On
29 July 2024 at 11:06 JasonB Said:
Imagine never having to queue for a pump ever again!
Dave
So you don’t expect any waiting at charging points then Dave
Beat me to it.
…
Most EVs, most of the time, will charge at home, or at work, or in car parks, or at lamp-posts. The average car road trip in the UK is just over 7 miles, and we spend an average of 390 hours per year travelling. As there are 8760 hours in a year, it should be possible to keep an EV trickle charged!
My commute to work was 40 miles per day plus weekend shopping of 30 miles and a 70 mile Sunday loop visiting family. Easily within the capability of an EV even if I only trickle charged it overnight at home. Now I’m retired my mileage is much lower.
Watch-out for EV bashers who think everyone has long distance needs, or has watched too many adverts where 4X4s explore the Sahara, and hasn’t twigged they only go off-road in super-market car-parks!
There will of course be local problems. Fossil fuel die-hards are fighting tooth and nail to block rolling out the necessary infrastructure. Presumably they haven’t realised they will end up off the road entirely. The price of petrol is going to rise sharply over the next 30 years as oil runs dry. At the moment, EVs powered by low cost renewable electricity are the only viable alternative to IC, though I have high hopes for Hydrogen, also produced low cost renewable electricity.
The big problem with fossil-fuels is they made economic growth easy, and now too many folk have formed an emotional attachment to them. Unfortunately the game is changing, much to the discomfort of politicians discovering that their economy can’t be boosted simply by drilling more oil wells and digging more coal.
But don’t panic! Most of us want vehicles that get us from A to B without costing a bomb and don’t give two hoots about the engine and what powers it. Such customers will be specially attracted to vehicles that are cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, and offer superior performance for the type of journey they do. Best of all EVs do not rely on foreign imports!
EVs aren’t one for one replacements for IC vehicles. But in quite a lot of circumstances they are better or equivalent. Only motorists doing lots miles per year need fast mid-journey recharging. I think fuel-station recharging will become a special case. Heavy haulage and farm machinery may be a special case too: perhaps relying on oil long after everyone else has moved on.
The end-of-oil as we know it is driven by the Laws of Economics and Physics, so things have to change. It’s not a matter of opinion. Unless anyone knows the location of a limitless supply of oil and how to alter the weather.
Dave