UK X: Who Wants To Live Forever

[wakka]

Obviously we will have petrol cars on the road in seven years. They are just stopping selling new ones. They ain't gonna vanish.

If you normally buy older cars you will still be able to buy one in 2040 or beyond for goodness sake.

I don't know how we can push the whole thing back much further. No new petrol cars after 2040, so old ones still plentiful well into the 2050s? Christ we will all be in the grave by the time the switchover happens at that rate.

Ultimately lines have to be drawn and targets have to be set. I would suggest it's a good idea to set those targets sooner rather than later considering how the planet is currently imploding. Even if those targets are missed to some degree it's better than just endlessly kicking the can down the road because it's inconvenient to install chargers in multistories or supermarket car parks.

[MartyG]

I don't know how we can push the whole thing back much further. No new petrol cars after 2040, so old ones still plentiful well into the 2050s? Christ we will all be in the grave by the time the switchover happens at that rate.

Precisely. We've been kicking the can down the road since the 70s, we knew about it then. My milkman had an EV at the time.

Imagine where we'd be now if we'd followed Uncle Clive rather than laugh at his genius idea of the C5 - we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

The line has to be drawn on the sale of new cars and necessity is the mother of invention, the can has been kicked for long enough and has to stop - we'll be driving electric hovercraft in the future if we don't shift away from carbon-emitting processes.

[CMcK]

The only way where gonna see large scale change in EV ownership is via a shift in attitude to electric cars, when it becomes inconvenient and financially ruinous to own a petrol car then that is when we will see large scale adoption. when their cheaper to run better for the enviroment and can out drive a petrol vehicle then we will see mass adoption over a set number of years. I very much doubt that 7 years from now we wont have any petrol cars on the road, unpicking over a century of Petrol use is never gonna happen overnight.


Home charging feels like a stop gap solution to fill gaps in infrastructure at the moment, progress will march on we've seen it before and its why our roads are not still full of horses and our canal system is now used for mainly leisure.

EVs are already cheaper to run and better for the environment. I don't know what you meant specifically by out drive but if that's range why do they need to have better range than an ICE car? The range is already sufficient for most peoples daily needs.
Home charging is not a stop gap solution. For people with access to home charging it is where they will do most charging and once vehicle to grid schemes are in place will be helping balance the grid. Across the UK about 60% of homes have off street parking so home charging should be the norm. As Neon pointed out it's not that simple for everyone but there are ways around it.

[Neon Ignition]

It's super important that the existing petrol and diesel vehicles remain maintained and on the road for the coming decade or two at the minimum.

After all, where else will everyone sleep once the Tories have made half of families homeless?

[CMcK]

Just bunk up on the barge with the asylum seekers illegal immigunts.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Aww, this is nice. I'm really happy for them.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/27/british-gas-record-profit-price-cap-increase?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[Dogg Thang]

Tear it down.

[Mayhem]

Asked and answered. I’m only plucking this one example out because what I’m hearing here is essentially the equivalent of just saying you don’t want to do something because it might be a little bit hard. Lots of changes come with challenges. Doesn’t mean they can’t happen and certainly not reason enough to halt progress. Progress requires change. Change usually means some level of disruption over the transition. That’s really basic.

Oh, I completely understand that. Not everyone will. Anyone not living in a house is going to be absolutely nuked by the roadworks, and there's enough complaints about them now. Let alone as noted, everyone will need a dedicated parking or charging space. My comments were also in regards to and assuming alongside the push to stop selling petrol cars in 2030. I think that's way too early to effectively have enough infrastructure in place to start getting people to only buy new EV cars.

Okay so if I'm off about the composition of the batteries, I believe my point still stands about recycling them instead of burying/dumping them. That has to happen. The cost of replacing the batteries in cars currently is a significant portion of the overall cost, so the price needs to come down if you need new ones too. And more electricity needed to be generated to handle more charging, okay sure, the Grid can handle all the charging at the same time now (hopefully in the future) but we still need power stations to produce the extra electricity, surely? And in this country right now, that's still a majority of... gas. Producing CO2 etc. Less poluting, but more indirectly. Until people get less NIMBY about renewables such as wind power.

[MartyG]

They are 95% recyclable already and are recycled - can I ask if you're getting your EV information from Shell & BP?

Most EVs have 7/8 year warranties on the battery packs: https://www.buyacar.co.uk/cars/econo...r-battery-life

Even taking into account the cost of generating the electricity, an EV produces one-third of the pollutants over the life time of a vehicle compared to that of a fossil fuel car.

[wakka]

Sorry but it's just not true that electric cars will mean more overall pollution because of gas-fired electricity production to produce the power for charging.

Already 40% of our electricity in the UK comes from renewables. And it's cheaper than pricey fossil fuel electricity. It works, it's already happening, and its usage will only grow.

I feel like people think renewable energy is this pie in the sky thing when it's very much already here.

[Protocol Penguin]

I feel like people think renewable energy is this pie in the sky thing when it's very much already here.

Just shows how successful Shell, BP et al's propaganda and PR campaigns are.

[Hirst]

I think renewable energy is great, I was at the seaside recently and there's a windfarm out at sea. It looks mad when it's lit up at night, like a little city. But I also caught sight of a board that explains said windfarm generates enough power (270MW) for about 200K homes or roughly the entire county (Lincolnshire). Lifespan is listed as 40 years, turbines need swapping every 20 but that's not really a big deal if the platforms are already built (and it's not like other power plants don't have lifespans or maintenance requirements). They were very happily spinning round even in the calmest weather and they work right now, not a pipe-dream or some kind of future plan. If I wanted to warm up a tin of peas in the microwave, those turbines had my back.

In fact, there was a ton of land-based windmills on the way there too - mostly near Grimsby. Felt like I was on the Advanced course on Daytona USA. Honestly I'm just glad for anything that makes the world look more like Daytona, the fact it generates power is just a bonus. Now just build a giant slot machine and a statue of Jeffry from Virtua Fighter.

[Neon Ignition]

The Governments lack of renewable energy expansion is a huge source of frustration, being a nation that got ahead of the pack and became a major energy generator years ago would have helped last year when Putin upended the market, let alone with what's coming. Instead, as always, we're miles behind the pack and other nations will now reap most of the future benefits.

Given how long it takes to get new energy generation outlets up and running they need to crack on already and then focus on energy provision, tying back to ensuring the greater focus on relying on electric is practical and that the drive primarily leans on major corporations rather than letting them profit in the billions whilst penalising poor families.

https://www.earth.com/news/harvard-scientists-fountain-of-youth-pill-sparks-controversy/

We might need it for sustaining long term too as once again the concept of de-aging mankind and extending our lifetimes has come up

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/27/nadine-dorries-urged-to-quit-as-mp-by-council-in-her-constituency

Nadine Dorries recieves angered feedback from her constituency's Council as it tells her to pull her finger out of her backside and quit already

[charlesr]

Where are we at with making plastic without oil? Given that everything we own is made of it and it will run out at some point.

[Asura]

https://www.earth.com/news/harvard-s...s-controversy/
We might need it for sustaining long term too as once again the concept of de-aging mankind and extending our lifetimes has come up

As a middle-aged person I'm watching this like a ****ing hawk