Electric cars, does everyone really think they are amazing.
Discussion
Gary C said:
I will miss the sound.
As will many. But will your Grandchildren? We are in a transition period, of course there will be those who miss the old as the new is adopted. Eventually, the sound of a V8 will be confined to Collectors cars and Museums to view and listen to with curiosity by a generation who are quite happy with EV and the sounds thereof. Coolbanana said:
Gary C said:
I will miss the sound.
As will many. But will your Grandchildren? We are in a transition period, of course there will be those who miss the old as the new is adopted. Eventually, the sound of a V8 will be confined to Collectors cars and Museums to view and listen to with curiosity by a generation who are quite happy with EV and the sounds thereof. Just personal thing based on the what's not to like
One thing, a claim of a 500 mile charge in one minute.
That would need a 200kwh battery I would expect (can't be far off) so would need a 12mw supply to charge it in 1 minute ?
The 400kv grid might be able to shrug that off (though we often get operational tripping armed due to to much generation on parts of the grid, is its near its load limit and our generator is selected to an automatic, grid sourced trip if anything reduces the grid capacity further) but the local 415 will not.
Charing stations will probably have to start springing up near 400kv subs if that sort of charging becomes a reality.
Given our habits, I imagine the variable load will be smoothed somewhat by the numbers of people.
Still think people have underestimated the amount of investment in supplies needed for fast charging
That would need a 200kwh battery I would expect (can't be far off) so would need a 12mw supply to charge it in 1 minute ?
The 400kv grid might be able to shrug that off (though we often get operational tripping armed due to to much generation on parts of the grid, is its near its load limit and our generator is selected to an automatic, grid sourced trip if anything reduces the grid capacity further) but the local 415 will not.
Charing stations will probably have to start springing up near 400kv subs if that sort of charging becomes a reality.
Given our habits, I imagine the variable load will be smoothed somewhat by the numbers of people.
Still think people have underestimated the amount of investment in supplies needed for fast charging
Edited by Gary C on Sunday 26th November 14:34
Gary C said:
Coolbanana said:
Gary C said:
I will miss the sound.
As will many. But will your Grandchildren? We are in a transition period, of course there will be those who miss the old as the new is adopted. Eventually, the sound of a V8 will be confined to Collectors cars and Museums to view and listen to with curiosity by a generation who are quite happy with EV and the sounds thereof. Just personal thing based on the what's not to like
Lorne said:
Gary C said:
Coolbanana said:
Gary C said:
I will miss the sound.
As will many. But will your Grandchildren? We are in a transition period, of course there will be those who miss the old as the new is adopted. Eventually, the sound of a V8 will be confined to Collectors cars and Museums to view and listen to with curiosity by a generation who are quite happy with EV and the sounds thereof. Just personal thing based on the what's not to like
Gary C said:
Your right of course. Ev generation will probably dislike the smelly, noisy vibrating thing I'm still driving about in. It's 29 years old already, just home they don't ban it totally or my retirement will just be a lot of polishing and loading onto trailers.
They won't ban it as it will become a historic vehicle. Much like you can drive a classic car that pollutes to god knows what levels but they're so few and far between it doesn't matter.jamoor said:
Gary C said:
Your right of course. Ev generation will probably dislike the smelly, noisy vibrating thing I'm still driving about in. It's 29 years old already, just home they don't ban it totally or my retirement will just be a lot of polishing and loading onto trailers.
They won't ban it as it will become a historic vehicle. Much like you can drive a classic car that pollutes to god knows what levels but they're so few and far between it doesn't matter.Gary C said:
jamoor said:
Gary C said:
Your right of course. Ev generation will probably dislike the smelly, noisy vibrating thing I'm still driving about in. It's 29 years old already, just home they don't ban it totally or my retirement will just be a lot of polishing and loading onto trailers.
They won't ban it as it will become a historic vehicle. Much like you can drive a classic car that pollutes to god knows what levels but they're so few and far between it doesn't matter.Lorne said:
Just like the pilots of Mustangs and Spitfires missed sound, vibrations and smells of a Rolls Royce Merlin when they transitioned to jets.
Some wouldn't switch to an EV from an ice because they like the sound of the ice etc. Not me, I want a car to be quiet and I dare say most people want a car to be quiet. The thing about both Merlin engines and jet engines is that they both run directly on fossil fuel, fossil fuel which is an extremely dense source of energy that can provide an aircraft or a car with a long range while using a high level of power. If/when you get to know jet engines or even Merlin engines could be replaced in aircraft with electric motors and batteries and the aircraft still have the same range and same performance, do report back on this thread because at that point EVs should be much more viable... but maybe only if they have also got around the long charge/refuel time situation that would otherwise still be a negative for EVs. Considering an airliner can be refuelled with thousands of gallons of fuel in such a short time, an input rate of energy which in EV terms would mean such as vast charge rate of electricity, electric powered airlines wouldn't seem to be on the agenda even if batteries were smaller, lighter, yet could hold many times as much charge. The aircraft analogy hardly does much for the pro EV argument...
lost in espace said:
No brand new 30kwh Leafs at dealers, they are now awaiting 2.0 Leaf in Jan. Demand up, second hand prices rising. RIP cheap PCP deals because they can't give them away.
