Nice shot mr Horrel. So, beeing you a big car tech expert why not make a huge article on all the super efficient conventional engines, like the famous renault prototype, super carburettors, the new all ceramic german efficient engine(just heard of it), combinated injection fluids, the special bugatti eb110 gas powered prepared for racing (that never raced)and all this kind of really interesting things that, apparently, no journalist is inerested in? why not give it a chance, just to not forget them?
About incentivating dumb, ehr, pioneers to buy electric is all a jc faults. hide his office chair for punishment
About electric model you not mentioned (not that you have space to write about every electric model of the world) the venturi fetish, and the rinspeed electric 500.

Tesla Roadster? Lightning GT?

I don’t think £5k is going to make a difference either way to people who’s be in the market for the Tesla Roadster or Venturi Fetish. As to the Lightning GT, I’ll believe it when I see it. About five ‘new car companies’ announce themselves in Britain every year. Since the early 1960s, how many succeeded? Only a handful, and they’re all dead now.

Bad idea with the 5 grand for electric cars I would not want to own yet or even be in one the amount of times. they are dangerous in built up areas because you cant hear the dam things they really need a outside speaker or something giving a fake engine noise just so that people can hear it coming.

The amount of times people have nearly been hit by them simply because of not hearing it coming.

I know what the americans could do to prove a point is to make there hummer H2 or even better the H1 a hybrid just to wind up those eco people and the government lol

The Tesla cuold be worth the subsidy if they made it plug-in. However if this would happen, it should be not before 2011, right? Why not, if we must, use that money from NOW to build charde points and THEN make electric cars worth a thought?

The milkman used to have a wee electric van, was nice and quiet for morning deliveries.

This was before Tesco took over everything, now the milk is delivered to a “extra” hypermarket in a diesel HGV, picked up by Joe Blogs in his 3 ton SUV.

*could be worth

2011, the date when this starts is after the next General Election. How can this government promise anything that will happen after May 2010, the latest possible date for said election.

To tom90 (5): Lotus, among others, are working on a system to give electric cars a sound so pedestrians are warned. But remember, people with iPods and deaf people can’t hear normal cars either – so they use their eyes. I suggest you do too. Bicycles are also silent and I don’t want you stepping out in front of me on my bike.

To Heinz 6 : The Tesla is plug-in. All electric cars are. It’s just not a plug-in hybrid, it’s pure electric, and so it qualifies for the subsidy.

The only reason the government are doing this is so it’ll encourage motorists to drive little electric death-boxes (a G-Wiz) or an expensive hybrid (a Toyota Prius) which, as clarkson explained on TG telly, causes more enviromental damage than a Land Rover Discovery.

Electric cars aren’t that green if you think about it. When you charge it up the electric most likely comes from a gigantic power station which coughs out thousands of tons of Co2.

If everyone does switch to an electric car then we would be going backwards in the car industry, we would have something that can travel 10ft and something that takes 8 hours to re-charge, the only electric car that i like is the Mini E because that still contains the classic Mini character but it’s electric, and it can travel more than 10ft unlike most electric cars. The only way forward is Hydrogen (H2), or a cleverly designed electric car just like the Mini E.

To Petrolhead247: Honestly, this business about power stations is a distraction. A power station can get more power out of a given quantity of oil (or gas) than your car can, because it runs at maximum efficiency all the time. And the electric car wastes hardly any of that electric power. So the overall efficiency of an electric car, well-to-wheel, is better than for a diesel or petrol car. So per mile, the electric car, even if driven on non-renewable fossil-fuel electricity, will be responsible for about half the CO2 per mile as a normal car.

The G-Wiz is, as you say, horrible, but as I said in the blog, the subsidy starts in 2011, by which time several non-horrible electric cars will be available.

And the study Clarkson was quoting was rather selective. Most other studies would disagree with Jeremy’s conclusions.

Quote: this business about power stations is a distraction. A power station can get more power out of a given quantity of oil (or gas) than your car can, because it runs at maximum efficiency all the time.
True but replacing all the functioning power stations with nuclear ones would mean reducing Co2 to zero rather than just reducing Co2.
Also the government spending £5000 per car right after a recession is a bad idea, government debt is too high already. You could argue that the loss of fuel duty won’t be a problem because people will now have at least a grand to two extra to spend on stuff, but I hope they’ve crunched the numbers right on this one.
I also hope they don’t bring out nationwide road charging/average speed cameras, then we can never have any fun and we’ll pay more to drive than we ever did. So we’ll move onto public transport living in a police state. Great.
I know why they’re doing it, and I’m sure it will be a success in the short term to sell loads of hybrids and give people extra disposable income. I for one would buy a Prius/Insight for the commute because it would cost peanuts and would be a lot cheaper to run. Longer term though their will be issues with going down this route, I hope they’ve thought them through properly. I hope they’re not just pandering to the car manufacturers and nuclear power boards.

So the government will soon encourage us to scrap 10 year old cars and replace them with new ‘cleaner ones’, maintaining production levels which are not naturally sustainable.

Then, in 2011, it will encourage us to ditch these cleaner cars in favour of ‘even cleaner’ electric vehicles.

Tax payer’s money well spent?

The £5000 is to cover your first electricity bill!!!!!!!

stupid i work on fork lifts the cap batry pudse when they get oud burns your hands and you oly ge 3 5 year top and eltisity still got to come from some where beter giveing money to people who keep old cars going that more invermenty frendymto be stright.

This situation frustrates me beyond belief.

The UK is simply not geared up to produce electric cars at home, thus avoiding the horrendous environmental costs involved in transporting the cars, and their raw components, around the globe on filthy cargo ships. The National Grid doesn’t have the capacity to provide all of those cars we can’t build with electricity we don’t have, and as only a small percentage of us have garages (including people who live in those inner city flats that local authorities seem so keen on) we can’t charge them up either.

The bottom line with electric cars in the UK is that unless someone works out a cheap, light, clean and very fast charging battery tech that allows drivers to use filling stations exactly as they do now, it’s a dead duck. We’re simply subsiding foreign car manufacture at a time when the industry at home feels it needs handouts.

A feature on the BBC news channel earlier stated that cars create 20% of all of the UK’s CO2 production, which is way off the mark from the last set of stats I saw – that seems to fail to take into account power generation, industry, aviation and commercial transport. It then went on to say that many of the anti-car mob don’t think this will work simply because the electricity will end up coming from the same sources, which suggests no understanding of what that really means in terms of efficiency, availability and reductions in the transport of existing fuels.

For the government to throw so much money (or so little, depending on how you look at it) into a shallow and ill-considered scheme intended to overturn an entire existing infrastructure shows a complete loss of plot.

As usual, the floundering British government has tunnel vision. Because hybrids and electrocars are the two big things right now, nothing else exists to them. How very stupid of them.

Are they not aware that a Polo Bluemotion really can do 80-odd mpg, much unlike a Prius, and coughs up less CO2? And there are surely other cars of a similar nature, but they use normal fuel, with no heavy excessive batteries running off power stations. Such a phenomenon is no good it seems. Because, of course, cars without ‘hybrid’ or ‘electric’ written on them are the bogies of Satan himself, right?

