Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 2

[Mr GrimNasty]

TransverseTight said:

No but rather than posting about some future nearly here technology I prefer to stick using examples based on what you can go out and buy now.

As far as I am aware Tesla are the only company that make a pure BEV that could be considered as an only car. Not for 100% of people, and becuase of the cost, less than 10%. But over time that figure improves. For a daily driver it works.

The Tesla is NOT an environmentally friendly car - I won't insult you by explaining why.

It is not practical for the vast majority of people, you could regard it as a fun executive toy.

It is prohibitively expensive, and the price will not come down for a multitude of reasons - it is NOT like PCs or TVs!

You really are living in a world of your own.

[Mr GrimNasty]

Anyway, not sure if this is a repost, but Transverse is turning this thread into a quagmire I can't be bothered wading through.

It's not the end of snow, the BBC's latest:- It's the end of Autumn as we know it!

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140929-why-is-aut...

[Jacobyte]

turbobloke said:

Agreed, towns and cities are indeed polluted, by diesel buses. The focus on cars as polluters is misplaced, emissions are almost all water and carbon dioxide, both harmless naturally occurring compounds. We now have Porsche and Saab cars emitting cleaner air than they take in during city driving. Electric buses anyone?

Let's be fair - diesel cars are foul too. And noisy!

[TransverseTight]

s2art said:

OK, but you made some optimistic assumptions there. Mainly that everyone drives a small (fairly light) EV. Most people need something a bit bigger, or would need multiple vehicles which is expensive and awkward to juggle when you need which one. Also your assumption of .25KWh per mile is very low, an i3 might manage it if driven like aunt Mabel, and during the summer in the light. In winter, in the dark you would be lucky to get .4 KWh per mile (even driving like aunt Mabel).
I wouldnt assume anything less than .5 for most people in the real world, with many/most having vehicles at least one size up from an i3. And it could work out more than that, as most people will not drive like aunt Mabel.

Sorry but you came just assume numbers ibto existence. Even the weighty Tesla is getting .30 to .35 kWh/mile. Ancillaries total is nothing much compared to the motor use. Maybe 1kw if you turn the steroe up while the heater is on at night. compared to 20kW upto 500kw on the motor.

[s2art]

TransverseTight said:

s2art said:

OK, but you made some optimistic assumptions there. Mainly that everyone drives a small (fairly light) EV. Most people need something a bit bigger, or would need multiple vehicles which is expensive and awkward to juggle when you need which one. Also your assumption of .25KWh per mile is very low, an i3 might manage it if driven like aunt Mabel, and during the summer in the light. In winter, in the dark you would be lucky to get .4 KWh per mile (even driving like aunt Mabel).
I wouldnt assume anything less than .5 for most people in the real world, with many/most having vehicles at least one size up from an i3. And it could work out more than that, as most people will not drive like aunt Mabel.

Sorry but you came just assume numbers ibto existence. Even the weighty Tesla is getting .30 to .35 kWh/mile. Ancillaries total is nothing much compared to the motor use. Maybe 1kw if you turn the steroe up while the heater is on at night. compared to 20kW upto 500kw on the motor.

Nope. Look at the difference in range for something like the Nissan Leaf. In ideal conditions you can get maybe 100 miles, in sub-optimal (heaters required, lights on) its more like 60 miles. And I stress, these are small, relatively light cars. Not just that, but the reported range varies hugely between drivers, the best hypermilers seem to be able to squeeze much more range out of these things than is typical, hence my comment regarding aunt Mabel. Something like a Tesla is going to be less sensitive, in the same way that turning on the air con in a Yank V8 doesnt seem to make a big difference to its fuel consumption.

[Blue Oval84]

richie99 said:

The roll out of smart meters would help the thieving so and sos to charge a different tax rate according to what you were using the power for. Charging your evil personal transport - pay extra to replace the lost fuel duty.

No, it won't. Smart Meters are simply meters which can read your total usage up to every 30 minutes (and even then only if you give express permission), they can't tell what appliances are using what. They are also optional, no one is being forced to have them.

Some companies are working on tech that can guess at what the individual appliances are in a bid to be able to "itemise" the bill, but they aren't accurate enough to be used for taxation purposes by a long chalk.

[LongQ]

Blue Oval84 said:

richie99 said:

The roll out of smart meters would help the thieving so and sos to charge a different tax rate according to what you were using the power for. Charging your evil personal transport - pay extra to replace the lost fuel duty.

