The Age of Electric Vehicles

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by JQH » Mon Jun 20, 2022 4:50 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:00 am

...

My anecdote. The local council decided that all new or renovated buildings should be built without parking spaces so as to force people to use public transport or walk, cycle etc. So when they renovated the local school they removed all the parking. This has led to big problem for people with impaired mobility (not just the children, but also teachers and parents who want to collect them or go events at the school or meetings). People going to the school have then been parking in the local residential streets which pisses off the locals, partly because it reduces the visibility of children who want to cross the roads...
The school acroos the road from us was rebuilt using exactly the same logic, with exactly the same results.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Herainestold » Mon Jun 20, 2022 5:11 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Mon Jun 20, 2022 3:15 pm
Herainestold wrote:
Mon Jun 20, 2022 1:24 pm
We need to restrict who can get a driving licence.
We do restrict who can get a driving licence. Not sure if you've heard of it, but we have a thing called a "driving test", made up of two parts - one where people have to demonstrate that the understand the rules of the road theoretically, and another where they have to demonstrate competence whilst actually driving. Then, if those with a driving licence are found to have broken the law with their driving (such as by speeding, drink-driving, or driving through red lights), their licence can be taken away or suspended.

It's quite a good system, you should look into it.
A good system that needs more vigilance and enforcement.

There should be restrictions such that in order to enter a city centre you must be an essential worker, disabled, or in some other disadvantaged position in society such as BAME.

Pretty easy to do now with CC cameras and AI.

Maybe even outside city centres more people should be restricted from driving.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by discovolante » Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:38 pm

Routine monitoring and recording of marginalised groups, can't see that going wrong.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Herainestold » Tue Jun 21, 2022 1:22 am

discovolante wrote:
Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:38 pm
Routine monitoring and recording of marginalised groups, can't see that going wrong.
Routine monitoring and recording of privileged groups is the intention.

If you ration access by price, the wealthy will benefit, as always.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Millennie Al » Tue Jun 21, 2022 2:54 am

lpm wrote:
Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:04 am
70% of cars in the UK can recharge on driveways.
A figure I expect to steadily reduce.
Giving private ownership for free can have a big negative impact, as shown by giving public land (the street) away for free if used to store a car. A limited resource inevitably becomes overused, to the extent that private car owners then seize pavements for their car storage. And kick up a fuss if attempts are made to reclaim pavements for pedestrians.
I expect that many drivers would be quite happy to pay for the land to park on. Some houses have driveways, and some even have garages. But try getting planning permission for a new development which provides adequate off-street parking for allthe dwellings and you'll see why people park on the street.

It's hardly reasonable to force people to live in housing without off-street parking and then penalise them for parking on the street.

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Millennie Al » Tue Jun 21, 2022 2:58 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jun 20, 2022 12:52 pm
As for the grant, the government should've expanded it. Give a blanket discount on all EVs so the purchaser's financial savings match society's carbon savings. Include the externalities properly to improve the market's efficiency and it'll do its thing.
If you include externalities properly you'd be putting a big tax on EVs - not subsidising them. There's a lot of carbon-equivalent cost in manufacturing one and it's only after it has been used for a substantial period that it has a carbon saving relative to a petrol or diesel car. Purely for externalities, you should have a big tax on any vehicle and different price difference on the fuel used. Which, oddly enough, is exactly what we currently have. And lots of demands to cut taxes on petrol and diesel.

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by JQH » Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:08 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 2:54 am


It's hardly reasonable to force people to live in housing without off-street parking and then penalise them for parking on the street.
Indeed. As well as the problem referred to in my post above, Lewisham Homes proposes building more tower blocks in the spaces between the tower blocks already here. Which will not only eliminate what off-road parking there is currently but destroy the green spaces for good measure.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Jun 21, 2022 11:49 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 2:58 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jun 20, 2022 12:52 pm
As for the grant, the government should've expanded it. Give a blanket discount on all EVs so the purchaser's financial savings match society's carbon savings. Include the externalities properly to improve the market's efficiency and it'll do its thing.
If you include externalities properly you'd be putting a big tax on EVs - not subsidising them. There's a lot of carbon-equivalent cost in manufacturing one and it's only after it has been used for a substantial period that it has a carbon saving relative to a petrol or diesel car. Purely for externalities, you should have a big tax on any vehicle and different price difference on the fuel used. Which, oddly enough, is exactly what we currently have. And lots of demands to cut taxes on petrol and diesel.
The problem with taxing fossil fuel correctly is that poor people still need to go places (and get stuff delivered, and heat their homes, etc). But government has more access to cheap capital than most consumers, and eliminating those emissions requires capital investment. Rather than making ICEs too expensive to drive (a regressive move), subsidise society's investment in the technology that's guaranteed to replace fossil carbon emissions with more easily decarbonisable grid electricity in order to offset the subsidy already given to fossil fuels.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by IvanV » Tue Jun 21, 2022 1:48 pm

