New Diesel and Petrol Vehicles To Be Banned From 2040 In UK (bbc.com)

New submitter puenktli writes: The UK is joining the list of the countries which are making a commitment towards diesel and petrol free vehicles. Other countries might be more progressive with such a ban (e.g. the Netherlands: by 2025), but at least it's a step in the right direction. However, if new bans are put forward at such a high rate as now, in 2040, the UK might be the only western country where petrol-fuelled cars are still on the road. Tesla at least will be happy about this ban, especially now with their Model 3. But these bans will inspire other car makers as well to invest more in EV. Maybe not such a bad idea after all: oil will run out one day, but the sun will always shine.

Comments

Short-sighted view

[Anonymous Coward]

oil will run out one day, but the sun will always shine

Maybe another 4 billion years but hardly always.

Re:Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

Well by the time the sun runs out many billion years from now, the Earth will not be habitable to humans or most life so I don't see that being a problem. By the time the sun become a red giant in about 5 billion years, the oceans will have boiled away by then.

Re:Short-sighted view

[cayenne8]

Hey, it's all cool with me all these other countries going EV....that just leaves more oil and gas for the US!!!

I'd like to keep big V-8's going throughout my lifetime, after that....meh, I don't care.

;)

Re:Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

That also means increased dependence on foreign oil. The US does not have enough oil for long term. That means the US will be dependent on other countries for oil.

Re: Short-sighted view

[Anonymous Coward]

Future generations will see your V8 as a stinky, polluting, noisy and wasteful old relic. Kids will go "whee" instead of "vrr" when they play with toy cars. You will become that old fart complaining that today's youth don't get the greatness of your antiquated ways.

Re:Short-sighted view

[cayenne8]

hat also means increased dependence on foreign oil. The US does not have enough oil for long term. That means the US will be dependent on other countries for oil.

Considering that the US is currently pumping more oil than it can use, and is actively selling it on the foreign market...I seriously doubt what you say would happen in my lifetime.

If the foreign market dried up, we'd stop selling our excess and enjoy it for many, many years to come.

Re:Short-sighted view

[Jhon]

It's a good path to take and regardless of regulations it's likely to happen naturally in the market -- oil will get more expensive to get out of the ground sooner or later.

People calling for "clean emissions" as the reason just seem silly to me. We don't have the ability to generate "clean" power at any level necessary to power cars -- and I recall reading an article in popular mechanics (which was debunking a claim about how much CO2 is required to just MAKE an electric car battery). The "debunked" claim was still pretty telling. It was something like 3 years before you start getting any CO2 benefit from the manufacture of the battery alone.

Re:Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

Considering that the US is currently pumping more oil than it can use, and is actively selling it on the foreign market...I seriously doubt what you say would happen in my lifetime.

Er what? Where do you get your figures? Right now the US is extracting less than 10M barrels of oil per week (1.4M bbl/day). Current US oil consumption is almost 20 million barrels per day. That's a difference 18M bbl/day.

Refinery capacity is slightly different because the US can refine more than 10M bbl/day but (and this is distinction), not all of that oil is US oil. For example, one reason for the Keystone Pipeline was so that oil from Canada could be transported cheaper than by rail or truck through the US. It goes to Houston where it is refined then shipped overseas. So in essence, the pipeline was never about getting more gasoline or oil products for the US. It was about the US subsidizing Canadian oil costs for the worldwide market.

If the foreign market dried up, we'd stop selling our excess and enjoy it for many, many years to come.

There is no excess. You've not been told the truth.

Re:Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

If there are shortage in US produced oil it will be because .gov wants it that way. The surplus that developed during the Obama years was despite his actions, which delayed or effectively stopped development of oil resources on public lands. The growth was nearly all private development on state and private lands.

Bahahahaha. What surplus? During the early Obama years, there was more oil produced and consumed because the price of oil was higher. This was due to OPEC reducing the supply of oil to try to control the market. This increased the price of oil to where sources of fossil fuels like the Canadian tar sands, fracking, etc was profitable worth pursuing. Then some members of OPEC refused to abide and countries like Saudi Arabia releasing a large supply of oil to punish other members.

Want a shortage? Get an administration or an overzealous EPA to prevent private and state level development.

What is the US capacity of oil and what is the US consumption of oil? The US uses way more oil that it has. Estimates of the US Strategic Reserves is 2-5 years of oil.

Re: Short-sighted view

[Megol]

How about not making complex diagnosis of rare personality disorders online from a few lines of text?

Re: Short-sighted view

[The Grim Reefer]

Kids will go "whee" instead of "vrr" when they play with toy cars.

Unlikely. They'll learn to make those noises from their older relatives. Just like people still say they want to "roll up/down the windows" in a car. My daughter says it and she was in a vehicle with hand cranked windows once in her life when she was 8 years old. People still "dial" a number on their phone and hang up their cell phone, pump gas, rewind a scene in a video, been through the wringer, etc.

Re: Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

The link is from the EIA. Dispute the numbers with them.

Re:Short-sighted view

[mspohr]

EVs will have lower TCO in just a few years. You can keep driving your V-8 but it will cost you dearly. Even cheap fossil fuel is more expensive than electricity and, of course, maintenance on that aging V-8 will cost a lot.
EVs, OTOH, are cheap to run (equivalent to gas at about 50 cents a gallon) and due to the fact that their drive trains have several thousand fewer parts than and ICE car, are much more reliable... not to mention much better performance than any V-8.

Re: Short-sighted view

[Oswald McWeany]

Future generations will see your V8 as a stinky, polluting, noisy and wasteful old relic. Kids will go "whee" instead of "vrr" when they play with toy cars. You will become that old fart complaining that today's youth don't get the greatness of your antiquated ways.

I already do see V8's as stinky polluting, noisy and wasteful old relics. I'm not one of these ultra-green environment-folk, and I think V8's are obnoxious and wasteful. Can't imagine what future folk will think.

Re: Short-sighted view

[ShanghaiBill]

The link is from the EIA. Dispute the numbers with them.

You are reading the chart wrong. It is barrels per day, not week, so the production is seven times what you said. The chart is confusing because it also says "per week", but that is because the figures for daily production are updated once a week.

Re: Short-sighted view

[Oswald McWeany]

Kids will go "whee" instead of "vrr" when they play with toy cars.

Unlikely. They'll learn to make those noises from their older relatives. Just like people still say they want to "roll up/down the windows" in a car. My daughter says it and she was in a vehicle with hand cranked windows once in her life when she was 8 years old. People still "dial" a number on their phone and hang up their cell phone, pump gas, rewind a scene in a video, been through the wringer, etc.

I suspect cars will continue to say "Brum-Brum" just like trains continue to say "Choo-Choo"; however, a child playing with a toy car will make sound effects that sound like the car. I didn't physically say "Brum Brum" when pushing my toy cars around... when I was younger of course... I gave up toys when I turned 35.

Re: Short-sighted view

[zieroh]

How about not making complex diagnosis of rare personality disorders online from a few lines of text?

You're paranoid.

Re:Short-sighted view

[kaatochacha]

I'm buying a new car, and just ran the numbers for a volt versus a normal gas engine.
In my commute? I save an amazing $321 a year.
That's less than $1 a day. in a car which is $3K MORE than the gas car, even after $9K in gov't /state bonuses.
You wannna push electric vehicles? Lower the cost of Electricity.

Re: Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

My bad but there still is a rather large deficit.

Re:Short-sighted view

[green1]

Considering the timeline picked, and the age of most politicians. It seems they feel the same way as you do.

Re:Short-sighted view

[mpercy]

I thought that was going to happen by 2018 or so, what with all the global warming and such?

Re:Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

No the tipping point of irreversible damage due to global warming was 2018 not the oceans boiling away due to the sun.

Re:Short-sighted view

[mpercy]

I was referring to "the Earth will not be habitable to humans or most life so I don't see that being a problem". If some of the hysteria was to be believed, we're all gonna drown then fry by next year as the ice caps melt and the temps rise. Nothing can be done, too late to fix it. Putting something like this off to 2040 means you don't *really* care about saving the planet, right?

Re:Short-sighted view

[LynnwoodRooster]

The Green River Formation has 200+ years of oil reserves at the current US rate of ~20 million barrels consumption a day. And that is just one oil reserve within the US. We could be 100% self-sufficient, free of any foreign oil dependence, for literally centuries.

Re:Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

I was referring to "the Earth will not be habitable to humans or most life so I don't see that being a problem". If some of the hysteria was to be believed, we're all gonna drown then fry by next year as the ice caps melt and the temps rise.

The Earth will not habitable in a few billion years due to the life-cycle of the sun. That's not the same as the Earth will not be habitable in a few hundred years due to humans changing the environment. You don't see a distinction between the two?

Nothing can be done, too late to fix it. Putting something like this off to 2040 means you don't *really* care about saving the planet, right?

In the sun scenario, nothing can be done except for changing the sun which is very much beyond current capabilities to change the nuclear reactions within a star. In terms of global warming, polluting significantly less is what has been proposed. These are not the same. That's a false equivalence.

Re: Short-sighted view

[The Grim Reefer]

I gave up toys when I turned 35

I didn't, the toys got more expensive though. ;-)

Re:Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

Not it does not. From your own link

The Green River Formation contains the largest oil shale deposit in the world. It has been estimated that the oil shale reserves could be equal up to 3 trillion barrels (480 billion cubic metres) of shale oil, up to half of which may be recoverable by shale oil extraction technologies (pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution of kerogen in oil shale). However, the estimates of recoverable oil has been questioned by geophysicist Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, who argues that the technology for recovering oil from the Green River oil shale deposit has not been developed and has not been profitably implemented at any significant scale.

Re: Short-sighted view

[ShanghaiBill]

My bad but there still is a rather large deficit.

American production covers about half of consumption. But much of the remainder comes from Canada and Mexico. Very little comes from the Middle East.

America was on track to increase production to the level of consumption, but the dramatic fall in prices put many frackers out of business. There is plenty of idle capacity, and if prices go back up, we can have a lot of active wells in six months or less. American frackers have become the world's swing producers.

But there will always be some imports, because oil is not fungible. Sweet crude is great for gasoline, but Venezuelan heavy crude is much cheaper and good enough for asphalt, heating oil, and bunker fuel.

Re:Short-sighted view

[mspohr]

Fuel cost alone is EV=0.03 cents per mile and ICE = 0.20 cents per mile. (YMMV)
Also, EVs have low maintenance cost. Tires are about the only cost. Brakes last forever; no oil changes; drive train has a few thousand fewer parts to wear and break.
The more you drive, the more you save.

Re: Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

America was on track to increase production to the level of consumption, but the dramatic fall in prices put many frackers out of business. There is plenty of idle capacity, and if prices go back up, we can have a lot of active wells in six months or less. American frackers have become the world's swing producers.

Considering at no time when the price of oil was high that production was anywhere near meeting more than half of consumption, that's a stretch to say. I have friends who work in the oil industry. The difference when prices are high and prices are low is that at high prices they will tap sources that were considered to expensive to use. For example, the Canadian tar sands, extremely heavy sour crude, etc. But there's not a lot of unused potential sitting out there just sitting because of no reason. The reason is mostly that the cost extracting/refining the source is not economically viable until prices are higher.

But there will always be some imports, because oil is not fungible. Sweet crude is great for gasoline, but Venezuelan heavy crude is much cheaper and good enough for asphalt, heating oil, and bunker fuel.

Well that's not how it works. Every oil company would love to have light sweet crude but that's not realistic. At times all they have is heavy, sour crude. So it will cost more to refine Venezuelan heavy into gasoline but if that's all you have, it's what is used.

Re:Short-sighted view

[OneHundredAndTen]

oil will run out one day, but the sun will always shine

Maybe another 4 billion years but hardly always.

Major changes in the planet aside, oil will never run out. Rather, at some point it will not make economic sense to drill for it any more. That will hopefully happen some time within the next 20-30 years.

Re:Short-sighted view

[hipp5]

I'm buying a new car, and just ran the numbers for a volt versus a normal gas engine. In my commute? I save an amazing $321 a year. That's less than $1 a day. in a car which is $3K MORE than the gas car, even after $9K in gov't /state bonuses. You wannna push electric vehicles? Lower the cost of Electricity.

Don't forget to factor in maintenance costs. EVs are much simpler with fewer moving parts. No oil changes, no muffler replacements, etc.

But yeah, I'm not surprised the math doesn't pencil out yet. Modern EVs are still relatively new in the grand scheme of things, and there's a lot of optimizing still to be done. But the math will work out sooner or later. In the meantime the people buying them are doing so for reasons other than hard dollars and cents (i.e. the same reason anyone buys a $30k car in a world where $15k cars exist).

Re:Short-sighted view

[skullandbones99]

Life on Earth has about 1 billion years left because the habitable zone is moving further out into the solar system because the sun's output is slowly increasing.

Re: Short-sighted view

[TheCastro1689]

Do you think someone that owned a fast horse that ate more than a an avg horse was dumb? What about someone with a horse instead of pony or donkey? You probably don't think much about it or know enough to judge them.

Re:Short-sighted view

[Hognoxious]

Maybe another 4 billion years but hardly always.

I'm panicking here. Is that short scale or long scale billions?

Re:Short-sighted view

[Altrag]

Well ignoring the fact that its pretty hard to implement technology that hasn't been developed yet, at any cost, "profitably" is a rather useless metric since the profitability of any reserve depends on the price of oil. Some specific reserve may not be profitable at say, $50/barrel but if all the $50/barrel oil is used up and the price has gone up to $70/barrel.. now you get to revisit those reserves you'd overlooked before.

