back to article What does my neighbour's Tesla have in common with a stairlift?

Do not park in front of my house. Standing in the rain, I marvel at the brevity and clarity of this note – unmistakably addressed to me as it is attached to my car. No "please", no "thank you", no explanation, no name; yet the note says everything the author intended and it states all I need to know. Its impact is lessened by …

  1. W.S.Gosset

    "water falling from hundreds of feet up"

    Hundreds?!

    See, now, Alistair, if you were under proper _British_ winter rain with the clouds at the proper British winter height, that rain would be falling from the far more civilised height of _dozens_ of feet up.

    1. W.S.Gosset

      Re: "water falling from hundreds of feet up"

      I remember once taking off from Heathrow in a grey drizzling fog.

      Turned out not to be fog.

      Solid cloud from ground to 15,000 feet.

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

        Re: "water falling from hundreds of feet up"

        I believe that most of the rain falling on the UK starts off thousands of feet up as snow.

        (OK, so before we get into the meteorological weather cycle of oceanic evaporation, condensation and the 'belts of rain' that move around the world, I mean that when it starts falling on the UK, it falls as snow. It is, however nice that we still use feet (in thousands) as an internationally recognised altitude measurement.)

      2. Muscleguy

        Re: "water falling from hundreds of feet up"

        When I was a kid my father decided we would walk up Ben Lomond even though it was cloudy and drizzling. He had however listened to the forecast. 3/4 of the way up we came out of the cloud into brilliant blue sunshine.

        There were only a couple of other nunataks sticking out the cloud sea. But we were up there in the sun while everyone else was miserable down below.

        I told that story at his funeral. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "water falling from hundreds of feet up"

          It;s just nice to think that the English ex-pat in France still uses feet and not metres!

          1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
            Devil

            Re: "water falling from hundreds of feet up"

            Could be worse, he could use French...

            1. BrownishMonstr

              Re: "water falling from hundreds of feet up"

              Don't worry, French will be a dead language. At least that's what my trusted documentary told me.

              YouYube

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Summon the lawyers!

    A slip, trip or fall that wasn't your fault? With a clear liability (the owner of the car the cable is plugged into) as well. Such a shame your ankle injury means you can no longer play sports. Anyone know what the going rate for tripping over a paving-slab is? Some councils have "frequent-flyers" who trip and hurt themselves regularly - they probably have poor eyesight or something.

    To phrase it more seriously, I expect that anyone who does recharge their car on a public street by running a cable across the public pavement will probably want to invest in public liability insurance in case someone does trip over the cable. Whether the cable forms an obstruction on the pavement (to wheelchair-users or pushchairs for example) is also something they will want to factor in. As the column notes, this is an issue which will have to be dealt with as electric cars become more common.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Summon the lawyers!

      > Some councils have "frequent-flyers" who trip and hurt themselves regularly - they probably have poor eyesight or something.

      Either that or it takes 19 months to fix the offending pavement after it is first reported. The cost to NHS of bolting Mabel's wrist back together isn't borne by the local council.

      If any public-spirited folk out there wish to highlight potholes to help vulnerable pedestrians avoid them, remember to use the British Standard method of doing so: A Cock and Balls surrounding the pothole, length of cock must be no more that twice its width. Urethra yes, pubes no, ejaculaye optional but no more than three drops.

      1. Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?
        Thumb Up

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        A Cock and Balls surrounding the pothole, length of cock must be no more that twice its width. Urethra yes, pubes no, ejaculaye optional but no more than three drops.

        At last! Research resulting in guidelines that are actually meaningful!

        Have an upvote Sir

      2. Chris Fox

        British Standard Method

        Someone tried that round our way. Along one quarter-mile stretch there was an almost continuous line of very large ... er ... potholes. The council did indeed send someone out quite pronto... unfortunately they were armed only with a tin of black paint. That was a shame, as the BSM decorations stood out at night, and made it easier to avoid busted suspension, punctures, and cracked wheels (or a nasty fall, for those on two wheels).

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: British Standard Method

          "unfortunately they were armed only with a tin of black paint."

          The original thinking was that councils wouldn't dare just paint over the evidence as it took mere seconds to redo it, but people didn't reckon on typical British mentality

          It'd be interesting to know who came up with that particular harebrained response to the problem. A local newspaper could have a lot a of fun with it ("council paying people to paint the road instead of fixing it! etc)

          Nonetheless, it usually only takes a couple of rounds of paint and some very pointed questions in public for councillors to get the message that covering it up is a bad idea

      3. Alan_Peery

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        Or perhaps use the more effective https://www.fixmystreet.com/, particularly as you don't have to carry a can of spray paint as mobile will suffice.

        1. bill 27

          Re: Summon the lawyers!

          Living in America, well Alaska actually, I called my city council person about the pothole in front of my driveway. He actually showed up and talked to us! As he left, saying there wasn't much he could do, I asked that he contact the local Fish and Game people and have them stock it with trout. The next spring they came by and completely re-did the street.

    2. J.G.Harston Silver badge

      Re: Summon the lawyers!

      It's a serious point. Running a power cable over the public highway is strictly speaking illegal, and it is contrary to The Regs (exporting power outside the equipotential zone), so will invalidate your buildings insurance. I remember this being discussed back when the 16th Edition was being drafted back in the early 1990s when I was doing my sparks training.

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        I guess there must be some dispensation for the electric car charging point on my street. It is next to the kerb and free of charge (no pun intended) for the first month. But the cable obviously has to run from the point to the car.

        1. Citizen99

          Re: Summon the lawyers!

          Eco-virtue trumps the Law and Sanity

      2. Symon
        Big Brother

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        162 Penalty for placing rope, etc. across highway.

        A person who for any purpose places any rope, wire or other apparatus across a highway in such a manner as to be likely to cause danger to persons using the highway is, unless he proves that he had taken all necessary means to give adequate warning of the danger, guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding [F1level 3 on the standard scale].

        https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/66/section/162

        Also, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54989167

        "What if you don’t have a drive?

        If you can find a parking space on the street outside your home you can run a cable out to it but you should make sure you cover the wires so people don’t trip over them. Once again, you have the choice of using the mains or installing a home fast-charging point. "

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Summon the lawyers!

          Does the footway count as part of the highway?

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Re: Summon the lawyers!

            Only when driving a white van and the traffic is queuing.

          2. J.G.Harston Silver badge

            Re: Summon the lawyers!

            Yes, the highway is property curtilage to property curtilage. The bit you drive on is the carriageway.

        2. NeilPost Silver badge

          Re: Summon the lawyers!

          That legislation seems unfit for purpose of a charging cable across the pavement and issues coming from it.

        3. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Summon the lawyers!

          Surrey County Council have passed a bylaw prohbiting running cables across the footpath - this is the same council which refused point blank to allow any on-street chargers for 12 years by simply placing all requests to consider them in the circular file (no applications in the system as none had been accepted) and giving an identical "we're thinking about it" response from 2003 to 2017

          Other councils are allowing cable gulleys or cable protectors to be used

      3. juice

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        > It's a serious point. Running a power cable over the public highway is strictly speaking illegal, and it is contrary to The Regs (exporting power outside the equipotential zone), so will invalidate your buildings insurance

        Bear in mind that Alastair is somewhere in deepest darkest France, so rules might be different there.

        Though I have seen quite a few terraced roads in the UK, where the e-car owner has dangled a cable out of their living room window so that they can top up their machine.

        On the bright side, I suppose you could use it as a skipping rope, or to garotte the lead rider of any illegal fox-hunt groups which are passing by...

        1. ThatOne Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: Summon the lawyers!

          ... or to top up your own EV, parked nearby...

      4. EVP

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        Who fscking cares! An invalidated insurance here, devastated landscape from mining lithium there*... they're saving the planet, you know. No price is too high to pay to be able to consume more and to claim be being "climate compliant".

        Yes, I'm being sarcastic here - just in case.

        * I do know that the oil industry is no scout boys either.

      5. JohnMurray

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        While there is obvious risk, the Local Government Association told us there is 'no legislation that it is aware of' that would make the inconsiderate placing of a charging cable illegal. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-8921085/Can-run-cable-charge-electric-car-pavement.html

      6. NeilPost Silver badge

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        ... but as it’s self-evidently outside the boundary of your property why would you even expect your home/property insurance to cover it.

        Would it even cover it if it was on your property - postman, Amazon/Hermes parcel slinger slip/trip/fall etc ???

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Summon the lawyers!

      Dabbsy lives in France. If he tries that trick he'll most likely get a Gallic shrug and be told to look where he's walking next time.

    4. JohnMurray

      Re: Summon the lawyers!

      "This is Money spoke to Kathryn Hart, a partner at personal injury law experts Lime Solicitors, to better understand what the process would be for an individual who suffers injury after tripping on a charging lead across the footpath.

      'Your accident probably happened on a public highway so you cannot claim the negligent person is the occupier of that highway,' she explains.

      'You will need to argue that in common law negligence they owed you a duty of care, that they have breached that duty and that it was reasonably foreseeable that the injury would occur and that you have been injured.' "

      https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-8921085/Can-run-cable-charge-electric-car-pavement.html

      1. NeilPost Silver badge

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        Stick a sign up.

        Watch out for the fecking cable!!!

        Duty of Care - Tick.

    5. WolfFan Silver badge

      Re: Summon the lawyers!

      I’d go with the simple solution: cut the damn cable in two places, where it hits the sidewalk/pavement and where it hits the kerb/curb. This leaves the pedestrian walkway free and clear of obstacles. Take the length of cable, and ram it into the alimentary canal of the EV owner should s/he (usually he) complain; take your choice of ports of entry.

      Why, yes, I do have a negative attitude about idiots deliberately leaving trip and fall hazards in the public way. Why do you ask?

      1. Stoneshop
        FAIL

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        I’d go with the simple solution: cut the damn cable in two places,

        You'd better start looking around for bulk discounts on isolated cable cutters as they tend to be rather ruined after two or three times, cutting a live cable.

        1. Byham

          Re: Summon the lawyers!

          An axe with a wooden handle is sufficiently isolated and a lot cheaper. The momentary shorting of the cable may mean that the owner of the cable will need to stumble about in the dark as their power trips. You can use the axe to drag the remaining part of the cable attached to their vehicle into the gutter.

          1. Stoneshop

            Re: Summon the lawyers!

            An axe with a wooden handle is sufficiently isolated and a lot cheaper.

            Still you'll get noticeable damage to the edge the moment it shorts between a live and neutral or ground, though you might be lucky if the charger is protected by GFCI. Anyway you want to be able to resharpen the edge, but with the average axe you can indeed.

            I expect that a ceramic knife would also work.

            1. -tim
              Coat

              Re: Summon the lawyers!

              With a small bit of effort a bit of nylon brick layers string will cut though wire insulation and the wires inside. The stuff also cuts plastic conduit and pipe.

      2. SImon Hobson Bronze badge
        Stop

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        I’d go with the simple solution: cut the damn cable

        I was wondering whether Dabsy was "accidentally" a bit clumsy while moving his own car - the cable could so easily have been trapped between wheel and kerb and cut (or sliced open so that the rain got in and the earth leakage would make the charger point trip). Or so much worse, the cable could have snagged on his car and been pulled ... hard. Such a shame the connectors on each end aren't designed for towing parked cars about.

        Not that I would ever advocate wilful damage - but if you trail a cable in the street, it's going to get run over.

        1. NeilPost Silver badge

          Re: Summon the lawyers!

          Around here the cable, the car socket, the car end of the cable, the charge end domestic inside wall socket/outside commando socket would be ripped off when tangled up and dragged/broken away by invalid carriage maniacs on the pavement.

          Sounds like about £1,500+ worth of repairs.

          1. Stoneshop
            Pirate

            Re: Summon the lawyers!

            Sounds like a market for an augmented charging cable that has a steel mesh cover, anchoring to the towing attachment point on the car and a solid block of concrete near the charge socket.

            As an accessory it could be equipped with a tension sensor that activates a HV generator as used for electric fencing, connected to the mesh.

    6. Evil Genius

      Re: Summon the lawyers!

      Are you the same Albert Gladstone Trotter???

    7. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: Summon the lawyers!

      Perhaps invest in some cable Kerbing/ramping etc too instead of neglectfully leaving a loose cable dragging over the pavement. It’s not remotely new technology.

    8. Mips
      Childcatcher

      Re: Summon the lawyers!

      Nail duly struck on head

      Get it out there people this is a real problem.

      However we should also be aware that the contravention of BS7671 resulting from the dangerous installation of said power cable would require the energy supply company to disconnect the supply to the house.

      EV users should also be aware that should an accident caused by the cable result in death they might be charged with manslaughter.

