CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
sticky*jealous*
And we are looking at new cars... (actually, given the new model of our current car is so hideous after a redesign, and there's not really anything out there we like as much that gives the same performance and load carrying for the price, we're actually looking at getting the current motor completely overhauled and made 'as new', but the Tesla is an intriguing prospect).
With the best part of two years development until the actual car is released I imagine even Tesla are somewhat unaware of what the final vehicle will be.
It does look like a wonderful c*r. But I'd like more Tesla Superchargers in Scotland first - so that I could for instance drive a Tesla to Orkney without worrying. Currently there's only one Supercharger in Scotland, at Edinburgh airport.
@cc I did ask about that before providing my deposit... I was promised that there will be a Tesla Service Centre in Scotland soon and improvements to their charging network.
Are they not also compatible with standard on street chargers?
What problem is this Tesla going to solve? It's a car.
And what problems will it continue to exacerbate? It's a car.
Looks like they are, and there are lots of those in Scotland, so in theory my trip to Orkney could be done now. It'd just take a lot longer to charge the thing - hours instead of minutes, don't know exactly.
ih, It will start solving the issue that our cities are heavily polluted, however it will exacerbate the problem than they are congested.
CC, If you schedule in lunch in Inverness you should be fine. Although you may find that with a standard fast charger a coffee stop would be sufficient.
Pretty much what acsimpson said.
Lower pollution (yes, the electricity needs to be produced, but that's also gradually moving to greener solutions, and in terms of local city pollution it would be much better).
Congestion, it clearly does nothing to solve.
So what we need is better public transport + cycling infrastructure + walking infrastructure, and where there is a need for motorised vehicles (recognising we're never going to get rid of them entirely from our cities*) a cleaner electric version, which doesn't belch out fumes (or noise) is a better solution.
Also Tesla is advancing the technology very well, and above all else is really putting this into the public consciousness. This is headline news on the BBC website, which is a big deal. And as far as I'm aware they're actually quite generous with their findings on the tech, so it will move into other vehicles, and how much nicer would Edinburgh be is buses were all electric rather than diesel?
So to go all Monty Python, what did that Tesla ever do for us?
*I'd argue that believing we will eradicate personal motorised transport from cities in their entirety is pie in the sky. Wanting to is a lovely utopian daydream I also indulge in from time to time.
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One in three cars, and half of all buses, should be electric, with almost all electricity generated from renewables.
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"So to go all Monty Python, what did that Tesla ever do for us?"
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Opinions differ about potential growth. A 2008 study concluded that "realistically achievable lithium carbonate production will be sufficient for only a small fraction of future PHEV and EV global market requirements", that "demand from the portable electronics sector will absorb much of the planned production increases in the next decade", and that "mass production of lithium carbonate is not environmentally sound, it will cause irreparable ecological damage to ecosystems that should be protected and that LiIon propulsion is incompatible with the notion of the 'Green Car'".[48]
However, according to a 2011 study conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, the currently estimated reserve base of lithium should not be a limiting factor for large-scale battery production for electric vehicles because an estimated 1 billion 40 kWh Li-based batteries could be built with current reserves[83] - about 10 kg of lithium per car.[84] Another 2011 study by researchers from the University of Michigan and Ford Motor Company found sufficient resources to support global demand until 2100, including the lithium required for the potential widespread transportation use. The study estimated global reserves at 39 million tons, and total demand for lithium during the 90-year period analyzed at 12–20 million tons, depending on the scenarios regarding economic growth and recycling rates.[85]
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"Automakers ask Trump not to make them produce electric cars in first lobbying effort since election". Heavy sigh.
Oh dear. We can't have these young upstarts like Tesla getting ahead of us.
We want to remain as dinosaurs!
(Let us not forget that the US auto industry has already been decimated by the likes of Toyota bringing in more efficient and more reliable vehicles.)
"Automakers ask Trump to make them produce coal-powered cars in first lobbying effort since election"
Hah. The same auto makers who cut perfectly usable modern electric cars just to push oversized suvs not caring that a recession was just around the corner upon when it came had nothing to offer?
