Electric cars

[Caree]

I am all for electric cars in the UK and the reduction in the use of petrol and diesel, but is the Government going far enough to encourage the sale and use of these more eco friendly cars?

[Kat]

It’s no good producing and encouraging the sale of electric cars, when the infrastructure is not available to support mass charging. It may be fine if you live in a house with a drive, but what happens if you live in a flat, a terraced house or rental accommodation?

It is simply not viable to sit in a charging station at a supermarket for several hours to fully charge!

[Paul]

The Greenest car you can drive is the one you currently own.

The carbon footprint each newly built car creates is huge.

The table below shows electric vehicles are not as greenas we are lead to believe.

Keeping your existing car is far better for the environment.








<tbody>

Estimated lifecycle emissions (tonnes CO2e)
Proportion of emissions in production
Estimated emissions in production (tonnes CO2e)


Standard petrol vehicle
24
23%
5.6


Hybrid vehicle
21
31%
6.5


Plug-in hybrid vehicle
19
35%
6.7


Battery electric vehicle
19
46%
8.8

</tbody>

[Lidia]

The Greenest car you can drive is the one you currently own.

The carbon footprint each newly built car creates is huge.

The table below shows electric vehicles are not as greenas we are lead to believe.

Keeping your existing car is far better for the environment.

My instant reaction to this Paul would be of disagreement, but after thinking about this for a while, I guess you are right, so long as you keep that car for the long term. However, the Governments agenda is to push people to changing to the newer, cleaner cars. No doubt being encouraged by rising fuel costs at the pumps.

[Esme]

Given that electric vehicles are not more eco friendly to produce, why is there a push to produce them, based on the concept that they are cleaner?

[Deena]

But cars still have to be made, so why not make electric cars, when their longer term promise is a cleaner, healthier environment.

[Kat]

But what about the ecological impact of building the infrastructure for charging the cars? All the plastic components that people stick on their walls to charge their cars. What about the additional demand on electricity supply? Am I right in thinking the water usage to produce the batteries is immense.

The overall economic and ecological factors of producing something this new are immense and not beneficial.

[cherry]

I never even thought of all that Kat, that’s a really good point. Surely when you put all the finer details together and totalled up the carbon footprint, it is not beneficial at all. So who is driving this?

[Joolz]

I would love an electric car but the cost of buying them is still out of reach for the average person and I have never seen anyone charge one up, where do they go I wonder

[Joolz]

But cars still have to be made, so why not make electric cars, when their longer term promise is a cleaner, healthier environment.

Is electricity cleaner and healthier? Do we know enough about electric cars?

[Judy202]

I would love an electric car, they are so quiet unlike my car that can be heard from several streets away!!

[Carol78]

Is electricity cleaner and healthier? Do we know enough about electric cars?

The short term costs don’t make them greener at all. In fact don’t they always say that the greenest car is the one you already own!

[J-jay]

I think Electric cars won’t be around for very long, there will be better renewables coming through the market. How can most people recharge their electric vehicles at home? If you have on-street parking it just simply isn’t an option. Even if they build loads of changing points, the time it takes to charge the batteries is beyond a reasonable time to shop or stop for coffee, it’s hours!

So, personally, I wouldn’t rush to buy an electric car, the bottom will quickly drop out of the market in favour of the hydrogen powered car! Watch this space

[Caree]

I never even thought of all that Kat, that’s a really good point. Surely when you put all the finer details together and totalled up the carbon footprint, it is not beneficial at all. So who is driving this?

The Government is driving it, think how much revenue it makes! It makes people buy new cars, if they don’t change their car, they get taxed more heavily for driving an environmentally damaging car. Whole new systems and infrastructures need to be made and built, all at great cost to the environment nd revenue to the Government.

[Edgar]

I have an electric car and I do love it and of course I feel the ‘imposed smugness’ of an eco-warrior while I’m driving it, but in all honesty, I would be very hard pushed to walk around the vehicle and argue it’s eco-friendly place on this earth, given the electric it uses, the eco footprint of all its working parts from the charging equipment through to the actual car, interior plastic, leather and batteries and this doesn’t even touch on the long term use and function of the batteries, disposal of and what happens to the car when the batteries are no longer functional.

I do love it though, the silence of it, never tires me :sly: