That can't be.
Of course they get discharged to a certain extent, but not to the same as a battery only vehicle.
A cycle is full to empty. If you restrict the 'empty' point to say half full you greatly extend the service life of the battery. Which is how the Prius does it.
I don't think so. The range would be so poor it would never sell. Or you'd need to fit a much larger capacity battery pack - extra cost and weight. On a hybrid you have the engine, so why not just use it.
My neighbour has a new BMW 535d (auto) and reports an average of over 30 mpg with purely London driving. We are both amazed at this. Especially since it's a very fast car when needed.
Not if they want to sell cars. The perceived problem is range, and coupled with this, very lengthy recharge times. Battery life is tomorrows problem and not a major concern of the manufacturer at point of sale.
Range (on a pure electric vehicle) can appear to be extended by draining the battery as much as possible. "Up to 200 miles range" would keep most people happy even if it actually means 50 miles if you need to heat the car, drive at the same speed as other traffic and have a few hills, buyers wouldn't discover reality until after purchasing the car. However, advertising a car as "at least 50 miles range" (which is more honest) wouldn't sell many cars.
Recharge, in a way which protects the battery, will take 12 hours or more for a flat battery. Plug into a high current fast charger which will charge in about 3 hours and battery life can be as little as 30% and usually about half of a batteries slow charge service life.
Basically, you can have 200 miles range, 3 hour recharge times and
8-10 years battery life today - you just can't have any more than one of those 3 at the same time.
Good points. And what about the second hand market for battery electric vehicles; how do you know how much life is left in the battery, or must you assume that the reason for selling is concern over the battery?
Fuel cells is a more promising technology, there are already many experimental cars.
The problem they have to get around is petrol and desiel fuel are generally only used for powering motor vehicle engines and only available from licienced suppliers,any other form of energy is used for many purposes so it will be dificult to impose any form of taxation upon it wihout people finding a way around the problem .
One option would be to make all charging points three phase another would be to increase the frequency of the power supply and modify voltage however all these will cost a considerable amount of money
Crude oil will never become worthless. It is the raw material for so many things.
Probably some form of much higher VED for electric vehicles, instead of the present lower than petrol/diesel vehicles.
All too easy to change. The snag is that once the electricity is in the battery or whatever, it is impossible to trace what the supply was. Unlike diesel, where tax free versions for heating etc have a dye added.
I was making an economic statement, from the perpective of oil produceing nations revenue would plummet and many oil reserves now being tapped would not be economically viable
Possibly but politically suicide
The sums are so vast no government could exist without them. Of course they could simply put up the cost of electricity and do some sort of rebate for other use - but difficult to police.
Other thing is the investment in generation needed if all vehicles were electric. Much more than just a few windmills...
[...too many lines for the ns...]
They will just charge for the mileage. There are already plans to track every car on the road via satellite technology. The evil of modern technology.
The downside too is people are being encouraged to generate thier own power via solar and wind
Other tax raising measures are already at there limits too
That too will be a major headache , if your held up because of road works , police incident , breakdown or accident of other vehicles you wil be able to show a quantifiabe loss , you imagine the amount of claims going in or disputed bills and the time to deal with these , plus the tracking technology is not perfect is computer orientated removeable and reprogrammable
Registration plates were first introduced so that vehicles and the drivers could be tracked down it wasnt long before people realised swapping plates outfoxed the authorities , the same will apply with satalite tracking .
It would be trivially easy to disable the on board transmitter.
Unidentified vehicle located at x,y,z. Ready to exterminate!!!
Any vehicle not registered in the UK would flag up so it would be impossible to differentiate between a polish car , french car or a UK car thats transmitter has been blocked , you could alternatively just modify the transmitter to identify the car as another vehicle .
Do you honestly believe any government sponsored IT system could cope with the morning and evening rush hours
Obviously these would be sealed units with hefty punishment for attempt to modify. Foreign drivers could be issued with a unit at the border crossing, and would return the unit on exit.
So what's the reliability of London congestion charging? Havn't heard that this is either unsuccessful or trivial to defeat.
Indeed. They can't even enforce the phone ban while driving.
You don't need to modify it - just screen the aerial so it can't transmit. Or remove the power to it. The possibilities are endless...
That isn't charged by the mile...
Number plate recognition cameras every mile on every UK road? Sounds about as feasible as wind power.
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