BEVs

[Carlton green]

One solution would be the Japanese one: you aren't allowed to own a vehicle if you don't have off-road parking for it.

Sounds like an excellent idea, well until I thought about it further.

So many of the younger generation haven’t got off-road parking and without a car some would be unable to go to work - even in metropolitan areas public transport doesn’t necessarily go to where someone’s job is. As for visiting family and running day to day life public transport is mostly impractically ineffective. All of my own family’s younger generation have bikes and use them but they still have need of a car, we’ve let public transport waste away to such an extent that lack of a car is now a major issue.

As a friend in another country remarked to me the oil and motor vehicle industries have lobbied hard to ensure that public transport is slow and doesn’t work. Motor vehicles have driven their competitors away; it’s interesting to learn about the term jaywalking and how pedestrians were forced / lobbied off of the road: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking

[axel_knutt]

One solution would be the Japanese one: you aren't allowed to own a vehicle if you don't have off-road parking for it.

Sounds like an excellent idea, well until I thought about it further.

So many of the younger generation haven’t got off-road parking and without a car some would be unable to go to work - even in metropolitan areas public transport doesn’t necessarily go to where someone’s job is. As for visiting family and running day to day life public transport is mostly impractically ineffective. All of my own family’s younger generation have bikes and use them but they still have need of a car, we’ve let public transport waste away to such an extent that lack of a car is now a major issue.

As a friend in another country remarked to me the oil and motor vehicle industries have lobbied hard to ensure that public transport is slow and doesn’t work. Motor vehicles have driven their competitors away; it’s interesting to learn about the term jaywalking and how pedestrians were forced / lobbied off of the road: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking

This last week or so I've been having a go at motorists over on twitter. I keep pointing out how they love gloating about having the most convenient transport whilst at the same time whingeing that they're hard done by, and demanding more and more convenience at the expense of those who already have the least. Most of them go quiet rather than answering back, which might be a good sign.

"How are we supposed to do the shopping without a car?!"
"How do you think people who don't have a car do it?"

[Carlton green]

"How are we supposed to do the shopping without a car?!"
"How do you think people who don't have a car do it?"

Quite.

I’ve memories of walking the children to school and returning home fatigued (it’s quite a stretch) before getting on with whatever else needed doing. it’s no surprise that some parents drive their children to school. As a young schoolboy I’ve memories of my Mum walking say twenty minutes from the shops with a couple of hold-alls of food, it was a struggle for her and that’s the type of (grinding) life that many of those without cars face. The shopping was enough for two or three days, so each week there were several visits to the shops and corresponding trudges home.
Q: "How do you think people who don't have a car do it?"
A: With difficulty, a great deal of exertion, and the use of a lot of precious time. In bad weather it’s particularly unpleasant and not an optional activity.

I’ve an old fashioned Raleigh ‘shopper’ which for me is just another - if still loved - bike in my small stable of cycles. However, thinking about the above, I suddenly see how liberating those small wheel bikes must have been for those fortunate enough to be both able to afford and use them. The ‘shopper’ was a form of liberation ‘started’ by Dawes in the mid 1960’s and later commercially exploited by Raleigh : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raleigh_Twenty

My own Raleigh Compact is basically a rebadged Bianchi / Carnielli Graziella (Italian bike), Raleigh eventually stopped making their own twenty’s, bought these in from Italy instead and put the Raleigh name on them. It’s still a 1960’s design though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graziella_(bicycle)

Linking back to BEV’s part of the original reasons for buying the shopper was as something easy to lift into and out of the car that would also help with transport from and then back to remote public charging points. So find a suitable public charge point, attach car to it, cycle off to local destination and return to charge point later. Since the time of that purchase public charge points have become much more numerous.

[wheelyhappy99]

Planning permission no longer required for charging points:

Welcome as this is there is no mention of the separate requirement for Listed Building consent, being lifted. LB applications often need multiple reports (which can be v costly) accompanying them, can take months and some planners refuse consent even if the charger is simply within the curtilage of the building, not attached to it.