Herainestold wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 1:22 am
discovolante wrote:
Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:38 pm
Routine monitoring and recording of marginalised groups, can't see that going wrong.
Routine monitoring and recording of privileged groups is the intention.
And it is just what Putin does...

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Millennie Al » Tue Jun 21, 2022 11:59 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 11:49 am
The problem with taxing fossil fuel correctly is that poor people still need to go places (and get stuff delivered, and heat their homes, etc). But government has more access to cheap capital than most consumers, and eliminating those emissions requires capital investment. Rather than making ICEs too expensive to drive (a regressive move), subsidise society's investment in the technology that's guaranteed to replace fossil carbon emissions with more easily decarbonisable grid electricity in order to offset the subsidy already given to fossil fuels.
The problem with not taxinmg emissions correctly is that the effect of emissions is exactly the same regardless of whether they are on behalf of rich or poor people. This is where you have to decide whether climate change is a genuine priority or merely a pretext for pursuing some other policy for ideological reasons. There is no magic solution which does put a heavy burden on everyone, poor included. If there was, then it would have already happened merely due to people wanting to spend less and get the same benefit. Electric vehicles have been around for a very long time (oer 100 years). If it was possible to make the total cost of running one be lower than the total cost of running a petrol fulelled car, then rich entrepreneurs would have been selling them for a long time and driving the ICE car manufacturers out of business.

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by discovolante » Wed Jun 22, 2022 6:59 am

It doesn't really make a lot of sense to directly compare the cost and and accessibility of electricity vs fossil fuels 100 years ago with the cost and accessibility of them today, particularly devoid of any context whatsoever.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by tom p » Wed Jun 22, 2022 7:19 am

discovolante wrote:
Wed Jun 22, 2022 6:59 am
It doesn't really make a lot of sense to directly compare the cost and and accessibility of electricity vs fossil fuels 100 years ago with the cost and accessibility of them today, particularly devoid of any context whatsoever.
Of course it doesn't, but then look at who you are replying to. Tedious nonsense is all he knows

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Grumble » Wed Jun 22, 2022 7:45 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 11:59 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 11:49 am
The problem with taxing fossil fuel correctly is that poor people still need to go places (and get stuff delivered, and heat their homes, etc). But government has more access to cheap capital than most consumers, and eliminating those emissions requires capital investment. Rather than making ICEs too expensive to drive (a regressive move), subsidise society's investment in the technology that's guaranteed to replace fossil carbon emissions with more easily decarbonisable grid electricity in order to offset the subsidy already given to fossil fuels.
The problem with not taxinmg emissions correctly is that the effect of emissions is exactly the same regardless of whether they are on behalf of rich or poor people. This is where you have to decide whether climate change is a genuine priority or merely a pretext for pursuing some other policy for ideological reasons. There is no magic solution which does put a heavy burden on everyone, poor included. If there was, then it would have already happened merely due to people wanting to spend less and get the same benefit. Electric vehicles have been around for a very long time (oer 100 years). If it was possible to make the total cost of running one be lower than the total cost of running a petrol fulelled car, then rich entrepreneurs would have been selling them for a long time and driving the ICE car manufacturers out of business.
It wasn’t possible to make TCO lower for electric vs ICE vehicles until the cost/kWh of batteries reduced sufficiently.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by TopBadger » Wed Jun 22, 2022 9:15 am

I found this talk TEDx interesting...

https://youtu.be/S1E8SQde5rk

Tldr is that he seeing hybrids as better for the environment overall than BEV's.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by IvanV » Wed Jun 22, 2022 10:39 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 11:49 am
The problem with taxing fossil fuel correctly is that poor people still need to go places (and get stuff delivered, and heat their homes, etc). But government has more access to cheap capital than most consumers, and eliminating those emissions requires capital investment. Rather than making ICEs too expensive to drive (a regressive move), subsidise society's investment in the technology that's guaranteed to replace fossil carbon emissions with more easily decarbonisable grid electricity in order to offset the subsidy already given to fossil fuels.
And preferably focus that investment in a way that better reaches the less well off. So many subsidies become middle class subsidies, because the middle class are good at accessing and using them.