      I have not yet heard of any “charger rage” incidents. But give it time.

      1. Stoneshop
        Headmaster

        Re: Summon the lawyers!

        However we should also be aware that the contravention of BS7671 resulting from the dangerous installation of said power cable would require the energy supply company to disconnect the supply to the house.

        The French would fart in the general direction of BS7671, and even more forcefully in just over two weeks time.

        Also, fetches la vache.

  3. rafff
    Trollface

    Mercedes AA-class EV

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJIWYYL16PM

    1. W.S.Gosset

      Re: Mercedes AA-class EV

      e-lk test

      failed by all EVs

      1. Timmy B

        Re: Mercedes AA-class EV

        You need to be a bit more up to date. A lot of cars fail it and there are a good few EVs that have passed.

  4. Dave 126 Silver badge

    The production of glass and ceramics also uses a lot of lithium, I learnt today. I thought those hipster eateries serving food on slate roofing tiles and upcycled railway sleepers were just being pretentious - turns out that by eschewing traditional ceramic plates they are actually freeing up more of the world's lithium so that it might be used in cars and bicycles.

    1. Timmy B

      " traditional ceramic plates "... you just have to be a lot more hipster and traditional to avoid this - go for traditional stoneware - it's just fired mud!.

  5. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    video with the girls... and crash helmets

    and burning rubber...

    The Devil's Daughters - Baddest Girls In Town

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aChEqPSveY

    1. Chris G

      Re: video with the girls... and crash helmets

      While I was watching the My Friend Dario video, my wife remarked that the bikini girls dancing was rubbish.

      Got a really dirty look when I replied that I hadn't noticed they were dancing:-)

      I was wondering if the lifetime use of an allegedly green Hummer EV would offset the carbon footprint related to it's manufacture and production of all those 1000HP's worth of electrons?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: video with the girls... and crash helmets

        I can't quite recall who stated that those buying an EV Hummer are compensating for a small Prius, but I though it was excellent :).

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: video with the girls... and crash helmets

        "an allegedly green Hummer EV"

        It's not green, it's American!

        /s

  6. chivo243 Silver badge
    Boffin

    White Oil

    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/dec/08/the-curse-of-white-oil-electric-vehicles-dirty-secret-lithium

    Never heard of it and today in the space of an hour, I see it twice!

    Thanks Dabsy

    1. TomPhan

      Re: White Oil

      Listen closely, someone nearby is talking about Baader–Meinhof

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: White Oil

        We should be talking about Barbara-Windsor.

        RIP.

    2. 96percentchimp

      Re: White Oil

      Or did Dabsy copy-and-paste when he saw his deadline screeching towards him?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Charging

    Is it ever going to make sense for everyone to charge their vehicle at home?

    Whilst this is essential for most of the current generation of EVs, which generally have a short range and long charge times (especially PHEVs), it will not be necessary when they have more practical ranges and the charging times can be reduced to something closer to the time it currently takes to fill a car.

    Basically, cars will be able to "fill up" by going to a charging station once every now and then.

    This has several advantages:

    1) It works for people who don't have driveways;

    2) No cables running all over the footpaths;

    3) No need to try and upgrade the local power distribution networks that won't be able to take the load (especially when everyone is also forced to switch from gas to heat pumps for heating) - only the charging centres will need to be touched;

    4) The cost of high-power chargers can be shared across many vehicles;

    5) It will be easier for a "charging tax" to be introduced to replace fuel tax (though pay-per-mile is more likely).

    Hmm. 5 makes me think that charging at home would be better after all ;-)

    1. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: Charging

      Yes it will make sense to have slow chargers across the country.

      There are two locations for many people: Home and Work.

      No reason not to have slow chargers at a significant proportion of workplace car park spaces (hint put them away from the door and then only the people who need them will use them - but *also* put some in the disabled spaces)

      But "Home" isn't necessarily what you think it is - there is no reason that the cable has to come from in your own home. When I lived in flats we had a small car park. No reason not to have either allocated spaces or rfid/key based chargers. When I lived in a terrace it was often an issue finding any parking - but again there is no reason that there couldn't be public slow chargers available along the kerb.

      As a side benefit you would then have an array of posts along the kerb which might well stop cars just using the pavement as an extension of the road.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: Charging

        As a side benefit you would then have an array of posts along the kerb which might well stop cars just using the pavement as an extension of the road.

        That's sort of happening with a bunch of green visionaries partnering with councils in the UK to install roadside charging (or gouging). I guess if you're lucky, you'll have a choice of charging posts. If you're unlucky, that may make opening your car door tricky, but then you could always buy a gull or swan-wing door*. Pedestrians will be safer** because due to the electric fence of posts and cables, they'll only be able to access the road at approved locations.

        Or council highways crews can earn extra dosh. You've paid for a drop curb, now pay for an approved kerbside charging port. Which then can be additional revenue if linked into RFID/key systems so they take a slice of the current pie. But as the cost of electricity will probably triple to pay for 'decarbonisation', charging will be a luxury.

        Which is the looming problem. Currently the Treasury earns money from VED and fuel duty. It'll lose that with EVs, so need some way to recoup that. Which will get complex/unpopular if simply slapped onto an electricity charge.. Especially given rising energy poverty, Green taxes and the impending banning of domestic gas.

        *preferably with easily hackable self-closing/guillotine feature.

        **or not, if posts should somehow become energised. Hopefully they're dog/child resistant.

        1. juice

          Re: Charging

          > Currently the Treasury earns money from VED and fuel duty. It'll lose that with EVs, so need some way to recoup that

          It's certainly going to be interesting. I had a friendly debate with a friend recently, who was hand-waving away the economic impacts of moving away from ICE machines [*].

          Fuel duty and VED accounted for around £28 billion of national revenue in 2019, or around 1.3%

          (Interestingly, this has already dropped from the 2.2% it was in 1999...)

          Meanwhile, the government only spends around £11 billion on road infrastructure.

          I.e. nearly two thirds of the revenue from car owners goes on non-car stuff.

          Worse, that doesn't take into account all the secondary taxes - VAT on car sales and spare parts, income tax for mechanics, business rates for garages, etc.

          Admittedly, at least some of this will still carry on when we move to eVehicles. But any which way, there's going to be a measurable hole appearing in government finances, which they'll have to plug by raising taxes elsewhere.

          And sad to say, barring the VAT on their initial purchase, the amount of recurring taxes that a cyclist contributes to the country - or to maintaining the infrastructure they use - is essentially zero.

          Arguably, that's offset by the ecological and health benefits. But that's a separate and somewhat more abstract debate :)

          [*] To set the context, one of their friends chimed into this discussion thread, to note that she quite happily spent an hour each way peddling to work, while pregnant. So generally, they're a touch on the hardcore side of cycling...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Charging

            There are a lot more costs from car driving than road building and maintenance. The largest cost is due to pollution, both CO2 and local air quality causing health problems. For instance 100 people die in my borough every year from poor air quality, costing the NHS a lot of dosh.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Trollface

          Re: Charging

          "Currently the Treasury earns money from VED and fuel duty. It'll lose that with EVs,"

          On the other hand, why should car drivers pay extra tax for the roads? Everyone depends on the roads so maybe everyone should pay for them!

          See icon ------>

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Headmaster

          Re: Charging

          If you're unlucky, that may make opening your car door tricky...

          Just put a single charging post with two sockets between two parking spaces.

        4. SealTeam6

          Re: Charging

          You may be right about the gouging but even if the price of electricity triples it will still be cheaper than petrol.

        5. Adelio

          Replacing Fuel Duty/VAT

          I am still not sure how the government hopes to replace all that fuel duty long term.

          Charge by the mile seems impractical because retrofitting all cars will never happen and fitting N.P.R on EVERY road and junction and country lane is also not going to happen.

          Maybe road tax is increase A LOT. But then that is unfair, what about the little old lady that just wants to do 50 miles a month, a bit like my dad with his car, even before covid he only did a little over 1k miles a year.

          Charge by the "charge" well as long as people can just charge via a std wall socket I guess that might not work. Unless they say it is ilegal to charge a car unless you use an "authorised", i,.e. taxed charging point.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Replacing Fuel Duty/VAT

            In Norway vehicle tax was replaced a few years ago with a tax on vehicle insurance. And car insurance in Norway is priced according to expected distances driven each year. So the more you drive, the more you pay for insurance, and the more you pay in tax for said insurance.

          2. Byham

            Re: Replacing Fuel Duty/VAT

            All existing ICE cars pay as they always have done.

            New EVs have to have GPS and comms to report their journeys on a pay for use of road at time basis.

            The approach allows for taxing the different vehicle classes different amounts and allows the EVs to be slowly weaned away from the free ride they are currently having..

          3. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Charging

        "public slow chargers available along the kerb."

        Charger rage! People who get home in time to grab a space at a charger then piss off home for the night, not moving it when charged because a) they don't care and b) finding another parking space anywhere near home after a few hours topping up is almost impossible.

        1. ThatOne Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: Charging

          > People who get home in time to grab a space at a charger then piss off home for the night

          Unless they have to stay, to prevent jokers from surreptitiously unplugging the car before it has finished charging...

          1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

            Re: Charging

            Unless they have to stay, to prevent jokers from surreptitiously unplugging the car before it has finished charging...

            Not a problem, just part of the 'Green Jobs' bonanza. So local small businesses can diversify. Instead of "That's a nice car, want to pay us to watch it for you?", they can add "And make sure nobody unplugs it" to their price list.

            Then again, EVs are part of the mobile ecosystem. So allows for a 21st Century version of Knock Down Ginger. Unplug car, wait for owner to run out of the house clutching their phone. The for the extreme version, take phone. Or just take cables because they're not cheap and probably contain a fair bit of copper.

          2. Stoneshop

            Re: Charging

            Unless they have to stay, to prevent jokers from surreptitiously unplugging the car before it has finished charging...

            The cable is locked into the sockets both ends, simultaneously with the car doors being locked.

            1. Byham

              Re: Charging

              See my earlier comment about an axe. Then off with all the cables in the street to get the money for all that copper.

              1. Stoneshop
                FAIL

                Re: Charging

                Cutting the cable to clear the pavement, yes. Cutting the cable to free the socket to plug in your own EV: fail, unless you happen to have a duplicate of the ID token that the other car has used, or, next best, any other token not your own, as well as a second set of license plates.

                The reason for this is left as an exercise for the reader.

            2. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Charging

          "not moving it when charged because a) they don't care and b) finding another parking space anywhere near home after a few hours topping up is almost impossible."

          There will be some teething pains. If you can get to know somebody else on the block with an EV, you can do a swap with them when your car is done charging. If you are charging frequently, chances are it isn't going to take very long to replace what you've used. EV owners infrequently wait until the battery is close to being completely flat before they plug in. Since it takes so little time to insert the plug, the idea is to Always Be Charging (ABC's) when you can.

          Some chargers asses an idling fee if a car is plugged in but isn't charging (full, time's up). Even the lamppost chargers could have that until about 9pm so they keep earning some income from the installation. In most places with dedicated chargers, parking is only allowed while charging. Even if you have an EV, you can't park at the charger unless you are actively charging. Again, those often charge a fee for idling after 10-15min to encourage people to move their car when it's done.

      3. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Charging

        If you don't have off-street parking, can't plug in at work and never shop somewhere with chargers, don't buy a sodding Tesla. Or any EV for that matter. In time there will be far more places to charge cars in dense cities. Most cites have multi-level car parks and many of them are putting in EV chargers. Park there and go to the shops in the area to do your shopping. A large number of available EVs have ranges of 200-300 miles. That can be plenty if you drive 30 miles each day to and from work so you don't have to charge every day any more than you would need to put petrol in an ICE car every single day.

        Property managers should be salivating with people getting EVs. They can have some parking fitted with charging and collect some extra money from tenants. If the fee isn't too rapacious, it's not a bad deal for the EV owner as they can leave the car to slow charge overnight while they are doing other things such as sleeping. Charging during the day can be cheap and overnight more expensive. People can sign up for a slot and if they need more, they can charge at other places.

        If an EV makes sense to own, it makes sense. If you don't have a convenient place to charge, it may not make sense right now. It's like wanting a large dog when you live in a tiny 2 bedroom upstairs flat with a roommate. You may have to wait until you can move for that dog.

        1. Stoneshop

          Re: Charging

          Most cites have multi-level car parks and many of them are putting in EV chargers. Park there and go to the shops in the area to do your shopping.

          Over here IKEA offers free EV charging while shopping, and their car park isn't that close to other worthwhile shops[0] so there's little incentive to park there and shop elsewhere. They started with two stations, they've now got 10 or 12. Also, standard mains sockets for charging e-bikes.

