Petrol or Electric Cars?

[AB Editor]

 

This poll is closed.

Do you support phasing out petrol and diesel cars in favour of electric vehicles?

• Maybe in the future, but we're not ready for it yet - 114 votes
• 49%
• No, the demand for electricity will be too high - 68 votes
• 29%
• Yes, we need to reduce carbon emissions - 53 votes
• 23%

See final stats

Stats until: 08:33 Thu 21st Nov 2024 (Refreshed every 5 minutes)

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[sunny-dave]

In principle 'yes', in practice 'no' - unless until we find a magic electricity tree (or build some new nukes pdq).

[Tilly2]

Yes, if we can harness enough solar power to run the things.

[Buenchico]

I've selected 'Yes' in the poll but I have to admit that I'm still mystified by the practicalities of it.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has yet invented (or is anywhere close to inventing) an electric car which can be charged in a matter of minutes. (If they did, we could simply replace the petrol pumps at filling station with charging points). That means that people will need to charge their cars either overnight or at other times when they're parked in the same place for quite some time (such as while the driver is at work).

So there will need to be lots of charging points at, or very near to, people's homes. How could that be achieved here?
http://tinyurl.com/y8tun5vh

[Old_Geezer]

I've no doubt supporters mean well but for the reasons given above, it just isn't practical (yet). It's the sort of thing one expects the EU to impose on folk whether they like it or not. One is better concentrating on dealing with the waste products of existing convenient fuels than trying to remove their use prematurely and relying on supplies that are already under pressure, and take ages to transfer to the vehicle. It's not like power stations are pollutant free anyway. Electric vehicles will come into their own when we discover a better source of generation and batteries that can be flash charged (or maybe kept topped up as the vehicle is driven along, somehow).

[waterboatman]

Yes! Battery technology is progressing at a pace, it won't be too long before an electric car will do 300 miles on a charge. (a petrol car should do 300 miles on a full tank)

[johnk]

You would need very heavy cables or very high voltages to get that much power into a battery in minutes. No matter how advanced the technology the laws of physics stay the same

[waterboatman]

At the moment yes.

[Old_Geezer]

Quite right WBM. Scottie got it wrong; we'll be changing the laws of physics shortly.

Actually it's quite simple, we just dematerialise the electrons at the cathode and materialise them at the anode. Voila !

[Buenchico]

>>> (a petrol car should do 300 miles on a full tank)

I'd be worried if mine did less than 500 miles on a full tank!

[waterboatman]

Morning chris, indeed, a lot of cars will, but 300 was the standard, it may well have changed. In Germany, NATO forces, if they owned a car, it had to be able to do 300 on a full tank, as it may have had to be used for emergency evacuation by families if the balloon went up.

[dannyk13]

Hydrogen fuelled cars will be the future.Saw one tested on TV ,no emissions at all except a few drops of water.Only drawback was the cost, £120.000 plus. I expect when they eventually go into mass production that the cost will reduce.

[Buenchico]

My car does 49 mpg on really long runs but rather lower (typically around 40 mpg) when driving mainly around town.

Hopefully what I've saved on petrol since I've had it will help to pay for the secondhand gearbox that needs to go in it within the next few days!

[Buenchico]

A link to go with Danny's post:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/93180/hydrogen-cars-new-government-funding-for-fuel-cell-vehicles

[ToraToraTora]

personally I think the future lies in electric cars with a small petrol engine on board that merely charges the batteries. That way the it's not at the mercy of lack of charging stations. Hydrogen wastes 96% of the energy it started with so that's disastrous.

[woofgang]

why are there no votes showing

[TWR]

Will not happen in my life time, the UK Struggles now, think about the output on a daily basis.

[mikey4444]

It would be interesting to find out the current play with electric cars, verses petrol/diesel cars......ie, what proportion of cars already on the road are electric ?

My suspicions is that it would be less than 1%.

[andres]

I read an article yesterday that said that even a small number of cars plugging into points on the same street could possibly cause power cuts in the local area.

[theprof]

Electric vehicles are an admirable concept. The campaigns advocating their widespread use are currently running alongside a similar campaign advocating the introduction of driverless vehicles.

Should both campaigns be successful, I'm fascinated if someone could explain precisely how a driverless, electric vehicle becomes aware of the need to acquire a charge and the exactly how the charging process begins. How can a driverless vehicle plug itself into a charging point should it become necessary? Are we looking at siting some form of automaton at each charging point that can physically connect the car to the charging point under the direction of the computer in the driverless vehicle? Currently, we can safely exclude the application of wireless technology to perform the function necessary.

Apologies. Theprof has his tongue firmly in his cheek this evening

[Baldric]

I would only ever drive an electric car if there was no other option,