CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
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CCE is 15years old!
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"Nine electric cars will be eligible for subsidies"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11985866
"
The government also said that a further five areas are to install charging points after bidding for funds.
The additional locations getting a share of £20m to build plug-in points are the Midlands, Greater Manchester, the East of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
"
Radio 4 has just said that one area will be Edinburgh.
From Twitter
"
edinburghvan Edinburgh Van
@CyclingEdin the article is about electric cars, not drivers or subsidies
"
From BBC story
"Where the eligible cars are leased by drivers instead of being bought, the up to £5,000 subsidy will mean a deduction on their monthly leasing fees."
From Twitter
"
edinburghvan Edinburgh Van
@CyclingEdin the article is about electric cars, not drivers or subsidies
"
From BBC story
"Where the eligible cars are leased by drivers instead of being bought, the up to £5,000 subsidy will mean a deduction on their monthly leasing fees."
"EDINBURGH and Glasgow will get 375 plug-in charging points for electric cars as part of a "green revolution", UK Transport Secretary Philip Hammond was due to announce today."
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/City-plug-for-electric-cars.6660157.jp
There are two grant schemes here:
The Plugged-in Car Grant: This is a grant to motorists purchasing an eligible electric car from 1 January 2010. It covers up to one quarter of the price of the car, up to a maximum of £5000. The level of grant will be reviewed by the UK Department for Transport in January 2012. Some £43m has been allocated to the scheme for the period up until the end of March 2012.
The Plugged-in Places Grant: Consortia based in the Midlands; Greater Manchester; East of England; Scotland and Northern Ireland have all bid successfully for the second round of Plugged-In Places funding. These schemes will provide over 4,000 charging points across the life of the scheme; at home, in on-street locations and at public, workplace and retail car parks.
Sorry Edinburghvan - you are mistaken. The plugged in car grant is a direct subsidy to the owners of eligible electric vehicles and the plugged-in places grant a further subsidy for the development of charging infrastructure to allow these people to use their new cars.
Of course, you don't have to take my word for it - see the attached Department for Transport press release:
Now where is my subsidy for a new bike and free cake to power it?
I take it this is specially selected organic electricity not generated at Longannet / Cockenzie / Hunterston / Torness / Peterhead (i.e. the 80% of Scottish generation that is coal / nuclear / oil)
Revolutionary. Quite.
How much would 375 well designed and placed bike racks cost around town in comparison?
From Twitter
"
@carltonreid:
Taxpayers will be forking out £300m for 60,000 rich motorists. But Cycling England scrapped? Evil.
Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/carltonreid/status/14629322891464704
"Now where is my subsidy for a new bike and free cake to power it? " what about the cycle to work scheme over recent years?!?
"I take it this is specially selected organic electricity not generated at Longannet / Cockenzie / Hunterston / Torness / Peterhead (i.e. the 80% of Scottish generation that is coal / nuclear / oil)"
Of course it is from the current "dirty" power generators (*and* presumably from the various windfarms around here), of course there is still a HUGE efficiency benefit in centrally generating power then using electric to move vehicles over petrol/diesel burned in individual motor vehicles.
Also I presume the charging points will be accessible to electric motorcycles/bicycles as well?
Not to mention the benefits in reducing child athsma, pollution etc in the built up areas?
Perhaps time to slow the outrage bus a little, I'd far rather they promoted electric vehicles than throwing money at conventional vehicles and/or a badly planned and managed tram project..
I don't particularly like the idea of subsidising the early e-vehicle users, but it's more positive than many ideas.
Hmm, this story seems to have changed.
When I read it earlier this morning Philip Hammond was quoted as saying something like, "now we can have the convience of the car without the carbon that goes with it".
Now he is quoted as acknowledging the following:
"There's no point in switching the car fleet to running on electricity if the electricity emits vast amounts of carbon dioxide."
I think they should get a subsidy to fit a wind turbine to the roof of the car hence charging it as they drive along...
Perhaps there could be a subsidy for turbotrainers connected to the grid.
Perhaps time to slow the outrage bus a little
Absolutely agree with your points Smudge, you're right, it's always better to promote or subsidise electric vehicles (rather than the scrappage scheme, that replaced like with like, in the name of multinational car corporations).
But then again it's also better yet to promote and subsidise reducing the need to rely on 4-wheeled, internally powered transport. I think pound for pound, investing in the latter would deliver far greater returns. Investing in electic cars does nothing to encourage people out of their 4-wheeled safety blankets or address the fact that transport in our city(ies) largely revolves around the car. It's a bit like treating the side-effects of a symptom and not the route cause (Note - pun not intended, but think I'll leave it in) of the problem.
I also have a real problem with electric cars being touted as green saviours when they still take relatively large amounts of (energy intensive) aluminium, plastics and rubber to produce, not to mention all the fancy metallurgy required for their battery cells and electronic control systems.
On his basis I don't quite think it merits the mantra of a "green revolution". Yet.
Yeah, what seems to get forgotten about a lot with cars is the space, noise and life pollution they create. Air pollutants are only one issue.
