why are we manufacturing all these things that spend most of the time doing nothing?

Most people start work at about the same time in the morning and finish about the same time in the evening. People like having their own car because you can leave all your stuff in it. Those two things make shared vehicles impractical – there will be a huge surge of demand in the morning and evening, but little demand in off-peak times. That means that on-demand rental prices will be nearly as high as ownership because most of the cars will still be spending most of the time parked up waiting for customers. So, you’d be paying nearly as much to rent a vehicle, but you can’t leave all your stuff in it.

one cant second guess it, so i propose the main thing that i WANT to see:

People realise that driving a 2 tonne box for every trip is stupid. Households have one car, and use it much less often. Their existing fuel car drops down to 3k miles a year and people hang onto them a lot longer.
There is a massive uptick in cargo bikes and utility bikes as people realise that cycling is not about being a roadie ninja on a TdF capable bike, but about inclusive, easy going and cheap mass transport. Helmets become less “required” as roads feel safer as seeing bike pootling is the norm. people ride around in jeans/dresses/work clothes on sensible Electric assisted bikes capable of carrying people to work, kids to school, a few days of shopping home again.

Obviously this utopia has its limitations out of the major populations areas, but less townies in cars makes for more space for people with a greater requirement to drive, to be able to sit in traffic jams.

The car as mass transit is dead. Bring on the “proper” bikes.

Just transitioning from ICE to EV doesn’t really work from a practical or environmental standpoint.

It’s not practical for a large proportion of the population to charge a vehicle at home. Whilst most SUV drivers have access to a nice driveway, lots of people struggle to park near their homes.

Environmentally, the energy and resources required to build an EV are significant. Walking, cycling(e-bikes), public transport, hire or car sharing when required are all better.

As commented on, young people aren’t interested in cars. The experience of driving is not as engaging as 20 or 30 years ago nor, is being able to drive as empowering. There is likely to be a shift in behaviour as future generations become less reliant on car travel. All driven by online shopping, digital entertainment and home working.

Most people start work at about the same time in the morning and finish about the same time in the evening

Most people… of those who have 9-5 office jobs, maybe. There’s still a lot of cars sitting outside houses during rush hours. I would hazard a guess that the proportion of cars in use at any one time is significantly lower than 50%. But yes it is handy to be able to keep stuff stashed in them.

Obviously this utopia has its limitations out of the major populations areas, but less townies in cars makes for more space for people with a greater requirement to drive, to be able to sit in traffic jams.

Segregated cycleways (not shitty paths, ‘cycleways’) would make this a reality

I’m a through and through road racer with 100% road confidence but I’d not enjoy a daily work commute in amongst motor traffic. You can’t relax and enjoy pootling along at 15mph – there is always a level of innate alertness etc even with a high level of bike craft.

Separate road networks for bike traffic where you can just completely mentally ‘chill out’ and ‘get to where you’re going’ between town-town is what it would take – even for me.
I enjoy riding the offroad track from Letchworth>Stevenage but if I had to get to some office in work casual clothing in November when it’s muddy – it’s obviously not at all feasible.

. That means that on-demand rental prices will be nearly as high as ownership because most of the cars will still be spending most of the time parked up waiting for customers. So, you’d be paying nearly as much to rent a vehicle, but you can’t leave all your stuff in it.

the same thing happens with all public transport, and peak time costs are used to manage it. Whilst a lot of commuters may *need* to travel to be in the office *at* 9, a bunch of jobs are flexible (I couldn’t care less if my team are in at 9, 10 or 11 if they get the work done), and flexible pricing means those folks will come in later and save a bunch of cash. Likewise, all the pensioners who nip to the shops will probably be doing it late morning/early afternoon at cost of electricity + very little – it will be way cheaper for them than having a car themselves.

Supply and demand is a very powerful force, and shared cars are ripe for making the most of it.