I think the new Leaf might become a bit of a status symbol for people wanting to look green. It looks good, it goes 160miles, has nissans 'autopilot', it's pretty quick and it's cheaper than the Tesla.The new Prius pretty much.
So yeah, forget £199 PCP deals for now! The first ones are more like £299!
SimonYorkshire said:
Lorne said:
Just like the pilots of Mustangs and Spitfires missed sound, vibrations and smells of a Rolls Royce Merlin when they transitioned to jets.
Some wouldn't switch to an EV from an ice because they like the sound of the ice etc. Not me, I want a car to be quiet and I dare say most people want a car to be quiet. The thing about both Merlin engines and jet engines is that they both run directly on fossil fuel, fossil fuel which is an extremely dense source of energy that can provide an aircraft or a car with a long range while using a high level of power. If/when you get to know jet engines or even Merlin engines could be replaced in aircraft with electric motors and batteries and the aircraft still have the same range and same performance, do report back on this thread because at that point EVs should be much more viable... but maybe only if they have also got around the long charge/refuel time situation that would otherwise still be a negative for EVs. Considering an airliner can be refuelled with thousands of gallons of fuel in such a short time, an input rate of energy which in EV terms would mean such as vast charge rate of electricity, electric powered airlines wouldn't seem to be on the agenda even if batteries were smaller, lighter, yet could hold many times as much charge. The aircraft analogy hardly does much for the pro EV argument...
Li-ion based drive systems are at about 0.10 kWh per kg of weight, whereas ICE’s typically are close to 1.00 kWh per kg. That’s comparing the weight of the engine and battery pack for a car with a range of 300 or so miles. EV’s are currently pretty heavy things if you want decent range.
Electric aircraft therefore need hydrogen fuel cells or a breakthrough battery pack.
Any other issues already have solutions:
Recharge if (lithium ion type) slow charge batteries - drop out the empty battery pack and slot in a fully charged one
Recharge if hydrogen fuel cells - same as filling up with avgas
Recharge if fast charge solid state batteries – the recharging truck carries the mega-Wh recharge already slow loaded into its holding battery (slow load so the local power lines don’t melt under a sudden fast charge)
Aircraft comparable speed – I believe there’s quite a lot of work on electric powered turbofan engines
Easyjet reckon 10 years to 2 hr duration electric passenger ‘jets’
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/27/e...
@Lorne,
Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
SimonYorkshire said:
@Lorne,
Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
Gaaaaah - I'll bite. APART from the fact that fusion to produce usable/viable electricity is years off.....Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
Your answer would be to use cheap, clean electricity to produce hydrogen, that we would then need to build/adapt multitudes of filling stations across the country, that would then pump said hydrogen into cars, that would then turn it back into electricity.
You would do that rather than use the infrastructure that is already there at the moment, for which the majority could use at home (with little impact to the Grid) by plugging their car in at night.....and develop Battery storage at sites of importance for those that either couldn't or needed to go further than the XXX miles.
Consider the development so far of electric cars.... by the time fusion is properly cracked and feasible to be rolled out around the world, where do you think the EV technology will be?
SimonYorkshire said:
@Lorne,
Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
But there would have to be the infrastructure put in place to deliver and store Hydrogen locally to the user. unless you are suggesting we have to visit a fusion power plant to get it? By the time all that happens everyone will be driving EV's.Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
ikarl said:
SimonYorkshire said:
@Lorne,
Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
Gaaaaah - I'll bite. APART from the fact that fusion to produce usable/viable electricity is years off.....Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
Your answer would be to use cheap, clean electricity to produce hydrogen, that we would then need to build/adapt multitudes of filling stations across the country, that would then pump said hydrogen into cars, that would then turn it back into electricity.
You would do that rather than use the infrastructure that is already there at the moment, for which the majority could use at home (with little impact to the Grid) by plugging their car in at night.....and develop Battery storage at sites of importance for those that either couldn't or needed to go further than the XXX miles.
Consider the development so far of electric cars.... by the time fusion is properly cracked and feasible to be rolled out around the world, where do you think the EV technology will be?
SimonYorkshire said:
@Lorne,
Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
OK we are making progress.Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
In the last few weeks you have reluctantly conceded that not all EV electricity is fossil fuel derived.
You have also implied your acceptance that EVs offer a far higher overall efficiency than ICEs but when pressed on that subject you still won't reply directly.