No, it won't. Smart Meters are simply meters which can read your total usage up to every 30 minutes (and even then only if you give express permission), they can't tell what appliances are using what. They are also optional, no one is being forced to have them.

Some companies are working on tech that can guess at what the individual appliances are in a bid to be able to "itemise" the bill, but they aren't accurate enough to be used for taxation purposes by a long chalk.

It all depends on how accurate you, as a "lawmaker", decide you want your metering to be. Or, to put it another way, what you are prepared to foist on people in order to fill the country's cash troughs.

Meanwhile as the concept of economic control of your house energy consumption via your portable communication device is continuously touted for economic and perhaps "security" reasons you will slowly be subsumed into the idea that controlling all your devices via the "internet of things" is a positive rather than negative for you lifestyle. Thus more and more of your life creates data that can be used to monitor and control by you, perhaps, and anyone else who is deemed fit to make use of the information. For any government that needs funds (i.e. pretty much all of them) social conditioning will be a key strategy to make that acceptable.

It can be interesting to wonder which mass technology of that sort will be the first to break through the defensive dykes. My guess is that road use charging will be up front somewhere as soon as the Euro GPS project is sufficiently deployed. There is, potentially, big money in that especially in a Europe wide context. If it happens to gel with some sort of push to get more and more people to adopt the use of electric milk floats for their travel needs they could market low cost 'fuel' (via subsidies) as a sop to justify road pricing. Once well established the rules will change but the controls and the acceptance of them will be accepted without serious question as "part of life".

All of that assumes that there will be no major social upheaval that would fundamentally change the rules for everything. There might be but such a guess would hardly be usable as a basis of guessing what a future based on managed developments from the current social model might take us those of you who will live long enough to experience the changes and yet still be young enough to care.

[rovermorris999]

Mr GrimNasty said:

Anyway, not sure if this is a repost, but Transverse is turning this thread into a quagmire I can't be bothered wading through.

It's not the end of snow, the BBC's latest:- It's the end of Autumn as we know it!

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140929-why-is-aut...

Lots of ifs and maybes in there as usual and again the whole 'story' is based on the wonderfully accurate outputs of climate models. The usual guff.

[powerstroke]

chris watton said:

TransverseTight said:

chris watton said:

Another thing - imagine if we were now living in this EV car utopia TT waxes lyrical about - If we're that close to an energy deficit now, surely if over 60 million EV's were to be plugged into the grid overnight, there would cause problems, wouldn't it? Imagine all of those diesel generator working overtime, to replenish the charge in the batteries!

Idiocracy personified.

You speak out of your ass much? ..And another load of waffle....

I think, judging by the length of your posts, you are more than a little obsessed with EV's and your obvious love for them is clouding your judgement. You love them, and that is lovely for you, I am sure. You have to face the facts that many don't, and many can see the flaws - not least what would happen, tax-wise (as with diesel) if they ever became popular. The fact that many company's need state investment (tax payer's money) to make them work speaks volumes - and as TB has mentioned, how many company's have already received millions of $/£, only to go under soon afterwards?

I think the best thing you can do is to drive your EV's, I am guessing with a pretend sense of higher morality than those of us who have no real desire to own one, and face the fact that not all of us share your enthusiasm for such machines.

I'm not complaining !! This was a slow thread getting a bit stayed , the usual suspects had done there bit for the pro windmill we must save the planet from the evil plant food gas and making Mr and Mrs Joe average feel guilty, so now we have
TT grabbing the batten and telling us you can make a really simple non problem go away and keep a load of semi educated morons in well payed jobs by finding and building bullst technology its a win win for the village idiot and something for practical free thinkers to dissmiss

[chris watton]

s2art said:

Nope. Look at the difference in range for something like the Nissan Leaf. In ideal conditions you can get maybe 100 miles, in sub-optimal (heaters required, lights on) its more like 60 miles. And I stress, these are small, relatively light cars. Not just that, but the reported range varies hugely between drivers, the best hypermilers seem to be able to squeeze much more range out of these things than is typical, hence my comment regarding aunt Mabel. Something like a Tesla is going to be less sensitive, in the same way that turning on the air con in a Yank V8 doesnt seem to make a big difference to its fuel consumption.

My wife works for a car hire company, and they had a couple Nissan Leafs. She told me that they no longer have them due to the poor range. One left the manager stranded on the M5 (he used it to try it out before releasing for rental purposes) not once, but twice, for his 60 mile commute from Gloucester to Birmingham. The range indicator lies, apparently - it states you have 90 miles worth of power, only to die on you within 30 miles.

It seems that once there's no juice left, and the electronic handbrake is on, you cannot move the car, as there's no mechanical back up to release the handbrake - no way to move/push the car!

She did bring one home once, and it did look fantastic inside, but they still seem to be very flawed, especially for those of us who live out in the sticks.

[TransverseTight]

wc98 said:

ok,now that is cleared up,why the insistence on ev ? modern hybrid technology appears to be coming on leaps and bounds ,why involve charging from the grid at all ?

Er, I’ve said I’m getting an i3 REX myself – which is a hybrid. The reason to charge from the grid is because if you removed all fuel taxes (5% on electric and 500% on liquids) it would still be cheaper to power the EV from the plug. At the moment it would be 1/10 the price, IF the removed fuel duty it would be half.

Jacobyte said:

massive subsidies and tax breaks are required.

Yep about £20-30 million to date. (£5,000x20,000 + some other bits) Lets round it up to £100 million.
Compared to what the NHS spend on people who can’t stop shoving crisps and chocolate in their face and what the DSS spend on training courses for people who snuck into the country illegally that’s an outrage.

Jacobyte said:

Can I spec a BMW 3 series with an Electric motor? No.

Not yet. Give them chance. There’s a lot of numbers missing in the ‘i’ range. They only just got round to releasing 2 and 4 in their ICE range.

Jacobyte said:

Can I spec a BMW i8 with a 3.0 diesel or 4.0 petrol? No

M6? Has a bigger boot too. Or get an R8.

Jacobyte said:

If EVs were a viable solution that had to stand on their own two feet commercially, then the answers to these questions would be "Yes". How long will it be before the global manufacturers with hundreds of millions of R&D budget can make the numbers work in the commercial world?

5 years. Maybe sooner. I’d still buy the i3 if there was no £5,000 grant and I had to pay the £800 for the EVSE wall point. It would cost £38,500 instead of £33,500 then. I’m pretty sure most Telsa buyers wouldn’t notice the £5,000 – when most spec up to over £60k with options. However it's the lower end of the market where it makes the biggest difference. Renault Zoe Leaf iMev etc. Honestly- I don't think that was the place to introduce EVs. Tesla did it the right way. Build compelling electric vehicles that are useable daily drivers. Start at the top end of the market, get the costs down and then hit the next segment.

Mr GrimNasty said:

The Tesla is NOT an environmentally friendly car - I won't insult you by explaining why.
It is not practical for the vast majority of people, you could regard it as a fun executive toy.
It is prohibitively expensive, and the price will not come down for a multitude of reasons - it is NOT like PCs or TVs!
Anyway, not sure if this is a repost, but Transverse is turning this thread into a quagmire I can't be bothered wading through.

Please do explain. I am genuinely interested. You can’t tell me that and then not tell me why.
That’s like saying I Think a 458 is better than a DBS but I’m not telling you why.
I disagree about practicality, but agree about the cost. If it cost the same as Ford Mondeo despite the range being only 250 miles I think it would outsell the Mondeo. Most people don’t drive more than 250 miles a day, or even in one go. By middle of next year the SC network will cover most of Europe.
Forgive me for waffling a bit, but PH is a site about cars, and this thread is about climate change, which basically boils down to an argument on how we generate and use energy. I’m going on about EVs as they seem relevant to the topic and there seems to be a misunderstanding of their cost, capability and how close we are to getting a cost competitive EV. Judging by the number of people on here who drive £50,000+ cars, the price debate while relevant is not a reason to ignore them or discount them.

s2art said:

Nope. Look at the difference in range for something like the Nissan Leaf. In ideal conditions you can get maybe 100 miles, in sub-optimal (heaters required, lights on) its more like 60 miles. And I stress, these are small, relatively light cars. Not just that, but the reported range varies hugely between drivers, the best hypermilers seem to be able to squeeze much more range out of these things than is typical, hence my comment regarding aunt Mabel. Something like a Tesla is going to be less sensitive, in the same way that turning on the air con in a Yank V8 doesn't seem to make a big difference to its fuel consumption.

The battery in a Leaf/i3/Zoe has a usable capacity of 18kWh. At 100 mile range (best case) that’s 0.25Wh / mile worst case 60 mile range, 0.3kWh/mile. That’s why as soon as you said anything above 0.4… you can’t just make the numbers up. The Telsa is higher energy use is between 0.3-0.35. I’ve seen a Thread on Telsas where they tried as hard as they could to push it.. and actually got it over 0.4. Anyway – all of this is irrelevant as we were discussing whether there was enough overnight grid capacity. Even if it was 0.5, you could do millions of cars.

chris watton said:

they still seem to be very flawed, especially for those of us who live out in the sticks.

