Sale of petrol and diesel cars to be banned by 2040

Soldato
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Though the self crashing driving thing was fading away. Haven't heard anything for ages. Not many seem to be interested in it.
 
Soldato
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You really think that the government won’t tax transport electricity ?

This + 1. Nobody would be considering buying an electric car if petrol wasn't taxed so highly and was more like 60p/l instead of double that. Many countries around the world don't charge anything like the crazy taxes we do on fuel so they'll have even less reason to move to electric.

No UK government is going to let that revenue stream dry up so expect GPS based mileage charges or massive rises in taxes on electricity in future to make up for this deficit. Electric or not don't expect cheaper private transport in the UK anytime soon!
 
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Soldato
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At some point owning a car will be replaced with subscribing to one. Like cars as a service or something. You tell your app when you need a car and where you are going and it arrives when you want it to and takes you where you want to go. Then it goes off on its merry way to drive someone else somewhere else. Once its done it drives off back to its manufacturer/depot to recharge itself until its ready to go again. Then when you are ready for another trip, tell the app and another car comes and finds you and takes you where you need to go. No one will need to own one, there'll just be a massive pool and you'll pay by the mile. Sounds awful but it will eventually end up like that i guess? Want a nicer car? Pay a bit more per mile and a slightly nicer automatic taxi comes and gets you. I guess in one way at least it means you can use the travel time for something useful rather than actually driving?

Who knows, this may then give more of an impetus to have more race tracks and places where people can drive their old tech(Cars) about? I doubt people will want to bin off their pride and joys just because they cant use them on roads anymore... They'll want to throw them about like the good old days. Lol
 
Man of Honour
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[..] HGVs are a different kettle of fish and nothing remotely suitable is on the market yet but give it time. The biggest issue here is not building the tractor units, the density is about there. It’s the power needed to rapid charge them at truck stops, that’s some serious grid upgrades that needs doing closer to the time.

A possible workaround to that is battery swapping. HGV use is generally more planned than car use and lower in volume in terms of number of vehicles, so it would be easier to implement battery swapping for it. If an EV HGV is designed for it, machinery in a truck stop could swap a partially discharged battery for a charged one in about the same time it takes to fill a tank on an ICE HGV. The discharged battery could then be charged at the truck stop over a longer period of time and put into a different HGV later. That would also help with battery life, since slower charging is better for the battery and charging conditions are more easily optimised in a specialised location than inside an EV. Pricing could be arranged. The necessary machinery already exists and it's not complicated enough for that to be a problem in terms of reliability. Batteries for an HGV would weigh a lot, but nowhere near the limits of what robust machinery could handle. Each truck stop would need to hold a surplus of batteries to cover fluctuations in use, but that could be accounted for in the pricing. The biggest problem would be standardising designs enough to make it possible for a truck stop to service all EV HGVs because such a system won't work well otherwise. There are practical limits to how many different battery types could be effectively stored in a truck stop and (to a lesser extent) how many different configurations the same battery swapping machinery could handle. It's a non-starter with cars unless huge international government pressure is brought to bear, but it might be possible with HGVs. Maybe. Possibly.
 
Soldato
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Bradford doesn't look that bad for EV charging?

People peddling misinformation as always. They rely on first hand experience and anecdotes rather than research and data.

The populist media outlets where many derive their info from don’t like change, progress or positivity. They just want to emphasise what people are going to lose, how we’re going to be punished, lose rights and freedoms, blah blah. Too much conservatism and cynicism.

Healthy criticism and rationality is great, but many people are just too negative and resistant to change.
 
Soldato
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Well I'm not against change at all, I drive about Bradford daily (live in the hell hole unfortunately) and I haven't seen any EV charge points

So my information is based on what I see daily.

Like I have said I'd like EV to become main stream but I don't see it happening by 2040.

I'd love the government to prove me wrong
 
Associate
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Like I said in other threads. I have nothing against ICE ban as long as the infrastructure is there.

This means major investment that needs to happen soon if we are to make the target.

Transparency on how the 30 billion tax black hole will be filled with the loss of fuel duty.

Flexibility on the understanding that some vehicles like HGVs haven't gone mainstream so we are relying on technology break throughs so they can be feasibly replaced. We only need to look at the Woolwich ferry to see what happens when the technology isnt keeping pace.

I think it is also the end of a motoring era. Cars will just become a transport item to get you from A to B. Thankfully thats already happened to me since becoming a cab driver and I have little enthusiasm to be in a car for fun. However I will miss the roar of a V8 and the sounds, smells and experiences of ICE supercar scene.
 
Associate
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Take a closer look an Bradford then....

There are a number of charge points within the ring road, but only about 9 or 10. That supports up to 20? cars maximum when i look. 3 are at car dealerships, and one a univercity campus. There's about 5 in car parks and shopping centers, which together support about 10 cars.

That is in no way good enough if you expect a mass adoptation of EV's.

The town where I live has a population of 13,000 and is very touristy. Yet there are 3 charge points (all at the local Aldi, which was build only last year). The next nearest charge point is a 28 minute drive away.
 
