CARS

Well on paper it's a brave move.. .and a good move.. but I really don't think it's practical and I know that so often things get watered down... for instance... classic cars are still allowed on the road - I know this cos I have one... so what are they going to do with them? And I can't see how they could force people to scrap their cars and buy electric... so I don't think it's going to happen. 

not sure why they would do that

Will they need to build more power plants? What are they gonna do with all the petrol/diesel cars? What about people who have petrol/diesel cars? Will the government have to fork out money for them to buy new cars? Why specifically cars from 2040?

Anyway, I kind of like the idea of more electric cars, but I don't like the idea of taking people's cars away and just dumping them somewhere unless they have a good plan on what to do with them all. This post was edited by Patchouli at July 27, 2017 4:59 PM MDT

Sounds a bit like Trumps bluster about a wall. Lots of noise, but nothing happening. No Law, No financing, no particular kind of wall chosen.

I hate electric cars, it's not going to happen, they'll be a revolt before that happens, I think we are getting mighty fed up of being controlled, let them stop flying to these meetings by private jet, and I may listen.  Oh and by the way, to everyone at the recycling centres who dutifully puts their green bottles in the green bank and the brown in the brown, it makes no difference, they all end up mixed up in a giant mound. 

If it does happen I'm buying a horse and cart.

I'm not sure that's quite right. As I understood all the news reports and details, they are not banning using the vehicles, but manufacturing (and importing??) hem after 2040.

Predictably the unspecified environmental campaigners said not far enough or quickly enough, but frankly I have little confidence in the more excitable of them even knowing the differences between fuel, energy and power.

As Patchouli suggests, it is ill-thought. Presently, electric cars are appearing on UK roads in sufficient numbers for charging-points to appear in motorway service areas and various garages, but so far in small numbers.

A motorway filling-station typically has about 20 diesel / unleaded-petrol pumps, but might have (at the moment) only 2 or 3 chargers. I do not know how long it might take to recharge a "typical" electric car's battery from about half-discharge, but I imagine it's rather longer than the few minutes to fill with liquid fuel and pay for it. This may be why some are installed close to the cafeterias whereas the i.c. fuel pumps are in a separate building.

Charging rate is set partly by battery design - exceeding its maximum rate could ruin it, and even be a fire risk. Whilst we cannot say how that may change in 2 decades, it is hard to see much improvement because you start running into physical size / electrical capacity limits.

A quick Google look revealed purely electric cars now can be charged to about 80% capacity is half an hour - how far will that take you though? On domestic mains you are looking at a minimum 4 hours for the Nissan LEAF - and that with a 7kW supply (nearly 30A on the UK's 230V mains - the limit for most houses especially if also using electric ovens etc.)

Imaging the queues as all those commuters reach half-way home then have to re-charge their cars' batteries.... 

Also, it takes a finite amount of energy to move a given load a given distance at a given rate - and the overall energy demand for that journey may vary drastically from external factors like weather and traffic conditions. Unless chargers become very numerous and well-distributed, long journeys in purely-electric vehicles, especially in remote areas like the Scottish Highlands, could become highly problematical.  

Patchouli asks, where is all the electricity to come from. Well, the UK is nearly at full stretch now thanks to decades of throwing away technical expertise in nuclear power generation meaning the UK has now to buy the plant from France, Japan or China; and more recently starting to close fossil-fuel power-stations before ensuring sufficient replacements and more. Now, the UK is building many wind and solar power stations, a lot of the bigger wind ones off-shore, but these alone won't meet the demand.

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There is another point the environmentalists and politicians do not seem to twig. To replace millions of i.c-engined cars with battery ones, means making millions more batteries. The modern accumulators rely more and more on materials like lithium - I do not know if scrapped batteries' plate materials can be recovered, but the sources for new materials are few and far between. So that's a heck of a lot more quarrying, processing, shipping around the world - by diesel-powered ships, trains and lorries. (The programme is aimed only at cars and vans, not large vehicles.) 

Similarly, the elements used in the rare-earth magnets needed for modern generators. Some are from dubious countries like the People's Republic of China, by sheer chance.

Either way, here's another unanswered question. Electric vehicles - and wind-turbines - need a lot of plastics, paints and lubricants made from petroleum derivatives; and most are not recoverable at the end of the objects' lives. So we will still need the oil industry  - besides we still need all that diesel fuel for heavy transport for which there is not yet a practicable alternative. So what do we do with all that surplus petrol?

There is one alternative to batteries - and the subject of a lot of research - hydrogen, either in gas-engines or fuel-cells. Totally clean as the exhaust is merely water-vapour. Whence the hydrogen? By electrolysing water, so although the Earth won't run out of water, we would need a vast quantity of electrical energy to obtain the required level of fuel energy from it. Square One again.


There is another, but one I cannot imagine any government in a democratic nation would want to grasp: banning private vehicles altogether.....

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So there you have it - a politicians' policy that is undoubtedly well-meant but shows no sign of anyone really thinking through and understanding all manner of economic, technical and environmental aspects, but concentrating only on its laudable but single declared aim to reduce air pollution in cities. 

Another thought came to me today...

Over the last few decades, and mainly in response to evermore stringent laws, the car manufacturers have invested huge efforts and sums in trying to make the vehicles and engines ever more efficient. What incentive will they have now to continue this?