          [0] except Hornbach, the best hardware store around, but they have their own pair of dual chargers. Although the last time I saw them they were roped off as somebody apparently had driven into them; they're quite inconveniently placed that way, and insufficiently protected.

        2. Adelio

          Re: Charging

          I am not, and do not want to live in a city, ugh, ugly places, I live in huddersfield and have not seen any charging points in supermarket car parks, there are none where i work (takersley) , and if kirkless have any they keep them well hidden. I am sure there are a few charging points but since i do not have an EV i do not take too much notice.

          As for going outside to unplug when finished charging. If it is like last night where it was raining cats and dogs all evening then there is no way I am going outside to get soaked to unplug the dammed thing.

          Even on our street many people do not have driveways OR garages.

          Cost of building a driveway, I would guess at a min about £1,000. Not everyone has a driveway or the ability to build a driveway, my brotherinlaw is Hull has a 5ft front garden and no garage and when i visit if i can get withing 500ft of his house it is a good day.

          1. hplasm
            Joke

            Re: Charging

            Don't you still have to park near your coal 'hole, else refuel with a wheelbarrow in Hudds?

            They have Gas now in Halifax - much easier to fill t'jalopy!

    2. Chris Miller

      Re: Charging

      You can't use 'fast charge' all the time on EVs - it knackers the battery. Tesla's Superchargers keep track of how many times each vehicle uses them, and if you use them too often, you'll get a 'computer says no'.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Charging

        'No' doesn't sound helpful. It'd make more sense if the Supercharger dropped its speed in response to what the car asks for.

        I know that you default Teslas don't charge to full capacity, but it's an option if you know you are about to embark on a long trip.

      2. Andre Carneiro

        Re: Charging

        Computer never "says no". It'll simply reduced the charging rate.

        1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge

          Re: Charging

          In Norway it says

          "Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

          Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

          Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!"

      3. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Charging

        "You can't use 'fast charge' all the time on EVs - it knackers the battery. Tesla's Superchargers keep track of how many times each vehicle uses them, and if you use them too often, you'll get a 'computer says no'.

        Not really. There is some speculation that batteries will degrade faster with lots of fast charging, but it isn't quantified. I think it would be another nail inTesla's coffin if their cars said "no" when you plugged in for a charge. That would suck if you were on a long trip and just passing through BF Neptune and the car wouldn't charge.

        The vast majority of EV owners are charging at home anyway. When Superchargers were universally free, why pay for your own leccy? The fast charging price is much more than what you pay to get juice from a three pin outlet and it's not like the car is doing anything else while you are sleeping (or shouldn't be).

    3. Commswonk

      Re: Charging

      @ AC: it will not be necessary when they have more practical ranges and the charging times can be reduced to something closer to the time it currently takes to fill a car.

      Basically, cars will be able to "fill up" by going to a charging station once every now and then.

      I don't know what you're smoking but can I have some?

      Please?

      1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

        Re: Charging

        If only there were some kind of highly portable, easily and rapidly dispensed and highly energy-dense liquid that could be somehow converted into energy and used to propel a vehicle.

        And what if such a liquid could be produced by growing things that lock up carbon from the atmosphere, or from algae and bacteria grown in vats and which also lock up carbon from the atmosphere, creating a carbon-neutral energy source.

        And what if such a liquid were compatible with modern vehicles (perhaps with some minor adjustments) and fuel distribution systems, and so didn't involve digging vast quantities of material from the ground, avoids creating large sometimes-toxic spoil heaps and brine pools, nor shipping large quantities of said material all around the planet to construct different parts of EV batteries.

        It's a shame no such liquid exists. Ah well, a man can dream.

        1. jake Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Charging

          Cheers! ::hic::

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Charging (Why not biofuels?)

          The major problems with biofuels are:

          - Photosynthesis is inefficient compared to e.g. solar panels

          - Land is limited and food is a higher priority

          - Petrol/diesel engines are very inefficient compared to electric motors

          In short while they seem like a wonderful idea, they just don’t add up in practice. Hence the megatonnes of lithium.

          1. Byham

            Re: Charging (Why not biofuels?)

            All your megatonnes of lithium does is move the inefficiency. Currently the plan is to try to capture diffuse energy from wind or sun and then rectify that to get to the user. Problem is that you get a large winter blocking anticyclone sitting over the country and at night you have no power. Doesn't matter the gas powered CCGT can fire up and replace the renewables. Indeed the CCGT's are continually running at 'inefficient tickover' just in case - so all that fuel being burned to justify the virtue signaling windfarms/solar farms

            So the fossil fuel is still burned but now the electricity generated gets to you through a long series of inefficient transmission lines then to your battery and eventually to the motors on each wheel. The losses in that system are as large if not larger as the losses from fossil fuel to ICE to wheels.

            AND, currently, renewables do not generate sufficient stable baseload power to charge all the EVs envisaged by politicians. It is probable that the gas fired generation will be required to supplement at all times. Hinckley point cannot generate sufficient on its own.

            1. Stoneshop
              Boffin

              Re: Charging (Why not biofuels?)

              All your megatonnes of lithium does is move the inefficiency.

              You misspelled 'decrease'.

              Well to wheel efficiency of an EV is on average twice as high as that of an IC engine: 29% versus 14%.

              Note that this doesn't take several externalities into account, such as environmental damage from mining the lithium, leakage and catastrophes around oil drilling, or the advantage that central electricity generation has, with economy of scale (maintenance, pollution reduction measures) over individual IC engines (dispersed pollution, no way to recoup waste heat).

        3. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

          Re: Charging

          Or wouldn't it be great if there was a process that could make a liquid fuel (lets say, methanol) from hydrogen and atmospheric CO2 - hint, there is and it's proven to work. Only problem is that until we have an excess of carbon-free lecky (lets get some nuclear plants built pronto) then you don't have a zero/low carbon source of hydrogen.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Charging

            "Only problem is that until we have an excess of carbon-free lecky (lets get some nuclear plants built pronto) then you don't have a zero/low carbon source of hydrogen."

            The EROI sucks and it doesn't matter how cheap you can make the electricity. It's also better to use the electricity someplace else with a better efficiency.

            Hydrogen is a dead end. You can't get past the energy it takes to break the bonds to free it. It CAN make sense to use wind turbines to power an ammonia plant that takes in local water and Nitrogen from the air (Haber process). Ammonia is a major feedstock for all sorts of chemicals and I've seen reports that make the ROI on turbines even better when making ammonia than selling the power to the grid. Once you have ammonia, you can synthesize DiMethylEster and other diesel replacements with high energy densities and the convenience of a liquid. I can't recall the efficiencies of that, but farm machinery is one of those niches where rapid fueling is a big deal. Those machines may also sit for ages between use so batteries would wind up degrading unless they were plugged in and maintained at an optimum storage level of charge. An Ammonia plant can be purchased installed in a standard 20' or 40' shipping container. Just pour a foundation and drop it next to a big turbine and hold you nose. In the US, there is a vast Ammonia pipeline. I've seen a business model that has wind turbine powered plants place alongside in locations with good wind and a water supply. When the wind blows, the plant feeds ammonia into the system.

      2. Electronics'R'Us
        Holmes

        Re: Charging

        I don't know what you're smoking but can I have some?

        Indeed. There are a lot of issues with batteries. Here are just a few.

        1. Self discharge. All batteries leak to a greater or lesser extent. Rechargeable batteries have pretty high rates (not incredibly high but it is still noticeable). That is just as true for the battery in my diesel vehicle but it has one primary duty - start the engine; it is not the primary source of motive power.

        2. Charging efficiency. The closer you get to 100% charge, the less efficient the charging becomes. That is why most hybrids only charge up the battery to about 70% (this will vary depending on the specifics of the battery). Fast charging can also be detrimental due to excessive heat during the charging process.

        3. Limited charging cycles. Industrial Li+ batteries certainly have more charging cycles than consumer kit but it is still limited. That means, somewhere down the line, the batteries will need to be replaced and the recycling chain for that doesn't appear to be in place yet.

        The amount of extra fuel I use to recharge my vehicle battery still needs to be provided of course (but as long as I have fuel in the tank and a battery that can start it I can get going - not so with an all electric if the battery is severely depleted).

        So how are these all electric vehicles going to get to this charging station when there may not be enough energy left in the battery to do so?

        So called battery 'gas gauges' (there are such things - a better name would be a 'state of charge monitor') are notoriously inaccurate in these types of application until they have been 'trained' - that is because they are primarily doing coulomb counting and it needs a few cycles of the battery to adjust for a realistic measurement. When you see 50% charge many expect you can go the same distance again but this does not account for another inefficiency - power conversion. The batteries do not directly drive the power train but are run through converters which have their own inefficiencies which has a dependency on the input voltage from the batteries.

        Power train power is an energy conversion issue, so as the battery voltage goes down, the battery output current goes up for a given power demand.

        Electric vehicles do have (current ones anyway) regenerative braking to recover energy that would otherwise be lost to heat so that is a positive; this has been used for decades in some applications.

        Lots to do yet, and I don't see it happening any time soon.

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Charging

          There are a lot of problems with batteries. Present tense.

          But 2030 is in the future, and alternative power is lucrative enough to drive development, so who know what the problems with batteries or whatever fuel cells appear will be in the future? Who knows how the world will be adapted for charging or what range the new generations of cars will have.

          And if there are no vehicles for sale in 2030 that suit your lifestyle, then keep driving ICE vehicles. I have a weekend car in my garage that has soft iron valve seats so it doesn’t even like unleaded fuel. I’m considering having that converted to EV, but I’ll wait and see what developments happen over the next few years. Wouldn’t want to be laden with old tech like these early adopter domestic solar roofs.

          1. Electronics'R'Us
            Holmes

            Re: Charging

            There is no doubt that alternative fuel is getting a lot of investment and we will, no doubt, see other (perhaps much better) alternatives in the future. My engineering experience is that there is always a trade-off; that is as true at system level and power source level as it is for components.

            Sometimes 'old' technology is actually the best fit for the job; a lot of satellites (especially communications) use a vacuum tube for the final power amplifier (a travelling wave tube usually).

            As I like to remind those who think old ideas aren't valid; we have not yet repealed Ohm's law.

            I am not opposed to EVs conceptually; I just cast my sceptical eye over the assertions without proof and wonder just what they are ingesting (must be expensive given some of the pronouncements we have seen). Certainly they have come a long way, but it has also taken a long time. EVs are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

            EVs can make a lot of sense for the correct use case; I just have doubts over the infrastructure. Governments rarely (ever?) actually operate for the long term vision (unless it is a political ego project like HS2 that is going to cost $Deity knows how much for a very limited return).

            On that note, the proposed EV infrastructure is a large government project. What could possibly go wrong?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Charging

              Off-topic, but I think the most commonly encountered vacuum-tube technology these days is the cavity magnetron used in microwave ovens.

              1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: Charging

                "Off-topic, but I think the most commonly encountered vacuum-tube technology these days is the cavity magnetron used in microwave ovens."

                What's a little tangential commentary between friends.

                There is still a big VT following in audio. Most guitar amps that people define as top quality have tubes. They might even be one of Russia's biggest exports. The circuits are simple and they are fun projects. I have a design I haven't got to for a VT headphone amp to plug my iPod into.

            2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Charging

              "EVs are evolutionary rather than revolutionary."

              Agreed. EVs have been around since the invention of the car, in one form or another.

              1. Keven E

                Charging

                From WIKI...

                "In fact, in 1900, 28 percent of the cars on the road in the USA were electric. EVs were so popular that even President Woodrow Wilson and his secret service agents toured Washington, DC, in their Milburn Electrics, which covered 60–70 mi (100–110 km) per charge."

                ... not much *actual development given 120 years. #sad

                1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                  Re: Charging

                  ""In fact, in 1900, 28 percent of the cars on the road in the USA were electric. "

                  For a limited definition of "roads".

                  It was a different time and most good were transported by rail with towns not too far from a railroad. People also tended to not travel more than 10-20 miles from home. Electricity wasn't very ubiquitous back then outside of big cites. Most towns brought there energy in by the barrel in the form of Kerosene. Like many things. the idea was great, but technology needed to catch up. "You can't railroad until it's time to railroad". I love James Burke's "Connections". Richard Hammond presented a series of shows with that same sort of approach. It's interesting to see how a piece of modern technology evolved and why it wasn't around ages ago. The unfortunate reason in too many cases is war, but there are good instances where it was something like spaceflight.