Associate
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But surely the infrastructure discussion shouldn't be limited to the practically of where you charge?

Where is all this additional energy to service these charge points coming from? This includes home charging...

If we need to invest in more power stations (renewable or not - another discussion!), then we better get cracking on with it now?
 
Soldato
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That is in no way good enough if you expect a mass adoptation of EV's.

Has anyone ever claimed the infrastructure is in place to support mass adoption?

To meet the 2035 target, two key pieces of charging infrastructure need to be rolled out. First, high speed rapid chargers are needed along major routes. These will serve to boost the effective range of BEVs to 180% to 240% of their normal range (I'm assuming few will have patience for more than two rapid charges on a given journey). Right now, it's early days for these chargers. But Ionity, for example, are building them fairly quickly. And the second; daily charging solutions are needed for those without driveways. There are a number of solutions being trialed in the UK. But mass rollout will require legislation to make installation easier for the businesses providing these chargers.

The rest is of debatable importance (including most of the public chargers installed to date). It might be nice to plug in at Sainsbury's while doing the weekly shop. But if you drive a 250 mile range BEV, live a few miles up the road, and have a driveway with a charger, it's unlikely to be important. If V2G becomes a big thing, and even better, V2G via wireless chargers, then installation in supermarket car parks (etc.) may become more important.

But surely the infrastructure discussion shouldn't be limited to the practically of where you charge?

Where is all this additional energy to service these charge points coming from? This includes home charging...

If we need to invest in more power stations (renewable or not - another discussion!), then we better get cracking on with it now?

The UK has a fair amount of spare generation capacity. What it doesn't have is vast amounts of spare peak generation capacity. Building more generation capacity to accommodate a higher peak would be expensive and wasteful, hence the proposed solution is to manage demand instead.
 
Soldato
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Outside of peek hours there is a huge amount of generation capacity available, enough to support millions of cars. The only issue is managing down peek demand and there are already things in place to do that.

Smart meters - dynamic pricing based on demand to nudge behaviour.
Smart chargers - every charger installed via an OLEV grant is smart, they can be turned down or off remotely.

New generation - loads is being built all the time, you just don’t know about it because it’s boring and not newsworthy most of the time. If you actually research you’ll see what’s happening. The latest wind turbines going on have blades 107 meters long, can operate with wind speeds as low as 3mph and can generate up to 12mw. They are also much better for birds because of the very low rotation speed. The uk is building multiple gwh of new wind turbines every year. I think we were close to 50% wind powered for a short period in all that bad weather we had the other week which is bonkers compared to just a few years ago. As of right now we are 32% wind powered on a 30gw demand.
 
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Caporegime
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But surely the infrastructure discussion shouldn't be limited to the practically of where you charge?

Where is all this additional energy to service these charge points coming from? This includes home charging...

If we need to invest in more power stations (renewable or not - another discussion!), then we better get cracking on with it now?

The current grid can cope with the capacity no problem but requires smart charging to do so. To be able to smart charge would need cars to be able to access charging at all times when stopped which is a mammoth task to complete in 15 years. Especially with the government having Brexit to deal with.

The grid will not be able to cope having charging the same as filling up fuel as it is now.
 
Soldato
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I think we were 50% wind powered in all that bad weather we had the other week which is bonkers compared to just a few years ago.

Interestingly enough, last year the UK produced 65TWh from wind, and only 56TWh from Nuclear, and coal languished down at 7TWh and is predicted to be less than 3TWh this year.

It's storing all that lovely clean excess wind energy that is produced outside of the high usage hours they need to get cracking with, getting a standardised V2G/V2H charging solution for those with drive and garages, and flat with dedicated parking spaces etc.

Maybe they'll roll that into the replacement for fuel taxation, the more you store and give back the less you pay, after all people are mostly selfish and only care about money, so you can guarantee people will try harder if they can save some tax/out goings. :)
 
Soldato
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The current grid can cope with the capacity no problem but requires smart charging to do so. To be able to smart charge would need cars to be able to access charging at all times when stopped which is a mammoth task to complete in 15 years. Especially with the government having Brexit to deal with.

The grid will not be able to cope having charging the same as filling up fuel as it is now.


It will cause local powercuts if they don't upgrade the grid. Many places are already on the edge since they put up loads of new houses but didn't bother doing the infrastructure.
 
Soldato
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The current grid can cope with the capacity no problem but requires smart charging to do so. To be able to smart charge would need cars to be able to access charging at all times when stopped which is a mammoth task to complete in 15 years.

This makes no sense.

Smart charging: you get home from work at 6pm after your 50 mile commute, and plug your car in to your 7kW home charger. You've used 15kWh of power that day. You're set to leave again at 8am. The car could recharge in around 2 hours. But demand for electricity is high between 6pm and 8pm. And the car has 14 hours to recharge. So charging can wait until demand has fallen, and then proceed at a slower rate overnight, with the charge rate mirroring the amount of surplus electricity.

Why does this require that cars are plugged in at every opportunity?
 
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