Basically, any oil that can be extracted, at any price, should be considered part of the available reserve even if it can't be extracted at today's prices, because eventually the price will go up. Even some oil that can't currently be extracted at any price will become part of the available reserve in future as we invent new technologies that we perhaps can't even foresee at the moment.

Re:Short-sighted view

[skullandbones99]

It's a good path to take and regardless of regulations it's likely to happen naturally in the market -- oil will get more expensive to get out of the ground sooner or later.

The UK Government is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy because they are signalling to industry to tell them not to make ICE vehicles. If there are no new ICE vehicles to purchase then the public can't buy any of them even if they wanted one.

The cost of oil will decrease when the number of EVs increases which is counter-intuitive. This is because there will be an oil surplus with oil production facilities being slowly closed down. Oil will become too cheap to sell for profit due to lack of demand. Governments are likely to add more taxes onto the fuel to keep the oil price high to avoid people going back to using old ICE cars.

People calling for "clean emissions" as the reason just seem silly to me. We don't have the ability to generate "clean" power at any level necessary to power cars

Are you saying hydro power is not clean ? Nuclear fission is clean from an emissions point of view. In 40 years, clean nuclear fusion power might be here. There will be plenty of "clean" power for EVs. And don't forget wind and solar power.

With smart charging, EVs can level out the power peaks and troughs to act as grid storage in the home. This will eliminate the expensive on-demand natural gas power stations. This means when you return home from work and plug your EV in, the EV can power your home during the peak power loading in the evening and then the EV can charge overnight when the demand is lower.

Re:Short-sighted view

[EvilSS]

oil will run out one day, but the sun will always shine

Maybe another 4 billion years but hardly always.

If we haven't figured out how to make our way out among the stars to ruin other planets by then, well it won't really matter much one way or another.

Re: Short-sighted view

[Rei]

Indeed. For example, Tesla's warranty on both the pack and drive unit is 8 years / unlimited mileage.

Re:Short-sighted view

[swillden]

I'm buying a new car, and just ran the numbers for a volt

Don't forget to factor in maintenance costs. EVs are much simpler with fewer moving parts.

A Volt isn't. It's more complex with more moving parts, since it has all the complexity of an ICEV, plus all of a battery EV, plus all of the complexity for transitioning between the two.

A BEV is much simpler, though. And can be *much* cheaper. I expect that my TCO for owning my originally factory-new Nissan LEAF for 200K miles will be about $20K, or $0.10 per mile.

Granted, I kind of lucked out on the cost of the car. I leased it in 2013. At the time, it was a $37K car ($30K after tax credits, which went to the lessor), compared to $40K for a Chevy Volt. But with all the new greater-range EVs coming out now, the value of those older LEAFs has dropped like a rock, so I was able to buy it off lease for $6K. Three years of lease payments added up to just under $7K, so my cost for the vehicle has been just under $13K, including the interest I paid on the lease (I paid cash when I bought it off lease).

I average 4.2 miles per kWh, and pay about $0.11 per kWh, so my energy cost is 2.6 cents per mile. Assuming $2.50 per gallon, I'd have to get 95 miles per gallon in an ICEV to get the same per-mile energy cost.

Then there's maintenance. Or not. I've put 50K miles on my car and the only maintenance I've had to do is $200 for a set of new tires. Oh, and refill the windshield wiper fluid reservoir. Brakes are still great (EV brakes last longer than ICEV brakes, because much braking is regenerative). Oil changes aren't a thing.

Looking into the future, I can expect to replace the tires at normal intervals, and eventually it'll need brake pads. There is no transmission. No clutch. There are no spark plugs or wires, no catalytic converter or other emissions system, no muffler. At some point I'll need to replace the 12V lead acid battery (normal auto battery).

Of course, eventually the big lithium ion battery will need to be replaced. So far, in 4 years and 50K miles my battery has lost 3% of its capacity. It's warrantied to maintain 80% for 100K miles, but judging by the experience of other LEAF owners in fairly cool climates like mine (very hot climates are a different story!), it's more likely that it'll go 200K miles before it falls to 80%.

When the battery does need to be replaced, I'll be looking at a cost of about $5K, which is pretty comparable to the cost of a new engine for a small car, and quite a bit less than the cost of a new engine & transmission. Plus, by the time I buy a new battery pack, the replacement will almost certainly be higher-capacity and longer-lasting.

Anyway, assuming I drive the car until the battery needs to be replaced at, say, 200K miles, and then junk the car, I'll have spent around $20K, which is a TCO of $0.10 per mile. To go beyond 200K I'll probably looking at CV joints and similar components in addition to a battery, but it seems reasonable that I could get another 200K miles for an additional $7K or so in repairs (incl. battery), plus another $5K in electricity, so about $0.06 per mile.

The downside, of course, is that this is not a road trip vehicle. It's great for running around town, though. And it's a lot more fun to drive than comparable ICEVs.

Re: Short-sighted view

[crunchygranola]

... light sweet crude...

I have always thought that sounds like the perfect date.

Re:Short-sighted view

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Fuel cost alone is EV=0.03 cents per mile and ICE = 0.20 cents per mile. (YMMV)
Also, EVs have low maintenance cost. Tires are about the only cost. Brakes last forever; no oil changes; drive train has a few thousand fewer parts to wear and break.
The more you drive, the more you save.

On the maintenance, a lot of "maintenance" items I see in cars are outside the base powertrain. I will grant you the brakes(hybrid versions of my car have significantly longer brake life), and I also live in snow country which isn't kind on cars (from corrosion and potholes), but I see people struggling with:
-Tie rod ends
-Ball joints
-Wheel bearings
-Shocks
-body work from corrosion
-random shit failing (instrument cluster, switches, fans, stereos, lights [bulbs or wiring problems], power window motors, power lock solinoids, water leaks, etc).

Electric cars are great and all, but they still have the above.

Re:Short-sighted view

[mspohr]

I live in snow country and I keep my cars for 20+ years. Never had any problems with any of the things you list.
My older cars have had power train problems: engine and transmission seals, radiator, top end of the engine, transmission rebuild, lots of emission control problems (O2 sensors, air pumps, exhaust and catalytic convertor problems).

Re:Short-sighted view

[bored_engineer]

huh. I also live in snow country, and don't have any power train problems to speak of on either of my cars (a '99 and a '97) beyond normal maintenance and a water pump. Oh yes, I have a minor oil leak on each car that needs to be addressed. Interestingly, I've just finished repairs on the front end to one of the cars, and will buy parts tonight to completely rebuild the front end of the other. Also, power antennae suck.

It's funny to me that our experiences have been so different.

Re:Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

If something has not been developed yet, how can you include it in the realm of possibility? That's like me saying that fossil fuels will be economically infeasible when fusion technology is available.

Re:Short-sighted view

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yes, ONE guy questions it about the technology. But the companies that would it claim it can be done for $30/barrel. Apparently the technology exists, it's been trial run, and it can be profitable if oil sells for more than $30 a barrel - which is lower than the current price of oil per barrel.

Re:Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

If it can be done for $30/barrel, why wasn't it done? When crude oil was $100/barrel why wasn't it done? You can't really answer that can you? The fact of the matter since it wasn't done, it is probably a safe bet he was right.

Re:Short-sighted view

[dogvomit]

I'm buying a new car, and just ran the numbers for a volt versus a normal gas engine...

Buy the Volt anyway — it's just an awesome car. Zero to 30 takes about a millisecond [1]. Zero to 60 in 7.5 seconds. And the torque is always there; doesn't matter how fast you are going, you hit the pedal and it zings! It's just nothing like a gas engine.

And when you decide to drive to the next state, you don't have to plan some route based on expensive Chargepoints; you just gas up and go.

You get 60 miles on a charge. I guess if your commute is more than that, it's probably not for you. I don't usually drive more than 30 miles in a day unless something is up, so for me it's perfect. I don't work for Chevrolet, no relatives either. I'm just really happy with my Volt. By the way, the federal rebate was $7.5k when I did my taxes this past April, not 9k.

[1] I know, it was hyperbole.
--
Happy happy oh my friend.

Re: Short-sighted view

[cayenne8]

Believe it or not, you can appreciate the engineering of the internal combustion engine and at the same time realize how crappy they are and their injury to the planet.

Yeah, but a motorcycle will NOT be the same if they are forced to go electric.

Half the fun is the loud sound, the low rumble, the smells, etc......

And besides, by the time it would hurt the planet seriously, we'll all be long gone and dead, so who cares?

Re:Short-sighted view

[Tjp($)pjT]

Really only about 300 million years. The surface temperature (not due to global warming, just normal earth rotation slowing and other factors) will not support liquid water. So humans if they stick to this dirt ball will live underground. but that habitable layer will shrink too. Other scientists say nearly 1 billion years. Even so long before that the surface won't support humans. We'll be capturing comets and living in domed cities long before the oceans are gone. If we are still around.

Re:Short-sighted view

[Barsteward]

Have you factored in maintenance/servicing etc?

Re:Short-sighted view

[rtb61]

Well, a couple of people with blind faith, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and of course rogue suns are also entirely possible. So bearing a major impact or an unheard of broad galaxy broad affecting or even universe affecting event, than it might last that long (our entire section of the universe could just wink out for some undiscovered reason).

As for delusion about oil under the ground, the more electric car countries the less oil will be needed the cheaper it becomes and those expensive sources will of course go right out of business. Only the cheapest oil suppliers will survive the market and only oil which is readily processed for the new processing only market will be traded. Also in the much smaller markets, some countries will be declared undesirable supplies ie Saudi Arabia, with a preference to maintain local production to supply hugely reduced demand. Of course stocks in oil companies will get dumped into pensions funds, privatise the profits and socialise the losses.

The fossil fuellers did a quite corrupt job of fending over the changes via professional PR=B$ agencies but it was inevitable, as well the dumping of fossil fuel stocks into pension funds, via ones means or another, especially those oil sources that will shut down because it costs to much or the oil is crap for processing for other uses.

Here's something people don't realise yet. A lot of the sealed off or to be sealed off oil wells will fail in the future and spread pollution over vast areas, you have been warned (no money to maintain or secure them and everyone cheating in the end as they try to wring out as much money out of failed companies as possible and no one left to pay fines), it will be quite the fuck up, have fun ;D.

Re:Short-sighted view

[Barsteward]

Some EV battery packs, e.g. Nissan Leaf, are designed to be able to identify dud cells and replace them so no need to put in a new pack.

Re: Short-sighted view

[Mashiki]

You do know that most if not all modern V8 engines don't run on all cylinders right? They'll run on 2-4 during stop/idle traffic, 3 during highway driving. The only times they'll run on all 8 is when the engine is under heavy load for acceleration or the vehicle is pulling something. GM pioneered that FYI with the northstar series engines in the 1990's, but all manufactures that offer V6 and higher use something similar.

Re: Short-sighted view

[KGIII]

Which is why I eat my dessert first.

Re: Short-sighted view

[KGIII]

I do love my ICE, enough to have a moderate collection - going back to the 50s. I've posted pics previously.

Even though someone tried to kill me with their car, I still maintain my bike license. I haven't picked out a new one, but I'm probably going to go with another BMW.

But... Holy balls! Could you imagine a electric bike built for acceleration? I'm pretty sure that would be almost as much fun as an ounce of coke and a rented chimpanzee. I don't even care if the range is just 50 miles. That will only barely make it to town and back. I still don't care.

I wouldn't really want to replace a ICE with one, but I'd consider buying one to just play with it. Being an EV, it could even have power to both wheels. I'd troll the fuck out of Harley riders.

Trivially related, make sure you have good leathers and don't skimp on your helmet. I'd avoid overly expensive leathers. They don't care. They will cut that right off you. I did get a free replacement helmet. I got it for sending mine back to the company so that they could cut it and study it.

Re: Short-sighted view

[KGIII]

"I gave up toys..."

I'm pretty sure that is something I've never said, except for this one post. I don't even know why anyone would want to do so, certainly not as an adult. Hell, as an adult you can buy your own toys.

I'm still in my bed. On my nightstand, I have two Matchbox cars - right this very minute. Sometimes, I can even convince my girlfriend to play with them. She claims she doesn't see the appeal and only does it to amuse me, but she does make them take some pretty sweet jumps.

Re: Short-sighted view

[KGIII]

I don't think that's TCO you're using. Those are operational expenses. The T stands for Total, which would include purchase price, taxes, registration fees, etc...

Re: Short-sighted view

[hipp5]

I don't think that's TCO you're using. Those are operational expenses. The T stands for Total, which would include purchase price, taxes, registration fees, etc...

Did you read all of swillden's post? That 20k included the cost to lease the car for three years, and then to purchase it outright at end of lease. I.e., yes, it was TCO that swillden was using.

Re:Short-sighted view

[thenitz]

I bought a $30K car while my previous one was $15K. But the new car is bigger, accelerates faster, is quieter, has a prettier color, has a sun roof, navigates using Google Maps, the brand is better perceived by people I meet... there are a hundred benefits that overall made me feel it's worth the extra dollars and cents.

However when I decided between gas, diesel, or plug-in hybrid, I did the math and counted the dollars. I didn't feel going hybrid or EV is worth anything but saving money.

People who buy EVs have to accept the inconvenience of long charging and short range, and for most of us, there are not enough benefits of going electric to compensate for the cost and troubles. EVs cost now a lot more than ICEs, and what do you get for the extra money? Silent drive, extra torque, a warm fuzzy feeling of running a cleaner car? how many people care about that?

Re: Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

Considering that the Canadian tar stands require oil at least $70/barrel to be viable, I can't see how you can say it was "easier and cheaper" to extract than shale oil at $30/barrel. And during the height of oil prices, the tar sands were being used. But this shale oil reservoir was not. That kinda destroys your argument doesn't it?

