New Electric Vehicle registrations in NI still pathetic

Broomy

RMS Regular
Messages
5,258
Location
Ards peninsula
Drives
Mk5 GTi
What happens when we’re all powered by electric in the event of mass traffic jams / adverse weather when there are roads full of cars with no energy left to move? Genuine question.
 

svensktoppen

RMS Regular
Messages
32,749
Drives
FK2 CTR
Same as what happens when people run out of fuel in massive traffic jams. No difference really. Get towed off the motorway and then you're on your own.

If you're low and cut it fine then you're low and cut it fine.
 

Mark Irwin

RMS Regular
Messages
454
Location
Dungannon
Drives
Various Golf
My Ampera is 8 years old now with absolutely no degradation in the batteries so gonna drive it on (currently do 18k per year); if it is worth peanuts when it finally becomes uneconomical to repair I will take the batteries out and use them for my home solar PV. Think it would be worth selling the rest of the car as parts as they are quite rare but until then will see how far it goes - one in USA with over 400K on it.
 

Dusty

RMS Regular
Messages
1,090
Location
Co Armagh
Drives
Honda CR-V
What happens when we’re all powered by electric in the event of mass traffic jams / adverse weather when there are roads full of cars with no energy left to move? Genuine question.

Why would there be any more traffic jams than there are now? I've only ever been in one where I'd say I was worried and that was in England on the way to an airport.

If anything, I'll be less worried because the facility to at least trickle charge at home is less stressful than realising at 9.30 pm you need fuel for the next morning and it's a pain in the arse going out to the station 5 miles away :joy:
 

Broomy

RMS Regular
Messages
5,258
Location
Ards peninsula
Drives
Mk5 GTi
Not saying there would be anymore jams, just wondering what would happen if large amounts of electric cars got held up long term & they all ran out of charge.
 

svensktoppen

RMS Regular
Messages
32,749
Drives
FK2 CTR
Same thing as if a load of petrol/diesel cars get held up and run out of fuel today. Happens all the time in England, people stranded after running out. Or more usually blocking a lane and making the jam even worse, lol.

They get towed off the motorway and left to sort themselves out.

Why would electric be any different?

Much less of a problem than the eejits who manage to run into the car in front when traffic is moving at walking pace, lol.
 

michelinman

RMS Regular
Messages
929
Location
Belfast(ish)
Drives
e46
Not saying there would be anymore jams, just wondering what would happen if large amounts of electric cars got held up long term & they all ran out of charge.

I owned and drove a Nissan Leaf for 3 years. When it was sitting stationery with the "ignition" on to allow the radio and/or heating to be on, it used no more than 2 miles of range (energy) in about 40 mins (that was also around my limit for waiting for the wife while she was shopping). So probably similar to what a small petrol engine would use just idling.
 

stevieturbo

RMS Regular
Messages
21,096
Location
Antrim
Drives
Old Ford
Obviously doing something about local transport isn't going to fix problems from central heating... Or anything else... Honestly, did you really expect it to?

Other initiatives deal with heating - moving people off oil and onto renewables, encouraging insulation, etc.

What's your point again?

Where are the massive anti-home heating campaigns ? Why is it always anti-car ? When in fact, starting at the homes is far easier and more realistic.
How often are emissions checked from home heating ? Are they treated to prevent so called harmful gases escaping ? Nope...Nope to both.

ICE by comparison are pretty damn clean, so should be further down the list of targets
Same thing as if a load of petrol/diesel cars get held up and run out of fuel today. Happens all the time in England, people stranded after running out. Or more usually blocking a lane and making the jam even worse, lol.

They get towed off the motorway and left to sort themselves out.

Why would electric be any different?

Much less of a problem than the eejits who manage to run into the car in front when traffic is moving at walking pace, lol.

Not even similar. Bring a gallon or two of fuel to the cars, refuel in 30 seconds and they can easily drive off any motorway. At present, such a scenario is impossible for any battery car.

