Transport plan? What transport plan?

[soundwave]

i could not afford to insure it even if it was free but i wont buy anything that is non serviceable buy the end user or 3rd party because they wont give you the software or sell smd components for the computers ect.

like my bike there a locked system so if anything does go wrong they can charge what they like.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

i could not afford to insure it even if it was free but i wont buy anything that is non serviceable buy the end user or 3rd party because they wont give you the software or sell smd components for the computers ect.

like my bike there a locked system so if anything does go wrong they can charge what they like.

I mostly agree (am thinking about electrifying classic car). But, to be fair, no DIY battery is going to be as buffered and water cooled as one in a tesla, that will give far more than usual 500 lipo cycles. Mines beginning to rapid charge slower after 160k. And theres specific things that go on old teslas (door handles, chips, even drive units) that's diyable. Perhaps we expect too much (I wasnt ever planning to rebuild an ice motor diy)

 

[flecc]

Though his dates are very premature, that politician is absolutely right. Both car ownership and use will be much more expensive and restricted in future, a process that has started already.
,

 

[flecc]

Dont give up hope, prices are plummeting

Used electric car prices hit the skids in November: Teslas down £4,000

Expensive second-hand electric cars are falling in value as dealers are having to slash prices to sell lingering stock as demand for battery models hit reverse in November.

www.thisismoney.co.uk

apparently in part as a result of cheaper new ev deals

Tesla Discounts $7,500 Per Car, Disaster Or Opportunity? (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Unlike most every other auto manufacturer, Tesla isn't known for discounting. Nor does it negotiate in its role as a quasi-dealership. Click here for more on TSLA.

seekingalpha.com

In our post truss reality the ev market will look like china's in a few years (cheap and cheerful) as companies follow profit

Grossly exaggerated, as usual with such articles, plus very much Tesla biased. Strange how so many are so completely wrong about Tesla's importance and relevance.

They often think, for example, that Tesla were first with modern e-cars. Wrong, here's a time line for production models first on the roads:

1999 - Ford Think e-car. (Sodium salt battery)
2007 - Smart ForTwo e-car. (Sodium salt battery)
2008 - Mitsubishi MiEV e-car. (Lithium-ion battery)
2008 - "Tesla's" sports car, a Lotus Elan powered by an e-drive from another company's prototype at a ridiculous $170k with Li-ion battery.
2010 - Nissan Leaf e-car. (Lithium-ion battery)
2011 - Renault Zoe and Fluence e-cars. (Lithium-ion battery)
2011 - Smart ForTwo e-car. (Lithium-ion battery)
2012 - The first practical all Tesla car, the Model S.

So very much trailing behind the others. The main reason Tesla got to such prominence is that Elon Musk pushes his luck by using very unsuitable cells to get the highest performance and range, but at the cost of many fires with total burnouts.

Back to s/h e-car prices, the article quotes practical more reasonably priced e-cars such as the Nissan Leaf as down 4% in November. True, like my 2018 Nissan Leaf down from a little over £20k to £19k, still a ridiculously high price for a near five year old that cost me under £26k new.

Hardly something to justify the article's headline.
.

 

[WheezyRider]

You forgot the Thomas Parker model c. 1895



And all the other production EVs of that era, when petrol could only be obtained from specialist pharmacies in small quantities and was basically a waste product people didn't know what to do with.

The thing about Elon Musk and the Tesla is not that it was an original idea - few of his ideas are, it is that he is a master of hype, and he has the resources to throw large amounts of cash at projects, which disrupts markets. This was the point I was trying to make in a previous post, but this was not understood.

Until Elon came along, car companies did a little R&D into EVs now and then and produced the odd (often uninspiring) model to pay lip service to electrification, but without much ambition. Until some way of convincing the population at large that EVs were going to be a serious thing and the infrastructure was going to be built to support them were major car manufacturers going to take EVs seriously.

 

[flecc]

You forgot the Thomas Parker model c. 1895

View attachment 49888

And all the other production EVs of that era, when petrol could only be obtained from specialist pharmacies in small quantities and was basically a waste product people didn't know what to do with.

I was well aware of these and how superior they were, being why I always wanted an e-car, even long before they existed during my lifetime. What I did miss out was my intention to type "modern" production e-cars so not making that clear in my post.

