Are we being forced to go electric?

[potsy]

You only do a mile on the bike ! Could walk it in icy weather. £40k for a warm bum !

1.3 miles actually

 

[icowden]

As yet I have yet to see the evidence this will be practical, or even possible.

See Tesla, Waymo, Cruise. China has driverless taxis. Geneva, Oslo and Kromach are trialling driverless busses. Mercedes have reached level 3 driverless. I think Tesla are ahead of them, but are resisting applying for the certification.

In the UK possibly. fortunately European authorities are learning that buses, trams and other public transport are a good idea. Even if you could have a thousand AI cars trundling about they still take up the same as a thousand IC cars. Public transport is much more efficient.

It is, but only in population dense areas. The reason there are few busses where I am in Surrey is because of lack of subsidy, lower population density and lower demand. The Govt fails to invest in the rail or bus industries preferring to structure it so that all the money goes to shareholders.

Governments are realising the cost of cars on society is too high; it matters not if they are run on IC, batteries or magic pixie dust.

I don't think ours are though.

Even if we could generate the electricity,

We can

and find the lithium,

We may not need lithium for much longer.

and EV's were somehow less wasteful of road space than IC vehicles, and AI could control them, there will be a need to dramatically reduce infrastructure maintenance costs,

Why?

and therefore traffic, vehicle weight, and and speeds. We have the technology for this, but it isn't personal EV's.

As I said. If taxis were cheaper than owning a car, car ownership would drop overnight. The more optimistic utopian vision is that use of autonomous taxis will be cheaper than owning a car.

 

[All uphill]

@icowden

You are right, imo, that our government doesn't seem to see a problem with high levels of individual car ownership beyond working out how to protect the tax income.

 

[FishFright]

God help us

I'd trust machine learning over drivers abilities every day of the week.

Driving is like sex , no one admits they are bad but ask their partners and ....

 

[lazybloke]

Depends on the vehicle and security. If we switch off sentry on the Tesla, then drain is negligible. Sentry on uses 15 miles per day, but it has multiple cameras, ultrasonics

You can geo lock when you disable the sentry, like home or work(if secure)

I class it a worthy expense for what it does

By your estimate that's 105 miles a week, or a shocking 5,400 miles of electricity lost to the seurity function.
My last car only did 1,100 miles last year. I'd be annoyed if Id' had to 5,500 miles-worth of petrol and throw most of it away!

Is my arithmetic right?
Because you're talking about a third of the range of the car being lost every week. Perhaps that's small fry if you have an atypical/large battery, driveway charging, and already drive long distances. And perhaps it's of no inconvenience if you are already charging at home every evening.

But I think about 30% do not have private parking, so not onyl are they more reliant on security features, but will also have the double-imapct of the energy drain increasing the inconvenience of how often they have to charge it.
Beause they're having to throw away 17 complete charges of energy, every single year.

And is there a cost?
The home EV tariffs sound nice and low. Are the kerb-side chargers similarly cheap? I'd hate to have to pay a premium for recharging on the street, and then lose a big chunk of that energy.

 

[CXRAndy]

There is only a few minutes a day because the car is either parked at work place or home, These are geo fenced so Sentry is switched off.

If we go out in the evening for a few hours it only loses just over 1 mile of range. It not on all the time, can be if it's in a scummy area. Then again we would not take a car like a Tesla to a crap area

 

[Alex321]

And is there a cost?
The home EV tariffs sound nice and low. Are the kerb-side chargers similarly cheap? I'd hate to have to pay a premium for recharging on the street, and then lose a big chunk of that energy.

Well then don't.

As he said, you can turn off the "sentry" functions. No ICE car I have ever owned ( or am likely to) has had any such function. You still have the basic alarms that almost all modern cars have.

 

[Andy in Germany]

See Tesla, Waymo, Cruise. China has driverless taxis. Geneva, Oslo and Kromach are trialling driverless busses. Mercedes have reached level 3 driverless. I think Tesla are ahead of them, but are resisting applying for the certification.