The traffic scenario would be uncommon, but it is possible.
 

ahannigan

RMS Regular
Messages
608
Drives
Bullitt
1582277565430.png
 

stevieturbo

RMS Regular
Messages
21,096
Location
Antrim
Drives
Old Ford
FFS...seems it wants to pay to read it !

If I go through FB it's still viewable

Copy n Paste...

If you listen to the media, a green automotive future has arrived and a tsunami of electric cars is outselling petrol and diesel around the world, transforming the planet and solving climate change.
We need a reality check. Battery-powered electric vehicles are fairly popular in urban China and California, as well as a few countries that heavily subsidise their drivers. But globally, fewer than 0.3 per cent of all cars are pure electric, and across Europe, BMW says, customers don’t want them.

Unsurprisingly given the price tag, electric cars are often playthings for rich people. One US study shows the richest quarter of people receive almost all the public money spent on electric car subsidies. Moreover, electric cars in the US are driven fewer kilometres on average each year than conventional vehicles: 11,200km compared with 16,400km for petrol and diesel-powered vehicles.

Combine this with the fact 90 per cent of households that buy an electric car also have a conventional car that is driven farther, and a clear picture emerges: most electric vehicles are a second car used for shorter trips such as shopping and small errands — and for virtue signalling.

But aren’t electric cars better for the environment? Barely. While no CO2 emissions come directly from driving electric vehicles, they are powered by electricity produced largely from fossil fuels in many parts of the world. More energy is also used to manufacture electric vehicles — and, in particular, their batteries — and this energy is usually reliant on fossil fuel.

Indeed, a new study from the International Energy Agency shows that an electric car with a 400km range and charged with electricity produced at the global average will have to be driven 60,000km just to pay off its higher CO2 emissions in production. That means a new electric car driven the average 11,200km each year will have paid off its carbon debt only after five years. The IEA hopes the world can reach 130 million electric cars in 10 years — a breathtaking ask given we have spent decades reaching just over five million. Even if we could do that, emissions would be reduced by only 0.4 per cent of global emissions. In the words of IEA director Fatih Birol, “If you think you can save the climate with electric cars, you’re completely wrong.”

The IEA finds a hybrid such as the Toyota Prius is as good for the climate as an electric car when measured on lifetime greenhouse gas emissions. A petrol-powered vehicle emits only nine tonnes more across its lifetime. We could have reduced a similar amount through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade system in the northeast US, for only $US51 ($77.60).

Yet governments dole out lavish support for electric cars. The IEA estimates that each electric car on the road has cost $US24,000 in subsidies, R&D and extra infrastructure investment. We could have cut almost 500 times the CO2 if we’d spent the money cutting carbon through the RGGI cap-and-trade. Little wonder the Dutch Court of Auditors recently ruled The Netherlands was wasting taxpayer money on subsidies, calling them “an expensive joke”.

And surprisingly, more electric cars often mean more air pollution. In China, which is the world’s leading electric car market, a study reveals that because China’s coal power plants are so dirty, electric cars worsen local air: in Shanghai, pollution from an additional million electric-powered vehicles would kill nearly three times as many people annually as an additional million petrol-powered cars.

Nonetheless, governments increasingly are setting deadlines for when electric cars will take over the world. Norway ambitiously plans to prohibit petrol and diesel cars in 2025.

The Scandinavian nation has the world’s largest electric car market share, but this is propped up with enormous government support. Rules eliminating the costs of registration and sales tax can be worth up to $US70,000 for a single electric car.

Moreover, electric car owners save half, or about $US1000 a year, on congestion charges in Oslo. They also get to drive in bus lanes, which is great for them but leads to increased travel times for public transport users.

Additionally, the Norwegian state is investing heavily in charging infrastructure and grid upscaling, something Goldman Sachs puts at $US6 trillion for the world during the coming decades.

