Electric theft by EV owners causing charge points to be switched off.

[Avocet]

I'm afraid that attempting to use more power at night may not be enough, and the speed at which the government is 'thinking about' implementing new nuclear power stations(!), are not going to provide very much more electricity to supply the projected expansion of numbers of EVs, certainly not by 2030.
Then there is the need to provide a much extended electrical supply network by that date.
Anyway, I have no means of proving my suspicions, but I'm willing to bet that the government's supposed ban on sales of new ICE cars in 2030 will not happen! We shall see.

Aye, you could be right. However, the car industry IS gearing-up for the government's proposed deadline. They are running-down R&D in ICE now, and are diverting resource to EV now. They are not investing in ICE plants, and are increasingly swapping existing plants to EV.

Ford job cuts: More than a thousand jobs to go in the UK

The announcement comes as the carmaker aims to produce electric-only vehicles by 2035.

news.sky.com

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2022/12/01/ford-to-increase-investment-at-halewood-to-scale-up-electric-veh.html

Stellantis wins consent for Ellesmere Port expansion - Liverpool Business News

Automaker Stellantis has secured planning consent for the 670,000 sq ft expansion of its site at Ellesmere Port as part of its £100m electric van investmen

lbndaily.co.uk

So if we get to (say) 2028 and our illustrious government turns round to the car industry and says "Oh, sorry lads... as you were... game's off!", they are going to be very disappointed, because the car industry won't be able to just "turn the taps back on"...!

 

[norseman]

I'm afraid that attempting to use more power at night may not be enough, and the speed at which the government is 'thinking about' implementing new nuclear power stations(!), are not going to provide very much more electricity to supply the projected expansion of numbers of EVs, certainly not by 2030.
Then there is the need to provide a much extended electrical supply network by that date.
Anyway, I have no means of proving my suspicions, but I'm willing to bet that the government's supposed ban on sales of new ICE cars in 2030 will not happen! We shall see.

Being a confirmed cynic I still maintain that this is once again all about money & control. Removing privately owned cars from the roads & shifting the burden onto public transport is the ultimate goal, something that will be so easily controlled once the government have cajoled/forced us into EV ownership. Staged power outages (in the guise of 'prioritising' distribution from an oversubscribed network) will be child's play compared to the logistics of restricting the sale of petrol/diesel from all the individual service stations throughout the length & breadth of the UK.

Outfits like WBAC will generate huge profits by offering scrap value for thousands of essentially un-saleable cars, due to the proposed extension of London's ULEZ, whilst many of their owners will be forced onto public transport by the impending cost of replacing perfectly good, but effectively worthless, daily drivers with compliant alternatives which have increased in price simply because they are compliant.

 

[JBR]

Aye, you could be right. However, the car industry IS gearing-up for the government's proposed deadline. They are running-down R&D in ICE now, and are diverting resource to EV now. They are not investing in ICE plants, and are increasingly swapping existing plants to EV.

So if we get to (say) 2028 and our illustrious government turns round to the car industry and says "Oh, sorry lads... as you were... game's off!", they are going to be very disappointed, because the car industry won't be able to just "turn the taps back on"...!

Which I'm sure will happen!
If the British car industry (assuming there will still be one!) has been so short-sighted in trusting the government, we will buy cars from foreign companies.
Yes, they're all LH drive for their own consumption, but if there is a viable British market for RH drive models, I'm sure that there will be some companies willing to convert theirs for export to us.
I am, of course, assuming that foreign car producers are a little more forward-looking than we are!
On the other hand, I shall keep whatever ICE car I have managed to buy before the ban is imposed, and I'm sure I shall not be alone.

 

[Avocet]

Being a confirmed cynic I still maintain that this is once again all about money & control. Removing privately owned cars from the roads & shifting the burden onto public transport is the ultimate goal, something that will be so easily controlled once they have cajoled/forced us into EV ownership. Staged power outages (in the guise of 'prioritising' distribution from an oversubscribed network) will be child's play compared to the logistics of restricting the sale of petrol/diesel from all the individual service stations throughout the length & breadth of the UK.

Outfits like WBAC will generate huge profits by offering scrap value for thousands of essentially un-saleable cars, due to the proposed extension of London's ULEZ, whilst many of their owners will be forced onto public transport by the impending cost of replacing perfectly good, but worthless, daily drivers with compliant alternatives.

You wouldn't happen to be an anti-vaxxer too, by any chance, would you?! We have a number of problems associated with fossil fuel use:

1. They're finite. The world's supply is getting less.
2. Increasingly, those countries with stocks of it (Russia, the Middle East, etc) don't like us very much.
3. There are pretty bad environmental problems associated with its use.

