Leccy Cars 2

[mercuryg]

I find your defeatist attitude on this to be in the same league as Monsta and Bedlington's development.

That's an interesting statement, and I'd question why you think I'm being defeatist when I've clearly acknowledged that electric cars are a great idea for what they are being built for - short journeys, city cars, etc. That i'm trying to get it across - and it shouldn't really be that difficult (and has, in actual fact, been acknowledged by yourself and Monsta) that there is absolutely no chance of the electric car replacing the internal combustion engined car for a long time thanks to a vast amount of impracticalities in both the design and the principle isn't defeatist - it's reality.

If i'm expected to bow down because two of you have come up with counter ideas - one of which is not to use a car at all as it wouldn't be able to do the job - then you're missing my point; a £23,000 car that doesn't go very far is not a practical replacement for the current mode of personal transport that is favoured. I fail to see how you can argue otherwise.

You want to know what we can do? I've already told you; the car, in its fossil fuelled and electric form, will eventually die out and we will rely on a greater public transport infrastructure. As you said, we'll all take the train or, more likely, the bus, tram or whatever. This is the only way that we cvan get around the problem of having to generate enough power to charge up 20 million electric cars on a regular basis. Again, that's not defeatist, it's logic.

Here's the rub - currently I don't even own a car; i'd love one, but I don't need one. I use the bus. I can assure, though, that if I had £23000 to spend on a car it wouldn't be a limited range Nissan Leaf or similar - in all honesty, would you buy one?

BTW, Monsta - get the names of the 50,00 on that US waiting list and i'll bet you they can all afford a trendy electric plaything.

[Monsta®]

so all this arguement against electric cars is coming from someone who gets the bus!

[Mr Darn]

Our point was never that there are viable alternatives now, and the key word here is "viable".

Our point is, the technology IS here, its just not in production because of the cost.

As you acknowledged, the technology is here now, but would cost millions of pounds to implement.

That's right, and the reason it costs that much is not because it isn't mass produced, it's because th technology it uses is bloody expensive,

the whole argument is based on price, and because of that, will never be won by any other power source other than combustible.

Would you have one if the government would swap your car for one of these for free?

(yeah, yeah, i know, you don't own a car! my point stands though.)

[mercuryg]

Our point was never that there are viable alternatives now, and the key word here is "viable".

On the contrary; early in the discussion Monsta clearly stated that once 'people get a taste for electric cars' sales of diesel and petrol will plummet and the internal combustion will be dead; he is, in fact, wholeheartedly proposing the electric car as a viable replacement for the traditional version; this, as my argument has always been, is not the case now, and won't be for a long time - if at all. It's not an argument, as you claim, based on price but on practicality.

There is no practical use for electric cars as they are able to be produced now other than for short runs. That's been the case for a hundred years, and will likely be so for another.

Monsta - i'm not 'against' electric cars at all, and nor am I arguing against them; I maintain they have a purpose, but it's not as a replacement for the traditional powered car. I use the bus because I don't need a car; that, I might add, is about as green as it gets.

Would you have one if the government would swap your car for one of these for free?

(yeah, yeah, i know, you don't own a car! my point stands though.)

Your point is not relevant though; the government isn't going to give me one for nothing, it costs £23,000. If I buy a car now, and I am - coincidentally - in the process of looking for one - it will be so that I can visit people further afield, go to weekend race meetings at Donington, Oulton, Brands and so on, get in and go whenever I want and take on a bit more freedom than I currently have with the bus and rail network. I certainly won't be buying one that offers me no greater range than the X21 and costs over £20 grand, and neither will anyone who isn't very wealthy and wants a trendy plaything.

[Monsta®]

just want to add a few points.

1) you say its going to be a flopp only the rich will buy one as a play thing! the same was said about the iphone and that has sold millions. i hate iphones but you got to admit they sell like hot cakes. also they said something similar about the toyota prius even after the safety scare they still sell great!

2) you say the petrol engine will live on. sorry engines will live on but only as either alchol or hydrogen as petrol will in the next ten years be skyrocketing in price. in the last few year its gone up 25% to 120p per litre. i can see it hitting 500 to 600p in a decade making my modest mid range car £300 per fill up! sorry but even on a good wage i wont be able to afford that!

[mercuryg]

just want to add a few points.

1) you say its going to be a flopp only the rich will buy one as a play thing! the same was said about the iphone and that has sold millions. i hate iphones but you got to admit they sell like hot cakes. also they said something similar about the toyota prius even after the safety scare they still sell great!

Good points, but hardly comparable, and I don't think many people thought the iPhone would be a flop. As for the Prius, it is hardly a runaway success, is it? In 12 years of worldwide sales just over a million - in the whole world - have been sold. That's a good indication, in fact, of the sort of market that such vehicles are aiming at. Further, i'm not saying electric cars will be 'a flop' - I firmly believe that manufacturers will sell the numbers that they want, as they are not intended for anything other than short runs.As a replacement for the traditionally powered car they are simply not viable, and that's before we consider the cost o teh infrastructure and the extra power needed for them.

2) you say the petrol engine will live on. sorry engines will live on but only as either alchol or hydrogen as petrol will in the next ten years be skyrocketing in price. in the last few year its gone up 25% to 120p per litre. i can see it hitting 500 to 600p in a decade making my modest mid range car £300 per fill up! sorry but even on a good wage i wont be able to afford that!

These too are very good points, and I can't disagree that strongly with them. Alcohol powered cars are prevalent in South America and other parts of the world, and do the job neatly; the problem, again, is in installing an infrastructure that enables the pumping of alcohol into cars, and in converting the millions of existing models to alcohol based power. Hydrogen suffers from similar problems to electric power in that it has to be produced, and to produce it you need - you guessed - electricity, and lots of it. It is, I would say, a more likely choice to take over from electric batteries when the petrol eventually runs out.

Where you are being a little alarmist is in predicting a £5 a litre petrol price in a decade; despite the scaremongers telling us otherwise (and if you believe those scientists who were estimating when I was at school then there would be no oil left by now) oil reserves are healthy, and the increases we see inpetrol come not from the cost of oil but from taxation. I can see it doubling in price, but a 400% increase in ten years would require something akin to a third world war. Possible, but hardly predictable.

Furthermore, and something that you are missing - not deliberately, I understand - is that if your predictions about oil prices rising were to be correct then we would undoubtedly see a similar rise in the price of electricity - and even without your predictions the cost of electricity is rising very quickly all the time.

Either way, this leads us to your last sentence, and it's one that, again, backs up something you've missed; as i've said, when the internal combustion eventually dies - and it will - any replacement will be too expensive, too impractical and so on, for individuals other than those with a hell of a lot of money to spend; the car, as such, as personal transport, will also die. We will rely on public transport.