Electric cars still a bit shite

Do you live a very long way from a filling station? If not, why carry all that fuel around for no reason?

Quite. It would have been fine for my usual commute in London, though. But not with those overall costs for what would have to be a second car for town only use.

Yes, the original topic was about electric cars and they will take a lot more than "a few minutes" to refuel.

Well yes, but I was commenting on a 600 mile range of a conventional car. Saying I'm not really sure just how necessary that is.

Of course no electric car has anything like the range needed for long distance travel - even in the UK. I doubt there's one on the market that could run for a morning at motorway speeds. Although you might think so by the ads.

And M74 M8 A90 (I think...) Aberdeen is bad enough from here but then that for a single days work.

Once North of the central belt probably not that many. If there wasn't a petrol station in the town the nearest to here would be Hexham at just over 20 miles. Both are 2 or 3p/l more than better served areas.

One has to think about fuel you could use the best part of two gallons just "nipping out to fill up". If the local station is closed. B-)

My worry about electric cars would be that I'd leave it on charge overnight, only to find in the morning that something had tripped (or whatever) and the car wasn't charged. Then what would I do? Lose a day I suppose while I waited for it to charge.

Bill

More and more ,motorway service areas are installing charging points, and most of them have hotels on site.

That could cause chaos if there were a major overnight power cut in an area with high electric car usage. Lots of people failing to get to work, school, etc.

Try doing that journey and stopping only once with a woman in the car. They are programmed to need a piss every 100 miles

yeah, but the gas that runs the power stations doesn't come with a massive fuel duty slapped on top. for a 33% efficent car, a litre of fuel is around 3kwh of electricity worth after the engine has pissed most up te exhasut.

so at 12p or so per unit, that comes down to 36p a litre for the 'fuel';

The government would collapse from tax starvation take if E-cars ever took off.

harry?

the lithium air technology could get to around the same if and when it becomes a reliable safe, cheap practical commercial solution.

An awful lot of ifs though.

If fossil fuels do price themselves out of the market, you might be interested to ponder how things will pan out.

Here are some ponderings:

That comment from you of all TNP!

Noooo!, they just find it expedient to tax the Leccy for "road use" !...

Suppose that Red non - road fuel leccy with be a bit difficult, they'll prolly have to invent a way of adding "Red electrons" to it;?...

No and I'm getting fed up with that weird commercial for the Adam as well. Another problem is that they are practically silent, and crossing roads if you cannot see well suddenly has a very real extra danger. EU say they make having a sound manditory, but they allow the driver to switch it off. Logic?

Brian

But that electricity isn't 'free'.

You can drive them whilst wearing wholewheat dungarees....

Incidentally what is the purpose behind buying a car and renting a battery? Does that mean you can actually rent several batteries and leave one at home while driving on the other one? Or do they expect them to pack up so early they need to keep renewing them, a bit like 1970s Colour TVs?

Brian

I am sure they will simply add a battery disposal tax, a soundless driver tax, and a smart meter to every charging point, and charge you

It will be illegal to charge a car other than through a completely dedicated circuit with a totally unique plug and socket, for which a separete meter will be provided and VAT added at 300%.

The latter.