automatically $150 to get the car out, after you pay other stuff - figure out whether or not you owe it later, they don't care).
If you go out of inspection here (like forget, but your car is fine), you'll get stuck with a non-safety fine of about $150. No way out of it, you missed your inspection - nails old ladies all the time (got my mother).
"it's for your safety!!" The local police are so concerned about safety that you can see them looking at inspection tags as they drive by, looking to write "safety" tickets. At least one of the more rural states has ditched annual inspections. I'm sure it's already not legal to drive a car around with safety issues, but the way the system is set up now, they have a handy way of collecting money two different ways from people driving already safe cars.
No, it is no different here. I suspect only a small proportion of people in any developed country lives in remote areas. Many or most people in urban areas could probably adapt to as-required car rental. There will always be exceptions though. Tradesmen for example. It would not be realistic to expect plumbers, electricians, etc etc etc to work that way, constantly loading and unloading tools and materials into vehicles they do not own.
Trainee neophyte
Established Member
Currently electric vehicles are purely for replacement of private petrol driven cars. Tractors, hgv, ships, etc will need diesel or bunker fuel for years to come, possibly for ever. A barrel of oil contains many things, but about 30% is petrol (or gasoline if it in the americas). If electric vehicles remove demand for petrol, it can't be used for anything else, so what do we do with it? It has already been pulled out of the ground with every barrel, so something will need to be done with it. Additionally, petrol is actually a waste product that people found a use for - it's the heavy oils which are the important stuff as far as keeping civilization spinning is concerned: without a market to subsidise the heavy oils, everything that uses them will become more expensive. Food, transport - everything really. If one third of a barrel of oil has no market, would the price go up or down? If it goes down, will less be extracted?
Interesting knock - on effects of going green.
Interesting knock - on effects of going green.
I suspect there will be attempts to utilize petrol in new ways as demand falls. Chemical processes that currently are not needed or economically viable could become so if Petrol falls in value.
TominDales
Established Member
I've some familiarity with the manufacture of batteries in the NE of UK.
Car batteries are improving very quickly, we are at the early adopter phase, but in the next 3 to 5 years we will see very rapid development. Faster charging ie 5 to 10 minute charging, longer range, cheaper and longer life, so although not ideal now, that is changing quickly. I expect the cost + tax equation to flip in favour of EVs within 5 years.
Full EVs (not hybrids) are cheaper to maintain as no hot parts to replace such as exhaust, catalyst and engine wear, electric motors are v reliable. The Nissan guys in Sunderland have found the aftermarket sales of parts are well down for the Leaf.
Car batterers for all EV (not hybrid) are lasting well beyond the stated life. Also they will have a good aftermarket value as they can be used for grid balancing and other stationary cell uses before they need to be recycled.
EV battery systems must pass a knife puncture test where the equivalent of a six inch nail is driven through the cell and it must not catch fire. The case of batteries is also defended to protect the occupant from stone damage and a survivable crash. Its a similar safety issue to carrying 50 litres of petrol (1.5 giga joules of energy that can be released).
AES
Established Member
"As-required" car rental is not a good solution for many, not just tradesmen and tools IMO (see below).
And I think it really does mean what you mean by "remote" locations too. E.g. Before leaving UK permanently in 1984, I lived in the county of Surrey in a fairly small village - about 30 miles (??) from London, about 15 minutes car drive from Gatwick Airport (where I worked), and about 10 minutes drive from 2 decent sized towns (East Grinstead & Crawley). In other words I was in "the heart" of the densely populated South East and NOT what I would "remotely" regard as "remote" (sorry!), such as Dartmoor or the Scottish Highlands!
And yet to get to Gatwick by public transport one needed THREE separate bus journeys (total time EXCLUDING waiting for connections 55 minutes as opposed to 15 mins by car) AND those buses only ran about twice mornings and twice evenings at "peak" times. To get to either E.Grinstead or Crawley at any other times there was a choice of ONE bus to each, and that was roughly at midday, nothing evenings and even more limited for weekends.
OK, that was back in 1984 and things may well have changed there almost 40 years later. But IF they've changed at all I bet it's for the worse!
And YES, the quoted reason for the sparse bus service was because even back then "everyone" had a car - AND indirectly that is/was also the reason for the relatively very high bus fares.
In other words, the good old chicken and egg situation, based on "attitudes" really!
And incidentally, I'm NOT saying "it's better in Switzerland" now, because although the bus service in the little village I live in is MUCH better than that described above for Surrey in the 1980's, the only people I see regularly using the buses here are kids going to/from school and a few old people. The bus here is subsidised and outside of school times, those I see are mainly transporting fresh air!
So as far as I can see, regardless of whether a personal-use "car" is powered by petrol, diesel, electricity or even dynamite (!!) is NOT so much the main point.