                  I was saying a decade ago that when EVs start getting into the market, there will be more money spent on battery tech and it will feed on itself with great rapidity. My phrasing was likely different. I rarely use "rapidity" when speaking. We are seeing that now. Lots of research is going into battery cells and even a 3% improvement a year is quite significant over time. There may be bigger leaps, but you can't take that to the bank. Slow and steady can nearly always be counted on. It will top out somewhere and that's the point where the whole paradigm changes again.

                  1. Keven E

                    Re: Charging

                    "Slow and steady can nearly always be counted on..."

                    For a limited definition of "slow and steady".

            3. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
              Devil

              Re: Charging

              If you phrase it properly, any politician will be ready to repeal any physics law...

              Just point out that Ohm is definitely a foreigner looking name and that we need to take back control, for example...

            4. MachDiamond Silver badge

              Re: Charging

              "I just have doubts over the infrastructure."

              The beauty is that anywhere there is an outlet you can use, there is infrastructure. If you go on a long trip and there are no fast chargers, if you have a suitable adapter, you can often plug in at a campground with RV hookups. Many campgrounds have special daytime rates for EV charging. It's not DCFC, but it may bridge gaps for the time being. If you aren't going a gazillion miles each day, they might be fine. More and more hotels are adding chargers. Even a bog standard outlet will often do the job on an overnight charge. You might hit a fast charger for a bulk of a charge and then top up the last 50-60 miles of range trickle charging while you sleep.

              I agree that counting on any government for anything critical is getting to be less and less a thing to do as time goes on. It's better to count on companies looking to make money. If you don't have an EV, you probably aren't noticing that there are chargers all over the place. Gaps on major highways in the US are nearly all plugged. There are some Northern Central states that aren't well serviced, but there isn't much population there outside of the capital cities so they'll wind up being last to get installed. Somebody will see an opportunity.

              Long distance driving is almost the only thing people bang on about, but just having an EV for the other 50 weeks a years can save enough money to fund a nice holiday. It was my plan to get an EV this year, but the bottom fell out and it got axed from the budget. I drive a lot with my business (when I have some) but it's often no more than 150 miles in a single long day. It can often be around 100 miles. The local power company has an EV plan with cheap off-peak charging and I own my home so I will be installing solar panels. It's no problem to charge something like a Chevy Bolt overnight on a L2 charger. It's no different than plugging in my phone and rechargeables from the gear I use for work. I see it as a great bonus to not have to stop for petrol. There is almost always a queue at the stations with the best prices so the "5 minutes to fill my tank" goes out the window when it's 10 to get to the pump and 1 minute to plug in an EV when I get home.

              1. Stoneshop

                Re: Charging

                Long distance driving is almost the only thing people bang on about, but just having an EV for the other 50 weeks a years can save enough money to fund a nice holiday.

                We already owned a (diesel) Renault Kangoo van, but added an EV version of same close to two years ago. That one is for local trips, 40 to 50km one way as the battery is ageing[0] a bit, the diesel is used maybe once a month for trips outside that range[1]. Power is, for a good part, from the solar panels on our roof, though the past two weeks the dreary weather has them barely compensating the house's base load at best. Also, get home, plug in, which makes even more sense with the limited range it has. EV advantage is no engine wear and tear from cold starting, not being prohibited entering the nearest big city centre's environmental zone, and no clutch and gearshift to operate. The diesel has better heating though that also doesn't cut into the range.

                [0] it's leased, so it's probably time to stop by the local Renault dealer and have it tested. If it has dropped below 75% capacity they'll put in a fresh one (probably refurbished, but those are fully guaranteed too)

                [1] selling it was a non-starter, there's no market for diesel vans that age, and we _would_ be inconvenienced having just a 100km-range EV.

                1. Stoneshop

                  Re: Charging

                  Note, this is a first-gen 2012 Kangoo ZE, but it was sufficiently cheap that we went for it (because the vast majority of our trips are less than 50 km, and 24 panels on our roof). A current Kangoo ZE can easily do 200km, 250 if you don't need heating, but at that price point, even for a second-hand one it would have been much harder to justify.

          2. jake Silver badge

            Re: Charging

            "I have a weekend car in my garage that has soft iron valve seats so it doesn’t even like unleaded fuel. I’m considering having that converted to EV"

            Far, far cheaper to have hardened valve seats installed. Increases the resale value of the car, too, unlike an electric conversion. While you're doing the head(s), look into installing new fuel system bits & bobs that will make conversion to alcohol easier.

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: Charging

              Far, far cheaper to have hardened valve seats installed. Increases the resale value of the car, too, unlike an electric conversion. While you're doing the head(s), look into installing new fuel system bits & bobs that will make conversion to alcohol easier.

              Far far cheaper to keep using additive. This car won’t do enough hard miles to cause significant valve seat wear even if I didn’t use the additive. It’s not a money matter anyway, I don’t foresee ever getting rid of It and I fancy the torque of electric power, is far more fun than petrol.

              Check out the series Vintage Voltage on the freeview channels.

          3. Kernel

            Re: Charging

            "But 2030 is in the future, and alternative power is lucrative enough to drive development, so who know what the problems with batteries or whatever fuel cells appear will be in the future? "

            Zinc-air fuel cells utilising a liquid fuel solution which can be pumped out and refilled at a service station when the zinc has been depleted:

            i) Already developed as a demonstration model by the University of Singapore

            ii) Zinc is a common and relatively non-toxic material

            iii) The depleted fuel solution can be regenerated and re-used

            iv) The energy density of zinc-air technology is higher than any of the lithium technologies as one of the electrodes is freely available from the atmosphere and doesn't have to be built into the cell

            v) An old and proven portable energy source, in use in a non-rechargable form in millions of hearing aids.

            vi) The rechargeable version is easily scaled up to house/community/national grid level storage of wind or solar generated electricity for later use, as the fuel solution can be regenerated, either externally or in place, by the application of electricity, just like recharging any other sort of battery.

          4. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Charging

            "I’m considering having that converted to EV, "

            Keep your eyes peeled. If you have a popular enough classic, there are shops that are designing and building kits that bolt right up without making modifications. That way you can keep the ICE drive train and put it back if it turns out your car is worth the price of a home later as original. Check out "The Late Brake Show" on YouTube. Jonny has a few episodes up from a shop that does this.

          5. AndyD 8-)₹

            Re: Charging

            There are a lot of problems with batteries. Present tense...But 2030 is in the future...

            9 years seems a long time when you're 20 but you get a different (and possibly more accurate) perspective when you near 80!

        2. ThatOne Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: Charging

          > the batteries will need to be replaced and the recycling chain for that doesn't appear to be in place yet

          Doesn't matter, batteries are environment-friendly!

          Seriously, the only point is to increase your "eco warrior" street cred, definitely not to prevent pollution or destruction of ecosystems. Right now EVs pollute way more than old technology cars (they require very polluting components, and then run mostly on coal, with silly conversion losses), but obviously it's heretic to say so, making you a sinister destroyer of little childrens' future.

          I have a car I'm quite satisfied with, and there is now as an "eco-friendly" hybrid version, so I checked that out. Well what do you know, the new hybrid version has actually a higher fuel consumption than my older fuel-only version!... And no, you can't plug it in, its batteries only get charged by its own engine. That's commercial ecology for you: Car manufacture more polluting, car use more polluting - But it's "ecological".

          1. veti Silver badge

            Re: Charging

            Out of curiosity, where do you live, where your electricity is "mostly" generated by coal? I know there's a handful of countries (Poland, Australia) where this is still the case, but it's getting pretty rare nowadays.

            1. ThatOne Silver badge

              Re: Charging

              > where do you live, where your electricity is "mostly" generated by coal?

              Planet Earth.

              There is indeed a base production from nuclear, but nuclear does not scale (you can't turn a nuclear reactor on/off on a whim), so you can only generate what you're sure to use. There is also some (small but increasing) percentage coming from wind/sun/other green energies, which unfortunately is non-continuous: You can't depend on it to always be there when you need it, and storage is still a problem.

              So, to cover your peak needs (cold evenings, hot summers, etc), you need power plants you can start and stop whenever required, on very short notice, and that's coal or fuel.

              Of course the energy sector marketing will claim they run exclusively on green energy and pixie dust, but in fact they mostly use whatever they already had. Power plants don't grow on trees.

              1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: Charging

                "(you can't turn a nuclear reactor on/off on a whim)"

                You can't do that with a coal plant either. Any thermal plant doesn't lend itself to being turned on and off. That's why there are natural gas peaking plants. Combustion for fast start up and combined cycle for longer term planned ramping.

                Every time you heat something up, it expands. When you cool it down, it contracts. Doing that repeatedly causes cracks, breaks and wear. It also would mean constantly building up and throwing away all of the heat required to get up to the operating point. This is why power companies will pay large companies to use power in the middle of the night to keep a load on the grid. They can't shut the thermal power plants down and start them up every day so it's more cost effective to offer negative rates. Most plants can be throttled, but they have a setting for the best efficiency and it may not make sense to throttle down.

              2. veti Silver badge

                Re: Charging

                This is just plain Luddism. To maintain that coal is the only realistic way of generating the bulk of your electricity flies in the face of the last 40 years of development.

                Here on Planet Earth, coal is already well below 40% of global electricity production, and dropping year on year.

                1. ThatOne Silver badge
                  WTF?

                  Re: Charging

                  > To maintain that coal is the only realistic way of generating the bulk of your electricity

                  I never said that, if you refer to me. Or anything remotely close to that...

                  I just said that right now electricity isn't fully generated in some non-polluting way. I might indeed be wrong on the exact amounts of what does what (it differs from country to country), and while I agree it will most likely further improve over time, we're still in the present.

          2. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Charging

            "(they require very polluting components, and then run mostly on coal"

            If you are in the Pacific Northwest of the US, it would run on hydro. There are two coal plants in California and I know one of them produces power for a mining town out in the desert.

            A blanket statement that EVs run on coal is silly. A logical next step for plenty of EV homeowners is to install solar panels on the roof. Dave Jones of the EEVblog and Robert Llewellyn (Scrapheap Challenge, Red Dwarf) are both EV owners with installed solar. BTW, check out Dave's report on Sydney's trail of electric busses on his second channel (EEVblog2).

            The vast majority of a car is the same whether it's EV or ICE. EVs drive train components are being built to be recycled either to make the company look good or satisfy government mandates. I will agree that some are better than others. The Tesla Model 3 battery pack appears to be filled up with silastic making it a right bastard to recycle where the S and X use a modular design that hobbyists and others are super keen to get their hands on and are much easier to get apart.

            The problem with ICE engine parts is that an aluminum housing will have brass and steel fitting that are swaged in solid. The recyclers hate that sort of thing as it's a pain to separate. A scrounger also has a hard time removing those mixed metals making it not very cost effective to do. An electric motor can be easier to break down into more easily processed materials. It's still not perfect, but going by weight, it's easier to scrap out an EV. It's easier to extract Li from used batteries than to bring it down from Bolivian mountain tops, so it will be done.

            1. Adelio

              Re: Charging

              I am sure in many parts of the USA solar cells make some sense. In the UK we have a lot less sun, but also I am guessing that a lot of US properties have a lot larger area available for them to installed solar cells on.

              If you look at the average size of a new UK house, not only would it be multi storey but the area would be tiny. Taking my house for example I only have a small area of roof that is in the correct orientation for the sun.

          3. Adelio

            Re: Charging

            Here in the UK we have started getting periods with ZERO coal fired power stations in action. There is a lot of wind power being build, especially offshore so the % of carbon free electricity production keeps increasing.

            According to WIKI "In 2019, renewable production generated 37.9% of total electricity"

            so looking good.

            1. Byham

              Re: Charging

              So after a while some politician will say close the coal plants. Then next winter you have a heavy snow fall followed by an anticyclone still air and severe frosts. The windfarms try to draw energy from the grid to keep the blades moving so that lubrication is maintained and the weight of a still rotor does not cause flats on the bearings. Then your smart meter starts progressively switching off your power starting with your car charging.

              Temperature outside is now minus 10 and your heat pump heating has no heat to pump. Your refrigerator power has been switched off remotely, The only power you are now allowed is lights no cooking. The several feet of snow on your roof and PVs is not melting as there is no 'inefficient' heat loss to melt it. So no solar when the weak sun at a very acute insolation angle does appear for a few hours.

              It is OK these 'omega' blocking highs the size of the UK usually move after a few days - although some can be stable for weeks.

              Just hope that the power comes back before you need to drive anywhere as the car was down when you got home last and the charging has now been off for a few days.

              Think it won't happen?

