When will electric cars and driverless cars arrive here in general use?

[teaboyjim]

When will driverless cars become an everyday reality in the same way that the internet has become ubiquitous. When will electric cars become a realistic norm on our roads in everyday life? When will diesels be no longer allowed.

 

[JBR]

Not until long after I'm in my box, thank God!

 

[EFLImpudence]

I agree and cannot imagine it will be before the world has significantly changed. Like the UK driving on the right and changing bit by bit; first a few cars, then some more, then buses, then lorries.


Flies are ubiquitous.

 

[flameport]

Driverless cars - only when 100% of vehicles are driverless and can therefore communicate with other vehicles on the road, which won't be for decades or ever.

Electrics will be the majority of vehicles within 10 years.

No one is buying diesels now and few are being made, so they are effectively gone as soon as the existing ones are scrapped, and that will be actively encouraged by them being banned from city centres and then other areas. It's already happening - London first, others will follow.

 

[johnny2007]

First they forced half of drivers to go with diesel.
Then they decided diesel is bad, worse than petrol.
Now they want everybody to drive at least a prius at 20mph on motorways.
Eventually they'll force everyone onto fully electric plastic boxes and then they will realise that building and scrapping them is a lot more damaging to the environment than any vehicle with internal combustion engine.
Who cares though?
The only people paying the price for us feeling green, will be once again the third world citizens.
It happens today: for the environmentalist driving a prius with pride, google cobalt and lithium mines.
Measuring the level of pollution of a vehicle from the exhaust pipe is just wrong.
It should be measured from material extraction all the way to scrapping/recycling.
Those plastic electric things pollute the planet 10 times more than a traditional vehicle.

 

[StephenStephen]

First they forced half of drivers to go with diesel.
Then they decided diesel is bad, worse than petrol.
Now they want everybody to drive at least a prius at 20mph on motorways.
Eventually they'll force everyone onto fully electric plastic boxes and then they will realise that building and scrapping them is a lot more damaging to the environment than any vehicle with internal combustion engine.
Who cares though?
The only people paying the price for us feeling green, will be once again the third world citizens.
It happens today: for the environmentalist driving a prius with pride, google cobalt and lithium mines.
Measuring the level of pollution of a vehicle from the exhaust pipe is just wrong.
It should be measured from material extraction all the way to scrapping/recycling.
Those plastic electric things pollute the planet 10 times more than a traditional vehicle.

I think you're right in that it used to be the case that the embodied environmental cost of EV's was very high in comparison.
It is changing - those cradle to grave calculations are being done, carbon breakeven compared to ICE engine cars is now in the low tens of thousands, if I remember rightly, and hopefully Cornish lithium will be an environmental win win. Other materials do look like they'll continue to be a problem though...

 

[johnny2007]

I would come out of retirement if they offered me a job as a prius exterminator...

 

[ReganAndCarter]

I would come out of retirement if they offered me a job as a prius exterminator...

I prefer 'Pious'. Seems so appropriate somehow.

 

[Avocet]

I think electric powertrain will account for more than half of new cars sales in the next 5 years. As for "driverless", that's a tricky one. We're unlikely to see truly autonomous cars just "appear" in showrooms one day. Rather, we'll see cars with increasing elements of autonomy (e.g. self-parking; then intelligent cruise control on motorways that steers brakes and accelerates for you; then cars that can stop and steer when they detect other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists; then cars that you can "summon" from car parks within a short distance of where you are; then we'll probably get cars with autonomous "city modes" that can navigate cities without driver input at low speeds.... etc). However, I suspect I won't live to see truly, 100% autonomous vehicles that can handle things like single track rural roads... with no road markings... in snow...!

 

[Avocet]

First they forced half of drivers to go with diesel.
Then they decided diesel is bad, worse than petrol.
Now they want everybody to drive at least a prius at 20mph on motorways.
Eventually they'll force everyone onto fully electric plastic boxes and then they will realise that building and scrapping them is a lot more damaging to the environment than any vehicle with internal combustion engine.
Who cares though?
The only people paying the price for us feeling green, will be once again the third world citizens.
It happens today: for the environmentalist driving a prius with pride, google cobalt and lithium mines.
Measuring the level of pollution of a vehicle from the exhaust pipe is just wrong.
It should be measured from material extraction all the way to scrapping/recycling.
Those plastic electric things pollute the planet 10 times more than a traditional vehicle.

I think that's a somewhat cynical take on it!

