23 years left before we're all on the electric boogaloo I understand the "why", but there just seems to be so many "hows" to solve first. I read the government is going to invest £100m into charging stations... Great, that'll be what, half a dozen per major city? Do we think the likes of Shell, BP and Exxon are going to let the world abandon fossil fuels (in cars) without throwing some spanners in the works? What about the economic stability of countries like Venezuela and Nigeria, which are already struggling? Or the economically wealthy, but politically powerful, Arab states? I'm looking out at the car park of my workplace now, there is probably 25-30 cars just in this section alone (who know's how many over the whole site), if even 10% of those need to be charged in the day that means the owner will need to install 2-3 charging units - will the government pay for those too? And the considerable cost of electricity that will come with it? And all that is before we get onto the subject of battery production and disposal...
IIRC, The National Grid Johnnies think it'll take another 3 x Hinkley C power stations to provide enough elastictricity to cope with a whole country charging battery powered cars / bikes
Petrol was just a stop gap after the horse and steam power. Combusting stuff to get a bit of its energy while making the air into a toxic soup of nasties just to go to Morrisons is really daft. Likewise, grid locked nightmares of cars stuck bumper to bumper is completely counter productive to the idea of transportation. Self driving efficient electric cars networked together on a transportation grid will be the future. It will probably follow a subscription model much like mobile phones do.
I've got a plug-in hybrid and I can easily do my 16 mile round trip commute on a charge, which takes about two and a half hours on a 13 amp plug to replenish. Add in that this could be scheduled overnight when grid demand is low and the infrastructure isn't lagging behind like some would have you believe. Couple this with our targets for renewable energy and it's not a hard push to imagine a nation of cars being powered by wind. Watch Robert Llewelyn's "Fully Charged" on YouTube if you have an interest in these things, it's very informative.
Not being funny, but half the reason that there's a gridlock in the first place is because there are too many cars (and people on Treasure Island) on the road to begin with. Going from petrol to self-driving electric cars won't magically make that issue vanish overnight.
yes because a boot of lithium ion batteries is more environmentally friendly. cars like the McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder certainly show the future of car tech but it'll be a long time before tech like that is even remotely affordable or available, hell its 2017 and we still have cars being shipped with drum brakes.
Tesla model 3, £35,000 and it's not a basic car. Ten years ago that was unimaginable, in 23 years I think we can hit the target.
Still not convinced about self-driving cars - I can only see it working if either ALL cars were AI controlled, or they we contained within their own lanes and traffic light cycle (like bus lanes). You only need 1 **** in his (probably uninsured) VXR to "forget" to give way at a roundabout or run a red light and force a self-driving car to make a choice between killing it's passengers or a pedestrian and the whole thing is pushed back 5 years...
What a government says and what it actually does are two different things. Like everything else where the government could have a major impact it will suffer massive under investment and like our roads, NHS, railways ETC ETC we will be overtaken by every other country. Or they will farm it out to the private sector like our mobile and internet connection where we are ranked around 54th in the world for coverage and speed, behind the likes of Peru and Romania. Fortunately I will be long pushing up the daisies so I will not see myself proved right.
Not possible until they provide infrastructure and we could really do with advancements in energy storage, in general, not just for cars. 2040 eh? Exactly 200 years since the patent of an electric carriage that ran on rails - no rushing now....
Side note, the electric companies will LOVE it. Unless the government imposes a cap on energy prices beforehand, expect all that extra demand to be felt when the meter readings go out each month.
Keep your progressive Finnishness to Finland please and do what Finland is best at, i.e. producing the world's best rally drivers.
I'll file that under L for Lol. I very much doubt that in 23 years electric cars and batteries will be good enough to replace cars in rural areas. Until they can run 300miles, be recharged in five minutes, then run another 300 miles immediately then they aren't good enough. Effectively slitting the throat of the UK's rural economy is the kind of thing that brings down governments, so I expect that 2040 deadlien to quietly get pushed back ten years, then another ten years, then maybe towards the end of my lifetime electric vehicles will be the norm. As for self driving, **** right off.
blame the Volvo boys for this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40505671 the news about Volvo's intent drove the preverbial soapy stick up the dogs bottom I think
They're not far off with the new Teslas, I would like to be optimistic enough to expect them to outdo your expectations in 23 years. Especially now that there is actually an interest in developing these technologies further. What interests me though is that there is no mention whatsoever about getting people to install PV as an alternative to building more power stations.
