I need to know what you think of cute electricity

[andrewducker]

Poll

Context for the cuteness question - via the top half of lizzie-and-ari.
Context for the Scotland half

Comments

[drplokta]

The technology may well be good enough for all new cars to be electric by 2050, but there are forty-year-old cars on the road now, and there will be in 2050. Those ones won't be emission-free.

[andrewducker]

I'm curious as to what the half life of a car is.

Particularly as it seems that cars are more reliable and longer-lived than they used to be:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/automobiles/as-cars-are-kept-longer-200000-is-new-100000.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[danieldwilliam]

I was wondering about this when I was up in Orkney recently.

There are 40 year old cars on the roads at the moment.

What happens to them if the petrol stations lose 95% of their business and have to close down?

[a_pawson]

What happens to them if the petrol stations lose 95% of their business and have to close down?

Most likely the owners will have to invest in some sort of storage tank and will pay to have petrol delivered form time to time like people do nowadays with domestic heating oil.

[danieldwilliam]

I think that might be quite expensive and a bit of a hassle. Perhaps expensive enough to prompt people to give up their petrol car and change to an electric one.

[a_pawson]

I doubt it. Anyone who owns a 40 year old car (or indeed any car more than 20 years old) does so because it is their hobby. These cars are not practical and keeping a "classic" car running is incredibly expensive for all sorts of reasons.

[danieldwilliam]

Okay, but my point is addressed to the marginally aged utility car rather than vintage or classic car, owned for aesthetic reasons