Aren't we all driving autogas powered vehicles?
Just saw a newish Jag with some writing on the bumper saying the car produces no this that & the other, (unlike my filthy diesel)
What do autogas cars produce in the way of emissions?
My new hybrid was cheaper than it's diesel equivalent by £100 a month.
What do autogas cars produce in the way of emissions?
Check out the CO2 figures and compare for yourself. Cars running on LPG are generally just a bit worse than the same car on petrol for CO2 but better on particulates and carcinogens.
Hydrogen is the clean way to power cars but in reality the day of unfettered private car ownership is over. If car drivers were not massively subsidised by the general taxpayer then it would have gone already
in reality the day of unfettered private car ownership is over.
Perhaps not today, but I do also think those days are coming to an end.
Not just about 'new power sources' that the car companies want to sell us (remember when a diesel was the answer to low mpg and 'better'?).
I think many will look to a model of renting/ owning smaller/ car clubs etc. I think we will see more head to electric scooters.
It won't be everyone, but I can see it happening.
Hydrogen FTW.
Honestly, can't see the problem with sitting on top of a HBomb..
BMW had a great and thoughtful investment in Hydrogen a few years back, seemed a holistic approach to reducing all manner of nasties emmited. Not sure what happened to thier development work, hope they still continue to invest in it.
Hydrogen is the clean way to power cars but in reality the day of unfettered private car ownership is over. If car drivers were not massively subsidised by the general taxpayer then it would have gone already
In your private universe, perhaps. For the majority of people who [i]don't[/i] live in major conurbations, and who [i]don't[/i] have access to any public transport worth a damn, it'll be a cold day in hell before they're able to give up car ownership.
And please, don't trot out your tired old arguments about using bikes, that's just not going to work for a parent having to get children to a school that might be six or seven miles away, with no bus, no local shop to buy the family shopping, or work, that might be even further away, or for a pensioner who has no post office to get their pension from, or bank, because all the local branches have closed.
I have a friend who lives at least a mile from any local bus-stop, which means walking that distance either along a very narrow, winding and steep in places lane with no footpath or lighting, or across country again with zero lighting, and only two buses a day.
What he said^ plus, it all comes down to energy density. Diesel is more 'efficient' than petrol purely because it has more joules per litre. Autogas is cheaper than petrol, but having to have a heavy compressed gas cylinder on the vehicle plus extra fiddly bits negates the advantages. Hydrogen is a bugger to compress enough to make it viable and has a habit of leaking. Batteries are getting better but still don't have anywhere near the energy density of petrol and diesel, and are only economically viable due to MASSIVE subsiding by the government, in a complete lack of vehicle fuel duty plus grants at point of purchase. I reckon diesel and petrol will be around for a while yet, and viable replacements for the diesel powered goods transport that most of the world relies upon are only just emerging. Fact is, diesel is the cheapest way of converting chemical energy to kinetic energy that there is, pretty much (when government subsidies and levys are taken out of the equation, especially).
Count zero - as costs of motoring go up perhaps society will change? I am talking over a generation. Already cars are two expensive for many folk to run.
You know - things like investment in public transport and local shops becoming more viable? Huge commuttes becoming less viable?
Its already happening and will only accelerate. Private cars are a very wasteful way of transporting people
Yup we'll likely have a bit of biodiesel even if/when most transport is electric and fossil fuels are phased out.
too
tjagain - MemberCount zero - as costs of motoring go up perhaps society will change? I am talking over a generation. Already cars are two expensive for many folk to run.
You know - things like investment in public transport and local shops becoming more viable? Huge commuttes becoming less viable?
Its already happening and will only accelerate. Private cars are a very wasteful way of transporting people
It will. Self driving cars will fundamentally change the way people view cars and car ownership. Plus it will have a huge effect on public transport and delivery networks. There will always be people and places where cars are a basic necessity but once it becomes little more than a private taxi the idea of buying one outright will become more of a luxury.
Diesel is more 'efficient' than petrol purely because it has more joules per litre
That's one of the reasons but not the only one.
LPG just isn't enough of an improvement to bother with.
LPG just isn't enough of an improvement to bother with.
LPG is pretty decent, but obviously was still born in terms of investment. It has a super high octane rating (108 ron iirc) so it could have been ideal for todays small turbo petrol engines. But looks like ev's are the future.