To me it seems it's going to take concerted action at the highest levels of government in all countries before the average person with A) big personal loads/young kids to carry; and/or B) people who do not live in at least a biggish city centre will be "persuaded" to use "public transport" on a regular basis. So a lot of attitudes to change, and as far as I can see, here anyway, there's little difference in the attitude to private cars between OAP's like me and the early 20 year olds.
And whether or not that "public transport" will be a simple bus like today or a "dial it up robot" is also largely immaterial I think. It's people attitudes to the definite lack of "freedom" and high costs imposed by public transport versus the "freedom" offered by "private transport" that is going to have to change - one day!!!! I shan't live to see much of it.
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TominDales
Established Member
This is a very active area of R&D in the chemical industry. The economics of a refinery today, is the profit margin is made on making chemicals, gasoline refining has virtually no margin. It will require some major changes to the whole petrochemical supply chain to cope with this change, it can be done, crack the napha into smaller molecules for chemicals manufacture. Also carbon neutral methods for making an re-using chemicals and plastics will have a huge impact. One example, The Phillips 66 refinery in Hull produces needle coke as a byproduct of refining oil. This is the major raw materials that goes to china and every EV maker as its one of the key raw materials in a Lithium battery. So how to make the chemicals, pharmaceutical, needle coke without the gasoline is one of the challenges being worked on. Fuel oil for ships will need to be replaced with carbon neutral alternative - this will take longer than for cars, but is already being investigated. Hybrid ships are already on the market to reduce pollution in harbours etc. As more is recycled and energy is sourced from renewable sources, more oil will remain in the ground. The oil majors are working hard on this as its upending their business model and they need to be at the forefront of the new energy revolution or they wont have a future.
Seems that people are only considering road/fuel tax. However, it should be necessary to consider the myriad of implications in reducing ICE vehicles from health services, environmental impact, etc. How much would the government save by not having people in hospital with chest problems due to vehicle fumes? How much would they save by lessening some of the various air scrubbing systems to lower particulate levels to mandated levels?
I'm not saying the government actually WILL take all those things into account, but I sincerely hope they do and not kill cleaner cars off with a stupid, short-sighted, knee-jerk tax grab.
@D_W - on the charging front, I think the various companies need to get their acts together - I see no reason whatsoever why chargers don't display a simple stick-on barcode, qr code, or even something fancier, that you scan with your OWN electricity company's app to start and stop charging. The cost then being added to your OWN PERSONAL bill. That tech has been in place for ages, before EVs were even out and it would cost a pittance to implement - a sticky label one side and a simple app the other (with a auth code to the charger ofc) - pretty ridiculous there wasn't an ounce of thought put into this. (my provider does meter readings like this already, take a picture of the meter in the app, it reads the numbers and that's it not even a smart meter in sight)
Context: I'm not an EV evangelist, I'm a realist. I own a volvo s80 diesel (vilification totally ignored
Before lockdown, used to travel from countryside into manchester every day and needed to carry a lot in the boot. Not a day went past without me thinking Manchester city centre stinks - literally! Hopefully going to swap it this year hopefully for the new hyundai EV (missed the project 45 pony up allocation and had it refunded )
Would love to come back in 100 years and see what we did for our children's children, hoping hydrogen gets taken up again
I'm not saying the government actually WILL take all those things into account, but I sincerely hope they do and not kill cleaner cars off with a stupid, short-sighted, knee-jerk tax grab.
@D_W - on the charging front, I think the various companies need to get their acts together - I see no reason whatsoever why chargers don't display a simple stick-on barcode, qr code, or even something fancier, that you scan with your OWN electricity company's app to start and stop charging. The cost then being added to your OWN PERSONAL bill. That tech has been in place for ages, before EVs were even out and it would cost a pittance to implement - a sticky label one side and a simple app the other (with a auth code to the charger ofc) - pretty ridiculous there wasn't an ounce of thought put into this. (my provider does meter readings like this already, take a picture of the meter in the app, it reads the numbers and that's it not even a smart meter in sight)
Context: I'm not an EV evangelist, I'm a realist. I own a volvo s80 diesel (vilification totally ignored
Before lockdown, used to travel from countryside into manchester every day and needed to carry a lot in the boot. Not a day went past without me thinking Manchester city centre stinks - literally! Hopefully going to swap it this year hopefully for the new hyundai EV (missed the project 45 pony up allocation and had it refunded )Would love to come back in 100 years and see what we did for our children's children, hoping hydrogen gets taken up again
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TominDales
Established Member
We are seeing this trend happen quite quickly. Cars are not used in cities to anything like the extent of 20 years ago. In cities like Paris, car ownership has fallen to the point where underground car parks are being re-purposed. New business models that allow for micro renting of cars at very low cost are attractive to the young who dont have the space for a car, a system not unlike uber or airb&B that allows shared ownership will work for the generation living in cities and towns.