Until Elon came along, car companies did a little R&D into EVs now and then and produced the odd (often uninspiring) model to pay lip service to electrification, but without much ambition.

I disagree. As my post that you were replying to hinted at, there were huge amounts of research long before Tesla.

Through the 1970s after the Arab oil crisis, both GM and Chrysler invested very large sums of researching e-vehicles, particularly e-cars and electric bikes and we still have the evidence of the e-bikes. The Currie Electrodrive rear wheel motor was directly a GM design, it's principal designer Dr Edwin Currie taking the design with him when he left. And the BionX direct drive rear wheel motor was developed later out of Chrysler's design.

Only having lead-acid batteries stymied their car making hopes, but later with the prospects that NiMh might be an answer, GM returned to the research in the late 1980s, showing their concept car in 1990, albeit with Lead-Acid batteries,

After four more years of development they released the EVI model with Lead-Acid and later with NiMh. Given the uncertainties with the battery life in particular, the production ones were only leased. Amid lots of controversy GM eventually recalled almost all of them for destruction with good reasons, a few going to museums and some to universities for further research.

At the time of that destruction, Mitsubishi were already seriously developing the MiEV, hoping for an early 2000s launch, but battery uncertainties delayed that year after year as they tried the different technologies with often unsatisfactory results, until they finally launched it in early 2008 with Li-ion.

In parallel with Mitsubishi, Smart with Daimler-Benz also spent years of the 2000s developing their e-car, and as evidence of how serious Smart are about e-cars, they totally discontinued all ic engine production in 2019.

And when Carlos Ghosn, boss of both Renault and Nissan plunged both into e-car research in th mid 2000s for early introductions., he sank €4 billions into that at a time of the motor industry being at a very low ebb. Hardly evidence of a lack of faith or interest.

The industry was always interested in the possibility of e-drive, but realistically it had to wait until the late 2000s when lithium ion batteries first became viable for high discharge drive systems. Even as late as the mid 2000s they weren't even good enough for pedelecs, with cobalt cathode ones catching fire and manganese cathode ones failing to deliver high currents resulting in very short lives.
.

 

[WheezyRider]

I was well aware of these and how superior they were, being why I always wanted an e-car, even long before they existed during my lifetime. What I did miss out was my intention to type "modern" production e-cars so not making that clear in my post.



I disagree. As my post that you were replying to hinted at, there were huge amounts of research long before Tesla.

Through the 1970s after the Arab oil crisis, both GM and Chrysler invested very large sums of researching e-vehicles, particularly e-cars and electric bikes and we still have the evidence of the e-bikes. The Currie Electrodrive rear wheel motor was directly a GM design, it's principal designer Dr Edwin Currie taking the design with him when he left. And the BionX direct drive rear wheel motor was developed later out of Chrysler's design.

Only having lead-acid batteries stymied their car making hopes, but later with the prospects that NiMh might be an answer, GM returned to the research in the late 1980s, showing their concept car in 1990, albeit with Lead-Acid batteries,

After four more years of development they released the EVI model with Lead-Acid and later with NiMh. Given the uncertainties with the battery life in particular, the production ones were only leased. Amid lots of controversy GM eventually recalled almost all of them for destruction with good reasons, a few going to museums and some to universities for further research.

At the time of that destruction, Mitsubishi were already seriously developing the MiEV, hoping for an early 2000s launch, but battery uncertainties delayed that year after year as they tried the different technologies with often unsatisfactory results, until they finally launched it in early 2008 with Li-ion.

In parallel with Mitsubishi, Smart with Daimler-Benz also spent years of the 2000s developing their e-car, and as evidence of how serious Smart are about e-cars, they totally discontinued all ic engine production in 2019.

And when Carlos Ghosn, boss of both Renault and Nissan plunged both into e-car research in th mid 2000s for early introductions., he sank €4 billions into that at a time of the motor industry being at a very low ebb. Hardly evidence of a lack of faith or interest.

The industry was always interested in the possibility of e-drive, but realistically it had to wait until the late 2000s when lithium ion batteries first became viable for high discharge drive systems. Even as late as the mid 2000s they weren't even good enough for pedelecs, with cobalt cathode ones catching fire and manganese cathode ones failing to deliver high currents resulting in very short lives.
.