Compare the weight and space requirements for an Lpg pressure vessel and a plastic petrol tank and you'll realise why it really isn't. For a start you can only fill an Lpg tank to around 66% capacity, IIRC.could have been ideal for todays small turbo petrol engines.
Its the only meaningful reason that makes any real sense. 33% more energy per litre is not to be sneezed at; and fits nicely with the approx 30% more mpg that you can expect from equivalent diesels compared to petrols.That's one of the reasons but not the only one.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars are indeed a great solution - it would use current infrastructure namely go to 'petrol' station, full with Hydrogen, drive. They have all the advantages of a EV (load of torque, silent, no gears needed, needs little or no maintenance for the drivetrain) Tax revenue would be secure.
None of that makes any difference because it currently takes more energy to refine hydrogen than can be released by its use, even more than current EVs all you're just creating the pollution in a more tax efficient way (maybe the lack of batteries would off-set the greater cost of creating the energy).
Either we fix that, or we find a better way to create the power needed to refine the hydrogen - I've just been reading about a plan to build a tidal lagoon in Cardiff - as Day Cardiff, it's massive a goes from Cardiff to Newport. It'll cost £8bn and be enough to power all of Wales, which is a lot, but Hinckley C will cost £20bn. One of those for home use and the slightly smaller in Swansea to power vehicles - Wales is sorted at least. That would be so cool.
Hydrogen is a dead end. It's an awkward inconvenient energy storage device -essentially a means to store electricity generated elsewhere. We have those already, they're called batteries and they're getting really quite good. Also if you burn hydrogen in an IC engine you still generate all sorts of crap from the nitrogen lantent in the atmosphere. Toyota's hydrogen car is a nice technology demonstrator for fuel cells, but the prospect of carting around a cryogenic fuel and the fuel cell all to avoid using batteries doesn't appeal, to me at least.
v8ninety - Member
could have been ideal for todays small turbo petrol engines.Compare the weight and space requirements for an Lpg pressure vessel and a plastic petrol tank and you'll realise why it really isn't. For a start you can only fill an Lpg tank to around 66% capacity, IIRC.
Well I removed a prins system from one of my cars so I know exactly how much they weigh. Any car that has space for a spare wheel has space for an lpg tank and that's just a bodge. If they were integrated into the design of the vehicle they could be placed anywhere within reason.
As for the weight it's probably not much different to the weight of a 1.0 petrol vs a 2.0 diesel engine. All moot because what I was referring to was the higher states of tune it would potnetially allow you to run.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars are indeed a great solution - it would use current infrastructure namely go to 'petrol' station, full with Hydrogen, drive.
Unfortunatly not . Hydrogen would just escape from the tanks etc. A whole new complex and expensive set up would be needed
Fuel cell cars work well but hydrogen storage needs to be sorted first and thre is no foreseeable way of doing this on a mass distributed scale
I was going to quote Iceland and its wonderful hydrogen based transport structure but I Googled it first . http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4664
Try the Unst project! Its not well represented on the web but the entire island is powered by a wind turbine / hydrogen maker / storage tank / fuell cell including a fuel cell car.
Unfortunatly not . Hydrogen would just escape from the tanks etc. A whole new complex and expensive set up would be needed
Oh no I get that, I didn't expect them to just switch the unleaded for hydrogen in the tanks but from a consumer and taxation point of view it's all very familiar. You fill your tank, you drive till it's empty and most importantly I think unlike EVs the Gov won't have to work out a new 'stealth' tax to to recoup the lost duty - just put it on the hydrogen.
Of course there's challenges, but if you told someboby you wanted to create the current system that takes crude from the Middle East and produce millions of litres of petrol available in every corner of the earth, If they didn't know it existed already they lad say it couldn't be done. There are some advantages - for example Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical on earth, so you can pretty much create it wherever you like.
Count zero - as costs of motoring go up perhaps society will change? I am talking over a generation. Already cars are two expensive for many folk to run.
I see society moving in a direction that will overall encourage/necessitate people to travel more and independently at that. Many businesses and services are centralising and closing premises outside of cities. So unless you're in one then everything is moving further away. Modern society is built around readily available, personal transport and to try and deconstruct that now would be next to impossible.
Here in the south west I couldn't afford [i]not[/i] to drive. Buses here are useless because they've not been up to the job for years so nobody uses them and so services get cut, it's a vicious circle.