The less well-off tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on things like fuel. That's why redistribution is important, to reduce the impact of taxes whose aim is to reduce the consumption of some item. But we don't do enough of it in this country. Other countries among our neighbours do more.

It is inevitably the case that the rich will spend more on stuff that is made expensive... Once upon a time, oysters, salmon and eel were cheap food. Then they were overfished. Salmon was very expensive when I grew up in the 60s/70s, before fish farming became common, it's rather cheaper today. I think it is reasonable enough to say that there is other food, and it doesn't matter if oysters and eel, and to some extent salmon, are now preferably eaten by the well-off.

That argument doesn't extend so well to fuel. If you are trying to tax people to discourage them using a necessity like that, you need to make sure that the alternative mode of existence using less of it is useful and accessible. So, for example, heat pump heating systems remain too costly and inaccessible for widespread use in this country. They aren't a routine fit. In some other countries in the world, they are a routine fit.

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by dyqik » Wed Jun 22, 2022 11:29 pm

...even though, technically speaking, heat pumps are a much better fit to the UK than over here.

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Millennie Al » Thu Jun 23, 2022 11:00 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 11:49 am
The problem with taxing fossil fuel correctly is that poor people still need to go places (and get stuff delivered, and heat their homes, etc). But government has more access to cheap capital than most consumers, and eliminating those emissions requires capital investment. Rather than making ICEs too expensive to drive (a regressive move), subsidise society's investment in the technology that's guaranteed to replace fossil carbon emissions with more easily decarbonisable grid electricity in order to offset the subsidy already given to fossil fuels.
However, we are allegedly facing a climate emergency. And this requires that people stop driving fossil-fuelled cars. There are two ways to achieve that: tax the vehicles off the roads or ban them. In both cases poor people will not be driving these vehicles, so they are unaffected by the price of the fuel. The ₤50 of petrol that they don't buy costs them exactly the same amount if taxes increase it to £500. When you advocate measures such as subsidies, if you think that they will work, then taxing fossil fuels correctly will only affect rich people who foolishly pay huge amounts for something that they could get cheaper. Of course the record shows that the measures actually implemented fall far short of sufficient, so that's where you have to decide which is the priority - poor people or climate change.

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Grumble » Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:37 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 11:00 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 11:49 am
The problem with taxing fossil fuel correctly is that poor people still need to go places (and get stuff delivered, and heat their homes, etc). But government has more access to cheap capital than most consumers, and eliminating those emissions requires capital investment. Rather than making ICEs too expensive to drive (a regressive move), subsidise society's investment in the technology that's guaranteed to replace fossil carbon emissions with more easily decarbonisable grid electricity in order to offset the subsidy already given to fossil fuels.
However, we are allegedly facing a climate emergency. And this requires that people stop driving fossil-fuelled cars. There are two ways to achieve that: tax the vehicles off the roads or ban them. In both cases poor people will not be driving these vehicles, so they are unaffected by the price of the fuel. The ₤50 of petrol that they don't buy costs them exactly the same amount if taxes increase it to £500. When you advocate measures such as subsidies, if you think that they will work, then taxing fossil fuels correctly will only affect rich people who foolishly pay huge amounts for something that they could get cheaper. Of course the record shows that the measures actually implemented fall far short of sufficient, so that's where you have to decide which is the priority - poor people or climate change.
New ICE cars are going to be banned already, and although I wish it could be even sooner than 2030 the reality is that the surging demand for EVs might achieve that for us.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by bjn » Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:45 am

The car industry is going through a dip, where demand for ICE vehicles is starting to drop, while demand for BEVs going up. However the supply of BEVs can’t make up for the drop in ICEs. So a revenue gap appears exactly when they need it to invest in new plant and production lines for BEVs. This is a hard place to be and some companies are going to be hit very very hard.

There’s a name for this effect which I can’t find. The equivalent of announcing new iPhone 2000 before you can deliver in bulk, so sales of iPhone 1999 tank.

