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Yeah they're insanely fast, 0-60 in around 2s I believe. Teslas don't do it for me, quick and the SUV's are pretty practical but they're certainly not drivers cars and the interior quality doesn't reflect the price. I'm also not a fan of such heavy reliance on the touchscreen to control everything. I'm not sure how modern cars (not just EVs) are getting away with this in all honesty, I think they're pretty dangerous as you have to take your eyes off the road.
I don't understand why there's not been a bigger push for synthetic fuel, at face value it seems the obvious choice. I know it's pricey at the moment, but the more people that get on board then surely the cheaper it will become. This way we're not depleting an energy source, I believe it's carbon neutral, and the infrastructure's in place already so there's no increase in carbon footprint to put an infrastructure in place.
I'm yet to see a study that shows that EVs are better for the environment. Sure local polution is better, but globally I've not seen evidence that they're greener. Most of the electricity certainly isn't green, and as mentioned the carbon footprint to put an infrastructure in place must be pretty large. It also sounds like the national grid will not be able to cope with the number of EVs forecast for the future. I'm not convinced EVs are the long term solution.
The wheels, look great in real life (IMO)
A7R02686 by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr
To be fair the wheels aren't just as bad looking close up but they aren't as nice as pretty much every set of wheels you would find on a BMW car. Have yet to see an E.V with a nice set of wheels.
I am not usually someone who falls into the trap of believing in lunatic conspiracy theories but when it comes to E.V's for me it's very obvious that the E.V agenda has nothing at all to do with the environment. From everything I have read there is a strong argument for for saying that E.V production and use will have a more damaging impact on the environment than cars.
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut I personally believe that the whole E.V agenda has been pushed by the Chinese government. There is not a significant sized political party in Europe that has not received a huge amount of funding from companies owned by the Chinese government over the last 10-15 years, While there are some that believe that is because the Chinese can remote control the car remotely, making them extremely useful in event of a war which is true, I think it comes more down to money. Pretty much every single traditional car manufacturer are in massive financial trouble as they can't compete with China's E.V's. It is very likely that over the next few years a lot of traditional car manufacturers will shut up shop for good. Even right now the VAG Group, Ford, Honda and BMW just to name a few are in massive trouble and nobody seems to be that concerned. about the jobs and skills that will be lost. For the Chinese not only does this allow them to completely dominate the car industry, it has huge financial implications for Europe and the rest of the world.
I also think that governments around the world have other reasons for pushing an E.V agenda than the environment. E.V's do not have the lifespan of a car, that mean's that eventually it takes a lot of older car's of the road. The guy who has a car worth a couple of grand won't be able to have a car any more and there is reasons for doing that. In the U.K alone with population growth and immigration being so high we are already massively struggling with road infrastructure. On the news today there was a few stories running about the housing crisis, they expect over 5 million immigrants to arrive into the U.K over the next 5 years and they expect 1.5 million new homes to be built over the same period, there already isn't enough houses for the people who are here now add population growth to that and it is a mess. The same thing applies to the roads as well, for the government the less people that have access to their own vehicle the better.
Most people don't realise how little money a lot of people have. I am in the lucky position that I could nip down to my local car dealership and pay for a decent new car outright or get something high end on a lease etc. It was really brought home to me recently though how people even locally to me are struggling for basic necessities. My wife works part time for a housing association, a couple of weeks ago one of her tenants asked could she give her a lift as her friend couldn't and her wee Micra was off the road as it needs a new starter. It turned out she needed a lift to the local food bank, she hadn't had anything to eat for 3 days, she hasn't been able to afford gas to heat her home since November. The next day another tenant approached her having spoke to the first one, asked her for the same lift to the foodbank, she has 3 kids and to make sure her kids got fed she had basically been starving herself to the point she had become ill. Both of these ladies work, but in low paid jobs. People in that situation will never have the option to buy an E.V. Even if they could, they could never afford the cost of a replacement battery when it dies. My wife tells me that a lot of her tenants are in a similar situation.
While E.V's are only a small part of the overall problem they don't help. The government wants to make having your own vehicle unavailable to many people which will lead to more people being unable to work and making the current situation even worse. In N.I anyway public transport is atrocious and has been for decades, if you don't have your own form of transport, it would be extremely difficult to work or even do simple things like get to the doctors or the nearest shop.
I have strong feelings about E.V's affecting cars which is my hobby, but I also have strong moral concerns about how E.V's will impact on the country long term. Even just for myself if an E.V was the only option available I could have one, my wife could probably have one, but last year my daughter passed her test and we were able to buy her a small cheap car, we probably couldn't have afforded to get her an E.V especially if we both had one. My daughter has to have her own vehicle to be able to get to her part time job and next year she will need it to get to university. With no suitable public transport available if she doesn't have her own car she can't work even part time and she wouldn't be able to go to university.
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