15 years ago my small town had a tax office, maternity unit, dwp office and other stuff, now the hospital, police station and library are to shut along with half the banks. People are going to need to travel more not less.
The trouble is that it takes more energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen than you get back from them as fuel . The Iceland idea was based on them being able to use the abundance of cheap electricity that they can produce from GeoThermal and Hydro sources . Perhaps easier just to power electric cars with that electricity now .
lazlowoodbine
I think that is a dying trend and is not being replicated in other countries. Remote / internet working, self driving cars, flexible public transport etc will come. Its just too wasteful in energy terms to move people around the way we do now. The energy cost is simply too high and will only get higher.
Ramseyneil - but if you use wind turbines to produce the electricity you are only using the hydrogen as a storage medium yes its inefficient but are the loses that important when yo have virtually free power? Are the losses more than the losses in electricity transmission? Unst proves it works on a small scale
Home working and better mobile connectivity is already reducing the need for commuting. The trend will continue at an increased pace.
Office space is an expensive luxury.
An awful lot of people don't work in offices though. There is a lot of physical labour to be done.
I think it was an economist who said something along the lines of; Society is not going to get anywhere cutting each others hair.
Basically, services and admin work will not feed people.
lazlowoodbine - MemberI see society moving in a direction that will overall encourage/necessitate people to travel more and independently at that. Many businesses and services are centralising and closing premises outside of cities. So unless you're in one then everything is moving further away. Modern society is built around readily available, personal transport and to try and deconstruct that now would be next to impossible.
Here in the south west I couldn't afford not to drive. Buses here are useless because they've not been up to the job for years so nobody uses them and so services get cut, it's a vicious circle.
15 years ago my small town had a tax office, maternity unit, dwp office and other stuff, now the hospital, police station and library are to shut along with half the banks. People are going to need to travel more not less.
The problems you are predicting are going to become less and less relevant. Online banking is eliminating the need for physical banks (and crypto currencies will probably eliminate the need for money). Taxes, again, online. Drones and/or autonomous delivery vehicles are probably going to do away with supermarket shopping, and a large chunk of retail in general.
And once there's a system for delivering parcels by just placing them in the autonomous delivery truck that just dropped off your groceries why the hell do you need a post office? Tax your car? Online. Banking? Online. Letters? Emails.
As there won't be a hospital within 30 miles then I'll just go on-line when I have an arterial bleed then..
Seriously, I can see the way that many admin type things can be done without physical interaction but this plugged-in utopia just won't cut it in real life.
An awful lot of people don't work in offices though.
Believe it or not, we know this.
But point stands, an awful lot of people DO work in offices.
lazlowoodbine - MemberAs there won't be a hospital within 30 miles then I'll just go on-line when I have an arterial bleed then..
How often do you have arterial bleeds?
When yo have an arterial bleed you get an ambulance as you would now.
Fair point on the arterial bleed, bad example.
OK seeing a GP, another process that on many occasions could be replaced (and improved) by an app to collect stats and an occasional video conference.
Of course some people will still need to travel or more likely all people will still need to travel but not as much as they do now.
But does it really matters what powers the transport we each need as long as its clean? Theres no excuse for dumping poison into the air and I suspect China will drive this change now the West has gone mad.
The working from home one is interesting. Some of my work I could do from home home technically but I live in a very small house like many. I don't have the room. I would need a separate office space due to distractions. Not keen on a shared office space with a load of fandoms either.
I had a previous Octavia converted to LPG 10 years ago.
Worked well in general. Was certainly cheaper, and broke-even after a year or so.
Pumps were a bit of a pain to find and mpg was slightly down so effective range was 250 miles. But you could still use your main tank.
It had a couple of issues, filling up was a but awkward - some of the pumps were a bit Dr Who and very tricky. It took your spare tyre space too, although in this day and age you don't often get them.
TheBrick - Member
The working from home one is interesting. Some of my work I could do from home home technically but I live in a very small house like many. I don't have the room. I would need a separate office space due to distractions. Not keen on a shared office space with a load of fandoms either.
I've been banging the drum for 'remote working' over office working for years and of course there are challenges for everyone, including employees of course.
It wouldn't be an overnight thing - but consider this, your home is probably small because homes are expensive in the UK. A 'spare' room is a laughable idea to most people under 50.