So to fill up a Ioniq 5’s 77Kwh battery it will cost 17kgs of Co2, and it’ll do 200 miles in, near ideal circumstances. 10 years and 74000 miles (estimated lifespan)

Those are some seriously ropey looking numbers. The Ioniq 5 77kWh is likely to do nearer 300 miles in ‘ideal’ circumstances. And why do you estimate its lifespan at 10 years? I think the used car market is going to change significantly over the next 10-20 years, I don’t think your predictions are sound.

And you’re overlooking the fact that no-one earth has a C1 and an Ioniq 5 at the top of the same shortlist for car purchases. The electric equivalent of the C1 doesn’t really exist yet, but the nearest thing that I’m aware of would be either something like a Fiat 500e for small young-person market or a Dacia Spring being the cheapest option.

why are we manufacturing all these things that spend most of the time doing nothing?

Most stuff I own spends most of its time doing nothing.

The combustion engine will be around for a long while yet. There are already exemptions in place that protect small unit producers, but the cut-off point for this is still being debated and i can see it increasing signifincatly, not only if to protect the supercar (see Italy/Ferrari/Lambo petition).

If i was a betting man, i’ll see an emerging market for non-homologated vehciles coming through as a pseudo kit – with people like Ford/GM/VW etc still desigining and manufacturing powertrains to be fitted by coachbuilders (a bit like the old days and very much like what the US truck fleet is like).

This aside, for a nyumber of reasons, and P-Jay did put some good points together (Polestar and Mahle have some very good data), the real benefit of BEV will in the short term make a negative impact on the climate. There is a “battery-gate” on its way at the moment when 10’000’s of end of life batteries come to be discarded, there is real concern for this in the industry. At the moment they are all being put into mineshafts to deal with later – but that’s OK i’ll leave it to the kids/gandkids to deal with.. (its costs more to recycle than it does to make new).

Im part of a focus group / thinktank that is looking at the 2030-2035 transition and the arguments from all of the parties is clear, that governments (not civil servant side) should remain technology neutral.

If any of you like to have a proper informative read then i can highly recommend reading this;

https://www.racingtowardzero.com/

it’s on Amazon as well https://www.amazon.co.uk/Racing-Toward-Zero-Untold-Driving/dp/1468601466/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Racing+Toward+Zero&qid=1631018729&sr=8-1

Part of the problem is reversing/changing several generations of social change..
2 generations ago my Grandad owned a butchers shop within walking distance from home. My Dad did an Engineering apprenticeship then the first part of his career walking distance from home..
I went to the nearest secondary school – which was a 30 min walk from home.

I currently drive 30 miles each way to work.
My daughter gets a bus 8 miles to school, further than a number of other local schools.

These are the issues which really need addressing.. It doesn’t matter what fuel is in your car if you don’t need to use the car….

No they’ll just get councils to install on-street chargers (already happening) or they’ll use public chargers like you do for petrol.

This. Have any of your ever been to one of Canada’s coldest cities? I grew up in Winnipeg, where the average January daytime temperature is -25 degrees C. Almost every car park, and certainly every driveway [sic] in the city, is equipped with power outlets into which cars can plug their block heaters. It is simply a matter of survival.

Isn’t it a matter of expanding the same sort of infrastructure?

Motor vehicle traffic in the UK has gone up 36% between 1994 and 2019: Page 3 of this report on 2019 traffic levels – regardless of what’s powering those vehicles it’s a huge increase and one I don’t understand. What’s driving all these extra miles? The table is quite interesting. But my guess is that switching to electric won’t drive down the number of miles people drive instead of walk, cycle or train/bus. In fact, it may even increase utility motoring as people think’oh, well, it’s not as bad as driving a diesel to the shops / school pickup etc’. Someone suggested on here a while back that people increasingly treat cars like motorised wheelchairs for the able-bodied, and that’s a pretty ghastly thought.

