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Back to the horse and cart

Head Rambles Posted on by

Some of you may be aware that I came into possession of a new[ish] car recently.

I am extremely happy with it even if it does have a couple of rather annoying quirks. One is that the speedometer is virtually invisible, being heavily shaded by the dashboard and with poor contrast between the numbers, the needle and the background. The other is the placement of the front electric window switches each side of a console almost at floor level. I always drop both front windows before leaving here as with two blind junctions, I can hear if traffic is approaching long before I can see it. The only way to raise those windows is to take my eyes off the road while I fumble for the two switches.

Anyhows, all that aside as I have come up against another problem.

I have discovered that should I decide to hold onto the car for another twenty five years, I shall be forced to dump it. And I mean dump it as it will not be resallable. In fact it will be impossible to resell it long before then.

Our gubmint, in its infinite wisdom is to outlaw all new non-electric vehicles in ten years time. You will not be able to buy a new vehicle after 2030 unless it is battery powered. Those of us who are happy with their existing lot will be graciously allowed to drive our trusty bangers until 2045 at which point they will automatically fail a road safety test purely on the grounds that they are petrol or diesel driven.

I can see a few problems here.

The main problem is that the main polluters on the road are the diesel powered buses and lorries, not to mention trains, tractors and construction machinery. Has anyone ever heard of a battery powered JCB or Massey Furguson? How about a solar powered combine harvester?

The other problem is that more and more petrol stations are going to go out of business as their trade diminishes. Those of us grimly hanging onto our old trusty reliable petrol cars are going to find it increasingly difficult to fuel up.

I can also envisage brownouts and blackouts every night when everyone plugs in cars for an overnight recharge.

And all for what?

All to satisfy some arbitrary theories put forward by the Church of Climate.

God help us!

 

Comments

Back to the horse and cart — 23 Comments

  1. I am currently watching a TV series about a post apocalyptic future. The few survivors frequently find abandoned vehicles and syphon enough fuel to keep themselves mobile and therefore alive. In such a future where all infrastructure, including electricity generation, has ceased the drivers of electric cars will all quickly become zombie feed. I wonder if that is the objective?

    • One way or another they seem determined to drive us [pun intended] back into the Stone Age.  Maybe all these Post Apocalypse films are to prepare us?

  2. GD, I work for JCB and just to let you know, we ALREADY make an electric excavator. And what's more, these things are selling like hot cakes, more abroad right now than here in the UK. It went on the market around 6 months ago. Of course this is a mini digger. There is a full sized one in the pipeline, but so far it will only work on site for around 2 hours, and the charger is bigger than your house. But work continues.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cumZxYjzx6M

     

    • I am seriously impressed!

      There is a building site near here where they have been shifting vast quantities of soil around.  There are five or six very large excavators working all daylight hours for the last few months [not to mention convoys of very large lorries hauling all the topsoil away].  I would imagine there is a fair bit of development yet before that lot could be electrified?  And remember – all those would have to be fully charged overnight.  Also as daylight lengthens, so presumably does the working day.

      • Yes, there's a long way to go before a full sized JCB excavator hits the market. You have to aim for a 2 hour (or below) charge and a full shifts work time, which I guess would be around 8 hours continuous. All that depends on battery technology/efficient hydraulics, not to mention low power/high torque motors and we are at the baby steps stage at the moment.

        Personally I have no objections. If we can make our product better or cheaper for the consumer then that does no harm. Its things such as the self driving aspect (Tesla) that I would object to. Yes there are problems as you say but this is coming like it or not, so we have no choice other than to innovate.

        Please don't think that I am in agreeance with the Climate Change nutters though, its just that if some of the things we do, such as reducing packaging/waste or recycling (which to me means re-purposing) stuff, makes our world a little better in any way then that can only be a good thing.

        I don't believe that all filling stations would go out of business, they would adapt and install fast chargers and/or battery exchanges, alongside selling conventional fuel up to 2045. I would imagine that by then, most if not all the problems with EV's will have been solved and the infrastructure for charging would be in place.