Re:Short-sighted view

[hipp5]

EVs cost now a lot more than ICEs, and what do you get for the extra money? Silent drive, extra torque, a warm fuzzy feeling of running a cleaner car? how many people care about that?

Well I think the people buying them now care about precisely those things. That was kind of my point. The math on choosing EV doesn't pencil out yet on dollars and cents alone, so people who are buying them are buying them for other reasons (just like you bought your 30k car for other reasons). But costs on EVs have a lot of room to go down, so the math will start to become more and more of a factor as the technology matures.

Re:Short-sighted view

[thunderclees]

A lot of EVs are getting free electric as it is being subsidized.

EVs have a big cost in batteries, most of the value of the vehicle is in them and they have a short life.

From a Tesla tech talk:

• The battery degrades everyday
• Battery degradation is non-linear over time; meaning it starts very very slow, but after 4-5 years, it gets faster
• After the first 5 years, degradation may be as low as 5%. But by the 8th year, they expect about 30% degradation.

Re:Short-sighted view

[cthulhu11]

There's the GM factor, though -- it's still going to be designed goofy.

Re:Short-sighted view

[lsatenstein]

What am I going to put onto the chain and squirt onto the ball-bearings of my bike? Do I replace oil with hydrogenated butter?

Re:Short-sighted view

[lsatenstein]

I'm buying a new car, and just ran the numbers for a volt versus a normal gas engine.
In my commute? I save an amazing $321 a year.
That's less than $1 a day. in a car which is $3K MORE than the gas car, even after $9K in gov't /state bonuses.
You wannna push electric vehicles? Lower the cost of Electricity.

What is your cost of electricity?

Re:Short-sighted view

[lsatenstein]

Fuel cost alone is EV=0.03 cents per mile and ICE = 0.20 cents per mile. (YMMV)
Also, EVs have low maintenance cost. Tires are about the only cost. Brakes last forever; no oil changes; drive train has a few thousand fewer parts to wear and break.
The more you drive, the more you save.

Can I operate the car in -22C weather? I need something that does not lose driving distance as the weather gets down below freezing 0C or 32F.

Why is the USA the only one to give a F

Re:Short-sighted view

[mspohr]

Real world experience has Tesla batteries going 200,000 miles with only 6% degradation.
Not a problem.

Re:Short-sighted view

[mspohr]

Lots of Teslas in Norway where it's very cold in Winter. They work just fine.

Re: Short-sighted view

[swillden]

I don't think that's TCO you're using. Those are operational expenses. The T stands for Total, which would include purchase price, taxes, registration fees, etc...

I did neglect taxes and registration fees, but included purchase price.

Re: Short-sighted view

[KGIII]

Sheesh! LOL

It was a good deal, by the way.

Re: Short-sighted view

[LynnwoodRooster]

Tar sands are about $43 per barrel to break-even, and they are in Canada which means they are not part of the Green River shale formation in the USA. A lot of the reason we are not producing out of the Green River formation is because of what was mentioned above (cheaper for us to produce in other US regions), and political roadblocks to actually developing that resource.

Re: Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

Tar sands are about $43 per barrel to break-even [oilsandsmagazine.com], and they are in Canada which means they are not part of the Green River shale formation in the USA.

So you're agreeing with me that using the tar sands is more expensive than shale oil but it was done during high oil prices and the Green River was not. That destroys your argument doesn't it?

A lot of the reason we are not producing out of the Green River formation is because of what was mentioned above (cheaper for us to produce in other US regions), and political roadblocks [house.gov] to actually developing that resource.

You like to ignore facts, don't you? Crude oil prices peaked at $144 in May 2008. In fact prices has been steadily rising since 2002. May 2008 was 6 months before Obama was elected and George W Bush was still president. The Green River formation crosses into the Republican states of Wyoming and Utah. Yet your reason why it was not developed was Obama who was not elected yet stood in the way. Or is it that your $30/barrel cost was wrong?

Re:Short-sighted view

[Lost Race]

Fuel cost alone is EV=0.03 cents per mile

That seems unlikely. $0.0003 per mile?

Re: Short-sighted view

[swillden]

It was an awesome deal :-)

Basically, Nissan took it in the shorts for hugely overestimating the residual value of the car when they leased it to me. I think the original lease agreement assumed a residual of over $20K, but the market value had plummeted to barely a third of that by the end of the lease plus a one year extension.

I think the car would have been an okay deal even without their serious miscalculation. With it? What a steal.

Re:Short-sighted view

[mspohr]

Yes... it's 3 cents per mile for EV and 20 cents per mile for gas. My error.

Re: Short-sighted view

[LynnwoodRooster]

No, my point - and one that you CONTINUE to ignore because you have a crusade to push - is that other sources of crude are cheaper to extract for the US. So we do those instead of the shale oil. Once again:

THE TAR SANDS ARE IN CANADA AND ARE NOT IN THE US!

They are the CHEAPEST source of oil inside Canada, and thus the reason Canada started refining them when oil was well over $43 a barrel. That was also the time the Canadian dollar reached parity with the US dollar. Now that oil has plummeted, the tar sands production is slowing down, and the Canadian dollar has also tumbled. If oil prices go back up, Canada will start heavy refining again.

HOWEVER, the US still has LOTS of other resources of oil well below $30 per barrel, and will continue to pump that until it exceeds that price. Then we could switch over to the Green River formation and pump that.

Bottom line: we have well over 2 centuries of proven oil reserves within the US, and most of that can be extracted at around $30 or less per barrel. You want to argue that? Go ahead - bring a fact or two, because I've proven my case repeatedly with nicely linked facts, and your position is completely irrelevant because it stands on a FOREIGN COUNTRY with DIFFERENT RESOURCES behaving in a different manner.

Re: Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

No, my point - and one that you CONTINUE to ignore because you have a crusade to push - is that other sources of crude are cheaper to extract for the US. So we do those instead of the shale oil. Once again:

You seem to ignore basic facts when they destroy your argument. I pointed out with facts that your assertion is simply false. If extracting is profitable at $30/barrel why didn't anyone extract one iota of the oil during all the years when it was profitable to do so. After all, your entire premise is that the US has plenty of oil with this reservoir. Yet they didn't touch it. Either every oil company is simply stupid for not doing so or they understand the economics of oil more than you.

THE TAR SANDS ARE IN CANADA AND ARE NOT IN THE US!,

The point of the tar sands which is clearly over your head is that crude oil was high enough, Canadian oil companies used the tar sands which are even higher in cost than your shale oil. If we go by your assertion, every single US oil company should have started drilling into the Green River reservoir long ago.

HOWEVER, the US still has LOTS of other resources of oil well below $30 per barrel, and will continue to pump that until it exceeds that price. Then we could switch over to the Green River formation and pump that.

That's not what you said. Are you forgetting what you said?

Bottom line: we have well over 2 centuries of proven oil reserves within the US, and most of that can be extracted at around $30 or less per barrel. You want to argue that?

You have yet to actually prove that. I did. You simply refuse to admit that you're just wrong.

You want to argue that? Go ahead - bring a fact or two, because I've proven my case repeatedly with nicely linked facts, and your position is completely irrelevant because it stands on a FOREIGN COUNTRY with DIFFERENT RESOURCES behaving in a different manner.

No you brought in erroneous and irrelevant excuses instead of merely accepting that facts don't coincide with your assertions.

Re: Short-sighted view

[LynnwoodRooster]

You sir, are an idiot. I will spell this out ONE MORE TIME.

Cost of production of oil in the US has always been less than $30/barrel. Even when cost of oil skyrocketed, that was from DEMAND outpacing supply, not because of cost of supply. And cost of production in CANADA has zero impact on cost of production in the US. Just like cost of production in the US has zero impact on the cost of production in Saudi Arabia.

We never worked on the oil shale reserves because they are still more expensive than our other reserves. Now, if Canada had the shale oil, they would probably use it because it is cheaper than tar sands. But they don't.

If you don't get it this time, then you truly are somewhere near a borderline, drooling moron...

Re: Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

Wow you don't understand the oil industry at all.
Let me put this as simplify this as much as I can:

In 2008, oil hit a peak price of $144/barrel. At the time the US produced 1.8B barrels and imported 3.6B barrels of oil of which 0.7B came from Canada. At 1.8B, it was also the lowest amount of US oil production in the last 60 years.

According to you, the US has plenty of oil. Yet the US imported twice as much oil as they produced. Yet the US produced the lowest amount of oil in the last 60 years during an oil boom. Yet they imported 20% of their oil from Canada who somehow was making lots of money on their expensive oil sands oil. Yet they didn't start drilling into this cheap oil shale reservoir (and every single reservoir) that they had. Every single US oil company decided not to make lots of money during that time period when they should have been tapping into all reserves and preferred to import 20% of their oil from Canada.

OR
You have no idea of how the oil industry works.

Re: Short-sighted view

[LynnwoodRooster]

Study this graph. Then realize you're an idiot. The reason the US didn't access shale reserves is because other reserves are cheaper. And it's cheaper to use existing setups rather than pay the initial ramp and 10 years it takes to start harvesting. Of course, in your fairy tale world, it's better to spend 10 years to ramp up production and pay to build the infrastructure for what everyone pretty much knew was a temporary (2 year max) spike, rather than just go with existing sources for most of the imports...

Re: Short-sighted view

[toddestan]

The only manufacturers I know doing this is GM, DaimlerChrysler (now split up, but both Daimler and Chrysler use the technology developed together), and Honda. And this is a relatively recent development, only in the last 10 years or so - not counting failed attempts like the infamous Cadillac 8-6-4 system from the 80's. So chances are that V8 engine really is still firing on all cylinders, especially if it's an old belching relic of one.

Re: Short-sighted view

[UnknowingFool]

Study this graph [wsj.com]. Then realize you're an idiot. The reason the US didn't access shale reserves is because other reserves are cheaper.

Bahahahaha. You realize your graph just shows you're even more wrong. You don't actually understand a word I said did you? During the time of high oil prices, according to your graph the US production costs are some of the lowest in the world. YET THEY HAD THE LOWEST AMOUNT OF PRODUCTION IN 60 YEARS. We're not even talking the Green River formation. According to you, the US has plenty of supply but they didn't exploit any of that during times of high prices. Every single US oil company decided to produce less oil at a time when they could have made lots of money.

OR

You're just wrong about the US oil supply.

I know people in the industry. During the rise of oil prices from 2002 to 2008, every single US oil company was tapping every reserve they could. The problem was before 2008 they were using up every reserve they could. They were tapping reserves that were deemed too expensive to use in previous decades: high impurities, deep ocean, etc. By 2008, they had expended what they had. But according to you they could have tapped this reservoir. YET THEY DIDN'T. So again you know more about US oil supply that US oil companies.

And it's cheaper to use existing setups rather than pay the initial ramp and 10 years it takes to start harvesting.

How do you know it take 10 yeas to start harvesting? Cite your source. It doesn't take 10 years to start harvesting; it takes a few years depending on location (geology, existing infrastructure, etc). It can take up to 10 years (sometimes decades) because once a source is found, the oil companies have to determine the production cost of the source. Again some sources in West Texas have been dormant because the production cost was too high compared to the price of oil. So the oil company just sits on the deposit.

Second, why was the US production the lowest it had been in 60 years? That alone destroys your argument. They used existing setups and neglected to see the rise of oil prices in 6 years? Doesn't make sense that the largest US oil companies neglected to react to oil prices over the period of 6 years, doesn't it? But you know so much more than them, don't you?

Of course, in your fairy tale world, it's better to spend 10 years to ramp up production and pay to build the infrastructure for what everyone pretty much knew was a temporary (2 year max) spike, rather than just go with existing sources for most of the imports...

Bahahaha. Have you visited West Texas recently? During the peak, that's exactly what the oil companies did. Every well in West Texas was tapped during the boom. Lots of people were hired; equipment was moved in, towns suddenly boomed. And guess what happened afterwards: the wells were shut down, the equipment moved out. The people were let go. The towns shrunk down again.

Re:Short-sighted view

[thunderclees]

No the numbers are not that good, it is more like 20% degradation over 6 years and you are looking at having to put aside $2k per year at that point to replace the tired cells and that's just Tesla, ask how long the batteries last Nissan Leaf owners. That not even considering the extra wear and tear of operating in the cold or the premature failure of operating in hot states. Face it dude, if you want to reduce carbon then hydrogen would be a better answer.

reasonable gamble

[sheramil]

... assuming the UK is still a first-world nation by 2040.

Re:reasonable gamble

[AmiMoJo]

Maybe not... By the time the ban comes it, it might be hard to buy a combustion engine car. I expect there will be some specialist vehicles still on the market, but the vast majority will be electric.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Stormwatch]

... assuming the UK is still a first-world nation by 2040.

It ceased to be one in 1991, since the "Three-World Model" was about national alignments during the Cold War.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Anonymous Coward]

American. Cheered for Brexit. A lot of us did; it was Great Britain's own little revolution against a huge, statist, all-controlling foe. Bravo. Freedom first.

Better to be a free nation able to choose their own course than an economic engine attached to Brussel's butt

That said this car decision sounds a lot more EU than British. Let the people decide what they want to buy; if electrics and autonomous are truly better by then, then people will buy them in greater quantity, and the market will probably eventually make petro-fuel vehicles unviable. That is good enough; don't need bureaucrats shoving their preferences down everyone's throat.

Re:reasonable gamble

[mspohr]

The good news: there will be a huge glut of used ICE cars on the market and cheap prices
The bad news: Even cheap car prices and cheap oil will make ICE cars more expensive to run than EVs.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Megol]

The UK politicians is more into all-controlling than the EU so I don't really know what you are thinking about?

