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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 319
| See this link to trials in North East England. Looks like electric vehicles are beginning to be a realistic possibility.
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/alumni/news/page.htm?electric-vehicles-given-t... |
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Regular
Posts: 80
| I can't tell from your post whether you see this as a good or bad thing.
I'd also be interested to know what everyone thinks about the future of Electric cars in their life.
Would you buy one? Brand new? What if you could only lease it? What about converting your existing car?
This article is interesting in that it mentions they are also studying "driver behaviour". Common miss conceptions being range or the length of time it takes to charge. Personally i would welcome a car that forced me to stop for 30 mins every 200 miles to "re-charge". How much safer would the roads be? Maybe even every 100 miles.
If anyone is interested, Robert Llewellyn (Red dwarf, Scrapheap challenge) has an iMiev on long term test on his YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/GearlessUK#g/u
Also http://www.dannyscontentment.net/ but this has not been as active as it used to be.
And for the alternative view there is always http://rowdykittens.com/ |
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Veteran
Posts: 275
| Like most of these things, this seems a complicated area to me, very difficult to see what the outcome is likely to be. There are stories about the short supply of some of the materials needed to make batteries, and I can't imagine how we could generate enough electricity from renewables to power our existing driving habits - although CAT's Zero Carbon Britain work includes some rough numbers on this, I seem to remember. And, again like most things, the only answer I can see is to use a lot less first, i.e. reduce the mileage we feel the need to cover, and then find a suitable technology. I keep coming back to the behavioural aspects of the problem - it isn't enough just to expect people to stop driving, we have to change our lifestyles so that driving is less attractive/ important.
Incidentally, there's an update to Zero Carbon Britain due out in June, should be a stimulating read. Details will be at http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com/. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 319
| I think electrical cars will have a part to play in going zero carbon particularly with peak oil meaning that liquid fuel will become increasingly expensive. The Chinese seem to be making big inroads into lighter, more efficient batteries which I think will be key to designing a family car that is cheap enough for people to purchase. As soon as there is a reasonable priced one that can get onto the A9 and goes up to 60mph, so you don't get too many irate people behind and can overtake safely I think we'd go for it. Looks like this might be a reality in the next couple of years. Meanwhile for trips up to 30 miles our electric bike is a very low carbon option. For those able to do so a push bike is even better for short journeys. See David MacKay's website for technical calculations.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cA/page_254.shtml |
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electric vehicle trials
