Do you know the fallacy of electric motor vehicles?

The amount of emissions saved is reduced by the process of obtaining metals that go into the batteries and the needed fossil fuels to extract those metals.

I did hear that they do leave more of a carbon foot print then a regular car. Cheers!

I don't know if they leave more of a carbon footprint, but they aren't as environmental environmentally friendly as they would like you to believe and they're expensive, not to mention that heaven knows when there will be recharging stations everywhere. This post was edited by SpunkySenior at July 3, 2021 4:35 PM MDT

I agree entirely on the enviromental problmes being far greater than the politicians imnagine!

I think in future many Britons will be unable to own a car:

 - Too expensive new and the costs will not fall all that much, in proportion.

 - Fairly low second-hand costs but that's because the battery-pack is about due for replacing at eye-watering cost also not very likely to fall significantly, pro-rata.

Battery life: how do the very costly batteries withstand many cycles of very high-rate charging or will that shorten their effective lives to only a few years?

To some extent this will be offset by relatively lower servicing costs; but it is not very likely the owner will be able to do much servicing on them so is forced to pay whatever the garages and manufacturers extort.

Unknown future electricity cost, especially tax to compensate for the revenue from liquid fuels taxes falling.

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Even if they can afford it:

Practicality: very many people do not live in homes with private off-road parking; but are in blocks of flats or flats over town-centre shops; in terraced houses built before cars were invented; in modern equivalents with no convenient parking space next to the house; and similar. Yes, we need drive to a filling-station for petrol or diesel fuel; but even at busy times the queue is not usually very long and it takes only perhaps 5-10 minutes at most per vehicle.

Long journeys especially on cold, dark wet Winter nights, will require a lot of planning and knowing where the next charger might be; where you may then find yourself behind 3 or 4 other cars each taking at least 15 minutes to re-charge.

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To give an example, a journey I have made many times:

 - About 70 miles across hilly country to the motorway. Easier going for 200 miles on that, but think of the energy-hungry 70mph speed-limit and the service areas being up to 30 miles apart. Then 40 miles of varied going across more hilly country to my destination.

In good conditions this takes about 8 hours with a full tank of petrol at the start, and a refill near the end. In a battery car even in good weather I would need plan for 12 hours (due to queue and connection times at least 3 re-charging points), assuming...

.... assuming I have all possible charging leads because there seems no attempt to enforce one common standard; and I can pay for it because the public charging-points so far at least have no bank-card readers. And in Winter, plenty of warm clothing and big flask of hot drink.


I think the i.c. engine will be around for long enough to see me out, but it will have to. There is no way I could have a battery car; and I think many thousands of motorists will be in the same situation. This will also have huge social and cultural implications. Warding off climate disaster is vital but will come at enormous costs in so many ways.

Excellent points, all of them.  It is possible that hybrids will become the norm.  That would eliminate many of the issues you mention.  I would imagine that when motor vehicles first came into greater use, the problem of gas stations conveniently located were an issue and that was overcome.  It's also possible that the current batteries will be more efficient, go for longer on a charge and become less expensive to replace.  I believe there are many other ways we can reduce our carbon footprint that will help enormously, but we need to begin somewhere and it has to be a world wide effort.  

MWAH