No.

Actually, we should get some of the relevant MPs to flick through the Foreman blogs and get the whole picture, because clearly they have no idea what they’re doing and know nothing about cars, whereas Foreman has seen numerous intelligent debates on this and similar subjects.

With car manufacturers looking at options for changeable batteries, you could pop into your local filling station and change the car’s batteries in the same amount of time it takes to fill the tank. It would benefit from a standard design for all cars though!

Most people travel less than 50 miles per day, so charging at home (assuming you can park near a charging point) shouldn’t be a problem. If you need to travel further, borrow, swap or rent.

Access to different cars, depending on what you need would be a great idea if we could find a decent way of achieving it. A lot of people drive cars that are only appropriate to a small percentage of their usage e.g. drive a 7-seater, but only use one seat for 90% of their mileage. I regularly drive a boring 30 mile round trip to work on my own and would happily do it in a small electric car if I could use something more sporty for other journeys, or an estate for taking out family and dogs. A Tesla and Audi RS6 Avant should do it.

If they are pushing hybrids to the car market for their environmental friendliness why don’t they push themselves to update the energy infrastructure one little step at a time? For running the car to be truly carbon-neutral would take renewable/zero emission energy power plant and sources which currently is not available to many people.
The government should also work on a plan to set standards for properly disposing of electric car batteries. If the little batteries in my cd player and my regular car battery can cause severe environmental damage I can’t imagine what those big electric car batteries can do…
Until then those two things are done we might have a “good” solution going in the wrong direction.

p.s. What they really should do is give me a free parking space like in Los Angles, CA instead of a tax credit (still nice though) if I buy one.

this is BS, hydrogen is the future.

To Matt (13) – I don’t think nuclear is actually a low-CO2 option. The evidence I’ve seen says that the mining and processing of the uranium, the building and decommissioning of the power stations and the long-term storage of the spent fuel and waste (an unknown and potentially limitless cost) actually causes more CO2 than conventional generation.

To Kuang (17) – The UK doesn’t build any small petrol or diesel cars either. In fact GM has promised to build the Vauxhall Ampera here in around 2012. If GM survives.

To Magnitio (20) and Kuang (17) – The idea of exchangeable batteries is under development at Renault-Nissan. You’d drive into the station with a flat battery, and a charged-up one would be slotted in. You wouldn’t own the battery, you’d just pay for the charge. See http://www.betterplace.co m/our-bold-plan/how-it-wo rks/battery-exchange-stat ions

Hydrogen is indeed the future (same engine tech as today), see Norway’s trial plan for fueling stations on one highway
How far will 5000 pounds takes you the day you need to replace your batteries….

This is a complete waste of time. I have to travel along major A-Roads every day to do my 40-mile round trip to work. I don’t get a company car and I can’t afford a brand new car; but an electric or hybrid car would be utterly useless to me. They’re too small, too underpowered and too expensive. I need something that I can get the family into! An incentive to buy new models that had a scaled-subsidy dependent upon CO2 output (maybe from £2,000 for higher rated engines to £5,000 for lower rated ones) would have been much more sensible and practical.

The main problem with electric powered cars is the distance they can travel. A new Vauxhall Insignia 2.0 CDTI can travel just over 650 miles on one tank of fuel. A little death-box (a G-Wiz) has a range of 75 miles (with a L-ION battery). A death-box’s top speed is 51mph, the Insignia’s is 126mph.

There is another problem with electric cars, the price. The price of a death-box is incredibly high, £15,795. The Insignia in Exclusiv spec is £17,615. Oh and a 1.8 Mazda MX-5 costs just £15,420. So it’s a death-box or a biblically fun Mazda MX-5, hmmm… tricky decision.

What about the massive increase in power stations this would require. Why can’t the government understand that Hydrogen Fuel cells are the way forward because as May said, they work the same way as petrol cars?! Oh wait a minute, the word government and the phrase ‘jumping on the media band wagon’ comes to mind.

Just a shame we can’t get them to subsidise the Lexus LS600h, its possibly the only hybrid I’ll go within 100 feet of!

Electric is not the answer, we may as well focus all our efforts on what is clearly the best choice – hydrogen.

Hydrogen is needed and necessary, but switching from 100% dependance from petrol to 100% dependance on H to produce energy is not a substainable solution either.
We still need to use everything, reduce consumption and increase efficiency in using power, in the meantime that we increase clean power production.

(which also means… led lamps at home, not just in our car lights, for instance)

Hydrogen is not a fuel source, it is an energy carrier. It requires an energy source in order to be produced, e.g. electricty. A hydrogen filling system would put a similar burden on our already overburdened energy grid.

Paul: I accept that we don’t build a great deal here (although Nissan’s Qazana platform might allow some interesting things to be done) but in order for such a scheme to make acceptable environmental gains, we’d need to. In the current economic climate any mass government subsidies of this type have to bring positive benefits to the UK, and that won’t happen as long as we don’t have manufacturing bases for the technology and gains to be made through providing the infrastructure.

The question of removable batteries is an interesting one but right now there are challenges that are going to take a lot to overcome before it’s viable – the design of the cars such that all batteries are interchangeable and easily accessed, solutions to the considerable manual labour involved in changing them, storage space and availability at the depots and the cost of setting up and stocking such a facility. I can’t see anyone throwing too much effort into this because it’d need a level of global cooperation among manufacturers hitherto unseen, and the moment somebody invents a battery that charges much faster that present ones, the entire programme ceases to be appealing.

Apologies for posting as torquesteer and confusing matters – that’s a wordpress account that also carries over to here, and I forgot I was logged in

PetrolHead247 (11 and 27) Why do you keep banging on about the G-Wiz? As I said in the original blog and in my comment (12), this isn’t about the G-Wiz. By 2011, when the subsidy arrives, there will be some properly good electric cars to buy.

By the way, do you know how many electric quadricycles (eg G-Wiz and Mega eCity) were sold in the UK March? I’ll tell you. None. Not a one. Zero. And the Government has said the 2011 £5k subsidy will apply only to proper cars with proper safety features. This isn’t about the G-Wiz. End of.

Getsomeknowledge (32): You are quite right: Hydrogen is an energy carrier. I said it myself last night on the Richard Bacon Show on R5Live (you can hear on the BBC iPlayer if you’re in the UK). It’s a very good way of carrying energy from places in the world where renewable energy can be easily produced (eg solar in the deserts, offshore wind in the oceans) back to the countries where the cars are.

I think Pure electric car’s are not practical in are country. Despite of the inconvenience of charging the thing’s, how would it be practical with are weather. In winter you will freeze while scraping the ice of the inside of the car because it won’t have a heater or if it dose it would flatten the battery. In Summer no air-con stuck in traffic come on I don’t think so lets get behind Hydrogen.

completely and utterly pointless! the electric is not clean so what is the point of building electric cars? short term solution to long term problem! hydrogen is the way forward!! so create hydrogen cars u nit wits!!! grrrr

the great green lie of electrics:
with every one shouting about hyrids and pure electric cars, lets not forget where the electricity comes from: fossil fuels. and as energy is lost along the way to our plug sockets, so it would take much more mass of fuel to go say 30 miles meaning alot more pollution per mile that you are responsible for.
and hybrid engines will use alot more petrol to lug a big heavy lump of batteries around, meaning, that the emissions for a 100 mile journey would be almost twice as high for the hybrid. and if you buy a hybrid or an electric car, people will laugh at you an think your gay.
so, if you want to be percived as a human being, use petrol. or if you realy must diesil.