Now you are conceding that hydrogen is also a far less efficient solution.
What you now need to do is stop looking inwardly at your own specific circumstances and put yourself in the shoes of people who make decisions that impact the whole of society, so you can understand why EVs are the only viable future.
In just about every aspect of technology and engineering, increasing the technological solution in terms of efficiency, simplicity and lower maintenance translates directly to lower cost, higher safety, higher reliability and the most fit-for-purpose outcome. This is fundamently why there can be no other future than EVs. An argument based on efficiency not mattering is just very poor.
As for your idea of persisting with ICEs running on hydrogen in every vehicle, that is also a massive lost opportunity to reduce complexity and ongoing maintenance. Not to mention the major improvement of useable space in the vehicle and the elimination of a large lump of relatively loose metal that can cause significant damage to occupants or others outside the vehicle in an accident.
Edited by GT119 on Wednesday 29th November 12:28
SimonYorkshire said:
@Lorne,
Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
By the time this is possible hydrogen power will be old hat.Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
Unicorn dust will be powering my car first.
Toltec said:
ikarl said:
SimonYorkshire said:
@Lorne,
Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
Gaaaaah - I'll bite. APART from the fact that fusion to produce usable/viable electricity is years off.....Not much argument with anything you just wrote, which is mostly about aircraft.
But by the same token, vehicles could be powered by hydrogen and refuelled similarly to how we refuel vehicles with petrol.
Running vehicles (aircraft or cars) on hydrogen is inefficient because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than will be returned using the hydrogen but inefficiency wouldn't matter if we had an abundance of electricity produced cleanly and cheaply from nuclear fussion plants and the hydrogen was produced on sites next door to fusion plants. A vehicle running on hydrogen via either an ice or fuel cell wouldn't need a big battery and the grid wouldn't have to carry any extra load from charging vehicle batteries so could sooner be used to switch home heating from gas boilers to electricity from fusion.
Your answer would be to use cheap, clean electricity to produce hydrogen, that we would then need to build/adapt multitudes of filling stations across the country, that would then pump said hydrogen into cars, that would then turn it back into electricity.
You would do that rather than use the infrastructure that is already there at the moment, for which the majority could use at home (with little impact to the Grid) by plugging their car in at night.....and develop Battery storage at sites of importance for those that either couldn't or needed to go further than the XXX miles.
Consider the development so far of electric cars.... by the time fusion is properly cracked and feasible to be rolled out around the world, where do you think the EV technology will be?
Again - If EV's have made enough inroads into the vehicle market and everyone is charging them at home, this could prevent ability to run both home heating on fusion power. Home heating is just as big a hit on the environment as vehicle use yet for some reason EVers don't seem to realise this... If you think electricity is clean you might as well switch home heating to electricity and run your car on CNG or even petrol for similar advantages to the environment as running a car on electricity. Switching to electric home heating doesn't need to wait for better batteries etc, it doesn't mean disadvantaging yourself with a car with limited range which takes hours to recharge, it doesn't mean having to buy a different car - You could go out right now and buy some electric heaters and for about £100 you could buy enough electric heaters to heat the whole house. Switching home heating to electricity might overload the grid so be expensive in terms of the grid and in terms of building extra power generation, but hang on, so does switching vehicles to electricity! Switching from gas central heating to electric home heating would be an expensive move but not as expensive as buying a different car... and since electric is far more expensive per kwh than gas what does this say about costs involved in making that electricity you run an EV on? For starters electric generation firms have to buy gas anyway.
Whatever you think about 'advantages' of EVs over ices in terms of efficiency / emissions / etc, it remains that unless the electricity used to charge them is produced much more cleanly than an engine can burn the same fuel directly they represent only a small potential decrease in emissions. WIthout fusion power clean energy to charge EVs is unlikely to be realised anyway. And yet again - If you're all charging an EV at home this probably won't leave enough grid capacity to run home electric heating.
By switching to an EV you're not really solving anything, you are pushing most of the current problem (fuel usage) upstream to power stations and in so doing are creating more problems mid-stream (grid), and more problems downstream (batteries) and making for less convenience at the end of the stream (driver who has to put up with less range, expensive batteries, long charge time). You could do almost as much to clean up emissions in your area by switching home heating to electric, but don't forget that regardless of whether you switch home heating or vehicle to electric your emissions then come out of a power station. Until/if fusion is invented, but then if you're charging an EV at home that could prevent running your home heating on electric... Through the day you might be out but when you get home you'd want to switch the heating on and charge your car. Given convenience which of the two would you prefer if you could only have one or the other until £billions and years had been spent upgrading the grid and perhaps developing batteries (if far better batteries are even possible)?
