Government ban on new petrol and diesel cars pushed back to 2035

The US has announced targets to make 2/3 of new cars and 1/4 of trucks electric by 2032.

Interesting to see that some EVs there are now close to ICE prices: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/business/electric-vehicles-price-cost.html

Also a good chart here showing very clearly the huge reduction of emissions with EV, including "the entire life cycle of the vehicle, including vehicle and battery manufacturing, supply chain of raw materials, gas consumption, and electricity generation": https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/17/climate/electric-vehicle-emissions-truck-suv.html

Incredible to see that the biggest EV pick-ups (like the electric F-150) are the same as the smallest ICE cars.
 
mustang01 said:
Grand but they’ll be have to pry my trusty diesel from my cold dead hands! Tech gives me the rage as is so no way I’m plugging the motor in to the matrix too.
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A lot of people would share your views. This whole thing reminds me of the banning of incandescent light bulbs. There were people against this and planning to stock up in advance. Along came the market with low-cost LED lights and the problem just went away. It should be and needs to be a complete no-brainer for people to buy EVs. They should be as cheap to buy, cheaper to run and easily & quickly chargeable.
 
Firefly said:
A lot of people would share your views. This whole thing reminds me of the banning of incandescent light bulbs. There were people against this and planning to stock up in advance. Along came the market with low-cost LED lights and the problem just went away. It should be and needs to be a complete no-brainer for people to buy EVs. They should be as cheap to buy, cheaper to run and easily & quickly chargeable.
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Totally depends on where the electricity to power them is going to come from. I personally see no environmental or other merit in partially coal-powered vehicles.
 
T McGibney said:
Totally depends on where the electricity to power them is going to come from. I personally see no environmental or other merit in partially coal-powered vehicles.
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I don't believe there's a single country left in the world where the electricity grid is dirtier than using petrol/diesel cars. So unless the Smoggies get elected to government your opinion is wrong.
 
Zenith63 said:
I don't believe there's a single country left in the world where the electricity grid is dirtier than using petrol/diesel cars. So unless the Smoggies get elected to government your opinion is wrong.
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Okay, maybe there is merit in using coal to power vehicles. But I'm happy to remain sceptical about the long-term sustainability of that.
 
arbitron said:
The US has announced targets to make 2/3 of new cars and 1/4 of trucks electric by 2032.

Interesting to see that some EVs there are now close to ICE prices: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/business/electric-vehicles-price-cost.html

Also a good chart here showing very clearly the huge reduction of emissions with EV, including "the entire life cycle of the vehicle, including vehicle and battery manufacturing, supply chain of raw materials, gas consumption, and electricity generation": https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/17/climate/electric-vehicle-emissions-truck-suv.html

Incredible to see that the biggest EV pick-ups (like the electric F-150) are the same as the smallest ICE cars.
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First of all that article is behind a pay wall, secondly recycling the electric car battery is still a huge problem, what recycling that is possible involves a heavy industrial method of crushing the battery and dissolving it in acid in order to recover the valuable precious metals, but most of the battery is still heavy industrial contaminated waste. Its easy make a statement in a newspaper article that the battery can be recycled without going into the gory details. We know that alot of weee electrical waste currently ends up dumped in Africa, with burning and acids used to recover precious metals.
Maybe if electric cars were levied with the full recycling and recovery cost at purchase we would get a true picture of the real costs of electric cars
 
T McGibney said:
Okay, maybe there is merit in using coal to power vehicles. But I'm happy to remain sceptical about the long-term sustainability of that.
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But think of all the jobs the battery production creates for the kids digging the Lithium out of the ground in Central Africa.
Okay, that's inaccurate; the kids probably aren't getting paid but the people who kidnap them and guard them aren't doing it for the good of their health (or the good of the planet).
 
Purple said:
But think of all the jobs the battery production creates for the kids digging the Lithium out of the ground in Central Africa.
Okay, that's inaccurate; the kids probably aren't getting paid but the people who kidnap them and guard them aren't doing it for the good of their health (or the good of the planet).
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Ah you're mixing up your Exxon Mobil talking points there;); there is virtually no lithium mined in Africa, Central or otherwise.

What you want to be saying is:
  • There isn't enough Lithium to support all the EVs we need (ignore the fact Lithium is one of the most common elements in the Earth's crust, it's just proven reserves that are not big enough yet)
  • Cobalt is being mined by children in Africa (again there is a grain of truth to this but please ignore the fact that the likes of Tesla are already using Cobalt free batteries and that while still unacceptable the horrific conditions these children experience is miniscule compared to the scale of the horror that oil exploration and extraction has unleashed on men, women and children mostly in the Middle East
  • EVs randomly burst into flames (ignore the fact that most electronics will have failures but EVs catch fire significantly less than petrol/diesel cars)
  • There's fossil fuel use in the electricity grid, until that is 100% gone there is no point moving to EVs (ignore the science and data proving this wrong)
 
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joe sod said:
First of all that article is behind a pay wall
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Is there a rule or agreement on AAM that we only read or reference non-paywall articles? That would exclude the Irish Times, Indo, Business Post, and more.

joe sod said:
secondly recycling the electric car battery is still a huge problem, what recycling that is possible involves a heavy industrial method of crushing the battery and dissolving it in acid in order to recover the valuable precious metals, but most of the battery is still heavy industrial contaminated waste. Its easy make a statement in a newspaper article that the battery can be recycled without going into the gory details. We know that alot of weee electrical waste currently ends up dumped in Africa, with burning and acids used to recover precious metals.
Maybe if electric cars were levied with the full recycling and recovery cost at purchase we would get a true picture of the real costs of electric cars
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I don't see any articles ignoring or minimising the recycling required for batteries. If you have them, please share.

