Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 352 posts

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#281

Post by terryf »

adrianN wrote: post #274
terryf wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that works on software that includes functions to try to figure out where you can place electric car chargers - it absolutely is very hard. The grid just isn't ready for it. It can be done, but will require massive investment in infrastructure. There are also problems such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve and other things that can be mitigated with ADR to an extent, but it's absolutely not easy

It is a lot easier than the alternatives: unmitigated climate change or building the infrastructure for e-fuels.

Of course, unmitigated climate change will be catastrophic. No argument there.

I do however think that we would be better off funding and building massive amounts of solar that gives us enough energy surplus to do large-scale carbon capture, instead of forcing everyone to move to electric vehicles.

If you think about it, we right now have an open loop transportation system - dig stuff up from the ground, burn it and forget about it in the atmosphere. Basically, extracting easy to use energy that was captured over a long period.

But we now have the tech to extend that to a closed loop system - capture enough energy from solar to recycle the burned fuel back into burnable fuel.

This will also mitigate all the co2 created when producing electric cars btw.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#282

Post by djmobley »

barnacled wrote: post #248
djmobley wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree, but I wouldn’t describe it as a “huge gamble.” People would just need to continue owning electric/second-hand ICE vehicles and, in the case of electric vehicles, find ways of charging them away from their homes. When autonomous vehicles become widely available (2030, 2040, or whenever), I think many would decide owning an expensive, depreciating asset they only use sparingly is more hassle than it’s…

I agree that once it becomes feasible many would prefer autonomous (hell yeah, a cheap ride home when I'm drunk? Or a sleep on the way to work? Ideal) but given the timelines we should look elsewhere for the time being. I think "find ways of charging them away from their homes" does not scale given how long a charge takes and the numbers involved. If you've ever seen a petrol station at peak time you tend to get an i…

My gut feel is that things will work themselves out.

A lot of people have driveways and can charge at home. Those that don’t are likely those in cities who typically make shorter journeys and will need to charge infrequently.

If you’re one of the strange people who commute long distances out of a major city, you’ll just need to make a personal decision whether it’s worth the hassle.

I’ve been quite impressed at the rollout of charging infrastructure so far. If my quick Googling is anything to go by, there are roughly 30k public charging points for approximately 160k all-electric vehicles in the UK. Both numbers are growing rapidly but that ratio feels high right now.

The tech is already there. The incentives are there for energy companies to charge for the electricity. The political will (i.e. to permit installation of charging points in public spaces) is there.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#283

Post by headmelted »

barnacled wrote: post #153
headmelted wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or inexpensive (to install, not to use) and widespread charging becomes available in most locations. A normal 13A socket will charge my Leaf in about 12 hours. The 8 hours of charge I’d get from plugging in at a parking bay during work hours would likely be enough for most people, but we have no current infrastructure for billing people at that scale (although I imagine it could easily be developed, still a massive u…

For me I'd like the govt to address this and indicate how they intend to do so (most parking in the UK is on-street) - it's a huge infrastructure project.

This. Even while we can just say “all we need is NFC payments at the road side and then just plug in the car” the infrastructure required to make that happen is colossal.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#284

Post by [deleted] »

asenk wrote: post #256
LatteLazy wrote: post #30

This perfectly epitomises the uk (and the rest of the worlds) attitude to global warming: * it's a non binding commitment to do something but not for at least a decade * it's not enough even if it does happen * it will be too late by then (it probably already is for anything but drastic action) * it's totally at the whim of future governments who will be no more willing to spend the money/time/popularity than the cur…

There is no "uk (and the rest of the worlds) attitude to global warming". There's s a small group of rogue countries like US trying to do their best to burn the planet while undermining climate agreements and not doing anything about climate change at 16+ tons of annual CO2 per capita, while some others are doing a whole lot, for example UK has pretty about halved their emissions from already a lot lower starting poi…

[deleted]

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#285

Post by djmobley »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #265
djmobley wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree, but I wouldn’t describe it as a “huge gamble.” People would just need to continue owning electric/second-hand ICE vehicles and, in the case of electric vehicles, find ways of charging them away from their homes. When autonomous vehicles become widely available (2030, 2040, or whenever), I think many would decide owning an expensive, depreciating asset they only use sparingly is more hassle than it’s…

> owning an expensive, depreciating asset they only use sparingly is more hassle than it’s worth. Appears though that electric cars are likely to be far more durable than gasoline powered cars and cheaper. In ten years a EV will probably cost 80% what a gasoline powered car would and will last 30 years not 15. Cost of ownership over the life of the car would then be 40% of a gasoline car is today. Less considering ma…

I disagree. Batteries are very expensive and ultimately consumable parts. I do not see them lasting 30 years.