Those are all good reasons for weaning ourselves off the stuff!
Yes, electricity generation (using less harmful resources) will have to increase. And in the short term, it is unlikely that any power outages will have been "staged". I'm quite sure they'll be real! But we (the world) just can't keep consuming at the rate we currently do. If the aim was to remove privately-owned cars, why is the government spending loads of money actually incentivising uptake of electric vehicles?

As for the WBAC conspiracy theory, there's nothing to stop people selling their cars through any other channel (including private sales). We're killing far more people each year simply by driving our cars than we are by running them over. People have been playing the system for years with their EGR-blanking and cat / DPF deletes. The effect has been that air quality has not improved at the rate that was hoped, so now, more drastic action is needed.

 

[Avocet]

Which I'm sure will happen!
If the British car industry (assuming there will still be one!) has been so short-sighted in trusting the government, we will buy cars from foreign companies.
Yes, they're all LH drive for their own consumption, but if there is a viable British market for RH drive models, I'm sure that there will be some companies willing to convert theirs for export to us.
I am, of course, assuming that foreign car producers are a little more forward-looking than we are!
On the other hand, I shall keep whatever ICE car I have managed to buy before the ban is imposed, and I'm sure I shall not be alone.

There are similar bans coming into force in the EU though, so that's not really going to help. Increasingly, there's no such thing as the "British" car industry, or the "French" car industry, or even the "German" car industry, as manufacturers operate over multiple countries. British-built engines, for example, are used in cars built in overseas factories. German automotive electronics are used in cars built in France and Italy. Supply chains are more global and that's because to get the prices down, manufacturers have to build on a massive scale, in multiple countries.

Manufacturers are likely to carry on building a few, low-spec ICE cars for some years to come, for developing countries, but they won't meet British type approval requirements for safety or emissions, so they wouldn't be able to sell them here anyway. Finding something with the steering wheel on the correct side, will be the least of your problems!

I do imagine that there will be a bit of a rush for the last few ICE vehicles, with people intending to keep them "forever" rather than having to drive an EV, but it's likely to become far more expensive to run them, as the fuelling infrastructure that we have become used to, over the last century, starts to shrink again. As demand for petrol and diesel falls, the number of places selling it will reduce. People are always likely to keep classic cars (myself included), but finding fuel will become more difficult, and expensive. They will have to pay extra to take them into cities (or possibly be banned from doing so, altogether). Like cigarettes, they will become more heavily taxed. And, of course, sources of spares will eventually dry-up. My guess, is that running an ICE car after about 2050, will become a rich man's hobby. For anyone absolutely determined to cling on to ICE, I think the best bet, might be to buy something pre-war that's relatively simple and hand-built, so that spares can (at a price) still be hand-made. For most people, however, they'll just go with whatever makes the most financial sense at the time. This time, 100 years ago, there were lots of people who swore they'd never have one of those new-fangled motor cars and that they'd be sticking with their horse and cart for ever, but they never did. More recently, there were people who would never give up their typewriters for a PC, or have a mobile phone or... (and so on), but looking back, it's pretty obvious that the vast majority did, sooner or later!

 

[norseman]

You wouldn't happen to be an anti-vaxxer too, by any chance, would you?! We have a number of problems associated with fossil fuel use:
1. They're finite. The world's supply is getting less.
2. Increasingly, those countries with stocks of it (Russia, the Middle East, etc) don't like us very much.
3. There are pretty bad environmental problems associated with its use.
Those are all good reasons for weaning ourselves off the stuff!
Yes, electricity generation (using less harmful resources) will have to increase. And in the short term, it is unlikely that any power outages will have been "staged". I'm quite sure they'll be real! But we (the world) just can't keep consuming at the rate we currently do. If the aim was to remove privately-owned cars, why is the government spending loads of money actually incentivising uptake of electric vehicles?
As for the WBAC conspiracy theory, there's nothing to stop people selling their cars through any other channel (including private sales). We're killing far more people each year simply by driving our cars than we are by running them over. People have been playing the system for years with their EGR-blanking and cat / DPF deletes. The effect has been that air quality has not improved at the rate that was hoped, so now, more drastic action is needed.

My apologies, instead of 'staged' power outages I should have used the word staggered ie by area rather than region.

