Petrol and diesel car sales ban brought forward to 2035 UK (2025 Update)

Probably works in a place the size of Michigan with the population density of Maryland. I would only worry about your grid. You folks seem to have pretty modest services to your homes. A car charger might double it. 200 amp panels are popular here and most people need to bump that up if they want a car charger (~50a or so extra)

I grew up in Philadelphia. In some sections it is no big deal to add a charger. Single home decent lot size. In many older neighborhoods 100 years old, it is impossible. Houses are 14 feet wide and run the entire block on a narrow street with parking on one side. You are lucky to be able to park on your own block let alone in front of your own house. About 25 to 28 houses on each side. solid line of cars parked there. Easily 20 to 25 cars parked. How do you charge them all?

I couldn't live like that. It looks like a cell block.

You've been duped by the fake news media. I thought you were smarter than that.

Fortunately that is only some sections of the city, I never did live that tight. I did live with my grandmother for a few years. Her street was very wide and a very wide sidewalk. Parking was still difficult though as there were more cars than houses. It was not unusual to be a half bock or more away. No way could you run a cord to a car either.

You can have community charging stations but you can imagine the fights when a dozen people need a charge. When it snows, people will dig out in front of their house and there have been killings when people tried to use those spots.

Moon landing was staged according to some people.

Sure, things can be done but it will take years and lots of money. Most of the people saying we must switch to EV have no idea what has to be done. Perhaps a new generation of batteries with higher range and faster charging times.

At least the lithium mines are keeping those 10 year old kids employed. We can always send more kids as demand increases.

I grew up in a small city of about 20,000 and lived out in the country for the last 40 years. Never have been to the large cities like New York where from what I have heard that a thousand or so people live in one building. I just can not get it in my head if any of those even own a car.

For me, it is nothing to hop in a car and drive 20 miles to see a friend, or even take a trip to a city 100 miles away. Just do not see an electric car for me unless they get them to go 300 or so miles and charge up in 10 minutes or less just like a regular gas station.

One other thought for the electric cars is instead of just recharging stations, they have car changing stations. You pull your electric car in and switch to a freshly charged car. Another way. Maybe some kind of quick change battery pack. One where you drive into a bay and press a button and a crane pulls it out from the hood and puts in another . Process to take about 5 minutes or less.

I can see a small EV for city driving and relatively short commute. When I lived with my grandmother I had a Corvair. I was able to park in the spot passed up by the guy with a Buick station wagon.

I've also been spoiled with excellent climate control for many years now. I'd want the same powerful heat and AC for my comfort. I don't know how good it is in the electrics but it takes away range.

We're kind of at the ~300 mile range. But it also depends on whether you need heat or AC, which decrease it. Charging is down to an hour or 90 mins, using a supercharger, but you won't find them most places, at least not yet. There is one here at a shopping outlet mall. I can see an electric as a second car, but I agree there are some big limitations if it's your only car. Like needing to go somewhere unexpectedly and the car is low on charge or taking a long trip. From here to Vermont to go skiing is a 5 hour, 300 mile trip. I'd have to stop somewhere to at least top off and that just makes an already long trip worse. People like to leave after work for a weekend, now instead of getting there 11PM, you arrive how much later? And you have to stop where to charge? If I have to stop, maybe I want to go to a particular type of restaurant, not eat at Burger King at a rest stop. Do they have fast charging at the restaurant? Not today. But, they will likely get better range as time goes on and just a bit more and it will be practical for even that. Meanwhile you can buy a plug-in hybrid that solves all of the above.

It would take a hell of a big facility to store and manage the batteries.

I grew up in a town of 33, but the population dropped to 31 when my buddy and I enlisted. These days there are 7 people still there, last I checked. Like you say, it was nothing to hop in the car and drive 20 miles to the nearest bigger town of 700 people to do our shopping, or driving 100 miles to an even bigger town of nearly 80,000 people.

Over the past 6-7 years, I've been to NYC about two dozen times to do consulting jobs and I love it there. Most folks that I know of don't own a car, but you generally don't need one. Everything is in walking distance, and everything is open 24/7. It's pretty amazing. I don't think I'll be moving there, but if the right opportunity came along, I could definitely see myself living there.

I've wondered about the same things, where you just swap out the battery pack or you drop off one car and take another.

What about a hybrid that has a tiny gas engine that's only used to run a generator that keeps the batteries charged as you drive? Also, put a solar panel on the roof and make it look like the black vinyl tops that used to be popular in the '70's.

The fact that they don't do that tells me it's a dumb idea, but I excel at those.

The original Chevy Volt has the gas engine AFAIK.

Hyundai has an electric in India with the solar roof. Not enough to keep you going but it did add to range over time. They are just not efficient enough yet.

One of the things talked about saving energy is just that, put people in cities. Going back even pre 1950 there were less suburbs and less need for automobiles. We walked to shopping and most everything we needed. Now we build McMansions.

Better batteries and standard sizing would make that a good method. If car makers all used the same packs it would be much simpler and economical to do it. Could heppen.

As a general rule, tiny engines pollute more per horsepower than bigger ones and watts is still watts. The tiny engine would be running for hours after you shut off the car to bring the batteries back. On a long trip it would be useless unless you plan on stopping a lot, for a long time.