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by tom p » Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:21 am

bjn wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:45 am
The car industry is going through a dip, where demand for ICE vehicles is starting to drop, while demand for BEVs going up. However the supply of BEVs can’t make up for the drop in ICEs. So a revenue gap appears exactly when they need it to invest in new plant and production lines for BEVs. This is a hard place to be and some companies are going to be hit very very hard.

There’s a name for this effect which I can’t find. The equivalent of announcing new iPhone 2000 before you can deliver in bulk, so sales of iPhone 1999 tank.
Well, interest rates are still historically low, so these companies can surely just borrow the money to cover the capital investment needed. That is the whole point of LLCs & financial markets, after all

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by TopBadger » Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:30 am

bjn wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:45 am
There’s a name for this effect which I can’t find.
Were you thinking of the 'Osbourne Effect'?

"The Osborne Effect states that prematurely discussing future, unavailable products damages sales of existing products"
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:30 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 11:00 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Jun 21, 2022 11:49 am
The problem with taxing fossil fuel correctly is that poor people still need to go places (and get stuff delivered, and heat their homes, etc). But government has more access to cheap capital than most consumers, and eliminating those emissions requires capital investment. Rather than making ICEs too expensive to drive (a regressive move), subsidise society's investment in the technology that's guaranteed to replace fossil carbon emissions with more easily decarbonisable grid electricity in order to offset the subsidy already given to fossil fuels.
However, we are allegedly facing a climate emergency. And this requires that people stop driving fossil-fuelled cars. There are two ways to achieve that: tax the vehicles off the roads or ban them. In both cases poor people will not be driving these vehicles, so they are unaffected by the price of the fuel. The ₤50 of petrol that they don't buy costs them exactly the same amount if taxes increase it to £500. When you advocate measures such as subsidies, if you think that they will work, then taxing fossil fuels correctly will only affect rich people who foolishly pay huge amounts for something that they could get cheaper. Of course the record shows that the measures actually implemented fall far short of sufficient, so that's where you have to decide which is the priority - poor people or climate change.
Except in the real world you can't make all ICEs vanish overnight, because many of the journeys people make in them still have to happen. The replacement needs to happen as quickly as possible, but a bit of extended thought about the pragmatic issues involved will soon reveal the necessity of juggling multiple priorities.
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by TopBadger » Fri Jun 24, 2022 12:52 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:30 am
Except in the real world you can't make all ICEs vanish overnight, because many of the journeys people make in them still have to happen. The replacement needs to happen as quickly as possible, but a bit of extended thought about the pragmatic issues involved will soon reveal the necessity of juggling multiple priorities.
Maybe take a look at the TEDx talk I posted further up... because even if we could replace all the ICE's overnight with BEV's that would be terrible for the environment... because a BEV essentially frontloads the CO2 in production...
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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by IvanV » Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:27 pm

Recent UK EV sales stats and market share visible here.

As you can see, EV (inc PHEV) sales, at just 3% in 2019, shot up to 19% in 2021. They are 21% year-to-date in 2022. But sales on a month-to-month level are very volatile, and have fallen back from a monthly peak of 33% in Dec 21 and have been below 20% in most recent months. So it looks like that incredibly rapid increase to 19% in 2021 has rather slowed down, though it is probably still going up to some degree.

What is going on is affected by the fact that overall sales of cars are down, and also that availability of all kinds of cars is currently limited due to on-going disruption to supply chains from lock-down and the persisting global shortage of shipping capacity. It is also likely that what is happening is in part driven by EU regulations, very similar in UK, that have the effect of forcing car companies to sell a certain proportion of EVs. Meanwhile people are keeping their old cars on the roads longer. I think lower income people - who mainly buy second hand anyway, and the price of second hand cars has shot up - whose income is squeezed, are trying very hard to avoid doing anything other than hold onto their present car.

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Re: The Age of Electric Vehicles

Post by Millennie Al » Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:50 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:30 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 11:00 pm
However, we are allegedly facing a climate emergency. And this requires that people stop driving fossil-fuelled cars.
Except in the real world you can't make all ICEs vanish overnight, because many of the journeys people make in them still have to happen. The replacement needs to happen as quickly as possible, but a bit of extended thought about the pragmatic issues involved will soon reveal the necessity of juggling multiple priorities.
It's not an overnight change - we didn't first learn of the problem yesterday. How much longer is pragmatism going to result in expensive, ineffective measures?

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