When you research the environmental damage wrought by the mining of vast quantities of earth's natural resources for the production of EV batteries, the shipment of them half-way around the world, power station emissions in the production of electricity to run them, the extra toxicity from tyres & braking components caused by the heavier cars (latest studies reveal that to be more lethal than was ever previously considered) to name but a few, it beggars belief that these things can actually be called GREEN

 

[Avocet]

My apologies, instead of 'staged' power outages I should have used the word staggered ie by area rather than region.

When you research the environmental damage wrought by the mining of vast quantities of earth's natural resources for the production of EV batteries, the shipment of them half-way around the world, power station emissions in the production of electricity to run them, the extra toxicity from tyres & braking components caused by the heavier cars (latest studies reveal that to be more lethal than was ever previously considered) to name but a few, it beggars belief that these things can actually be called GREEN

Lucky there's no environmental damaged caused by the extraction and shipping of oil, eh?!

Have you tried researching the electricity generation emissions? This is a good place to start:

GB Fuel type power generation production

GridWatch | Live statistic of UK National Electricity grid by type of generation | Solar PV power Generation | Coal Stations output in Gigawatts | Wind Output Gigawatts | Nuclear energy output |Biomass power generation Output

gridwatch.co.uk

Right now, most of our electricity is coming from wind power...

Yes, tyre particulates are a problem (I don't think they're toxic, as such, but certainly undesirable). However, the last time I looked, ICE vehicles used tyres too? So what you're looking at, is the difference between ICE and EV. Yes, the latter are a bit heavier on tyres, but their exhaust particulates are pretty good, and they're also better on brake particulates because of the regenerative braking. Clutch particulates are pretty low from EVs too......

As for the lithium mining, yes, that's a problem in countries with poor regulation. It's possible to mine lithium with much less environmental damage than is occurring in some developing countries, but as I say, the oil industry isn't going to be giving itself any real pats on the back, when it comes to environmental damage! The crucial difference, though, is that at the end of its life, every EV will have exactly the same amount of lithium in it as when it left the factory. When an ICE vehicle reaches the end of its life, where is all the fuel and oil that has passed through it, during its lifetime?

 

[norseman]

Lucky there's no environmental damaged caused by the extraction and shipping of oil, eh?!
Have you tried researching the electricity generation emissions? This is a good place to start:

GB Fuel type power generation production

GridWatch | Live statistic of UK National Electricity grid by type of generation | Solar PV power Generation | Coal Stations output in Gigawatts | Wind Output Gigawatts | Nuclear energy output |Biomass power generation Output

gridwatch.co.uk

Right now, most of our electricity is coming from wind power...
Yes, tyre particulates are a problem (I don't think they're toxic, as such, but certainly undesirable). However, the last time I looked, ICE vehicles used tyres too? So what you're looking at, is the difference between ICE and EV. Yes, the latter are a bit heavier on tyres, but their exhaust particulates are pretty good, and they're also better on brake particulates because of the regenerative braking. Clutch particulates are pretty low from EVs too......
As for the lithium mining, yes, that's a problem in countries with poor regulation. It's possible to mine lithium with much less environmental damage than is occurring in some developing countries, but as I say, the oil industry isn't going to be giving itself any real pats on the back, when it comes to environmental damage! The crucial difference, though, is that at the end of its life, every EV will have exactly the same amount of lithium in it as when it left the factory. When an ICE vehicle reaches the end of its life, where is all the fuel and oil that has passed through it, during its lifetime?

You raise some valid points, but they are as unlikely to change my views any more than mine will alter yours' .. either way neither of us is in a position to change government policy or put the world to rights.

Perhaps we should agree to differ on the subject & go back to discussing vehicles, whatever they are powered by

 

[Avocet]

You raise some valid points, but they are as unlikely to change my views any more than mine will alter yours' .. either way neither of us is in a position to change government policy or put the world to rights.

Perhaps we should agree to differ on the subject & go back to discussing vehicles, whatever they are powered by

That's so often the way of it, with internet fora!

The only thing I'd disagree with, is that as part of my "day job", I do actually end up lobbying government sometimes! It's always difficult to know if you ever succeeded in changing policy, of course, but there are a few small bits of obscure legislation that I think are ultimately down to me!

 

[norseman]

That's so often the way of it, with internet fora!

The only thing I'd disagree with, is that as part of my "day job", I do actually end up lobbying government sometimes! It's always difficult to know if you ever succeeded in changing policy, of course, but there are a few small bits of obscure legislation that I think are ultimately down to me!

Good for you A

 

[robinbanks]

And where are we going to get the additional electricity we're going to need for all these EVs?
Windmills? Solar power?

