Electric cars.

It's just that I have a feeling that when they think the uptake of EVs isn't going to plan there will be a push to put ICE cars off the road.
We have seen it in the past, I only got rid of my last car because the road tax was heading towards £600 a year, then there is all the extra taxes being imposed on city people who drive older cars, this is all going to spread and eventually they will either force people into going electric or off the road entirely.
Probably a bit sooner than we realise.
The future looks pretty grim for anyone who has grown up with the usual freedom we have all known.

 

That is exactly their main goal. Grant Shapps was stated to have said, an all electric car industry will not solve climate change, we need to do less car mileage and get more people to use public transport, cycling and walking.

 

Tesla car's all have these app's inbuilt in to the car, so when you enter your origin and destination it will give you a route where there will be charging stations. If they are full before arrival you will get an alert with stations that are quieter, which will mean a detour. Same as a sat nav, if the shortest and quickest route is showing congestion it will warn you with alternative routes, so not really any difference.

With the Tesla charging system it will give you a pretty much accurate length of time it will take to charge, but if you were the only one in the bay at the time, then the length of time will increase when someone else connects and shares the same point. You will get a message to your mobile phone warning you when the car is charged, if you have not returned to the car within a certain time period, you will be charged. If these charge stations are 50% or less occupied it is 50p per minute and £1 per minute if it is close to capacity.

The lack of forward planning is plain stupid, Tebay services is a prime example. North bound only 2 slow charging points, where as southbound has 8 Tesla 150kWh chargers. So 8 chargers capable of charging 16 cars, also 12 parking bays for those in the queue. But when these app's direct you to the faster charging points in rural areas, then this happens.



So, 16 cars charging another 12 parked in the allocated waiting bays and then this, all this traffic is coming from the access road between both services, the north bound services is quiet while the south side is bedlam. I know they are getting shipping containers for battery storage to boost charging time, as when this happens the chargers drop off in charge contributes to the build up in traffic.

 

The more I see, the more I think it aint going to work, not in my lifetime anyway.
I just don't need the chaos all this is going to cause.

 

We have all heard that all new cars sold from 2030 will have to be electric, where is the legislation.
I thought we had now adopted the ZEV, zero emission vehicle target trajectory. I have copied and pasted below from the government website of the current consultation

To qualify as a ZEV, it is proposed that a vehicle must emit no CO2 or any other targeted greenhouse gases at the exhaust, have a minimum range of 120 miles according to the WLTP test standard, and meet certain minimum warranty requirements to ensure a consistent and predictable consumer experience. These requirements are met by the vast majority of ZEVs sold in the UK market in 2022.

The proposed minimum ZEV target trajectory for new cars sold begins at 22% in 2024, increasing to 80% in 2030 reaching 100% in 2035. The proposed minimum ZEV target trajectory for new vans sold begins at 10% in 2024 and reaches 70% in 2030 on the way to 100% in 2035. The legislation being proposed will cover ZEV and non-ZEV requirements in the 2024-2030 period; legislation covering the 2031-2035 period will be introduced at a later point, but it is intended that the legislative minimum trajectories will be at least as ambitious as set out in current trajectories.

Even if the government still goes down the 2030 route, you will still legally be allowed to purchase an ICE vehicle from the EU, granted it most likely will be left hand drive and cost more, but it certainly will not be illegal. Very similar to the impending peat ban, you will still be able to purchase peat based compost lawfully after 2025 as long as it was not manufactured in England, it just depends on the retailer if they decide to stock and sell compost bagged from outside England. So similar to the peat ban, are all the home nations on the same time scale with the banning of ICE vehicles and where is the actual legislation saying it will be unlawful to sell an ICE vehicle from 2030?

 

I have watched a number of videos on YouTube about travelling long distances in an EV and it seems that if you are willing to come off the motorway by a couple of miles adequate (at present) charging points are available. It is the motorway services that are the big problem.
Regarding the apps, most EV sat navs have the apps built in so you can plan your route and they update the charging availability as you go.

 

With the vehicles themselves being expense and then adding on the price of charging, I foresee a lot of people unable to afford a vehicle. Let's face it, once everthing is electric, do we really believe the price will go down as the electric power companies become the sole supplier on which you rely?

 

Yeah, wonderful, but I don't have that problem, I can just jump in and drive to Scotland, pretty much without a care in the world.
Unless of course the queues for the chargers start spilling out onto the motorway, and then we all have a problem.

 

I am sure that is true in some parts of the UK. When you get past Lancaster and heading to the lake district & Scotland it is not a vastly populated area, then take into account how many tourists the Lakes and Scotland attract. Yes the motorway service are a problem but there is certainly not enough charging points close by, if there was, those queues at Tebay would not of likely been as big.

I actually can not remember the last time I have purchased fuel at a motorway services, they are a rip off. I wonder why they have not installed more chargers, they would certainly charge motorists more, they do on everything else.

 

Its because it involves digging up half the countryside to get bigger cables in, these places just dont have enough power coming in for chargers.

 

I just think the whole electric car push is stupid. Sure, it's good that the industry offers that as an option, but as far as targeting emissions goes, there are much easier targets.

Trains would be relatively easy to electrify. A lot of trains are already electric, and in many cases those that are still diesel are only needed because their route is not yet electrified.

Then we could look at other vehicle types. Now let me think, what has a big smelly diesel engine, and always follows a pre planned route with regular stops where top-up charging could happen. Hmmm... Buses? Or better still, in city areas, bring back trams perhaps. Expensive yes, but if public transport infrastructure is improved and electrified then you kill two birds with one stone. You reduce the car dependency, and reduce emissions.

I think half the battle with any initiative is overcoming the naysayers who block everything despite solid evidence in favour of the thing they're blocking. I was reading on the news recently that the law is changing to allow longer lorries. A trial was conducted, and the data showed that apart from reducing emissions by carrying more stuff on fewer lorries, they were also safer, and due to the trailer design, caused less wear on the road. Basically a win win all round, but the naysayers came out in force squealing about how dangerous it would be.

Then there's huge amounts of data from case study after case study about how improving walking, cycling and public transport infrastructure in city centres makes it more accessible to all people, and boosts business. Yet if it gets proposed here, everyone cries of how it will do the exact opposite.

Last time I was in Sheffield, I was surprised at how vibrant and busy with people the city centre was compared to when I lived there. They've got a new low emission scheme there. There was a small protest taking place aiming to scrap it. They claimed something like a 22% increase in deaths since it was implemented, without giving any indication how they'd measured that or what criteria they'd used. This happened in what used to be a noisy, smelly part of the city where you had to shout to make yourself heard over the traffic, and wait ten minutes to cross a road. Now it's quiet, fresh, and people were actually taking their time there rather than just rushing past to get to wherever they were going.

 

High volume trailars are all ready on the roads, easy to spot



Note the last axle which also is a steering axle as well
There was a trail with towing 2 trailers but that was for motorway work only and the depo had to be on or very near to a motorway juntion but i haven't seen any for a long time so may be scraped

 

What is the primary goal of pushing the whole electric car mandate, is it to protect the car industry or environment first.

The only sector that is driving the uptake in new EV registrations is the fleet and business sectors, not the private sector. Now we are starting to see more of these flood the second hand market as contracts expire it has resulted in the EV now being the fastest deprecating car. It was inevitable it would happen and will take time before it balances itself out. But there will be many car owners who don't realise how big the fleet sector is, they might have been tempted in buying a new EV but with the huge deprecation they might be put off. Going down the route of buying a second hand EV would be the better option, it would be for me if I was serious about buying an EV.