Electric Cars - The Future of Consumer Motoring?

[ZeldaACFan17]

About the no noise thing; How would a blind person be able to know when an electric car is coming? They are so quiet that you can barely hear them! And as for the non-existence of gears in electric cars (Oh, and the Koenigsegg Regera, which isn't electric, but has a Direct Drive transmission anyway), I will try to make any electric car I find have a gearbox, whatever it takes. I want to shift gears!

 

[KODIAK]

yes, but please dont push them down my throat. make them attractive and fun.

 

[Cheesenium]

About the no noise thing; How would a blind person be able to know when an electric car is coming? They are so quiet that you can barely hear them! And as for the non-existence of gears in electric cars (Oh, and the Koenigsegg Regera, which isn't electric, but has a Direct Drive transmission anyway), I will try to make any electric car I find have a gearbox, whatever it takes. I want to shift gears!

There are laws that will require manufacturers to ensure EV and hybrid vehicles to emit sounds at low speed in some countries.

 

[Paul Glover]

There are laws that will require manufacturers to ensure EV and hybrid vehicles to emit sounds at low speed in some countries.

This.

Also, some manufacturers are building cars with different sounds so you can choose your favourite. Believe it’s only used at low speeds.

 

[Sim Strata]

Reading these threads I think too many people have been hoodwinked by the media in believing the transport sector needs fixing in some way, when we currently run an incredibly efficient system.

One number to rule them all. 2018 UK domestic gas use was 26,584 KTOE. To put this all into perspective. In 2018 domestic cars consumed 2,477 KTOE of petroleum. Domestic electricty use was 9,034 KTOE. Domestic direct to the home gas energy use is 11 times greater than domestic road travel!

In in other words. If we stopped the use of gas in UK homes, the effect on energy consumption and CO2 output would be the equivelent to every car in the UK and the US being taken off the road. And we are arguing about road transport! We are truely truely insane.

By the by, if all UK domestic cars were EV, energy requirements would increase from 2,477 KTOE to 9,028 KTOW. That is how horrendously inefficient EVs are.

 

[Alex Hodgkinson]

After driving an average of 20,000 miles annually I realised the error in my ways. I now commute and travel about by train whenever possible, keep a 10 year old cheap car for when that's not an option and have a fast loud impractical car for when I really want to drive.

 

[Easty]

electric cars cars may be ok if you live in a city for use as a shopping trolly or picking up the kids from school,
But I live in a place called Geraldton in Western Australia. It is 500 km from the nearest city wich is the state capital called Perth, Dany Ricardo's home town, and 500 km north is Carnarvon that is the closest in that direction. An electric car is as useless as tits on a bull as we say down here. Gets a bit anoying when these greenies woffle on that we should be using electric cars when most of them seem to live in large citys and are feed up the razoo by polititions and governments with big new hospitals, sports stadiums and everything else to try keep them happy and spoilt that only people in regional areas can only dream about. Give me one of those power charging outlets and I will gladly plug it into a greenie where the sun dont shine. For some countries it may be practical for using electric cars if everything is close and not any major distance between citys and towns.
When they bag Australia about carbon emitions they selectivly neglect the fact that down here most of this TEC is at the moment totaly impractical.
On the plus side it keeps these sooky lala clowns out range of coming to my town.

 

[Patrik Marek]

sound is least of the issue, I have driven Tesla model S and it's quite alright, it sort of hums.

Some performance cars these days have additional engine sound mixed with actual sound , so I can't see why you wouldn't have engine sound inside car that synthesized

what I hate about EV is how they are pushed onto us, sort of like what diesels were few years back, and it's not about ecology, it's just business for some people and that's why they keep pushing it

that and the range, you do need at least 400-500km of range for car not to become annoying , even if you drive in a city.
Charging at night sounds great, but not if you live in block of flats and park outside , I can't see there will be enough charging points to supply the demand

car has to make it's own electricity , so either hydrogen or something similar , then it could replace petrol

 

[wombat999]

electric cars cars may be ok if you live in a city for use as a shopping trolly or picking up the kids from school,

Try flying.
We are on the Southern tip of Victoria, public transport is non existent unless one drives 100K+/- away.
However, there is a ferry service to Philip Island and another to Geelong if needed, while a decent freeway runs to the City area (quite accessible aboard a Tesla) and Commuter Flights are available out of Tyabb.
And FWIW, the present Government is not the one I voted for, so don't blame us 'Sooky Greenies' for the current incompetent Carbon Policy...........

 

[E304LIFE]

Some would argue that horses have more of a soul than a car...

I shouldn't laugh..They may have their day again.

 

[Easty]

Try flying.
We are on the Southern tip of Victoria, public transport is non existent unless one drives 100K+/- away.
However, there is a ferry service to Philip Island and another to Geelong if needed, while a decent freeway runs to the City area (quite accessible aboard a Tesla) and Commuter Flights are available out of Tyabb.
And FWIW, the present Government is not the one I voted for, so don't blame us 'Sooky Greenies' for the current incompetent Carbon Policy...........

Try Flying? well at over $400 a one way 50 min trip to Perth by plane is not financialy practical. dosnt mater who you voted for, both mobs are eastern states based and focosed groups , only interested in Western Australia for tax grabs.The minning industry is a good example, they dont say that almost half of the fly in fly out jobs in the minning industry fly from the eastern states, its what I did for almost 20 years so I know.
Id rather cruse down to Perth with my trusty 351 clevo XC with my carbon footprint down to the floor and at a fraction of the price.

