I am all for electric cars in the UK and the reduction in the use of petrol and diesel, but is the Government going far enough to encourage the sale and use of these more eco friendly cars?
I am all for electric cars in the UK and the reduction in the use of petrol and diesel, but is the Government going far enough to encourage the sale and use of these more eco friendly cars?
It’s no good producing and encouraging the sale of electric cars, when the infrastructure is not available to support mass charging. It may be fine if you live in a house with a drive, but what happens if you live in a flat, a terraced house or rental accommodation?
It is simply not viable to sit in a charging station at a supermarket for several hours to fully charge!
The Greenest car you can drive is the one you currently own.
The carbon footprint each newly built car creates is huge.
The table below shows electric vehicles are not as greenas we are lead to believe.
Keeping your existing car is far better for the environment.
Estimated lifecycle emissions (tonnes CO2e) Proportion of emissions in production Estimated emissions in production (tonnes CO2e) Standard petrol vehicle 24 23% 5.6 Hybrid vehicle 21 31% 6.5 Plug-in hybrid vehicle 19 35% 6.7 Battery electric vehicle 19 46% 8.8
My instant reaction to this Paul would be of disagreement, but after thinking about this for a while, I guess you are right, so long as you keep that car for the long term. However, the Governments agenda is to push people to changing to the newer, cleaner cars. No doubt being encouraged by rising fuel costs at the pumps.
Given that electric vehicles are not more eco friendly to produce, why is there a push to produce them, based on the concept that they are cleaner?
But cars still have to be made, so why not make electric cars, when their longer term promise is a cleaner, healthier environment.
But what about the ecological impact of building the infrastructure for charging the cars? All the plastic components that people stick on their walls to charge their cars. What about the additional demand on electricity supply? Am I right in thinking the water usage to produce the batteries is immense.
The overall economic and ecological factors of producing something this new are immense and not beneficial.
I never even thought of all that Kat, that’s a really good point. Surely when you put all the finer details together and totalled up the carbon footprint, it is not beneficial at all. So who is driving this?
I would love an electric car but the cost of buying them is still out of reach for the average person and I have never seen anyone charge one up, where do they go I wonder