OT: Tax implications of electric cars.

[spuorgelgoog]

Using organic fairtrade Waitrose electricity? :-)

Owain

[Huge]

There are 2 Tesla Superchargers in the South Mimms services. I couldn't hear what the third Tesla owner said as he arrived to find they were already both in use ...

[Peter Andrews]

If you live in Orkney I understand that all car charging is free as they have an excess of capacity and don't feed into the national grid!

Peter

[NY]

Yes we parked in the free car park opposite Tesco and LIDL in Kirkwall on several occasions, and I noticed a couple of charging points which were being used each time by small Nissan Micra / Ford Ka sized cars of indeterminate make/model.

If you have a charging point at home and can find a vacant point in Kirkwall or Stromness when you go shopping, then an electric car is probably fine if a) you take a long time doing your shopping (!) and b) you don't need to take you car off Orkney to use it for longer journeys in the rest of the UK.

I hadn't realised that Orkney was self-sufficient in power - do they mainly generate wind and solar power? I'd assumed that these only supplemented a feed from Scotland with its hydroelectric power stations and all the rest of the power generation of the National Grid throughout the UK.

[David Paste]

This is pretty good, too:

Dunno how often it could repeat it though.

[David Paste]

Give over! My government? The benevolent Westminster mob?!

[tony sayer]

In article , Roland Perry scribeth thus

Yes but to a greater extent cars will be recharged overnight when the demand on the grid is less.

Course we'll still be using fossil fuels in the main to make the power.

So we've just moved its use from one place to another....

[David Paste]

Thank you all for the replies, I knew I would find good stuff in here ;)

I have been doing some sums about the practicalities of charging BEVs and it's a bit disheartening.

No doubt I'll be asking related questions soon enough, so thank you in advance for your patience!

[dennis]

I would think we could have genetically engineered plants to make better fuel by then. They could make food at the same time. All you need is a source of energy so pumping it around a nuke should enable cooling too.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 12:44:31 on Thu, 23 Jun

2016, tony sayer remarked:

Perhaps, but with so many cars parked on the streets overnight, how will the cabling work?

Not much solar power at night, of course!!

[The Natural Philosopher]

My wet finger estimate to design a zero carbon britain roughly doubled electricity supply for cars, and trebled it overall to replace things like gas and oil central heating and use of coal gas and oil in industrial processes.

I think it came to about 100 nukes round the coast and elsewhere.

Eminently doable over half a century or so, with the right sort of political environment.

Expensive of course. That's a lot more cables for a start.

Impossible with current EU rules of course.

But once built, a national asset.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I doubt it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

HOWEVER with a slight increase in efficiency and a big drop in urban pollution.

And much better for nukes, which don't fit in the average car

Electric cars today are like aeroplanes in the 1860s 'I know we could make these things work if only we had an engine light enough'

All we need is a battery that's light enough. In 150 years of batteries, we have come close, but we aren't getting much closer.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Coin in slot 'charging meters'

Or equivalent

Probably with an internet connection as well, so you car can tweet you if its being stolen.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 14:13:06 on Thu, 23 Jun

2016, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

On every residential street in the country? I doubt it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

This the new series? Not watched any of it yet.

They managed to break the two Teslas they had with the last lot, and Tesla said no more.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There was a story about that. One make of electric car required a check/service by a main dealer every year or whatever to meet the conditions of the warranty. But didn't have enough range to drive to the nearest main dealer...

[polygonum]

Perhaps they will get more income from speeding fines than any conventional tax:

[Andy Burns]

Heh! I pissed myself laughing when they widened the shot to show you the Tesla *towing* a Spider beating the Spider under its own steam.

[Adrian Caspersz]

Thanks, that channel now replaces for my 'Top Gear' fix :)