Are we being forced to go electric?

[Chislenko]

If we could just turn the clock back about 50 years where most people lived close to their employment, our little village had a hardware shop, a haberdashery, a butcher, four independent grocery stores, a hairdresser / barber and my local bike shop was only two miles away we could do away with DPD / Amazon and the lot of them.

Like others on here I think the argument has gone from ICE v EV to a more fundamental issue of reducing traffic regardless of it's mode of propulsion.

Unfortunately the rise of supermarkets, DIY sheds put paid to most of the independent shops and we are left with the American "let's drive to the mall" way of life or worse "let's sit on our backsides and get someone to deliver our groceries" because we are too bone idle!

Sorry for going slightly off topic but I do despair at what the world is becoming.

 

[biggs682]

@Chislenko that's what I keep saying and we only have our selves to blame.

And this wouldn't be cycle chat if we didn't go off topic

 

[Mo1959]

If we could just turn the clock back about 50 years where most people lived close to their employment, our little village had a hardware shop, a haberdashery, a butcher, four independent grocery stores, a hairdresser / barber and my local bike shop was only two miles away we could do away with DPD / Amazon and the lot of them.

Like others on here I think the argument has gone from ICE v EV to a more fundamental issue of reducing traffic regardless of it's mode of propulsion.

Unfortunately the rise of supermarkets, DIY sheds put paid to most of the independent shops and we are left with the American "let's drive to the mall" way of life or worse "let's sit on our backsides and get someone to deliver our groceries" because we are too bone idle!

Sorry for going slightly off topic but I do despair at what the world is becoming.

Exactly! I was born and grew up in a village of only 1,000 people but it had 2 thriving grocers, 2 butchers, a drapers, a post office/shop, a shoe shop, a fish and chip shop and a garage that serviced cars and sold petrol. Now it just has 1 Nisa store.

Lots of the villagers worked for local firms or on the farms and either walked to work or were picked up by their employers.

Even when people first started being able to afford a family car, it was used sparingly for important trips and the yearly holiday. You certainly didn't jump into the car to drive down into the village for your shopping.

 

[CXRAndy]

I was born and grew up in a village of only 1,000 people

You lucky lucky barstard


View: https://youtu.be/DT1mGoLDRbc

 

[CXRAndy]

Those days are gone, the only chance of that returning, is an apocalyptic event, forcing civilization back into small groups of people

 

[CXRAndy]

Electric transport is here, it will become adopted by virtually all forms of road transport

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Exactly! I was born and grew up in a village of only 1,000 people but it had 2 thriving grocers, 2 butchers, a drapers, a post office/shop, a shoe shop, a fish and chip shop and a garage that serviced cars and sold petrol

Such communities have not made up anything but a small proportion of the population since industrialisation.

Eg here's population of London, not significantly changed since Victoria popped her clogs.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Exactly! I was born and grew up in a village of only 1,000 people but it had 2 thriving grocers, 2 butchers, a drapers, a post office/shop, a shoe shop, a fish and chip shop and a garage that serviced cars and sold petrol. Now it just has 1 Nisa store.

Lots of the villagers worked for local firms or on the farms and either walked to work or were picked up by their employers.

Even when people first started being able to afford a family car, it was used sparingly for important trips and the yearly holiday. You certainly didn't jump into the car to drive down into the village for your shopping.

Germany isn't that removed from this; the same process has taken place as in the UK, but to a lesser extent; in fact one part of the culture shock in the UK was how big out of town shopping centres have become.

I think we will return to living in way not too far removed what you described, willingly or otherwise.

Unfortunately the desire not to change is very strong so we need to exhaust all the alternatives until we find they don't work, and a few rather unscrupulous individuals will make a lot of money out of it, money which would be better spent ensuring people will still have opportunities and a healthy fulfilling life wherever they are, rather than trying to maintain the status quo.

EV's will certianly freature in our future, but they won't allow business as usual.

 

[All uphill]

Those days are gone, the only chance of that returning, is an apocalyptic event, forcing civilization back into small groups of people

I agree that we won't go back to the way it was (thankfully), but we can go forwards to a more decentralised way of living with clusters of towns - in some ways London is already like this.

