Is electric really the answer?

[Kimbers]

I did actually (about 40 pages back) point out that many of the "First mass produced EV", Nissan Leafs were down down to 80 miles range, some even less. There's loads of articles all about them.

Not surprised they've dumped them off.

And don't forget most Manufacturers won't warranty the batteries past 8 years either!

 

[Xtora]

Indeed, early models of electric vehicles had a limited range, now electric vehicles are actually more attractive to buy.
 

[jonwat]

Electric cars release more toxic emissions than petrol-powered vehicles

[jep]

Which shows ACBC was correct in the early '70s with regard Elite, Éclat, Esprit. Luxury cars with small engines and low weight.

Unfortunately the public don't agree; if they have a choice to buy a fat prestige car instead, they do. 

The solution: tax vehicles on weight and width.

Justin 

[Bibs]

Lorry tyres? They're 15 times the weight of an EV and I doubt use premium tyres! 

What will be vilified next? First it was diesels, then any ICE and now tyres? They'll not want us breathing in our cars next unless it can be taxed in the name of global warming! 

[exeterjeep]

Back to the horse and cart, if only the horse did not need feeding at one end and clearing up at the other. Oh and the cart will need environmentally friend wooden rims ie no nasty rubber tyres.   And need lane horse assist to stop the horses crashing into each other.

[Kimbers]

1 hour ago, Bibs said:

Lorry tyres? They're 15 times the weight of an EV and I doubt use premium tyres! 

What will be vilified next? First it was diesels, then any ICE and now tyres? They'll not want us breathing in our cars next unless it can be taxed in the name of global warming! 

They need to replace the income from Petrol/Diesel! Taxing breathing seems like a winner!  

At no time do Govts look at incentivising. It seems to be a UK thing. In Cyprus for example the Govt subsidise public transport. It literally costs you e1.50 to go anywhere on a bus. Result? Everyone uses the buses if there is a route!

But here we have to "make bad things more expensive" instead of incentivising good things. EV's are £10k more expensive to buy 50% more expensive to run, worth 20% less at the back end so what do they do? Make ICE cars more expensive. There is a lot of evidence that they are pressurising CAP to reduce residual values in ICE cars as well. There have been some very dramatic drops in the most popular cars totally against all the evidence and sales figures. This is put down to CAP trying to "drive the market" rather than responding to supply and demand as they should. I was told this is due to pressure from the Govt to make EV's look better! It's impossible to make them look better as they are dire used cars for dealers, so they make ICE cars look worse.

Believe me this isn't fantasy, this is very real, it's my job to monitor values  to be able to sell our fleet! I have spoken to many industry insiders and they agree.

[sailorbob]

2 hours ago, jep said:

The solution: tax vehicles on weight and width.

I've said the same about people for years. 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

They already do. Be interesting to know how much more tax a fat person pays each year if they smoke, drive an ICE car, drink alcohol and eat out a lot, compared to a fit non-driver who lives on fresh air, water and vegetables.

[C8RKH]

You're assuming a lot there @LotusLeftLotusRight. I know many skinny people who smoke and drink to excess and are always off ill and at the doctors.

Me, I'm overweight for sure. Don't smoke. Never off work. Never at the doctors.

If only life was simple

 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

You kind of missed my point. We are always being told that people leading an unfit lifestyle put a disproportionate burden on the NHS for example. At face value that makes sense, but let’s look at my two extremes.

Fit person spends adult entire life being teetotal non-smoker. Travels by riding a bike or walking everywhere. So that’s say 50 years of zero tax revenue for the Treasury, but will still be using NHS resources to a certain extent throughout their life time.

Unfit person spends entire adult life drinking the equivalent of 6 x £8 bottles of wine per week, smokes 20 cigarettes per day and drives a car 10,000 miles per year. Current total annual revenue to the Treasury is about £5100. So at current rates that 50 years of unhealthy adult life would equate to £255,000 of tax that the fit person above is not contributing.
 

 

[Kimbers]

That' s a good example @LotusLeftLotusRight. But don't forget for every person who pays good money in, and I include myself in that, there is another "Green party supporter" who has never worked a day in their life, wants everything they can get out the system and hates everyone who works hard calling them sheep or sheeple. This person is the one pushing the EV agenda because, frankly, they will never own a car or understand peoples needs to travel more than 200 miles before filling up! "It's only 45 minutes to fill, just relax and have a coffee!" I can't I'm late for that thing that pays my wages! Work! 

[exeterjeep]

Runaway I Pace.  that's modern tech for you...........damned EV's.

Police ram runaway electric car after brakes fail on M62

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-68500233

Jaguar Land Rover said the company was investigating as a matter of "urgency".