But if you could work from home and didn't need to commute to an office you could move somewhere where the homes were cheaper and get more for your money.
Add another million or so remote workers into the mix and the UK housing market shifts like never before so even if you didn't want to move out of town it would still be cheaper as demand would be lower.
I have to say to me it seem like hydrogen is the best fit for a long term solution.
Accepting its inefficient to produce, once we move it to scale production its going to get better, and the way seems to me, the big oil producing Middle East can switch to solar plant hydrogen production, and ship it round the world using the same model as currently for oil.
Local production can also be made to work, as the big issue with solar and wind in places like the UK, is its not always windy/sunny when the power is required, so needs to be stored some how, so, produce hydrogen to power cars/lorries etc.
Battery power seems like a poor solution on many fronts.
1 They take a lot longer to charge than to fill a tank
2 Range isn't approaching current technologies, albeit getting better, perhaps works for social and commuting use, but not really great for industry
3 batteries are heavy
4 batteries are expensive to produce, using scarce difficult and polluting to extract materials
5 batteries have an intrinsic lifespan as anyone with a modern phone will know.
Hydrogen is a great solution, IF transport and storage can be cracked. There's huge areas of the world that could produce near limitless amounts.
However any technology that allows the storage and transportation of large amounts of potential energy would also work. Liquid flow batteries I reckon would also be a winner.
even if you didn't want to move out of town it would still be cheaper as demand would be lower
But being as I have only just managed to buy a drop in price would mean I would be stuck in the house due to negative equity.
Also in your first example of moving to a cheaper area that relies on my partner's ability to move to that area and the big one, lots of areas are cheaper because of commuting and work issues. Remove those issues and they are no long that much cheaper. It's not as simple as you propose. Add in the hysteresis of moving due to fees etc and savings have to be significant.
It's more of a long term trend. IT'll take time for people to adjust to the idea - a generation maybe.
molgrips - MemberIt's more of a long term trend. IT'll take time for people to adjust to the idea - a generation maybe.
This. Its not that long ago all children walked to their local school and these long commutes were rare. In Fife there is this ridiculous situation ( I am sure in other areas as well) where rural workers live in the towns and commute to rural locations having been priced out of the housing in the areas where they work and city workers commute from rural areas.
Its a massive adjustment but its coming like it or not. Its simply usustainable in energy costs to move people around the way we do now.
+1 for hydrogen.
By going to batteries we're swapping one mineral resource we're greedily using up (and that would be quite useful to have for other stuff), for another.
Its simply usustainable in energy costs to move people around the way we do now.
And time costs. The amount of wasted human effort is staggering. At a detriment to both working and personal lives.
It's not all about commuters though is it? We are now in a time when people drive [i]everywhere[/i]...
People are so selfish now, I just can't ever see that Utopian world you predict ever coming TJ. I hope you're right, I just can't see it.
It's not all about commuters though is it?
A massive amount is I reckon.
Nobeer - as energy costs rise it will be inevitable. We can either go with the flow or fight it - but its coming like it or not. Families where both parents commute a distance can easily be spending towards 10 000 pa on commutting costs. As this rises it will force a change in behaviour
Will it though? look at how much as a percentage of salaries people spend on phones, cars, mortgages etc. Years ago that amount was unthinkable.
We have apprentices in here that are running brand new beemers and audis on PCP ffs!
When your £5000 commuting bill becomes £10 000, £15000 then you don't think folk will change? Energy costs are going to rise and keep on rising.
Although the cost of fuel would fall if people stopped using it. So it'll probably flatten out at a level that's *just about* affordable when people have to work really hard for it.
Not an ideal situation, but that's an ultimate effect of capitalism.
Solar panels and windmills are getting cheaper per kWh produced, hydro has always been cheap. Remove taxes from energy saving measures and energy efficient transport and it's not at all certain that energy will be more expensive in the future. Inflation adjusted it's never cost me so little.
Energy no - petrol probably.
fitnessischeating - Member
I have to say to me it seem like hydrogen is the best fit for a long term solution.Accepting its inefficient to produce, once we move it to scale production its going to get better, and the way seems to me, the big oil producing Middle East can switch to solar plant hydrogen production, and ship it round the world using the same model as currently for oil.
Local production can also be made to work, as the big issue with solar and wind in places like the UK, is its not always windy/sunny when the power is required, so needs to be stored some how, so, produce hydrogen to power cars/lorries etc.