        3. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Charging

          "So called battery 'gas gauges' (there are such things - a better name would be a 'state of charge monitor') are notoriously inaccurate in these types of application until they have been 'trained' "

          It's called a GOM (Guess-O-Meter) and it does need to be "trained". It trains continuously so you will always have a very good guess at the range you have left based on current conditions and your driving style. Some petrol cars have something like this but I'm not aware of any that will give you constant visual feedback to help you improve the economy or be telling you that the head wind is killing your mileage. All you get is a "range until empty" guess.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Charging

        My IC car has a range of about 500 miles and I fill up every three weeks or so (except when I make long distance trips). EVs are already up to about 300 miles and the battery technology will get better.

        I would need to charge at home if I had something like the BMW 2 Series PHEV as that only has an (electric) range of about 40 miles.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Charging

          Some of us poke our noses outside a 15 to 20 mile radius.

          For example, I routinely do the 680 mile round trip between Sonoma and Solvang in a day. If I don't run into too much traffic, it means about a dozen hours on the road[0][1]. Not a hell of a lot of time for recharging in there.

          [0] Turnaround time for the drive isn't all that high ... The chill-chest is programmed to make sure the cryopreserved semen is up to temperature when I get there.

          [1] I fly it if the distance/time is any further than this. It's a rough job, but somebody has to do it.

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Charging

          "I would need to charge at home if I had something like the BMW 2 Series PHEV as that only has an (electric) range of about 40 miles."

          It sounds like you do around 30 miles a day on average. The BMW would work out pretty good for you if you can charge at home and/or work. Instead of visiting the petrol station every three weeks, you would just make it a routine to plug the car in when you get home or are done with it for the day. If your electric company offers reduced tariffs for off-peak charging, that might make one really cheap. You also get to skip oil changes, transmission grief, oil spots on the driveway, noise and the smell.

          People have to think past waiting until the battery is almost flat before charging such as you do with a petrol car. It's just something you do like plugging in your phone. If you do that, you don't need 500 miles of range with an EV. In fact, you are paying for and carrying around all of that capacity that you may only use twice every year or two. Besides, if you are taking a road trip, why aren't you stopping along the way? Otherwise, taking a plane of train will get you there faster. I take the train when I can (don't fly anymore) if I need to get there quicker and drive the rest of the time. I like to stop at roadside attractions and unique eateries. It's rare that both directions of a road trip will be cannonball runs. One long trip was LA to New Mexico. I went straight through on the outbound to see the Trinity site. On the way back, I stopped off at the Very Large Array, swung through Hoover dam and did the tours and wound up in Las Vegas for a convention (few years ago). If I would have remembered the petrified forest, I'd have planned for that on the way out. None of my meal stops were at corporate chain restaurants and I stopped for photos. I got some really wild lighting images. That whole trip wound be impossible if I flew and there was no train service. The US is really a dry well for taking the train most of the time. Even when it does go between two points you can use, it won't do it on a schedule that works. It's also a whole day of work to build out an interline itinerary for routes that aren't direct. No wonder Amtrak always needs money. They need to sack the overpaid corporates and install people that really want to travel by train.

          1. Adelio

            Re: Charging

            I understand when people talk about taking the train but the cost usually only makes sense for a single person (or some destinations like London). if it is 2 or more going long distance then trains can end up being very expensive compared to driving.

            London, I always take the train but ignoring work we have travelled to london maybe 8 times in 35 years.

            Most places we would drive. Flying..... Not sure what it is like in the US but I would assume that short flighs you would spend more time getting to the airport, waiting for the flight and then the other end the same than the time the actual flight takes.

    4. tiggity Silver badge

      Re: Charging

      Waht would make more sense would be standard batteries that were easily swappable.

      For those without easy charging at home thye could visit electric version of a filling station, swap out the batteries for a fully charged set and paying x amount of cash.

      This would keep the concept of a filling station visit to "fill up" being quick and easy.

      Sadly, won't happen as standardisation would require too much car industry working together, whereas its all cut throat to gain a competitive advantage in EV with it still being a nascent market.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Charging

        It would also require some legislation on battery quality. You really don't want to be driving your brand new 300 mile range EV into a "filling station" and coming out with a "full" charge of 50 miles!

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Charging

        "Waht would make more sense would be standard batteries that were easily swappable."

        Tesla tried that and scrapped it. It would work for them as they'd only be servicing their cars. A big problem is the battery pack is the most expensive component of the car and each swap station would need to have several on hand. They'd also need to get new ones from time to time when degraded packs come in.

        It also means that new cars would have to be designed around 1-3 pack layouts and everybody would need to have roughly the same capacity. When you buy a Ford Mustang, you can choose from a base version with a small motor to a high horsepower, high spec monster. Some EVs can also be specc'd with different battery capacities.

        The batteries would need to be much smaller, mount in the same way on every make/model of car and it would have to be done by a robot. It's one thing to design a product around a AA cell, but quite another in something like a car.

        1. Adelio

          Re: Charging

          Anyway, arn't Tesla talking about making the batteries part of the structure of the car. So no possiblility if replacing the batteries at all.

    5. Byham

      Re: Charging - how to get the charge to your plug

      And yet another comment from someone who thinks that power comes from the plug. If you need more places to charge just add more plugs.

      I had a simple inline electric water heater added to the house - and the electrician said I might need to have a new supply line dug to the road mains power and a new switch box. Luckily I didn't but he did mention in passing that fast chargers for EVs WOULD need a new spur off the mains power in the road at the correct raised amperage. He also said that 3 or 4 of those in the same street would almost certainly require the street mains to be replaced and possibly the substation and so on up the distribution chain if there were many more EVs to charge..

      In the glib world of "let's build another wind turbine" the actual distribution of power for EVs has been completely forgotten, Imagine before 2030 every street in the UK having to be dug up to replace old low amperage cables. That includes all the streets in villages, towns and cities a huge amount of trenching requirements along streets and to each house.

      Trenching in cities is not something you can decide to do next week. It takes considerable planning and coordination with all sorts of other things from other people needing to trench (like gas boards putting in hydrogen friendly piping) to traffic management schemes. And almost EVERY road in EVERY city and town....the workforce does not exist, from the diggers, road rebuilders, electrical engineers, planners, etc etc . This alone will prevent political virtue signalling milestones like 2030 being met. The sheer physical impossibility of getting the power supply to the users will mean that 2030 will not be met and that is assuming there is any power to supply.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If it was me...

    I'd make every effort to park right in front of Mr Tesla's house and I'd probably accidentally leave the engine of my old diesel van running all night too, having twisted the exhaust pipe to face his front door. Then when it ran out of diesel, I'd just leave it there and declare it sorn. As 2am one morning - and he wouldn't know when, I'd glue his front door shut and probably put a few of his windows through for good measure too. I'd file any of his complaints under "F**ks, zero given".

    Finally, in response to his A4 message, I'd superglue to the actual Tesla windscreen, a wide selection of the many Tesla reviews that point out how unreliable the cars are, how the panels look like they were fitted by a drunk with poor eyesight on a dark night, and how having a Tesla doesn't automatically make you a decent human being. Then I'd break off the windscreen wipers and run a sharp object across every panel I could get to.

    I reckon that'd do it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If it was me...

      Just take a picture of a white Tesla, from the rear, and against a black background.

      What you get bears a striking resemblance to a sports bra...

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: If it was me...

        Which model of white Tesla?

    2. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

      Re: If it was me...

      Assuming that "parking outside of Mr Teslas house" means on a public road, the one flaw in what you wrote here is that I'm not sure you can keep a SORN'd vehicle on the public highway. We law abiding El Reg readers wouldn't want you to incur a fine as a part of your highly Mille Tant (but amusing) action plan.

      Just lookin' out for you Bro...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: If it was me...

        Thank-you for your kind and helpful words; but I would have both rage and the Queen on my side.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: If it was me...

          It would be dead helpful if we could give AC accounts unique names so we could tell them apart. Why oh why hasn't someone at the register thought of this.

          For instance I am not the same AC as the other AC, but might be the same AC as the other AC.

          1. Paul 195
            Paris Hilton

            Re: If it was me...

            But why be an AC at all? By providing a pseudonym, you can have Paris to watch over you.

          2. jake Silver badge

            Re: If it was me...

            ElReg does have AC accounts with unique identifiers. Mine is "jake".

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: If it was me...

            Isn't there already "Another Anonymous Coward"?

          4. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: If it was me...

            "For instance I am not the same AC as the other AC"

            I'm a racist commentard and all AC's look the same to me.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: If it was me...

          "the Queen on my side."

          In France? Mme Guillotine might like a word. Especially in a Post-Brexit world.

      2. jake Silver badge

        Re: If it was me...

        The hint is in the OR portion of SORN ...

      3. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge

        Re: If it was me...

        it is France, so first you'll have to find the administrative service in charge of the specific stretch of pavement the car is on, then make a request in triplicate, and wait...

        I still remember a burned car sitting a few months at one of the entrances to Paris because:

        - it was in a bus lane

        - the specific street was also a "red street" (no parking) with specific rules that the Prefecture de Police was supposed to enforce

        and the Prefecture and the RATP kept arguing whose responsibility it was to remove the car...

    3. David Roberts

      Re: If it was me...SORN

      Do they do SORN in France?

      1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
        Angel

        Re: If it was me...SORN

        Not with that first letter

    4. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: If it was me...

      "Then I'd break off the windscreen wipers"

      Due to the cost, that would likely be a felony. The Model 3 has a sentry mode were the car records anybody that approaches within a certain distance. Better make sure you aren't recognized and have an extra £1,000 for replacement wipers if you are.

  9. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Go

    Austin Allegro

    "partly because my mum had a 1977 "Silver Jubilee" Austin Allegro"

    How about a GoFundMe campaign to get Dabbsy an Austin Allegro and the cost of converting it to an EV. They do that with the motors and control gear off crashed electric vehicles. That would allow him to join Monsieur Tesla in being a nuisance to his neighbours

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Alert

      Re: Austin Allegro

      The Allegro replaced the 1100 (and 1300) in the British Leyland lineup

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b67l_yxUc

    2. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge

      Re: Austin Allegro

      Some would say he deserves a Reliant Robin

      1. Spanners Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Austin Allegro

        ...Reliant Robin...

        Can you get one of them converted to the 21st century (EV)?

        1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Austin Allegro

        "Some would say he deserves a Reliant Robin"

        With a steam engine. (just watched that Scrapheap episode last night).

  10. Eclectic Man Silver badge

    All very well

    but what did the note actually say?

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: but what did the note actually say?

      "Do not park in front of my house"

      It's the first line of the article.

    2. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: All very well

      Ne pas garer devant ma maison (i.e. all very impersonal).

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

        Re: All very well

        Merci beaucoup

        und Frohe Weinachten.

        Except that unless it was signed, there is no indication whose house you were not supposed to park in front of. Though in the interests of a peaceful life, I suggest you be nice to your neighbours, you never know when they might come in useful.

      2. Alistair Dabbs

        Re: All very well

        Hang on, no, I think it was "stationner". I didn't keep a copy.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: All very well

          it was "Je vous prie de bien vouloir cesser de stationner de façon indue votre supposé véhicule devant mon domicile"

          And if you do it again I'll go and park my Leclerc on top of your alleged car!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    "..David Hasselhoff from number 64 had parked one of his nine shit cars in front of mine"

    Reading that I was immediately reminded of Stella Street. I can just imagine Michael Caine speaking these words.

    1. MJI Silver badge

      Re: "..David Hasselhoff from number 64 had parked one of his nine shit cars in front of mine"

      Is KITT one of the cars?

      1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge

        Re: "..David Hasselhoff from number 64 had parked one of his nine shit cars in front of mine"

        Perhaps a Reliant Kitten?

  12. W.S.Gosset
    FAIL

    EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

    Yup re everything Alistair said re real-world ability to recharge in built-up areas. Ditto re lithium.

    But it's actually a lot worse than you think.

    All industry analysis says the Grid (generation and distribution) in each country will have to at least triple, to cope with swapping EVs for petrol. Bear in mind ~1/3 of the UK's residential power bills are for just _maintaining_ the distribution network. Now throw in mahoosive capital costs of mahoosive upgrade.. So good luck buying food or watching TV, all you deplorable poor people. Get a proper job!

    The actual total energy demand doesn't magically go away -- still need to generate it, just now upstream where the inner-city "Green"s can't see it. But, EVs will be charged 99.9% at night, so no solar and ~no wind, so... big increase in coal and gas burning. And since there's also now the transmission losses over the grid, you'll likely be burning _more_ fossil fuels than when you brought the fuel to the vehicle.

    Lithium is geopolitically problematic since, over and above the mines/ore, virtually all of the actual _refining_ capacity globally is in one country: China.

    Environmentally, just the physical car bodies themselves are a disaster.

    The copper requirements are massive, so huge explosion in the quantities of extremely toxic wastes from its ore processing and refining.