Things that come to mind. 1, Electric is only green if it its generated by renewables. 2, Putting the subsidy off until 2011 means that if an election restores sanity they won’t have to bother. 3, No-one will bother buying electric cars until 2011 effectivly killing the industry before it even got started. 3, What the blazes is wrong with running our cars on alcohol based fuel?? http://www.bsbec.bbsrc.ac .uk/
PS. I promise I’m not advertising.

I’m often OT but arguments comes in the discussion by themself, sooo;
About battery car, yes they’re not sustainable in large scale, for costs, environmental impact (mineral Availability included), electricity needed, taxation (that’s a good point that doesn’t come to mind easily, tnx P). Batteries can be recharged a limited time and they need precise use and recharge mode. Everything that isn’t lithium based (li-on, li-po, li-fe, etc, etc)have memory effect, so you can’t recharge it before it is at a precise value of V and A. Although lithium batteries have their problems. they’re mainly not appropriate for high charge discharge peak. Li-po for ex. are quite new, very light and powerful, don’t suffer from memory effect. But they tend to explode if damaged or used/recharged in a wrong way (and are extremely sensitive about electric values).
Also nuclear power plant are not ok for many reason. Them costs a lot, and the price can only increase, to built, maintain, and close; uranium is a very rare mineral and especially if demands grows, price will grow, it’ll last few years and generate geopolitical problems and it’s a bit late to build them because energy demand is growing too fast to be covered with new, still on paper, pplants. Lastly you need too much of them and also convert them to thorium have some, not negligible, little problem.
In a moment in which you need new money, new jobs, new technologies, new power, investing HUGE amount of money in something that has no future (science speaking is very important, but actual application are going to become history)costs a lot and depend on foreign country that you don’t like very much instead of heavily funding new technologies is the most stupid thing you can do in my opinion (which is worth nothing). With cars we have the same problems, we have to chose wisely but the best choice isn’t very compatible with what we already have.

To Paul (35): Your right. The G-Wiz has nothing to do with this, i got a little carried-away with my hatred for it. We (mainly me) should be concentrating on finding out about the production of new electric/plug-in hybrid cars which have resulted from this scheme, like the Ampera (pictured above). In many ways this scheme is a good thing, it might result from electric hot hatches or super-saloons by 2011.

To Getsomeknowledge (32): you’re spot on! Replacing all of the standard fuel stations with Hydrogen pumps would be like starting up a new energy source for the whole world to use, but because hydrogen needs energy to be turned into a fuel, you wouldn’t be saving the planet.

I started to write almost 10 or 15 comment ago (shame)
About hydrogen, thank you Paul.
About alcohol, as ethanol and stuff like that they have to be taken from garbage (but then you have the problem that garbage have to be reduced for many reason, like lacking of raw material), if you take them from usable thing like food (grain for ex.) it’s an economical an social disaster.
We are in a transition time and, as karma said, we have to eliminate waste, increase efficiency,and use everything we have to have the time to make new technologies diffused and efficient.

Some good comments, some not so good, but I agree with some of them:
- Hydrogen would seem to be a better option. I like the sound of the latest GM motor that has a 40 mile range and the petrol engine kicks in only to charge the battery – Why did they not make this a hydrogen engine instead of petrol? Maybe because petrol is still the most easily available motor fuel.

- Motor manufacturers are switching on to the idea that we are not going to buy an electric car while they look like disabled carriages.

- Have you seen the ‘Lightning Motor Company’ all electric car? Amazing performance and spec but the range is so limiting it’s just not worth it, that’s where the GM idea is good.

- Lets hope the motor manufacturers can agree on a standard plug/socket to use!

Personally, I’ll stick to my MX-5 Roadster Coupe thank you very much Mr Brown.

…yes but the only natural (as-far-as-I-know and I-might-lack-something) way to charge Hydrogen is using geysers as a power source, which means “almost only in Iceland”.
Otherwise you have to do it burning petrol or nuclear power anyway… in short, a H tank is a clean fluid battery and a H engine converts its energy into motion, it’s definitely not an “engine that goes with water”.
That said, what is true is that with Hydro industry skips the pollution caused by the not clean at all battery industriy (lythium is very environmental unfrendly and toxic, for instance).

(sorry for the repetition, I didn’t check all tha latest comments before posting).

But the point would be: if you want to know how much a vehicle is “green”, you should take everything into consideration, from how it’s produced to how much of it is recyclable or renewable after it’s worn out, to, if it’s electricity powered how that power is generated and carried.
The only “plus” point in electric cars is that concentrating the pollution production in one (usually polluted already) place defends the places that are recoverable, which is the current concept of “what green means”.
It makes sense, but people living in such “black flag” places should be helped into moving elsewhere, and such places shouldn’t have anything special like peculiar local animal species either.
The rest is not-in-my-backyard policy, an argument which is not even taken into consideration by EU big politicians, “green” ones included, speeches aside.

(I forgot to mention that I know this things because I live in one of such “black flag” places, and I am an environmentalist, and local politicians aren’t helping us to go live elsewhere at all, they just make the Country pay us quite some cash when our relatives die out of asbestos pollution and blame most cancer causes to asbestos, while we suspect the local private power plant and metal industry to have something to do about our dramatic local cancer rate as well).

So sorry if I’m maybe long or boring or hot about this topic, but for me it’s quite personal.

i have never seen an electric or hybrid car (in fact i thought a g wiz was some kind of proto-type that no one really bought), i suspect they will never catch on there just isn’t the infastructure (we only just got lpg – though i have only seen it in two places)i think it maybe alright for people in big towns, but i don’t think they will but plug points in the hedgerows. anyways will them gwiz things go up hills?

3 letters, WTF???

If the batteries are good, np about steep roads. Electrical engines have a lot more torque than combustion ones, so for sure they go uphill, even the little ones for wheelchairs do.

So, the purpose of this scheme is to encourage drivers to drive greener cars so it’ll contribute to saving the planet, but there are problems with this. Hybrids don’t fully solve the problem because they need a lot of fuel for transporting parts which produces Co2 and the cars themselves produce Co2. Hydrogen (H2 for short) needs some sort of energy to be produced, which also produces Co2 but the actual car only produces water. Electric cars seem a great solution, they don’t produce much Co2 with transportation of parts and they don’t produce any Co2 either, but their aren’t any real electric cars in the UK, the G-Wiz (as Paul explained on 5Live) isn’t a car. Most electric cars also cost a lot to buy so most people couldn’t afford one, more people will be able to afford one now with an extra £5,000 but they are still expensive.

So i think an air powered car could work, it sounds crazy at first but the concept is simple. Air is sucked through air vents on the car. The air is then compressed and stored in a tank. The air is transported through small tubes which lead to the pistons. Then the air is then used to move the pistons, simple! Well sort of… There would be a risk of explosion if the pressure in the tank became unbearable. You would also need to find a way to seal the tank so air doesn’t escape when the car isn’t moving and de-seal the tank when the car isn’t moving, but this increases the risk of explosion.