Is it that UK politicians and state bureaucracy should have the freedom to remove freedoms from the people? Is so, yes exiting EU will provide more freedoms. But not for the people - the part of a society that I (and many others) consider the most important.

Otherwise you make no sense at all.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Oswald McWeany]

... assuming the UK is still a first-world nation by 2040.

Assuming the UK will still be a country in 2040. If Scotland leaves the UK, I imagine England will still be first world- and Scotland will at least neighbor a first world country.

Re:reasonable gamble

[sycodon]

Don't confuse Leftist trash with Americans.

Re:reasonable gamble

[radja]

the people would be the government (at least in a democracy). The markey is not a democracy.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Roger W Moore]

American. Cheered for Brexit. A lot of us did

Of course you did, and were I American I probably would have done so too because it weakens one of your strongest economic rivals and pretty soon the UK will be turning up cap-in-hand to beg/negotiate a trade deal with the US which will be extremely favourable to the US because the UK will have very little leverage.

From the UK point of view it is going to be a complete disaster though. If you really believe that argument about freedom then are you also an advocate for states in the US all becoming free nations so they can choose their own course rather than being an economic engine attached to Washington's butt? Some of us prefer to think of the EU as our free nation where we enjoyed self-determination along with Germans, French, Poles, Danes etc. in exactly the same way that Californians, Iowans, Virginians etc. all enjoy self-determination together as a single free nation. The UK leaving the EU will be as big an upheaval as say California leaving the US.

There are certainly problems with the EU but show me a nation that does not have problems. The adult response to challenges like this is to work together to solve them, not to get in a hissy fit and take your ball home. I have always felt far more European than just British and now, having being denied the right to vote in the referendum, my EU citizenship is still going to be stripped from me. If this is the sort of "democracy" that a "free" Britain will have then I want none of it thanks.

Re:reasonable gamble

[CanHasDIY]

the people would be the government (at least in a democracy).

No, that would be a republic.

Democracy is "two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner." Especially in the US, where democracy exists to elect representatives.

Re:reasonable gamble

[mbkennel]

It will be easy to buy a combustion engine car, but hard to buy one without an added battery or other energy storage.

They are thinking of banning diesel & petrol only vehicles, not hybrids and plug in hybrids. The transition will be unnoticeable by then. They won't ban all combustion engines.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Hognoxious]

Northumbria will rise again!

Re:reasonable gamble

[Altrag]

Well its good thing words never ever ever change their meaning over time. Especially in common usage! How would we ever manage to communicate if that happened?

Re:reasonable gamble

[skullandbones99]

It is an unstoppable self-fulfilling prophecy. No gamble is necessary by a politician.

Re:reasonable gamble

[skullandbones99]

Those specialist vehicles will be called Classic Cars from the 2020s.

Re:reasonable gamble

[BasilBrush]

Hybrids will make no sense for ordinary motoring by then anyway. They are a more expensive transition technology whilst battery ranges and recharge times were not good. But ranges keep going up, and recharge times for a given range keep going down.

Maybe there will be some very expensive hybrid sports cars still.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Roger W Moore]

I agree: unelected bureaucrats with too much power certainly is an issue with the EU. The reason it is that way though is that national governments are very reluctant to give up their control. This leads to the EU commission, whose members are bureaucrats appointed by national governments, having far more power and control than the democratically elected European Parliament. What it needs is a sea change to decide what powers the EU will have and what powers member states will retain. Then you setup a properly elected upper and lower house for the European government. Once you do that though the EU government gains a huge amount of legitimacy and hence authority. The really sad thing is that Brexit might actually be the kick up the rear that the EU needs to make this happen but it will be too late for the UK.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Roger W Moore]

You hate democracy, what a surprise. Being ruled from abroad...

How is it democracy when as a British citizen, I was not allowed to vote because I live outside the UK? I would also disagree that it is being ruled from "abroad" any more than, as a Yorkshireman, I would regard Yorkshire as being ruled from abroad by Westminster. This is the problem with such a narrow-minded perspective: where do you draw the boundary? Once you start to contract your horizons from Europe what is to stop them contracting further inside the UK causing the UK to break up?

Re:reasonable gamble

[Barsteward]

Nicely put but probably not understood by the nationalistic "brexit" mentality types around the world.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Barsteward]

EVs will be taxed at some point as they need to replace tax lost from fossil fuel sales.

Re:reasonable gamble

[Barsteward]

it already is as the top of britain is geologically rising and the south is sinking.. :)

Re:reasonable gamble

[Roger W Moore]

I was referring to the EU which currently has a larger economy than the US. Brexit doesn't just weaken the UK, it weakens the EU as well and without the UK the EU's economy will be smaller than the US's.

false claims

[Anonymous Coward]

> if new bans are put forward at such a high rate as now, in 2040, the UK might be the only western country where petrol-fuelled cars are still on the road.

they are not banning all petrol fueled cars from being on the road, they are banning the sales of new cars. I drive vehicles over 30 years old (and am looking to move to a different one that's even older)

We'll see what happens to their economies when these bans are ready to take place, I will bet that they end up backing off rather than crippling themselves (or people will end up using a lot more used cars and trucks until they vote the bums out)

Re:false claims

[MightyMartian]

By 2040 the number of EVs on the road will probably be as great, or greater, than hydrocarbon-fueled vehicles.

Re:false claims

[mspohr]

It will cost you more to drive your old fossil car than an EV... so the economics of shifting to EVs will be compelling to most people. There will always be "enthusiasts" who are willing to spend more.

Re:false claims

[EvilSS]

I don't know about that. As demand falls the price of petrol will dip until it hits a point where refining costs due to shrinking demand start to drive it back up, eventually well beyond where it is today as it becomes more of a novelty product. Virtually every big product like that has a breaking point where it becomes more expensive to make less of it. Fuel stations will also begin to close, reducing competition while at the same time the remaining stations will need to increase their margins to make up for the reduced volume. All of that is going to push most people who still own the cars to trade in as their costs to operate rise as their vehicles age.

All of this, of course, being conditional on these bans actually going into effect 2040 doesn't seem unreasonable, but many of the others pushing for the mid-2020's I don't see how they won't get pushed back. 2025 is less than a decade away now. Tesla is on the leading edge but the big automakers are still lagging behind still and they move at a glacial pace when it comes to big change.

Re:false claims

[BasilBrush]

It's easy for countries that don't manufacture cars to stick to 2025. It's only a matter of what models they import. No skin off their nose if car companies have production lines that are still making ICE cars.

Re:false claims

[EvilSS]

It's easy for countries that don't manufacture cars to stick to 2025. It's only a matter of what models they import. No skin off their nose if car companies have production lines that are still making ICE cars.

That only works down to a certain point. If 2025 rolls around and there are, say, only 4 cars that can be imported, and the cheapest is 50% more expensive than a standard economy box ICE car, the citizens might get a bit pissed off.

Re:false claims

[BasilBrush]

There's already more than 4 EVs. With a lot more arriving even by 2020, So that's not an issue.

Price is still an issue though.

the UK might be the only western country where pe

[fred6666]

the UK might be the only western country where petrol-fuelled cars are still on the road

No, the USA will be dead last

Clever Politicking

[hipp5]

Car makers stay profitable by making the same car and selling it around the world (with a few planned modifications, such was flipping the steering wheel, and maybe a renaming). It keeps supply chains simple and amortizes design costs. If major markets in the rest of the world are banning new gas cars by 2025, 2030, or any year before 2040, then the UK won't actually have to do anything. GM isn't going to make an electric cars for other markets, and then have a special gas car for the UK; they'll just stop making gas cars. Legislation or not, by the year 2040 you won't be able to get a new gas car in the UK.

Re:Clever Politicking

[UnknowingFool]

Car makers stay profitable by making the same car and selling it around the world (with a few planned modifications, such was flipping the steering wheel, and maybe a renaming). It keeps supply chains simple and amortizes design costs

While car makers manufacture the same model for different markets (normally in the same region), no maker makes the same car and sells it around the world. There are a number of differences between countries that simple modifications will not be sufficient. At best the cars might look similar but have different interior, engine, features, etc.

In terms of supply chains, most manufacturers tend to assemble cars closer to their markets (or in their markets) for logistical,economic, and tax reasons. For example, Fords made in Mexico are generally sold in Mexico, Central and South America. These Fords are not sold in the US or Canada.

GM isn't going to make an electric cars for other markets, and then have a special gas car for the UK; they'll just stop making gas cars.

Depends on how many cars GM would tolerate not selling and how the economics play out. They'll consolidate production like any good manufacturer if it is worth it. For example station wagons are not a big seller in the US. Some companies like Acura (Honda) makes them in factories in Japan and will ship a few to the US because they have enough customers to do so.

Re:Clever Politicking

[megamind]

I don't understand this, maybe you can help. Excluding any discussion of the effects of diesel on the environment; we can start by agreeing that diesel and petrol do have an affect on a city's air quality in some way, right? So why then are ideas like banning these fuels so far off in to the future? Is it economics? Why aren't auto manufacturers required to only sell no-emission cars today? Why does it take 20 years instead of 5 years and who comes up with these numbers?

Re:Clever Politicking

[hey!]

Still, you're talking about minor variations in configuration. A completely different drive system is a whole nother kettle of fish. And you'll be amortizing the costs of producing ICE's and transmissions over far fewer units, which means costs will be higher.

It's basically the mirror image of what we have today, where the number of electric drives sold is relatively small. If as many electric cars were sold as ICE cars, the cost would plummet.

Re:Clever Politicking

[Dutch Gun]

Because the technology is still relatively primitive, expensive, and doesn't properly cover all use cases. There are many people who have to regularly drive distances further than current e-vehicles practically allow. I'd imagine that by 2040, these issues will have been eliminated. If you can drive 1000km on a single charge (more than most people want to drive in a single day), or if you can provide quick charges in under an hour (not an unreasonable break for long trips), you've eliminated one of the main hurdles to widespread adoption.

Or, if you want to look at things more cynically, 2040 is far enough away that current politicians don't have to do anything at all, yet get the benefit of looking green.

Re:Clever Politicking

[toddestan]

This is GM you are talking about. They may stop designing new gasoline cars, but if it's profitable they'll keep stamping out copies of already existing designs for as long as they can with minimal changes, which they are already somewhat famous for doing. So in 2039 you might have a choice of a new EV, or a "new" 10-15 year old gasoline car in terms of design and technology. The gasoline car will likely be pretty cheap as the R&D and tooling costs will have long since been amortized. These bans could actually hurt emissions a bit in the short term because the auto manufacturers are going to stop developing new technologies for making gasoline-powered cars cleaner and more efficient so long as the current technology is perceived to be "good enough" until the ban hits.

In a few years when the battery

[Anonymous Coward]

Get 1000 miles a charge no one will want anything else. When its 100,000 a charge in a couple decades there will be nothing else.
Personally I never drive more than 100 miles at a time and that is only because Costco is 45 miles away, so every few months.

We went from 150 to 300 plus miles in 2 years without giga factories and such. Much like a computer CPU this is now technology and antique combustion cars will be like the model A you see now from time to time.
Just like Wright Brothers to NASA.

Time marches on with or without you.

Probably moot by that point...

[taiwanjohn]

Some analysts are already predicting that the car market will be 50% EV by the mid-2020s, and will "tip" rapidly thereafter. This trend is mostly driven by the cost of Li-ion batteries, which has been falling at about 15%/yr for the last couple of decades. When it becomes possible to buy an entry-level EV for $20k or less, why would you even want an ICE vehicle?

The "fuel" price for EVs is a fraction of that for ICE, as is the maintenance cost. EVs only have a couple-dozen moving parts, compared to thousands in an ICE car. Of course, there will still be "gas car" enthusiasts in 2040, just as there are hobbyists who still maintain antique steam-powered farm equipment. But even by 2030, there will no longer be a need for this law, because the market will already have flipped.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[jfdavis668]

That will work right up until we run out of Lithium.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[beelsebob]

Because they have limited range

Irrelevant as long as the range is long enough.

take too long to charge

Also irrelevant as long as the range is long enough.

are boring to drive

That's not been true for many many years - every hypercar these days is going the electric route because they're *way* more fun to drive than petrol cars thanks to the instant torque.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Frederic54]

> Because they have limited range, take too long to charge

Mostly this, right, trying to do a 1600km (1000 miles) trip in an ICE vehicle? I can do it with just 2 tanks of gas in 16h. However with an AV? This would need a station where you can swap your depleted batteries for full charged ones. Maybe one day this will exist at enough places?

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[voislav98]

These analysts are typically guys who are not automotive analysts, but technology analysts. They have large misconceptions about the automotive industry and how quickly can the technology change. The transition from ICE to electric engines is a huge one with a number of technology and production issues to still be resolved. Reasonable analyses I've seen from automotive industry guys have hybrids jumping to 25-35% of vehicle sales by 2030, with full electrics staying below 5%. 50% by mid-2020's or even 2030's is a pipe dream.

To put it simply, Tesla's Gigafactory will take 5 years to build (2015 - 2020 for full capacity) at a cost of $5 billion and will supply batteries for 1.5 million cars. European vehicle sales (passenger cars and light commerial vehicles, which includes SUV's) are in the 10 - 15 million per year range, US are 15 - 20 million per year range. So to supply this volume of vehicles (50% of 25 - 35 million per year), you would need 10 Gigafactories, with building to start by early 2020's. I haven't seen any plans for this to happen, so the battery supply will not be there to build these vehicles. Infrastructure is the second issue. It takes time to build out the network of charging stations and there are no widespread plans to do this either.