Burn the diesel you're not going to fill up with Kidding (but generally it's better to burn things in a clossely controlled, consistent facility, than in something like a car engine)

are not going to provide very much more electricity to supply the projected expansion of numbers of EVs

Cite your sources please

 

[robinbanks]

You raise some valid points, but they are as unlikely to change my views

To this particular third party observer, that simply smacks of "there is none so blind as he who will not see" though

History is a great teacher of the notion that we often don't get things right from the get go; horse and cart weren't so bad until there were millions of them, then we were overrun with piles of pollution. ICE vehicles weren't so bad until there were millions of them, then we were surrounded by their pollution..

(Humans weren't so bad until there were billions of them..)

What is perhaps slowly changing is an improving understanding in the populace of how tricky it is to carry on sh**ting where we eat and stay healthy, and it looks like a reasonable motivator to improve things. If EVs do end up being the new "Mrs Jones' vacuum cleaner" it too will be subject to change

 

[JBR]

Burn the diesel you're not going to fill up with Kidding (but generally it's better to burn things in a clossely controlled, consistent facility, than in something like a car engine)


Cite your sources please

I don't burn diesel. I used to have a diesel Skoda, which was in many ways the best car I have ever had. Since I stopped working, diesel is not my best option because I don't regularly drive on long journeys which, I believe, is what diesel engines benefit from. Then, of course, the government is punishing diesel drivers by tax and stricter pollution controls (Ad Blue, etc.)
Personally, I have never believed these trendy 'net-zero' ideas which are doing nothing other than causing problems for us. It has been demonstrated that CO2, for example, is not increasing in the atmosphere, and the critics seem to forget that vegetation (and their lovely trees) thrive on CO2. Remove too much of it, and greenery will die off. Animals who eat grass and other vegetation will also suffer. Then we'll be next!
Re. the shortage of electricity for EVs, look at the news (be it the Telegraph or the Grauniad) and read about how power cuts are being experienced in different parts of the country. Wait for even more EVs and watch out for even more power cuts.
I can't provide any sources, but why not join in the 'green revolution' and, perhaps in a few decades, you will have to face the embarrassment of being obliged to admit that you have been wrong all along!

 

[Avocet]

I don't burn diesel. I used to have a diesel Skoda, which was in many ways the best car I have ever had. Since I stopped working, diesel is not my best option because I don't regularly drive on long journeys which, I believe, is what diesel engines benefit from. Then, of course, the government is punishing diesel drivers by tax and stricter pollution controls (Ad Blue, etc.)

"Punishing"? That's an interesting term. Even the latest Euro 6 emissions requirements cut diesels a bit more slack on NOx than they do petrol engines! In recent years, we've seen petrol engines having t be fitted with "DPFs" (well, GPFs, strictly speaking) to get their particulates down to where diesels are now, but diesels still get a slightly easier ride on NOx. They do so, because diesels are better on CO2. I wouldn't call that "punishing"?

Personally, I have never believed these trendy 'net-zero' ideas which are doing nothing other than causing problems for us. It has been demonstrated that CO2, for example, is not increasing in the atmosphere, and the critics seem to forget that vegetation (and their lovely trees) thrive on CO2. Remove too much of it, and greenery will die off. Animals who eat grass and other vegetation will also suffer. Then we'll be next!

Yeah... whatever... that's something of a minority view these days, but I'm sure you're right and 90+% of the world's climate scientists are wrong...

Re. the shortage of electricity for EVs, look at the news (be it the Telegraph or the Grauniad) and read about how power cuts are being experienced in different parts of the country. Wait for even more EVs and watch out for even more power cuts.

Er... sorry, but not reading either paper, you'll have to forgive my ignorance. Where are all these power cuts? There have been a few localised ones, due to the strong winds last week, and trees taking power lines down, but I can't see any that have been caused by a shortage of power?

I can't provide any sources,

Well, there's a surprise!

but why not join in the 'green revolution' and, perhaps in a few decades, you will have to face the embarrassment of being obliged to admit that you have been wrong all along!

Yes, I have done. I must admit though, it will be a much better day if I have to admit I'm wrong, than if you do... In fact, you might not even be here to admit your mistake, if you're wrong...

 

[norseman]

To this particular third party observer, that simply smacks of "there is none so blind as he who will not see" though

Whatever happened to IMO

So many points of view on this subject, some backed by facts (but are they unbiased?) others who have gut feelings or are just plain cynical.
Only time will tell which of us has got it right, then those can say 'told you so' That always assuming by that time humanity hasn't got a lot of more important things to worry about.