Exactly. I don’t advocate everyone goes and buys an EV now. I’m trying to add to the debate by saying, despite their current problems…
Lack of range/High purchase cost/Extra weight/Over heating in track conditions.
There are also benefits.
Lower energy use & running costs, ability to avoid petrol stations, lower maintenance, Lower cost for high power applications. (P85D). Ability to fuel from multiple sources... coal/gas/nukes/wind/unleaded/diesel.

Some of the above drawback have been sorted – the i3 using carbon as an example, and the costs are driving down rapidly. To be honest who ever decide to use them in a hire company is mad. Just not the right type of car for someone to hop into and drive somewhere.
The ideal owner for a small capacity BEV has a less than 50 mile commute, lives in a town and has off street parking, 100 miles if they can get an EVSE at work.
For a REX it’s someone with less than 150 mile commute, and has off street parking. More if they don’t mind stopping for petrol every 50-70 miles. OR fast DC charger for 20 minutes.
For a Telsa its has £70k in savings and has off street parking. And doesn’t need to do 250 mile stints regularly.
A constraint doesn’t mean its not good as a car. They are niche for now. Just as are Ferraris, Caterhams, Defeneders and VW T5s for domestic use.

chris watton said:

I think, judging by the length of your posts, you are more than a little obsessed with EV's and your obvious love for them is clouding your judgement. You love them, and that is lovely for you, I am sure….
… I think the best thing you can do is to drive your EV's, I am guessing with a pretend sense of higher morality than those of us who have no real desire to own one, and face the fact that not all of us share your enthusiasm for such machines.

No need to get personal. I simply believe the electric motor as a method of propulsion is vastly superior to an ICE connected through a variable geared transmission. The problem has been for many years is there was no way of getting electricity to the electric motor. We are finally at the point where costs / weights etc are making it possible to build them. It won’t happen over night, but bit by bit, the market will shift as the economics stack up.
Something is going on… 25% of all the EVs sold in the UK were sold in the last 3 months…
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/electric-surge-...

Edited by TransverseTight on Friday 31st October 10:03

[richie99]

Blue Oval84 said:

No, it won't. Smart Meters are simply meters which can read your total usage up to every 30 minutes (and even then only if you give express permission), they can't tell what appliances are using what. They are also optional, no one is being forced to have them.

Some companies are working on tech that can guess at what the individual appliances are in a bid to be able to "itemise" the bill, but they aren't accurate enough to be used for taxation purposes by a long chalk.

It won't remain this way. Optional will become encouraged which will become compulsory. Perhaps when you want a high output charging point for your vehicle because you can't wait for the time it takes to charge from a 13A socket, and the meter will certainly be adapted to meter that separately.

How will the much acclaimed ability for the grid to use your vehicle battery for its own storage purposes work otherwise.

[Jacobyte]

TransverseTight said:

Jacobyte said:

massive subsidies and tax breaks are required.

Yep about £20-30 million to date. (£5,000x20,000 + some other bits) Lets round it up to £100 million.

Let's not forget the many other subsidies, such as (and not limited to) VED and massive company car incentives (let's conservatively estimate £50m for those two). With those taxes typically being based on engine size and CO2 emissions, those breaks are disingenuous, as those emissions are still being put out by the power stations (plus those tax sources will be re-deployed to something akin to road funding at some point in the future). Then you get to grants, etc, here's an example after a quick Google: a snapshot of EU research funding: €1.2Bn (65% of €1.9Bn, source: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/jrc//downloads/jrc_2013071... ). The numbers keep climbing and we're paying for it. It's simply not right, but I do acknowledge it's not reversible so I accept it with a "harrumph".

TransverseTight said:

Compared to what the NHS spend on people who can’t stop shoving crisps and chocolate in their face and what the DSS spend on training courses for people who snuck into the country illegally that’s an outrage.

Yup, get rid of those too. I would feel equally ashamed to lean on taxpayers resources through my own greed and laziness. If I want to be greedy or lazy (which people are welcome to be if they want to) then I (and they) should be expected to pay my (and their) own way for it. I'm proud to have a safety net of the NHS and welfare state for when things genuinely go wrong.