So, all these plans and commitments are meaningless unless they are accompanied by major investments into battery and electric component production and infrastructure investment. When that happens, I'll believe that electric cars will have meaningful sales.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

are boring to drive

Computers are more boring to use than they used to be and despite that, they're still more popular than ever. So, your point is?

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Geoffrey.landis]

If you're going a long distance, take a train.

They do still have trains in Britain, you know.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[jittles]

I can do it with just 2 tanks of gas...

You have a vehicle that gets 500 MPG? Somehow, your claim is less than believable.

You probably misread what he said. My car (which I drive about once every week or two) gets 24 miles per gallon on the highway. Assuming I don't drive it until it's completely empty, I can go about 350 miles per tank. That means I can do a 1000 mile trip in less than 3 full tanks. Drive something smaller and more practical and you can easily get over 500 miles in a single tank. My parents car has a 14 gallon tank and gets over 40MPG on the highway. That means they can do a 500 mile trip and still have 1.5 gallons to spare.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[taiwanjohn]

The question is: what percentage of the market will be put off by refueling time? Most people only gas-up a couple of times a week. And most of the time EV users simply charge overnight while the car is parked in the garage. Unless you're a field-rep or salesman, very few people have a frequent need to drive 500 miles in a day without taking an hour to recharge (both mentally and electrically).

In any case, what are the chances that they won't have ubiquitous availability of battery swap by 2030, or a new battery chemistry that allows super-fast charging? No one can predict the future, of course, but judging by the trends in the last 15~20 years, it's quite reasonable to expect the "refueling time" problem will have been solved by then.

And remember that self-driving cars will also have a huge impact on the market. Car ownership is already declining, among millennials in particular. The average car sits parked 94% of the time. An entire "fleet of major assets with a six-percent utilization rate is a technology disruption waiting to happen." (Quoted from Tony Seba, in the video linked above, in my original post.)

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going a long distance, take a train.

They do still have trains in Britain, you know.

And when I get to my destination, how will I drive around? How do I pull a caravan on a train?

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[MachineShedFred]

Are you saying he only has a one gallon tank?

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[religionofpeas]

This would need a station where you can swap your depleted batteries for full charged ones

Or a superfast charger.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[jeff4747]

Lithium is the 25th most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Running out of it is roughly as big a concern as running out of iron or aluminum.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Gilgaron]

Yeah, once the cost is down they'll sell like hotcakes. After switching to lithium ion line trimmer I won't be going back to ICE for any lawn equipment as I replace things that break down. A car would be great, although I expect I'll be in for one last ICE car when my current one needs replaced.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Solandri]

The "fuel" price difference between an EV and ICE is almost entirely due to the price difference between coal and gasoline.

• Coal costs about $50/ton and contains about 24 GJ of energy. That's about 0.21 cents/MJ.
• Gasoline costs about $3/gallon and contains about 120 MJ/gallon. That's about 2.5 cents/MJ.

Gasoline is about an order of magnitude more expensive than coal per unit of energy. This is why Hawaii has the highest electricity prices in the U.S. - they generate most of their electricity by burning oil, not coal.

This is what a lot of EV proponents seem to miss - EVs do not have zero emissions. All they do is shift the emissions from the tailpipe to an electrical power plant. If you then simultaneously eliminate the cheapest sources of electricity (coal and gas), the cost of EV "fuel" will go up. Likewise if every garage has an EV charging in it overnight, the overnight price of electricity will go up. (Also, the EPA's decision to base MPGe rating on battery capacity, although necessary to normalize for differences in how electricity is generated, completely cuts out inefficiencies at the power plant, transmission, and battery charging. It's like measuring ICE mileage starting with engine power output, instead of how much fuel was burned. So EV MPGe is not directly comparable to ICE MPG. From an energy efficiency standpoint, EVs use almost as many Joules per mile compared to ICE vehicles; it's tough to peg an exact comparison because most EVs use things like skinny low rolling resistance tires which typically aren't found on ICE vehicles.)

Brazil produced cane sugar ethanol for about 83 cents/gallon a decade ago. Ethanol contains about 79 MJ/gallon (66% of gasoline), so this works out to 1.05 cents/MJ.

• Gasoline ICE: 35 MPG @ $3/gallon = $8.57 per 100 miles
• EV: 30 kWh/100 miles @ 12 cents/kWh = $3.60 per 100 miles (ignores charging losses so actual cost is slightly higher)
• Ethanol ICE:23 MPG (66% of gasoline) @ $0.83/gallon = $3.60 per 100 miles

So the story isn't over yet for ICE vehicles. Ethanol (produced from the right source, not corn) can potentially beat EVs in terms of fuel cost. But without the headaches of developing battery technology, having to haul a massive battery around, replacing existing gas station infrastructure, waiting 30 minutes for a supercharge, installing an overnight charger in your garage, figuring out a new way to implement road maintenance taxes. What's missing is a way to scale ethanol production up without dramatically impacting food production. If someone cracks how to produce ethanol from cellulose (all the weeds, brush, and spoiled vegetables which we currently throw away), then EVs are dead.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[naris]

When it becomes possible to buy an entry-level EV for $20k or less, why would you even want an ICE vehicle?

To go father than about a hundred miles (round trip). I don't see any EVs making cross country trips in the USA anytime soon without having to stop for the day every couple hundred miles.

For the same reason, there are unlikely to be any EV long haul trucks anytime soon.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[thegarbz]

The lithium issue is a problem but...

It takes time to build out the network of charging stations and there are no widespread plans to do this either.

Except for the network of several hundred interstate charging points currently under construction by the "Electrify America" project. And the 400+ proposed to be done by 2020 in the EU allowing you to drive your electric car literally from anywhere to anywhere within the bloc thanks to a consortium of car companies. And all the oil companies desperate not to be taken out of the retail loop (the forecourt is one of the most profitable areas for many) who are all planning or have already announced / started to electrify their retail locations.

Then there's all the places of the world not resting on their laurels putting charging stations in frigging everywhere, and the fact that one of the benefits of this is the car will get charged where you live rather than in transit.

Yes the battery / construction issue is a real issue. But its disingenuous to say that there are no widespread plans for infrastructure. ... Maybe not in the USA. It won't meet this ludicrous 2020 prediction but it is none the less well under way.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[LynnwoodRooster]

Perhaps you are not aware that many - dare I say most, or even all? - petrol powered cars have tanks larger than 1 gallon? I know, insanity! But it is true! Why, even my petrol powered motorcycle has a tank that can hold 3.2 gallons...

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[angel'o'sphere]

My car is a Peugeot 307, year 2005 or so, and it goes easily close to 900km with one tank of diesel.
You must be bad in math.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[naris]

The article you linked to doesn't say anything about the right to to repair anything! It is a discussion about how much of an idiot the guy in the video is to complain how unsafe his Tesla with bald tires is, even thought he thinks tires with steel belts sticking out "has tread" and is not bald.

However, that guy attempting to repair anything would most likely end in death and destruction so perhaps he should not have the right to repair his car!

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[angel'o'sphere]

The "fuel" price difference between an EV and ICE is almost entirely due to the price difference between coal and gasoline.
No. The main difference is due to the 4 - 5 times higher efficiency of an electic car.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Nemyst]

Manufacturers are eyeing 400km-500km range in 2020 with 30 minutes to recharge 80%. That means you can do the whole trip in 4 stretches of 4 hours, with an extra 2 hours of breaks between it all. By 2030, we'll probably be at or close to 1000km per charge, which is the tipping point, since you really shouldn't be driving for more than 8 or so hours a day. Every step of the way, though, fewer and fewer people will see the need for more range. Some people are already fine with 200km range.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[green1]

Why swap your battery when you can fully charge it in less time than it takes to eat lunch?
Or do you regularly drive 1000 miles at a time without any bathroom or food stops?

Battery swaps were a dead end idea that have no place in modern EV infrastructure. They're too expensive, too complex, and provide no real benefit over modern fast charge systems.

I regularly drive an EV 1000 km at a time, and it takes me no longer than it used to take me to do the same trip in my old diesel vehicle, sure it takes longer to charge, but I didn't eat any faster before, nor could I use the bathroom any quicker. If anything the EV is more convenient because I don't have to stand at the pump the whole time it's fuelling, I can eat while I charge instead of fuelling and then eating.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[kaatochacha]

Except:... depending on where you live, electricity may not be a small fraction, but a rather large one. Adding in charging inefficiencies, and the necessity for larger power connections, it becomes more expensive. Add in time to charge, and remembering when to charge based on fluctuating costs from the power company, and it's a nightmare.
I say this as someone who is currently debating an electric versus a gas purchase. I've run the numbers, and in my situation, electric just has too many charges. The savings are minimal. This will change, but isn't there yet.
Also, like the state of California is discovering, as people move from gas to electric and fuel economy goes up, gas taxes don't cover road repair. expect an electric tax at some near future point.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[fatwilbur]

As someone who works in the oil industry, I have no complaints if this were to happen. In fact, if the car MARKET drives us to 50% EV usage, it'll probably be glorious for me, since that means the EV's are highly competitive in terms of price, TCO, performance, convenience, etc.

In short, a 50% market penetration without government intervention means there are some truly fantastic consumer choices. However, I feel this is not the case.. in Canada, after years of EV models being available and heavy infrastructure investment (charge stations), sales are still woefully pitiful (between 1000-2000 out of 500,000 vehicles in a quarter).

So, do you want the government forcing us to buy inferior products through legislation? If your argument is the market will take us there anyway, well then I hope you join the fight against similar legislation.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[kaatochacha]

1) security won't let you take stuff on a plane
2) you're hauling lots of items, or need to pick up lots of items
3) No decent airport near where you're going or where you're coming from.
4) plane ticket is expensive.
5) want freedom to drive around when you get there without renting a car, or MUST drive when you get there and can't rent a car.

That wasn't so hard to come up with , and I'm sure there are billions more.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[fatwilbur]

I took a road trip across much of western North America this summer - about 7500km over a few weeks. Moreover, I drove a large vehicle which brought comfort and ability to bring a lot of convenience items.

I don't really care what powers my vehicle. But if EV proponents think I would exchange a 5 minute, +900km refuel with a 30 minute, +300km refuel... well, it's no wonder EV sales are where they are.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[rogoshen1]

I'd rather drive 16 hours than spend ~5 at airports standing in line and dealing with the TSA mandated gropings (for safety!).

to each his own though.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[mbkennel]

| For the same reason, there are unlikely to be any EV long haul trucks anytime soon.

Trucking companies care about moving the cargo long distances. They don't really care if the truck goes long distances. A roboticized truck could pick up a cargo trailer and deliver to the next depot, where a newly charged truck (or battery pack) picks up the cargo and continues with it.

Natural gas powered hybrid trucks (for regenerative efficiency) are probably a better deal.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Frederic54]

I can easily do 800km (500mi) with one tank with my car, 65L tank (17 gallon) on cruise control at 100km/h (63mph), as you are talking MPG, 500mi with 17 gallons make 29MPG, a lot of car can do this especially on the highway.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been tried by nature. Burnt oil leaves behind CO2. Plants store CO2. Plants die. Plants decompose. All that organic material becomes oil in a few hundred thousand years. Now go away you horrible Progressive.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[beelsebob]

The range needs to be infinity because they take too fucking long to recharge.

Why? Current EVs can charge at 24kW, giving them 100 miles of range per hour. ChargePoint's new DC chargers can charge at 100kW, giving vehicles 400 miles of range per hour. Humans sleep for at least 7 hours per 24, giving the vehicle a potential 2800 miles of range per sleep cycle, which is way above the distance they can drive in the other 17 hours.

Given that, it seems like there's an upper bound on the "what range is enough range" at 2800 miles. In practice, that upper bound is also way too high. In practice, humans really want to be able to drive continuously from 7am until 11am, eat lunch, drive continuously from 11:30am until 5pm, eat dinner, and drive continuously from 6pm until 9pm, and sleep, in even the most extreme examples.

In that example, we've got 4 hours of driving, at average 80mph (way higher than anyone realistically can actually average) = 320 miles. DC charge over lunch at Chargepoint's new rate gets them another 200 miles of range = 120 miles used. 5.5 hours at 80mph + 120 = 560 miles of range used. An hour of charging gets us back down to 160 miles of range used. Then 3 hours of driving at 80mph gets us back up to 400 miles of range used. The most drained the battery ever got in that journey was 560 miles, so we've established a lower upper bound here.

Any vehicle with 560 miles of range and Chargepoint's new 400A charging system is sufficient for all reasonable driving a human will do.

In practice, vehicles with 300 miles of range, and 100A charging are sufficient for 99.9% of the driving that people do. That 0.1% remaining can easily be filled by special purpose vehicles.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[skullandbones99]

Is that a US gallon or a larger British Imperial gallon ?

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[BasilBrush]

to stop for the day

Typical rapid/supercharging rates means 30 minutes to recharge. Cross country is very possible. Stopping for 30 minutes every 4 or 5 hours is not a big issue. You're ready for a break by then anyway.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[BasilBrush]

If you are in the oil industry, of course you are against legislation that helps the environment by limiting your industry. But the rest of us should be happy to see fossil fuels largely relegated to the past by whatever means possible.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[BasilBrush]

Now: Take a taxi.

In the future: summon an autonomous vehicle.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Kernel Kurtz]

Lithium is the 25th most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Running out of it is roughly as big a concern as running out of iron or aluminum.

Ever seen a lithium mine?

