In the news

Can I go to the SLC wearing a fake moustache and a top hat and ask to buy my student loan for £50?

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/norway-to-ban-the-sale-of-all-fossil-fuel-based-cars-by-2025-and-replace-with-electric-vehicles-a7065616.html

Hopefully battery technology will figure out how to deal with -30'c by 2025.

Norway that makes its money from eeeh...oil.
But it smart enough to know the cash will end :)

And may be smart enough to know that other countries will not enact such brave measures and keep buying Norway's oil while the Norse breath fresh air

It's easy enough for Norway to brag about it as they get most of their electricity from hydro-power. If UK were to do the same whilst there are still coal powered electricity plants might only make for fresher air in London, whilst the effect on the planet as a whole could be negative.

It seems easier to me to reduce fossil fuel consumption by singling out and reducing petrol use trough direct taxes, than to reduce driving on coal-generated electricity. A tax on electricity would hit all sorts of users, not only drivers who are too lazy to get on their bikes.

Centralised fossil fuel use is easier to upgrade or replace than distributed fossil fuel use.

Changing products is easier than changing behaviour.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/36466451/mma-fighter-kimbo-slice-dies-aged-42-after-being-taken-to-hospital-in-florida

Man, 42. That's too young. I remember my mate showing me those street fighting videos he did way back. Fucking cray.

The Southern Daily Echo - all the news that matters
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/14540989.Poo_found_in_changing_room_at_Hampshire_shopping_centre/?ref=mr&lp=3

It's easy enough for Norway to brag about it as they get most of their electricity from hydro-power.

Not just that, but also from trash, literally trash, we even paid the Norweigan to send our trash to be turned into energy.

Fucks sake. 5 cyclists killed and 4 in hospital after a pick up truck plows into a group ride in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

A little ditty explaining how electric cars may not actually create more pollution through increased output from powerplants, I've not fact checked this or anything as I'm far too lazy but this is the source.

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/life-cycle-ev-emissions#.V1b7IVdrL8s

and this is the vid, only a minute long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkh5nnMac7U

What it really comes down to is where the car is. In the UK with an increasingly green energy mix, the outcome is generally in favour of electric cars.

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electric-cars-green

Now if they could just do cleaner batteries that stored a shit load and lasted forever!

Which, with evolution, will happen. Look at how ridiculously fuel and emissions efficient a modern fossil fuel car engine is compared to even only ten or twenty years ago.

I think this topic probably needs it's own thread but you are correct, the technology is constantly improving and we are moving towards a point where E Cars are becoming more and more economically viable, the challange at the moment I believe is producing enough batteries which is why companies like Tesla are creating their Giga factory. If you are into electric cars the 'Fully Charged' channel on youtube has some informative and entertaining videos on the subject.

The price of food is linked to the price of oil atm. Transport is 10% of the top of my head, heating 20%, food also 20% of emissions...

Until there are nuclear / sun / wind cargo ships, and other means to power agriculture (we can keep some oil aside for fertilizer) be careful what you wish for ;)

Which is a reasonable consideration. However as a country, we have kind of fallen at the first hurdle. We have a lot of multi-car households. That's about functional/utility/day to day driving vehicles and excludes collectible, aspirational and recreational vehicles. Much of that day to day driving is well within range of an electric vehicle. However, most long journeys that some may find impractical in a constricted range vehicle are performed by the family in a single vehicle. The majority of those 2nd+ household vehicles could be electric vehicles with negligible impact on household members.

Tesla are already trying to tackle this problem, they have a car with a range circa 200 miles and at the same time are installing superchargers across the country which can get your car to 80% in 45 mins or so, I think this kind of innovation should put paid to range anxiety. As a small city run around the current crop of Nissan Leafs and Chevrolet Volt are brilliant so completely agree with you on that point, big car for long journeys, small car for bimbling about.

I would happily drive a battery-powered reproduction of the Brubaker Box. Lightweight, pretty aero, room for a bike or two.

The Guardian had an article on that a few days ago. Still sounds a bit more painful than filling up with petrol. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/27/tesla-model-s-electric-car-driving-holiday

The trouble is that encouraging people to have two cars, a city run-around and a big car isn't really tackling the problem.

I don't think it's encouraging people to have two cars. The capital outlay for a car means that those that can't afford it aren't going to feel encouraged. However, if people are going to have two cars (a basic function of their buying power) then a stronger encouragement to make at least one of them electric should be considered. Bear in mind that the only problem that this is tackling is localised and nationalised pollution levels and nothing to do with either congestion or road safety.

Obviously I'm all in favour of people adopting the most sustainable transport options. However, without draconian regulation and enforcement, you have to accept that aren't going to achieve a transport utopia. Households will continue to own and drive multiple cars and there are a large number of social issues that are involved in that decision.

I'm surprised that this hasn't popped up here today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36475180

Not a massive surprise really. Human's don't multitask well.

Very good link. Seems pretty convincing in terms of electric cars being an improvement for the UK as well.

Mind you, I was never anti electric cars. I'm currently in Oslo, and when not cycling I drive one of these. But I still insist that the best policy is to reduce single-person-in-car traffic altogether, not just shift from one type of juice to another.

Not sure if I can find good a source in English, but stats from Oslo show that once a family get an electric car their overall mileage go up. Because they're fucking fun to drive. In Norway that's not a problem in terms of emissions, but it's still part of the debate as the roads are now even more congested. If the same happened the UK, we would also be speaking of increased emissions. (But keeping in mind the reasoning in your link, there should still be a net benefit to the environment even if 'electric mileage' went up.)