Anyway – internal combustion engines? I reckon they’ll be an exciting day out to a track somewhere to drive or watch something exotic. They’ll increasingly make very little sense for the sort of motoring 99.9% of people do – driving to the shops / entertainment / exercise etc. Our household has two cars, and when they conk out (and we tend to buy second hand and then use them until the cost of repair over a six month period is more than scrap value) we’ll be looking at an electric replacement or replacements. With two children and only one adult that commutes by car, we sort of need two things: a big car for taking on holiday / to relatives over 250 miles away / hauling boats and bikes and a small car for local trips, or when the family is doing more than one activity in different places. Addressing that need is really, really difficult because it’s one of many edge cases that make rental / self drive a complex operational problem to solve, as detailed in posts above mine.

One last thing: look at light goods vehicle miles since 1994: up over 100%. That feels like a problem that could be / should be solved with LGVs and cargo bikes, and that will be A Good Thing.

These are the issues which really need addressing.. It doesn’t matter what fuel is in your car if you don’t need to use the car….

This is the real issue. An EV is green-er, but nowhere near green enough.

Bearing in mind that the sustainable level of CO2 emissions is ~2t per person per year and an electric car still emits about 1t, you’re going to have to make some serious lifestyle curtailments elsewhere to meet that overall target.

EVs will have to replace some cars (let’s say 10%). The other 90% are going to have to be taxed and legislated off the roads.

2 generations ago my Grandad owned a butchers shop within walking distance from home. My Dad did an Engineering apprenticeship then the first part of his career walking distance from home..
I went to the nearest secondary school – which was a 30 min walk from home.

Is that really the life people want to go back to? I cant think of anythnig worse.
It might be pleasant (but dull) in a nice village in the lake district or rural Kent but you are condemming most of the population to a lifetime of zero social mobility and drudgery.

Is that really the life people want to go back to? I cant think of anythnig worse.
It might be pleasant (but dull) in a nice village in the lake district or rural Kent but you are condemming most of the population to a lifetime of zero social mobility and drudgery.

Absolutely not – but current lifestyles where people drive everywhere need to change somehow.
My only option to get to my office is to drive – public transport would take 2-3 hours (into London then back out again) and cycling is not an option due to the Dartford crossing.

Why not just let existing cars go on as they are greener than creating a new car?

Also battery certainly is not the way forward, certainly the way it is currently being done

Is that really the life people want to go back to? I cant think of anythnig worse.
It might be pleasant (but dull) in a nice village in the lake district or rural Kent but you are condemming most of the population to a lifetime of zero social mobility and drudgery.

The answer is in two parts:

1, we don’t really have much choice.

2, I thought everyone knew that the “car = freedom” advertising from the automotive industry was bullshit.

If anything cars have killed off entire areas economically. My village (population approximately 2000) has about 6 full time jobs. It’s a ludicrous situation to carry on.

1, we don’t really have much choice.

I know this is the “technology will save us” argument, but (pesky pandemics and wars aside) we have as a species got increasing quality of life and decreasing per capita emissions/polution pretty much continually since the industrial revolution.

But the idea that people will voluntarily (or happily have the government impose on them) a european 1950s lifestyle is about as likely as Miami hosting the winter olympics.

But the idea that people will voluntarily (or happily have the government impose on them) a european 1950s lifestyle is about as likely as Miami hosting the winter olympics.

How many forum members grew up in 2-car households 30 years ago? Probably very very few.

These days it’s common for mum, dad, and kids to have a car each (and use it a lot*). Between 1980 and 2020 the number of cars has gone up from 14million to 34million.

*Although annual milage has dropped recently, in the last two decade it’s dropped from 9200 to 7400, but nowhere near enough to counter more than doubling the number of cars.

Back to the 80s but with better public transport wouldn’t sound so hyperbolic.

Also, some comment about Sochi being like the Russian Miami seems appropriate 🤣.

I get upset by the number of school parents who use the car (ANY car) to drop their kids at the local schools, when I KNOW that they are literally a 12 minute walk up the road, at most.

As has been said – it doens’t matter HOW your car is powered if you’re using it wrongly…
People need to simply walk/cycle/scoot more.