Tesla/Musk has made a lot of claims, only to quietly forget them and make fresh claims when the time came to deliver. Anyone can "trial" driverless vehicles, and at risk of being called a traitor to my adopted country, the claims of the German car industry are possibly slightly more believable than Tesla but that's as far as I'd go.

It is, but only in population dense areas. The reason there are few busses where I am in Surrey is because of lack of subsidy, lower population density and lower demand. The Govt fails to invest in the rail or bus industries preferring to structure it so that all the money goes to shareholders.

This is true; public transport was always difficult in rural areas. Unfortunately the world isn't obligated to make our chosen lifestyle possible. I live in a rural area too, but I thought carefully about where I live so I can easily, live without a car.

I don't think ours are though.

The UK has long lagged behind on public transport. I had a heck of a soick when I tried to book a ticket for next month.

We can

I have yet to see any evidence that it's possible to produce enough electricity to change to an electric car fleet without covering the entire US with solar panels, or the infamous "Solar roof tiles" which it turned out weren't. Nuclear isn't the magic bullet claimed; apart from anything else nuclear power stations spend longer being built and decommissioned than they do in use and all that requires lots of energy. The US has struggles to keep air conditioning running over summer in recent years, and to keep the car fleet moving we'll need a massive increase.

Why?

Because:

For a long time the Automotive industry has made the than governments have obligingly provided infrastructure essentially free. As the infrastructure is built using oil, that can't continue because it will become increasingly expensive.

Therefore:

...there will be a need to dramatically reduce infrastructure maintenance costs, and therefore traffic, vehicle weight, and and speeds. We have the technology for this, but it isn't personal EV's.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I'd like to see a broader change than just replacing dirty ICE cars with heavy EVs. An expansion and prioritisation of walking and cycling alongside improved public transport would be high on my list.

The automotive industry's worst nightmare, They could denigrate public transport and decry the cost while ignoring how taxpayers fund roads, but even they now have to accept that IC cars have no future, so they are making a lot out of EV's to try and distract people. After all, a flashy new car is much easier to understand than a table of numbers showing the shiny new cars won't scale. Who wants to hear that anyway? People want to believe they can carry on as they are.

EVs will be the best solution for some people, but a two ton car to get the kids a kilometre to school, or to visit the local supermarket is, imo, irresponsible.

We are where we are; some people are stuck. The dream the automotive industry sold has turned sour for a lot of people.

 

[lazybloke]

I'd trust machine learning over drivers abilities every day of the week.

Driving is like sex , no one admits they are bad but ask their partners and ....

<Snigger> I won't commenet on your partner preferring a machine.

I could trust an AI to drive on wide open streets in good weather.
I would trust an AI to have much better reactions and situational awareness than humans.
I could expect an AI to NOT suffer from "human error", with the caveat that to some extent it's programmed by humans (accepting that "machine learning" is very different from conventional programming).

But none of the above suggests to me that an AI can correctly handle busy narrow streets with confusing junctions, numerous signposts, poor visibility, poor surfaces, poor/no lane marking, pot-holes, sudden weather changes, standing water, leaf fall, temporary traffic instructions, and myriad other variables.

I'd be happy with some level of automation at low speeds in ideal situations, but as complexity and speed increases, I find the idea terrifying.
I suppose the technology will advance incrementally, gradually proving it's reliability until it's ready for all situations... and I can see benefits - long-distance travel especially if cars can co-ordinate in high-density formation to massively increase the capacity of our motorway network.
But in dense traffic of our towns & cities? In time, I suppose.


I think Tesla recently abandoned radar sensors and now use cameras only for their self-driving tech, even to the point of disabling the radar in existing cars (saves them money if they don't have to maintain or develop that software). In other words they are reducing the redundancy and safety of their self-driving technology for cost savings. How is that wise?

My ICE car has sensors & cameras for automating the wipers, full beam & dip, and for reading speed limit signs to put a reminder on the dash; these functions are brilliant, but sometimes are curiously blind to what's around them. Dirty sensors?
How does a self-driving car cope with cameras that are getting obstructed by dirt, drain drops, animal stikes? Whilst the human 'driver' has been lulled into a sense of inattentiveness? Doesn't seem right.

