If the optimist says the glass is half full, and the pessimist says the glass is half empty, the physicist ducks.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/6/
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
"The Challenges Facing Electric Vehicle Uptake"
(61 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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Using bicycles for *all* short journeys is no more "the answer" than an electrically powered copy of an IC car
I think it was most rather than all.
There's always the old chestnut of "But how am I going to get this washing machine/fridge/cooker home from the shop?"
How indeed.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Electric cars pose environmental threat
From the BBC.
They are far more pollutant to produce than dinosaur cars apparently. The article concludes that they do have an overall environmental benefit. But the fuel saving (in Europe) is on 10-24% so it is easy to see how extra driving caused by believing that you are saving the polar bears will cause more pollution.
Posted 11 years ago # -
So it turns out that electric car batteries aren't made from gingerbread and sherbet and strawberries, but from an array of toxic and often scarce metals. Dang. Remind me again why the Scottish Government is spending £8m over 2 years on these things?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Must be that 'Renewables Powerhouse of Europe' thang they got goin' on down at Bute House.
Posted 11 years ago # -
When running over a cyclist or pedestrian, being in an electric car gives you the moral highground
Posted 11 years ago # -
Lol Kaputnik
Posted 11 years ago # -
The Scottish Government has heavily promoted environmentally-friendly transport
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Funny!
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
South Lanarkshire had the biggest underspend, with £309,000 unused, while Edinburgh had £280,000 unspent and Fife £220,000 remaining
"Posted 11 years ago # -
Humans will probably be the first species to cause their own extinction. Quite an achievement, when you think about it. We don't need no stinkin' meteors to create uninhabitable conditions - we just need to keep our heads in the sand, keep drinking the black milk, keep driving our cars every time we go to the corner shop. Or maybe we won't become extinct. It might just be that a few billion Africans starve and drown. But who cares about them - they don't have cars.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Noticed quite a few on street charging points here in Amsterdam.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
It has been the Next Big Thing for longer than most people can remember but there are signs that the much-derided electric car may finally be poised for it's moment in the sun.For Costing the Earth, Tom Heap visits the factory where a major European car maker's latest electric supermini takes it's place on the same production line as it's petrol and diesel cousins.
And he discovers that experts believe that success will come this time thanks to a combination of improved technology, commercial imperatives and a hefty dose of EU legislation.
"
Posted 10 years ago # -
"and a hefty dose of EU legislation"
And a hefty dose of subsidy?
And if England/UK leaves EU??
Posted 10 years ago # -
EU legislation - don't make me laugh. The Germans will never stand for it, they have a long track record of watering down EU wide private vehicle emissions standards due to pressure from their huge car industry.
I could easily be convinced that major car manufacturers are investing in electric vehicles as a way of ensuring that legislative action is not taken against them - as they can easily use these to convince politicians that these will "soon" replace all those horrible polluting internal combustion powered cars - no need to worry. If the technology does catch on, then that is a bonus for them.
Electric vehicle sales in Scotland are so low that that Transport Scotland statisticians could easily list the names of all the buyers in their annual transport statistics without adding a single extra page. Hard to see this changing any time soon - easy to be any early adapter when you are shelling out a few hundred quid on a new bit of computer related techno wizardry, but who wants to spike the best part of £30k on a small car that could turn out to be the betamax of vehicle technology.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"householders are being urged to get free electric car charging points installed in their homes"
...
"However the green scheme [...] has only seen a handful of people take up the £5000 offer."
Eh?
"Transport Scotland wants domestic charge points to be built in all new council homes and funding offered to major developers so charge points are included as a standard fitting in all new-build homes"
...and bike parking?
Posted 10 years ago # -
...and bike parking?
This is one thing that really annoys me. New-build blocks of low-rise flats all have these lovely shrub-bordered courtyards of pastel-brown block paviours for parking twenty or thirty cars.
Yet there is never anywhere to park a bike. Perish the thought that someone might own five bikes, but no car. Even the wheelie bins get better parking for crying out loud.
Posted 10 years ago # -
cb - the "£5000 offer" is actually a UK Government grant of £5k offered to anyone wishing to purchase an electric car. Almost no-one has actually taken up this offer due to concerns about availability of charging infrastructure and (probably more importantly) the unknown second hand re-sale value of an electric car.
Arellcat - cycle parking provision was an issue raised by PoP in its response to the consultation draft Scottish Planning Policy:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0043/00431587.pdf
Seriously doubt it will be taken on board though.
Posted 10 years ago # -
cb - the "£5000 offer" is actually a UK Government grant of £5k offered to anyone wishing to purchase an electric car.
If they'll pay someone £5000 in order to buy an environmentally less-unfriendly vehicle, surely they should pay me £10,000 for not owning any kind of car during the last 10 years?
Seriously, why does one type of car merit £5000 and a bike + no car at all merits nothing?
Posted 10 years ago # -
@gibbo
Wait your turn, I haven't own a car for 19 year and two weeks (sold the last on 10 October 1994)... ;-)Posted 10 years ago # -
I've never owned a car (41 years and counting...)
Posted 10 years ago # -
I've owned three cars so I owe you each £5000. That can't be right?
Posted 10 years ago # -
Sounds good to me ;-) my bank account details are .....
Posted 10 years ago # -
I've never owned a car (41 years and counting...)
I've never owned a car, 45 years and counting...
I picked 10 years as that's around a car's lifetime.
Posted 10 years ago # -
"
Edinburgh is Scotland’s electric car hotspot, with over 120 electric vehicles operating in the Capital out of a Scottish total of 1100. The city also has the best-used network of charging points, with a survey finding that every single one of the 38 sockets in the city was used at least once over the course of a month last year.
"
Posted 9 years ago # -
Spotted farings man's father in Balerno at farmers market today he had come in to the village for his gin. He is a big man, looks like wwII RAF. Wears science goggles for the wind, cannot walk very far at all but has traded his old push bike for an electric and is very pleased with it.
It was also tattie day, I should have said. Picked up my salad blues now chitting in the sitooterie.
One of the stalls hs invented a potato scone wrap which is basically a tattie scone the Size of a tortilla or I suppose a potato paratha. Another stall was selling tattie doughnuts. The whole thing was tattie filarious Missus.
Also a charidee quiz. Here is the best question (in my opinion, though I did set it, but I set others too)
Where near Balerno did John Lennon stay the night in 1965?
Posted 9 years ago # -
US demands electric cars make noise at low speed
"The safety specification requires car makers to use a two-tone signal similar to that currently emitted by heavy vehicles when they are reversing. "
So no end to noise pollution. And people will continue to step out into the road without looking.
Posted 7 years ago #
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