And I DO accept roads are sometimes rubbish/scary, but I think for the most part, this is just an excuse the parents/kids regurgitate.
The local school my son goes to has nice quite roads around it..well..apart from teh effing CHAOS that happens every day at pickup and dropoff!

I worry about how lazy the world is getting..

DrP

With a little ambition we would be using the 2030 phasing out of most IC vehicles to also phase out urban and suburban on-street parking. 8 years is plenty of time for people who plan on keeping cars to move to housing which affords their lifestyle choices instead of expecting the public to pay for their storage space. Much of that wasted space could be used for planting trees and providing better walking and cycling infrastructure instead.

ICE lorries are here for a while I suspect, and unfortunately they are the most polluting (CO2 NO2 & particulates).

EVs are going to take over in built-up areas I suspect, but as said above, the game changer will be self-driving transport pods, hailed (pre-booked) by app with flexible costing (more costly to travel at peak times or alone).

Diesel utility vehicles will persist in rural areas I think.

Hydrogen is not a realistic fuel for ICE – it’s not energy dense enough – though fuel cells/ EV may eventually become widespread.

a european 1950s lifestyle is about as likely as Miami hosting the winter olympics.

Miami will probably host the worlds first Underwater Olympics. Someone will need to figure out what to do with Turkey Point soon though or the competitors will be glowing.

How many forum members grew up in 2-car households 30 years ago? Probably very very few.

Puts up hand, but it was 50 years ago – my Dad ran a car factory, and had two company cars (both changed at 6 months old).

It’s probably why I’ve always had a car, and always will – I was brought up with them, and passed both car & motorbike the same week exactly 39 years ago (taking in a Renault 5GTS and on a Yamaha RD250E).

Each of our 3 sons had their first driving lesson on their 17th birthday.

And being rural living, can’t see us not having a car – in fact my Mum is mid-80’s and still has her own car, and drives most days.

I get upset by the number of school parents who use the car (ANY car) to drop their kids at the local schools, when I KNOW that they are literally a 12 minute walk up the road, at most.

But for some it could be they’re on their way to work, so 12 mins there, 12 mins back and then drive in the same direction – you’ve just added 1/2 hour to their commute.

How many forum members grew up in 2-car households 30 years ago?

What you have to remember is that way back, families often didn’t need two cars because the mum was staying at home, or if she worked it was at a local shop part time. Because a woman’s place was in the home wasn’t it?

*Although annual milage has dropped recently, in the last two decade it’s dropped from 9200 to 7400, but nowhere near enough to counter more than doubling the number of cars.

Given the stat I quoted above about increased traffic levels, does what you’re saying suggest that people are using cars for shorter journeys overall?

But the idea that people will voluntarily (or happily have the government impose on them) a european 1950s lifestyle is about as likely as Miami hosting the winter olympics.

52% of them voted for it.

We can’t and shouldn’t go back to the 70s or 50s. What we should do is create a better new system that allows us to have interesting fulfilling jobs that don’t revolve around needless consumption and don’t require us to make car journeys simply to show our faces. This is the challenge we face.

lifetime of zero social mobility

Social mobility in the UK was greater in the 1960s than it is now – and my parents benefited from it.

Of course social mobility might not mean what you think it does.

It’s probably why I’ve always had a car, and always will – I was brought up with them, and passed both car & motorbike the same week exactly 39 years ago (taking in a Renault 5GTS and on a Yamaha RD250E).

Each of our 3 sons had their first driving lesson on their 17th birthday.

And being rural living, can’t see us not having a car

But then that’s probably exactly the sort of thing that’s going to have to change. There isn’t a viable way for it to continue.

May not be applicable to you but people moving to rural areas then commuting to towns both pushes up the prices of housing for the people who need to live there to work, and produces gross ammounts of unessecary and unsustainable pollution.

What we should do is create a better new system that allows us to have interesting fulfilling jobs that don’t revolve around needless consumption and don’t require us to make journeys simply to show our faces

FTFY

My missus has been enjoying not spending 3 hours a day travelling since lockdown, to a job that can be fulfilled just as well from home.

