Electric Vehicles EVs

.... germs and swimming kits ...

Autonomous cars will be a disaster when they circle the block while the owner is at the dentist rather than pay for a parking spot.

But once they exist as an alternative then it is viable to regulate or price personal ownership out of mass usage.

Until such an alternative exists how do you end car ownership?

I agree with all of that but it's hard to ignore that an EV uses 10x as much copper as an ICE vehicle (before taking in to account all the copper in the charging infrastructure), if all the UK's cars switched to EV it would use 12% of the current global copper supply. Hopefully full automation will reduce the number needed like you say but just switching everything to EV isn't a magic bullet. We may acquire a better quality of life but are shifting the environmental problems and poor working conditions on to other parts of the world. It all needs to be part of a broader strategy but instead we will just expand mining operations and start strip mining the ocean floor.

I just passed the north circ into golders green and theres a 60 car queue for the petrol station. Can't say what the rest on the city is like though but I imagine similar.

Edit: traffic doesnt seem effected too much here though. Got past it quickly enough.

Road pricing for a start. We have the technology, we don't have the political desire.

I don't really care about car ownership, I care about car (over) use.

Oh and yeah, whilst you are ranting, my EV is not poisoning local children

No it is forcing children as young as seven to work in mines in the DRC

It is these broad I have done an amazing thing statements that suckered me in to commenting last night, rather than recognising it's a less bad thing

( I normally lurk this thread as I actually find the real world usage of some of the users very insightful, as I like I said, as at some point in the future I will own an EV)

my EV is not poisoning local children

Getting gassed on your own self righteousness tho ;)

No it is forcing children as young as seven to work in mines in the DRC

This is pretty inflammatory.

If I ask you to post me a purchased rear derailleur mech and you decide to do it by killing a baby seal and using its pelt as wrapping paper for the derailleur, am I forcing baby seals to die?

Road pricing for a start

This is so much the truth.

I just paid £150 for my road tax. Idk what I've paid in petrol tax over the year, but let's be honest is £150 a remotely proportional amount of money for me using the road transport infrastructure for a year?

Also I did point out that it's probably cheaper and easier to keep the mini and just rent a nice big comfy car for the long trips to France than getting a whole new car. But is just that psychological thing about "wasting" money on a rental.

Hertz were the only rental company I knew of that would let you take the car into Europe. With them gone (and no doubt added brexit complexities), it may be nigh on impossible to rent a car in the UK and take it to Europe

The general sentiment I agree with though - I sold my last car maybe 5 years ago now, and just use car clubs, rentals and short-term leases. I spend less now than I did on car ownership (just having the audi sat outside on the street cost £1k a year with parking, tax, insurance and a yearly oil change) but the costs are more visible

Or you know you could just say that cars are bad and we should just stop having them.

Yes I and many others have been saying this for years.

just use car clubs, rentals and short-term leases.

This is the future. The culture of individual car ownership is the problem, encouraging pointless journeys and blocking up shared spaces.

brexit

FFS. The gift that keeps giving.

I'm not going to derail the thread away from the child labour supporting EV drivers with my shit Brexit anecdotes. But there are so many of these little fuck-yous that just keep cropping up!

EVs are the next step in car evolution. They all contain more autonomous systems than last gen cars.

Autonomous cars are a viable future state that ends car ownership and promotes cars as a per journey device, not a per owner device.

Autonomous cars end the need for residential roads to be parking lots and reduces the total required car numbers, by eliminating the need for redundant parked vehicles.

This is a more optimistic outlook, and I would like to see things evolve in this direction. Observing current trends however I don't see EVs reducing consumer desire to personally own large, powerful, comfortable vehicles, or reducing the massive amount of money to be made by producing them.

It might be inflammatory but it is the reality that the surging global demand for cobalt from EV's is creating a child labour issue, this is well documented and reported

Your statement was also inflammatory no?

We are a two car family for the rare times we go in different directions. Most of the time both cars sit idle on the drive. I'd love to ditch at least one but sadly car clubs haven't made it this far out yet.

Do car clubs let learners use them?

surging global demand for cobalt from EV's is creating a child labour issue, this is well documented and reported

I don't dispute it. But I object to ascribing culpability to the demand drivers rather than the (literal) slave drivers.

Double "driver" pun there for your delectation.

Lol at "but I need to drive to Europe occasionally" being a totally valid argument

Your statement was also inflammatory no?

Intentionally. To illustrate the point.

If I ask you to post me a purchased rear derailleur mech and you decide to do it by killing a baby seal and using its pelt as wrapping paper for the derailleur, am I forcing baby seals to die?

It’s more like buying a fur coat and being surprised baby seals were clubbed to death for it, no? Not saying ICE cars are better but your analogy is disingenuous at best.

Precisely.
I see few people driving around in Transit mini busses in case
they need to take to offspring's sports team to an event.

Why would the market change if consumers are happy to shrug thier shoulders and say not my problem

It’s more like buying a fur coat and being surprised baby seals were clubbed to death for it, no? Not saying ICE cars are better but your analogy is disingenuous at best.

Not really.

Fur coats require fur.
Does mining require child labour?

Why would the market change if consumers are happy to shrug thier shoulders and say not my problem

Regulation, taxation, legislation, intervention.

As I pointed out up there ^, I think this intervention is only viable when there is a viable alternative, which I believe is enabled by autonomous vehicles.

I forgot about organically grown free-range copper, my bad.

Why would the market change if consumers are happy to shrug thier shoulders and say not my problem

Regulation, taxation, legislation, intervention.

Oh FFS give us all a break.