    • I saw a video about someone who had to use one of these.

      It worked for 2 hours, then needed 8 hours charging from a large diesel generator.

      Which sort of defeated the object of having it.

      The video was here :- https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/20/zero-emissions-construction-digger-runs-out-of-power-in-2-hours-requiring-it-to-be-recharged-using-a-diesel-generator-for-8-hours/

      The video seems to have been removed by twitter, as it doesn’t fit the green narative.

  3. GD, you might remember the John Deere SESAM battery electric tractor – I did a blog post about it on MF a few years back. I can't link as the site is no more, but here's an industry page:

    https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/electric-john-deere-tractor-runs-for-4-hours-on-a-charge/

    It (not surprisingly) hasn't caught on – lack of range and charging times, presumably. But I see they've now changed tack and gone down the "Long Extension Lead" route:

    https://www.ivtinternational.com/news/agriculture/john-deere-develops-fully-electric-autonomous-tractor.html

    This assumes that every farm will have a suitable (300kW) power supply available in every field…

  4. https://www.usedcarsni.com/2019-Dacia-Logan-New-Logan-Stepway-Techroad-Blue-1-5-dCi-95-Estate-258733427?make=793&model=140034275&search_type=1

    See what you mean about your instrument cluster, however not so about the window switches.

    But surely at this time of year you need to put on your side lights. Okay so you may have running lights, but they don't fire up the ones at the back.

    I'm one year younger than yourself and I could not give a flying fart what anyone wants to do in 25 years. And as we'll both be well on into our 90's, I doubt I'd even want to drive, even if the authorities allow me to keep my license.

    • Thirteenth [!] photograph down shows the bottom of the instrument panel, under the heater controls.  It's slightly different from mine but the front window switches [rockers] are at each end with speed control, cruise control and rear window heater separating them.  On the Focus both switches were on the driver's armrest which is a lot more sensible.  Actually, I notice on the model you have found and a few photos on down, there are duplicate switches in the right place!  Pity my model doesn't have them.

      I do drive with sidelights on but not on a bright sunny day.

      And I agree about the age thing.  There again there is more than one driver on the roads here over a hundred?

       

      • It's no consolation to you, but the newer models have the window switches on the driver's door panel.   The earlier centrally located switches, as in many other 'budget' cars, are simply an economy measure, so they don't have to fit different door panels for left-hand and right-hand drive versions.

  5. Adams was prescient about the B ark wasn't he.

    Its looking like 95% of the ruling class of every country should have their own reserved seat on one.

  6. Much of the push for electric vehicles is more about foreign policy than climate change, the climate-thing is just the cover-story.   If the dependence of the West on fossil fuels from unpopular places like the Middle East and Russia can be eliminated, then so will be their sole source of global political and economic power.  Coercing drivers into unsuitably-powered vehicles under the guise of 'climate protection' seems a cunningly small price to pay for that benefit in the perspective of our rulers.

  7. Dodgems.

    All roads will have chicken wire net suspended above them.

    I love the smell of electric sparks. Probably gives you cancer.

  8. I think you need to vote in a political party that rejects this non scientific man made climate change religion.

    • I would if there was one.  As it stands we effectively have only one political party here with many names.  It doesn't matter what name you vote for, you end up with the same policies.

  9. My speedo hasn't worked for over two years. I wouldn't worry about it

    The problem with leccy vehicles is that the lithium batteries don't last all that long. Why by a car that needs a new engine every five years or so? Also, the materials needed to produce the batteries cause massive environmental issues when mined and processed. But that doesn't happen over here, so we can ignore it

    • Hold your tongue, you're not supposed to reveal those 'inconvenient truths' – get with the programme!

  10. Until they finally come out with an electric vehicle that includes an "energy cell" that's good for a year without a charging or a (reasonably priced) swap out, that's 4WD/AWD and can climb hills (both ways) in the ice and snow at below 0 temperatures….I'll keep my gas powered Jeep until one of us can't run any longer…

    …or am I expecting too much?

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