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Green_as_a_hippo April 16, 2009 8:59 AM

Should the Olympics to go Carbon Neutral? What an amazing acheivment that would be, and an inspiration to the rest of the world.

One thing, though, do you think the Governmen realise not everyone lives in London?

Orangewheels April 16, 2009 9:47 AM

I'd say you're absolutely right that this is government lobbying under a different guise to help secure the UK as the site for building the Ampera.

Weren't GM saying something along the lines of "we want to see local govenrments incentivising drivers to buy this car etc..." in the last few weeks? might even have been on one of your video blogs?

This announcement has just added £5k to the price Vauxhall can charge us for the Ampera in the UK, meaning massive profits for GME.

horseandcart April 16, 2009 10:14 AM

'Electric Dreams' by G.Brown: electroconvulsive therapy

'Electric Dreams' by talented, good people:

www.youtube.com/watch

hurworth April 16, 2009 11:59 AM

Electric vehicles have to be the future - but I do wish the focus from manufacturers was more on improving their practical range. I drive a company car, so driving a cleaner vehicle has financial advantages for me. But I need a 500-mile range or thereabouts for it to be a realistic proposition, and I think this is a fundamental issue for many people. Alternatively of course, a drastically reduced recharge time, but my guess is that the laws of physics don't allow that (spot the non-scientist here !) Charging points will develop quickly once the technology is useable. A good start, but the public need convincing that electric works and is a pratical proposition (by facts, not spin).

jackjflash April 16, 2009 7:12 PM

That’s the beauty of the Ampera/Volt; you will have 500 mile range if you need it. But for most people that need less range they would never use petrol/diesel. The pessimism is kind of funny at times, is there anything governments do that doesn’t screw its populace? Could it be possible that this just might work?

sportwagon April 16, 2009 8:06 PM

If electric vehicles have a future for anything more than delivering milk, then bring in the incentives in the budget next week and give innovative British companies, not necessarily car manufacturers, the impetus to start developing the technology and having pprototypes running NOW rather than waiting two years

brinardi April 16, 2009 11:06 PM

The terrible cynic inside of me thinks that this announcement was made to cover up the lack of a scrappage scheme in the upcoming budget...which would, of course, cost actual money right now...

sirwilliam April 17, 2009 10:11 AM

Whilst I think that there are merits to these proposals, there is an extent to which cart is coming before the horse.

However, I dispute Osborne's statement that "There's nothing about building a smart grid that can manage the higher demand for electricity that will result if more people are driving electric cars. There's too little on creating a national network of car charging points, so that motorists can actually drive their new electric car around the country."

In fact, he also said: "They haven’t even announced how people are going to charge up these cars", which only suggests that Osborne may have problems reading - worrying given that Cameron wants all kids reading by the age of six...

The package contains a proposal for £20 million to fund charging points throughout major urban areas. Charging points can cost as 'little' as £2,000 each, meaning that this funding is sufficient for up to 10,000 posts, enough for one per 20 miles of UK road (although obviously these will be focussed in urban areas initially).

Labour's proposal is no different in essence to the Conservative plan to provide a £6,500 subsidy to homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient. It was all about saving the consumer money, not really about the wider issue of energy generation. So a homeowner can save £160 off their bills? Yes, their energy usage will reduce. But what about the emissions from the factory producing the energy efficient lightbulbs?

No party can really argue they are truly thinking about the long-term.

Besides, Osborne can hardly disagree with the proposals. The Conservatives' 'Low Carbon Economy green paper' states that: "Moving to an all-electric fleet would therefore reduce UK carbon emissions by around 22 per cent, improve our balance of payments, and reduce our hydrocarbon dependence."

The paper goes on to praise Schwarzenegger's $5,000 subsidy offered to electric car buyers in California. Labour's proposal is for a subsidy worth $7,500.

Labour doesn't have this issue sorted. But for Osborne to think that the Tories do is an utter fallacy.

Estimates suggest that current UK carbon emissions from passenger cars are around 69 million tonnes. Calculations indicated that if all these vehicles were replaced with EVs powered with coal-derived energy, this figure might reduce to around 60 million tonnes.

If power sources shifted to wind and nuclear, calculations indicated that this could reduce to less than 400,000 tonnes.

Of course, this is going to require either tens of thousands of wind turbines or tens of nuclear power stations, probably costing at the very least somewhere between £30 billion and £80 billion.

Whilst I am inherently left-learning in my politics, I do believe that the government still has a lot to learn from private enterprise. Toyota, one of the most successful and most profitable car companies in the world, has a 50-100 year strategy.

The policy proposals outlined on electric vehicles are not bad, but we need to start thinking about the long-term. Not the next 5-10 years, but the next 50-100 years.