OT: If all cars were electric ...??

It?s Harry Bollocks anyway, when few people had access to private motorised transport they lived near their work if they were at the bottom of the social scale, in urban areas the better off could afford to commute when trains and later trams came along. Out in the country the Poorer worked the land ,the better off owned it. There was little travel on a daily basis over the sort of distances that people drive to work now. All those little country stations that people think they remember so fondly were there for freight that supported the line so it did allow the wealthy to travel, ordinary people only used the train for family occasions like weddings ,funerals going away on National service and as social conditions improved a holiday . Few would have been able to afford a Taxi to the station on a daily basis for work.

GH

They did try the cables on the canal bed itself. however the heating effect caused severe algy growth, so the towpath was used instead. It's also easier to negotiate locks via the towpath.

The obvious (to me at any rate) is to have interchangeable battery packs available at the garage with a certified kwh rating for which you pay. Drive in - swap - pay - drive out.

Garage will have solar panels and maybe a wind turbine nearby to help charge their stock of batteries.

That is the only way forward. You will rent your batteries too.

n hydrocarbon

shopping or go to hospital in an emergency in an electric car, but not bot h. They're relatively economical if and only if they're tiny and have tiny cheap batteries, but that only makes the charging situation worse. Too many times you can't go out because it's not charged, and you're always limited on journey miles. I would not consider a modern electric car, as has been explained they just don't add up.

thing else has. The technology of cleaning them up has progressed a lot, an d will continue to do so as long as governments don't suffer the stupid rea ction of banning them. So they probably will. They are currently being unwa rrantedly demonised.

the issue of running out of fossil fuels at some point. And CO2 emmission s.

Pollution is an issue but much exaggerated. Running out of fossils? Not in our lifetime. Even going 100% electric would not improve particulate levels by a significant extent, which is the weakest point of diesels.

Energy efficiency is fairly poor whether you use mobile IC engines or run I C engines in a plant then operate an electric car off batteries. You don't gain by not using fossils.

NT

With the latest 350kW chargers and a 100kWh/400 mile range EV, that will take 20 minutes to charge. I need at least 20 minutes for a coffee and a piss every 250 miles anyway so all's good no matter how far I want to travel.

OR

I could take 20 minutes to have a piss and coffee and add another 5 minutes to tank up a petrol/diesel shitheap.

How do you intend to cool your batteries during charging?

Back then, people often had the same job for life and lived within a few hu ndred yards of work.. They often walked to work. Or took the bus. I walked to work for the first five years of my working life. Later I had a (push) bike. To save bus fares.

My car uses the air con to cool the batteries on fast charge.

Average throughput of existing motorway fuel stations approx 150 vehicles per hour. So 3 vehicles per hour per charging station, 50 charging stations = 16MW.

Liquid cooled batteries and heat exchanger.

the Zoe...

Does it take AAs, or a PP3?

Lawn mower engine, so neither.

heh, sounds about right, just 50cc. At £3785 though a real car was che aper.

NT

Have you calculated whether that would make a real difference to power requirements or not?

Yes.

Fat lot of good that will be in the UK in winter.

I don't, 30 secs for the stop and piss at most.

I think mower engines are twice the size of that one!

NT

I simply see it as a nod to "green" and in any event using solar/wind to charge at a garage, even if it's only a few percent gain, seems to make sense.

I suspect a small nuclear plant would be more effective though.