 

[Nick Hill]

One thing I think we've gotten right in the USA...here we haven't really seen the heavy handed government intervention in pushing EVs. Yeah, you can get pretty good subsidies for buying an EV, but people love getting $ no matter what political bent they are and I don't think much time gets spent on thinking about where that $ came from (just happy to have a cheap new car).

As a result, I don't feel like EVs are quite as entangled with "identity politics" as it seems like they are "over there". I have multiple friends of decidedly conservative leanings that are actively "shopping" EVs. Honestly, I'm not sure political implications have even occurred to them. All I hear about is price, range, performance, towing capacity, etc. Hell, one of the most conservative people I know is on his second EV! You can find plenty of counter examples, I'm sure - I'm just saying in the circles I run in, the only EV anxiety I hear from conservatives is the fear of being late to the party.

My hope/advice for the government would be to fight the temptation to get into heavy handed intervention. Right now, again at least in the circles I run in, EVs are kind of perceived like the cool new tech. I know all sorts of people who are likely to pull the trigger once ranges are just slightly better.

 

[BrunoBæ]

I do agree with you that we have to change our habits. Sadly in the US the culture is all about excess. People who are fit and eat healthy are ridiculed by our obese population. Highly educated people are ridiculed by a surprising number of people who now think science and even education are bad things.

The feelings by many in the US are scary and those flames are being fanned. People are putting their heads in the ground and disbelieving that there is anything to worry about.

On the other hand there are a lot of millenials who have decided that there is no future and have decided not to bring any children into this world. There are also environmental scientists who have given up and just moved there families to areas that will be less impacted by the changes going on in the near term.

OK maybe I was a bit harsh with you - because this post really make sense.
But dont you think the reaction of the scientists you does mention is quite understandable?
I mean if they both have some insight in the accellerating rate the climate change happens and they use their common sense about how ignorant and ostrich-like both determining governments and average Joe (and average Li ) does react - then the most obvious conclusion is that the game is allready over.
Eventhough we still have some laps to go before most of us does reach the finishing line.

Hehe just take some of the worst posts in this thread.
Posts where the authors are ‎more or less just chanting Bobby McFerrins old pop song: Don't Worry Be Happy.

 

[Korva7]

Best case scenario imo is that we start to properly use these "carbon removal technologies" and have a modest carbon removal tax added to the gas price to fund the carbon removal plants, making it possible to use and manufacture petrol cars still in future.

 

[BrunoBæ]

Carbon removal technologies!!!
Good one.
The only country who has a possible (small scale) prototype in this area, Iceland, does admit that it will take at least 10-15 years before such technologies can even start to make a tiny impact.
At best!

 

[Korva7]

I think there was some estimates that carbon removal used at large scale would cost under 100 € per tonne of co2. That would mean addition of 0,23€ for a litre of petrol if i didn't calculate something wrong.

 

[NtsParadize]

The manufacturers don't believe in the EV on long term. They only brought them on short term to pander the politicians and their ridiculous emission norms.

 

[Helldriver]

Here in Germany things are getting crazy somehow. They have declared war against gasoline- and especially diesel-powered cars over here. We already got the highest electricity prices in the world, thanks to deactivating all our power plants one after the other. Our Goverment thinks, we can power all the country with solar and wind energy. If there is no wind and the sund doesn´t shine, we have to buy atom energy from poland or france. Now imagine all the e-cars coming in the future. We can´t even provide the energy to power all these cars and the goverment is nearly forcing us, to get rid of our combustion cars. There´s a organisation over here, called the DUH (Deutsche Umwelthilfe, German natural environment help), they are working on banning all the diesel cars in germany. Thanks to Greta Thunberg our youth is protesting on every friday against the climate-change and they hate combustion cars!
It's getting worse every day. Soon there will be an additional CO2 Tax here. The goverment is screwing us over anyway. Some years ago i stumbled across the Tom Ogle patent and was really interested. Basically it´s about running engines with vapors instead of using carbs or fuel injection. It really works, i tried it myself.
To make it simple i bought a generator (no load cycles like in a car) and made it run with vapors. Without fine tuning i had less consumption then before and there were nearly no emissions. I´m not kidding you, me and my friends were amazed.

I´m not against E-cars at all but i don´t like to be fooled. It´s all about the money, not about saving the earth.

 

[Paul Glover]

There´s a organisation over here, called the DUH (Deutsche Umwelthilfe, German natural environment help), they are working on banning all the diesel cars in germany.

I own a Diesel and after watching a documentary realised I should not have bought one, they are filthy and should be banned. I was shocked by how bad they are.

 

[protonv5]

After driving an average of 20,000 miles annually I realised the error in my ways. I now commute and travel about by train whenever possible, keep a 10 year old cheap car for when that's not an option and have a fast loud impractical car for when I really want to drive.

That's just sad. I enjoy my car all I want. The trees that breathe in the CO2 thank me for it and produce lots of oxygen in exchange.
But I guess if you're taking the train more then you're burning more coal at the power plant to power the train. But if it makes you FEEL better....