Even if the bike is the better option for contested cities a battery car is far more efficient and pleasant to drive.
Volts for oil.
Electric cars are dirty?
I've been following Robert Llewellyns show Fully Charged show on youtube and while I'd prefer using a bike to get about my leaf has been perfectly suitable for my needs and a fair few of his reviews are quite inspiring.
Edit - forgot to add, the whole coal nonsense. Wasn't Cockensize power station demolished this year? By that logic we have no coal power stations in Scotland.
From today's National.
Dr Niall Caldwell, MD of Artemis Intelligent Power speaks about the 'the electric obsession'.
"However, Caldwell, whose company has also developed new hydraulics systems for cars, argues this benefits only the wealthy, saying: 'There is a subsidy paid to everyone who buys an electric car. Most of these are going to the middle classes and early adopters, people who have garages.
'The average person can’t afford it and they are paying their taxes to facilitate these things. We have got to question this.
'There is a lot of technology we could be deploying today which actually makes a massive improvement of the efficiency of conventional vehicles. We need a more mature approach.'
Based in Loanhead, Artemis employs a staff of 45 and created the world’s largest hydrostatic transmission system for a wind turbine.
Last month it secured £2.5 million funding from Wave Energy Scotland to trial a prototype geared towards improving wave power efficiency with Edinburgh company Quoceant.'
Artemis is owned by Mitsubishi. Someone from there came to the old shop and made me aware of some of the innovative stuff being done there including work for JCB.
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The £1m bill for electric cars doing just 6,000 miles a year
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Naturally there's no comparison to the petrol or diesel engines vehicles purchased by councils in fleets of thousands. Do they cover similarly low mileages? Or do they do considerably more, hence causing pollution?
Typical Tory mindset to only focus on pounds and pence rather than environmental costs.
"They have lavished £962,442 on just 147 electric vehicles since 2011.
But the vehicles have done only 5,843 miles on average, even though some of them are six years old and most cars do about 8,000 miles per year."
Ignoring the irrelevance of the six year age. They have paid £6,500 per vehicle which seems is remarkably good value. Despite the fact that these vehicles are best kept for short journeys around urban areas they have done 75% of the mileage of their long range high pollution compatriots.
It looks to me like the councils are getting excellent value from the vehicles.
@acsimpson I'm not sure which electric vehicles they could have bought for anything close to £6,500 each other than a fleet of Renault Twizys, unless the total includes a fair number of eBikes in addition to car and vans. Intriguing.
The entire fleet will be leased - electric or combustion. No big org wants to manage their own maintenance and after sales.
Indeed, without knowing what they pay for combusting cars it's impossible to know if that's good value.
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The Government is being urged to take immediate action to improve the country’s network of car charging points after new research suggested the current provision is set to be overwhelmed.
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I wonder where Volvo will get all their batteries from? Tesla?
A couple of quotes which surprised me from chdot's link posted last month which I only just read:
'Drivers in Edinburgh are the keenest to make the change, with almost a quarter (23.9 per cent) saying they’re planning on going electric by 2019.'
'Currently, Scotland is best served in terms of charging points, with 1,810 charging points for its 2.4m car owners.'
Electric vehicles are a much bigger deal on the continent than they are here. It's not particularly unusual to see a few Tesla/other charging bays in underground car parks, either municipal or hotel. Also, quite a few on street charging/parking bays. 1,810 for the whole of Scotland probably looks pretty pitiful through a Norwegian or German's eyes.
That said, the Scottish Government's draft energy strategy shows that whilst Scotland has done well in decarbonising its energy generation if it's going to hit its targets it really has to go after the decarbonisation of heating and transport. CCE users will know that there is a pretty obvious way of decarbonising short urban journeys, but for inter-urban trips something diesel and petrol has got to give...
[Worth noting that the need to decarbonise urban journeys should be another important lever for cycling campaigners when speaking to MSPs, Government officials etc. The energy strategy is one of SG's flagship items, so it should make their ears prick up...]
"so it should make their ears prick up"
Well you'd think so wouldn't you...
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