Transformed public transport, including robotaxis, together with good cycling and walking infrastructure, could make the personal ownership of a car seem a huge extravagance.

We could be healthier, wealthier and happier.

Healthier because of clean air and more exercise, fewer road accidents.
Wealthier because the need to own an expensive car would be removed.
Happier because we would no longer be trapped in traffic jams, need to buy, fuel and maintain a car and we could start to enjoy the outdoors.

Here endeth the sermon.

 

[CXRAndy]

Yes I'd like far more smaller villages with local facilities. We moved to try and achieve certain elements of this. Many villages with quiet lanes to cycle to. Some have most facilities, lots have pubs which we try to use by bike.

 

[lazybloke]

Have you not seen the inside lane of motorway or trunk roads, the lane has literally grooves worn in them . Compare that to the outside right lane. I have stood next to a HGV and seen the road compress under the wheels as it rolled by. They do contribute to nearly all road damage.

Yes I've seen that, but I wasn't denying that HGVs cause damage, I was explainig a viewpoint that cars do too. Something you seem unwilling to acknowledge for some reason.

Yet in a dazzling display of cognitive dissonance you point out that damage to raods is proportional to the fourth power of weight.

Its the fourth power formula -why didn't we all know this

This proves my point about vehicle weight gains over decades being a bad thing, beacuse the doubling of the Mini Cooper weight between 1980 and 2020 means the new model causes 16x the wear & tear to roads.

This will only get worse as cars become heavier through electrification; which is something you and others have dismissed as having a trivial impact. Well let's run the figures.

The Electric mini is 1440 Kg compared to the original 620 Kg, so that's 29x the wear & tear.

What about other EVs?
The very lightest Tesala Model Y is (accordingly to Google) 1,909 Kg. That's 92x the wear & tear. Ninety Two!

There are some heavier ICE beasts on the road, so I hate to think what will happen when they get large batteries.

Yes EV are heavier, but it's a feeble argument against them, when they have so many pollution reducing benefits.

We're discussing damage to roads caused by weight. And you want to disregard weight. What are you smoking?
I think you have to do rather more than change your method of vehicle propulsion if you want to be seen as some kind of environmental saint , aka CXRGreta.

The acceleration is just a by product of the electric motor.. Even my lowly Nissan Leaf can out perform many other cars and will surprise all but the most powerful ice cars in mid range acceleration

Blimey. You celebrate and boast the capability of aggressive acceleration, that will literally abrade the road surface and exacerbate the weight problems above? You are an exacerbater!

 

[Mike_P]

The quality of road resurfacing is as bad as pot hole repairs. A road in Harrogate which is the main unclassified route from the town centre east and south-east was resurfaced in 2018 or early 2019. That seemed slightly baffling at the time as it formed no part of the 2019 UCI circuit or routes and it quickly needed patching. It is going to be resurfaced again later this month. In terms of use it's rare to see HGVs on it, those tending to stick to the two sides of a triangle classified route but is heavily used by buses.

 

[Rusty Nails]

Electric transport is here, it will become adopted by virtually all forms of road transport

It will, until/unless it is superseded by another, cleaner source of energy. When the early adopters have helped iron out its shortcomings enough for it to be effective for me (or I am forced to go electric first) I will join in.

In the medium term the most likely thing to happen is that I will get a small city EV for day to day stuff and hang on to my larger ICE car for holidays or longer journeys until either it or I are worn out by old age.

I am likely to get an electric bike first.

 

[CXRAndy]

It will, until/unless it is superseded by another, cleaner source of energy.

The EU have just announced they have assessed green hydrogen as un-economical in the long term

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/new...rogen,commissioned by the European Commission.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

The EU have just announced they have assessed green hydrogen as un-economical in the long term

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/eu-report-says-making-green-hydrogen-germany-uneconomical-questioning-government-plans#:~:text=The production of green hydrogen,commissioned by the European Commission.

That's not what that says at all, indeed it's the exact opposite of what it says!

Contrary to an often-held assumption, EU states would not have to import most of their hydrogen from other continents as domestic production would be cheaper and sufficient to meet demand, according to the report.