Totally agree about the late 19th and early 20th Century EVs being far more appealing than modern Teslas

Yes, car companies did put money into EV research, but you have to compare the amount spent on them in proportion with what was spent on ICE design and production at that time and also the apparent inertia to push EVs forward (for all sorts of reasons). Batteries cannot be used as the excuse. Even lead acid batteries can be used to make a perfectly viable EV, perhaps not as a primary car replacement for long trips, but for city use the shorter range is not an issue. Most car journeys are 5 miles or less and many cars will not travel more than about 10 miles per day.

By the late 80s lead acid batteries for traction use were available at a reasonable price with a reasonable cycle life. At that time, I did a feasibility study and I had an old hatchback I was going to convert to electric, to use as a second car. It would have had a range of approx 60 miles and a top speed of 50 mph and a 20 HP DC motor. This was based on designs I'd found in books published at that time. Not performance to set the pulse racing, but that wasn't the point. Unfortunately, other commitments at the time meant I had to divert funds to other things and it didn't get built.

Then a couple of years later, GM presented the Impact, showing what could be done when a vehicle was designed from the ground up. As you know, this became the EV1. Unfortunately, for a range of reasons, many of them political, all the good work GM did was undone and the cars were crushed, despite their popularity. Worth reading the Wiki page on this for anyone not familiar with the story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

If the motivation had been there at that time, the EV1 could have been a success, even with lead acid batteries. There will be teething problems with any new product yet there just wasn't the motivation in the company to pursue EV production. Probably the biggest mistake GM ever made.

 

[jonathan.agnew]

i could not afford to insure it even if it was free but i wont buy anything that is non serviceable buy the end user or 3rd party because they wont give you the software or sell smd components for the computers ect.

like my bike there a locked system so if anything does go wrong they can charge what they like.

Evs are getting very cheap to insure

Electric cars cost less to insure than petrol and diesel rivals

EV insurance premiums fell below those of their petrol and diesel counterparts over 12 months.

heycar.co.uk

I'd be dead tempted by an early leaf (or its van based version which Nissan gave an actively cooled battery and is surprising fun to drive)

Grossly exaggerated, as usual with such articles, plus very much Tesla biased. Strange how so many are so completely wrong about Tesla's importance and relevance.

They often think, for example, that Tesla were first with modern e-cars. Wrong, here's a time line for production models first on the roads:

1999 - Ford Think e-car. (Sodium salt battery)
2007 - Smart ForTwo e-car. (Sodium salt battery)
2008 - Mitsubishi MiEV e-car. (Lithium-ion battery)
2008 - "Tesla's" sports car, a Lotus Elan powered by an e-drive from another company's prototype at a ridiculous $170k with Li-ion battery.
2010 - Nissan Leaf e-car. (Lithium-ion battery)
2011 - Renault Zoe and Fluence e-cars. (Lithium-ion battery)
2011 - Smart ForTwo e-car. (Lithium-ion battery)
2012 - The first practical all Tesla car, the Model S.

So very much trailing behind the others. The main reason Tesla got to such prominence is that Elon Musk pushes his luck by using very unsuitable cells to get the highest performance and range, but at the cost of many fires with total burnouts.

Back to s/h e-car prices, the article quotes practical more reasonably priced e-cars such as the Nissan Leaf as down 4% in November. True, like my 2018 Nissan Leaf down from a little over £20k to £19k, still a ridiculously high price for a near five year old that cost me under £26k new.

Hardly something to justify the article's headline.
.

Best not to get too hung up on brands or personality politics I think. If it gets cheap enough I think a new more powerful mg4 could be better than a tesla

 

[flecc]

Totally agree about the late 19th and early 20th Century EVs being far more appealing than modern Teslas

Yes, car companies did put money into EV research, but you have to compare the amount spent on them in proportion with what was spent on ICE design and production at that time and also the apparent inertia to push EVs forward (for all sorts of reasons). Batteries cannot be used as the excuse. Even lead acid batteries can be used to make a perfectly viable EV, perhaps not as a primary car replacement for long trips, but for city use the shorter range is not an issue. Most car journeys are 5 miles or less and many cars will not travel more than about 10 miles per day.

