CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years old!
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RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
All about electric cars.
"A third of all car journeys in Scotland are less than two miles long, with nearly a quarter of all trips being of one mile or less."
Why use a car at all then - petrol or electric.
"But Norwegian research published last year suggested electric cars might actually pollute much more than petrol or diesel-powered models."
"Scottish Transport Minister Keith Brown said the plans to replace petrol and diesel vehicles by 2050 were a "bold vision" that would require a "transformation in how we think about moving people and goods around.""
I don't think Mr Brown knows the meaning of "bold vision".
Oh aye he does. It's when you keep repeating a vision in bold. Possibly a "shared" vision, but in BOLD. Maybe even capitalised too.
Oh to be "serious" for a moment. This "roadmap" (note the language of the motorist) is frankly laughable. A complete joke. Utter nonsense.
Electric vehicle owners currently pay no road tax, with the government stating that electric cars are also cheaper to run...
Good to see the BBC perpetuating the old myths...
Ha! Very good SRD.
Spot the difference.
Norman Baker, the minister in charge of cycling, stresses that cycling is mostly an issue for local authorities rather than in need of an over-arching national strategy and will only guarantee a small pot of funding for selected cities for two years.
Norman Baker, the minister in charge of electric cars, stresses that electric vehicles need an over-arching national strategy and guarantees a huge pot of funding - including "consumer incentives" and "national infrastructure" - through until at least 2020.
Swap the minister's name for Keith "yomper" Brown and it's a neat summary of the Scottish position too.
It gets worse.
In a stunning statement revealing how the Government is willing to spend money subsidising the motor industry and car buyers the DfT says "there is a limited business case for private investment in new infrastructure until there are sufficient volume of vehicles. This is the ‘chicken and egg’ challenge faced by the ULEV industry and an area where Government intervention is required."
See, the Government is happy to step in to fund national infrastructure for electric cars but won't do the same for walking or cycling, the infrastructure for which is the responsibility of local authorities only.
And
How about reducing reliance on motor cars? Forget it.
"Fundamentally people want vehicles that fit their needs – the type and lengths of journey they want to make and the other demands they have of their vehicle, not least price. Very few people are willing to accept reduced convenience relative to a traditionally fuelled vehicle," says the Government, admitting that it is to roll out a publicity campaign to plug e-cars.
And
Part of this campaign may be letting consumers know they don't have to give up on speed should they switch to electric vehicles. The Government proudly reports that consumers, once given subsidised test drives in e-cars, are very happy with the pedestrian and cyclist killing potential of yer average e-car: "It goes like a rocket," said one consumer.
The tiny e-car market - tiny even by 2020 - needs succour and support, says Department for Motorised Transport: "The need for Government to support the early market will continue over the near term...the market is likely to require continuing support to alleviate a portion of the extra cost of ULEVs."
The Government said it will put in place "national infrastructure" and that it is "wholly committed to this agenda" and "recognises that it will take time."
And cash.
"We will make provision for over £500 million from 2015 until 2020 to support the growing market for ultra low emission vehicles. We will launch...consumer incentives...We will maintain a strong, clear and lasting set of tax incentives for ULEVs until at least 2020. We will involve industry and wider partners in the process for subsequent development of the tax regime."
The Government's read-it-and-weep "national, long-term strategy" for a minority of road users (remember, just 3 to 7 percent of cars will be electric ones by 2020, and that's probably an over-estimate) is a "bold programme showing we are ready to take the difficult decisions required to deliver a transport system that can drive growth for a generation."
Who said that? Norman Baker. The minister in charge of local transport, cycling and walking.
transformation in how we think about moving people and goods around
One person in a four-wheeled, 5-seat, internal combobulation-powered box to one person in a four-wheeled, 5-seat, electric-powered box is hardly a radical transformation.
It really doesn't matter what sort of power the vehicle that parks on a pavement / hogs the ASL box / punishment passes you / forces you off the road / knocks you off your bike / gives you abuse for having the temerity to move around under your own power is. Petrol? Diesel? Alcohol? LPG? Electric? Hybrid? Plug-in Hybrid? It's still the same sorry, vehicle-centric state of affairs with people pushed to the periphery.
I see the article uses the phrase "road tax". Same old BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-31449607
"Many Scottish electric car chargers 'not being used'"
or;
You can lead a motoring-addicted populace to hovercars, but you can't make them charge them.
"
WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said: "Alongside measures to reduce the total number of cars on our roads, a significant shift to electric vehicles will be needed to help Scotland reduce climate change emissions from the transport sector.
"These figures demonstrate that we've a distance to go before electric vehicles become a common sight on our roads.
"We'd therefore encourage the Scottish government to continue support efforts to speed up the roll-out of climate-friendly cars as well as to reduce the need for people to drive in the first place."
