| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| jema |
Will electric cars be an environmental disaster?It has occurred to me that an electric car apparently can cost as little as 1p a mile to run, much cheaper than a petrol car as petrol is heavily taxed.But you still pretty much need the same amount of energy from somewhere to run Electric or Petrol. So if we get Electric cars, everyone can travel even further using even more Energy and further trashing local services.... |
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| vegplot |
The question is where does the primary energy source come from. Electric cars are either very much better or worse than liguid fossil fueled varieties depending on how the energy is source and stored in the vehicle.
The 'worst' case is battery car charged from fossil mains electricity and the 'best' would probably be hydrogen fuel cell cars with the gas generated through renewable processes such as solar PV/electrolysis. In reality it's a lot more complicated than that We should stop thinking about electric cars as such and more about the complete energy profile of personal transport. |
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| RichardW |
Re: Will electric cars be an environmental disaster?
Do you really think the Gov will miss a trick like that? As soon as enough people use it they will tax it to hell & back. The same is happening with LPG, slowly the tax is going up as more use it. Like VP says its all about how that elec is made. Does anyone have any stats on how far you can travel per kwh? Richard |
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| RichardW |
Re: Will electric cars be an environmental disaster?
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| jema |
Well I have heard of "Red" Diesel, but never of a way of tracking where electric comes from! | ||||
| vegplot |
Governments excel in their creativity to generate income through taxation. | ||||
| RichardW |
It wont need tracking. You all sign up to a supplier for your elec. They will declare a % from green sources. You will have a meter on the car charger point simples. | ||||
| jema |
it is not that simple though is it? Anyone can run an extension lead. I suppose you could base it on the mileometer, but that would also be problematic I would have thought. | ||||
| Mutton |
THIS was meant to be seen just after the opening one of the thread - just came back to the thread and am editing this as just seen how many other posts are in between it - we all replied at once!
Also teleworking and local offices. There is a scheme I've seen for supplying local offices with desks to rent - so people working a long way from parent office, or otherwise working from home, can go to a local office with the facilities they need rather than commuting long distances. There is a social side too - with modern jobs and relocation, family and friends finish scattered widely across the country. You can't really telework your family but working out ways to reduce especially the Christmas family travel marathon would be good. As in it becomes socially acceptable not to "do" everyone every year! Manufacturing - daft things like cutting out knickers in this country, driving them to Portugal where the sewing is cheaper and then back again to sell. |
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| Treacodactyl |
Well we currently have congestion charging zones, low emission zones, variable speed limit cameras etc about so many motorists are already tracked. Then there's the satellite speed limiting suggestions that could easily track people so plenty of ways to tax people. Or you could do the overly simplistic thing of slapping a load of road tax on the car. Plenty of ways to skin a motorist. |
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| vegplot |
A car with a mass of 1000kg which travels 1km requires 1MJ of energy. Assuming an energy conversion efficiency of 25% this equates to 4MJ or approx 1kWhr. If we assume a typical commuter radius is 5km that works out at 10kWhrs. A household circuit can pump out ~24kWhrs in 8 hrs (overnight) which gives a realistic range for the electric car of approximately 24 kilometres. In order to provide a reasonable range charging currents would have to be much higher than domestic circuits could provide. You can see why we still use high energy density fossil fuels. |
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| RichardW |
I doubt they will be 13amp plug jobbies so no extension leads. Plus the charger would have the meter in it so no bypassing it. |
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| Behemoth |
Smart meters and rdf tags. | ||||
| RichardW |
Does your 25% take into account elec motor losses & charging / storage losses? So if I wanted to solar power a car I would need to collect 1kwh for ever 1km travelled (ish). My 1.2kw array is collecting about 4.5kwh (a good site would collect about 7kwh/day) per day on a good day & 1kwh on a bad day this month. So lets say an average of 2.5kwh per day. On 8000km's per year thats 22km per day so I would need 10 times (12kw or about £33k worth or £20k ish for a good install) the array IN SUMMER never mind in winter to power a car doing 8000km's per year. Cant see that catching on lol. |
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| vegplot |
25% is a general figure for losses in the system from generation to usage including vehicle losses, storage etc. It may well be much lower than this. |
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| oldish chris |
Re: Will electric cars be an environmental disaster?
Current electric cars aren't built to the same specifications as a petrol car: compare the G-Wiz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REVA with, say, the Citroen C1 http://www.citroen.co.uk/new-cars/citroen-c1/ bound to cost less to run! As soon as the battery technology allows, we'll get super-duper GT luxury electric cars. But you are right - a potential environmental disaster, electric "eco-friendly" cars are just part of the "business as near usual as possible" response to the climate crisis. |
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| boisdevie1 |
We need to travel - LESS. That's the anwer. | ||||
| vegplot |
I doubt we'll get battery technology anywhere not the power densities needed to match fossil fueled car's performance in the near future. |