There are already air powered cars tooling around out there perfectly happily. You still need to expend electricity to compress the air though, so the need to perfect pressurised storage and convert filling stations is similar to the requirements for hydrogen.

The obvious advantage is that you can draw air from anywhere whereas you need access to a water supply to crack the hydrogen from, so air filling stations could be placed anywhere you can get a good electricity supply. I have no idea about the range you could theoretically get per unit of air at a given pressure so it’s impossible to say if it’d be a real alternative to hydrogen.

I’m thinking aloud, ignore me

oops! :S
I meant ‘is moving’ on the second from last line

O.M.G.. another Who Kiled The Electric Car comes to my thoughts, done that. did that. this gose all the way back too 1996 and still they are debateing what to do..there will still be traffic jams only 0% emissions..

Here`s a Clip of it With Mel Gibson going Weeee

200 percent tax on fuel?! And electric cars are the “future,” according to our dear leaders?! Then that means electricity rates will have to go sky-high to make up for that tax.

why cant they make normal looking electric cars
why cant they make high voltage electric lorrys or cars wich will actually go a long distance

IMO A hybrid methane-electric would be great for this moment, in the meantime that we change habits and new-tech is tested and ready. It is true that you can do it yourself by getting a benz-electric hybrid and convert the engine to methane, but doings so increases the steepish costs of hybrid in the meantime that it kills its warranty (and booth space). This would be a nice temporary solutions because a Country cannot change power distribution in little time without making huge public debts with big private corporations… and IMO this is definitely not a good decade to make big public debts, and for sure not to privates that might use that credit to fix their “eventual” pocket holes with public money.

@lorry driver: high voltage lorries would require an electrical track, like electric busses do. It wouldn’t be a bad idea at all to put it over or under the slow vehicle line on the highway… unsure about its cost compared with cargo trains+normal trucks.

Why would anyone want one of the current crop of electric cars anyway? (appart from the Tessla).
For a start they don’t have any real range or load capacity, most of them are only two seaters and, they all cost way too much (£14,000-$16,000).
For thay money you can have a “Blue motion” “Real” car with a shedload of change.
Plus the majority of them are “ugly as sin”!

It is a shame that in this, like in many other occasions, journalism in TG is not more than a bunch of hooligans asking for gasoline. Please dear professionals, look farther, aim for the best, F… the oil companies, F… the mediocrity of the 19th century engine.
You look like Bush ranch cowboys.
Still love you. You got the best comedy show on teli.
Regards

I thought your article was very interesting. I have to agree that Im very suspicious of the government giving anything away for free. The current crop of electric cars don’t really do it for me and are not as energy efficient as we are lead to believe. I have to admit that the car that does is Hondas hydrogen car. Maybe the governments efforts should be funding this kind of research. Or maybe they should just put the extra cash into our own once great motor industry!

only idiots pay anything for eletric cars, the only way this could work is if there was an eletric car under £5000!!!

Too–> Lorry Driver Stig: There is a lorry youll see it in a clip here-http://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=0f1AlrG8gVU

thier still working on it

No flameing plz.ppl..and yeah theres all ways solar or other resourses other than Coal…like solar or rechargeable as it rides any thing is possible
Cheers

oops http://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=0f1AlrG8gVU

my Bad sorry

There is no perfect replacement for petroleum. Its hard to get that much energy in other forms. EV’s from the major makers are going to be pricey and limited because of the development cost and having to be sure the warrenty works. Thats the real reason we don’t have them. It is hard enough to get warrenty work on some vehicles for small stuff (think diesel injectors). Now imagine how bad they will be if they look at replacing $5K to $10K battery packs every 1-3 years. You can easily kill a ev battery pack by driving/using it the wrong way. Try building your own ev even on paper within your budget. You’ll find it hard to do to. No conspiracy just economics.

It’s a sad thing to think about, but maybe electric could be the only place to go… (I still hate them though).
1. When the government start to update our energy sources electric cars will go along with it more simply than with hydrogen. In my opinion it will be easier to build just new types of power source plants and have “gas stations” charge batteries for a fee than to build new power plants plus all new hydrogen fueling stations.

By the way sources of energy that seem the most logical to power electric car include…
1. ocean tidal, wave, and currents
2. Wind power with kite system (more effective)
3. Nuclear fusion (its a long way off and really complicated but produces massive amounts of power. Plus why power your car with hydrogen instead of the fusion power plant with hydrogen because since hydrogen is the lightest element it works the best. In fusion the lighter an element the more power it produces , the exact opposite of fission. Iron is the cutoff point for the elements in fusion.)

Lightning and rain could open up as sources as well, but currently no technology is developed to harness it.
2. Electricity at the moment is the greenest and most practical alternative car powering method, better than biofuel and hydrogen because hydrogen needs to be manufactured with oil energy. Biofuels hurt because the tillage, deforestation, and fertilizers from the farming produces CO2; biofuel raises food prices (depends which kind);they are not sustainable; use A LOT of water; etc.

For right now electricity is the solution but (I hope) in the future it seems biofuels will be an even better solution. If algae (pond scum) production is improved to become sustainable and the technology for it is improved it could become a major source of energy. An algae biofuel facility the size of the sate of Maryland can power all the petrol/diesel vehicles in the U.S.
Chart of which biofuel crop is best go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/File:BioethanolsCount ryOfOrigin.jpg

p.s. Biofuels might be able to give better performance with our cars than petroleum . For example the Koenenigsegg CCXR. This happens because (E85) ethanol has some cooling property in the engine and has a higher octane rating.

I got a BRILLIANT IDEA!!! Buy an electric car, get the 5grand and then sell it nearly new. It be like gettin an extra couple of grand for doing nothing!!!! GENIUS!!! Then we can afford a better PROPER car with a combustion cycle engine wot u think about that! We could also get some of our taxes back

Paul Horrell said… To Matt (13) – I don’t think nuclear is actually a low-CO2 option. The evidence I’ve seen says that the mining and processing of the uranium, the building and decommissioning of the power stations and the long-term storage of the spent fuel and waste (an unknown and potentially limitless cost) actually causes more CO2 than conventional generation.
I saw a similar case made for hybrid cars but I’ve not seen anything like that for fission. If that’s true then we may as well continue what we’re doing anyway. Hybrids and electric cars are a short term solution to a long term problem. Fuel cells are better if use bio-reactors to get hydrogen, but they’re inpractical right now so we’d have to use electrolysis. Until we crack fusion power or get 100% of our power from renewables they aren’t clean and green.
We should carry on decreasing the consumption of fossil fuels as much as practically possible and invest in clean, green renewables that aren’t too expensive as soon as they become practical to use. Whilst putting muchos money into fusion. This is already being done as far as I can tell, and it really is the best solution.
2030 approx. is most experts opinion of when nuclear fusion will be available for commercial use BTW. When will cheaper oil run out? Approx. 2030, you couldn’t make it up! Even then we’ll still have some, it’ll just be *really* expensive to extract.
Ahem, back on topic, sorry.

