Since the last time we had this debate, I’ve been having weekly lifts to orchestra from a guy with an electric car. It’s about a 60 mile round trip. His partner has something with an IC engine – not sure whether diesel or petrol. When they go on holiday, they use the IC car. If one of them is going to work (he’s semi-retired) they use the electric car. If both of them are going to work, they use both cars. He has off street parking and has overstocked his roof with solar panels. It clearly works for them.
In December there were more battery vehicles than pure petrol cars sold in the UK. Raw data here.
When they go on holiday, they use the IC car. If one of them is going to work (he’s semi-retired) they use the electric car. If both of them are going to work, they use both cars. He has off street parking and has overstocked his roof with solar panels. It clearly works for them.
Obviously this is the only model that ‘works’, although only for some, and given that I don’t live on a small island I don’t know any EV driver personally who doesn’t have at least one gasoline car too. The issues are (1) it’s an expensive setup and suitable only for people with assets like the house, $30K for solar and a place to store at least two cars, and (2) governments in many countries and regions have passed laws to over time make sale of gasoline cars illegal, despite having one being the only way most people could support an EV for commuting, and despite it setting a course towards overtaxing the electrical grid, which (oh by the way) is mainly powered by fossil fuels almost everywhere.
Passing laws that can’t actually be implemented and that wouldn’t work if they were implemented is activist government, a concept that has slowly advanced since the 1960s and one which has slowly eroded the credibility of government. It leads people to make irrational choices and thereby to chaos.
Happy to see @kwlf that diesel cars are fading from the UK market. Those horrible sticky polluting and rattling pieces of crap were the last European government initiative in this area, mainly enforced by fuel tax policy versus the outright bans on choice that they’ve now passed, but happily that particular dead end chapter looks to be coming to a close.
Does anyone have reliable data on how much stuff has to be mined to make the batteries for say a Tesla? I’ve seen some numbers which are really eye-watering but didn’t check them. But if they are even remotely true, they will create a dependency on various material sources which are not exactly “up the road”. In present-day volumes it obviously works. It may create a production ceiling in the future.
I like my diesel VW. I even avoided the “fixing” of the software cheat 
Justine got the “fix” and then had to pay £200 to have it reversed by a “man with a laptop” because the car lost low-end torque and was basically a petrol car. The MPG is amazing. I get 50-60 and she (being a gurl) gets another 8. The great thing is that if I hear the fuellers are going on strike, we fill the cars up and by the time the unions have got bored with it a month later, we fill up again
Take the new registrations data with a pinch of salt and think about what it’s actually showing you, and what it’s not showing you.
What it’s not showing you is that each of those petrol and diesel cars being registered is likely to be on the road for at least 20 years. The BEVs, half that at best.
Silvaire wrote:
Happy to see @kwlf that diesel cars are fading from the UK market. Those horrible sticky polluting and rattling pieces of crap were the last European government initiative in this area, mainly enforced by fuel tax policy versus the outright bans on choice that they’ve now passed, but happily that particular dead end chapter looks to be coming to a close.
The main attraction of diesels which drove adoption in the UK market was fuel economy, which matters in a country where fuel is relatively expensive. 60mpg plus for many modern diesels vs ~40mpg for equivalent sized petrol cars. I wouldn’t buy a diesel now, but I currently have one which will last for the foreseeable future – they just seem to go on forever with very little maintenance required.
The main attraction of diesels which drove adoption in the UK market was fuel economy, which matters in a country where fuel is relatively expensive.
Fuel in Europe is expensive due to extreme taxation, and diesel was cheaper for a while due to slightly less extreme taxation. That was the attraction, reduced fuel consumption can be achieved in other ways controlled by the consumer, like driving a car that does exactly the same job as a larger SUV. The attraction of diesels was cheaper fuel and what could be done with it, including driving a larger car.
Government’s reasoning in lowering the taxed price of diesel relative to gasoline was to promote energy security via higher diesel efficiency, but as with many things governmental it didn’t consider the big picture, what the buyer would actually do with cheaper fuel and how it would pollute cities with particulates. So it didn’t work and they’ve now moved on to the next shiny object – which is dreaming that all cars will someday be powered by non-fossil fuels without considering the realities of that situation either.
I’m just about to turn 90,000 miles on my 2017 daily driver. Looking around I’m surprised to see people reporting very few issues with the model until over 200K miles so I think I’ll be joining you in driving this thing for quite a while more before I toss it.
The donut graph above is funny.
The description says “…more battery vehicles than pure petrol cars sold in the UK”.
Another very true description states “There were 32.9% electric cars and 67.1% cars burning fossil fuels sold in the UK”.
The truth can be presented in so many different ways.
Peter wrote:
Does anyone have reliable data on how much stuff has to be mined to make the batteries for say a Tesla?
I have seen this https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/lithium-electric-vehicles recently.
https://news.cision.com/lkab/r/europe-s-largest-deposit-of-rare-earth-metals-is-located-in-the-kiruna-area,c3696865 might also be of interest/relevance.
Silvaire wrote:
Fuel in Europe is expensive due to extreme taxation, and diesel was cheaper for a while due to slightly less extreme taxation. That was the attraction, reduced fuel consumption can be achieved in other ways controlled by the consumer, like driving a car that does exactly the same job as a larger SUV. The attraction of diesels was cheaper fuel and what could be done with it, including driving a larger car.
The only quickly-accessible data I can find at the moment goes back only as far as 2003, but it shows diesel a few pence per litre more than petrol consistently. As far as I can remember, it has always been thus. I’m 40 and I don’t recall diesel ever being a lower price per litre than petrol, certainly not since I’ve been driving (1999).
That’s just the UK of course.
My first hand European experience is on the Continent, where diesel fuel was substantially cheaper than gasoline in e.g. Italy for a long period, which ended a few years ago after diesels became widespread, leaving people with diesel cars unhappy and feeling conned. My friends there were quite vocal about it. What’s happened since then I can’t remember.
I did drive a rental diesel once in the UK in 2013 but I can’t remember the relative price.
Graham wrote:
Any date you hear about for banning new ICE designs or stopping production is 100% certain to get kicked out indefinitely.
Hopefully. I think in most countries this will happen, yes. In Germany, it would require a change of government, at least.