Battery power seems like a poor solution on many fronts.
1 They take a lot longer to charge than to fill a tank
2 Range isn't approaching current technologies, albeit getting better, perhaps works for social and commuting use, but not really great for industry
3 batteries are heavy
4 batteries are expensive to produce, using scarce difficult and polluting to extract materials
5 batteries have an intrinsic lifespan as anyone with a modern phone will know.
1. Compared to having the car fully charged every morning? Going to a special location to fill a car up is going to seem very old fashioned in short order.
2. Nor is it in hydrogen cars see links below
369 miles https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/hyundai/ix35-fuel-cell
312 miles https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html
3. So is the equipment required to carry hydrogen. The Mirai weighs 1,850 kg for instance. Tesla Model 3 (long range version) 1,730 kg.
4. So is the equipment required to carry hydrogen. Toyota Mirai price = £66,000. Tesla model 3 (long range) price = £35,000
5. So what? The body of the car itself has a lifespan, everything does. As long as it is either replaceable or lasts the lifetime of the car it doesn't matter.
So, hydrogen is impossible to store, fuel cells just use fuel in a different way, LPG isn't worth a look because petrol, diesel is, well, messy, and batteries are still raping the planet despite the magic electricity fairy removing all the pollution*.
*in the adverts.
Anyone for horses?
pretty sure a significant number of journeys could be undertaken by some form of human powered propulsion system . Perhaps with a variable drive system that makes for an efficient energy usage system to provide forward movement while cutting down on all the storage requirements for empty space ?
pretty sure a significant number of journeys could be undertaken by some form of human powered propulsion system . Perhaps with a variable drive system that makes for an efficient energy usage system to provide forward movement while cutting down on all the storage requirements for empty space ?
Heresy!
Other countries seem to manage those mysterious forms of travel trail rat. I wonder why we can't
Other countries seem to manage those mysterious forms of travel trail rat. I wonder why we can't
Because those countries managed to get the people doing this before they became one of the most obese, lazy bastard nations on the planet.
Hydrogen is total crap: difficult and expensive to make, store and distribute. Spending money on it is a waste of time, energy and money.
Ignorance is bliss.
You think drilling in Deep water is easy, cheap, and the product is clean, safe and easy to refine and distribute then, ransos?
Now consider what's happening to our climate and how best to limit the changes that are threatening ever greater numbers of your fellow earthlings.
Ignorance is bliss.You think drilling in Deep water is easy, cheap, and the product is clean, safe and easy to refine and distribute then, ransos?
Yes, what we should definitely do is stop using oil, and replace it with something equally crap.
Now consider what's happening to our climate and how best to limit the changes that are threatening ever greater numbers of your fellow earthlings.
I have. Hydrogen is not on the list.
We cant imagine it because most of the voices on here are not to put too blunt a point on it..old.
Younger people don't have such a hang up about new ideas.
Hydrogen is total crap
Need to compare it to the other clean alternatives that we currently have...
Hydrogen can and usually is carbon free. Take water, add electricity, get hydrogen and oxygen. Take hydrogen, add oxygen, get water and electricity. Nice and clean. Fuel cells contain nasty catalysts tho but are endlessly recyclable
Hydrogen can be a very useful storage medium - read the links I put up to PURE / Unst project
And yet it's old people who invest most in alternative energy, low-energy use housing, bio foods etc.. The profile of an electric car user:
, il gagne bien sa vie, est âgé de 51 ans et habite une petite ville ou la campagne.
well off, 51, and lives in a small town or the country.
Need to compare it to the other clean alternatives that we currently have...
I'd rather not lock us into perpetuating the status quo with a dead-end techno-fix that is marginally better than using fossil fuels.
Read up Ransos - its hugely better certainly from the carbon point of view. NO pollutants in use. Zero! No range limitations unlike elecric. Its just a way of storing energy and a highly efficient one
If car drivers were not massively subsidised by the general taxpayer then it would have gone already
Not sure I'm following this one, buying a car is expensive and taxed pretty highly. Running a car is even more expensive and taxed massively. Is fuel not pretty much the highest taxed thing in our economy? All just a gut feel but it seems to me like motorists are paying a huge chunk into the economy and if everyone stopped driving there would be a massive hole to fill.
Hydrogen can and usually is carbon free.
