EV or ICE ?

[Alfie]

The UK Govt. reaffirms 2030 as the last date for the manufacture of new ICE vehicles, but this seems to have escaped their notice 

I predict that date will be put back a few years at some point. 

[Coolkorat]

I predict that date will be put back a few years at some point.

I wouldn't bet against you. Also that ULEZ gets watered-down over the next few months (by the Conservatives, ironically given it was BoJo's idea).

[Roger]

An announcement on board Great Western Railways - at every station . . .

"Please do not attempt to bring electric scooters onto the train".

What's that about ? Fire risk ?

Certainly current advice is that electric scooters should not be kept inside the house   

[jungle]

I think your right fire risk
There was recently a car transporter  carrying electric vehicles had a majior fire of the Dutch coast causing the vessel to be abandoned
Maybe thats leading to everyone reviewing safety
Can't say I  blame them

[Roger]

It must be a new type of battery I'm guessing as I cannot recall 'electric wheelchairs', which have been around for decades, ever being a problem   

[Roger]

The spotlight is on the USA here but I'm sure that all Govts. embarking on a  thrust to EV's are making the same mistake - it's of mind boggling proportions    Never mind the environmental costs of hastening the departure of ICE vehicles and replacing them with complex and heavy EV's - do we have the power stations, transformers and power grid to cope ? NO !

How can Govts be so effing blind ! From the DT today, an excellent article IMO :-

"Policies enacted by the Biden administration and the previous, Democrat-controlled Congress are set to plunge the USA into a serious energy crisis in the coming years. It all has to do with the Biden government’s decision to try to force mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) before either the market or the power grid can adjust to meet the whopping new demand for power generation or to supply the critical minerals needed to make the batteries that power the cars. . .

. . . . Policies enacted by the Biden administration and the previous, Democrat-controlled Congress are set to plunge the USA into a serious energy crisis in the coming years. It all has to do with the Biden government’s decision to try to force mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) before either the market or the power grid can adjust to meet the whopping new demand for power generation or to supply the critical minerals needed to make the batteries that power the cars. . . . 

. . . . The desired result, according to the White House, will be that two thirds of cars on the road by 2032 will be EVs. Given that Hedges & Co reports there were 290 million cars on US roads in 2022, and accounting for likely growth over the next decade, this would mean well over 200 million EVs on US roads in just 9 years. That compares to roughly 3 million EVs currently, so we’re talking about a 70-fold rise in EV adoption in that short period of time. No problem, right?

Wrong. There are plenty of problems with this concept – very large and imposing problems, in fact. Start with the massive additional load the recharging of that many additional EVs would put onto the nation’s regional power grids. Elon Musk himself said in 2021 that accommodating such a rapid adoption of EVs would require a doubling of US generation capacity. That’s in just 9 years on a grid system that has taken well over a century to build so far. Second, even the Biden administration itself admitted in May that such an expansion of the grid will require at least 47,000 miles of new high-voltage transmission capacity. . . . Taking all these simultaneously occurring factors into consideration, the looming trainwreck ahead becomes clear.."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/23/biden-electric-vehicle-climate-bill-tax-subsidies-transwest/

[Alfie]

Some UK stats:

As of the end of July 2023, there were around 840,000 fully electric cars on UK roads and a further 520,000 plug-in hybrids. That makes a total of 1,360,000 plug-in cars.

At the end of March 2023, there were 33.27 million licensed cars in the UK.

Those figures show that currently plug in cars amount to only about 4% of all licenced cars in the UK.


Sources:
https://www.zap-map.com/ev-stats/ev-market
https://www.racfoundation.org/motoring-faqs/mobility

[Roger]

Back to the fire risks - "Bangkok’s governor has ordered an urgent review of all premises in the capital storing EV vehicles and batteries after a serious fire on Wednesday night gutted a building in the Chatuchak area of the city."

https://www.thaiexaminer.com/thai-news-foreigners/2023/09/09/ev-vehicle-concerns-after-bangkok-fire-bangkok-governor-chadchart/

[Alfie]

I predict that date will be put back a few years at some point.

The first delay has been announced. Five years.

[Hector]

Electric car explodes on driveway and sets fire to Merseyside family home after 'battery malfunctions'.  (D-Mail 25 Sep 2023). 
It seems to be happening more and more.  I think I'll stick with my old polluting E20 powered car for the time being!

[Alfie]

Electric Car Fires - Facts and Figures

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kNIyTQ2jeM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kNIyTQ2jeM</a>

[Roger]

All this anguish about 2030 or 2035 seems to me to be the wrong debate . . . practicalities may not facilitate either deadline, or any deadline ever . . . .

1. How do persons living in an apartment block or in a house with no driveway/carport/garage, manage to get the charge supply to the vehicle?

2. We don't have the national capacity for electricity generation to charge say 50% of vehicles,

3. The infrastructure of power supply nationally and street by street by street needs upgrading to allow a large proportion of EV.

4. The rush to build massive numbers of EV is bizarre in itself because according to research by Volvo, the environmental tag for manufacture is so much higher that it is not repaid until the vehicle does an extra 100,000 km than an ICE vehicle

5. The problems of excess weight, spontaneous combustion, battery replacement etc. cannot be ignored.

The whole debate is based on virtue signalling and has become PC, despite most of the logic.

All IMHO of course   

 

[Hector]

"All IMHO of course....."!  Maybe Roger, but I think you are right.  There is such a head of environmental' steam behind this that politicians are terrified to speak out against it, leaving the logical arguments against to car manufacturers, electric companies. the man in the apartment block etc.