TransverseTight said:

Jacobyte said:

Can I spec a BMW 3 series with an Electric motor? No.

Not yet. Give them chance. There’s a lot of numbers missing in the ‘i’ range. They only just got round to releasing 2 and 4 in their ICE range.

That was hard... rebadge the 2-door and 4-door versions and "hey presto!" two new models.

TransverseTight said:

Jacobyte said:

Can I spec a BMW i8 with a 3.0 diesel or 4.0 petrol? No

M6? Has a bigger boot too. Or get an R8.

I already have a car with a big boot, plus I'd really like an "M"8. Of course I'm being slightly facetious but there's a truth in there about the EV priorities for the car manufacturers - they want the politically commercial spotlight rather than the consumer one, as the consumer one isn't viable until the result of the political money makes it worthwhile.

TransverseTight said:

Jacobyte said:

If EVs were a viable solution that had to stand on their own two feet commercially, then the answers to these questions would be "Yes". How long will it be before the global manufacturers with hundreds of millions of R&D budget can make the numbers work in the commercial world?

5 years. Maybe sooner. I’d still buy the i3 if there was no £5,000 grant and I had to pay the £800 for the EVSE wall point. It would cost £38,500 instead of £33,500 then. I’m pretty sure most Telsa buyers wouldn’t notice the £5,000 – when most spec up to over £60k with options. However it's the lower end of the market where it makes teh biggest difference. Renault Zoe Leaf iMev etc. Honestly- I don't think that was the place to introduce EVs. Tesla did it the right way. Build compelling electric vehicles that are useabl daily drivers. Start at the top end of the market, get the costs down and then hit the next segment.

See my point about VED and company car tax. For a Tesla you'd be paying through the nose (well over £500 per month tax on a like-for-like car), so only the very high earners would want to buy one in that context. Instead, it's mostly being bought as it works out cheaper from the tax breaks, otherwise as a "look how green I am" trinket by media wes. I'd take a Tesla Model S with a smooth V12 petrol engine any day, it's a great looking car with interesting technology (irrespective of its electric engine).

[Bacardi]

As there is no evidence that cars, petrol or diesel causes climate change, or electric cars will stop it from changing, why has this thread turned into an electric car wkathon? Most PHers are passionate about cars because of the mechanical engineering, speed, noise the smell of oil etc, rather than silent, soulless electric cars.

For 'our friends electric', this is would seem the place for you: http://www.milkfloats.org.uk

[don4l]

s2art said:

don4l said:

s2art said:

TT you claim that the 20GW 'reserve' overnight could charge a national fleet, if they were EVs. 20GW seems very low to me. Can you put some numbers to it?

I've just done some very rough figures based on a RAV4 EV.

Assuming an annual distance of 12,000 miles and 1m vehicles, I estimate 125Gw.

If I am anywhere close to beingg correct, then someone hasn't thought this out properly.

That seems bit high for 1 million vehicles. I guess we are talking about closer to 10 million vehicles though.

What figure did you use for KWh per mile?

God knows how I came up with that figure.



I've re-calculated, and I think that the answer is 2.9Gw for 1m electric vehicles.


The car can be charged in 5 hours with a 40Amp 220V system ( http://toyota.leviton.com/solutions/prius-plugin (half way down the page).


It has a range of 100 miles https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rav4+ev+range

Assuming 12,000 miles p/a, gives us 230 miles per week. So each car will be charged roughly every 3 days.

The charger draws 40 amps, which equals 8.8Kw.

So, on average, 333,000 cars will be charged every night.

333,000 x 8800 =2.9Gw.


At the moment we are importing 8.2% (3Gw) of our electricity from France and Holland, although we do have more domestic capacity.

[s2art]

TransverseTight said:

The battery in a Leaf/i3/Zoe has a usable capacity of 18kWh. At 100 mile range (best case) that’s 0.25Wh / mile worst case 60 mile range, 0.3kWh/mile. That’s why as soon as you said anything above 0.4… you can’t just make the numbers up. The Telsa is higher energy use is between 0.3-0.35. I’ve seen a Thread on Telsas where they tried as hard as they could to push it.. and actually got it over 0.4. Anyway – all of this is irrelevant as we were discussing whether there was enough overnight grid capacity. Even if it was 0.5, you could do millions of cars.
[

You cant have it both ways. If 100 miles equals 0.25 KWh, then 60 miles on the same charge equals approx 0.4 KWh. Thats simple arithmetic, not making things up. See previous posts on real world experience on the Nissan Leaf, those ranges achieved by real people in the real world suggest 0.5 KWh is optimistic.