TominDales
Established Member
These are two good points; the battery has hazardous chemicals in it such as metals cobalt, Nickle, and some solvent (NMP). However these are valuable commodities that can be easily recycled. Routes are being developed by the manufactures to have a closed loops recycle system whereby the end of life cell becomes the raw materials for the new ones.
The auto industry is investing billions in EVs - if they don't get this right they are out of business. EVs primary selling point is there environmental performance, if it was not for that they would have stuck with ICE. So any environmental issue from EVs is taken very seriously, for instance Johnson Matthey are building a battery chemicals plant in Poland to supply continental EU with battery chemicals. They have just announced a deal to be supplied with renewable energy for their factory - Poland has a legacy of coal based electricity production. Solvay have just announced a tie up with Veolia waste and Renault to provide closed loop recycling of EV cells. Cobalt is an element mainly sourced from the DRC with attendant worries about unsafe mining conditions. So very low Cobalt batteries are being developed to reduced this risk. As the car companies are very sensitive to being caught out again on environmental front.
Size issue: this is also a potential barrier to uptake. It is being addressed by new designs, fitting the cells in void space for instance. One of the industries challenges and reservations about the 2030 timescale was the effort to produce small cars. The original 2040 phase-out allowed much more time to trickle the innovation down the models. 2030 is posing a challenge to this. Its particularity difficult for the smaller producers such as JLR and others of similar size with smaller balance sheets. So we may see more industry consolidation and an opportunity for Chinese manufactures to steal a march on the smaller EU ones.
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This is the tip of a very big iceburg, it all boils down to the Law of Conservation of Energy. You need energy to move any mass and you will always need energy to be able to convert it into the type of energy you want because energy cannot be created or destroyed. So you could burn the unwanted petrol to produce electricity to then charge your electric vehicle! This is the same as growing huge amounts of cereal to feed the cattle which you later eat, better option is to just eat the cereal. Think of the total job losses created when ICE's and gearboxes no longer need to be designed, tested, certified and manufactured, this will impact the manufacturer of the specialised machinery to produce the components, the foundries that cast a lot of parts, all the production facilties and the list goes on. Milkfloats are much easier to produce, make a vehicle and then all you need are batterys and motors , and I think of all the time and effort that I have put into the ICE, not to mention the hours of training and research.
@AES
Your comments there about public transport are the reason I think a fleet of self driving electric cars are such a great idea to replace a lot of public transport. It will be like having a cheap taxi service that could take you anywhere in the country, almost as good as owning a vehicle yourself for some people.
Your comments there about public transport are the reason I think a fleet of self driving electric cars are such a great idea to replace a lot of public transport. It will be like having a cheap taxi service that could take you anywhere in the country, almost as good as owning a vehicle yourself for some people.
I think Tom is leaning in the right direction, fewer cars in private ownership and the masses will use public transport and I also believe will work much more locally, could go back to the days of the mill towns. The problems faced are that we as humans cannot work as a global entity which would be much more efficient and there is too much conflict and mistrust in everything. A huge problem needs to be initially addressed as just that, no good having the odd nibble here and there. The people in the future will live in a world that we would not reconise, otherwise they will not survive because the way we currently live is not sustainable and electric vehicles will not solve much of the overall issues.
AES
Established Member
I'm not so sure about the "self-driving" bit (maybe to a large extent irrelevant until the technology is REALLY proven AND accepted by the majority?) But to me the key word in your post Rorschach is "cheap". (Relatively speaking of course, when compared to the true cost of a privately owned car).
And maybe (just maybe) the idea would be to have those cheap "taxis" of yours available at each end of the journey, but to cover the middle - long distance - bit with a series of cheap "self-driving" taxis, all coupled together but able to "hive off independently" at various points as required - i.e. a sort of "train" (but rather different to trains we have now).
Dunno mate, but again I guess doubtful in my remaining life time except perhaps on a one-off experimental basis .
Self driving tech will be common enough in the next 10 years I reckon.
In my mind you would have hubs dotted around the country where the vehicles can be charged and maintained, you book through an app much as you would an Uber now. Not only would you book your pick up point but also your destination. The cars would pick you up and take you to your destination, if the journey was long then the car would drive you to a service station where you could have a comfort break and you would swap vehicles to continue the journey or the car would re-charge as needed. Depends if the cars would stick to a local area or be a nationwide system.
In my idea you would basically get almost all the benefit of driving there in your own car (speed, efficiency, privacy and door to door service) coupled with a much more environmentally friendly transit system that could be used by anyone regardless of having a license.
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
You may be right. On the other hand I remember being told that the music industry would end up leasing content rather than selling CD’s and records and thinking something that rhymes with rollocks ... for a start what would happen to the chat up line ”Would you like to see my record collection?”. Then all the record and CD shops disappeared!
Blackswanwood
Still Learning
I bet you a pint it’s before then! And after I’ve drunk it no problem getting home
You must have been drinking already
, my comment already covers this lol "In the next 10 years" is between now and 10 years in the future.Similar threads