"
Really? How about 'speed up of infrastructure for climate-friendly walking and cycling'?
"
Lang Banks, WWF (@LangBanks)
13/02/2015 10:05
@CyclingEdin @SpokesLothian @LAHinds Yup. Totally agree. Measures to reduce the need to drive must go hand-in-hand :-)
"
I've never seen a car being charged in the Sainsbury Longstone pair of chargers but they have the most bike racks I've ever seen at a supermarket and they're in a better place than any of the parking spaces.
Compare and contrast with the council; a few years ago the power was cut to Chesser House and an enormous generator was installed to keep the building in operation. They were still charging their electric cars from the generators, talk about cognitive dissonance.
@Steveo I guess that's just shortening the current irony chain from that with Europe's 3rd largest coal power station (and Scotland's single largest carbon emmiter) at the other end of the cable.
They were still charging their electric cars from the generators, talk about cognitive dissonance.
Not sure that it's all that cognitive really. It's a building, you just plug stuff in.
GHG emissions from UK grid electricity generation in 2014 currently sit at 0.494 kgCO2e/kWh, plus 0.043 kgCO2e/kwh for transmission and distribution after generation. Also include 0.075 kgCO2e/kWh to account for extraction and transportation of the fossil fuels used prior to generation, and 0.007 kgCO2e/kWh for the T&D element. Coal and gas accounted for 63% of generation in 2013; nuclear was 20%; renewables were 15% (DUKES2014). Current proportions are not dissimilar. Note that emissions from coal and gas are about 0.331 and 0.185 kgCO2e/kWh respectively.
Powering your buildings from a diesel generator instead of the grid would have direct emissions of 0.272 kgCO2e/kWh, plus 0.055 kgCO2e/kWh for extraction, processing and transportation of that diesel.
Just on energy sources, electric cars in the UK are not sitting all that low on the overall emissions chart, even if the emissions at point of use are zero (notwithstanding any ozone created by electrical discharge). Yes, the air quality in urban areas would improve, but not at point of generation: 'But grid electricity is generated anyway' is only valid because of the low additional load from electric vehicles. Only if you can generate the electricity renewably—and ensure that this is the case, perhaps by paying for renewables while drawing from the grid—can you start to make a case against fossil fuelled vehicles.
One point about EVs is they can be charged overnight, making use of surplus generation capacity (at night).
Wow - 1100 electric vehicles. Or to put it another way - 0.0004% of the 2,717,000 registered vehicles in Scotland.
Given you get a £5000 grant to help buy an electric vehicle and up to £900 to install a charger at your home (courtesy of the UK taxpayer) that doesn't seem like a great take-up rate to me.
I imagine most of these vehicles are owned by the public sector, as there was a big push on this a couple of years ago as part of the low carbon vehicle procurement programme.
No mention of the UK Committee on Climate Change change report that electric vehicle sales would need to be 16% of all car sales by 2020 to stimulate a mass up-take.
I'd be quite interested in changing the oil-burning family wagon for an electric one, but I don't know how the recharging might work given I'm in a tenement flat. The car lives in a permit space, not always adjacent to the flat. Or are electric cars destined to be the playthings of our landed suburban cousins with driveways and garages. :-)
I know nothing about electric vehicles, but how realistic is the idea of a spare battery that can be put in the car while the run down battery can be charged in the house? You'll probably say size and weight is a problem, but as I say, I don't know about such things.
@ih It's a good question, so I googled it. Apparently the battery packs are usually north of 250 kilos and built in along the chassis of the car, so not something you can swap in and out.
However I did find some interesting info about a scheme that local authorities can sign up to to cover 75% (max £7500) of the costs of installing a parking bay for electric vehicles, normally with 2 charging points.
I don't know if Edinburgh is signed up to this.
Presumably the battery packs would be considered worth nicking by electric car component-thieves if they were readily-removable. Despite their weight they could be fitted with castors and unlocked/slid out from the side of the car like a drawer if swappability was ever considered a possibility, though that would be a bit like admitting that they might take a while to charge.
Hilariously, the new Formula E racing car championship requires that each driver has two cars per race and must take a ~1 minute pit-stop to change cars mid-race, even though they only race around 30 shortish laps around the temporary city tracks that they are currently making use of. Whilst I'm rather enjoying the unpredictability of the racing in the championship so far and I'm in favour of electric cars (I hope that Tesla's next model is actually affordable), I hardly think that this is helping to sell them to many.
i sometimes have the use of a Nissan Leaf at work. it's great to drive and gives a maximum range of around 100 miles when driven within the normal parameters in the city but the range is dramatically reduced and also by about 20 miles when the heating or air conditioning are on.
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