In reality, I don't think Boris's plan will ever happen! Lets face it, what happened to his plans of a bridge between Ireland and Scotland!! he even got stuck on a zip wire over the Thames!!

Bl4ckD0g wrote:

Diesel has had it though, well and truly. It’s already being priced out to go into major cities. And it will become less and less attractive. I think those values will continue to plummet.

That is why things are being phased in and not done abruptly

New diesel sales is declining rapidly. So in ten ears time there will be very few one year old models about.

We can all think of a scenario where it still makes sense, and where we don’t are. Heck i am driving a petrol guzzler with terrible fuel economy. And likewise i can drive a heck of a lot of miles with the cost difference versus a new more economical model.

But it will change over time. Just like today with the current changes it made more sense to buy a second hand petrol V8 versus the diesel version. Those didn’t come in overnight either 👍

Bill wrote:

ur20v wrote:

Siftah I am aware of what the national grid page says about the ‘myths’, but this doesn’t hold true... why did 2 power stations going off line cause the complete failure of the national grid if there is plenty of capacity in generation.... this was on a windy day as well... w.

I’m pretty sure that was a question of balance, something broke at a main grid junction point for a millisecond , and the balance was lost thus causing an automatic shut down to protect the systems.

dennij wrote:

@DrRob, yes it's ironic that when there is an oil spill and we get involved in trying to clear it up, we tend to make more of a mess than if we had just left it well alone.

My day job www.oilspillresponse.com
Sometimes it’s best left alone, sometimes you have to intervene....  Gone to a good home: 2011 4.4 TDV8 Vogue SE Buckingham Blue with Ivory and clear glass = "Rory"
2025MY Defender D350 90 in Silicon Silver on coils
1974 Series 3 Lightweight = "Millie"
Many, many other Landies over the years
My preferred specialist: www.glenrands.co.uk
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Many moons ago I remember flowing an oil well (about 96% water) straight up the riser through the choke then straight through the gratings to sea until it had kicked off and could then be diverted to the separation train.

We got an attaboy award for our efforts from the company rep as we managed to get the thing flowing again, environmental concerns weren't so much respected in those days. Pon 1 for a litre of oil these days.

How things change with time

ur20v wrote:

Siftah I am aware of what the national grid page says about the ‘myths’, but this doesn’t hold true... why did 2 power stations going off line cause the complete failure of the national grid if there is plenty of capacity in generation....

ur20v wrote:

You said there are already more charging stations than petrol stations, but this isn’t enough by a long way... each petrol station has 4 or more pumps and each fill up takes a max of 15 mins even with shopping, a car needs at least 45 minutes on a fast charger to get any reasonable range, a 5 minute fill up in a IC car adds an average of 300 miles, not ~100 miles for 45 minutes... just do the maths,

You can't charge a petrol car at home though... most EV owners charge at home, the maths does add up

ur20v wrote:

there needs to be millions more charging stations just to cope with longer journeys, this doesn’t help someone living in a block of flats or a terraced street with each household having roughly 2 cars the numbers and technology restrictions are massive. Also there are millions of households that work ‘from home’ so charging at work isn’t an answer either.

Most journeys are short and with ranges of 300 miles in EV's, most people won't need to stop to charge, a 40 min stop to get another 150 miles of range is going to be the exception to the rule.

Many new blocks of flats are having EV charging put in place already (my brother in law's a sparky and they've been fitting the charge points for the past 2 years or so).

There's a way to go with infrastructure still, for sure, but there's another 8 years before the laws come in and even then it's only on new cars, so it's going to be a gradual change over the next 2 decades realistically.

In just one decade of advancement we've gone from ranges of, I dunno, 100 miles or less, up to 300, in 10 more years we could well be seeing ranges in excess of what a big petrol or diesel tank can do today.

Charge times will also likely drop (they will do as the battery pack sizes go up anyway as you can dump more load into a greater number of cells).

Some EV manufacturers are already bringing out cars with *smaller* batteries as they reckon most consumers never use the bigger range (Honda's new "E" is an example of this).

Honestly, I don't think there's too much of a risk here tbh, the infrastructures made huge leaps in the last few years and you can literally charge an EV anywhere there's a plug socket

PaulTyrer wrote:

We do have a bus service, but 4 per day!! We do have two 'local' railway stations, Pewsey and Westbury, but they are both at least 10 miles away. We only had one car until March this year so when I travelled home from the station (when I was working in London) a taxi from the station was £25 per trip! I was living away from home Monday to Friday but still it was costing me £50 a week to get to and from the station!

Public transport is crap and needs to be improved, that's for sure.

Even where I am with good/cheap public transport (costs me less than a pound to get 40 miles), it's still much slower than using my car.

There's some other fun stuff which helps this though, back in 2019 when I used to be able to go into the office, I'd sometimes use a combination of the train and an electric scooter which you can fold up and carry. Shaved a big chunk off my journey and meant I can go for a pint after work without worrying about having to drive, result!

Again, I know this doesn't work for everyone, but some "electric vehicles" can be a fun way to travel too and there's lots of options to suit different people

Is this the base of this discussion?

Click image to enlarge

Of course the management at National Grid will state that there is no capacity issue - if they admitted otherwise they would be admitting incompetence.

Ask the guys that really know - the guys that actually work for the grid, on the grid.

Those that think there is no issue should see the yo, yo voltage that NG deliver to me - just as well anything I have here that is voltage sensitive is fed via a UPS.

Mrs C would have ordered an EV if it were not for the cost (we both drove a Peugeot 2008 EV & were impressed). The EV would be ideal for nearly 100& of her motoring & a chunk of mine.

Lets face it, there will never be enough charging points for everyone, not even slow ones using standard 13a sockets.

Compromise with a mix of power sources, better public transport. more working from home, working closer to home etc and there will no longer be the need to be 100% green (or whatever you want to call it).

Be gas boilers next................... 2003 Range Rover Vogue TD6

And that is the good thing about Policy. With it becoming the norm the cost will come down. Well at least relatively. As actual costs of all cars have gone up and up and up.

The UK isn’t alone in pursuing this, Manufacturers and other industry will follow suit.

What I can't understand is why there's very little talk about hydrogen fuel cells. They are way better than electric batteries in so many ways, yet they have been largely overlooked.

IF Hydrogen fuel cells are so much better than batteries......... why aren't they being used? BMW i3 Electric Car
2012 Full Fat RR 4.4 TDV8 (now gone)
2006 VW Touareg 3.0 TDi V6

There's a lot of discussion going on about the reasons why batteries are being used rather than hydrogen fuel cells, I could write an essay here on the topic!
Unfortunately it all comes down to a seriously flawed human perspective. Remember back in the 80's there were two types of video format, Betamax and VHS? Which ended up being the forerunner and why?

Discotigger wrote:

What I can't understand is why there's very little talk about hydrogen fuel cells. They are way better than electric batteries in so many ways, yet they have been largely overlooked.

My guess - batteries can be recharged at home whereas you cannot really create hydrogen at home. So when there is no infrastruture in place batteries look "easier" to roll out.

If hydrogen could be made cheaply then I am sure it would be the only game in town. But when it costs so much compared to petrol (let alone diesel or electricity) not a chance. However, I seem to recall that one of the Scottish islands has such a surplus of wind energy they installed a hydrogen making plant, that in effect is free to run. 2010 Range Rover TDV8 Baltic Blue Autobiography (2011 MY) - SOLD
1960 Land Rover SII SWB SW
2020 BMW R1250 RT LE
2021 Triton ST-125 (Monkey Bike)