Diesels in America would be cheaper, quicker, and equally as economical if manufacturers had the cojones to ram them down our throats. Our diesel fuel isn't too awful crazy expensive, especially compared to yours. But then, we do have millions of enormous trucks chugging gazillions of gallons of it and the price would only go up if all the sudden a bunch of people wanted to buy it for their cars.
Those enormous trucks are basically the reason America has never taken to diesel in the first place. It's a commercial vehicle fuel, rather than a personal transportation one, at least in the eyes of many.
I see a couple problems with that.
A re-furb anything has a lower value, much like a rebuilt engine will lower a value of a car despite it being a good build.
Secondly, a re-furb battery probably cannot be processed and manufactured very quickly. So, the car is out of commission for a bit of time. Some sort of 'battery exchange' program can alleviate this, but, you'd have to wait until the fleet starts needing new batteries so you have some turnover.
But at this point, the well-to-do will simply buy another car and the people who really need to save buck or 2 probably don't have the scratch to repair, replace, refurb a battery.
I know what you mean. In all honesty, I don't know much about battery refurbishing technology other than that it exists, and that it's surely a cleaner way of extending battery life than chucking them out and getting new ones.
Besides being a niche product or a 2nd vehicle; EVs exchange one 'polluting' source of energy for another.
Whilst this is true, it's also massively over-simplifying things.
- Pollution from a power station is largely localised
- Power stations that have been there for years can be upgraded and constantly made cleaner. As cars get older, they'll generally pollute more as the engine and other components wear. Electric cars can therefore get cleaner throughout their lives, especially as we switch to greener sources of energy
- The best estimates at the moment are that the average electric car, when power station pollution is taken into consideration, produce between 40-80 grams per kilometer of CO2, and nothing from the tailpipe obviously. A Prius, which is pretty clean, produces about 80g/km tailpipe, plus other emissions. EVs are already cleaner then.
- That's an average, too. Some States in the US are worse - North Dakota is almost entirely coal-fuelled, I seem to remember. Not great. Coastal states are generally a lot better as many use hydro power. Hawaii, which is surrounded by the stuff, is on the path to being even better. And then you've got Nuclear, which isn't perfect obviously, but it's still better than coal. On nuclear an EV's CO2 is reckoned to be below 20g/km.
- Also worth noting that an internal combustion car's CO2 figures also don't include the chain of production of their fuel, wheras it does for EVs. The average 120g/km car in Europe rises to 400+ g/km of CO2 when you take into account the whole fuel process, from drilling oil to transporting, storing, transporting again, storing again, refining, transporting and then finally storing again. I'm sure you'll agree it's not a clean process...
With CO2 regulations coming, electricity will not get cleaner...just more expensive...perhaps much more expensive. And only a fool would think a gov't would abandon this new revenue stream despite any and all evidence calling CO2 emissions a farce.
I'm not sure I understand - how will electricity not get cleaner, when countries are actively searching for better and cleaner ways in which to produce electricity? Surely the production of power will get even cleaner than it is already.
And as the "easy" sources of crude oil start running out, the production process for motor vehicle fuels will only get even less clean, much more difficult (think drilling a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico, for example) and more expensive (ditto).
Look at cigarettes. The regulators tax the hell out of them, yet, they're still legal. For the children right? I fear they (governments) will do the same thing with CO2 emissions. A new boogieman to tax, if you will.
There's always that risk. Indeed, the UK road tax is already CO2 emissions based.
But then, an EV doesn't produce any tailpipe CO2, so I'm not sure what you're implying when you say they'll tax it. Surely any tax like that would raise the cost of gasoline, not electricity.
Though I
am aware that electricity is potentially taxable, too.
So while EVs might be all neat-o and whatnot, they do not solve the problems that really don't exist in the 1st place. I feel that everything 'green' is either seeing significant diminishing returns or just taking water from one side of the pool and placing it at the other.
Again, I see your point, though I respectfully disagree.
The main problem with EVs isn't the technology (as that's improving) and it's not their environmental impact, which is undoubtably less than that of a normal car.
The scepticism I think for most people is more down to the feeling that people are being greenwashed and that we'll all be forced into using a technology that we don't want to use.
This is the bit I also have a problem with. I'm a big fan of the environmental and technological credentials of EVs (lets face it, running a car on electricity, and the potential benefits and design challenges it brings is pretty damn cool), but I am entirely
not a fan of electric vehicle politics.
That's why in my view we just need a few really cool, genuinely good and usable EVs to hit the market, ones that can do their job on merit. This way, people won't feel like they're being forced to plump for an inferior product to the one they've got used to.
Although I've not driven the production LEAF yet (only a prototype), general consensus is that it's a very good car in its own right. Obviously the range can't suit everyone, but in every other aspect of the car (subjectiveness of styling aside) it's equally as good as the nearest petrol or diesel competitor, and
better in some areas (refinement being a good example).
And because of that, and because it's a game-changer, I reckon it fully deserves to be European car of the year.
I walk two miles each way every day...
