EV conversions

[monkie]

I do see this happening. It's the way it will have to be to work.

Yes it will take a radical shift in technology, but I believe that will happen given the amount of research being done in this area. 

 

[jeremy996]

Many of the futureologists paid by car companies and governments to think into the far future suggest that the private car will become as relevant as the horse is now for transport.

Most cars spend most time parked up being non-productive - taking transport as a service to its extreme, everyone would use either public mass transit or a self-driving pod/taxi for one, (if rich and/or unable to share), or a small group. Fewer vehicles on the road = less congestion, less capital tied up in a depreciating asset that spends most of it's time parked up and deteriorating.

For most people the existing BEV is a "good enough" personal trasport solution; there is enough unproductive time for slow charging and the inconvenience of charging can be reduced by conventional means.

I'm a car nut; I'm keeping the little sports cars for fun - at least you don't have to groom or muck out a Morgan or MX5. 

[Bowie69]

All fine if you don't live in a rural area.

 

 

[miketomcat]

8 hours ago, Bowie69 said:

All fine if you don't live in a rural area.

 

 

The trouble is the idiots that make the rules are either to rich to care, live in a city or have spent so much time working in an office they have no idea what real work is.

Mike

[Gazzar]

And don't like driving.

[smallfry]

What is being talked about is taking away independence, and that is never going to happen "voluntarily". Mass pubic transport is fine and dandy if you live and work in the same town or city, and never want to stop off on the way for milk, box of screws, etc. Most people dont, and also do not have the same destinations.

Public transport is also grubby, inconvenient, and most importantly, expensive, and that is NEVER going to change, except to get even MORE expensive, as the companies involved will have to invest colossal sums in staff, vehicles, and infrastructure. You only have to look at the railways to see this, despite what the pie in the sky futurologists and dreamers say. Plus of course, its all about the profit.

If it were up to me, I would stop this ridiculous commuting completely. You would only be able to have a job outside the home if you lived within walking of cycling distance. Same with schools, and NO school runs permitted. If you dont like it, then tough.  This would be a MUCH better and more cost effective solution to the whole environmental and congestion problem.

[Daan]

2 hours ago, miketomcat said:

have spent so much time working in an office they have no idea what real work is.

I try not to take offence here.

[Gazzar]

It's true, though. Prior to Covid I was an office worker. So many of my colleagues are divorced from the diversity of realities that people experience. It's an easy trap, hire people that fit into the office culture, faces that fit, then wonder why our super solution doesn't work.

Reality bites.

[Snagger]

2 hours ago, smallfry said:

What is being talked about is taking away independence, and that is never going to happen "voluntarily". Mass pubic transport is fine and dandy if you live and work in the same town or city, and never want to stop off on the way for milk, box of screws, etc. Most people dont, and also do not have the same destinations.

Public transport is also grubby, inconvenient, and most importantly, expensive, and that is NEVER going to change, except to get even MORE expensive, as the companies involved will have to invest colossal sums in staff, vehicles, and infrastructure. You only have to look at the railways to see this, despite what the pie in the sky futurologists and dreamers say. Plus of course, its all about the profit.

If it were up to me, I would stop this ridiculous commuting completely. You would only be able to have a job outside the home if you lived within walking of cycling distance. Same with schools, and NO school runs permitted. If you dont like it, then tough.  This would be a MUCH better and more cost effective solution to the whole environmental and congestion problem.

It’s just as well that it isn’t up to you, then!  There are many jobs, possibly the majority, which have to be performed from specific locations and the work force can’t live in the immediate vicinity for various reasons.  How do you expect to staff the emergency services, schools, even the city transport systems, if you prevent the staff commuting from where they can afford to live?  How many housing estates are built on power station sites?  How many apartments do you find at steel smelting plants?

Few people enjoy commuting.  Nobody enjoys the cost of it.  That is true whether commuting in a private car or using public transport.  I agree with your first two paragraphs.  It seems more and more youngsters aren’t that interested in driving, lending credence to the futurologist view.  But banning or heavily penalising commuting is not just unreasonable; it’d destroy most industries and public services alike.

[miketomcat]

56 minutes ago, Daan said:

I try not to take offence here.

Your welcome. 

Seriously though most people on here at least understand what manual work is and the practicalities of it even if they avoid it. 

@smallfry I would love to live near my work but I can't afford the £1m plus to buy any dwelling nearby. I'd struggle to buy a house near any boat yard as the rich bought all the waterfront property's years ago.....

Mike

[jeremy996]

Not too many years ago most people lived within walking/cycling distance of their work. Planners have tried to separate homes from businesses, so commuting has become almost compulsory for many. The sheer cost of housing in popular places has made commuting essential for the non-oligarchs, the essential workers and similar. Back in the day, (the 50's to the '70's), employer buses were quite common for mass industries; Leicester still has the odd hosiery bus around now and the local health spa, (Ragdale Hall), has to pick its lowly paid, young staff up by minibus, as most don't drive and there is no public transport to the spa.

Back when my Father was a local government essential worker, he was propelled up the social housing queue so he could work for Nottingham City Council, (1968). This is both unlawful and highly unlikely nowadays.

Self driving vehicles would take a lot of the cost out of taxis and could easily be shared in a small rural community. Imagine an Uber where you don't have to interact with the driver!

[monkie]

The rural vs urban arguement to one side, I think there is also a generational element to this. If you are gen X or older (I include myself in this category) plus you have have spent a few years driving, then you will probably have a fair degree of skepticism about ever getting into a fully automated EV to take you where you are going. 

