Electric cars.

Good. People have been looking into this since last century. There are also massive amounts of china clay waste, from previous operations, which should cut down on production costs. I hope it works out.

 

Someone in Whitehall should have sat down and given some thought to electric cars - before jumping on the green bandwagon.

In the first instance I would have introduced lpg powered cars - a known technology that uses by products of the oil industry - lpg cars belch steam out of the exhaust pipe. This would have kept the green people happy. Existing petrol cars can be converted.

As reliance on fossil fuels decline - do a 'Honda' - and introduce hydrogen powered cars. Plentiful supply of fuel and just fill up as we do now with petrol - no extra weight - won't damage the roads.

A Council study showed that many bridges can't take the additional weight of electric cars - electric lorries - you're just asking for a massive headache maintaining roads.

Still - someone said that electric cars are the future and everyone clapped and cheered.

 

LPG cars, though less emitters than petrol and diesel, do not just "belch steam" out of the exhaust.
Although Hydrogen is plentiful it requires large amounts of electricity to extract and compress it. Unless the electricity is from wind or solar then it is not a green fuel. It also requires large heavy tanks to store it in sufficient quantity to give a motor vehicle range equivalent to fossil fuels.
For a 300-mile driving range, an Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle will need about 5 kg of hydrogen. At 700 bar (~10,000 psi) a storage system would have a volume of about 200 litres or 3-4 times the volume of fuel tanks typically found in cars today. An ICE car fuelled by Hydrogen would require more as the efficiency is lower.
The infrastructure for refuelling Hydrogen vehicles is even worse than that for charging electric vehicles. As of June 2023, in Britain, there are 14 hydrogen filling stations open to the public and 1 more in Ulster.

 

I doubt the extra weight of lorries will have any bearing on bridges, the 44 ton maximum gross weight for general haulage is very unlikely to be increased.

There is no plan to increase the 44 ton gross weight to compensate the extra weight of batteries.
However there is a consultation being debated about increasing the gross weight limit of HGV's where the gross weight is less than 44 ton's.
Whether that is by 1 or 2 ton, nobody knows. But to increase the gross weight of any size HGV, then there will have to be new legislation to increase the axle weight allowance, otherwise the additional extra gross weight allowance is unusable.

https://www.commercialfleet.org/new...d-for-electric-and-alternatively-fuelled-hgvs

 

Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast's stock market valuation has soared above Ford and General Motors on its first day of trading. Shares in the firm, which has yet to make a profit, closed above $37 (£29) each in their New York debut. That gave VinFast a stock market valuation of $85bn, much higher than Ford's $48bn and GM's $46bn. It comes as motor industry giants and newer manufacturers fight for a slice of the booming EV market.
So the money market is strongly with EVs.

 

Or people are just into it for a quick buck and will sell sell sell tomorrow.

 

Hi,

Diesels were top dog a few years ago. We're keeping our 2.0L diesel Yeti not wanting our lives run by battery.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Some how I think the consumer will have a say on who is dead in the water, I agree that EV might be the future, but most people I know hope they are not, well not in the form they are now.
I guess once us dinosaurs are dead and buried , and the younger generation find they are not only priced out of the housing market but also put back in their place, and having to ride a bike or use public transport like my granddad did, then the ruling classes can get on with lording it over us all and have the potholed roads to themselves.

Even EVs fall down potholes.

 

Many of today's younger generation have no interest in driving. My grandson and his mates use public transport all the time. When they goes out of an evening it is bus or train going and a taxi or Uber coming home. He has no interest in driving whatsoever despite his dad being a motor mechanic. My step-daughter travels all over the world but has never considered driving. Public transport suits her fine.

 

First thing I wanted at 17 was a driving licence.
Most around here still want to drive judging by the speed they go down my road and the noise they make.
Both neighbours sons and their girlfriends have cars.

 

I got mine at 16

 

Yeah they rushed it through during WW1.