A spokesman said: "A full review is underway to determine the cause of this incident, which is still yet to be established.

"The safety of our clients and vehicles is JLR's highest priority."

[exeterjeep]

https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/massive-ev-discounts-on-the-way-as-car-manufacturers-feel-the-pressure/298948

‘Massive’ EV discounts on the way as car manufacturers feel the pressure
EV manufacturers have stock they need to shift or face hefty fines under ZEV mandate
They’ll need to offer massive discounts and aggressive financial incentives, says Tony Whitehorn
Leading automotive consultant urges them to make most of digital retailing

[mdavies]

If you see the mag., The Spectator has what seems to me (no EV expert) a pretty good article about the realities of "newbies" in the current EV scene. It covers more than Apples' exit from their speculative EV venture.  That failed even apart from the nonsense "Self-Driving" aspect.  (That I've been posting about here for years.)

"As Tripp Mickle— who reported in the project in his excellent book, After Steve — wrote in the New York Times, the project has been a total disaster for years, and employees knew it. Over time, they called it ‘the Titanic disaster’. The project started in 2014, when Google’s self-driving car prototypes appeared to be a big deal, self-driving tech looked like the near future and Apple had many incentives to jump into the pond."

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-apple-killed-its-electric-car/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LIFE 20240310 SG+CID_0c41731ee0e8f7acabab7a2a23fcb527

The Spec. used to offer a few articles free to try and entice non-subscribers - might still do if start on their general site.

[Kimbers]

On 10/03/2024 at 09:28, exeterjeep said:

https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/massive-ev-discounts-on-the-way-as-car-manufacturers-feel-the-pressure/298948

‘Massive’ EV discounts on the way as car manufacturers feel the pressure
EV manufacturers have stock they need to shift or face hefty fines under ZEV mandate
They’ll need to offer massive discounts and aggressive financial incentives, says Tony Whitehorn
Leading automotive consultant urges them to make most of digital retailing

Our discounts have trebled in the past 3 months. I think the best EV discount we are offered is in excess of 25%. However working my figures, to make them work over 50% is required. But even then you can't force people to lease or rent an EV if they don't consider it a viable option for one of many of the reasons we have talked about here!

And it's not just about buying it in the first place! One constant is the need to charge it and Electricity is very expensive at present, especially filling up away from your home. Plus the govts plans to introduce tax on it when they have converted enough people.

Someone recently told me I was wrong and that they home charged for less than they used to fill up in their old Petrol car. I pointed out that actually it was around the same price as petrol, that they could only fill up late at night for that to be effective, on their package and that they just spent over £1500 for a charge point to be fitted. When you take that into account it'll take a long time to be cheaper than petrol.

What happens if you get home nearly empty and need to go out again? What happens if you have an emergency and you have no charge? You can't fill up locally in 30 seconds! Anyway, I digress.

Discounts have increased a lot because of large amounts of stock. And remember what i said about manufacturers "fudging" the figures? Nearly every manufacturer has been Pre-registering EV's for some time now. The down side is that they can't sell them very quickly even when much cheaper and forecourts are starting to fill up with EV's meaning less room for things that sell! Petrols and Diesels.

[Escape]

Over here, word got out that a large leasing firm will rent a huge parking lot. It will be used to store new EVs as they just can't shift them.

[Techyd]

I think I read somewhere that Octopus have secured 500million investment to expand their EV car business...so they are continuing to push EVs that nobody wants but where / how were they able to secure such a vast sum - someone somewhere thinks the tide will turn presumably and it will all come good??

[Mark Blanchard]

So today the Government has announced it is to make some new gas power stations to provide us with electricity.  So the EV’s they are pushing us to use can run on fossil fuels.  You couldn’t make it up!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/12/rishi-sunak-new-gas-power-stations-blackout-risk-net-zero/

[Escape]

In many countries EVs are actually rolling coal, as that's the cheapest/easiest way to increase electric production capacity...

[Kimbers]

like I said above. China has built 100 Coal fired stations.

[Escape]

Not just China, Germany has ramped up coal production as well. They needed to, because of opting out of nuclear, trying to move away from Russian gas and realising their industry needs something a lot more reliable than wind and solar.

[ChrisJ]

What @Kimbers has been saying.

 

[Mark Blanchard]

So the Government should be honest and say they won't meet their net zero target, scrap the ban on sales of combustion engines by 2035 and remove the draconian car tax on higher band pre 2017 cars (£750 per year this April).

[DarrylV8]

1 hour ago, Kimbers said:

like I said above. China has built 100 Coal fired stations.

We possibly shouldn’t have closed our deep coal mines, we’ve lost a fair few coal power stations locally dare I say thanks too mrs thatcher?