@steveo, maybe wait until the furlough scheme comes to an end. Then I'd expect the second hand market in quite a few goods to be flooded...
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
"Are Electric Cars the future of Low Carbon Transport?"
(677 posts)- Started 14 years ago by chdot
- Latest reply from Baldcyclist
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Posted 2 years ago #
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Electric vehicles divide opinion as car-loving Germany goes to polls
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Posted 2 years ago # -
Passionate active travel supporter, cycling enthusiast and LTN evangelist Alex Cole-Hamilton today announced a new Lib Dem policy to
pay for the motor industry’s marketingencourage take-up of EVs by creating a new “entitlement” for everyone to be able to take an EV for a weekend’s test drive, paid for by the taxpayer.In other, unrelated, news - the stretch of St John’s Road outside his office remains one of the most congested streets in the city, has no cycling facilities and is unattractive to pedestrians.
Posted 2 years ago # -
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Loveelectric promises to “eliminate the hassle of traditional company car schemes”. Its platform allows employees to handle the leasing process themselves.
Tigar, who is the start-up’s chief executive, said: “We want to see electric cars become the norm and easily accessible for everyone.
“Scotland’s drivers want electric cars now and with COP26 in Glasgow just around the corner, it’s become a huge talking point. Switching to electric is one of the biggest ways to make a real difference and tackle the climate emergency.
“We want to support all businesses to empower their staff to make the switch to electric. Our Drive Change campaign is designed to raise awareness of the difference electric cars make compared to those which run on petrol and diesel.
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Posted 2 years ago # -
From motoring journal Carmagazine.
If you're considering an EV, it's important you pick a car with a battery capacity big enough to suit your needs. If most of your driving is short hops or school runs around town, a smaller battery capacity will be fine.
A new breed of small electric cars, such as the Honda E, are arriving with relativley puny battery capacities. The Honda has a small 35kWh battery, enough for around 130 miles of range. That should be sufficient if you live in town, but many will want more range, which is why Jaguar equips its i-Pace with an 85kWh battery for a 292-mile claimed range.
So the 'puny' Honda uses the equivalent of 70 Bosch 500 Powerpacks. That's around the 'puny' number of Urban Arrrows we've sold since 2013. A couple do have double 500w arrays mind you. I just get the feeling that EVs don't add up in material resource use. A lot of energy is used just to move the battery around. A human being can still propel an e-bike though, battery and all.
We also risk having the imbalance of 'cheap electricity' to fuel new EVs whilst poorer families struggle to pay for electric heating and can hardly afford to go anywhwere.
EDIT - PR from Honda in 2020 on their puny e-car.
"Most EVs use large capacity batteries, but often, much of that capacity goes unused during city driving," said Tomofumi Ichinose, chief engineer of the Honda e, told reporters earlier this week.
Honda will debut its full-electric Honda e hatchback in production form at the Frankfurt auto show. The small EV is distinguished by its rounded retro styling and seamless pop out door handles.
"We question whether larger vehicles are appropriate for urban areas and believe that smaller is a better option for cities."
With a retro design evoking Honda's classic N360 and N600 models from the 1960s, the two-door Honda e is intended as an upmarket city car, whose price tag of around 33,000 euros ($39,000) is higher than Renault's Zoe, which is roomier and has a longer driving range.
Ichinose said Honda engineers had prioritized accurate and sharp handling to enable easy u-turns in narrow streets. Side mirrors have been replaced with interior displays to avoid bumps and scrapes during parking.
The model will only be sold in Europe and Japan, where it goes on sale in late October. Honda expects annual sales of only around 10,000 in Europe, and 1,000 at home, where it will also introduce the model into its car-sharing fleet.
The automaker said it had no plans to market the car in North America or China, its biggest markets where SUVs dominate.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Honda of course being famous for really well engineered petrol engines (and smaller cars)
Posted 2 years ago # -
Should keep gembo happy, they're not overly long.
Question for me is, can I get a 29er mtb on the roof!
Posted 2 years ago # -
@steveo these m-cro cars are brilliantly short and have one door that double up as the windscreen like the old Bubble cars. 12k in euro money a bit steep but three batteries is what you are paying for
Posted 2 years ago # -
I think these smaller cars are the way forward, EV don't need to be nearly as big as petrol cars even electrified "super minis" like the polo are too big for the job they are likely to be put to.
For me its a shame that rental is so expensive and that evs are still quite expensive for what your getting. These days we very rarely need the extra seats in the boot so a car wide enough to get 3 kids comfortable across the back would be sufficient 90% of the time but the cost of a hire car for edge cases, holidays where we need a bit more boot space being the main one, the occasional trip to the timber merchant and going away on the bike being the other two that come to mind just means we stick with the big car.
We do so little mileage that a battery ev would cover most of our uses. But we also do so little short range mileage the savings on fuel don't come close to the extra cost of an EV.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Rental becomes a lot more palatable when you sell your car entirely. That way you're not paying for a car "twice" *and* you can size the car according to the need *and* you get to take the train/plane on holiday in comfort, hiring a car when you get there.
(Also, I don't agree that rental is expensive when compared to the full costs of ownership - renting actually works out cheaper because you only pay for what you need)
Posted 2 years ago # -
No thats a fair point its not so bad if your not also running a car.
But hiring something big enough to take the kids down to Yorkshire when we did run a smaller car cost more than the week in the caravan.