By the late 80s lead acid batteries for traction use were available at a reasonable price with a reasonable cycle life. At that time, I did a feasibility study and I had an old hatchback I was going to convert to electric, to use as a second car. It would have had a range of approx 60 miles and a top speed of 50 mph and a 20 HP DC motor. This was based on designs I'd found in books published at that time. Not performance to set the pulse racing, but that wasn't the point. Unfortunately, other commitments at the time meant I had to divert funds to other things and it didn't get built.

Then a couple of years later, GM presented the Impact, showing what could be done when a vehicle was designed from the ground up. As you know, this became the EV1. Unfortunately, for a range of reasons, many of them political, all the good work GM did was undone and the cars were crushed, despite their popularity. Worth reading the Wiki page on this for anyone not familiar with the story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

If the motivation had been there at that time, the EV1 could have been a success, even with lead acid batteries. There will be teething problems with any new product yet there just wasn't the motivation in the company to pursue EV production. Probably the biggest mistake GM ever made.

There was a very early lead acid batteried e-car, the Indian designed G-Whizz. I tried one on a test drive and later cadged a ride in a more hilly area with an owner. The public just didn't want it, not surprising given how well it imitated a milk float on hills, annoying all other drivers.

I don't think GM made a mistake over the EV1. The 80 mile, later 100 mile range with the Panansonic lead acid battery, was hopelessly inadequate for the USA and the last minute 1999 NiMh batteries were going to fail too early. For some owners under two years battery life for such an expensive battery would be unacceptable.

That lead acid cars would have been viable in the 1980s and '90s is a fantasy. Most could only afford one car then and a local city only car would not have sold widely against ic alternatives. That was why e-cars early success in the 1900s disappeared in the 1910s as ic cars improved.

As I posted, today's e-cars had to wait for the safe and reliable compound cathode li-ion cells at the end of the 2000s. Just look at how they took off in the market then. My time line showed that, with the cars that had been developed over as much as a decade suddenly all able to hit the market and be successful.

The manufacturers knew exactly what they were doing.

And you are ignoring the most important factors at the time. It's not all about the cars, the international political and economic factors have to be taken into account when looking at this scene. Japan had been a huge threat to the western motor industry, decimating it, so when the big Japanese recession hit in 1991, crippling the country and its major industries, the western industry saw their opportunity to take major controlling interests. That is where all their efforts and money went at the time. Renault got control of Nissan and Mitsubishi, Ford took Mazda, GM took an assortment of companies and at the end only Toyota and Honda managed to remain wholly Japanese.

And they didn't stop there, later taking control elsewhere in the far east, Proton going to GM and some South Korean brands falling too. Daiwoo even lost their name as well, becoming Chevrolet, a GM brand.

Very sensible at the time, since getting control of their most dangerous competitors was far more important than designing new cars of any kind. It was only in the 2000s that the industry went back to their true job of investing in advancing car design after a decade of acquisition.
.

 

[WheezyRider]

The G-Wiz was a travesty, it should never have been allowed on the road, it was a death trap and a friend of mine was killed in one. It was based on very old technology for the day and is an example of of the sort of rubbish that has held EVs back.

The EV1 was an example of what could be achieved, even with lead acid batteries. It could have been further developed and made cost effective, but it fell foul of politics and short term business plans and vested interests - as happened to many EV projects in the 90s. So companies like GM ended up handing over the initiative to the likes of Tesla.

If you compare the range of the EV1 first gen and the Nissan Leaf first gen, the range is similar, despite the Leaf being Li-ion powered. Yes, the EV1 was a bespoke vehicle, but in the approx 20 years between the Impact and the Leaf, manufacturing costs and processes could have been made more competitive and benefited from economies of scale, which are not possible with small production runs. In 2011, the Leaf battery was an unknown entity and there were no recycling facilities. With a known and mature technology such as lead acid with readily available recycling and production costs coming down with economies of scale, battery replacement would not have been that much of an issue. Obviously, they would not stick with lead acid forever, but change to Li-ion as they became available. The important thing was to build the base and develop from there, but they didn't do it.