How are you going to make the electricity? If you're thinking of renewables, we've done this before: there is no realistic scenario in which we can convert mass transport to electricity (either through hydrogen or battery) [u]and[/u] decarbonize the rest of our demand (industrial, domestic). Hydrogen takes the problems of battery-storage and adds a bunch of new ones - it's inefficient, difficult to store and difficult to distribute. Nuclear? Even leaving aside its inherent problems, you're looking at 15-20 years for new plant. We could probably replace our existing fleet, which brings us back to the problem of additional generation capacity.
No, the answer is massive demand-side reduction, which renders the residual fuel source much less important.
Read up Ransos - its hugely better certainly from the carbon point of view. NO pollutants in use. Zero! No range limitations unlike elecric. Its just a way of storing energy and a highly efficient one
From your posts, I'm pretty sure I'm better-read on the subject than you.
All just a gut feel but it seems to me like motorists are paying a huge chunk into the economy and if everyone stopped driving there would be a massive hole to fill.
In the short term yes. In the longer term, the savings would be felt on road maintenance, infrastructure provision, health improvements, crime rate reductions, reductions in pollution (of various sorts) etc. The stuff that everyone typically subsidises motorists to do!
No, the answer is massive demand-side reduction
No - that is mandatory, but we ALSO need a green fuel solution.
I'd rather not lock us into perpetuating the status quo with a dead-end techno-fix that is marginally better than using fossil fuels.
Hydrogen is a possible energy distribution and storage solution, not an energy source. So cannot be compared to fossil fuels. If you are going to use hydrogen, you have not answered the question of how to generate electricity, so you still need to work on that.
there is no realistic scenario in which we can convert mass transport to electricity
Another display of ignorance on this matter, ransos. There's more than enough sun, wind, tidal, hydro, wave to produce all the power we need and the technology for a smart grid and storage (which hydrogen and battery electric cars can be a part of).
v8ninety - Member
What he said^ plus, it all comes down to energy density. Diesel is more 'efficient' than petrol purely because it has more joules per litre
...by 5% and is less efficient if, like every commodity you measure it by weight and not volume.
Diesels efficiency is due more to ignition and combustion than fuel density.
Hydrogen is not an option really. Although it's the most abundant thing in the universe its not readily at had for us to use easily. It costs a huge amount of electricity to make it from water. Not sure where Hydrogen fuel cells are - it's all fallen quiet on that front in recent years after it was touted as being our saviour.
We can't go back down the fossil fuel route for environmental and political reasons so we've got to be looking at EV and hybrids really I think.
But there doesn't have to be a one-size solution for all. There is no reason why people in densely populated towns and cities can't use public transport or pure EV's, people I rural areas use hybrids or ultra-efficient petrol IC engine cars, commercial transport using more hybrid or other IC based driven vehicles etc. There is no way outside of a busy and densely populated town or city you're ever going to get public transport to totally replace cars. You don't see it in other countries that have much better public transport infrastructure than we do and where public transport is more socially acceptable. At some point people do value their convenience above all else.
Because old folk also have all the money!
I'm not sure you're typical either.
I agree with the point above it'll be a mix for half a century at least.
stevemtb - Member
If car drivers were not massively subsidised by the general taxpayer then it would have gone already
Not sure I'm following this one, buying a car is expensive and taxed pretty highly. Running a car is even more expensive and taxed massively. Is fuel not pretty much the highest taxed thing in our economy? All just a gut feel but it seems to me like motorists are paying a huge chunk into the economy and if everyone stopped driving there would be a massive hole to fill.
True costs of motoring are debatable but most timers the sums are done its a subsidy from the general taxpayer to the motorist of around 50 - 100% - depends what you add in. Every death is a million pounds and include all the road deaths thats a lot. cost of all the infrastructure, all the pollution, all the road law enforcement - it all adds up
Huge display of willful ignorance Ransos - did you look at the PURE link?
Hydrogen is simply an energy storage medium - and a fairly good one at that. Much better than batteries in many ways.
Plenty of scope to power vehicles from renewables. If scotland already produces more than enough renewables for all its domestic electricity use. Doubling or tripling that would mean plenty to run all the cars and trucks as well.
Of course its doable - especially if combined with energy usage reduction measures. simply takes political will
Hybrids have a massive potential in larger vans and up
Hybrids are not the answer. No pollution or energy consumption reduction over their lifespan.