    The batteries though are complete environmental showstoppers by themselves. Max.10yr lifespan. Ignore the production aspects for now. Just consider the disposal aspects.

    Carnage. Incredibly toxic contents, in terms of killing lifeforms from bacteria to plants to animals to mankind. Completely unrecyclable. So they'll need to go into special custom-built sealed/tubbed, massive landfill holes. Verrrry expensive, plus there'll still be leaks.

    Further problem: they explode, they burn. We have no way of putting these fires out. They burn dirtily and toxically, to such a spectacularly poisonous degree as to make a burning tyre dump look like a foodsafe electric stove by comparison.

    I could go on. And on. But basically, EVs are catastrophically bad for the planet, and brilliant for destroying poor people on the way through.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

      I reckon you could alleviate 50% of the world's grid consumption by 2030 by banning cryptocurrencies.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        And bloody clouds.

      2. Dr_N

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        Ban unboxing video?

      3. hoola Silver badge

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        Anything to do with Blockchain, sodding videos of cute pets and morons falling off stuff.

      4. jake Silver badge

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        And to get rid of most of the other 50%:

        0) Online gaming

        1) Advertising/Marketing

        2) Gambling (including stock markets)

        3) Bad driving videos

        4) Other stupid human tricks

        1. Adelio

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          don't forget banning cat videos as well.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

      I'm pretty sure that the long-term plan is for lower private car ownership. Since the cost of buying a car is going to go up (fewer second-hand electric cars available than fossil-fuel, etc.) the plan appears to be that people will use public transport more - trains for long distances, buses for short. If the figure of 40% cars parked on the public highway is right, then there is a similar percentage of houses which don't have off-street parking (goes up for blocks of flats, down for multi-car households.) Anyone in one of these houses could have trouble keeping a car running, for the reasons discussed by commenters above.

      Those in "suburban" houses with off-street parking will be fine. Those in flats, multi-occupancy houses, terraced houses and modern estates with limited parking? Not so much. Will the poor be proportionally worse off? Yes. But they can always take the bus. Will leave the roads free for the richer motorist. And there's no reason to avoid public transport is there? I mean, I used it a few days ago, and apart from this dry cough, I'm fine...

      1. rg287

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        I'm pretty sure that the long-term plan is for lower private car ownership. Since the cost of buying a car is going to go up (fewer second-hand electric cars available than fossil-fuel, etc.) the plan appears to be that people will use public transport more - trains for long distances, buses for short.

        This is happening anyway. In the UK there's been a drop in the percentage of young people bothering to take their driving test. It has eventually been realised that private vehicle ownership just doesn't scale very well given that the average supermarket has to give over more square-footage to car parking than to the actual store. The number of cars in Britain has risen 49% in 20 years. That growth, and the reliance on private transport is simply not sustainable.

        If the figure of 40% cars parked on the public highway is right, then there is a similar percentage of houses which don't have off-street parking

        Be careful with that - a lot of cars are parked on the street voluntarily. I live in a terrace - everyone on the street has a garage. But most of them (mine included) are full of junk and Christmas boxes. People could park off-road. They choose not to.

        This is not universal of course, but given that 65% of UK households are detached & semi-detached houses (which invariably have driveways) and a non-trivial chunk of the remainder are low-density terraces with potential for parking, then I'd wager that the number of residences legitimately without parking numbers <25% - and a chunk of them will be in London where car ownership is low and frequently unnecessary anyway.

        1. Alan_Peery

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          There's also the basic fact that a lot of garages are too small for today's cars. The A4 Estate I drive would fit in my garage, but would require reversing in or climbing over the bonnet, and it's not a huge car.

          I don't think you'd be able to even open the drivers door enough to exit an A6 Estate...

          1. I am the liquor

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            Even small cars are much wider than their predecessors; the latest Ford Focus is nearly a foot wider than a mark I Escort. Partly thanks to side impact protection.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          "a non-trivial chunk of the remainder are low-density terraces with potential for parking"

          A short distance away is a stretch of 2-300 metres of Victorian housing. No garages at all nor space to build them. There are cars parked on both sides leaving a one-way at a time slot down the middle. If you're lucky there might be a space partway down where two cars can pass. On the whole people cooperate but I'm not sure what autonomous vehicles would do if thrown into the mix. Of course if road works are in place the council insists on TTLs to manage what the rest of us can cope with the rest of the time; they just do it with extra delays.

          It's not an urban side-street, it's an A road, albeit a 4-digit one.

        3. juice

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          > This is not universal of course, but given that 65% of UK households are detached & semi-detached houses (which invariably have driveways)

          To counterbalance this, I suspect that a significant percentage of people living in detached and semi-detached houses will have at least two cars - one for Dad to drive to work, and one for Mum to use when taking the kids to school.

          (Admittedly, we're continually moving away from the traditional family setup with 2.2 kids, but even so).

          And that's before you consider the fact that thanks to Corona (and next year, Brexit, especially if we do hit no deal), there's been an upsurge of interest in camping holidays and the like. The result is a lot more caravans parked on a lot more driveways.

          And as someone else noted, modern cars - especially the 4x4 monsters which have become all the rage - are often too big for standard garages, which were designed for cars which were several feet shorter and thinner than their modern equivalents.

          Certainly from an anecdotal perspective, I have a family member who lives in a large cul-de-sac where virtually all the houses have a driveway and/or garage.

          However, my relative has three vehicles: a work van, a small car for his wife to do shopping etc, and a people carrier for when they want to take the whole family out.

          And similar applies to most of the road; I'd guess two thirds of the available space is generally taken up with work vans and secondary cars.

          > a non-trivial chunk of the remainder are low-density terraces with potential for parking, then I'd wager that the number of residences legitimately without parking numbers <25% - and a chunk of them will be in London where car ownership is low and frequently unnecessary anyway

          Again, not sure I'd buy into that idea.

          At least around Sheffield, parking spaces are generally at a premium, even with large swathes (e.g. Hillsborough) being subject to residents-only parking rules. And from what I've seen in places like Leeds and Manchester, much the same applies.

          Certainly, the road I used to live on until very recently (over by Granville Road, Sheffield fans!), was generally rammed with cars, around half of which vanished in the morning, and reappeared at the end of the working day.

          I'd guess that I got to park in close proximity to my house /maybe/ one time in three, unless I made a point of shifting it while everyone was at work.

          Meanwhile, if I go to see a friend in Hillsborough, I'll generally end up parking several hundred meters away from their house. Perhaps ironically, up at the very top of their hill where there's some semi-detached houses with driveways, inbetween all the work vans which are also making use of this "free" space...

          Any which way, it's certainly going to be interesting to see how things change over the next few years; between the aforementioned dampening effects on international travel, the government's attempts to ditch fossil fuels (and the aforementioned tax impacts thereof), the increased shift to home working *and* the fact that lockdown has pushed a not insignificant percentage of home owners to consider moving to larger houses further out from city centres.

          There's a whole lot of pushing and pulling going on, which'll probably result in car ownership remaining much the same, regardless of what the government and green party would like to see.

      2. Joe W Silver badge

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        Put it that way: do you need a car in a city? No. Most cities in the civiliesed world offer pretty decent public transport. Less cars, less traffic jams, less pollution, less agression. And in many parts of the world biking around the city except for maybe some aspects of grocery shopping works well. I know, I did that a couple of years in different places. I also have several friends and colleagues in cities on different continents, and many (most?) of them don't own a car. There is just no place to park it, public transport is great, biking is great = no car needed.

        For big stuff or traveling where trains don't go: rent a car. This works out way cheaper than the total costs of owning a car (insurance, deprecation, repairs, maintenance). Yes, some people need a car. Most don't.

        (The pandemic is not going to saty with us (in this intensity) forever, so I'll just disregard that comment.)

        1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          Public transport in the UK is terrible. Routes and services are being cut all the time, even in cities. Many routes that used to be relatively direct now need the passengers to go via the local hub to get to places.

          And have you tried doing the weekly family shop on a bus? Hopelessly impractical.

          A lot of car ownership is having the freedom, ability and convenience to go where you want, when you want, without the sometimes vast additional time, cost, inconvenience and low practicality of using public transport.

          1. Wellyboot Silver badge

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            Out here in the northern sticks the nearest large supermarkets are 2 bus journeys (different bus companies) and takes more than an hour (6 miles), the only alternative is a couple of small co-ops (essentials only) that the first bus will pass on the way. Waiting at an open bus stop bus in winter weather isn't fun.

            15 mins by car gets you 10 miles : any of the major supermarket chains, two retail parks and two town centres with their (rapidly depleting) range of speciality shops and small businesses.

            Online deliveries don't help much with quality of life out here if you're without access to personal transport.

          2. jake Silver badge

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            "Many routes that used to be relatively direct now need the passengers to go via the local hub to get to places."

            I used public transportation in Blighty for almost a year. I found it made life much nicer to go via the local Pub to get to places.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          "rent a car. "

          When my company car is in for a service, the company hires a car for me from one of the major chains. It's never the class requested, always a "free upgrade. They never have enough cars ready. I can only imagine what it must be like in peak holiday season trying to get a short term hire at short notice.

        3. jake Silver badge

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          "Put it that way: do you need a car in a city?"

          I just got off the horn to several friends who live in cities[0]. They are all very vocal public transportation advocates. They use it to get to work, grocery, medical, etc. All of them also have cars. I asked them a simple question: "Are you ready to give up your car?"

          All of them very emphatically answered "No!". When asked why not, they all replied a variation on "I need it to get out of the city on weekends!". Not one of them. Not a couple of them. All ten of them. So that covers that.

          [0] Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Redwood City, Fremont, San Jose, Sacramento, San Diego, Eureka, Fresno and Santa Barbara.

          1. First Light

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            I could never get the hypocrisy of Cali environmentalists who insist on driving hours and back to Tahoe to . . . ski. Skiing is a nonsense sport.

            Also, don't underestimate the kind of person who buys an EV and then drives way more than necessary because now they're driving a "green vehicle."

        4. Intractable Potsherd

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          Cheap, easy-to-maintain multi-occupancy personal transport capable of travelling long distances with a reasonable amount of belongings in short time is one of the greatest sources of freedom in history. It improves the quality of life for countless millions of people every day. Younger people are not getting driving licences because they have been told it is wrong to drive, not because they don't want it. The crusade against cars is the crusade against freedom.

        5. Adelio

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          There you go, assuming that everyone lives in a city. I have not and never want to live in a city, i live in a relatively large town and that is big enough for me. Cities have never attracted me as a place to live. But that is just me.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

      > All industry analysis says the Grid (generation and distribution) in each country will have to at least triple, to cope with swapping EVs for petrol.

      This is wrong. If every car in the UK became a Tesla overnight then we'd need ~67GW per day to cover average journeys. Max UK grid capacity is ~75GW and peak daily demand ~62GW leaving ~13 spare. So 'only' an additional ~54GW required. This is a substantial amount - no denying - but it's a lot lot less than the "triple" that you are claiming.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        Are your figures just referring to car journeys? That's how I read your comment, but please correct me if I've misunderstood.

        A lot of fuel usage is for freight. And as fewer people own cars, and more people have goods delivered to their houses, this will remain high.

      2. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        Those numbers are about the same as I came up with about 15 years ago. I presented it at the time as the number of 1GW nuclear power stations we'd need to build to supply the extra demand. It was about 50, or roughly one in every county. At the time, EDF were quoting about 3bn euros for the build of one of those stations. So that's only 150bn pounds or so to build the generating capacity. Granted, since then more generating options exist like solar or wind.

        Hinkley Point is about 3.3GW but the cost is around £22.5bn so far. So that puts my cost estimates up to something like £340bn for 50GW of generating capacity. I haven't bothered to think about how to distribute it all yet. A better solution might be local generation and to mandate every new house having a solar PV roof instead of useless concrete tiles. Of course this creates other problems like how to store that electricity during the day. Current options are really only batteries which as discussed elsewhere in this thread have their own problems.

        Whichever way you look at it, cars do seem to come with a lot of problems, whether electric or oil powered.

        1. Adelio

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          Yes, I was think about that.

          The other issue is that the goverment was us all to give up fossile fuel heating and cooking.

          Just had a little read on heat pumps. On a new build or if you have a large house with a lot of land then they may be an option although the price apears to be at least double or tripple the cost of a Gas central heating system.

          I have minimal access to the rear garden which is also very small, maybe about 4 feet wide. and it seems that most of the heat pump systems require substantially more internal space that a Gas Boiler. Which I also do not have.

          So as far as i can tell that basically leaves electric heaters and electric boilers.

          Well I have no room for a boiler, I currently have a combi boiler so no need for a water tank.

