Good evening,
I don't believe that full electric cars can replace vehicles with combustion engines soon - so I said it
Even if in the near future the battery development manages to produce batteries with high capacity, good for 500 - 600 km (realistically), from where is the electricity coming from (which first all countries in Europe must develop a framework for recharging)? I don't know how many vehicles we have in Ireland or in Europe, but if only 25% of those cars would be full electric that is a lot of electricity (on top of everything else) that need to be produced.
Germany made a clear commitment to close down all nuclear power stations in the future (can't remember in what year), other countries might (maybe even should) follow. Does that mean we have to produce all this electricity from renewable resources? I have a small shadow of a doubt.
In my workplace the number of electric cars are growing. Talking to the drivers I hear one thing only - it is cheap to run. How is this achieved? By using the options of free recharging either from the county council, shopping malls or in work. I believe the hunger for electric cars will get a dent as soon as all those drivers need to charger their car at home, paying for it. I know that we all have to pay a lot at the petrol station, but suddenly to get a high electricity bill...
Please, don't get me wrong. I am not against environment protection. But I try to be realistic and pragmatic.
In the last 70 years Europe created an environment that rely to commute. Work and shopping is in the inner cities. Living is in the country side, out of the cities (mainly because nobody can afford a house, apartment to buy or rent in the city). It is a gigantic effort to improve the public transport (bus and train) to improve the service outside the cities (which was neglected in all the years because everybody was driving).
What about all the tourist areas in Europe. Almost all of them rely on visitors using cars, buses, planes, ships, campers or motorbikes. I couldn't imagine how live would like for those people living and working in the tourist areas. Areas which have a natural beauty but without tourists bitterly poor.
We all got use to affordable flights. Hopping over to America - no problem, hopping over to Australia - no problem, hopping over to Frankfurt - no problem (well that is a problem for me, I start to dislike flying
). Losing this, does that mean we can't visit our relatives oversees anymore?
I believe we need more time, which we (humanity) might not have. Wouldn't it be more realistic if for instance we scale down of what we have, meaning continue to use combustion engines - but smaller ones. Is it necessary to have a 3l engine with 275 BHP? There are engines with 1L and 90 BHP using realistically less than 50% of petrol / diesel. There is a hype that only "sporty" and "powerful" cars can achieve what we need to achieve. And this is the point that I believe we need to change. I believe we can continue to live in the same way - but scaled down, which in turn takes pressure off the environment and buys us the time we need.
In my mind the near future would be in parallel to scale down the vehicles with combustion engine and at the same time try to find alternatives (public transport, make living in the cities affordable ((hence avoid or reduce traffic in the first place)) develop electric cars / vans / trucks, look for an alternative to combustion engine ((not electric)), tackle the other sources of environmental pollution).
Just may thoughts about this.
Regards,
Eberhard
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