OT: Car Tax

Bournemouth and back twice in one week was a stretch for me. Mostly the stress of motorway traffic when I am used to about 5 miles per week fetching the curry or fish and chips:-)

The essential ppoint I was trying to make is that no amount of development is going to get us all into BEVs with a 5-minute charging possibility. As TNP points out, we'd need an SMR in each population centre to supply the "filling" stations.

Y'know, any fool can say what they'd like, and the ignorant pundits in the papers can spout off along the same lines. What's missing it seems is very many people willing to do the sums first.

That actually is the key. Now I do at least 40 miles a week - that's just the shopping - plus any other trips I feel nearly as up to it as when I was doing 150 miles a day.

Use it or lose it, seems to apply.

Remember degrees in STEM subjects are less than 1% of the population, and even of you have a degree in IT or computer science it doesn't mean you have to be able to Do Sums.

Politicians *could* get advice from people who *can*, but they choose not to. All they care about is the next election, shagging the latest mistress, lining their and their cronies pockets, and doing f*ck all else.

And had to be every day :)

Even if a 1950s car was built to be repairable it was built with a life expectancy of 10 years. This car has now has another 60 years of wear and tear probably with a sketchy repair and maintenance record.

Rubbish. they were not built with any life expectancy at all. You simply replaced parts until the cost of so doing exceeded the cost of another vehicle, same as now.

This car has now has another 60 years of wear

If it had a sketchy record it would not still be running. I grew up with

we used to drive these things with wrecked big ends, gearboxes that jumped out of gear, burning a pint of oil every 50 miles...and only three cylinders operative. Plus brakes that needed pumping if they worked at all.

They got us home, and next weekend it was time to take the engine out and get the crankshaft reground, the cylinders and mains rebored, fit oversized pistons and rings, clean up the valve seats and throw it all back together with a recon gearbox and some new brake pipes.

Usually doing that would net you another 60,000 - 100,000 miles before you needed to do it all over again.

I find 2 x 250 mile journeys in a week is still easily achievable but what can be the killer for changing my body clock for a couple of days is starting one of those journeys at silly o'clock in the morning to avoid peak traffic in SE Essex and the M25. When I used to commute to work on a bad day a 14 mile journey could take an hour when leaving home between 6am and 9:30am, and that didn't include going anywhere near the M25.

Exactly! Done all that and a bit more. I was gifted a 10 year old 1956 Series II Morgan as a 21st. birthday present. The Ford 100E side valve engine and 3 speed box fitted were not an exciting choice for what purported to be a sports car.

and get them right

If you're referring to me, sunshine, I got it right enough to make the point.

Sometimes just the back of envelope type calculation can show that something is unlikely to be feasible/achievable.

The speed of the battery change was very impressive but was the comparison realistic? The guy in the gas station filled up with 23.22 US gallons (87.89 litres), unless his vehicle was a gas guzzler that could have given him a greater range than the two Tesla batteries.

I'm not sure if the odd minute or two is really important?

Swappable batteries will only happen if the EU and UK mandate it, though some duty or tax leverage such as that imposed by the EU, and not the UK, on iPhones from not having a standard charger.

Of course but allowing ones bias to ignore the difference between the energy content of a fuel and the motive power that it produces shows a stunning lack of education. Not to mention a result that skews the argument by a factor of five.

Makes no diference to the argument. 2MW or 7.6MW. Both would be entirely impractical. All I did was the sums. The answer speaks for itself.

It doesn't matter whether random passers by know whether your car is taxed.

The police and DoT officers can check via the Swansea and PNC systems and ANPR cameras also check for "no Road Tax".

Minor point, but it appears a factor of five is the worst case (20% efficient).

Andy

This pre-supposes that an EV is 100% efficient. What counts is the MPG of a petrol/diesel vs. the equivalent for an electric (that is, the miles/kWh value). That gves you the factor by which to reduce my 7.64MW. Even if it's in fact closer to 2MW for a 5-minute "refill", then AISB that is still impractical and no amount of foaming at the mouth by ajh will change that.