[Silver Smudger]

TransverseTight said:

Battery costs I dealt with a few pages back. They are coming down 7% per year. Which put another way means they halve every 10 years. Energy density which affects the weight is increseing 8% a year. Or doubles every 8 years.....

TransverseTight said:

.....I've just dug up an XLS off my dropbox that shows if a theoretical battery costs £10,000 now, in 2020 its £6,470, 2030 £3,131 and 2040 £1,516. I think the i3 battery costs about £12k. So you can see how over time the market will shift.

Anything in your xls to demonstrate how battery tech development has been, is now, and always will be, linear?

[HarryW]

I think you also need to factor in that charging is not a direct transfer of energy, it's somewhere between 75-85% efficient. Discharging of battery has an efficiency too. Have a look at table 3 in the link to see the overall efficiency of batteries in the transfer of energy from charging to work done.

http://evbatterymonitoring.com/WebHelp/Section_3.h...

Edited by HarryW on Friday 31st October 15:24

[Mr GrimNasty]

Silver Smudger said:

TransverseTight said:

Battery costs I dealt with a few pages back. They are coming down 7% per year. Which put another way means they halve every 10 years. Energy density which affects the weight is increseing 8% a year. Or doubles every 8 years.....

TransverseTight said:

.....I've just dug up an XLS off my dropbox that shows if a theoretical battery costs £10,000 now, in 2020 its £6,470, 2030 £3,131 and 2040 £1,516. I think the i3 battery costs about £12k. So you can see how over time the market will shift.

Anything in your xls to demonstrate how battery tech development has been, is now, and always will be, linear?

The guy is in fantasy land, just ignore him, he's ruining the thread with utter garbage which has nothing to do with politics.

[TransverseTight]

s2art said:

You cant have it both ways. If 100 miles equals 0.25 KWh, then 60 miles on the same charge equals approx 0.4 KWh. Thats simple arithmetic, not making things up. See previous posts on real world experience on the Nissan Leaf, those ranges achieved by real people in the real world suggest 0.5 KWh is optimistic.

I think this is going nowhere and getting into Is and Ts but...

18/100=0.18
18/60=0.3

No one get 100 miles out of a leaf, That's down hill with a tail wind, which is why I start with 0.25.

You could argue with me they get less range later on, but then that's because the battery capacity has dropped, so they don't store 18kWh any more.

Can you point me to where the stuff is on 0;5Kwh/mile? I'm geniunely interested but google is giving lots of hits on 0.50 with even if it was as bad as..

stuff like like http://www.leaftalk.co.uk/showthread.php/11743-wha...

Again usually 0.2x with the one bloke saying 0.3 with a lead foot.


The EV w**kathin is based on the fact in all of the thread on PH Where would you discuss the possibilty of using EVs as a means of changing our energy use so the CO2 issue goes away? What if, we didn't use stuff that emitted CO2. And it didn't need taxes, subsisdies.

At least from a motoring point of view. What I'm finding interesting is that people are telling me, no fk off, the only way I can see me ever getting from A>B is if you give me several litres of liquid to burn in a reciprocating engine.

I find that hard to believe.

Personally I love fast cars, and the freedom they bring. Public transport sucks, apart from on long journeys where you can sleep if some idiot hasn't got those white apple ear buds.

I don't want the government doubling the cost of my journey with taxes. IF we can get carbon free motoring they'll have to find something else to tax, or stop paying for liposuction.

I'm not tied to oil. If we can already get 600HP+ 250 mile range EVs after 10 years of Telsa being in existence, then things are looking promising.

I'm not saying oil causes climate change, I can't as I'm not a climate scientist. I'm saying, if we can use say, for example nukes to power plug in EVs and they are faster, cheaper to own and run, don't break down as often and the driving characteristics are better, don't they make sense.

I know not all EVs fit those parameters yet. But it's being worked on. The i3 is light. The Telsa is fast and has useable range.

What we need now is a 3 series sized car, made from carbon, with less batteries than a Tesla and an ICE to keep it going on longer journey.

1500kg. 300hp RWD. 30kWh / 100+ mile battery. 20 litre tank with a 850CC REX. £40k + options.

I think those numbers are achievable now. Package it in something that looks more coupe than city box.

Name the manufacturer who you think will have that on the market first?

Edited by TransverseTight on Friday 31st October 17:19