Consider also it’s unusual for people to own cars for even 10+ years currently, for reasons that apply just as readily to electric or autonomous vehicles.

People want the latest and greatest. Many value the warranties they get with new vehicles. Over 30 years the odds of a vehicle being stolen or involved in an accident and being written off are also pretty high.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#286

Post by kilroy123 »

barnacled wrote: post #68

This is utterly ridiculous. I live in the UK and have been renting for many years, I've lived at 15+ addresses and not at a single one could I have powered the car from home. Not one. The UK is small, cars are squeezed onto tiny roads and most people do on-street parking, i.e. you park where you can. When I last had a car I could only park around the corner from my flat (which was set far back from the road). Having…

Last weekend I spent a weekend on an island here in Turkey. This entire island did exactly this – they banned all cars and horses and went 100% electric. Before, most people got around via horses(!) I heard it was a smelly mess.

It's pretty neat actually. They have these little electric buses that go around the island. Everyone has electric little cars and scooter type vehicles. [1]

I laughed when I saw the solution to this problem you're talking about. Extension cords everywhere. That's right, almost every street you saw long extension cords going from the house to the street to charge all the vehicles. Is it perfect? No of course not but it's "good enough for now".

Yes, I realize a small island with a few thousand people is not the same a the UK. My point is, people will figure out how to make it work.

[1] https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/electric-vehicles-hit-road...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princes%27_Islands#B%C3%BCy%C3...

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#287

Post by rich_sasha »

physicsguy wrote: post #31

Many, many houses do not have anything other than on-street parking here. Since 2012 I've lived in 5 houses, and three of them had no driveway. I'm currently buying a house which has no drive way, with no way of fitting one. Apparently 1/3 houses have only on street parking. Unless they also provide huge, huge grants to rapidly implement dense onstreet charging, and fast, this is a pipedream and will end up getting p…

If self-driving takes off, perhaps our electric cars can self-drive themselves, at night, to the charging point? Would be cool!

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#288

Post by spzb »

astannard wrote: post #253
physicsguy wrote: post #31

Many, many houses do not have anything other than on-street parking here. Since 2012 I've lived in 5 houses, and three of them had no driveway. I'm currently buying a house which has no drive way, with no way of fitting one. Apparently 1/3 houses have only on street parking. Unless they also provide huge, huge grants to rapidly implement dense onstreet charging, and fast, this is a pipedream and will end up getting p…

Not many houses come without petrol/gas stations on their drives. Yes its an issue at the moment with batteries and charging but tech will catch up with rapid charging points etc.

It's going to require a massive infrastructure investment. At the moment, the National Grid couldn't cope with millions of cars being charged. It's all perfectly possible with enough investment and political will but I'm not optimistic. Just look at the smart meter rollout [1] or broadband in rural areas [2] for examples of things which are technically possible but turn out to take huge amounts of money and time.

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2019/09/17/four_year_delay_for_s...

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/16/national_audit_office...

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#289

Post by baq »

black_puppydog wrote: post #226
baq wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the market can and will correct itself. there are two problems however: - actually getting rules implemented and enforced (political suicide by regulators - had an example of that in my own country just a couple months ago, made a mess in the government, the new rules didn't pass in parliament, governing party lost 10 pp in polls anyway) - very irregular period of convergence from old rules to new (societal turmoil g…

you forgot problem number three: - the market as such will correct itself but is entirely unconcerned with the welfare of human beings in the meantime, and will continue to be unconcerned with it afterwards.

actually that was my point in problem 2...

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#290

Post by glogla »

onion2k wrote: post #70
Jetrel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, with new teslas, their range is similar enough to gas cars that you only need to charge them about once a week, if that. And they charge fast enough that it's not terribly dissimilar from hitting the gas station, which currently is perhaps a 10 minute affair for gas. Bumping that to ~20min isn't a dealbreaker. It's feasible, if a little bit annoying, to have a refueling story for them that's similar to that o…

Bumping that to ~20min isn't a dealbreaker. Imagine you turn up to a charging station behind 4 other cars, and there's 2 charging points. Your 20 minute wait is now an hour. If each car took 10 minutes then you'd only be waiting 20 minutes. Increasing the average waiting time in a queue has a terrible impact on throughput.

In isolation yes. But holistically the "charging station instead of gas station" equation has more factors - you have to discount

- everyone who can charge at home (i.e. anyone with a garage or their own driveway),

- those who change in public places like shopping malls or at work, and

- any other infrastructure (like the "charging port in street light" thing)

so the new "gas station" is likely to get less busy - depending on home ownership in the area and how many shopping malls get charging ports, most cars might only ever visit "gas station" on a road trip.

Post reply on HN