Posted 2 years ago # -
A key selling point for EVs is those "X% of journeys are less than Ykm so range doesn't matter" stats. This probably makes them pretty unappealing for the city cyclist who already has a much greener option for those journeys and probably explicitly bought a car to enable the longer journeys which EVs don't yet (or are only just starting to) excel at.
The solution is probably as neddie says to ditch the car and fully rent an appropriate vehicle for every journey. But "high sunk cost, negligible variable cost" is a helluva drug and roof rack availability/damage is a concern for bikey/outdoorsy trips.
I wish I'd kept a spreadsheet of costs for the various car access situations I've had over the years. Might expose some uncomfortable truths...
Posted 2 years ago # -
“Might expose some uncomfortable truths...“
Two opposing possibilities -
Much higher cost per mile than ‘assumed’.
OR
Cost ‘reasonable’/’cheaper than hiring/PT options’ - because of all the subsidies for motoring/car ownership.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I assume it would be the former. (I always think of my grandparents for whom exclusively using taxis would almost certainly have been significantly cheaper than the last few years of their car ownership.) But perhaps not if you use it more often/for longer trips than you think.
Posted 2 years ago # -
My brother in law has an electric car (Tesla) which has a range of around 200 miles. He also has the advantage of being able to charge it at his house. He is very much into green energy and he reckons that it is just a matter of time before unused space such as supermarket car parks are utilised for charging vehicles.
Posted 2 years ago # -
The Honda is not as puny as the Citreon Ami. I think the Ami is shorter than an Urban Arrow too.
Whatever the size of these micro-cars they are still going to need / demand infrastructure. Motoring brands want to continue to be relevant for school runs - these should be done actively wherever possible though?
Could a future generation of parents demand that their e-micro cars be allowed closer to schools? The industry would be very keen, as today's children are tomorrow's consumers.
Green lanes for e-micros anyone? A green elite looking down on those that can't improve their 'motoring hygiene'? :-)Posted 2 years ago # -
Won't be able to buy anything other than electric, or hydrogen in less than 9 years (new), so oil propelled cars will be a thing of the past in less than 20 years.
Been looking at 2nd hand electric as my wife's Volvo is 10 years old now and starting to cost money.
Have the virtue of own drive so cost to propel it should be around £100 a month less than her old diesel, but cost about as much more than we paid in finance on the old Volvo when that had finance. Still worth it though if you keep cars for a minimum of 10 years.
Posted 2 years ago # -
A virtue of electric cars is that you can't leave them idling - not really something they do. There are so many people parked up and idling these days. No awareness of the environmental effect, their own health, the cost ....???
I wonder if there might be behavioural benefits from a greater realisation of the benefits of driving economically? Probably would just be temporary.
Posted 2 years ago # -
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Or look at the materials required for the electronics revolution that will, apparently, save us from climate breakdown. Already, mining and processing the minerals required for magnets and batteries is laying waste to habitats and causing new pollution crises. Now, as Jonathan Watts’s terrifying article in the Guardian this week shows, companies are using the climate crisis as justification for extracting minerals from the deep ocean floor, long before we have any idea of what the impacts might be.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/29/green-growth-economic-activity-environment
Posted 2 years ago # -
@amir: There are so many people parked up and idling these days. No awareness of the environmental effect, their own health, the cost ....???
Or the fact that it's illegal?
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Rule 123
The Driver and the Environment. You MUST NOT leave a parked vehicle unattended with the engine running or leave a vehicle engine running unnecessarily while that vehicle is stationary on a public road. Generally, if the vehicle is stationary and is likely to remain so for more than a couple of minutes, you should apply the parking brake and switch off the engine to reduce emissions and noise pollution. However it is permissible to leave the engine running if the vehicle is stationary in traffic or for diagnosing faults.[/i]
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(The frequency with which Lothian bus drivers hang around near bus stops when they need to lose a bit of time having got ahead of schedule seems to have increased significantly in recent months - presumably due to the reduced passenger numbers as a result of WFH and general avoidance of public transport. A few too many of them keep the engine running while doing so. I wonder what the corporate guidance is on this?)
Posted 2 years ago # -
@amir, it's a sign of just how cheap fuel is that people are willing to waste it in this way.
Posted 2 years ago # -
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-new-citroen-ami-is-this-the-future-of-driving-n5frz5pkj
https://uk-media.citroen.com/en-gb/node/90090355
Will gembo buy one??
Posted 2 years ago # -
"Bystanders are laughing" (in the first paragraph)
There's your problem, right there, the way media portray any car that isn't ever more massive and ordinary looking
"clown car"
"c-word"
"would like to be a car when it grows up"
Scummy right-wing gutter press. I strongly recommend not clicking the clickbait
Posted 2 years ago # -
The Ami though is exactly the type of vehicle the world's environment needs / can stand. Its battery is 'only' 5.5kw. So when you use this it's just like having 11 Urban Arrows in energy use (!) - which still sounds excessive but probably as lean as can be done without driver/ rider input.
People laughed at Bromptons.
People laughed at tandems & cargo bikes / trikes.
They also laughed at the Lancia Y10 which was an early 'smart car' (back in my ad agency days).After their initial 'entertainment' they usually get bored and find another thing to amuse them.
Posted 2 years ago # -
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Two thirds want to see more investment in electric vehicles, though replacing fuel duty with road pricing has less support, at about 45% of those polled.
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Posted 2 years ago # -
Posted 2 years ago #
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