A good example that should not be overlooked is the Toyota Rav4 EV. This was brought out around 1997 and the first versions were lead acid and NiMH powered. Both vehicles were popular and the lead acid version was a lot cheaper. Eventually Toyota went for the NiMH only option, which then effectively destroyed the project as the patent holders for NiMH for vehicle propulsion sued and won. Who owned the patent? Texaco.

Chevron patent encumbrance
Main article: Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries

Whether or not Toyota wanted to continue production, it was unlikely to be able to do so because the EV-95 battery was no longer available. Chevron had inherited control of the worldwide patent rights for the NiMH EV-95 battery when it merged with Texaco, which had purchased them from General Motors. Chevron's unit won a US$30,000,000 settlement from Toyota and Panasonic, and the production line for the large NiMH batteries was closed down and dismantled. This case was settled in the ICC International Court of Arbitration, and not publicized due to a gag order placed on Toyota.[19][20] Only smaller NiMH batteries, incapable of powering an electric vehicle or plugging in, were allowed by Chevron-Texaco.[21]

However, as the decision had already been made to take the NiMH route, it was too late to go back to lead acid and the project was scrapped. Toyota then had to go cap in hand to Tesla in order to launch a new Rav4 EV some years later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV#First_generation_(1997)

I take your point that spending a lot of money on an EV to have as a second car in the 90s was not a practical proposition for many, but I costed my conversion in the late 80s/early 90s at a fraction of the cost of buying a new ICE car. Also, in the 80s a lot of households had two cars or more. We were not well off by any stretch, but from the mid 70s we had two cars in the family. We never had new cars, quite often old bangers, but we did have two.

I know I'm not going to convince you out of your mindset that EVs could only happen with Li-ion batteries, but I know it could have been done years ago, even without them. I'm not saying anyone now should think about using lead acid, but 30 years ago, it wasn't the battery technology that stopped EVs gaining practical acceptance, it was politics and business.

There is still a lot of serious research going on into NiMH batteries, being paid for by motor manufacturers, so even these older technologies can't be written off just yet. At a conference a few weeks back I saw some NiMH packs for vehicles capable of many 1000s of cycles and a capacity not that far off some types of Li-ion.

 

[flecc]

The G-Wiz was a travesty, it should never have been allowed on the road, it was a death trap and a friend of mine was killed in one. It was based on very old technology for the day and is an example of of the sort of rubbish that has held EVs back.

The EV1 was an example of what could be achieved, even with lead acid batteries. It could have been further developed and made cost effective, but it fell foul of politics and short term business plans and vested interests - as happened to many EV projects in the 90s. So companies like GM ended up handing over the initiative to the likes of Tesla.

If you compare the range of the EV1 first gen and the Nissan Leaf first gen, the range is similar, despite the Leaf being Li-ion powered. Yes, the EV1 was a bespoke vehicle, but in the approx 20 years between the Impact and the Leaf, manufacturing costs and processes could have been made more competitive and benefited from economies of scale, which are not possible with small production runs. In 2011, the Leaf battery was an unknown entity and there were no recycling facilities. With a known and mature technology such as lead acid with readily available recycling and production costs coming down with economies of scale, battery replacement would not have been that much of an issue. Obviously, they would not stick with lead acid forever, but change to Li-ion as they became available. The important thing was to build the base and develop from there, but they didn't do it.

A good example that should not be overlooked is the Toyota Rav4 EV. This was brought out around 1997 and the first versions were lead acid and NiMH powered. Both vehicles were popular and the lead acid version was a lot cheaper. Eventually Toyota went for the NiMH only option, which then effectively destroyed the project as the patent holders for NiMH for vehicle propulsion sued and won. Who owned the patent? Texaco.

Chevron patent encumbrance
Main article: Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries

Whether or not Toyota wanted to continue production, it was unlikely to be able to do so because the EV-95 battery was no longer available. Chevron had inherited control of the worldwide patent rights for the NiMH EV-95 battery when it merged with Texaco, which had purchased them from General Motors. Chevron's unit won a US$30,000,000 settlement from Toyota and Panasonic, and the production line for the large NiMH batteries was closed down and dismantled. This case was settled in the ICC International Court of Arbitration, and not publicized due to a gag order placed on Toyota.[19][20] Only smaller NiMH batteries, incapable of powering an electric vehicle or plugging in, were allowed by Chevron-Texaco.[21]

However, as the decision had already been made to take the NiMH route, it was too late to go back to lead acid and the project was scrapped. Toyota then had to go cap in hand to Tesla in order to launch a new Rav4 EV some years later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV#First_generation_(1997)

I take your point that spending a lot of money on an EV to have as a second car in the 90s was not a practical proposition for many, but I costed my conversion in the late 80s/early 90s at a fraction of the cost of buying a new ICE car. Also, in the 80s a lot of households had two cars or more. We were not well off by any stretch, but from the mid 70s we had two cars in the family. We never had new cars, quite often old bangers, but we did have two.