Interested also in whether Conservation Area restrictions have been lifted. I suspect not, as the building conservation industry continues to resist any regulatory changes that would allow occupiers to adopt 21C technology. It will be fascinating to see what happens when it's no longer possible to buy an ICE car. Or, indeed, when uninsulated old buildings become uninhabitable in summer due to overheating.

[wheelyhappy99]

Our five year old Kia eNiro has a range of 289 miles according to the manufacturer. Not as fast to charge (77kW) as later cars but it seems very efficient compared to some other makes. When charging to 100% at home summer before a longer journey it sometimes shows the range as more than that. Last Monday it displayed 321 miles, which proved to be pretty accurate as a motorway speed round trip to Sheffield with no top up ended with several tens of miles still available. Off to Newcastle on Monday.

[Carlton green]

It will be fascinating to see what happens when it's no longer possible to buy an ICE car.

It’s anybody’s guess and many here - perhaps me included - won’t live long enough to see the full outcomes. What’s for sure is that there will be large scale social change and challenge, transport has a massive impact on how we live and a significant proportion of the working population need personal transport to get to work. At a guess the folk who live in properties without off road parking tend to do jobs that require their physical presence in the workplace. To ensure that those people are still there transport and fuelling solutions will be found.

Those that don’t have ready access to charging BEV’s from their domestic supply will be relatively financially penalised, however the ongoing permissions to cheaply or at all charge your car at home should not be taken for granted. Commercial charging supplied on-street and at ‘filling stations’ will become cheaper and the ‘price of fuel’ at those places will end up being effectively similar to what we now accept that of fossil fuel being. The inequity of cheap home charging will eventually be recognised and commercial suppliers will lobby Governments for change … and the Treasury will be looking to replace lost income streams.

[wheelyhappy99]

All of my own family’s younger generation have bikes and use them but they still have need of a car, we’ve let public transport waste away to such an extent that lack of a car is now a major issue.

I agree that lack of a car is, or often is, a major issue. But not that we let public transport waste away.

Beeching is the name everyone remembers when the railway closures of the 1960s are mentioned. But the person really responsible for decimating the network, well beyond anything that could be considered rationalisation, was Ernest Marples. Below is his potted biography from Wikipedia. The cynical among us might conclude self interest, perhaps more accurately, blatant corruption led to excessive closures. Given his choice to become an economic migrant at short notice that seems very plausible.

'
His period as Minister of Transport was controversial. He both oversaw significant road construction (he opened the first section of the M1 motorway) and the closure of a considerable portion of the national railway network with the Beeching cuts. His involvement in the road construction business Marples Ridgway, of which he had been managing director, led to concerns regarding conflict of interest. In later life, Marples was elevated to the peerage before fleeing to Monaco at very short notice to avoid prosecution for tax fraud.'

As for why buses, recall one M Thatcher's remarks about anyone over 30 still using a bus being a loser.

These were and are political choices.

[Carlton green]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples

Ernest Marples, maybe he was a very good example of how some people forget principles and line their own pockets instead.

‘Political choices’ seems too easy an excuse and I suggest vested interests and corruption instead, and over simplification of electoral choices. Just because someone voted for party P1 doesn’t mean that they agreed with every part of their manifesto; it certainly could - and I suspect often does - mean that the other electoral options are even less attractive … and then there’s tactical voting against a really undesired option.

https://fullfact.org/news/margaret-that ... 0in%20life

“Anybody seen in a bus over the age of 30 has been a failure in life.”

It appears that Thatcher’s comment is misattributed, it was made by somebody else and is rather a sign of those times than anything else. It also seems to be the type of thing that one political figure says of another with a view to discrediting them.

[al_yrpal]

The myth about Thatchers loser comment....

Historians and fact-checking organizations, such as Full Fact, have debunked the attribution. The phrase is widely believed to have originated with Loelia Ponsonby, the Duchess of Westminster, who used it to describe the indignity of having to ride public transport after her divorce.

Marples most go! - the ten year test filled the scrapyards. We apprentices enjoyed that period. Replace a few bulbs, reline brakes and replace track rod ends and you had your own limo...