We are all theorising like mad about the best fuel, environmental problems, charging points, etc. But lets face it, the bottom line is – until electric cars can run as far on a charge as regular cars can on a tank of fuel, and until they can recharge as quickly as filling a regular car takes, we are simply not going to accept them.
You can advertise a turd in glowing language and with fanfares of trumpets – but it’s still a turd!

I think the hydrogen powered Honda FCX Clarity makes more sense.

As for electric being silent youpeee!!! Would it not be great to bring noise pollution down? As for the danger to pedestrians; well from what I recall the rules, if not survival sense, demand that one looks for cars before crossing a road i.e. stop jay walking!

The technology to reduce C02 emissions is aready in the UK!!! Flywheel technology has been developed by a number of UK companies most notably Flybrid (flybridsystems.com) can store kinetic braking energy and release it to the road wheels without the use of batteries. Williams F1 has also developed flywheel thechnology for its KERS program. I met one of the engineers at the goodwood festival of speed last year. He says the efficiency is much higher than current battery based hybrids because there is no loss from converting kinetic to electric and back to kinetic. As much as 70% of braking energy can be re-used back into the driven wheels. That would equate to at least a 40% increase in fuel saving. This would mean your average city car could achieve 100 MPG. The Flywheel and CVT greabox itself only weighs 25KG and would be much much cheaper to massmarket. The technology can be upscaled for commercial vehicles too. Think about it, a 40% reduction in CO2 emmissions from road vehicles withing the next 5 years. A know brainer, but because joe bloggs can understand the concept of electric vehicles and not a flywheel concept, thats the one the vote grabbing Labour government are plugging, Idiots.

>there is no loss from converting kinetic to electric and back to kinetic

There’s always a loss – the second law of thermodynamics sees to that – but they may well have engineered the process to be very efficient. You still need a power source to get the flywheel into an initial state where the power can be used if the car has been static for a while, and thus you’re back to the car being a hybrid – it’s not a replacement for a wholly electric car but more a useful addition.

If you wanted a flywheel drive system that would entirely replace the existing powerplants, then your flywheel would have to be bigger and made from very expensive composite materials to resist the additional loads. It’d also weigh a few hundred pounds, as Lockheed discovered when they made their flywheel bus, not least because you’d need two working against each other so that the rotational forces didn’t affect the handling of the vehicle. The small Williams system you mention wouldn’t be capable of driving the car, just of adding a bit of extra juice.

I still can’t imagine the infrastructure needed to make the electric cars work. Anybody calculated how much more power would be needed to be produced if everybody switched to plug-in electric boxes? In addition, with the very low range of the electric cars, you need much more charging, i.e. a lot more trips to the filling/charge up station (if you don’t have a garage, like majority of people in city centres).

Back on topic – the government subsidy, government preferring just one type of technology isn’t the right way to go, subsidy for ultra-low MPG cars would make much more sense.

And one last point about the nuclear power plants – why not? Wind or solar isn’t a replacement for dirtier power stations (coal, oil, gas), you need a stable, and crucially controllable energy source, with a steady output. And the costs aren’t the problem at all, because guess what, nuclear is the most profitable energy source out there for energy companies (no cost for CO2 certificates, remember?), so there’s a lot of cash to cover the costs of waste disposal.

Petrol 35%+ efficient
Diesel 40%+ efficient
Electric 25%+ efficient
All due to the energy loss from the Fossil fueled power station to the home.
Obviously nuclear will help!
Oh, and the manufacturers will adjust their prices accordingly.

i rather go and live in California than buy Honda clarity.

If the government forces us to start buying electric cars, it would be like taking a monumental step backwards. Considering that, on average, an electric car can do about 60 miles on a normal charge, it would be usless for commuters and the like, who live over 60 miles away from their destination. In cities there would be no noise from any cars, and this would mean that nobody would hear any cars coming, resulting in more accidents. And lets be honest, the current batch of electric cars are not exactly appealing…

doesnt matter what anyone thinks, because the government wont be in power when these subsisdies are supposed to come into effect.

This is all a load of rubish… what we quite clearly need is a V8 subsidy and and electic car tax.

Its the same case as with the C Charge. Those who drive small cars like Minis will get their pants taxed off, while those who drive Lexi at 219g/km won’t have to pay anything. And the Prius isn’t green, either.

Okay ppl heres the Englishman takeing a test in london in a tesla

http://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=bJW5dVF

1 hour recharge…stop it recharges its self..I recharge my 3 wheeler more than that and hey i been riding electric for 3 years now

I think what we are all arguing about is which ONE car fuel system is the best. I don’t think that all of are problems will be solved by just ONE type of car but many different systems of powering it. Electric, Hydrogen, Biofuel, and if research is done Compressed Air powered cars. With a combination of these fueling systems it takes a lighter toll on the electric grid.

Most of these solutions for powering a car are indirect energy solutions that would require the power stations to be developed, but seeing no doubt in the future its almost certain we will use more energy the power stations would be developed anyway/

so we’re looking at vehicles with a low maintenance, simple, electric-enigne that could potentially charge it’s own power source, partially paid for by the government.. hmmm almost too good to be true.. conspiracy theories aside, the only reason these cars haven’t been common place for the past say 30 years is mainly because there was more money to be made on oil. Everyone who’s heard of the dynamo and the rechargable battery can make the link eliminating filling stations and try fathom the consequences it might have on gvmnt revenues.. so as long as we vote for slogans and cast the weight of our freedom of choice according to good faith and our limited capacity to read between the lines, mosyt of us are gonna get ripped off one way or the other. At least with the internal comb. engine paying the price was worth the while..though some have been known to grow their own diesel.. most of us preferred to pay the quid and save the hassle.. with the electric engine becoming more of an everyday reality we still look to get skinned.. why ? Low emission, no emmission.. who really cares ?? it’s all about the money where it comes from and where it’s going the rest ont his chain is just pseudoscience.. too bad !

and svrallo.. in case you’ve missed the news.. we’re running real short on oil so making arguments for the conventiional engine is like trying to prove the efficiency of ther habacus in in the computer age.. I see the point but get real braf ;D

if that’s the point, we’re quite short of uranium as well… so either we start having serious deals with India with Torium-based nuclear or invent something else, ’cause we cannot solely rely on fossil fuel at all, this being the only point on which greens agree with blues or reds or browns or pinks… 21st Century = end of energetic childhood “I wannawannawanna my favourite fuel”.