 

[Gunk]

I'd trust machine learning over drivers abilities every day of the week.

Driving is like sex , no one admits they are bad but ask their partners and ....

As a lifelong Car and Motorcycle enthusiast it just leaves me completely cold, I’ve recently cancelled my subscription of Autocar as it is now just full of soulless electric cars.

I know it’s coming and because Oxford will be a ZEZ soon we will probably have to buy one, but I feel I’m losing my freedom of choice, I know it is a very selfish view and I should be ashamed, but cars and bikes have been a lifelong passion/obsession, and it just seems very sad to see it all going.

 

[Rusty Nails]

AI is the new god.

It'll have to fight Elon Musk first for that role.

 

[cougie uk]

Tesla/Musk has made a lot of claims, only to quietly forget them and make fresh claims when the time came to deliver. Anyone can "trial" driverless vehicles, and at risk of being called a traitor to my adopted country, the claims of the German car industry are possibly slightly more believable than Tesla but that's as far as I'd go.



This is true; public transport was always difficult in rural areas. Unfortunately the world isn't obligated to make our chosen lifestyle possible. I live in a rural area too, but I thought carefully about where I live so I can easily, live without a car.



The UK has long lagged behind on public transport. I had a heck of a soick when I tried to book a ticket for next month.



I have yet to see any evidence that it's possible to produce enough electricity to change to an electric car fleet without covering the entire US with solar panels, or the infamous "Solar roof tiles" which it turned out weren't. Nuclear isn't the magic bullet claimed; apart from anything else nuclear power stations spend longer being built and decommissioned than they do in use and all that requires lots of energy. The US has struggles to keep air conditioning running over summer in recent years, and to keep the car fleet moving we'll need a massive increase.



Because:


Therefore:

I don't think you'd need to fill the US with solar panels just to power the cars. Even with a small set up like mine I generate enough electric each year to run the car completely and we do more than the average UK mileage.

Americans have huge roofs.

 

[icowden]

Tesla/Musk has made a lot of claims, only to quietly forget them and make fresh claims when the time came to deliver. Anyone can "trial" driverless vehicles, and at risk of being called a traitor to my adopted country, the claims of the German car industry are possibly slightly more believable than Tesla but that's as far as I'd go.

Driverless isn't just Musk though. Tesla appear to be actually falling behind in that sector.

This is true; public transport was always difficult in rural areas. Unfortunately the world isn't obligated to make our chosen lifestyle possible. I live in a rural area too, but I thought carefully about where I live so I can easily, live without a car.

I'm not in a rural area. I'm in a semi-rural suburban area. That's how bad our public transport is.

I have yet to see any evidence that it's possible to produce enough electricity to change to an electric car fleet without covering the entire US with solar panels, or the infamous "Solar roof tiles" which it turned out weren't.

You mean these solar roof tiles from Tesla available in the US?:-
https://www.tesla.com/solarroof
https://www.inverse.com/innovation/tesla-solar-roof-one-year

Also in the UK we are fine according to the people who make the electricity:-
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/electric-vehicles-myths-misconceptions

The most demand for electricity in recent years in the UK was for 62GW in 2002. Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency. Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we believe demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002 and this is well within the range of manageable load fluctuation.

 

[Dadam]

I think we should try not to conflate battery powered electrically driven vehicles with self-driving vehicles. The power source is independent of the control mechanism. I'm fully in favour of the former, despite being a petrolhead most of my life.

But having worked in software my whole career, the latter... just no! Just listing all the possible edge cases is nigh on impossible, never mind coding for them or even properly collating the training data. Training for pattern recognition and outputting plausible text, routing a customer's query to the right worklist or even producing artistic looking images is one thing. Instilling the level of judgement needed for autonomous vehicles outside a carefully controlled environment is an entirely different level of difficulty.

30 years before it's practicable in my non-expert opinion, possibly more. I suspect to be safe you'll need something that's approaching low level sentience.