      3. W.S.Gosset

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        >This is wrong. If every car in the UK...

        Thanks for your effort but I place rather higher confidence and weight on experienced power industry engineers and analysts and regulatory agencies working for months off genuine industry knowledge and numbers, than on a random AnonCoward doing some quick googling and Sums.

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          This “I read it on Faecebook” crap about the national grid and EVs is actually very tiresome.

          Read more here: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            To (almost) quote Mlle Keeler "They would say that, wouldn't they?". While importing electricity from Denmark.

            1. PhilBuk

              Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

              Eh-em, Mandy Rice-Davis.

          2. jake Silver badge

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            But you trust the propaganda advertising marketing of the agency charged with selling you on EVs?

          3. TheMeerkat

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            This is a propaganda piece.

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

              The alarmist conversations about the capacity of the grid are also propaganda.

              Depends which side suits your cognitive bias, decides which one you believe.

          4. AndyD 8-)&#8377;

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-myths-about-electric-vehicles-busted

            "the most demand for electricity we’ve had in recent years in the UK was for 62GW in 2002...... Even if the impossible happened and we all switched to EVs overnight, we think demand would only increase by around 10 per cent."

            So do your own 'Sums' : 30 - 40 million cars; 3 or 7 or 17 kWatt charging load .....

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          > Thanks for your effort but I place rather higher confidence and weight on experienced power industry engineers and analysts and regulatory agencies working for months off genuine industry knowledge and numbers, than on a random AnonCoward doing some quick googling and Sums

          Then do the sums for yourself - it's not hard. Tesla consumption figures are available. Government statistics tell you how many cars there are on the road and what the average mileage is. UK grid capacity and consumption is published by National Grid.

          There are real problems with EVs - just as there are real problems with ICE vehicles - but increasing generating capacity to cope is not one of them.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            Many places in this world are prone to brownouts due to lack of enough electricity to go around. What do you think would happen in those areas should a decent percentage of cars require grid power?

            As a side-note, here in California PG&E has taken to powering down the grid during high wind conditions. It would seem they are worried about sparking wildfires. Turns out that turning off the power is a hell of a lot cheaper than doing routine maintenance. Do you think your National Grid is not keeping a close eye on this money saving caper? (I have friends with Teslas who were without power for ten days straight last summer (Callistoga area). Lots of fun for them, I can tell you.)

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

              > Many places in this world are prone to brownouts due to lack of enough electricity to go around. What do you think would happen in those areas should a decent percentage of cars require grid power?

              The generating companies would have to get their acts together then.

              When motor cars first came out, roads weren't suited for them and horseshoe nails caused endless punctures. The world adapted.

      4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        "So 'only' an additional ~54GW required. This is a substantial amount - no denying - but it's a lot lot less than the "triple" that you are claiming."

        Not forgetting that you also need all the overhead cables and pylons to get the power where it's needed along with all the underground power cables to get around towns and cities that now need at least double what they are currently delivering.

      5. John Arthur
        Stop

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        Well, as I speak it is around 20.30 in the UK and the current demand for electricity is around 39GW, not 62GW . The grid transmission capacity is not likely to be well over double the demand.

        https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

        Where did you get your figures from?

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          Kettle on!

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          > Where did you get your figures from?

          As was clearly stated, the 62GW figure was peak demand. Actually the peak day for the last year as stated on National Grid's website.

          Worst case figures were used throughout to reinforce the absurdity of the OPs original "triple" claim.

      6. jake Silver badge

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        Regardless, it's not going to happen in the government mandated time provided.

      7. Emir Al Weeq

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        >This is wrong. If every car in the UK became a Tesla overnight then we'd need ~67GW per day to cover average journeys. Max UK grid capacity is ~75GW...

        I can't follow this. You seem to be confusing energy with power.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          > I can't follow this. You seem to be confusing energy with power.

          Try harder. Everyone else seems to be managing.

          1. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

            Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

            Maybe no-one eye is bothering to look at the numbers, or rather, the units. GW per day simply doesn't make sense. Watt being the unit of energy rate per unit time (joules per second). GW per day is like saying miles per hour per day. If anything, it means the change per day of the grid's generating capacity. i.e. 63GW on day 1, 126 on day 2, 189 on day 3 and so on.

            I think there is a genuine confusion going on here though between peak capacity (GW) and daily consumption (GWh per day). Spelt almost the same but very different things.

            1. Olivier2553

              Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

              If kW/h makes sense (and it does) how GW/day would not?

    4. Paul 195

      Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

      I'm pretty sure the wind continues to blow at night too. And while lithium is the best option right now, expanding the market for electric vehicles will continue to drive innovation in storage technologies. It also seems unlikely that the alternatives to oil will actually be dirtier overall. Apart from all the crap burning it puts into the air, there's all the crap we've dumped into the oceans through oil tanker leaks, drilling platform disasters etc.

      Doing nothing really isn't an option.

      1. rg287

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        I'm pretty sure the wind continues to blow at night too. And while lithium is the best option right now, expanding the market for electric vehicles will continue to drive innovation in storage technologies.

        Also, recycling isn't very good yet because there haven't been enough batteries cycling out to make large-scale lines viable. But Tesla's plan (along with other car companies, working with partners like Panasonic) are to get their batteries essentially closed loop.

        Many people do not realise that a "brand-new" lead-acid car battery will be ~99% recycled materials. At End-of-Life, lead-acid battery components are more or less entirely reclaimed. It's not quite 100% but it rounds that way.

        Li-Ion is harder and much more chemically complex - but they're getting there. Tesla can already reclaim >70% of the material in their batteries.

      2. Wellyboot Silver badge

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        >>>I'm pretty sure the wind continues to blow at night too.<<<

        Except when it doesn't - at this moment Fri 11th 7:00pm more UK power is coming from Coal (2.89Gw) than Wind (2.71Gw)

        https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

    5. Alan_Peery

      Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

      In frantically compiling your listof exaggerated damages from EV cars, you rather forgot about the environmental damage from oil wells, fracking, pipelines or supertankers, refining, more pipelines or worse fuel tankers, leaking gas stations...

      1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        Basically, as a species we're pretty adept at fucking up the environment, regardless of the energy generation technology we choose for personal transport. EV and ICE both have their drawbacks, just sometimes different ones. But both sets of drawbacks are equally capable of some serious environmental damage, and it's naive to posit one is worse/better than the other.

        1. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          I don't think it's naive at all to try and work out which option will cause the least damage. I do agree with your opening sentence though. We human beings are pretty good at destroying our environment. I don't see that changing anytime soon, whether we do it with ICE or EV cars.

    6. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

      Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

      The (partial) solution?

      Monsieur TeslaAptera

      https://www.aptera.us/

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        Can I tow with it? If so, what happens to the range?

        How does it work on non-paved roads?

        It's very overcast, and has been for a couple weeks. What's my range now?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

          Why would you go out when it is overcast?

          Stay at home!

      2. DavidRa

        Re: EVs = bad for planet, bad for poor people, bad for practicality

        I've considered the idea of solar + battery cars in the past, but even with double the efficiency of modern solar, I'd need 6m2 of panels for the daily (220km) commute. I think I'm an outlier, but I don't think the fit for many will be as promising as Aptera suggest (since lots of parking is underground, for example, you're not going to get charged while you're away from the car).

        Can't fault them for trying though.

  13. Alistair Dabbs

    Funny headline

    Reg sub-editors have saved my vegetarian bacon* again with the headline, which is much funnier than the one I suggested.

    [*A no deal Brexit means I can call all meat products "vegetarian" whenever I want.]

    1. Dr_N

      Re: Funny headline

      Was it, "Tesla girls, Tesla girls, Testing out theories..." ?

    2. jake Silver badge

      Re: Funny headline

      Bacon is a vegetable, isn't it? I'm pretty sure Jacques Pépin said so, so it most be true.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Funny headline

        Most pigs are fed on vegetable food waste, so bacon is vegan friendly.

  14. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
    Meh

    F-150 engine

    "...twin-turbocharged, 3.5-litre gasoline V-6..."

    And my old 1998 Buick LeSabre -- bought used in 2004, traded in 2015 -- had a 3.8 liter (GM 3800 Series II), but it was naturally aspirated (no turbo).

    I put that engine through hell. Coolant leak on a road trip, ignition issues, but every time it got fixed it ran great. When the ignition went a third time it was time to give it up.

    As for the truck? I'd have to check the full specs. Not sure it will sell as well as F-150s of the past (always Ford's #1 seller state-side).

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: F-150 engine

      a hybrid pickup with its own onboard generator

      It's only a matter of time before a company like Ifor Williams comes out with an EV "touring trailer", an extended trailer with a generator, fuel tank, and fast charger on-board at the hitch end, leaving the rest of the space for normal trailer/holiday packing.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: F-150 engine

        The AA and other recovery companies have a charger pack on some of their vans.

  15. herman
    Devil

    Horse and buggy

    Get a horse and buggy (I’m sure you can borrow one somewhere) and park it outside Mr Tesla’s for a while. It is the ultimate environmental green shit vehicle and is sure to leave something for Tesla to remember you by.

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Horse and buggy

      Taking a cue from the comment by @Phil O'Sophical about Ifor Williams trailers - how about a Horse Box with a treadmill. The horse is encouraged to gallop, and the generator attached to the treadmill provides power. For extra power, have a 2 horse trailer.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Horse and buggy

        It takes more than one or two horsepower to augment the battery when an EV is towing ... there are youtube videos on the horrors of towing with a Tesla.

    2. jake Silver badge

      Re: Horse and buggy

      I wouldn't upset my horse by placing him in such an environment.

  16. macjules
    Paris Hilton

    most unreliable motor vehicles since the Austin Allegro

    Now steady on there, I passed my driving test in an Austin Allegro. I think it was because the test examiner was so petrified at the sound of bits occasionally falling off that he was silently screaming "stop, you win". I "owned" a Tesla from 2014 to 2017 (you never own a Tesla, you just get to ride in it sometimes between software and firmware updates) but my wife refused to drive it. She said it reminded her of those awful Renault 5 cars that had acres of rattling grey plastic interior.

    Oh, and I have a neighbour in London with exactly the same problem as you. He runs a power cable from his house up to the car and uses one of those rubber blocks electricians use to make sure that nobody trips over the wire in the street. My dogs seem to play some form of chicken with the cable and make a point of lining up to pee on it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: most unreliable motor vehicles since the Austin Allegro

      You must be literally the oldest person who ever lived.

      I said YOU MUST LITERALLY BE THE OLDEST PERSON WHO EVER LIVED!

      Turn your hearing aid on Gramps!

      1. macjules

        Re: most unreliable motor vehicles since the Austin Allegro

        I have seen employees at IBM UK with zimmer frames. Of course not now.

        1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge

          Re: most unreliable motor vehicles since the Austin Allegro

          I remember when Lav Jamais Contente was running, does it make me old?

      2. jake Silver badge

        Re: most unreliable motor vehicles since the Austin Allegro

        You gotta wonder at kids who think that 60 is "old" :-)

        1. PhilBuk

          Re: most unreliable motor vehicles since the Austin Allegro

          Was involved in a Cave Rescue once where the patient, a young girl who had fallen 30 feet and injured herself, was asked by the first contact team leader if she wanted her parents informed. She replied in the negative because "her parents were quite old, in their 50's, and it would be quite a shock."

          The members of the rescue team exchanged surreptitious glances among themselves. The youngest person on the team was 49.

          1. H in The Hague

            Re: most unreliable motor vehicles since the Austin Allegro

            "The youngest person on the team was 49."

            A friend is a member of a conservation group who do a lot of coppicing. Youngest member in his late 50s, most members in their 60s and 70s. All working hard in the Dutch windswept polders felling trees in winter, mostly by hand. Impressive bunch of gentlepersons.

  17. Dr. G. Freeman

    Suppose telling the car "Tesla. delete star-dot star" might help.

    Either that or a strategic Electromagnetic Pulse in its general direction, could work in a pinch.

    1. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

      "Either that or a strategic Electromagnetic Pulse in its general direction, could work in a pinch."

      Ooh, wireless charging!

    2. jake Silver badge

      Teslas run Linux, not DOS.

      HTH

      1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge

        so rm -f *.* ?

  18. Dr_N

    Garages In France

    In France no one can put their Wäncnob 900cc in their garage because everyone uses their garage as storage. Or has illegally converted them to an additional room.

  19. Roger Kynaston

    White oil?

    According to this august publication it will be Sodium soon.

    https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/02/sodium_batteries_improve/

    I should imagine that disposing of the chlorine from separating the elements of salt will be a dirty and problematic challenge as well though.

