Thread: Britain to ban diesel and petrol vehicles

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

Adelaide had them. They would disengage from the overheads, move to the side of the road, pick up and drop off passengers, then drive out into the road and re-engage wit the overheads.

Interesting. A source for that info? I can't find anything.

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

If the trolley buses were so much better, I would say they would still be running.

Because no-one in charge knew or cared about the effects of diesel pollution back then.

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

Oh, remember Adelaide had an extensive tram network. The electric trams replaced the steam trains that trundled along the streets.
Almost all gone now. The trams. The steam trains are long gone. There hasn't been a steam train up North Terrace or through Victoria Square for many years.

Well, that's progress for you.

And a good thing too.

Bollinger unveils new minimalist and badass-looking all-electric truck with up to 200 miles of range | Electrek

Originally Posted by bee utey

Don't forget though that electric motors are far lighter than equivalent combustion engines, while this only accounts for some of the difference it is a step forward. if nothing else first generation electric planes could use battery power as a take off boost allowing the main engines to be smaller and lighter for a given payload. Concentrated air pollution is reduced at airports too as these are usually right next to cities.

Airbus - E-Fan electric aircraft

I'm not sure either of these are correct - I'm pretty certain that turbofan engines as used on large aircraft are considerably lighter than any electric motor ever made of similar power. And taken worldwide, most airports are not "right next to cities". Sydney is a local exception, but even here I think that the airport does not result in concentrated pollution except in unusually calm conditions.


Takeoff power requirements set the size of the engine on an aeroplane, but before considering the use of an extra, different power source for takeoff, you would have to establish that the extra electric engines were lighter than the amount saved in the turbofans and that the energy density of the batteries was good enough - which the figures quoted above suggest it is not, by a factor exceeding ten (turbofans are more efficient than diesels). And this is before even looking at the aerodynamic implications of a propulsion system that would be parasitic drag for most of the flight, or the infrastructure needed to recharge in a short time (some long range aircraft have very high utilisation rates).

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Britain is moving to ban diesel and petrol vehicles by 2040...

They won't need to ban them by 2040. They will be gone within ~8 years . Somehow, I don't think so

All fossil-fuel vehicles will vanish in 8 years in twin ‘death spiral’ for big oil and big autos, says study that’s shocking the industries

No more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century.

This is the futuristic forecast by Stanford University economist Tony Seba. His report, with the deceptively bland title Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030, has gone viral in green circles and is causing spasms of anxiety in the established industries.

We are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in history

Seba’s premise is that people will stop driving altogether. They will switch en masse to self-drive electric vehicles (EVs) that are ten times cheaper to run than fossil-based cars, with a near-zero marginal cost of fuel and an expected lifespan of 1 million miles.

Only nostalgics will cling to the old habit of car ownership. The rest will adapt to vehicles on demand. It will become harder to find a petrol station, spares, or anybody to fix the 2,000 moving parts that bedevil the internal combustion engine. Dealers will disappear by 2024.

2000 moving parts?

The prediction is quite possibly largely correct - except for the eight years bit. More like fifty as a minimum in my view. Consider, for example, how rapidly motor cars replaced horse drawn transport - mass production of cars started in the first decade of the twentieth century, but horses were still being used extensively for transport fifty years later.

As for the demise of the oil industry - it may not be doing as well, but I can't see elf drive electric cars having anything except marginal impact on the use of oil for air transport, shipping, agriculture, mining or the petrochemical industry.

Autonomous electric vehicles with a range of 500km in any weather condition (think air conditioning in summer and heating in winter, both massive power consumers), I can hardly wait. It would be great to have a sleep in the back seat whilst the trusty steed delivers me all refreshed for work.

That jogs a few memories of family stories. Back in the 1920s, my grandfather had an autonomous vehicle. Her name was Gypsy.

Originally Posted by Mick_Marsh

...... .... ...

That jogs a few memories of family stories. Back in the 1920s, my grandfather had an autonomous vehicle. Her name was Gypsy.

In the 1950's, the postman in Sawtell had a similar autonomous vehicle. He could sort the next few batches of letters sitting on his horse.