The point is that even with that cost and risk, it is still better for the environment than oil which imposes very real human and ecological burdens.

Here's a BBC article from yesterday on oil spills in UK waters alone: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65254022
 
Zenith63 said:
don't believe there's a single country left in the world where the electricity grid is dirtier than using petrol/diesel cars. So unless the Smoggies get elected to government your opinion is wrong.
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Yeah, this one is old news. Poland was one of the few exemptions at that time when 95% of their electricity is generated from coal, that's down in the 70s now.
 
Zenith63 said:
Ah you're mixing up your Exxon Mobil talking points there;); there is virtually no lithium mined in Africa, Central or otherwise.

What you want to be saying is:
  • There isn't enough Lithium to support all the EVs we need (ignore the fact Lithium is one of the most common elements in the Earth's crust, it's just proven reserves that are not big enough yet)
  • Cobalt is being mined by children in Africa (again there is a grain of truth to this but please ignore the fact that the likes of Tesla are already using Cobalt free batteries and that while still unacceptable the horrific conditions these children experience is miniscule compared to the scale of the horror that oil exploration and extraction has unleashed on men, women and children mostly in the Middle East
  • EVs randomly burst into flames (ignore the fact that most electronics will have failures but EVs catch fire significantly less than petrol/diesel cars)
  • There's fossil fuel use in the electricity grid, until that is 100% gone there is no point moving to EVs (ignore the science and data proving this wrong)
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My mistake. It's the cobalt I was thinking about.
EV's are better for the environment and if you are buying a new car then that's what you should purchase.
I do low mileage so the best thing I can do for the environment is keep the ICE car I have.
I'm sure that new technology will make the production of EV's less environmentally damaging and improve their energy efficiency.
 
joe sod said:
First of all that article is behind a pay wall, secondly recycling the electric car battery is still a huge problem, what recycling that is possible involves a heavy industrial method of crushing the battery and dissolving it in acid in order to recover the valuable precious metals, but most of the battery is still heavy industrial contaminated waste. Its easy make a statement in a newspaper article that the battery can be recycled without going into the gory details. We know that alot of weee electrical waste currently ends up dumped in Africa, with burning and acids used to recover precious metals.
Maybe if electric cars were levied with the full recycling and recovery cost at purchase we would get a true picture of the real costs of electric cars
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Could just re-use or re-purpose the batteries.
 
PGF2016 said:
It's funny when people use environmental and welfare concerns to stick with fossil fuels.
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Why?
Fossil Fuel companies have a long track record of damaging the environment but that doesn't mean we shouldn't question the data from EV manufacturers. They are no more or less likely to to be economical with the truth.
 
Purple said:
Why?
Fossil Fuel companies have a long track record of damaging the environment but that doesn't mean we shouldn't question the data from EV manufacturers. They are no more or less likely to to be economical with the truth.
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even if you just look at it from a purely selfish perspective isnt it better that the our around you isnt full of diesel pollutants?
 
From yesterday's Sunday Times ((Irwin Stelzer):

"The (US) administration announced a major regulatory push last week to require that two-thirds of new car sales be electric vehicles by 2032. These vehicles will rely not only on a domestic grid system incapable of meeting those EVs’ demand for electricity, but on an ample supply of materials largely controlled by China, which refines 68, 40, 59 and 70 per cent of the world’s nickel, copper, lithium and cobalt respectively. If America is to develop its domestic reserves of such minerals, miners will have to overcome the opposition to such dirty mining from environmentalists when they are not busy opposing expansion of the grid."

We are generally happy enough to turn a blind eye to where our energy comes from. No more than in the US we would have massive objections and protests in the event of proposals to mine for these materials here.
 
Blackrock1 said:
even if you just look at it from a purely selfish perspective isnt it better that the our around you isnt full of diesel pollutants?
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Yes, from a purely selfish point of view. I have an issue with the narrative that moving to EV's somehow solves the problem. It doesn't. The core issue is how we produce the energy. In my view we need to move to modern Nuclear as it is the only really sustainable green energy that can provide the sufficient volume of power.
 
Purple said:
Yes, from a purely selfish point of view. I have an issue with the narrative that moving to EV's somehow solves the problem. It doesn't. The core issue is how we produce the energy. In my view we need to move to modern Nuclear as it is the only really sustainable green energy that can provide the sufficient volume of power.
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what is modern nuclear?
 
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