    1. ThatOne Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: White oil?

      > I should imagine that disposing of the chlorine from separating the elements of salt will be a dirty and problematic challenge as well though

      That's what the seas are for...

      Why, the do chlorinate swimming pools, don't they?

  20. Grikath
    Trollface

    To be fair..

    That video that is NOT at the end of the article features some decent and enthousiastic Air Guitar in it...

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: To be fair..

      When you haven't got a real musician on the payroll you just have to fake it.

  21. hoola Silver badge

    Battery EVs

    One of the many issues with electric vehicles is that anything other than a battery is seen as "too difficult" or "very wasteful in energy". Petrol and diesel come from crude oil. Huge amounts of energy is expended cracking this into all the different products we need. This is conveniently forgotten when the hydrogen argument comes up. Hydrogen may be difficult to produce and you get less out than you put in to make it but, it what you put is in all renewable then you are still better off. Production of hydrogen from renewables is ideal as the intermittent nature of the source is buffered by what you have in storage. Hydrogen may not be easy to transport and store but the delivery and use is better than spending hours recharging a battery. Fuel cell technology has to be better than batteries and has the benefit that overall it is probably less bad for the environment.

    There might be a change of direction but I feel we are just replacing one problem with another and as long as the lithium is only dug up in places that nobody in the West cares about, batteries will continues. Big names, driven by the fear of being left behind are primarily focussing on batteries. Now if Tesla had put a fuel cell and hydrogen in, everyone would be doing that. without a nod to the difficulties.

    1. Electronics'R'Us
      Holmes

      Re: Battery EVs

      ...as long as the lithium is only dug up in places that nobody in the West cares about...

      There is some exploration going on into the possibility of mining Lithium in Cornwall.

      1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: Battery EVs

        And so?

      2. Jim Whitaker

        Re: Battery EVs

        Exactly.

    2. rg287

      Re: Battery EVs

      There might be a change of direction but I feel we are just replacing one problem with another and as long as the lithium is only dug up in places that nobody in the West cares about,

      On that note... Tesla have acquired mining rights over 10,000acres of lithium-rich clays in Nevada, and they're not the only ones investing in the area. They've also signed a deal with a company looking to extract lithium in North Carolina

      I shall let the reader decide whether "the West" cares about Nevada, but it's "not China"!

      A calculation I saw elsewhere suggested that there's more than enough Lithium in Nevada alone to replace every single vehicle in the USA with a BEV equivalent.

      Lithium and the rare earths aren't rare, it's just that only China (and usually-Chinese-backed projects in Africa) has really bothered to go after them on any sort of scale so far.

    3. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

      Re: Battery EVs

      "Hydrogen may not be easy to transport and store "

      Hmm, the Hindenburg does come to mind. Yes, very difficult to transport. I am not very keen on the idea of many tanker trucks traversing the highways full of liquid hydrogen. Pipelines would be the most efficient but I can see the hipsters having a hissy-fit over that too.

      Understand, none of this has anything to do with "saving the planet", at least not here in the US. It is all about preventing people from voting with their feet. Prevent them from fleeing to the outer suburbs and driving that 50 miles to work every day, taking their tax revenue with them. We are already hearing about plans for punitive measure to either prevent or penalize companies from leaving Leftist strongholds. Tesla is leaving California and now Goldman Sachs is leaving NYC.

  22. Insert sadsack pun here

    "it's getting closer to home for the old nations in Europe, with exploratory digs looking promising in Portugal..."

    They'd better hope Mozambique and Angola don't hear about it - otherwise they might think about repaying the favour of imperialism by "civilising" Portugal for its mineral wealth.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If someone passive-agressively left a note on my car telling not to park on a part of the public street I would make every attempt to park in the same spot from that point forward. What a jerk!

    1. jake Silver badge

      I have friends who would intentionally purchase an old banger to register, insure, and then leave in that spot indefinitely just to make the point.

  24. N2

    Steady on

    Comparing Austin Allegros to Teslas,

    I know AAs were fairly bad but if I recall, not really so bad they'd veer off the road killing people?

    The next car I buy will have the biggest engine I can afford, because I can - it's not that I'm not eco friendly, it's that I don't like being lectured to by a bunch of eco hypocrites.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Steady on

      "not really so bad they'd veer off the road killing people?"

      Well ... not unless the mounts for the steering box rust out completely.

    2. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

      Re: Steady on

      Agreed!

      They will have to pull my high octane, high compression gasoline burning, Japanese sports car out of my cold dead hands before I give it up. Alone with my 9MM pistol and my AR-15!

  25. Mike 137 Silver badge

    "Not every car owner has a garage or a driveway"

    Actually about half the cars in the land are parked on the street, and mostly without a designated space. The charging infrastructure to support this would be phenomenal and the current in the trunk runs would probably keep the pavements from icing up in winter (that is if we could ever afford to have it installed).

  26. Qumefox

    Hey now. I own a 2017 volt and I love it to death. In my opinion it's the best of both worlds. It's pure EV range is great enough that I basically never have to actually use gas for my daily commute, and if needed, I can just drive cross country like a normal car without having to stop every 200-300 miles and recharge for hours like a tesla would need to.

    I do agree that pure EV's aren't really suitable for people reliant on street parking though.

  27. AlanSh

    I think I'll wait a while

    In 2029 (assuming I am still around and compos mentis) I intend to buy a Diesel SUV with a 600+ mile range (like I have today) and run it for 10 years. By 2039, I would hope EV's are cheaper than today and can recharge in 10 minutes or less and go 500+ miles between charges. Until then, I will wait.

    Alan

  28. earl grey
    Facepalm

    wonder about the scrap value of chopped off charging cables

    Asking for a friend ~_~

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: wonder about the scrap value of chopped off charging cables

      With a glut of them on the market, probably not much.

    2. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

      Re: wonder about the scrap value of chopped off charging cables

      For a single cable, not a lot - it won't be worth the guy's time to weight it and write you a check for a few pence. But get a few together and you'd be surprised how quickly it adds up.

      According to https://scraplocal.co.uk/scrap-metal-prices/ the current price is £1,215/ton (or £1.22/kilo) - though you get a bit less than that if there's a high PVC/copper ratio. From my experience weighing in cable I've collected, you get the best prices for the likes of T&E house cabling, and a significantly lower price for phone/network cabling because there's less copper and more plastic.

      In any case, make sure it's free of things like connectors etc. Similarly with copper piping - make sure you remove all the soldered and/or brass fittings and keep them separate (the solder/brass would contaminate the copper when it's melted down and so it has a lower value).

      In the past I've saved up all the cable I've removed when doing (legitimate before anyone questions it !) work. By the time you've a few large boxes and 10's of kilo it's well worth weighing in. As hinted at in another comment, lead-acid batteries are well recycled - currently around £440/ton and you find that the weight soon adds up (especially when replacing batteries in lots of UPSs ;-)).

      For reference should you decide to start collecting what some consider "rubbish" ... Scrap dealers are no longer allowed to pay cash, and must instead pay by cheque (or I think, bank transfer). They also have to see photo ID which they will copy for their records. This is all to stop the black market trade in stolen cable by making the payments from the scrapyards traceable - i.e. someone reports metals (e.g. a load of cable) stolen, and identical material is spotted in a scrapyard, then the scrapyard owner is up the creek without a paddle if they can't account for who it came from.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AFAIK the 2030 date for the UK was a Boris Johnson announcement, so rather less reliable than the loudest bullshitter in your local pub.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      AFAIK it’s not all about the UK and that date merely brings us into line with other nations. Some countries are going for 2025.

  30. Jim Whitaker

    Poor planning or arrogance?

    Someone buys an all-electric car without having off-road parking. Needs his head examining and that cable could so easily be damaged.

    1. Stoneshop
      Holmes

      Re: Poor planning or arrogance?

      Needs his head examining

      Monsieur Tesla _is_ French, so affirmative on all three points.

  31. Cliffwilliams44 Silver badge

    Oh the hypocrisy of the hipsters! Drive your electric car and proclaim to the world "I am saving the planet!" Totally ignoring the facts that the manufacturing of your EV is destroying the environment of far away places where people you "claim" to care about live and all that electricity your pumping into those batteries comes from coal, oil and natural gas generating plants. And oh no! You would never agree to allow a nuclear power plant to be built even though it is the cleanest power we can generate now. So, when all the evil fossil fuel power plants are shut down, and all those nuclear plants are closed for good, and those solar, wind, and maybe that fantasy "clean energy" you keep dreaming about cannot produce enough power to charge your EV, let alone keep the lights on in your home, then I guess your dreams will have come true!

    And for those hipsters in the US. When you finally become an adult, with a wife, a job and 2 kids and you want to move out into the suburbs where it is safe for your family, sorry, no can do! There is not enough power to charge your EV and the public transportation trains just don't go that far. So, you are stuck in that Leftist hell hole you helped to create by voting with your emotions instead of your brain!

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      I thought people chose EVs because they are ludicrously fast.

      1. H in The Hague

        "I thought people chose EVs because they are ludicrously fast.""

        Well, that's one of the selling points of this one:

        https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dennis-eagle-uk_ecollect-saving-time-activity-6739963045348433920--hU4

        Nice piece of kit, largely designed and built in the UK, and currently being adopted quite widely. More expensive to buy than a diesel one but cheaper to run, needs less maintenance, and has lower noise and pollutant emissions, so good for city centres.

        Now, if only I could persuade Mrs H that it would make a great family car :).

  32. Great Westerner

    All this belief in rechargeable cars being the future can be very depressing. I live in the West Country and a return trip to Bristol seems to be beyond the capability of battery cars.

    There is a cure for this depression. Just watch one of those real life police programmes such as "Police Interceptors" where the Force chase the baddies. You'll soon realise that neither side is going to put up with such limited ranges.

    Hydrogen is the only acceptable answer.

    (Try and put the Hindenburg out of your mind.)

    1. Hubert Thrunge Jr.

      I be in East Anglear.

      My main client has a fleet of six Nissan electric vans that sit at their central workshop pretty much un-used because they can't do a round trip (loaded at sensible road speed) from Mildenhall to Norwich and back. Two trips to Cambridge (about 28 miles each way) and they're flat - when used to ferry people so are empty of kit.

      Hydrogen is the answer - stop looking at "blue" hydrogen, it's "green" hydrogen you should be looking at, using solar and wind power to provide the electricity to split water molecules.

      As for bio-fuels, using algae requires no land. And biomass fermentation can be done using waste, not prime food crops or land.

      Porsche are looking at synthetic fuels too. The infernal consumption engine should not be written off so quickly.

      I feel this whole mad race to electric cars by 2030 is a folly. The UK does not have enough generating capacity to cope with it, even if only half of the daily road users convert to leccy cars, unless you only want to work 3 days a week, and have power cuts from 8pm so there's enough to charge Mr Smug's Tesla down the road. People keep comparing us with Norway when it comes to electric car take-up. They have over five times the generating capacity we do in terms of KWh / punter.

      As for Monsuier Tesla..... Merde, it 'appens!

      And when we've got rid of all of this carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, what will the plants "eat"?

      King Kanute politics gone mad.

  33. martinusher Silver badge

    Common as Muck....

    Round where I live Teslas are a common sight. (Its not unusual to see two or more in line at a traffic signal). So I don't quite get the tenor of this article except that it suggests that if you don't have anywhere to keep your vehicle you're entitled to clag up the streets, regardless of how narrow they are, and that you're entitled to park outside your house. I never seem to be amazed at how people tolerate impsossible street parking in the UK -- cars parked both sides leaving a narrow gap in the middle for 'traffic', the cars themselves taking up a good chunk of the pavement (sidewalk) which makes being a pedestrian difficult. (Face facts -- you can't live a surburban American lifestyle in a typical UK street and, furthermore, if you did live such a lifestyle you'd probably not like it, its not as great as it looks on TV.)

    Teslas come from the US where most 'single family homes' have a garage that can hold two or three cars**. This garage often has power in it due to it being quite common for it to house the water heater and the washer / dryer combination (if not in the garage proper they're the vestibule connecting the garage to the house, thus earning the fanciful title 'laundry'). So you'll forgive Tesla for desiging for its tarket market. As for the rest of you, there's the plug in hybrids that give the best of both worlds.

    (**Many cars end up parked on the driveway or in the street because the garage is ful of crap -- all that stuff that's 'going to be useful someday'.)

  34. Andy3

    You could put a stop to this bloke's silliness by contacting the local council and telling them he is obstructing the pavement with the big fat cable. It's dangerous and it prevents the disabled from getting by. Do it, it'll make your day. But not his.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Zero point energy...

    ...like in my pants.

    That’s what we need. Know what I mean ladies?

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