UK Government EV and Environmental Policy

[dpeilow]

BBC NEWS | Business | Green car subsidy plan unveiled

[2blue4u]

You beat me too it

£5,000 too. This sounds far too generous for our government.

[dpeilow]

More: BBC NEWS | Business | Q&A: Electric cars

The government's cash incentive scheme encouraging motorists to buy electric or plug-in petrol-electric hybrid cars from 2011 may sound tempting but are these cars worth it?

That's handy.

[AndrewBissell]

Hi everyone, first post after some months of following the forum.

I just switched channels to ITV1 and caught the very tail end of a news report about electric cars. (They are a hot topic with the media at present in the UK.)

The journalist's final live piece to camera featured him beside a Tesla Roadster (black). He plugged in the car. Final words "Goodbye from Norfolk". So I think we can safely assume he was at Lotus in Hethel.

Hoping to find a link to the video to post.

If anyone else finds it please share.

Andrew

[graham]

Welcome, Andrew!

[AndrewBissell]

Thanks for the welcome, Graham.

I did find a different ITV News piece linked here: Articles | Cash boost plan for green motorists - ITV News

Unfortunately this doesn't mention the Tesla, and it also by inference perpetuate a number of myths about electric cars:

1. They showed charging at one of the couple of hundred charging points in London. Then infrerred that you need to use a "Charging Point" to fill up an electric car and showed a map with voiceover that "outside London there are only a handful of charging points". Completely missing the point that most people will charge overnight! I think when vendors lend their cars to news media they have to insist that charging at home be shown.
2. The long tailpipe: Images of smokestacks from power stations and related voiceover. And then to cap it Friends of the Earth spokesman David Powell apparentlyh supporting the long tail pipe argument (which is not tenable - on the UK electric grid mix of 537g CO2/kWh the Tesla Roadster is around 5 times lower carbon than a Lotus Elise S; over the next 20 years the UK grid is targeted to drop below 50g/kWh at which time the Roadtser will be around 50 times lower carbon than that same Lotus Elise S - for more details see my comments here and here ).

On the other hand:

3. They mention you won't just be saving the environment but also lots of money by charging rather than filling with gas (petrol for our UK readers!)

4. The report indicates that major manufacturers will be introducing electric cars - they show a Mini E

But:

5. In introducing the Mini E, the reporter calls the main vehicle he had been driving in the report (a 2+2 NEV, technically a Quadricycle in Europe, called the Mega City) a "souped up Dinky toy". Not sure whether this is praise or scorn!

Andrew

[dpeilow]

Of course, because this has been announced by the current government, the right wing press (which up until now has been pretty supportive of the likes of Tesla) goes on the attack over it:

Plan to increase popularity of electric cars stalls over subsidy snag

ANALYSIS: electric cars are great - just don't drive over 60 miles


The Daily Wail is particularly full of FUD:

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

[dpeilow]

Hi Andrew, welcome to the site. I think we will have enough people for a UK meet up soon

There is a larger video of that here: ITN - Cash boost plan for green motorists

[dpeilow]

Whereas the left wing press goes with this: Tesla's Elon Musk: the democratisation of electric cars is speeding up | Environment | guardian.co.uk

[AndrewBissell]

dpeilow, I completely agree. I saw the Daily Mail article reviewed on Sky News this morning and was incensed by the inferences drawn by the reviewer from that and another article in (I think) The Times. So incensed I went out and bought a copy of the Daily Mail to see if it was as bad as it seemed (mad I know - rewarding these people!) Anyway - it was worse than my already low expectations!

The problem is that in my experience Daily Mail readers believe it - all of every article they swallow hook line and sinker and it becomes their immediate strongly-held belief.

I considered writing a letter to the editor, but a quick glance at the letters page reveals an absence of any real debate.

However I do note that there is a clear factual error: They state that ..."when BBC's Top Gear team tested it they found the battery went flat after less than 60 miles". This is documentedly un-true. Anyone think its worth complaining to the Press Complaints Commission?

Also I note the very same 60 miles appears in the Times article's first line and headline. Who has been briefing against electric cars? Inquiring minds want to know. And who is out there briefing in their favour in the UK? I get the sense no-one is.

Andrew

PS £5000 in 2011: great way to kill the EV industry's chances in the UK between now and then.