30 years ago before I went old and soft
The joys of electric car ownership!
- Thread starter flying haggis
- Start date
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Just looked up the VW e-UP what a shame it was discontinued. looks like the price killed it. Sales volume is everything in automotive. You will probably hate this as an idea but what if a group of governments on say a continent were to pass a law saying new drivers had to drive a car of that sort of specification for two years, in the same way as people are restricted with motorbikes. Another possibility I rattle on about is a national hire scheme where you could have a vehicle like that but for a fee swap for something more appropriate for other uses just as I would currently hire a van if I wanted to move heavy items except if enough people were driving tiny cars there would be more demand.
Sounds like a good idea as long as each vehicle was thoroughly checked for safety , cleanliness, accident damage etc before EVERY change of customer. Personally I wouldn't want to be in a car that countless others had driven . In the gliding and light aircraft world it is quite normal to have a share system for planes but usually with a close nit community . Letting Joe Numpty loose in a car that he /she will never see again is asking for trouble.
I can't help thinking your thoughts on a Gov restriction on vehicle sizes etc is not that far off . It's utterly stupid on a global scale to drive a 2 ton plus vehicle when a small vehicle would do the job .
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
A logical extension of that would be for the government to limit the size of your house.
Sand is becoming a valuable asset and we are seeing enviromental damage to the oceans as countries are dredging sand, China for example.
Once AI gets a hold then the size of the house and number of occupants will probably determine how much energy you are entitled to, ie two people in a large four bed will be cut off. As for electric cars this is just going to be a stopgap because they are already looking at charging per mile and I can see public transport becoming the norm eventually.
Yes agreed if it was run like a self drive taxi the state of the vehicles would become appalling, I'd see it more as a long term hire but with the option to switch to more utility based vehicles at need for short term use. They would all come with third party insurence like the New Zealand WOF system, no more being hit by uninsured drivers. It could run many different ways ie collect the van you need for a weekend from a hire center and leave your car there or have the van dropped off at a charge per mile. The idea is that the small car be very cheep the larger vehicles quite pricey so you would only want to use them when really necessary. There would have to be some variety of options, from the really small possibly single seat or 1+1 to the 4 seat Mum takes kids to school option which strangely is possible with wheels smaller than 20" and a car weighing less than 2 ton, even one not capable of crossing the rift valley.
Or it's environmental impact
Jameshow
Established Member
You never hired a car then??
No the logical extension ,if you want to throw in a red herring, would be to limit the no. of brats you can have.
Only once about 50 years ago and it failed . Been around too long to trust in other peoples good sense.
Can you see the possibility of a " call a car" system in the future when it would be the norm to call a car on an app and it would self drive to your door and then to your destination etc . No input required except payment. I await the comments such as Call a Wife etc and other likely logical extensions.
Agent_zed
Established Member
who are 'they' and what are the chances that 'they' will be able to implement that.
Whilst it is certainly possible it is most likely like every other talking point put out to continue to sow division.
I hear they are already looking at increasing motorway speed limits
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/...cretary Grant,feasible to increase the limit.
I hear they are already looking at decreasing motorway speed limits
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money...h-motorway-speed-limit-reduce-oil-demand.html
One of them might be true someday.
Like it used to be before the private car I guess. It's not inherently a bad thing if investment is made in improving it. My grandparents never had a car and a lot more younger people are not bothering to even get a driving licence.
Although to be honest i do enjoy driving. I am lucky enough to no longer need to commute and have dropped my annual mileage from 10k to 3k. If people live near their work like they always used to it would certainly cut a large amount of pollution.
Let's think about who the 'they' are that is making private car ownership expensive for a moment. There is a lot of fingers pointing at the government but other than fuel duty and a few ulez zones they aren't actually being that prohibitive. Road Tax is negligible on a lot of cars and if you are paying a lot it mostly comes down to your choice of vehicle.
The main costs come from buying or leasing which is set by the manufacturer that is probably fleecing the system somewhere along the line (VW for example with emissions or Tesla selling carbon credits).
Maintenance e.g the garage charging £60/hr+vat on labour and overpriced parts. I can change my pads and rotors on my car in about 1.5 hours on my drive and pay less than £100 for branded parts, yet a local garage is over £300?
Insurance takes their cut as well and hopes you don't bother to shop around.
Parking is expensive but then I guess who else is going to pay for maintenance of the carparks as it ultimately comes from somewhere.
Something I realised writing this which i found interesting is the thought that not only do i already pay these costs for me to drive but i also pay the cost for others to drive and the choices they make.
Lets take insurance - the cheapest insurance is not for you but for the other car (3rd party). The more expensive the other car the more cost involved in an accident. The more miles the other person drives the more likely this might happen. So if someone wants to drive a £60k car vs a £15k car their choice will ultimately cost you more per mile. We can see this is the case as during covid insurance prices went down/refunded due to less accidents overall as people weren't driving as much. The heavier the other car the more damage to the road which my taxes pay for. If you bought on finance, then all the people that default on their payments are the reason your loan costs you more.
I don't think private car ownership is going to disappear anytime soon, it will most likely just change to smaller more efficient vehicles.
From what has been on the news channels lately discussing Londons ULEZ and also Newcastles, once the systems are in place and vehicle registrations and movement can be tracked then to maintain income once vehicles are compliant with emissions then it is a simple process to charge for distance traveled instead. It was also noted these vehicle movement cameras are more widespread across the country than many realise but at the moment only used for highlighting conjestion and bottleknecks but easy enough to log individual vehicle movement.
In many cases people got cars because there was no local employment, in the days of big british industries that had large workforces they laid on buses and many walked / cycled to work, a good example in the seventies was Marconi and RHP in Chelmsford that employed huge numbers of locals, now a dormitory town where many drive to work elsewhere or get a train. Now we have many smaller firms and busineses spread far and wide it requires a more complex transport system but as you say people would use public transport if it was good value and reliable. In rural areas like where I am everything is a mater of miles to get anything and we don't think twice about doing a seventy mile round trip for shopping and wood.
Where I work attendance is about 50% with those who can working from home on a regular basis, I tend to about one day a fortnight as most of my work is lab based. Some people commute considerable distances but this reduces their total travel significantly, I think this will get more common as the IT is now good enough that I can sometimes be working with someone all day and not know if they are in the building or not.
I am looking to apply to work four days a week but do the same hours, don't think I will get this but it would save me 20% on fuel cost and carbon also about an hour wasted time on the road and I would get 3 day weekends. The company would get more hours engineer cover in the lab meaning when a rig finishes running there is more chance of someone being around to set the next test running, normally my weeks work would be finished Thursday rather than Friday but as part of the deal I'd be happy to move the extra day to fit around work... It's all a dream they are not going to play ball.
It will be a long time before oil runs out. There's loads available but it's becoming more expensive to extract. We still need oil for the production of plastics for long-use manufactured items. Like cars?
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Neither did mine - primarily because they didn't need or wish to go anywhere. The world was a rather different place then.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
docw
Member
Perhaps they should import it from the Sahara, no damage to the seabed there and they may uncover a few more pyramids.