Surely the government will just increase the taxes on all those who still burn fossil fuels. Just like they have been doing for the past few years…

as long as governments are offering subsidies for electric cars then there is less incentive for other companies to follow hondas lead with a fuel cell car and also there is no incentive for any companies to develope an efficient hydrogen fueling system and network to fuel them.
as to the quiet electric cars in london already i agree with the comments about pedestrians with ipods etc BUT im a motorcycle courier and even those without ipods and just not paying attention will walk in front of you and as a biker as well as a car driver i believe the old addige loud pipes save lives,plus in my experience there is an arrogance in the electric car users on the road already who think theyhave right of way for their moral stance and give no warning(and i think i can be said to be observent on the road having survived 15 years in my job)
as to the power stations can anyone remember last years news? the eco complaints about the govt insisting on more neuclear power stations? if we are already on the verge of threatened brownouts and will have to ,gor forbid, buy electricity from the french more and more how will the switch to electric cars impact n this,again wouldnt it be cheaper in the long run, more environmently sound and better for our pockets as taxpayers to fund parallel projects rather than pouring funds into one sinkhole and not worry where that takes us or how muh it costs(eg council tax to pay for recharging points)

oh and on the point of bio fuels most of these are grown in third world countries where forests are burnt to make way for the cash crops and food production is cut to near zero levels as they are not as profitable. is growing world starvation, or on a more selfish note higher grocery bills, a price we should be paying just to feel all warm and fuzzy inside thinking,falsley, that we are helping the world instead of just destroying the atmosphere more effectivly than carbon fuels do as is really the case

FOR EVERYONE THAT CLAIMS THAT HYDROGEN IS THE WAY FORWARD :

to get the hydrogen, electricity is required. Thus here comes the whole powerstation thing again. Same with electric, as petrolhead said at the top, all the equipment is still made out of plastic and forged metal etc, and the power itself is from the powerstations. And yes oil, blah blah blah bad for the environment. To be honest i’m sick of it now. People arent actually thinking about the right thing. The power for everything we use, bar from cars (we like combustion people! and its cheap!) that is electric or gas powered etc should come from NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS. So effective, and when i hear some guy below scream ‘CHERNOBYL’ maybe you should find out how many nuclear power plants france has. I think its around 90%, is it not?!? and i havent heard of any nuclear disasters there. And then therefore there shoudl be enough fossil fuels stil for the car for a bit, and the ‘carbon footprint’ would no longer be in the house. So why are we going on about electric products, more like efficient raw materials. Stupid media, stupid greenies, stupid government. Listen to us engineers and scientists u plebs!!! we know whats right pigs! sorry ranting over

And if anyone like steve dares have a go at the best engine created (V8) ur just as bad as the greenies >.< lol

Try to imagine our civilisation without fossil fuels.. hmm not that difficult is it ? Now try and imagine what it would be like without electricity… so all of you making points about nukes this and hydrogen that I’ll brake the news : electricity is here to stay wether it comes from nuclear power plants, windmills, water generators or the moon is totally irrelevent. And in all honesty, I’d much rather have a mega sized duracell under my seat than a hydrogen tank made in china. Some how I find “battery low” more appealing than “kaBOOM”.. and the v8 grunt.. well that will die out in 2-3 generations and the same way most of us coulodn’t care less about hooves and horse grooming, besides a select few, no one will miss it..

ps.lloydi, where do you get it so wrong ?? I think a revision is in order my little scientist..

Battery powered cars are crap ! We all know that they take ages to charge up and dont go very far or fast ! And how can something that has to be constantly plugged in be described as convienent !

I know many low mileage retired folks who only have to fuel their Yaris or Micra once a month. Do they really want to be bothered with cables and plug in points? I think not.

Then there are the high mileage business users who expect a 400 mile plus range and to be able to re-fuel in three minutes!

The manufacture and disposal of batteries for these battery powered cars can surely not be described as environmentally frendly !

Battery powered electric cars are sadly only a distraction of the bigger picture, I am afraid to say. Oil will, one day run out. However, with oil being a major component in the manufacture of most products that we have come to use, we will basically be stuffed !

So if I read your article right, I pay tax to subsidise those than can afford to buy a brand new car and take the discount, thank you very much.

If I didn’t pay so much tax I might be able to afford a new green car too. It’s another chicken and egg situation that Gordon & Alistair are leading us into.

Shouldn’t bother them with ministerial cars and drivers although we should all hope that by 2011 they have been ousted and JC is elected PM!

Whatever happened to the Honda Clarity Hydrogen car which seems to have all the advantages of internal combustion and electic vehicles and NO emmissions as it just runs on hydrogen and just emits water vapour? Too good to be true? or are a combination of government and vested interests doing their best to quash it? These hybrids and tiny electric vehicles are definetely not the answer..

The FCX Clarity is alive and well, and running around in California with a few selected owners. I’m more interested in why the GM Hy-wire, which was basically the same thing but 5+ years ago, vanished into thin air.

warren, the first trike benz built was up against a horse and it lost mate.. looking at the clk black kicking the living daylight out of a g-wizz has more than only one perspective don’t you think ? As for the hydrogen and hybrid appeal, I personally find an engine wich potentially has the ability to be self sufficient more appealing than leaking water all over the place especially considering how much I payed for the hydrogen needed to make it all possible…

I don’t think as a practical solution hydrogen will catch on, considering how expensive it is to make, how complicated it is to make it, and how it is manufactured in a plant that is powered by oil. My bets are that electric cars and bio-fuel cars will catch on because:

1. They are easy to access to the public. Plugging in your car to the wall or swapping a battery at a “Station” is easy. So is filling up at a bio-fuel station.
2. They (the fuels) are extremely cheap to the public. Electricity being cheap in your socket and bio-fuels ,depending on which crop is grown, at the pump.
3. The fuels are indirect energy sources…
This may sound as if it is a bad point but when you think about it it is much easier to find something fueling your car by fueling it with the potential energy from something else.

Although these things are currently powered by coal, oil, natural gas, and FISSION nuclear power plants in the future they will likely be powered by other types of power plants. The practical other types include Ocean/Water plants (energy can be from tides,waves, and large ocean currents); Wind power plants (energy from wind gust or strong updrafts such as what happens in thunderstorms); and nuclear FUSION (energy from the combining/slamming of atoms. OPPOSITE OF FISSION WHICH SEPARATES ATOMS.) The reason the government will build all this plants is because since ,undoubtedly the energy infrastructure will need to be updated anyway because of a growing population they will try to make it “green”.

p.s. How green bio-fuels are depend on the type of crop that the bio-fuel is based on. For example U.S. corn is completely idiotic, considering that it is more carbon producing than gasoline! Check out this link to see which are the best:http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/File:Bioethanols CountryOfOrigin.jpg

Also since a few bio-fuels have better performances than petroleum supercars, sports cars, airplanes etc. will most likely be run on bio-fuels (the engine has to be modified though). With bio-fuels being used for performance cars the electricity will be the bigger (85%ish) market with commuting, long car trips, and town-use.
Sorry for such a long comments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w iki/File:BioethanolsCount ryOfOrigin.jpg
is the link.

if one windmill, in this particular case made by siemens, has the capacity to power a settlement of 5000 inhabitants for a whole month from just one single day of it’s generative capacity than an electric engine that could totally eliminate refueling and leave you with instant max tourqe, the sound comfort of a roller and the power of a veyron isn’t just science fiction but a possible reality. No fuel costs, just pure driving heaven. You could even get your car’s excess electricity to power your home.. the possibilites are endless. With hydrogen you buy into the green idea but what actually happens is petrol gets replaced by something else. Same shite dofferent name, different day but in actal fact nothing’s changed. So if governments wanna invest my tax money in anything, and they do…the development and promotion of the electic engine is something I’d gladly pay for. after all it.s about where the money goes…