They look not much different from the oil sands.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[RightwingNutjob]

So...inferior range, inferior charge time, and higher cost. A gasoline powered car will go "500km" guaranteed, all-weather, every time. With about two or three minutes to fill up to 100% range. With gasoline that's just as good on the thousandth fill-up as on the first. That you can fill up out of a man-portable container in case of an emergency. Without riding on a half-ton of fuel and oxidizer packed in close proximity. At a cost of about 25k for a decent vehicle instead of 45k *with taxpayer subsidy.

Sorry guy. Star Trek and real life are vastly different things. Automobiles are not purchased for the average case; they're purchased for reasonable worst case. And the reasonable worst-case performance of a car that runs on man-portable liquid fuel is lightyears beyond the worst-case performance of a glorified golf cart. SJW logic notwithstanding.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[LynnwoodRooster]

Depends upon if it is carried by a European or African swallow...

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[Areyoukiddingme]

I haven't seen any plans for this to happen, so the battery supply will not be there to build these vehicles.

Here,
let me google that for you. At June's shareholder meeting, Tesla announced that they were in the process of finalizing locations for three additional Gigafactories. Construction is expected to start no later than next year.

At the same meeting, Tesla told shareholders they expect to eventually build at least 10 and possibly as many as 20 Gigafactories. No timeframe was given for that particular goal.

This may come as a shock to you, but Elon Musk is actually capable of multiplying numbers together. Truly a genius of our time.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[jfdavis668]

Yes, but there are extractable concentrations in very few places in the world. Mostly in the Andes in South America. The rest is spread out so thinly we would need to mine the entire planet surface to obtain a reasonable amount. Lots of it is dissolved in sea water, but there is no effective way to obtain it.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[thenitz]

Most people I know don't drive for 16h without taking a break. Come to think of it, it's highly dangerous, and actually illegal if you're a professional driver.

A more realistic scenario is doing, say, 1000km in a day. With an ICE car, that will take 10 hrs driving; take a few breaks and we are talking at least 11 hrs in total.
With an EV , you stop 3 times every 250km for a recharge. With a fast charger, that may take about 30 minutes each stop , 1 hour and a half in total. So maybe a 12 hr trip? It's not much of a difference.

What's missing is the infrastructure. When there will be a network of fast chargers everywhere, we would have similar travel times for ICEs and EVs doing long trips.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[minogully]

Recently a Tesla Model S set a new cannonball record for driving from California to New York (2830mi) and averaged 54 mph for the whole trip including charging breaks.

You don't lose as much time as you'd think charging, because you don't need to sit next to your car while it charges, you can simultaneously go get something to eat, use the bathroom or just stretch your legs. Taking these kinds of breaks makes for a nicer road trip anyways.

But sure, your edge case does show that in one way gas powered cars are still better than EVs.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[minogully]

You seem to still have the mindset that you only ever charge an EV at a charging station. Sorry, no, that's gas powered cars your thinking of.

The only time you need a charging station for an EV is when you're on a road trip. And when you're on a road trip you DO have extra time to wait while your car charges up because you'll also need to take a break from driving, you'll need to pee, you'll be hungry.

Battery swapping could be useful for people who can't charge at home overnight though. Considering that 70% of the US population lives in single family homes, this is not a problem for the majority of the population.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[jeff4747]

Yes, but there are the cheapest extractable concentrations in very few places in the world

Fixed that for you.

The rest is spread out so thinly we would need to mine the entire planet surface to obtain a reasonable amount

No, there are other places with ores that contain a good amount of lithium. They're just not as cheap to harvest. That goes on for several different tiers. Then we get to seawater, which contains a fairly uniform concentration. Then we get to "mining the entire surface".

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[dddux]

Also, battery technology is going to change for sure in the next couple of decades for something even better anyway.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[dddux]

Also, EV charging stations are so easy to make. The infrastructure is already there. Oh wait... all you actually need is a socket.

Re:Probably moot by that point...

[minogully]

Automobiles are not purchased for the average case; they're purchased for reasonable worst case. And the reasonable worst-case performance of a car that runs on man-portable liquid fuel is lightyears beyond the worst-case performance of a glorified golf cart.

Your reasonable worst case has you walking miles with a Gerry can to get gas? Most people call services like AAA to resolve these situations. Services like this exist for EVs too.

Also, you're too focused on how long it takes to put the fuel in and not how long it takes of YOUR TIME to put the fuel in. With gas cars you've got to detour from your trip to get to a gas station, pull into the gas station, pay, actively pump the gas and leave. All taking up your time. Sure it's probably just 5-10 minutes but it's still your time. But with EVs, unless you're on vacation (road trip) you're charging it at home, while you sleep. It takes seconds of your time to plug it in and unplug it. Seconds vs. minutes. So unless you're taking more than, say, 2-3 road trips a year (when you need to charge mid-trip), you're actually spending less of your time charging an EV than you are gassing up a gas guzzler.

And for the cost... Sure it costs more up front for an EV, but if you look at the true cost of ownership EVs are on par with gas cars that cost $15,000 less, thanks to savings in fuel costs, much lower maintenance and slower depreciation. This is similar to how when gas cars cost more up front than horses back in the day, but they saved on their lifetime costs vs. owning a horse.

Gas cars never did everything better than horses (cars need flat surfaces to drive on and can't reproduce before they die) just as EVs don't do everything better than gas cars, but they do enough better that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

Hold on a second!

[Gravis Zero]

What if this global warming thing is a big hoax and we make a better world for nothing?! ;)

Re:Hold on a second!

[Train0987]

The battery technology is much worse for the environment than fuel.

Re:Hold on a second!

[Geoffrey.landis]

That's arguable. Lithium is the irreplaceable element in batteries, and lithium is recyclable.

Re:Hold on a second!

[thegarbz]

The battery technology is much worse for the environment than fuel.

Oh look. Another person with views from the 1970s. This is a technology site. Clearly no place for you.

Re:Hold on a second!

[taiwanjohn]

Umm... maybe that's because Lithium is an extremely light element, and only comprises a small fraction of the weight of the battery?

Re:Hold on a second!

[jeff4747]

Lithium is the 25th most common element in the Earth's crust. It's hardly irreplaceable.

Re:Hold on a second!

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's not a "better world". It's all about ridiculous exaggeration and globalization and creating the structures necessary to confiscate money from nations that create wealth and move it to others that only consume, and once and for all get rid of that poverty eliminator, capitalism. It's a precursor to world government and the end of democracy. But don't listen to me, let's hear their own words:

(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War... First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

Christiana Figueres, leader of the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change: "This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history."

Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO), then representing the Clinton-Gore administration as U.S undersecretary of state for global issues, addressing the same Rio Climate Summit audience, agreed: "We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister: "No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

Daphne Muller, green-progressive-liberal writer for Salon: "This moment requires we the people to rethink democracy as a global mechanism for enacting policy for and by the planet."

Peter Berle, President of the National Audubon Society: "We reject the idea of private property."

David Brower, a founder of the Sierra Club: "The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature's proper steward and society's only hope."

Mikhail Gorbachev, communist and former leader of U.S.S.R.: "The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government."

Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth: "A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources."

Monika Kopacz, atmospheric scientist: "It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians' - and readers' - attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today's world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty."

Researcher Robert Phalen's 2010 testimony to the California Air Resources Board: "It benefits us personally to have the public be afraid, even if these risks are trivial."

Re:Hold on a second!

[Gravis Zero]

It's not a "better world". It's all about ridiculous exaggeration and globalization and creating the structures necessary to confiscate money from nations that create wealth and move it to others that only consume, and once and for all get rid of that poverty eliminator, capitalism.

Umm... you do realize that the overwhelming majority of oil exports come from socialist nations with dictatorships, right? Sorry to burst your bubble but this isn't a giant conspiracy to undermine any economic or political system.

Re:Hold on a second!

[DNS-and-BIND]

[citation needed]

I just provided a dozen citations from prominent people saying that global warming is a scam, and you didn't exactly refute any of it. It's not a giant conspiracy where they meet in a boardroom under a volcano with COUNCIL OF EVIL written above it. It's more like a hivemind. Many actors taking individual actions in service of a destructive goal. It's for-real. Remember the fuss over the Paris Accords? Turns out that was nothing but a scam, too. Wouldn't have done a damn thing for the climate.

Re:Hold on a second!

[soc_cost_priv_gains]

We will then have to suffer having cleaner air and clearer skies.

Re:Hold on a second!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most definitely. The average weight of a male L ion is 420 lbs.

Re:Hold on a second!

[Gravis Zero]

come on, a simple search would have given you all the info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So which bastion of capitalism is being crushed here?

you didn't exactly refute any of it.

that's because the statements conflict with scientific evidence or are irrelevant.

Re:Hold on a second!

[dddux]

So true, innit?! :)

Re:"... it's a step in the right direction..."

[angel'o'sphere]

Actually not.
Simple evidence is evidence enough for anything.

Re:Citation needed

[Anonymous Coward]

>> "oil will run out one day..."
> source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory

Even works well for fossil fuels

[omnichad]

Even if you're burning gas and diesel at electrical plants to generate the electricity, there has to be some economies of scale at work here to give better efficiency. More than enough to outweigh transmission losses and battery charging losses.

Re:Even works well for fossil fuels

[omnichad]

I think that batteries (and supercapacitors) are going to be able to start helping stabilize current by then. There is a lot of waste in an internal combustion engine, too - only about 20% of the energy burned is actually utilized.

Your opinion BP?

[randomErr]

British Petroleum, what do you think of this idea?

Re:Your opinion BP?

[randomErr]

You only change oil 2-3 times a year. Grease is changed every 1-2 years, Plus both items its much smaller amount then a single tank of gas. So yes, all electric vehicles will hurt BP.

Also how will this affect trains? Rail primarily use diesel fuel.

Re:Your opinion BP?

[green1]

oil? in an EV? for what?

You left out the road tax on hydrocarbon fuel

[Latent Heat]

At least for USians, a substantial part of the cost of gas or diesel is the tax earmarked for new roads and maintaining existing roads. That the EV owner currently does not pay these taxes could be regarded as a subsidy to encourage use of electric cars, but when EVs are numerous, this will change the fuel-cost calculation, especially against the coming generation of more fuel efficient IC engines.

Re:You left out the road tax on hydrocarbon fuel

[angel'o'sphere]

Most countries have a tax on gasoline and a tax on cars/vehicles. The latter is used to maintain roads. So instead of calling your 'absurd' tax system subsidizing, fix it.

especially against the coming generation of more fuel efficient IC engines.
There won't be any. Well, I mean: you could import efficient engines from europe or japan. But there is no particular leap to be expected in future. Efficient engines are basically at the edge of no further progress.

Re:You left out the road tax on hydrocarbon fuel

[Shotgun]

In North Carolina, last I checked, you will get a bill for $1,000 once per year. You're share for using the road.

Rolling Coal

[Kergan]

In other news, rolling coal is alive and well in the US.

Re:Rolling Coal

[Creedo]

In other news, rolling coal is alive and well in the US.

Yeah, those fucking idiots. I really, really hate those assholes. I fully support their right to do this in the confines of their garage. Preferably, with all of the doors closed and any ventilation sealed shut.

Different uses, different cars

[Geoffrey.landis]

limited range, long recharge time, what little infrastructure there is to support it, is typically broken, price, longevity. just off the top of my head

Depends on what you need.
Almost all of my driving is around town, and it turns out that this is actually very typical-- most people use cars for mostly short trips. Actually, a ten mile range would be fine for me-- we're a two-car family, so it would be practical to have one car used for most of our uses, and when we do need longer range, we could use the other.

I have a perfectly good ten-year-old car, so I don't need a new car now-- but when I replace it, an electric car makes sense.

The take-away lesson is that different people have different needs for which they use their car.

Re:Different uses, different cars

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There's airplanes for that, not cars. It doesn't matter anyway; as long as BEVs satisfy the daily needs of, say, 30% of people, they're still going to change the market drastically.

Re:Different uses, different cars

[Anonymous Coward]

So then the different people should be allowed to buy what best suits them, even if its what they _want_ rather than what some objective view says they 'need'.

If I drive 10 miles back and forth to work every day, then a commuter electric would suit that need, but if once every few weeks I go on a road trip with enough 'stuff' that a commuter electric is not a usable choice, I'll buy a vehicle that can handle the (average) worst case requirement and then use it daily too. Better than getting two cars, or renting/borrowing/carsharing (IMO). For me that is a compact+ SUV or station wagon (hah!) right now (and I'd love a diesel but the EPA so far prevents that).

We're paying for our car, we're paying the taxes and registration, we're paying through the nose for all the gas taxes... let us pick our own cars, thank you.

Re:Different uses, different cars

[zieroh]

Real people move more than 10 miles from where they were born. You should try getting out more with a real car and see the world.

Real people fly home to see their parents, as they are often well out of driving distance. It would take three days of driving (in an ICE car) to get from where I live to where my parents live.

You should try getting out more in order to understand that there's a whole world around you, filled with people with different needs than yours.

Re:Different uses, different cars

[Shotgun]

Most people settle into the same state where they were born. Your idea of "real" is unrealistic. You should try getting out more to understand that there is a whole world around you, filled with people with different needs than yours.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2008/12/17/who-moves-who-stays-put-wheres-home/

Among all respondents to the Pew Research Center survey, 57% say they have not lived in the U.S. outside their current state: 37% have never left their hometown and 20% have left their hometown (or native country) but not lived outside their current state.

Re:Stupid

[K. S. Kyosuke]

The only things out of those that are true are the long recharge time and price. Everything else is highly debatable.

Re:Stupid

[Zontar The Mindless]

Agreed--it'd be much more effective and efficient to beef up public transport.

Everything can happen in 23 years from now

[aglider]

Like leaving the Europe or reintroducing diesel engine vehicles! Meh!

