It strikes me that the smaller a vehicle is, the more it suits being battery-electric-powered.
One of those wee scooters that currently can get you into trouble with the police makes perfect sense as a BEV. These are used for short trips, are lightweight and have a chassis perfect for batteries. Why would you want one any other way?
A container ship chugging from China to Europe, displacing more than a hundred thousand tonnes of water, though? Probably not.
The battle lines about the crossover point – and some people get very angry about this – seem to be somewhere in the middle.
There’s an analogy about the crossover that works in adverts but isn’t terribly helpful in reality. There are people in ads using hairdryers and telephones that all have little engines inside them, kicking out smoke. The advert tells you that this is stupid and so, given that you can clearly see that, why won’t you accept that a car is the same, damn you?
You and I know the difference is that you can still use those devices while they’re plugged in, which isn’t so with transport. And it really does depend on your duty cycle as to how much that matters: scooter, fine; container ship or airliner, likely not. A car, van or lorry? Probably fine, but it depends – which is where somebody with something to sell steps crossly into the argument.
Alas, I fear this isn’t the only area of conflict. Let’s take those e-scooters, such as the one pictured below, for sale in Halfords at £429, next to a sign warning potential buyers that “it’s currently illegal to use an electric scooter on a public road, pavement, cycle lane or bridleway” and that it “must be ridden only on private land with the landowner’s permission”.
Under trials, there are 30 places in the UK where you can hire one legally if you’re over 18 and have at least a provisional driving licence. They’re geofenced and limited to 12mph. It’s illegal to use a privately owned one; if you do, it can be confiscated and land you six points on your licence.
Curiously, these restrictions don’t exist for 15mph electrically assisted pedal bicycles, which can be ridden legally from the age of 14.
The only differences as I see them are that e-scooters don’t ride bumps and drains as easily as bicycles, so will weave about on the road’s edge more, and are likelier to be used on pavements. But generally they make sense. Living four miles from the nearest shop, I would quite like one.
Join the debate
Add your comment
A container ship with a battery of about 8% of its mass could travel about 3000km in 100 hours, recharge for 1 hour and be back on it's way.
On the biggest route from Asia there is plenty of very good solar reasources at very cheap prices.
Issues:
1:The current price of batteries makes the business case about break even now.
2: The current supply of batteries are not sufficient when a single ship would take 1% of world wide production.
These issues will be solved by the adoption of EVs on automotive in the next 10 years.
Biggest issue will be organising the charging because that has to happen at scale on day one. Also shipping is reasonably conservative.
Maybe the law should catch up with diesel first? Diesel exhaust fumes kills thousands of people a year. (And offend the ears of the mechanically-minded with their incessant rattling.) Surely it's more of a priority to get rid of that clanking antique technology, than to worry about a few electric scooters?
Last week I saw a chap riding an e-scooter that had a seat! Basically a seat propped up on vertical bar at the opppsite end to the handlebars. He was travelling at least 30 mph on a main road, without a helmet or any kind of safety gear!
I was thinking how is this any different to riding to a motorbike, in terms of needing it to be licensed, insurred etc? It is motorised transport, is it not? So why is it not yet subject to the same legal requirements, as other motorised vehicles, before it can be used on roads?