So I often read that to save the planet we should eat less meat. I'm not convinced, it sounds like veggie propaganda. But how come nobody is extolling the virtues of salads, sandwiches and cold drinks? This ought to be pretty obvious. The highest current consuming devices are those that heat things, your kettle, toaster microwave and cooker. So food that requires less cooking is better. A quick google seems to show nobody has thought of this. Not surprising really, here's another - in my household the oil fired central heating burns more gallons of fuel per year than I've used in a lifetime of motorcycling. So why the promotion of electric vehicles? Wouldn't electric heating be the first thing to look at? I like motorcycling and don't care what heats the house. There's a problem though - if you burn fossil fuel, turn it into steam, power a turbine to run a generator, transmit it through wires, transform it to a lower voltage then turn it back to heat it loses so much power you are better off just burning the oil in the boiler at the house. Kind of the same problem with vehicles though. The electricity source has to be renewable first. There's also a big problem with electric vehicles that again nobody seems to have considered. What if you don't do many miles? Chemical aging ensures the battery will still go bad after 10 years or so. It usually won't just fail suddenly either, it's capacity will fall, so before it's truly failed that already limited range is going to get less, it could need replacing sooner. And they're expensive to replace, money which represents energy and environmental costs, very wasteful. Plus vehicles are going to get scrapped at this point because they are uneconomical to repair. Not going to help the environment again. This can be seen when checking costs and maintenance of existing older used electric vehicles. Of course if some people's sensible solution for THEIR (high mileage, new car buying) lifestyle is forced upon everyone else regardless then there will be no choice in the matter. But government targets are there to be missed so probably no need to worry just yet, especially given how few electric vehicles I see on the road.
I'd suggest a small 5 or 10% levy on new ICE vehicle sales and channel the proceeds to subsidize electric vehicles, no need to wait till year X and it still respects market forces and personal choice which allows the right vehicles to go to the people who can best use them.
I'd suggest a small 5 or 10% levy on new ICE vehicle sales and channel the proceeds to subsidize electric vehicles, no need to wait till year X and it still respects market forces and personal choice which allows the right vehicles to go to the people who can best use them.