That is why in Norway a staggering 42 per cent of all cars sold last year were pure electric. But a new study for Norway shows how hard ending petrol cars will be and gives the lie to those who seek to transform the vehicle market. It finds that without Norway’s overgenerous subsidies, by 2030, only 9 per cent of all car sales will be purely electric. Even maintaining all the subsidies and dramatically increasing taxes on petrol cars while setting strict emission targets would be unlikely to allow Norway to reach its goals anytime before 2050.

The misconception that electric cars are close to taking over and will solve climate change is dangerous because it directs our attention away from the technological breakthroughs in green energy generation needed to reduce rising temperatures — and away from innovations needed to cut air pollution.

Electric cars are fun to drive and will likely be part of our future transportation solutions. But they will not be a major part of the solution to climate change or air pollution. Today, electric cars are simply expensive gadgets heavily subsidised for the wealthy to feel good while doing very little for the planet.

Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School.

BJORN LOMBORG
COLUMNIST
Dr. Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School. He has been named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. His num... Read more
 

colin84

RMS Regular
Messages
3,899
I see the BBC have done a documentary about the emissions from internet usage, claiming that watching a video online for 30 mins is the equivalent to driving for 4 hours, due to the energy used. I wonder what the real emissions would be from charging millions of electric cars? Is this going to be another petrol to diesel farce, were in 10 to 15 years the government will say that electric cars are damaging to the environment, and it's time again to change to something else.
 

svensktoppen

RMS Regular
Messages
32,749
Drives
FK2 CTR
I see the BBC have done a documentary about the emissions from internet usage, claiming that watching a video online for 30 mins is the equivalent to driving for 4 hours, due to the energy used. I wonder what the real emissions would be from charging millions of electric cars? Is this going to be another petrol to diesel farce, were in 10 to 15 years the government will say that electric cars are damaging to the environment, and it's time again to change to something else.

The energy use of the large data centres is going to be a huge problem, it's off the scales. It's a massive elephant in the room at the moment.

It's really comparing apples and oranges though. And the same is true for tons of other things - from parcel delivery to hospital waste.

All of which in the end will mean we will have to change the way we go about our lives.

Electric cars is just one of those things. I don't think anyone is seriously saying that electric cars are the salvation of the human race and the solution to all that is bad in this world.

But they will make a huge difference in urban areas, and for general commuting and bumbling around for the vast majority of people.

Central energy generation however it is done is always going to be more efficient than running a petrol or diesel engine in every single car. That's just basic physics.

Yes, other things we do use energy and pollute.

But this whole "oh look that thing over there is also bad so why do I need to change what I do" argument really is nonsensical.

Everything will have to change, but change takes time and it will never be everything at once. One step at a time.

And electric cars are one of those many steps.
 
Last edited:

stevieturbo

RMS Regular
Messages
21,096
Location
Antrim
Drives
Old Ford
I don't think anyone is seriously saying that electric cars are the salvation of the human race and the solution to all that is bad in this world.

But they will make a huge difference in urban areas, and for general commuting and bumbling around for the vast majority of people.

Central energy generation however it is done is always going to be more efficient than running a petrol or diesel engine in every single car. That's just basic physics.

I do think they're saying and actually believing just that...despite how stupid it is.

They may make a difference to pollution levels in cities etc....however, it does still just push any pollution issues elsewhere, to someone elses doorstep. Which isnt really a solution at all.
But when central generation IS more efficient...which there's no doubt it is. Why dont we all have centrally generated heating ? Why are we reliant on oil, or gas for such things, when surely electric make more sense ? And is already easily available.

But that's very different to a car. The very reason as well explained before as to why petrol, diesel...or more importantly the ICE IS efficient...is simply because it works, and works damn well to move goods or people anywhere, any time.
Batteries simply do not do that, they are just too inefficient and impractical other than for very small numbers of people.

Idiots and governments need to stop trying to force them onto the masses, before getting their own houses in order with public transport and the like all running off batteries or whatever they pretend is best first.
Vehicles that do not do huge miles, that are totally predictable in their use so ideal for such projects. And they are easily charged.

Why are they all failing to do this is a better question ?
 
Top