@my little pony
yes we don’t have any more oil. And the computer joke was very funny, so funny I’ll use it right now.
in a world in which you have computers that doesn’t work (new tech), a few numbers of abacus (oil) and a very little time to make computers usable, knowing how to make 100 times more calculations per second with an abacus is very useful indeed.
well,to be honest i like “crazy-in-the-shed-forgot ten-discovery” and the way paul write.;-)

okay bro back to the shed to play with your abacus than .. and paul.. well a bit over rated don’t you think ? Where is the insight eh ? After all, when was the last time we read stuff we didn’t already know ?? I wont even bother going into stylistics.. but considering TG credentials and all, I would have thought there’d be more to chains than just headlines nicked from here and there.. having said that I’m still here so why complain ? I’m not the one getting paid

i think that electric cars should look like the cars we drive today. electric cars all look stupid

If we’re trying to work out how much oil is left.. would it be a bad time to point out that major middle eastern oil companies have been saying they’ve got exactly the same amount of oil in reserve now that they’ve always had, that there are massive previously untappable reserves in Russia and Venezuela that may soon come into play, and that the guesses over how much oil is left were based on 1950s/60s estimates using the drilling technology available at the time? The simple fact is that nobody knows, otherwise we wouldn’t be out there looking for the stuff!

Read the fine print:
5,000 per vehicle (maybe) out of a 250 Million fund – so that’ll be 50,000 e-cars then. So how many cars are sold in the UK in a month? Looking at an article on the BBC news the terrible 2008 figure was 1.5 million registrations. So I imagine this little money maker will last for about 12 days.
I’m not even asking about the lack of infrastructure like charging points and power generation (which looks like it’s going to be the real crisis).

This is a bad idea for the following:-

The current electric battery used in cars decays at a rate of 20 % per year, so every 5 years or so you’ll need a new pack, dont know how expensive they are, but thats sure not green.

In the present economic climate it is unlikely a major car manufacturer will produce a serious alternative to petrol or diesel. So no financial incentive for a private company to install these charge points.

In this country most of our electrcity is generated through oil or coal so it wont be reducing carbon emmisions.

The government and greens seem to have this idea, because its electric it must be green.

Jonathan has made several very valid points there and they all add up to the question I have been hearing a lot recently, ‘Are these cars really that green?’ Personally I dont think so and it would be stupid for the government to fork out nearly £5000 for each person hu wants to buy one, if they wanna do that they may as well jus knock 5k off the top of each electric car and be done with it, of course that wouldn’t be good policy, in fact it leads the potential buyer into a false sense of security of thinking ‘yeahh im gettin money to do this and I’m helpin the environment’. What they dont tell u is that everytime u need a new battery u have to buy it ya self with no help from them and no doubt that battery will be taxed. Also the best of these electric cars at the moment can only run 100 – 150 miles on a battery before they need charging and knowing the government they will find a way of taxing the electricity we buy for extortionate prices just like petrol and one tank of pertol goes much further than one battery. So these electric cars arnt much greener if green at all and they will not be cost effective in anyway.

To Jonathan (108) and many others: Sometimes I wonder why I bother with this, as I have to make the same points over and over again. OK here we go. IF YOU RUN AN ELECTRIC CAR OFF ELECTRICITY GENERATED IN FOSSIL-FUEL POWER STATIONS IT IS STILL RESPONSIBLE FOR FAR LESS CO2 THAN A PETROL OR DIESEL CAR. Here’s why: a large gas-fired power station is a far more efficient converter of the fuel (up to about 60-70 percent efficiency) than a car engine is (only about 25 percent efficiency at best). And since electricity transmission and electric cars waste very little further energy, overall the electric car even on fossil-fuel electricity will be about twice as efficient well-to-wheel as a combustion car.

Next point: batteries. Many Toyota Priuses and original Honda Insights are a decade old now. They are running on their original batteries. And in fact it’s harder to make a durable hybrid battery than a durable pure-electric vehicle battery, because battery life is limited by the number of charge-discharge cycles. A hybrid has a small battery that cycles up and down every few minutes, whereas a pure electric vehicle has a far bigger battery that cycles only once a day.

Finally: investment by car makers. Renault-Nissan is very serious about electric vehicles. So is Mercedes. So is Toyota. So is Ford. So is Mitsubishi. So is Mini. So is Smart. I could go on. And on. All these car makers will have electric vehicles on the road by 2011. In several cases, I have already driven the prototypes.

Okay u have managed to explain that they are more efficient but u failed to explain the taxing system that I’m quite sure will come into effect once these charge points are up and running, the government wont just give everyone £5000 just to get down CO2 emissions in the hopes that it will help our planet, thats just crazy and obviously its bad policy and supposing millions of people in this country are using electric cars, meaning much less people will buy petrol and the government will have no choice but to tax up electricity because simply they wont be getting as much money so therefore its inevitable! Also I dont think these electric cars are gonna help our planet much anyways because climate change, like the rise in tax on electricity is inevitable and it aint gonna stop just because some bright sparks in power think that electric cars are gonna help.

So what happens once we have all these electric car?
Well as I just explained tax in electricity will go up and all that money that the government are getting in taxes from us will be plummeted back into researching how we can stop climate change and cut CO2 emissions when they realize that these electric cars are not working as well as they thought, so basically we are left with a hole load of crappy electric cars that are no good to us and were stuck paying extortionate taxes and for something that is absolutely useless! Even if they do cut CO2 emissions it wont be enough to stop climate change so they may as well give up now.

Worst of all I believe these electric cars will ruin the car industry and what it stands for, the car industry is the backbone of our economy and for a good reason and its not just because we need them. Like me and the rest of the motoring enthusiasts on this page, cars and engineering are an undying passion and these electric cars are gonna come and piss all over that passion and then what are we left with if one of the very things that me and many others eat, sleep, breathe and generally live for suddenly become boring and solemn. The sound of a beautiful V8 will soon be banished from our ears and that I think will make life just a little bit more unbearable!

Case closed as far as I am concerned I couldn’t care less if these electric cars cut CO2 emissions even in the slightest, were still gonna be ripped off and more and more we are gonna lose faith in a world order where we can’t even have fun with our own cars anymore, its very sad, very sad indeed!

kuang.. about reserves, you’re right there are only estimates. What is known for shure is that oil production, be it mid east, north or south american, russian, polar, you name it is at an all time low, according to figures roughly at 15% of what they were only 30 years ago.. with 80 % fewer known sources left.. that makes getting to the rest of the stuff expensive and in some cases impossible.. According to a bbc program made in the early 90’s by 2020 we’ll be fealing the total effects of living on reserves..and compared to the price of a barrel of crude 2day and that of say even 10 years ago, I’d say they were spot on…
ps. great to see paul work for the money, keep it up P. we like

and mclaren you rep guy, no one is trying to take away the joy of motoring they’re just trying to come up with an even more efficient engine for us enthusiasts to enjoy.. kinda like the jet engine replacing the prop.. the fun is just as immense after all it is the flying that gives the major kick… or is it just me ? I mean I do get a kick out of a brilliantly engineered engine but it nothing compared to firing it up an taking the machine it powers for a spin..

yes, woooo, 5k. having one of these pathetic excuses for a car would be like having an old mobile, if u need a taxi and u have no battery then u need to find a plug and charge it, but with a car.

iRep_McLaren (111): You are right tax will have to go up when there are lots of electric cars around – as I mentioned in the last paragraph of the blog at the top of this page. But don’t worry, it’s not about killing our fun. I like V8s but I like other sorts of cars too, including electric ones: the electric Mini and the Tesla are almost as much fun as the petrol Mini and the petrol Elise.

