Goodnight Diesel. ...Land Rover get your EV skates on!

I think the author of the article has a good point, although I think his time scale is a bit short - especially the speed that the world motor industry can change, and the speed of reduction in battery costs. Another factor that is likely to prolong the use (if not the manufacture) of ICE vehicles is that the cost of running them will drop as fuel prices drop with reducing sales of fuel.

Certainly though, the majority of new car sales are not necessary for any technical reason - clearly demonstrated by the fact that most cars last many years past their first owner.

It would be nice to think that the general change to EVs will result in a change to car ownership attitudes, treating it more as a durable rather than a consumable, resulting in a major reduction in resource use - but I have my doubts!

On the topic of battery longevity and capacity, there are some very interesting developments coming up that offer amazing promise:

https://youtu.be/ifLxkO0w6B4

Solid state is the thing.

But in the Video you cant compare a phone battery to an EV battery, different tech.

These are the prismatic cells I use.

https://youtu.be/MUg9W4CbZUQ

But will fossil fuel prices drop when there is less demand? The cost of production may go up?

Theres certainly not much incentive to buy a diesel vehicle now with cities banning them, fuel prices rising and global warming events increasing at an alarming rate.

The big question though is, when will there be enough renewable energy to replace fossil fuel to run the worlds vehicles. No point having an EV if it’s powered by coal.

2025.... is not far away

32 electric cars you'll see on the road by 2025 | Business Insider

and it’s not even a comprehensive list... no Land Rover, no Bollinger, no Toyota.

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Originally Posted by Zeros

But will fossil fuel prices drop when there is less demand? The cost of production may go up?

Theres certainly not much much incentive to buy a diesel vehicle now with cities banning them, fuel prices rising and global warming events increasing at an alarming rate.

But the big question though is, when will there be enough renewable energy to replace fossil fuel to run the worlds vehicles. No point having an EV if it’s powered by coal.

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The cost of production of oil is made up of two components - capital cost and operating cost. For most production, capital cost represents the major part of the production cost. If a producer follows normal accounting rules, then production would cost more as the capital cost is spread over fewer barrels of oil being produced. But the capital cost has already been spent, and if demand slackens, the price cannot be increased, but will decrease. Eventually it will decrease until it drops below operating cost, and production from that field will cease. But with dropping demand, that will take a long time for most production.

The distorting factor as well is that for most oil traded a very large proportion of the refinery gate cost is taxes imposed by producing countries. These taxes can be changed at the stroke of a pen, and that change is likely to be down rather than up once these taxes plus operating costs and a shrinking market mean they can't sell their oil. Low cost, high tax production includes major suppliers such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela. These have the ability and incentive to flood the market with cheap oil in a shrinking market to try and maintain their income. Price of oil, in a shrinking market, is unlikely to rise until the market gets so small that existing large scale operations have to be scaled back. Certainly a lot of operations in high cost areas such as parts of the USA are price sensitive and would soon shut down, but this is only going to make the price reduction more gradual.

For someone in my area there are strong incentives to buy a new diesel today - they are cheaper to run than petrol, far cheaper to buy than EVs or hybrids (and more suitable vehicles), and there are no proposed city bans for diesels in Australia.

Tax, that you rightly say can be adjusted at the stroke of a pen, will be adjusted, and only in one direction. The price at the pump will never come down in the long term. Our glorious leaders will see to that.

• Jeremy Clarkson
  
  Columnist
  
  
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• The Weekend Australian Magazine
• 12:00AM January 26, 2019
• 12 Comments

A few years ago the people at Jaguar got it into their heads that they wanted to part company with their rather caddish customer base, with its gin and tonics and dodgy import-export ventures. So Jaguar stopped making comfortable, quiet and pretty cars and concentrated on small, shouty sports saloons.

There must have been a reason for this. You don’t abandon an image built up over many careful years on a whim. But whatever the reason, it hasn’t worked. Because if someone wants a small, shouty sports saloon, they’re going to buy a BMW.The new Jags were lovely to drive but they felt and sounded wrong. Imagine going into a McDonald’s and finding linen tablecloths and Pachelbel on the sound system. It’s not what you were expecting. In a Jag you want a wooden dashboard and soft leather seats. You want to start the engine and think: “Wait a minute. Is it broken?” Silence and smoothness is key. But you want good looks as well. For me, the series 3 XJ12 on pepper-pot alloys was peak Jag.Read Next

• https://content.capi.newscorp.com/im...62c6?width=320
  
  Destined to breathe free
  LUKE SLATTERY

And now, I’m delighted to say, it’s back in the shape of the I-Pace, which is very pretty and can be ordered with a wooden dashboard and squidgy leather seats. And it’s quiet. Really quiet. It’s a mouse tiptoeing over a bed of kapok, in carpet slippers. The reason is there’s no engine and only one gear because the I-Pace is electric.I drove around London in the I-Pace for a few days and it was just so relaxing. It glided over potholes and speed humps and wafted down Park Lane like a swan. Later I went out of town and found that on wet roads the four-wheel-drive grip was so leechy you end up looking like Snoopy, with both eyes on one side of your face. On dry roads you have the confidence to put your foot down and, yup, it does that electric thing of accelerating so violently your head feels as though it’s coming away. Off the line the I-Pace is Ferrari fast, and then some. Better than a Tesla? Yes. Definitely. The I-Pace is a car you will want to buy because it’s pretty, comfortable, practical and sensible, but mostly because the electric powertrain makes it feel so very Jaggish. And oh how I wish I could leave it there. But I can’t.It’s claimed that the range of the Jag is 480km. I’m sure that’s possible, but there’s a big gap between what’s possible and what’s achievable. I left London on a Friday afternoon with four passengers and a full boot. The range-ometer said I’d go 190km before a charge was necessary, and that, I figured, was easily enough to cover the 110km to my gaff in the country. But as we barrelled up the M40, the readout started to tumble like the altimeter in a crashing airliner. And then there was a crash. Two cars. Six fire engines. Long queues. Down came the readout, and down and down, until by the time I got to Oxford there was a danger it’d conk out before I got home. And then we’d have to download an app and fathom the instructions at the charging point and sit in the cold for 40 minutes while the battery drank power.I was panicking about that so I put everything in Eco mode – I even turned on the system that garners battery power from braking, even though this makes the car nigh-on undriveable. I made it home with 22 units left on the clock, plugged the car into the power supply and – pfff – all the lights went out. Yup. It tripped the fuse box. Very annoyed, I took it into town and plugged it into a friend’s house. The next morning, after eight hours of suckling from the grid, it had hoovered up enough electricity to go… 47km. That’s pathetic.

I know I could have taken it to a fast-charge point and sat while it was force-fed some joules, but I had friends staying and didn’t want to waste a precious weekend off by pandering to the whim of a polar bear. So I didn’t. Which meant that for the Sunday evening crawl back to London I used my old Range Rover.
Of course the Jag will work if you only commute between fast-charge points at your home and office. If that’s your life, it’s a great car and you should buy one immediately. If, however, you have relatives and friends who live far away, and you have rich and varied weekends, full of spontaneity and let’s-go-to-the-seaside moments, it’s still great. But you’ll need another car as well.
Jaguar I-Pace
Driveline: Two electric motors (294kW/696Nm); 90kWh lithium ion battery pack. Range up to 480km
Transmission: Single-speed, all-wheel drive
Price: From $119,000
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Nuff said about range.
Regards Philip A

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Seriously, Clarkson is so anti EV , so expect any review done by that dickwad to be BS .

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

This whole argument about overloading the electricity grid is just wrong.

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Well,down south its already massively overloaded...[bighmmm][biggrin]