How many forum members grew up in 2-car households 30 years ago?

What you have to remember is that way back, families often didn’t need two cars because the mum was staying at home, or if she worked it was at a local shop part time. Because a woman’s place was in the home wasn’t it?

Really!! 50 years ago my mum had a second car teaching in a school around 10 miles away.

35 years ago my grandfather lived with us with a hulking great P4 Rover, I had a 3000E Capri + MG Midget, my sister had a Renault 4 along with my mums Simca 1100 and my dads Austin Princess.

Oh you didn’t live in a rural location did you? The only bus was once a day after everyone was at work that returned well before work finished.

Oh you didn’t live in a rural location did you?

Yep. Just not the same one as you that was apparently filled with rich people.

I said ‘often’. Your handful of examples don’t really prove anything. Second car ownership was much much lower in the 70s and 80s than it is now.

I’ve been hearing this sort of nonsense for as long as I can remember, yet I see no evidence that life in general is any worse than it was 10, 20 or even 40 years ago.

i hear what you’re saying, but i do feel that the extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and these have been attributed to global warming and it’s going to get worse.

You need to get this together a bit quicker, there are not many manufactures left that think internal combustion engines are worth continuing and fewer showrooms with them in.

What will happen as people replace old with new, petrol with electric or hybrid, is a tipping point where it becomes simpler to drive electric than the old tech, then the replacement will take as long as a petrol or diesel car lasts, because there will be no new one to replace it, the rest will just have to fit as it always does, no one is going to construct a new world to make it all nice and perfect just for cars, it’s just a change of fuel.

We can’t and shouldn’t go back to the 70s or 50s.

We should, but just for long enough for people to experience how much it sucked back then for anyone who wasn’t a white male with a comfortable income.

We can’t and shouldn’t go back to the 70s or 50s.

It’s kind of funny how people see giving up one of their motors as such a retrograde step.

Someone mentioned earlier the growth in car ownership since the mid 90s, it’s certainly outstripped population increase and car ownership wasn’t a rarity 25 yeas ago…

What has really changed over that period is the level and options available for financing a car, PCP/HP/lease take your pick, nobody drives a new car for more than 3 years (I’m told), yet that car will remain functional and carry on being resold and used for another 15+ years, an entire secondary industry relies on that chain of supply.

Dare I say it a pretty huge finance and service industry relies on consumers continuing to conflate wants and needs…

Being sensible my family actually only needs one basic car with relatively short range for about 90% of the our likely journeys, supplemented by public transport, walking and cycling. What we end up wanting is two, newer cars which we don’t have to worry about range on. And it’s breaking that cycle of thought that’s the trick… there’s lots of reinforcement of the idea that 2 newer cars on the drive is a normal/acceptable/necessary thing for a family, but for suburban dwelling types with local and/or WFH arrangements it’s not (I know needs are different for those in more rural locations).

Us lot keeping up with the neighbors in suburbia are the problem.

Well, that and having easy access to credit from companies that make a fortune on car leases. If getting hold of a new car is super-easy, why would you not lease one, then you too can have a shiny new Fiesta/Swift/whatever on your driveway instead of a rusty shitbox of a Nova.

As for electrification of the last mile, people are trying. Budbee (Stockholm based) use some quite big electrically assisted pedal vehicles to do deliveries in the city. Load size is huge and makes it a lot easier for them to put parcels the DPD/DHL/whoever would normal use a Sprinter for. Drivers are mostly young, some students, and (at least in Sweden) get a decent wages for the work.

https://budbee.com/en/sustainability/

I knew a chap in their operations department and they were looking at going 100% electric for the last mile; a big investment, but one they thought was really worth it.

Actually, a side note to that last post… This is Sweden we are talking about here. Even in Stockholm, the temperature can get to -20 and the bikes and their drivers are out in it, with snow and ice on the ground. They use roads and cycle tracks and it works. Pleasetell me why DPD, DHL, Parcelfarce cannot do the same thing in the British “winter”.