Power from the people

[Toxiz]

How many new power plants do they estimate they will have to build, to power all of these electric cars? That's a huge amount of power generation moved into central locations. With about 65% of that energy lost in transmission, that number doubles. source: http://insideenergy.org/2015/1... How does more than doubling the amount of energy it takes to run vehicles save the environment? Unless someone is building a solar grid the size of Britain, I don't see this all coming from renewable sources.

Re:Power from the people

[RotateLeftByte]

We are already generating more power than we need at times solely from renewable sources (Wind, Solar and Hydro)
I have generated so far this month 1.05MWh of power from my own PV array. That has allowed me to charge my Car and drive 200+miles at zero cost AND Sell the excess power to the grid. When I get a 20KWh battery installed, I'll be able to go entiely off grid should I want to.
All this from a house 51deg North i.e. at a lattitde further north than any of the lower 48 states in the USA.

It won't be easy to get rid of ICE engines but personally by 2030 I don't think that there will be a market for many ICE vehicles in the whole of Europe.
We are not as influneced in our policy making as the USA is by the likes of the Koch Brothers. Clean Coal my ass.

Re:Power from the people

[Toxiz]

This is pretty cool. You give me hope.

Re:Power from the people

[minogully]

Even fossil fuel power stations are more efficient than the most efficient gas powered car. Even with transmission losses and everything. So, even if we don't switch to renewable sources, it's improving the strain on the environment. But this just gets better and better as the infrastructure gradually gets upgraded to renewable sources. An Internal Combustion Engines never get more efficient over its lifetime.

Great island for electric cars

[Geoffrey.landis]

We'll see what happens to their economies when these bans are ready to take place, I will bet that they end up backing off rather than crippling themselves (or people will end up using a lot more used cars and trucks until they vote the bums out)

I don't see any reason why not selling petrol cars would "cripple" Britain. You do know that it's a tiny little island by American standards of distance-- all of the U.K. is still a little smaller than Michigan-- and few people drive long distances. As far as I can see, it's a great location for electric cars.

Re:Great island for electric cars

[WhiplashII]

You make a good point, but:

If electric cars were a better deal than non-electric cars for UKers, you would not have to get the government's guys with guns to force them to buy electric vehicles at gunpoint...

Re:Great island for electric cars

[Altrag]

The trouble is that many people don't see it as a better deal. They only see the sticker price and EV is still more expensive than ICE to purchase.

But there are costs that aren't registered in the ticket price: Climate change is the most discussed lately of course, but there's also things like political aspects of the petroleum trade (especially for countries that are on the import side of the deal.) Things that few individuals have to ever think about in more than the abstract, but affects the country as a whole.

So governments are stuck either waiting for the price of EVs to drop enough that a majority of people will choose to buy them (which may well happen before 2040 anyway, though the Netherlands' 2025 deadline is rather less likely barring a massive breakthrough in battery tech) and hoping that Donald Trump is somehow more right than all of the climate scientists in the world.. Or implement laws to force more immediate change.

Re:Great island for electric cars

[tomxor]

I don't see any reason why not selling petrol cars would "cripple" Britain. You do know that it's a tiny little island by American standards of distance-- all of the U.K. is still a little smaller than Michigan-- and few people drive long distances. As far as I can see, it's a great location for electric cars.

With 65 million vs 9 million, (just relevant in terms of the number of cars we are talking about replacing)

I disagree, distance is an issue still - It's about 300 miles across and 600+ miles up, not to mention that it's way longer than that to drive anywhere because unlike most of north america it's not flat and roads are very windy on anything but motorways. It all adds up to something beyond the range of most EVs for when we want to have a break and travel to the coast (which so many people in the UK do) so that still makes most of these vehicles a "non all-rounder" which is a put off for any buyer.

Full disclosure: I really want an EV, I'm really bored of unreliable cancer inducing ICE... but money and practicality.

Re: Great island for electric cars

[KGIII]

Most of North America isn't Kansas. We have giant mountains and shit. In fact, I live on one. I also get 10+ feet of snow. Shit, I can drive for quite a while and not even hit an incorporated township, never mind seeing a person.

The roads are delightfully twisty.

Far Enough Off...

[pubwvj]

2040 is far enough off that the current politicians can make all the promises they want and not suffer any repercussions from failing to meet that goal nor any backlash from folks who object.

2040 is also far enough off that we might reasonably make the transition from fossil fuels by then as that is a long time in technological terms.

On the other hand, I have 1968, 1986, 1996 and 2004 delivery vans and there is not a whole lot of difference between them. They all get about the same gas mileage. In fact, they get about the same mileage full or empty. The biggest thing you can do when driving a larger vehicle is make sure you're always carrying at capacity for this reason. It's called backhauling. When we make deliveries we also pickup up spent barley and such for our pastured pig farm to optimize our time and vehicle usage. That makes more difference than doubling the gas mileage.

In Vermont, where we're located, they aren't quite as optimistic as the UK politicians so they set the deadline for this sort of thing to be 2050 to give another decade of slack.

transmission losses

[Geoffrey.landis]

...With about 65% of that energy lost in transmission, that number doubles.

source: http://insideenergy.org/2015/1...

65% loss?!? What do you think they are they using to transmit, wet string?

The link you cite says "Energy lost in transmission and distribution: About 6% – 2% in transmission and 4% in distribution".

But Britain's a small place, and they don't wheel power thousands of miles (they don't have thousands of miles), so I expect a smaller number is appropriate.

Re:transmission losses

[green1]

Don't worry, he probably also believes that gasoline magically appears in the tanks at the local petrol station and doesn't use any energy to extract, refine, or transport.

Every time someone claims that EVs pollute more than an internal combustion vehicle you can just ignore them, they don't have the first clue what they're talking about. It takes more energy to refine the gasoline then the total amount used by the EV for transportation, and that doesn't even account for extraction, transportation, or actually burning the fuel in the car.

Even with a power grid fuelled 100% by coal, the EV is still less polluting than an equivalent internal combustion vehicle, and good luck finding that 100% coal powered grid these days.

Re: the UK might be the only western country where

[Anonymous Coward]

Get over yourself. Half of America thought the same thing about the last president. These hysterics you've worked yourself into aren't helpful.
(And this is coming from someone who doesn't particularly like Trump)

The floating electric car

[Geoffrey.landis]

> Because they have limited range, take too long to charge

Mostly this, right, trying to do a 1600km (1000 miles) trip in an ICE vehicle? I can do it with just 2 tanks of gas in 16h. However with an AV?

I don't know how you would do a 1600km (1000 mile) trip within Britain in any kind of car, electric or petrol. Unless it floats.

Re:The floating electric car

[MachineShedFred]

drive around the circumference? That would be 11,000 miles.

No, I don't know why anyone would do that either.

Re:The floating electric car

[naris]

Well, you could take the chunnel. Granted you would no longer be in the UK, but you could drive well over 1600km...

Re:The floating electric car

[Frederic54]

Not in Britain for sure, but in north america it's common.... For instance Québec -> Toronto is 800km

Re:The floating electric car

[skullandbones99]

Being pedantic, I think you mean drive around the perimeter because the UK is not a circle so circumference is nonsensical. Unless you meant, drive in a circle ?

Re:Stupid

[K. S. Kyosuke]

The problem with hydrogen cars is that the lost opportunity cost heavily favors BEVs. Infrastructure costs are not shared with anything else, electric grid is amortized much more easily - and it *already is* almost everywhere. Synthetic hydrogen is always going to be more expensive than electricity, per driven km, because of better roundtrip efficiency (even if hydrogen infrastructure costs were zero, which they aren't), and NG-derived hydrogen (that avoids electricity input as primary source) is no better than just using CNG vehicles.

But will someone think of the infrastructure?

[wisewellies]

This may be a very good thing for air quality... but there are some significant logistical challenges to overcome if people are actually going to be able to charge their vehicles. Firstly, the UK simply doesn't have the power generation capacity to support several million electric vehicles. Our current capacity overhead is around 1% in winter. Coal-fired stations have reached end of life and are being closed rapidly, and a lot of the nuclear plant is reaching end of life too. The one new plant at Hinkley Point has taken decades to get off the ground, and it seems highly unlikely that the UK will be able to commission enough generation capacity in time for the 2040 deadline.

Second - a good deal of the housing stock in the UK only has on-street parking, which rules out charging vehicles at home. It simply isn't practical to run extension leads across pavements. Some people end up parking a fair distance from their house too. If you're lucky enough to have a driveway, then that's great... until you realise that the electrical grid in a lot of places is already at capacity. It can't cope with the extra load, and will need to be upgraded. Bear in mind that most of the low-voltage grid is underground, and you realise that you're looking at decades of roadworks.

Third - the government has suggested that the 5,000 or so conventional filling stations will be replaced with 5,000 or so fast chargers. This sounds great... until you realise that it isn't possible to charge a car in the 90 seconds or so that it takes to fill up a car with petrol or diesel. It takes (at best) an hour or longer, so way, way more charging stations will be required. Where are we going to put them? The UK is very short of space in towns and cities.

It's a great announcement in principle, but for me, these points need to be planned for too. It simply isn't possible to ban new petrol and diesel cars without putting the necessary infrastructure in place. And it may not be possible to put it in place at all.

Re:But will someone think of the infrastructure?

[ShoulderOfOrion]

I was going to post something like this, but you beat me to it. With so many techies on this site you'd think a few of them could at least do the math. It's fairly simple to calculate the amount of power required in KWH to replace X number of vehicles driving around using Y horsepower. What it sums up to is the need to massively overhaul an aging and insufficient electric grid infrastructure. By 2040? Not going to happen. Sure, some folks may have enough space and sun to roll their own PV, but the entire car-driving population? Think again.

Re:Stupid

[RhettLivingston]

Whatever. Toyota is already backing out of that approach. It was just a hedge.

The only change that hydrogen produces versus gas is that the carbon is removed at the refinery. This is because it is still much cheaper to produce hydrogen from oil than other sources. Splitting water economically is still a fantasy.

So, a hydrogen economy is still petrochemical based. Other flow battery technologies (essentially that is what a fuel cell is) already exist that could achieve the benefits you speak of without stripping hydrogen from oil, but this approach is short-sighted.

One of the benefits of charging a car is that the storage technology doesn't have to be the same for every car. Thus, the charging approach gives us one major infrastructure change with only the details changing (what kinds of hookups are offered) after the initial build out.

This benefit is going to allow "batteries" to aggressively evolve. They will be the main competition point.

Personally, I believe the "batteries" will be capacitors within 30 years. They charge faster, will be vastly lighter (mostly air), built from plentiful substances, and will have lifetimes matching the million mile lifetime potentials of the motors.

And they will be charged, not fueled.

Re:Citation needed

[Megol]

We know how oil is produced in nature, we know how long it takes, we know how much oil is consumed => it will run out using any practical definition. It will then be replenished by the same processes that produce the oil we use today, that doesn't change the fact it will at a point of time run out.

Happy?

Re:Stupid

[RhettLivingston]

The form of public transportation I'm guessing you see is not happening in America without many trillions of infrastructure investment to rebuild our populated areas to be friendly to it. So not happening.

What WILL happen is a transition away from private vehicle ownership to autonomous fleets. The efficiency gains in doing so will be vast, mostly due to the sudden appearance of million mile vehicles now that the car companies are selling miles instead of vehicles.

A side-effect of that will be new energy competitors. The fleets will find it economical to generate their own power using solar and wind. So, they will move into renewables more aggressively than utilities. The utilities will find themselves left behind and the fleets will buy out their remains.

Re:Stupid

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Why do electric cars cost the same or more than gasoline cars even though they have fewer parts?

Because *one* of those parts is currently *very* expensive (but getting cheaper all the time).

Re: Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

But those incentives aren't free. Everyone is paying for them, including those who purchase 'non-government-loved' cars, and their government is deciding who gets the option to partake (quid pro quo, you buy what the government approves of and they grease your palm).

Wrong thinking will be punished (if very indirectly); right thinking will be as quickly rewarded. Hold out your hand! Here's a rebate! Woohoo!

Re:Citation needed

[MachineShedFred]

Really? Asking for a source? How about "there is a finite volume to the inside of the Earth, and we know that 100% of the volume is not oil"

Any resource that has a finite volume can be exhausted if it is continually used. The only way it would not 'run out' is if we aren't using it any more, and then nobody cares.

Re:Stupid

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Should have been "because of better roundtrip efficiency of BEVs", obviously...

Re:Stupid

[zieroh]

Electric cars suck.

I own an electric car, and am quite happy with it. It meets all my needs as a commuter and errand car. The range is limited, but my commute is only about 15 miles per day, so i only charge it once a week or so on standard US house current (120v).

Nobody wants one so the government is forcing you to buy a shit car.

I see scores of electric cars on the road every single day on my way to work. Clearly, your statement is without merit.

Re: the UK might be the only western country where

[zieroh]

Half of America thought the same thing about the last president.

Yes, this did. That said, their reasoning was pretty terrible.

If they were serous about AGW

[mpercy]

If they were serous about AGW, they'd ban the sale of new IC engines starting in 2018, not 2040. Haven't we been told by every scientist that it's probably already too late to do anything about global warming (er, climate change). Why delay this planet-saving measure for 20+ years? Even the more "progressive" Ntherlands starting in 2025? Why wait?

Isn't slashdot bombarded almost daily with postings telling us the solar & wind have overtaken oil on cost curve? Why wait?

Re:If they were serous about AGW

[Gilgaron]

So you don't think a pragmatic solution and hoping that the doomsayers are wrong about the tipping point is worthwhile?

