UK Government EV and Environmental Policy

[mpt]

Another sad "Oh no the batteries have to be charged" story, grrr.

There's no doubt they are the future. But even with a £5,000 subsidy electric cars are too slow and costly - and not very green | Mail Online

David: I see your comments and backed them up!

[doug]

There's no doubt they are the future. But even with a £5,000 subsidy electric cars are too slow and costly - and not very green | Mail Online

Electric cars are the future, of that I have no doubt. Sooner or later we will come to our senses and embrace nuclear power - the only way we will keep the lights on while cutting carbon emissions. And battery technology WILL improve.

But despite the spurious sci-fi air with which they are surrounded, electric cars simply do not work. I have no doubt that by the time my toddler son reaches my age, he will be driving something powered by flowing electrons rather than exploding octane. But that is four decades away.

In the meantime, the best hope lies not with pure-electric cars, nor with complex and expensive solutions such as hybrids, but with better engineering for conventional cars.

Wow... just wow. Also, interesting Roadster they have there:

[vfx]

David's reply was addressed poorly later.

This article and comments have a lot of negative spew about toxic batteries.

Are these all the pro battery tech arguments? (feel free to rewrite)

1 Lead batteries don't go to landfills. They are 98 percent recycled these days because there are programs in place and the lead has exchange value.

2. Lithium is really expensive. It would be like drinking a six pack of soda out of gold plated cans. You would definitely want your money back for them.

3. Lithium is recyclable. Over the life of your petrol car you burn thousands of gallons of oil based products like gasoline or diesel. It just goes into the air we breathe. Every 3000 miles you change out your oil at the lube shop (about two barrels over the life of a car). That toxic waste is sent for recycling just like the lithium batteries will be every 100,000 miles. Since we are starting with a clean slate Lithium recycling programs are already in place.

4. Lithium is Non-Toxic. It is even eatable! You may even know someone taking lithium.

5. Lithium is the XX most common element on the planet. And since are we simply using it to store energy and can reuse it, we don't need as much as a finite fuel that we just burn away.l

[efusco]

4. Lithium is Non-Toxic. It is even eatable! You may even know someone taking lithium.

I want to address this point. While Bob Lutz made a flippant comment about how safe lithium is in the past that doesn't mean it's not toxic and nobody should be eating it. And, I doubt that any lithium from EV batteries is going to be left laying around for people to nibble on for the other reasons you pointed out. But I feel the quote above is very inaccurate.

While lithium is used as a medication it's used in very tiny amounts b/c it is HIGHLY toxic and can be fatal in overdose, even in chronic mild overdoses. Most medications are like this...in proper doses they're medicinal, in higher than medicinal they become poisons. Lithium happens to be one of the more toxic medications.

Toxicity, Lithium: eMedicine Emergency Medicine

[dpeilow]

OK I merged the various threads on this topic.

Thanks for the backing up guys. I didn't have enough time to write a better comment on those stories this morning before having to get to work, but something needed to be done to address the stance they were taking. With hindsight I might have got a better link, but needed a source that Mail readers might just have heard of.

I've just been on there to reply to the replies.

I find it interesting that Ben Webster has seemingly gone anti-electric. Both he and the Times have published positive articles before. Now we have the above and also recently this headline: All aboard the electric bus . . . Please hold tight for 15 minutes while we recharge -Times Online Maybe he has been talking to fellow-staffer Clarkson at some recent Times night out...

Also, my comment there (similar to the Mail one) did not get published. That's the second pro-electric comment from me they have not published in recent weeks. Andrew's did, however.

[vfx]

This article is so filled with incorrect information it's hard to know where to start. It can be summed up by pointing out that the car shown is not even a Tesla Roadster. How hard would that be to check?

[dpeilow]

You guys need to get on there and post some replies too! VFX, perhaps you could start with that comment.

And while you are there, please vote down "Matthew from Oxford".


Edit: It would particularly be good if any owners could pipe up and say what the real world range is at ~70mph...

[vfx]

You guys need to get on there and post some replies too! VFX, perhaps you could start with that comment.

And while you are there, please vote down "Matthew from Oxford".


Edit: It would particularly be good if any owners could pipe up and say what the real world range is at ~70mph...

Good point.

But I have my hands full with this country.

[dpeilow]

Well, FUD on the internet knows no borders...

The trouble is that for another couple of months we have no British owners ready to come in and counter this type of story. The Clarkson fan club can run riot. Come to think of it, we have no British prospective owners popping up anywhere (no I'm not going to 'do a vfx').

I can say things like 'I've had a go, and...' but I'm sure I'll get called out as a stooge.

Anyway, it's not like we regularly call in American support to suppress the forces of the right...

[vfx]

OK OK, I made my statement. Now someone else needs to wise up all those Hydrogen commenters...