Electric cars.

None yet!

 

I think Mr Miliband is missing something, you can cover the whole country in wind mills and solar panels.
He seems almost obsessed.
But the largest part of most peoples bill is gas, even the power stations run on gas.

Not hearing much about how they will stop using gas, its all imported these days, apparently.

 

I've seen pictures of car parks having solar panel arrays mounted above them. That makes sense. It's not wasting green space and a good location for charging. Rows of wind turbines could even be installed above those to try to compensate for cloudy days.

That said, yes, having individual homes independently powered would take a huge load off the grid.

It's been shown over and over that electric cars cannot do long distances in our winters. So that is a nonstart for me.

 

All electric cars should be fitted with solar panels on the roof and a wind turbine attached to the rear bumper. That's the only way they would be truly zero emission. No wind and a cloudy day, they would have to stay where they are.

 

Hi,

EV's have excellent heaters.



Kind regards, Col.

 

Given that all batteries work better at warmer temperatures it makes perfect sense to divert some of the current from an electric vehicles Lithium battery to a heater system on starting a journey in cold weather. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can remember bringing the car battery inside on cold nights.
The same goes for catalytic converters they work better once warmed up and certainly Saab and I believe Volvo had heaters fitted to warm up the catalytic converter on cold days.
I can also remember pictures of HGVs with fires under them to get the diesel flowing.

 

Years ago in a cold Belgian winter (-20C) there was a lovely story of a tanker lorry driver getting a bit careless whilst trying to warm up his diesel. His cargo was liquid chocolate and it ended up as a slick all over the road.

Around the same time, we and some friends set off in our diesel powered Zafiras to take our children skiing in Livigno. I warned them to fill up with diesel as close to Livigno as possible but no, they did it in France just before we crossed Switzerland. The first morning after we arrived he couldn't get his engine to start before midday and when it did it belched black smoke. A mechanic diagnosed "wrong diesel" and pumped out the tank to fill it with mountain diesel.

 

Welded to their eyeballs more like. I was doing the front garden the other day just as the schools were turning out. Every single schoolkid that walked past was staring at a phone, bar one girl. I felt tempted to ask her if she'd lost it.

 

Maybe it would be a good way to wean teens off vapes. Say "You can have one or the other in any 24 hr period, but not both". Which would they choose?

 

I find it so sad to see them all walking along completely oblivious to the world around them. Same with mothers completely ignoring their young children.

The Mum across the road from us walks her young son to school every morning and they actually talk to each other. She points out things to him as they're walking along. Same thing when they come home in the late afternoon. It's lovely to see .

 

You have to wonder what has happened with the world, why are kids using their phones in school time anyway.