Re:If they were serous about AGW

[WillAffleckUW]

Incorrect. Typical conservative argument, you all think the only changes are those done by Big Government programs.

Look, the entire West Coast - BC, WA, ID, OR, CA, NV - has massively reduced GHG emissions. We do while you whine.

And we save money by doing it. I literally cut my electric bills from $200 a month down to $10 a month by replacing lights with LEDs, buying efficient appliances (fridge, washer, dryer - to get energy efficient dryers get a German one).

Stop relying on Big Government and paying money to Big Utilities - create your own cheaper renewable energy with solar or wind or mini-hydro or whatever and stick it to the man!

Re:Citation needed

[jeff4747]

It will then be replenished by the same processes that produce the oil we use today

Actually, it won't. Because we have oxygen in our atmosphere now.

Oil was produced by vast piles of organic matter being covered by sediments and baked for hundreds of millions of years. Once our atmosphere got a significant concentration of oxygen, those vast piles of organic matter no longer formed in the same way. The organic matter oxidizes too much before it can be buried. Instead much smaller molecules (aka natural gas) are created instead.

And before the post above asks, the problem with just relying on natural gas is it tends to not stay in the ground on its own. You need particular geology to hold it in place. So there's way less natural gas forming than the way oil formed 250M years ago.

Re:Citation needed

[Gilgaron]

Microbes can digest lignin now so we can't repeat the carboniferous period. Ergo, it is only slightly less finite in quantity than the various metals.

I thought the USA was a western country

[naris]

So why the claim that the UK would be the only "western" country with petrol (gas or diesel) cars?

Re:Stupid

[fluffernutter]

Yes, more for corporations and less for people. That's great. It's going to be awesome to have to call a car and wait for it when you just need to run out to the store for milk.

Re:Stupid

[fluffernutter]

I just can't understand buying a car only to be an errand car. I understand that some people don't go on long trips, but you need to consider all uses for a vehicle, not the minimum use case.

Re: the UK might be the only western country where

[Shotgun]

And for good reason. As I understand it, Americans tend to drive longer distances on a regular basis. I think we'll settle down to a large majority of hybrids, though.

It's not a zero sum game

[WillAffleckUW]

Look, Tesla sells out their entire production run. They literally can't make enough electric cars. Ford makes many multiples of electric cars that Tesla makes. BMW does too.

And they all pale in comparison to China, which literally makes electric cars for $6000 each. In quantities that dwarf the US and UK output.

Adapt. The market cares nothing for your failed fossil fuel religion.

I matters not

[OneHundredAndTen]

By then, they will isolated in their little island, making sure that their population remains pure and flawless. Whatever they do will be of little relevance to the rest of us.

Can't wait for this in Murica

[OneHundredAndTen]

It will be 'You will get my internal combustion engine car when you pry it out of my cold dead hands." You might just as well try to get Muricans to quit playing with guns.

Re:Can't wait for this in Murica

[EvilSS]

It will be 'You will get my internal combustion engine car when you pry it out of my cold dead hands." You might just as well try to get Muricans to quit playing with guns.

Battery and charging technology need to improve quite a bit before it's practical to do this in the US. It's funny but most Europeans have no concept of exactly how large the US (and Canada for that matter) are. I recently took a road trip and a friend in Ireland was flabbergasted when I told him it was a 13 hour drive. They think what works for them must be able to work here too when that just isn't the case.

They also seem to have trouble understanding our weather as well when I tell them it's 42C outside and I don't live in the south and I'm not on fire. 25C and they are bitching about the heat.

Re:For the idiotic submitter

[green1]

Tesla is cited, because as horrible a company as they are, they're also still the ONLY company that's actually interested in being in the EV space.

Sure Chevy made the Bolt, but it's laughable compared to the Model 3 which is actually cheaper. No other company has yet made a long range EV, let alone one that could compete with Tesla's offerings.

It's not that Tesla is good, it's that, despite over half a decade to catch up, no other company seems to care enough to even try. They're too busy reaping the profits from their existing ICE technology to bother.

Re: the UK might be the only western country where

[fred6666]

No reason why the USA can't beat Canada then. Warmer climate and similar, if not smaller distances.
But anyways, USians just have to drive less, or smaller cars. Raising taxes on gas would be a good first step instead of giving inefficient subsidies and hoping people will choose small cars and hybrids.

Re:Good luck with that

[green1]

You're in luck, they already can easily exceed 180km/h, and can run for 500km without recharging,
As for recharging in 5 minutes... why? they already recharge faster than you eat lunch, and after 500km of driving, I expect you'll need a meal, probably a washroom break too.

Re: the UK might be the only western country where

[rogoshen1]

no one wants to travel to a foreign land for bad food, worse weather, and to top it all off, drive on the wrong side of the road.

Re:Stupid

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm actually also quite in favor of plug-in CNG hybrids, or at least smaler-range BEVs with CNG range extenders. Regarding comparing efficiencies of ICEs and fuel cells, I think one also ought to consider NG conversion efficiency. I think it's somewhere around 70% or so.

Re:How do I get around?

[fluffernutter]

Yes I hear zipcar is wonderful when you want to drive out to the beach on the long weekend and they're all taken.

Re:Stupid

[RhettLivingston]

They do dribble out periodically. For example:

• Team develops fast, cheap method to make supercapacitor electrodes for electric cars, high-powered lasers
• Superstretchable, supercompressible supercapacitors
• Researchers develop simple way to fabricate micro-supercapacitors with high energy density
• Highly nitrogen and sulfur dual-doped carbon microspheres for supercapacitors

There are also many examples of lab successes in charging lithium and other batteries in times that are equivalent to supercapacitors and with cycle counts beyond 10,000 as shown by this announcement-de-jeur.

So, certainly batteries are going to be hard to beat. But I think supercapacitors will eventually win out due to weight, durability and raw material cost factors. And, I predict that the next 30 years will see as much development in the newly merged material / chemical / biological science as has happened in all of man's history. The problems will be solved.

Re:Stupid

[angel'o'sphere]

I propose a deal:
You consider your use cases.
And I consider my use cases.

And please leave me alone while I consider my use cases as I will leave you alone when you consider yours!

Re:For the idiotic submitter

[angel'o'sphere]

despite over half a decade to catch up,
Designing a car from scratch takes more than ten years.
Building a factory to build them takes probably longer.

Re:Stupid

[RhettLivingston]

Your example is totally backwards from the way it is going to happen. Instead of wasting your time going to the store at all, you're going to call the milk. It will arrive in a car-like autonomous vehicle and be placed at your door. And it will often arrive in less than the travel time because vehicles already on delivery runs will be prestocked with common items.

Also vehicles for carrying people will stage themselves in anticipation of need. Your average time to go anywhere will likely go down due to things like more efficient usage of the roads and never having to find parking.

Re:For the idiotic submitter

[green1]

And yet Tesla has done both of those in less time than that.

It's not like Tesla had a unique idea that the others couldn't have come up with either. GM themselves proved that demand was very strong for EVs back in the 90s but killed off the project, forcibly recalled the vehicles and crushed them.

It's not that nobody else could compete with Tesla, it's that nobody else has yet had the desire to do so.

UK [Re:The floating electric car]

[Geoffrey.landis]

Not in Britain for sure, but in north america it's common.... For instance Québec -> Toronto is 800km

Sure, but the article we are commenting on is "New Diesel and Petrol Vehicles To Be Banned From 2040 In UK"

Re:Stupid

[fluffernutter]

It's not going to work that way. If I must call the milk, the delivery vehicle is almost certainly going to be somewhere else in my neighborhood; unless you expect me to believe the store will have my own dedicated vehicle ready sitting there waiting to bring me this milk and the delivery will be free, it's much quicker and more efficient for me to drive there with my own vehicle. Often I simply can't wait any longer than that.

But then apparently you expect me to believe there will be an unlimited number of people carrying cars at the end of my street waiting just to serve me as well, so you're fairly delusional. Right now any car sharing service will be out of cars during peak times.

Re:Stupid

[fluffernutter]

Don't want responses? Don't post.

Re:In addition:

[skullandbones99]

The ban in 2040 is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It cannot fail.

Time to invest!

[viperidaenz]

In the copper industry and train an as electrician.

When everyone buys an EV, there's going to be a lot of work out there re-wiring houses to cope with the charging of these cars.
My house only has a 60A main breaker - the entire house can only supply 14.4kW, including heating, hot water, cooking, lighting, etc.
None of the internal wiring can handle more than 30A, and that run is just for the oven.

I suppose aluminium and steel would be a good investment too, for both the manufacturing of these new cars and the high voltage transmissions lines that are going to need to be upgraded.

Right.

[argStyopa]

Cars are tough enough.

Let's see a single electric semi-truck (lorry) or construction vehicle before we make this categorical switch, shall we?

In any case, I find it amusing that this is being declared 'groundbreaking'....apparently France doesn't exist in their universe: https://www.theguardian.com/bu...
(France declared the SAME policy weeks ago.)

Re:For the idiotic submitter

[angel'o'sphere]

No, Tesla has not done both of that.
Why not check wikipedia if your attention span is so short.

Re:For the idiotic submitter

[green1]

Wikipedia indicates the Model S took 4 years to develop from scratch. And that the factory (not quite from scratch, but that would be consistent with what any other manufacturer would be doing too as they're more likely to re-tool than build a new factory) took less than 1 year.

So yes, they did do both create a new car from scratch, and build the factory, both in less than half a decade.

Re:Good luck with that

[RightwingNutjob]

Why? Because people's time is valuable. Also: greenie commies don't get to dictate how free citizens are or are not allowed to spend it.

Re:Good luck with that

[green1]

If you don't want an ev, don't buy one. Just don't pretend that is based on rational reasons.

Levy a frigging carbon tax

[iamacat]

Europeans are very good at taxing people, why the hang up here. Tax fossil fuels at sufficient level to bring down use to desired threshold. Let people keep using it in high value situations where it makes sense. Use the added revenue to cut back on some other taxes like VAT.

Same for United States. Tax gasoline, use the revenue to give people a break on sales taxes. Why is it so difficult and why do we inact paternalistic regulations instead?

Re:Stupid

[Barsteward]

the occasional long journey for some IS the minimum use case, daily use is not.

Snap on EV/Hybrid mix

[prolitariac]

If Ford could make an electric F150 that had a generator dock in the bed for long trips, 98% of the concerns Americans have with EVs would be moot. Go rent a well maintained generator from your local dealership (could also work with a small trailer attachment for sedans) and be on your way.

Re:Stupid

[dmatos]

Huh. I need to move 20 yards of renovation waste to the dump. Probably 2 tonnes of material.

I guess I should have purchased a dump truck instead of my Honda Civic. You're absolutely right.

Depending on the frequency of the long trips, it may make economic sense to rent or take public transit on those occasions. I'm spending $50/wk on gas for a 60km round-trip commute. If the fuel price drops to $5/wk for an electric vehicle, the fuel savings alone would pay for an ICE rental one day a week. And that's not factoring in the maintenance savings.

Missing the point

[Latent Heat]

My point is not (should I put "not" in caps?) whether or not taxing liquid fuels is a good way to fund roads.

My point is that the cost of liquid fuels already contains a tax, a fee, a charge to pay for the roads and if you are going to make a comparison between the energy cost of operating an EV vs an IC engine car, you need to take that fee into account.

I don't have any problem that the small number of EV users are effectively exempted from paying this tax. We can argue the merits of subsidy, but for now, that exemption is a subsidy, and such helps push EVs and EV ownership along the cost curve. But when EVs become ubiquitous, EV owners will have to contribute to the cost of the roads by whatever administrative arrangement to pay for roads is enacted, and this will change somewhat the economics of EV vs IC operation.

As to IC engines being at the edge of no further progress, you shall see significant progress with the next generation of small displacement highly turbocharged high compression engines already in the product development pipeline. At least under the Obama Administration, there was a road map (to excuse the pun) of substantial increases in the fuel efficiency standards in the next 10 years, and yes, those regs were informed by scientific and engineering input regarding the momentum of research on improved IC engines.

Re:For the idiotic submitter

[angel'o'sphere]

Then Tesla was exceptional lucky. Typical development times are much longer.

Re:For the idiotic submitter

[green1]

And yet the rest of the companies only bothered to START development years after Tesla FINISHED development. This isn't because Tesla is in some magical place that makes it so that only they can do this. They actually had all sorts of disadvantages over the rest of the industry.
This is because the industry doesn't WANT to compete.

Re:For the idiotic submitter

[green1]

And you think that another auto maker would not have even more advantages than that?

They have plants already that they regularly re-jig for new models. They have tons and tons of past vehicles to take parts and experience from, including ones that are partially electrified (technologically related).

There's is ZERO reason that any of the large manufacturers couldn't have caught up by now, except the desire to do so.

Re: the UK might be the only western country where

[Guybrush_T]

From the author's UK perspective, I'm not sure if the USA are west or east ... they're in the back.

Re:Stupid

[zieroh]

I just can't understand buying a car only to be an errand car.

That's a bit dishonest. I very clearly said commute and errand car. That means I drive it every workday, and then some.

I understand that some people don't go on long trips, but you need to consider all uses for a vehicle, not the minimum use case.

My wife has her own car. If we have to go someplace out of range of the electric, we take hers.

The point I was trying to make is that an electric car meets the needs of many people. Almost every two-car family with a commute under 50 miles per day, for instance, could be very well served by an electric car.

Re:Stupid

[fluffernutter]

But you're paying so much for that vehicle and at the same time ruling out ever being able to go for a long drive. To each their own I guess but no matter what the car is less useful and limits you, so don't pay just as much for it.