I know I'm not going to convince you out of your mindset that EVs could only happen with Li-ion batteries, but I know it could have been done years ago, even without them. I'm not saying anyone now should think about using lead acid, but 30 years ago, it wasn't the battery technology that stopped EVs gaining practical acceptance, it was politics and business.

There is still a lot of serious research going on into NiMH batteries, being paid for by motor manufacturers, so even these older technologies can't be written off just yet. At a conference a few weeks back I saw some NiMH packs for vehicles capable of many 1000s of cycles and a capacity not that far off some types of Li-ion.

We are in agreement with lots of this, but I still think the industry took the right course in the 1980s and '90s. What would have been the point of making lots of lead acid cars only for them to be scrapped after a single generation. The public weren't crying out for e-cars and nor were governments in the 1980s.

I'm not fixated on Li-ion, I've just been realistic while it's been the only suitable technology for development. Nor is the industry all fixated on it. Mitsubishi, who in conjunction with GS Yuasa did so much early e-car battery trialling to eventually bring their MiEV to market have still not stopped looking elswhere. While the successful MiEV car is still using Li-ion, they've sensibly switched the MiEV taxi and van to Toshiba's SCiB lithium titanate battery, often ideal for those applications and will certainly be for buses.
.

 

[WheezyRider]

We are in agreement with lots of this, but I still think the industry took the right course in the 1980s and '90s. What would have been the point of making lots of lead acid cars only for them to be scrapped after a single generation. The public weren't crying out for e-cars and nor were governments in the 1980s.

I'm not fixated on Li-ion, I've just been realistic while it's been the only suitable technology for development. Nor is the industry all fixated on it. Mitsubishi, who in conjunction with GS Yuasa did so much early e-car battery trialling to eventually bring their MiEV to market have still not stopped looking elswhere. While the successful MiEV car is still using Li-ion, they've sensibly switched the MiEV taxi and van to Toshiba's SCiB lithium titanate battery, often ideal for those applications and will certainly be for buses.
.

I can't help feeling it was a lost opportunity. We could be 15 years further down the road of electrification by now. Perhaps a third of all cars on the road could be EVs by now if the will had been there back in the 90s to push EV development and infra. Our cities would be a lot cleaner, we would have a better electricity network and generation capacity, there would be a proper charging network and we would be in a much better place for meeting environmental targets.

By the early 90s there was a significant and growing number of people who were interested in running EVs and this could have been encouraged. It should not be forgotten that GM received over $1Bn in grants to develop EVs like the EV1 in the early 90s. Instead of being wasted through mismanagement, this could have led to large numbers of EV related jobs (and in energy generation and distribution) in the west, instead of the far east. It represents a massive loss of initiative.

It is not ideal to have to change battery technology after a decade or so, but it was always a known known and this could have been designed in to the EVs that were produced. Hence, as battery technology developed, this could be incorporated into existing EV designs, using a modular approach.

Instead, due to all the false starts, many people are still very sceptical about EVs. I am glad Nissan stuck to their guns with the Leaf. When it first came out public acceptance wasn't great and they had a terrible resale value. It took quite a few years before people began to realise it was a good car and charging infra to support it was going to be built eventually.

This is what a lot of people think of now when they think of EVs:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1608107998895034368

 

[WheezyRider]

Anyway, getting back to the original topic, this is what a proper transport plan looks like for a city...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1608432649458139136

 

[flecc]

I can't help feeling it was a lost opportunity. We could be 15 years further down the road of electrification by now. Perhaps a third of all cars on the road could be EVs by now if the will had been there back in the 90s to push EV development and infra. Our cities would be a lot cleaner, we would have a better electricity network and generation capacity, there would be a proper charging network and we would be in a much better place for meeting environmental targets.

