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

[autopope]

Electrification of vehicles inside Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the central belt is probably do-able.

But there's a lot of landscape out there in the highlands that is a long way from anywhere -- single track roads with passing places every half mile, thirty miles between villages. Places that get snowed in every winter to a depth of 2-3 metres and most households have an emergency generator in the garage, for when (not if) they get cut off for a few days. It's a really bad idea to live somewhere that isolated and depend on the national grid to get your vehicle moving!

The proposal also ignores the slight inconvenience factor for those folks who like to travel from the central belt south into Englandshire on a regular basis. Newcastle is a hundred miles south of Edinburgh; Lancaster is even further south of Glasgow. Those are long runs for an electric car, whatever the battery tech, and if you want to drive Edinburgh-London in a day (do-able with petrochemical fuels) you're going to be SOL unless the magic hypercapacitor fairy delivers on what has, up to now, been vapourware (due to recharge times).

[andrewducker]

Clearly for long-distance trips we'll need self-driving cars, with passengers changing to a fresh set of wheels at occasional roadside inns.

[sbisson]

We could connect them together for maximum carrying capability, give them an external power source, and their own dedicated right-of-way.

I wonder what we should call them.

[andrewducker]

Sadly, trains are not always the answer. If I was staying in central London then I could get on one here, get off one there, and I'd be fine. If I'm travelling to the middle of Wales, then less so.

Travelling with a Volvo full of camping equipment, and two dogs, faaaar less so. (That was my youth, that was - five of us, a tent, and a dog, all packed in like sardines.)

[autopope]

The whole reason I have a car is the festering mess that is the post-privatization British railway network.

The proximate reason Feorag learned to drive was the 7 hour standing train ride she once endured ...

[danieldwilliam]

Yeah - that standing up 7 hour train ride is hellish.

The weekend I met MLW I was at a charity ball in Edinburgh on Saturday night and travelling back to Swindon on Sunday to start a new job on Monday.

I promised, promised I would phone her when I got home.

I started my journey home having been drinking until 4am and had about 4 hours sleep.

My train broke down. We got loaded on to the now also delayed train behind us. This was further delayed and I ended up standing for about 8 hours.

I was literally incoherent with fatigue when I phoned. So I just said - I’m only phoning because I promised I would. I’m actually incapable of carrying out a conversation. I’ll call you tomorrow if I may.

Tenth anniversary of the weekend is in less than a month.

[tobyaw]

Or having swappable batteries in electric cars? Take the old batteries out, and slot the new ones in; near-instant refuelling.

Similar transaction to the Calor gas bottles that garages swap.

[andrewducker]

That's fine with a standard piece of technology that doesn't change much (gas bottles) - but not so good when the technology is constantly undergoing rapid technological change.

If you go in with latest high-rated, long-life battery then you'll want a fully charged equivalent, not last year's low-life, cheap, battery.

[tobyaw]

Rapid technological change at the moment, certainly. But that will inevitably slow when the technology matures, when the mass of cars on the roads are electric, and when the lifecycle of electric cars becomes longer.

[andrewducker]

It's entirely possible that we will eventually stop improving batteries.

But I'm not betting on that happening before the point where electric cars are commonplace. If anything, I'd expect mass takeup of electric cars to drive ever more R&D on batteries.

[tobyaw]

Sure, but as the market matures the cutting edge becomes less important.

We have a lot of older cars on our roads. People are keeping cars for longer; the average car on UK roads was over seven years old in 2012, and there is a trend for people to use older cars. It is how these cars are refuelled that is important, rather than how the latest models are refuelled.

[drplokta]

Yes, but by 2050 either batteries will have stopped improving much or you'll be able to drive from Land's End to John O'Groats on a single charge, following 37 years of significant improvements. Either way, no problem.

[andrewducker]

True, by 2050 the landscape will be very different.

(And we'll all be uploading to work anyway)

[danieldwilliam]

Based on the Fiat500e, the Volvo C3 and the Golf Blue E (current average range circa 88 miles) I think we'd need to see a cummulative improvement in range of about 6% per year between now and 2050 for us to be able to drive from Lands End to John O'Groats on one charge.

6% per annum doesn't strike me as impossible but I think it might be a bit of a challenge.

Of course if you can get the charging cycle down to a few minutes, or even half an hour then you could drive from LE to JOG on two charges on a 4% ish cummulative improvement and not notice any difference between petrol and electric.

[drplokta]

Sure, but if batteries aren't improving as much as 6% per year, you won't mind getting one that's a year or two old when you swap your out at a filling station.

[danieldwilliam]

If a battery has a five year life and 4% per annum improvement you'd see a slightly more 20% change in performance if you went in with a new battery and came out with the oldest one they had in stock.