Reply to: Greta Thunberg

[BrilloPad]

Not if you're Virgin Atlantic

Coronavirus: Virgin Atlantic admits flying near-empty planes

Time to unleash Greta...

The planes are not empty. Greta is popping over to NY for a few days.....

[CheeseSlice]

All travel will soon stop. Due to Corona virus. Not that it will save the 2%.

Not if you're Virgin Atlantic

Coronavirus: Virgin Atlantic admits flying near-empty planes

Time to unleash Greta...

[MasterBait]

"When I see babies I worry about the world they will inherit. One day off school will not disrupt children's education much."

If the above is true why do schools charge parents when they take their kids out of school in term time?

Or does it depend on how much virtue signalling you are doing?

But either way meh - we know where the pollution problems are and what is causing them - whether St Greta decides to go to Bristol or not will not really effect any of that.

They finally invented trolley buses in Germany?

[Mordac]

Electric motorway near me, still haven't seen it being used though: https://www.thelocal.de/20190507/ger...near-frankfurt

And I doubt you ever will. That's what happens when you give a roomful of idiots a huge pot of money and 20 mins to decide how to spend it. Still, it'll make the travel news more interesting - "the motorway is closed because of overhead line damage" - or will they cull a few million trees to get round this problem?

[original PM]

"When I see babies I worry about the world they will inherit. One day off school will not disrupt children's education much."

If the above is true why do schools charge parents when they take their kids out of school in term time?

Or does it depend on how much virtue signalling you are doing?

But either way meh - we know where the pollution problems are and what is causing them - whether St Greta decides to go to Bristol or not will not really effect any of that.

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

Good old Greta. BristolPost posted an article with a headline that sums up her recent plans to visit Bristol:

'What a waste of time' - How you reacted to Greta Thunberg announcing Bristol visit

[BrilloPad]

All travel will soon stop. Due to Corona virus. Not that it will save the 2%.

[darmstadt]

Electric motorway near me, still haven't seen it being used though: https://www.thelocal.de/20190507/ger...near-frankfurt

[Paddy]

Noisy bikes may be down to the mantra (rightly or wrongly) "loud pipes save lives". Currently it's one form of self-defence against careless drivers.

The issue of sound is a big one. Some want noisy leccy cars for pedestrian safety. F1 are going to struggle if they go near silent formula E as the noise is a big part of the appeal, now overtaking is given the side-eye whenever brought up.

I guess one solution will be 'ring tones' for leccy cars and bikes so you can have them sound whichever way you want. Someone will get rich with that idea.

What happened to Crazy Frog, he'll be back on leccy bikes one day.



Newbie alert!

NLUK will be along in a bit to show you how to use google to search CUK.



It's obvious they'll change the design so battery packs can easily slot out and in, maybe some sort of drop-floor design to keep the battery weight low for centre of gravity handling benefits. e.g. drive into a battery changing station, and a robotic arm comes out of the floor and pulls out the battery from below and replaces it with a fully charged one, then you pay for the difference in charge so don't need to wait until it's fully discharged. Simple ideas like that are inevitable.


At least it looks like they're addressing the bigger (vehicle) issues so it's not just car owners that are in the firing line:

Buses: Government unveils £50m plan to create first all-electric bus town

I presume London already has this sorted with 100% leccy buses.

What happened to that Tesla truck to get all those dirty diesel LGVs off the roads? Then there's the issue with vans, particularly delivery ones than need loads of range and last a full day. I expect some categories of vehicle will have exemption until the tech makes them feasible.

When I was a kid, we had electric buses.



Some countries still have them..

[darmstadt]

Here's the pinup for the anti-Greta brigade on here:

YouTube

Anti-Greta: Far-right groups trying to turn teenager into climate change-denying version of Greta Thunberg | The Independent

[Zigenare]

which is why I say that the government's 2035 target, although laudable, is unrealistic.

Consider these issues -

1. There are already at least 6 different plug types. These would have to be standardised, or some converters would need to be available. This has already been raised in the HoC, but I've not seen
any further statements on this.
2. Despite manufacturer's claims, ranges are still poor, especially when used in poor conditions such as night, cold and rain. Charging times are still un-realistic. Perhaps battery packs might address
this aspect. But see point 5.
3. Electric cars are currently expensive. I can't see there being a £1000 usable electric car being available for some time, when there are many such ICE cars.
4. HMG behaviour reveals the real issue - taxation. A Tesla car is still subject to a greater tax than many ICE cars. How would they replace the taxation derived from ICE vehicles? Road pricing is
clearly an unpopular idea. Then there would be the infrastructure to support road pricing. How much would that cost in green terms? See point 5.
5. The mains infrastructure isn't available. I saw one statement which said that if the target was to replace 20+ million ICE cars, then they should have been working on the infrastructure 15 years
ago. What about facilities for flats etc?
6. Maintenance of electric cars will need more careful attention as they are clearly potentially dangerous with 600 volt systems. Garages and mechanics et all would have to be educated. Again, there
don't seem to be any plans to address this issue.

So to summarise, although HMG's 2035 target is laudable, it's un-realistic, as the required infrastructure to support electric vehicles is unlikely to be available by that time.

They're not asking people to stop driving their existing vehicles, merely stating that no new Diesel, Petrol or Hybrid cars will be produced/sold.

Expect fantastic deals on surplus stock just before the ban comes in!

Every cloud etc.

[JohntheBike]

wow what a tangent!

Not sure how you got to multiple cars, but as pointed out if you have 4 cars you can only drive one at a time. Seems a bit of a stretch to bring that into the argument.Now we double down talking about the cost of building garages its like listening to swampy from extinction rebellion.

