electric cars

[AH1951]

Isn't this a bit contradictory...

"As large cities become ever more expensive and crowded, people will avoid entering them..."

Surely if people are avoiding them, cities will become less crowded?

They could be getting more crowded as a result of internal population growth, you know, from people having babies, and people tending to live longer, so it isn't necessarily a contradiction.
BTW,
Is this a 5-minute argument, or the full half-hour?

[Richie]

I dunno but i think I'm guilty of taking this topic off on a tangent
To bring it back, I was thinking the other day that for my needs and situation, an electric car would suit me very well indeed. I expect I'm not alone in rarely, or at least only occasionally, driving over 150 miles a day.
I'm also fortunate in that I have a driveway on which the car can be charged each night. Things might be rather different if I only had on street parking though.
So, am I about to rush out and buy a Nissan Leaf?? No chance. A lot less £££ can buy a lot more car.

[RockyUSA]

Richie -

It’s not about you, brother!

You have to spend your £££ or €€€ or ¥¥¥ or $$$ to save the rest of us on the planet!

Thanks for your contribution!



Rocky

[Richie]

I'm doing my bit by driving a Jensen, thereby draining the supply of fossil fuels faster, accelerating the need for research into fossil fuel alternatives

[joesparks]

I feel I must contribute to this particular topic as I contract to a large parcel delivery company, can't say the name but they have brown livery and they have been heavily investing in ev transport spending millions in infrastructure in their London centres to get this working and I have spent the last 4-5 years in installing equipment for them.
They too tried the vehicles that tnt and FedEx used along with a few local authorities but unfortunately the manufacturer of thes went pop a couple of years ago mainly due to underdevelopment leading to unreliability alongside reliance on 3rd parties, one to make the Chargers, another to make the charge leads and another to assemble the vehicles leading to a massive blame game where everyone blamed everyone else for the ensuing failures meaning warranty claims killed the company. It didn't help that they were basically crap in any case requiring a good 10-12 hour charge to obtain roughly a 45 mile range.
They now convert their old diesel merc package cars to full electric needing 8 hours to full charge and everything done in house apart from charger units and leads which are standard type 2 units giving a 50 mile range and have around 50 of these vehicles on road with a further 200 to be rolled out in the near future being converted almost on a monthly basis.
With the current range being well suited to London as the average route is around 30 miles and no congestion charge they are well ahead in the game.

[RAP72]

Imagine a Company that produces nothing, has substantial overheads and only exists to spend the shareholders money and that this Company charges those shareholders the privilege for doing so. True this Company has a few things that the shareholders insist they complete but everything else they do is to ensure that the more gullible shareholders vote the board members back into their position of power. To keep this Company running they must ensure that they raise enough funds to pay for all the bright ideas they come up with to show the shareholders that they have their best interests at heart. However, if they fail to raise sufficient funds to cover their promises to the shareholders they can approach other Companies that, at a significant cost, will loan them the funds to ensure the gullible shareholders continue to vote the management board back into their lucrative positions for a few more years.

Now change Company for Country or Government . The funds are taxes and if we take the swing to electric vehicles as an example, the money currently raised from fuel taxes, £27.5bn plus the 20% VAT will still need to be raised. In fact more than 65% of the cost at the pumps goes to the exchequer. The switch to electric cars poses a big financial problem for the government – because every time a driver switches from a petrol or diesel car to an electric vehicle, the government loses 57.95 per litre in fuel tax.

Originally the receipts would have been sold to the public as being used to pay for roads but now they generate so much more that it is used to fund many other areas - NHS, Defence, Social Support, prisons etc and any loss of revenue will have to be raised from something else, probably put on Electricity bills.

No Government has an incentive to save money, there are no votes in cutting costs and amenities.

[Chris_R]

The funds are taxes and if we take the swing to electric vehicles as an example, the money currently raised from fuel taxes, £27.5bn plus the 20% VAT will still need to be raised. In fact more than 65% of the cost at the pumps goes to the exchequer. The switch to electric cars poses a big financial problem for the government – because every time a driver switches from a petrol or diesel car to an electric vehicle, the government loses 57.95 per litre in fuel tax.

In a way you answer your own question here. It's a fuel tax. Petrol, Diesel, Autogas are all taxed per unit purchased. It used to be the case as well that if you used vegetable oil as a vehicle fuel you had to pay fuel duty. For usage below 2500 litres the government has waived this but it still applies for usage over 2500 litres. At the moment the government does not tax each unit of electricity purchased as a vehicle fuel, the amount used for that purpose is insignificant. But you can easily see what will happen in future, as electriciy consumption for use as a vehicle fuel increases to the point where its use is becoming ubiquitous the government will find a way to levy some sort of tax to raise the revenue it will need not only to continue to fund existing programs but also to fund increases in electricity generation and other associated infrastructure developments.

[AH1951]

Good point, Chris.
Now just imagine if you could generate all the electricity you need yourself, on your own property, from wind, solar, whatever, including enough to power your own cars.
The government would not like that one bit.

[Chris_R]

Good point, Chris.
Now just imagine if you could generate all the electricity you need yourself, on your own property, from wind, solar, whatever, including enough to power your own cars.
The government would not like that one bit.

This would be similar to a scheme a few years ago where a group of taxi drivers were recycling used vegetable oil from local restaurants and thinking they could avoid paying fuel duty. The government had other ideas and some were prosecuted. After that the government relaxed the rules as I wrote before. Perhaps with new technology the tax will move away from being levied on the energy purchased (as it is today) but will move towards a tax per mile or kilometre driven, regardless of whether you use electricity from the grid or whether you are able to generate your own.

[RockyUSA]

And that would result in everyone wanting pre-1995 that can drive with the speedometers disconnected!

Rocky

Although, I am nearly 100% certain that they won’t repeal any taxes on gas just because they add one on mileage!

[Chris_R]

On your second point I fear you are correct.
On your first point it wouldn't be linked to speedometers, they are too unreliable, it would most likely be some kind of GPS based device in your windscreen where you add money to, rather like filling a fuel tank, and which is then automatically decremented as you drive along with the money being transferred to the government automatically. Such devices are already in use in places like Singapore (and have been for many years) for charging motorists for road use and around Johannesburg for charging tolls to use the highways, maybe other places too but those are two I know of. All the technology already exists today, the willingness to use it is not there yet.

[Martin K]

Interestingly in the recent Irish budget (this October) there were tax changes. Benefit in Kind charges were removed for 100% electric vehicles. Also companies can write off the full capital cost of a pure electric vehicle in the first year. Currently (no pun ) electric vehicle sales are relatively tiny but I think this will certainly increase them. It is a one year experiment - future policy undecided.

[felixkk]

Neil Young explaining his 1959 Lincoln Continental electric (hybrid) cruiser:

https://youtu.be/qnYCYDWUCRc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Richie]

what was that about electric trucks being unlikely...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42021713" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tesla has unveiled its first electric articulated lorry, designed to challenge diesel trucks as king of the road.

The long-anticipated Tesla Semi has a range of 500 miles on a single charge.

Tesla says the vehicle - known in the US as a semi-trailer truck - will go into production in 2019.

I think its the car that should be called the "Semi" though.

it will - apparently - have a range of close to 1,000km (620 miles) on a single charge and will do 0-100mph in 4.2 seconds.

[Steve Payne]

Transit size Vans and Buses are what we need. You only have to see how many of both there are in the average city centre.

Steve