A ban on new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars
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The government will not make it easy for them to return to ICE vehicles as the sale of them will be banned sooner than here.
The people who were persuaded to buy the EVs on the promise of no tolls and parking charges, and a subsidised vehicle purchase, are unhappy that they are now having to pay the tolls and for parking, but they realise that, meantime anyway, the "fuel cost" is still advantageous.
The saving in running costs helped to offset the initial higher purchase costs over an ICE vehicle, but this advantage is fast disappearing. And prices of EVs are increasing.
As an example, my niece, who has a relatively low paid job in a children's nursery, has to pass 4 toll barriers to get to and from her work only a few miles away. So when she needed a new car she bought an EV, which saved her, at the time, £5 per day on tolls, but not any longer. Plus the tolls are higher now.
In Oslo, where my sister in law lives, so many new tolls have been introduced that it now costs her an extra £10 just to go to the supermarket. As a result, many people are now driving a little further to out of town centres to avoid the tolls, which defeats the stated government intent of tolls reducing car use!
So EV owners are unhappy at the withdrawn perks, and the populous in general are unhappy at all the new tolls.
Mainly it is all down to cost.
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Surely before we discuss the cars we should think about where sufficient clean energy is coming from. This is the third day in a row that our offshore wind farm isn’t operating, no wind, thank goodness for the gas fuelled generating plant so local ev owners can charge their vehicles 🚗
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As so often, there is nothing new under the sun.
In the early 20th century there were electric trolley busses / trams in large cities around the world. Recently the hipsters were raving about a Volvo lorry running under overhead cables like a new innovation.
In the late 1940's the 3rd rail and subsequent 4th rail were introduced on the railway, both still employed today. Perversely the previous transport secretary cancelled overhead electrification on large parts of the railway.
In the 1960's I like many had a scalectrix set, and as a child thought that was how cars were on the road.
Currently an EV rapid charge needs a supply of 7.2KWh. If like me you have solar PV on your roof, there is a limit to what you can generate. I have 4KWh that is max allowed on installation. Although I generate 3x what is used by replacing life expired white goods, cooker, hob etc that could be used to charge an EV, the car is not at home whilst generating during the sunlight time, but sat in a car park elsewhere unable to be charged using my capability. Can't sell the energy to another EV user directly to do my bit.
As previously stated, the technical solution is not the challenge, government decision is key.
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From the day these wind farms were conceived we all knew that there would be windless days of no generation and days when the wind was too strong. Thing is do they actually contribute positively to clean energy effectively over a year The data suggests they do and will continue to do so in growing numbers.
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I'll reply to your other comments about my wobbly power cables first!
As many years ago underground cabling would have solved many problems but it was too expensive. So where we live, the cabling is indeed very wobbly and we have to put up with power cuts. People not used to power cuts create quite a hoo ha (as in the eastern power cut last year.) It's a shock when the grid doesn't meet expectations but when it's just an overhead cabling problem it's annoying. We'll see how we get on in the predicted storms at the weekend, candles at the ready. Our EV at home can be charged on a rapid higher powered charger or the slow one, it doesn't take long to charge it we can see when the charge is finished on our monitor in the house. Everything else runs normally alongside it and we don't have excessive electricity bills, even less since I realised our latest "green" supplier wasn't as economical as when we first signed up.
We have not had any worries about our EV, it also re-generates power and I feel re-generation will improve. We've never been without power much the same as anyone wouldn't deliberately run their diesel/petrol car on nothing. Most of the time the batteries just require a top up.
Would we cope on a busy street where we had to park wherever we could, no, not at the moment so new systems need to be developed. Maybe the plug in system will be defunct at some point which is why I mentioned underground chargers. We're looking twenty to thirty years ahead now and development work will already be underway so I hope we'll see all sorts of new ideas.
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And there we thought that the whole idea of breaking away was that we could do our own thing & the right thing but even Germany last year produced more 'renewable' electricity than other sources including coal. Their plans to build Hyper Clean power stations, carbon sinks and plant copious trees will be interesting to watch. Some are saying that this too might just cost astronomical amounts in order to hit those targets they have bought into.
Now back on track, any more ideas as to how all of this will impact on our pastime directly and how the club can move with the times?
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The issue around the energy system is inextricably linked to our pastime. Be it transport medium to get to/from site, the creation of the transport medium, the site energy requirements, the habitation medium on site and its creation.
As majority of sites are in less inhabitated / populated areas, perhaps an opportunity for the club to embrace SMR that require a 10acre pitch. Certainly the cleanest form of electrical generation. Just the emotive perceptions to overcome.
I reside 7 miles from an active nuclear source that has been there since the mid 1950's with no concerns.
Always technical solutions available.
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JVB, I have lived in U.K. since 1970, so have been on U.K. wages and now a U.K. pension all that time, so could just about afford to live modestly in Norway if I wished to. Housing where I come from in Norway is actually much less expensive than where we live here.
However, as my children and grandchildren are here, I have no wish to return there to live.
The rest of my family live quite happily in Norway and are used to the cost of living, wages are commensurate with costs.
Compared to what I was earning in Norway in 1970, wages in U.K. were about 50% lower, but so were costs. Swings and roundabouts.
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It sounds more like safety at its best. I’ve seen buggys being pushed along roads due to selfish parking of paths😤
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