If you are a car collector and are encouraged to make all your prestige cars more eco friendly surely that is a win?

I mentioned it made sense to keep an old car running if you could make it more environmentally friendly as the environmental cost to scrap & replace an existing car was so high. Also with so many conventional fuel vehicles out there we are on a long road to electrification. There are 60k electric

Plug-in electric vehicles in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

that is dwarfed by the 32 million cars in the uk.
• Number of cars in the UK 2000-2016 | Statista

the average car is 8 years so there are plenty older than that.General facts and figures about roads and road use



My point is if we can make old cars less polluting and they are not likely to be replaced with a zero carbon one (especially the ones doing very high mileage e.g. long distance commuters or polluting such as old classic cars) the the world wins.

Also with so many conventional fuel vehicles out there we are on a long road to electrification.

which is why I say that the government's 2035 target, although laudable, is unrealistic.

Consider these issues -

1. There are already at least 6 different plug types. These would have to be standardised, or some converters would need to be available. This has already been raised in the HoC, but I've not seen
any further statements on this.
2. Despite manufacturer's claims, ranges are still poor, especially when used in poor conditions such as night, cold and rain. Charging times are still un-realistic. Perhaps battery packs might address
this aspect. But see point 5.
3. Electric cars are currently expensive. I can't see there being a £1000 usable electric car being available for some time, when there are many such ICE cars.
4. HMG behaviour reveals the real issue - taxation. A Tesla car is still subject to a greater tax than many ICE cars. How would they replace the taxation derived from ICE vehicles? Road pricing is
clearly an unpopular idea. Then there would be the infrastructure to support road pricing. How much would that cost in green terms? See point 5.
5. The mains infrastructure isn't available. I saw one statement which said that if the target was to replace 20+ million ICE cars, then they should have been working on the infrastructure 15 years
ago. What about facilities for flats etc?
6. Maintenance of electric cars will need more careful attention as they are clearly potentially dangerous with 600 volt systems. Garages and mechanics et all would have to be educated. Again, there
don't seem to be any plans to address this issue.

So to summarise, although HMG's 2035 target is laudable, it's un-realistic, as the required infrastructure to support electric vehicles is unlikely to be available by that time.

[Hobosapien]

are a completely different animal as are their riders. For all of the 60+ years that I've ridden, most riders have wanted to make as much noise as possible with their bikes, which would be quite difficult with an electric bike. Yes, I know they are working on making electric cars noisier. We'll have the anti noise society complaining next.

There are also the performance statistics to consider. ...

Noisy bikes may be down to the mantra (rightly or wrongly) "loud pipes save lives". Currently it's one form of self-defence against careless drivers.

The issue of sound is a big one. Some want noisy leccy cars for pedestrian safety. F1 are going to struggle if they go near silent formula E as the noise is a big part of the appeal, now overtaking is given the side-eye whenever brought up.

I guess one solution will be 'ring tones' for leccy cars and bikes so you can have them sound whichever way you want. Someone will get rich with that idea.

What happened to Crazy Frog, he'll be back on leccy bikes one day.

No idea what this means .... care to elaborate?

Newbie alert!

NLUK will be along in a bit to show you how to use google to search CUK.

so, I misconstrued what you were saying. References that I've seen about battery packs relate to being able to quickly replace what is already in the car to reflect current re-fuelling times.

It's obvious they'll change the design so battery packs can easily slot out and in, maybe some sort of drop-floor design to keep the battery weight low for centre of gravity handling benefits. e.g. drive into a battery changing station, and a robotic arm comes out of the floor and pulls out the battery from below and replaces it with a fully charged one, then you pay for the difference in charge so don't need to wait until it's fully discharged. Simple ideas like that are inevitable.


At least it looks like they're addressing the bigger (vehicle) issues so it's not just car owners that are in the firing line:

Buses: Government unveils £50m plan to create first all-electric bus town

I presume London already has this sorted with 100% leccy buses.

What happened to that Tesla truck to get all those dirty diesel LGVs off the roads? Then there's the issue with vans, particularly delivery ones than need loads of range and last a full day. I expect some categories of vehicle will have exemption until the tech makes them feasible.

[WTFH]

I’ve been talking about multiple cars ever since the plural was brought up in this thread:

...keeping old cars was a "green" option ...

That would apply if it’s only one car, not a collection, and that old car is used as a regular means of transport, not just something brought out once a week/month year.
So, keeping old carS is not green. Next you’ll be wanting to bring back smog and lead poisoning because you can justify them as being better for you.

But you said (quoting me):

and no

I then responded to enquire:

If the argument is keeping multiple old cars and not using them much/at all, then what is the environmental benefit?

I followed up replying to you, again mentioning multiple cars

I agree with you. That’s why I didn’t say that people with multiple cars should scrap them.
The claim that it’s more environmentally friendly to own multiple cars, building bigger garages to store them in, buying lots of chemicals to keep all of them clean/tidy/running, compared with only owning one car - that is a stretch that I struggle to accept, and as yet I don’t think your responses have addressed it

To which you said:

wow what a tangent!

Not sure how you got to multiple cars,...

So, where did it become a tangent?

[vetran]

not really feasible at the moment due to the size of the battery packs. The program I saw on the Tesla showed it used 1000 AA size re-chargeable batteries. That size would have to reduce significantly to be able to be removed and replaced.

AIUI Tesla were actually thinking of recycling substandard car batteries into wall batteries. Combine that with their solar roof and off grid could be a reality for a fairly reasonable investment.

As they can be installed outside size is not really important.

I do rather expect to see a dual use battery design that fits a car or the wall.