By the early 90s there was a significant and growing number of people who were interested in running EVs and this could have been encouraged. It should not be forgotten that GM received over $1Bn in grants to develop EVs like the EV1 in the early 90s. Instead of being wasted through mismanagement, this could have led to large numbers of EV related jobs (and in energy generation and distribution) in the west, instead of the far east. It represents a massive loss of initiative.

It is not ideal to have to change battery technology after a decade or so, but it was always a known known and this could have been designed in to the EVs that were produced. Hence, as battery technology developed, this could be incorporated into existing EV designs, using a modular approach.

Instead, due to all the false starts, many people are still very sceptical about EVs. I am glad Nissan stuck to their guns with the Leaf. When it first came out public acceptance wasn't great and they had a terrible resale value. It took quite a few years before people began to realise it was a good car and charging infra to support it was going to be built eventually.

This is what a lot of people think of now when they think of EVs:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1608107998895034368

All true, but GM decided they couldn't make a profit on the EV1 so what happened was inevitable as they put their shareholders first.

That the Renault, Nissan, Mitisubishi alliance were first with e-cars was entirely due to the genius of their boss, Carlos Ghosn, having the right vision.

But look what happened to him due to the Japanese resentment at his western success out of their failures. Trumped up charges, so the best leader the motor industry ever had has to live in exile in Lebanon to avoid the rest of his life in a Japanese prison.
.

 

[flecc]

Anyway, getting back to the original topic, this is what a proper transport plan looks like for a city...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1608432649458139136

Indeed true, but they do have one enormous natural advantage. Their country is very flat. And the continent's number two cycling country is Denmark, also flat as a pancake.

Trying to do that with anything like the same success where it's hilly is a different matter entirely.
.

 

[Benjahmin]

I am frustrated and annoyed at how often it is said that this kind of infra structure project will never be possible in this country.
Last night I watched a program about the rebuilding of a London rail station (Smithsonian channel), I think it was called London Bridge station. Anyway, it is a station that is totally above ground supported by mostly victorian arches. There were through lines and terminating lines, the latter being 2.5metres lower. These needed raising in order to convert some of them to through lines, but the arches could not take the extra weight of that plus roofing that did not previously exist.
Long story short, an engineering fix was found. The lines were modified two at a time so the station and through traffic was never blocked - or so they said ! A whole brand new concourse was hollowed out underneath with architecture blending into the victorian.
This whole seemingly impossible project found an impressive engineered solution, in a very tight space (right next to the Shard) and demonstates what can be achieved when the will is there.
The guy from Utrecht presents what can be achieved when the political thinking encompasses more than short term political and financial gain. I can't remember when I ever heard a British politician (national or local) advocate such integrated, seemingly humanist, strategy for a city.

 

[flecc]

The guy from Utrecht presents what can be achieved when the political thinking encompasses more than short term political and financial gain. I can't remember when I ever heard a British politician (national or local) advocate such integrated, seemingly humanist, strategy for a city.

Indeed, in comparison Britain is rubbish at creating cycling infrastructure. But let's not get carried away by the Dutch propaganda, there is another way of looking at it.

They say 70% own a bicycle and 48% cycle daily. Fine, now lets turn that around. It means 32% never cycle at all, almost a third of the whole country. It means 52% don't routinely cycle daily, over a half.

Now let's add some more shocking facts.

Their country of some 17.5 millions own 8.7 million cars. 500 per 1000, almost the same as the Europe wide average of 505. Here in Britain we only own 480 cars per 1000 of population. What's more the Dutch car ownership has been rising much faster than their population, showing they are losing the battle, hence the desperate propaganda. Here in the supercity of London, (one fifth of our country), car ownership has been falling for many years and is by far the lowest in the country, while bike use here has expanded enormously, as it's also been growing in the rest of Britain.

The Dutch aren't looking so green now are they?

Quote from this cycling website:

"The Netherlands is a great country to live in if you're car-free, but it's a very long way from being a car-free country. Dutch car ownership and use are at an all time high. A myth has grown up about the Dutch being enthusiastic cyclists who live in green cities and rarely drive. In reality, the majority of journeys are made by motorized vehicles and people who live car-free are in a small and shrinking minority."