"life pollution"
Presume same as -
"
Daily life pollution refers to the type of environmental contamination caused by the everyday life activities of ordinary citizens and consumers. In contrast with main pollution caused by industrial production processes, daily life pollution includes detergent pollution in rivers, lakes, or the ocean caused by washing clothes and landfill and incineration pollution caused by excess household garbage.
"
Indeed, hence I didn't say stop the bus, just slow down a little from the total and outright condemnation ;-)
They (electric cars/vehicles) are far from a green solution, imvho I think part of the mainstream answer (in the short term at least) may involve one or two seat micro vehicles (think a streamliner electric bike maybe) which can satisfy the end users current requirement for personal transportation (unfortunately not likely to reduce in the short term) by providing economy/comfort/weather protection whilst also reducing fuel consumption, vehicle weight and footprint and potentially congestion as well.
Promoting cycling is certainly a win/win but in itself can only be a part of the answer.
What the ultimate answer is I don't know (even if there is an answer!) but I'm watching with interest. :)
@Smudge - I did think about the cycle to work scheme, but most employers do not offer this to their workers (mine included), and it isn't available to those who do not work. The plugged-in car grant is open to everyone wanting to buy an electric car.
I have two concerns about these grants: The first is that this will be a complete waste of money. Battery powered vehicles could well turn out to be the betamax of "clean vehicles". The second is that it does nothing to tackle the dominance of the car including congestion, injuries and deaths, physical activity - you all know the score.
Electic cars will improve local air conditions if taken up in great enough numbers, however I would put money on the cost/benefit of a similar investment in walking and cycling being far greater than this. No, I cannot prove that but statitics from Cycling England given at the recent Cycling Scotland conference put average cost/benefit of investment in cycling schemes at 6:1 - an almost unheard of ratio in transport investment.
I wonder what their criteria for approving the vehicles for subsidy is - they've approved the Peugeot iON but not (yet) the Citroen CZero. It's exactly the same car, badge engineered and offered with slightly different styling and trim options.
I also see the "Vauxhall Ampera" (= Cheverolet Volt) was lurking in the background of the press release. Despite the electric-sounding name, it's a petrol hybrid. It's not due to be available until 2012, but the thing weighs 1.7 tonnes (empty). That is just not a step in the right direction.
"I think part of the mainstream answer (in the short term at least) may involve one or two seat micro vehicles (think a streamliner electric bike maybe)"
Well yes, but.
While 'electric' is one issue, getting people to buy/use smaller vehicles doesn't seem too 'popular'.
Of course government(s) could subside small vehicles (bicycles even!) OR tax bigger ones more.
But that doesn't seem to be the way things work...
"
Electric cars are about to take off. Or at least, that is the hope of governments around Europe and beyond which are rapidly developing policies to encourage their take up. However, there are numerous hurdles to overcome before electric cars are first produced in sufficient numbers to make an impact and then actually bought by the motoring public.
"
http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2010/10/why-electric-cars-have-shorted-out
It works on VED, large vehicles get crucified, smaller low/zero emmissions pay nothing.
Maybe it is possible with the right pressure?
I sound a litlte like the voice of car support here and that's not my intention, I just worried that the initial phase of this thread was all negative/outrage and much as I'd like to see vast investment in cycling it certainly isn't happening in the short term and will only happen in concert with other schemes which, whilst we may not agree with them, are seen by many as equally worthy.
"Presume same as -
"
Daily life pollution refers to the type of environmental contamination caused by the everyday life activities of ordinary citizens and consumers."
I was thinking more fear/injury/death.
Parking... ...hikes planned in latest cuts
Of course the EEN is actually confusing increasing a charge with making a cut. They also think an hour's parking going up by 40p to £1.60 is "a surge". They might also want to use the other press favourites of "rocketing" or "spiralling", terms I particularly dislike as they don't imply direction on their own. You could rocket down the way or across the way if you wanted. Spiralling also implies going round and round but not really up or down. But they make the insignificant sound extreme (particularly when they aren't put in context) and that's what matters.
They're also proposing to increase the number of on the spot litter tickets handed out (hear hear) and the cost for a burial. Then something about less money for maintaining the turf on bowling greens and golf courses.
Fuller details here-
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/695/council_information_performance_and_statistics/1022/budgets/2
No surprise that ENews majored on parking charges.
Slight surprise that CEC has been willing to propose 'large' increases.
"Spiralling also implies going round and round but not really up or down."
I think of it as increasing so fast it makes you dizzy-as if you were spiralling round?
But do electric cars work after being buried in a snowdrift? Sorry.. maybe asked that already!
I was wrong about free parking over Christmas run up.
The snow curtailed ticketing so shortfall in this area.
"But do electric cars work after being buried in a snowdrift? "
No reason why not.. they're a lot simpler than IC cars :)
"But do electric cars work after being buried in a snowdrift? "
Apparently LIon batteries atually work better and discharge slower around freezing, and will happily operate down to -50C and beyond.
Can't speak for the rest of their electronics or systems, I suppose one of the "advantages" of an IC engine in the cold is how hot it gets
So what heats the inside of an electric car?
My VW has no heating but that's because the pipes fell off sometime in the last 40 years.
So what heats the inside of an electric car?
The driver's sense of self esteem :)
"So what heats the inside of an electric car?"
The warm glow of self-righteousness? ;-) :-o
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