Edited by SimonYorkshire on Wednesday 29th November 13:09
SimonYorkshire said:
Hmmm... Use cheap safe abundant electricity from fussion power to make methane then, infrastructure is already there to pipe methane to houses, CNG cars could be refuelled at home. Except maybe gas infrastructure wouldn't allow both home heating and CNG vehicle refuelling at the same time, and depending on how the CNG was produced this might not be of much advantage in terms of emissions as hydrogen.
Again - If EV's have made enough inroads into the vehicle market and everyone is charging them at home, this could prevent ability to run both home heating on fusion power. Home heating is just as big a hit on the environment as vehicle use yet for some reason EVers don't seem to realise this... If you think electricity is clean you might as well switch home heating to electricity and run your car on CNG or even petrol for similar advantages to the environment as running a car on electricity. Switching to electric home heating doesn't need to wait for better batteries etc, it doesn't mean disadvantaging yourself with a car with limited range which takes hours to recharge, it doesn't mean having to buy a different car - You could go out right now and buy some electric heaters and for about £100 you could buy enough electric heaters to heat the whole house. Switching home heating to electricity might overload the grid so be expensive in terms of the grid and in terms of building extra power generation, but hang on, so does switching vehicles to electricity! Switching from gas central heating to electric home heating would be an expensive move but not as expensive as buying a different car... and since electric is far more expensive per kwh than gas what does this say about costs involved in making that electricity you run an EV on? For starters electric generation firms have to buy gas anyway.
Whatever you think about 'advantages' of EVs over ices in terms of efficiency / emissions / etc, it remains that unless the electricity used to charge them is produced much more cleanly than an engine can burn the same fuel directly they represent only a small potential decrease in emissions. WIthout fusion power clean energy to charge EVs is unlikely to be realised anyway. And yet again - If you're all charging an EV at home this probably won't leave enough grid capacity to run home electric heating.
By switching to an EV you're not really solving anything, you are pushing most of the current problem (fuel usage) upstream to power stations and in so doing are creating more problems mid-stream (grid), and more problems downstream (batteries) and making for less convenience at the end of the stream (driver who has to put up with less range, expensive batteries, long charge time). You could do almost as much to clean up emissions in your area by switching home heating to electric, but don't forget that regardless of whether you switch home heating or vehicle to electric your emissions then come out of a power station. Until/if fusion is invented, but then if you're charging an EV at home that could prevent running your home heating on electric... Through the day you might be out but when you get home you'd want to switch the heating on and charge your car. Given convenience which of the two would you prefer if you could only have one or the other until £billions and years had been spent upgrading the grid and perhaps developing batteries (if far better batteries are even possible)?
Again - If EV's have made enough inroads into the vehicle market and everyone is charging them at home, this could prevent ability to run both home heating on fusion power. Home heating is just as big a hit on the environment as vehicle use yet for some reason EVers don't seem to realise this... If you think electricity is clean you might as well switch home heating to electricity and run your car on CNG or even petrol for similar advantages to the environment as running a car on electricity. Switching to electric home heating doesn't need to wait for better batteries etc, it doesn't mean disadvantaging yourself with a car with limited range which takes hours to recharge, it doesn't mean having to buy a different car - You could go out right now and buy some electric heaters and for about £100 you could buy enough electric heaters to heat the whole house. Switching home heating to electricity might overload the grid so be expensive in terms of the grid and in terms of building extra power generation, but hang on, so does switching vehicles to electricity! Switching from gas central heating to electric home heating would be an expensive move but not as expensive as buying a different car... and since electric is far more expensive per kwh than gas what does this say about costs involved in making that electricity you run an EV on? For starters electric generation firms have to buy gas anyway.
Whatever you think about 'advantages' of EVs over ices in terms of efficiency / emissions / etc, it remains that unless the electricity used to charge them is produced much more cleanly than an engine can burn the same fuel directly they represent only a small potential decrease in emissions. WIthout fusion power clean energy to charge EVs is unlikely to be realised anyway. And yet again - If you're all charging an EV at home this probably won't leave enough grid capacity to run home electric heating.
By switching to an EV you're not really solving anything, you are pushing most of the current problem (fuel usage) upstream to power stations and in so doing are creating more problems mid-stream (grid), and more problems downstream (batteries) and making for less convenience at the end of the stream (driver who has to put up with less range, expensive batteries, long charge time). You could do almost as much to clean up emissions in your area by switching home heating to electric, but don't forget that regardless of whether you switch home heating or vehicle to electric your emissions then come out of a power station. Until/if fusion is invented, but then if you're charging an EV at home that could prevent running your home heating on electric... Through the day you might be out but when you get home you'd want to switch the heating on and charge your car. Given convenience which of the two would you prefer if you could only have one or the other until £billions and years had been spent upgrading the grid and perhaps developing batteries (if far better batteries are even possible)?
Edited by SimonYorkshire on Wednesday 29th November 13:09
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