It's a very sad fact, but there is no doubt the Dutch are losing the battle against the car, despite their amazing cycling infrastructure.
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[jonathan.agnew]

Indeed true, but they do have one enormous natural advantage. Their country is very flat. And the continent's number two cycling country is Denmark, also flat as a pancake.

Trying to do that with anything like the same success where it's hilly is a different matter entirely.
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Stating the obvious I know, but what about pedelecs. In the affluent hilly neck of the shires I sometimes find myself I'm frequently trapped behind a clutch of walruses in Chelsea tractors waiting to drop of their sprogs at school, before they head to starbucks. My OH has a largely unused pedelec, mainly for lack of dedicated cyclepaths. It seems obvious to me it's mainly a cultural problem

 

[WheezyRider]

Indeed, in comparison Britain is rubbish at creating cycling infrastructure. But let's not get carried away by the Dutch propaganda, there is another way of looking at it.

They say 70% own a bicycle and 48% cycle daily. Fine, now lets turn that around. It means 32% never cycle at all, almost a third of the whole country. It means 52% don't routinely cycle daily, over a half.

Now let's add some more shocking facts.

Their country of some 17.5 millions own 8.7 million cars. 500 per 1000, almost the same as the Europe wide average of 505. Here in Britain we only own 480 cars per 1000 of population. What's more the Dutch car ownership has been rising much faster than their population, showing they are losing the battle, hence the desperate propaganda. Here in the supercity of London, (one fifth of our country), car ownership has been falling for many years and is by far the lowest in the country, while bike use here has expanded enormously, as it's also been growing in the rest of Britain.

The Dutch aren't looking so green now are they?

Quote from this cycling website:

"The Netherlands is a great country to live in if you're car-free, but it's a very long way from being a car-free country. Dutch car ownership and use are at an all time high. A myth has grown up about the Dutch being enthusiastic cyclists who live in green cities and rarely drive. In reality, the majority of journeys are made by motorized vehicles and people who live car-free are in a small and shrinking minority."

It's a very sad fact, but there is no doubt the Dutch are losing the battle against the car, despite their amazing cycling infrastructure.
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Gross distortion and dubious assumptions there in order to fit your narrative. For a start, you ignore public transport use and rental cycles etc. Also, much of the increase in passenger car use is in the company car sector...then things like car sharing are growing rapidly in NL. You can't draw meaningful conclusions from such limited data - a proper in depth analysis is needed. There are all kinds of things that need to be clarified. For example, in Dutch government statistics, if someone uses a bike to cycle to the train station to take a train, it is recorded only as a train journey and not a train and bike journey, so even their own numbers are not giving the whole picture.

No one is pretending things are perfect in the Netherlands, but there you have a system that recognises the benefits of cycling and is prepared to put serious money into building and continuously improving cycling infrastructure.

 

[flecc]

It seems obvious to me it's mainly a cultural problem

Sort of, in the sense of ours being a car culture, but more a historical problem.

Go back to 1950 and The Netherlands and Britain both cycled at the same rate, 50% of the population. The rush hour road outside where I worked then looked like any Netherlands city now, hordes of cyclists passing two or three deep.

Spoilt with the majority of the Marshall Aid money and far less war damage, Britain quickly recovered from WW2 and were riding Vespas, Lambrettas and some even driving new cars by the mid 1950s. In the 1960s cycling greatly reduced and LBS's everywhere were shutting shop, and by the early 1970s cycling was mainly down to kids on Raleigh Choppers and the like.

Without our aid advantage and massive war damage, The Netherlands took much longer to recover, so when their government began their cycle infrastructure and car restriction program in 1972, they still had 40% of the population cycling, giving them a huge head start.

For us it was too late, with nearly half of all households already with a car we were already largely on four wheels. And one thing we and the USA know, getting people out of cars once they own them is extremely difficult to impossible.

Even using the force of the Congestion Charge and Ultra Low Emission Zone high costs in London has failed to get people cycling enough, since those who now cycle commute are only 3% of Londoners and mainly the young. Instead it is public transport that has won with big expansion, an improvement over using cars but hardly a green victory with most of the expansion being in bus numbers.
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