Later milenials and gen Z on the other hand who have grown up in urban environments and probably never owned a car and probably never will would undoubtedly have anywhere near the same skepticism and dare I say find not alot to be concerned about by summoning a car on an app that subsequently turns up with no driver and hopping in for a pay by mile trip. 

[Bowie69]

18 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Charging stations with battery/capacitor banks could - maybe not on current tech but it's not outside the realms. Say 10 mins to charge an EV and then slow recharge from grid etc. over an hour or more.

Yep, been mooted before, love to see the size of the cables/contactors required(!)

[geoffbeaumont]

3 hours ago, jeremy996 said:

Self driving vehicles would take a lot of the cost out of taxis and could easily be shared in a small rural community.

Speaking as someone who lives in such a community, I can't see this working without major societal changes. Commuting? School run? Sorry, all vehicles are already booked out. It could work for ad-hoc transport, if it's affordable (you can do this with minicabs now, but it's far cheaper to run your own car if you use it regularly), but not peak travel times or anyone needing to carry work equipment/rubbish/etc 

[Eightpot]

2 hours ago, jeremy996 said:

Not too many years ago most people lived within walking/cycling distance of their work. Planners have tried to separate homes from businesses, so commuting has become almost compulsory for many. The sheer cost of housing in popular places has made commuting essential for the non-oligarchs, the essential workers and similar. Back in the day, (the 50's to the '70's), employer buses were quite common for mass industries; Leicester still has the odd hosiery bus around now and the local health spa, (Ragdale Hall), has to pick its lowly paid, young staff up by minibus, as most don't drive and there is no public transport to the spa.

Agree with this - on the odd occasion I follow my old route to school when visiting my folks, it's apparant that there has been a fundamental change in how we work, how we live and how important the car has become. Roads which used to have a car on the drive every other house 35 years ago now have two, three or four cars and vans per house till no more can fit in the street.  I don't agree that the way forward is to just change how vehicles are propelled, I very much like the idea of ev's, but filling the world with even more vehicles and creating mountains of poisonous waste seems madness.  We need to start moving back to working and shopping locally, and planners need to stop reshaping towns and cities around the car - as much as I like cars I don't want my evironment to be created with them as the primary concern. Many of the small old victorian market and industrial revolution towns near where I live have been largely torn down to make ugly A routes straight through them covered in ugly street furniture, and supermarkets given the freedom to restructure what's left and actually have roads re-routed to direct customers straight in and past the local businesses before spitting them out the other side. 

I just looked up some data from the 2018 National Travel Survey which shows that comparing 1972 with 2018,  on average in the UK people made approximately the same number of trips per year, but the length and duration of those trips gradually increases - so we're all just getting used to commuting/shopping further away.  Survey attached - it's quite an interesting read

national-travel-survey-2018.pdf

[miketomcat]

The single biggest issue is people in general have got lazy. How many actually walk anywhere let alone to work/school. I mean I opened a customer's car boot yesterday press a button and it opened for me seriously when did a gas strut become inadequate. More over if you ditched all the electrical lazyness from an electric car it  would weigh half a ton less and go 50 mile further on a charge.

Mike

[geoffbeaumont]

As others have observed, it's not always about laziness (though that is a factor), much of our infrastructure assumes cars. Not to the extent of the USA - it's generally possible to get to places without driving if you live near them - but as already noted even now a lot of employment is built separate housing, small local schools are gone, and if you move into an area you'll often find you have to drive your children to a school several miles away because there's no space in the nearest one - primary schools generally don't have buses either, so unless you're close enough to walk or cycle (and it's safe), you're still driving. I do more than twenty miles a day on school runs - which isn't something I'd choose to do.

[jeremy996]

When my son was at nursery he was routinely driven 40 miles a day - walking is a joke when you add geographical distance and time pressure. These days he is 23 and does not drive; as a Boomer myself, I just cannot see why not, I passed my tests, (car and motorbike) as early as I could.

(Back in the late '70s, if I wanted to do anything without my parents and/or public transport, a car was essential; being an apprentice mechanic made cars cheap, living at home made rallying a ruinous rather than impossible hobby). These days a car is expensive to own, (rather than rent), and very hard to DIY. My son gets around on public transport, Uber and mates who need a favour.

[Anderzander]

So….. 

 

EV conversions …. 
 

😂😂

[smallfry]

2 minutes ago, Anderzander said:

So….. 

 

EV conversions …. 
 

😂😂

Sorry. What about them ? You should start a thread on them 😁

[Anderzander]

😂😂😂
 

It’s a good read though ! 

[geoffbeaumont]

1 hour ago, jeremy996 said:

(Back in the late '70s, if I wanted to do anything without my parents and/or public transport, a car was essential;

Still the case where I grew up. There is public transport - you can catch a bus if you walk a couple of miles to the bus stop. But once you get into Aberdeen you need to get straight back on the bus in order to get home the same day... And no, it's not an isolated area.

[monkie]

1 hour ago, Anderzander said:

So….. 

 

EV conversions …. 
 

😂😂

Nah, we'd rather slag them off about how impractical they are and they'll never catch on 

[Happyoldgit]

The population as a whole needs to drastically cut down on it's breeding.

There I said it [set aside the fact that my wife and I produced two sprigs ourselves].

Granted there is a balance to be had regarding national earning and tax potential v demands on utilities, housing, food production, goods, social care, transport etc but my personal view is that the relentless growth in the population is simply unsustainable.

[Anderzander]

Don’t worry - the science shows we are close to peaking now and will collapse shortly.