Don’t say taxes are ‘gonna rip us off’. Taxes are there for a reason – to provide roads and schools and hospitals and unemployment benefits and an army and all sorts of other stuff we wouldn’t want to be without.

The passion for motoring won’t go away with electric cars! Rather it will spark more interest because in cars because we have to create a new technology to move ourselves and it will bring all those “greenies” into the world of motoring.
A comparison would be kinda like what happened with the car and the horse in the early 20th century. Everyone has so interested by the new invention of the car and its technology. The car attract a large numbers of jockeys, equestrian players, and workers to the car for its recreational purposes and labour ability.

p.s. Jockeys and people who play equestrian are still around today; so i would imagine in the future petrol powered cars will be around too, just in a form where they will be used for recreation and massive work (ex. racing and army). The only difference from then and now that our survival as a species and the planet depends on our choice.

Don’t you know that the last ice age ended because the Dinosaurs and Mammoths were driving large gas guzzling SUV’s…Just ask Al Gore.

If you buy an electric car you will get up to £5000… Cough, Cough… I’d say it should be FROM five grand to an electric car as with the financial crisis cars are expensive! The government will also be spending £20,000,000 on plug in stations (yes twenty million!) but why?

They could use that money on other things so people can afford things.

Going back to what Paul Horrell said at the top; tax will have to up so more crippling financial worries.

To Paul Horrel, so how do they get these batteries in the first place?

They have to mine heavy metals, refine and process them. This is all done with heavy machinery and shipped around the world. So I am no convinced they actually reduce the overall global carbon emmisions.

And the disposal of the battery after use is also more of a problem than for cars, where are you going to store them

Paul, I get where you’re coming from on subsidies, but for several reasons I don’t think there’s time for more than one direct measure from government – and as you say it’ll probably just be for the early adopters.

I do think this subsidy can work in one particular way – the issue of cars lasting more than ten years that we were discussing back in November – if the government is serious about transformative change. It could help churn rates for unit sales, if successful. In that sense I consider it a better scheme than just bunging people a couple of grand to trade in their older vehicles (and I’m planning to hang onto mine).

Cheers

I think electric cars are a really good idea becuase they reduce emissions etc, in the future everyone will have them.

Who on earth has the brain cells to run this system? hmmmm I know that idiot Brown, Boris and Darling! I don’t care about subsidy’s for I do not live in London! Even If I did I couldn’t no WOULD NOT BUY AN ELECTRIC SNOT BOX. I mean I live in the countryside in Bedfordshire, a place called Southill, my parents run the shop there….. sorry anyway yes countryside! It is full of Kamikaze Pheasents which wreck your car, Numjack dears whihch completely destroy your car and shotgun wielding Grandmas with there mothers!

However I am not saying I want to save the world I am saying get a dieseal or a clean petrol car if that is possible for petrol for I am not going to become another death statistic in London because I am in a head on collision with a bendy bus. I have a solution keep your petrol cars but try to buy smaller ones rather than Chelsea tractors buy Mini’s the original ones and the new ones Buy beatles anything that has an internal combustion engine get rid of bendy buses and electric cars!

P.S. I love the show and the mag

wow that is the uglys`t car i have ever seen dude

p.s. jermery u r the dude

There is the Think City that will qualify.

Even better, there is a review:
http://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=AMF2zn4IxLY

It seems that the world is in Denial over it and its been here for over 100 years..

If it wasnt for inventers like Benjamin Franklin or Tom Edison live as we all know it wouldnt be as it is

I think electric cars are the future. Trouble is they’re always *in* the future.

If we’re going to spend the billions required to re-engineer the transport re-fueling infrastructure, we may as well choose a technology that means we only have to do it once. That would be a massively upgraded electricity grid.

With that in place, the government is free to employ whatever the “latest” power generation technology is in that decade so that the transport network can then be continuously upgraded over time without re-engineering the fuel distribution network. Hydrogen would be a good short term energy carrier option but it ties you into the one specific infrastructure.

Electric charging stations have problems though. There *are* super-fast charge batteries on the horizon but the physics of getting so much electrical energy into a battery is not going to be easily solved. A typical small car has an engine with a peak output of about 50kW. Cruising along you might use 20kW continuously for a couple of hours. That means at the charge station you want to put 40kWh back into the battery (20kW x 2 hours). If you had 2 hours, you could charge it at a rate of 20kW. But because you want to do it in *3 minutes* you have to charge it a rate of 800kW!!!

To deliver 800kW via a “fuel hose” from the “pump” would require a cable capable of delivering 3,333 Amps at 240 Volts (for comparison with house mains). That’s not practical as the cable would require a fork lift truck to lift as it would be so thick. So to reduce the Amps required to something manageable like a fat cooker cable that carries 33 Amps, you need to up the voltage… to 24,242 Volts…. Now you can lift the cable easily but the voltage is so high that on a rainy day you’ll have to be wearing 1″ thick rubber overalls and be standing on porcelain insulators at the “pump” or you’ll be electrocuted just holding the damp cable.

So now you’ve managed to get the 800kW from the pump to the car but how do you get it in the battery? You’ve got 24kV at 33A but your battery wants 240V at 3,333A to charge. None of the electronics in the car are designed to handle 800kW of power because the motor only needs 50kW for maximum acceleration… Hmmm some big oil filled transformers and massive switchgear and huge copper cables again.

Ok. Maybe the “change the battery pack” scheme at the garage is a better bet. Those can be charged over a few hours and just slotted into the cars in a couple of minutes. Two things… how do you know that the guys at the garage are giving you a “full” one? You won’t find out it’s half empty or has a duff cell or two until your 20 miles away and they’ve got your money. Then there’s the Volts and Amps again. Your traditional EV battery is bolted up to it’s fat wires because it has to carry lots of current (maybe 200A at 240V to give you that top power of 50kW). That’s not the sort of power you want to try and push through a “click-in” laptop-style battery connector. And it’s not going to be something you can lift and insert yourself. Maybe more than 100kg… another fork-lift job.

Then there’s battery cooling… Did you know the Tesla Li-ion battery pack needs to have coolant pumped through it even when the car is turned off but more than 90% charged to reduce the chance of it’s component cells overheating and exploding? Do you really want to live next door to a garage with a battery warehouse?

Too 127 AccordGuy and Others: as for exploding while overheating sounds dangerous Yes: But wont there be safety instructions and rules too follow and how to deal with it..?

Oh yeah shit happens as they say,

And so dose Oil damage such has Shells 4 year Damage in Nigra or Exxon or any other ship that leaks it for that matter, The less we need it the better we will be and for our Childerens, Childeren.

if there is an eletric car were are u going to get the eleticty to power it from