Government approves £5k grant for buying electric cars

skippi90 said:
So where is all this electricity going to be generated from then? Burning more fossil fuels? Yeah, that's a step in the right direction. :rolleyes:

They'd be better suited getting a renewable energy network underway.
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If I plugged a car in tonight I bet the increase in fuel burn would be ZERO.
 
The only cars of this sort that I like even slightly are the Lexus hybrids, which are nice but used to sell at quite a premium over the petrol models, having said that this could make up the differance and take that little annoyance away I guess. I'm not sure what their pricing is like now though.
 
NathanE said:
Err weren't they saying a few months ago that our power stations are unable to cope with current electrical demands and that some areas of the UK will start seeing black outs at peak times by 2015?

So what is plugging in a load of extra battery chargers to the National Grid going to do?
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indeed, and its not that green considering firstly the toxicity of the batteries and secondly the fact that you recharge them from a polluting power source
 
malfunkshun said:
the fact that you recharge them from a polluting power source
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a darn sight less polluting than petrol. mass produced energy will always be more efficient than small quantity energy at source.
Petrol has to be mined, refined, carted about, carted about again in a car, then burnt.
Not all energy on the notional grid is polluting, nuclear, gas and renewables for example.
 

why?
what will come first, cars or infrastructure.
these cars do not need infrastructure. they are designed to be driven small regular distances. 95% of us probably do small regular trips 95% of the time. where cars like this are very suitable. the problem is the cost of buying and running 2 cars.
That is why the uptake will be so small and ontop of that the extra cost of such a car.

However it should help to drive the market and get people use to he idea.


Take a family situation. Most will have two cars. One nicer car and one smaller cheaper car.
One car spends 95% of it's life doing short runs, with the odd long run on weekends, where the other car is simply to go to work and back in. There is no reason for that 2nd car to have a long range. Now if it was cheap enough to buy. i could see a largish market for a 2nd car. As no tax and electricity is dirt cheap compared to petrol.
 
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AcidHell2 said:
Take a family situation. Most will have two cars. One nicer car and one smaller cheaper car.
One car spends 95% of it's life doing short runs, with the odd long run on weekends, where the other car is simply to go to work and back in. There is no reason for that 2nd car to have a long range. Now if it was cheap enough to buy. i could see a largish market for a 2nd car. As no tax and electricity is dirt cheap compared to petrol.
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I hate to think of myself as typical, however every fortnight me and the other half go down to Lancing (near Brighton) for the weekend, starting in Ipswich. With a bit of running around whilst we're there, we cover 300 or so miles every fortnight - 600 a month.

During the week, we both travel around 6 miles to work, and 6 miles back. If we did the journey together, 8 miles each way a day.

I'm sure there are other similar people who work close to home and don't want to use public transport.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
a) Offer a big bank of load buffering for peak loads.
b) charge off peak so the on peak brown outs remain un affected?
c) promote more investment in power production for a product that will grow at a slow and predictable rate.
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Doing A and B alone allows 10% of the driving population to have an electric car before the grid melts. C would occur and raise this, but it wont reach 100%, which is why I keep saying there will be more than one fuel of the future. Also electricity will cost more as a result of C, then it will be taxed, and your leccy car will save you a lot less.
 
I quite like the idea of something along the lines of the Chevy Volt / Vx Ampera as a work tool.

Most of the time I would only be running it on electricity but when I need to go further the generator kicks in... perfect. It would also make me feel better about getting a weekend toy :p
 
They may have approved it, but they have cut it from Labour's bouncing cheque of £230m to £43m.

I'd love an electric car to commute in, sounds great, they should be encouraging businesses to provide charging points through the taxation system :)
 
Chevy Volt pricing was announced the other day at $40k US. It actually looks like a proper car. :eek:
 
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