Al

[wheelyhappy99]

‘Political choices’ seems too easy an excuse and I suggest vested interests and corruption instead

Yes indeed, at the very least there's suspicion of, or perhaps circumstantial evidence of, vested interests and corruption driving the result of the review. But appointing someone with such a blatant conflict of interest to the post of Transport Minister is a political choice, as is accepting and implementing such a far reaching report from a conflicted source.

And thanks for correcting my attribution of the quote about buses. That was intended to be illustrative of Thatcher's view of public transport. The real damage to bus services was done by her policy of deregulating buses outside London, which led to fewer services and fewer passengers. And quite a few town centre bus stations being sold off.

[Carlton green]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1lyvq4gqg1o

I note that from the headlines in today’s Sunday Times that the PM as about to water down the rate of forced shift to electric cars. Electric cars are doubtless our future, but hearing how difficult the car industry is finding the change and the negative results on our economy is important too.

I’m not too fussed what powers peoples cars what really matters is the total pollution - rather than emissions per mile travelled - and that’d be reduced by slashing the (powered) mileage that people do. If we all either used public transport or walked, wheeled or cycled then emissions could be massively reduced …

[al_yrpal]

Great that they are back pedalling on the barmy policy at last. Most of the wealth we have lost on wind farms has been deployed abroad. Perhaps some attention to them next?

Al

[Carlton green]

Perhaps we can now remove benefit in kind tax relief for all company cars and really hammer (with additional taxation) large cars and those with more than say 100bhp.

Because (once you’ve bought the car and paid its annual charges) the marginal costs of additional miles are relatively low people often use cars instead of either public or active transport. It’d be sensible to do away with duration based (eg. annual) VED and make it all based on mileage done by whatever class of weight and power your vehicle is.

I’m not sure how easy it is to validate but with some BEV’s achieving price parity with ICE cars there’s a diminishing case - if still some - to discriminate so firmly in their favour. There will come a point (give it a few years) when batteries - and motors, etc - are so cheap that it’d be daft to drive a more expensive and complex ICE car.

Edit. Later in the day the ‘story’ was later picked up by the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2dmwmj4dmo

The UK government is set to water down its target for how many new cars that are sold need to be electric vehicles (EVs).
Under the current rules, 80% of all new cars sold in the UK need to be EVs by 2030, but car makers and trade unions have been lobbying government for years to reduce the target because of concerns over costs and jobs.
Meanwhile, sustainability groups say any weakening of the target will threaten the UK's long-term electrification and climate goals.
The government will hold a consultation on what the new 2030 target should be, meaning it could take months before it is decided, but numbers ranging from 50% to 70% are under consideration.

[francovendee]

Great that they are back pedalling on the barmy policy at last. Most of the wealth we have lost on wind farms has been deployed abroad. Perhaps some attention to them next?

Al

Couldn't agree more. Many people are reluctant to go down the BEV route and dislike governments interfering in the market.
It's likely BEV's will eventually become the majority of cars on the road but only when all the doubts about BEV's, held by a very large number of drivers, have been unfounded.

[UpWrong]

Great that they are back pedalling on the barmy policy at last. Most of the wealth we have lost on wind farms has been deployed abroad. Perhaps some attention to them next?

Al

Couldn't agree more. Many people are reluctant to go down the BEV route and dislike governments interfering in the market.
It's likely BEV's will eventually become the majority of cars on the road but only when all the doubts about BEV's, held by a very large number of drivers, have been unfounded.

There is a daft, illogical culture war against BEVs though I expect this will evaporate as they become the predominant means of personal transport. There is pretty much parity in terms of cost for new and nearly-new vehicles between BEVs and ICE. Give it another 5 or 7 years and that will extend to older (10 or 12 yr old) vehicles as well. The health improvement amongst urban dwellers is now well evidenced.

In terms of charging cost, I had to grab a quick 10KwH yesterday whilst on a long journey to the Cotswolds. No problem finding an ultra rapid charger. It took me 6 mins and cost £7 to add the charge and that boost gave me another 40 miles. So very comparable with petrol refuelling.