Diesels are great on CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. They're rubbish for particulates and NOx emissions. The car industry is like any other industry - it makes what it thinks people want to BUY. Politicians set the agenda. A couple of decades ago, CO2 was the bogey man, so the politicians pushed diesel. What's more, we, the buying public, willingly played along with it because diesels give better MPG! In the course of that, the politicians took their eye off the ball on air quality, and the car industry took the pi55 and started cheating on its type approval tests. Even without actively cheating, it used to "play" the regulations, optimising the cars to only meet the requirements within the very narrow corridor that the test covered. The Regulators (in particular, the EU Commission) had a good grasp of particulates and introduced DPF requirements, so that as of a few years ago, diesels actually became BETTER on particulates than petrols! (So much so that GPFs (Gasoline Particulate Filters) are now starting to appear on new petrol cars). However, VW (and others) started cheating on their NOx emissions and that resulted in the Commission getting a proper kicking from the EU Parliament and told in no uncertain terms to sort it out, pronto. This resulted in a flurry of regulations, the result of which, is cars that are a huge amount cleaner than they were 5 years ago.

As for the claims about "whole vehicle lifecycle" emissions, I think they've been largely debunked. In fact Aston Martin recently got themselves into a lot of bother over such claims:

https://thenextweb.com/shift/2020/1...-behind-pr-firm-peddling-bogus-anti-ev-study/

Only today, there is a story doing the rounds, about a British firm developing a way of making electric motors without using rare earth magnets:

https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/british-firm-cracks-electric-car-152144501.html

The other thing to bear in mind, is that unlike an ICE vehicle, an electric vehicle's emissions are likely to IMPROVE with age, as the source from which it is charged becomes greener. How many people with ICE cars can get to (say) 10 years old and say their emissions are better than they were when the car left the factory? (And all without ever so much as lifting the bonnet)! Sure, I'll be the first to admit that EVs are not a panacea, but the environmental problems are being tackled, and improvements are coming thick and fast, whereas after 100 years of development, the ICE vehicle is on a very shallow curve when it comes to further environmental improvements. What's more, I say this as a dyed-in-the-wool petrolhead with a 30 year old car with no cat! I do actually like cars that make "vroom vroom" noises, rather than ones that sound like washing machines, but there's no denying that most of our towns and cities have an air quality problem!

 

[johnny2007]

I think that's a somewhat cynical take on it!

Diesels are great on CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. They're rubbish for particulates and NOx emissions. The car industry is like any other industry - it makes what it thinks people want to BUY. Politicians set the agenda. A couple of decades ago, CO2 was the bogey man, so the politicians pushed diesel. What's more, we, the buying public, willingly played along with it because diesels give better MPG! In the course of that, the politicians took their eye off the ball on air quality, and the car industry took the pi55 and started cheating on its type approval tests. Even without actively cheating, it used to "play" the regulations, optimising the cars to only meet the requirements within the very narrow corridor that the test covered. The Regulators (in particular, the EU Commission) had a good grasp of particulates and introduced DPF requirements, so that as of a few years ago, diesels actually became BETTER on particulates than petrols! (So much so that GPFs (Gasoline Particulate Filters) are now starting to appear on new petrol cars). However, VW (and others) started cheating on their NOx emissions and that resulted in the Commission getting a proper kicking from the EU Parliament and told in no uncertain terms to sort it out, pronto. This resulted in a flurry of regulations, the result of which, is cars that are a huge amount cleaner than they were 5 years ago.

As for the claims about "whole vehicle lifecycle" emissions, I think they've been largely debunked. In fact Aston Martin recently got themselves into a lot of bother over such claims:

https://thenextweb.com/shift/2020/1...-behind-pr-firm-peddling-bogus-anti-ev-study/

Only today, there is a story doing the rounds, about a British firm developing a way of making electric motors without using rare earth magnets:

https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/british-firm-cracks-electric-car-152144501.html

The other thing to bear in mind, is that unlike an ICE vehicle, an electric vehicle's emissions are likely to IMPROVE with age, as the source from which it is charged becomes greener. How many people with ICE cars can get to (say) 10 years old and say their emissions are better than they were when the car left the factory? (And all without ever so much as lifting the bonnet)! Sure, I'll be the first to admit that EVs are not a panacea, but the environmental problems are being tackled, and improvements are coming thick and fast, whereas after 100 years of development, the ICE vehicle is on a very shallow curve when it comes to further environmental improvements. What's more, I say this as a dyed-in-the-wool petrolhead with a 30 year old car with no cat! I do actually like cars that make "vroom vroom" noises, rather than ones that sound like washing machines, but there's no denying that most of our towns and cities have an air quality problem!

I can only answer to all of this with my special word reserved for special occasions...
B@LLOX!

 

[Avocet]

I can only answer to all of this with my special word reserved for special occasions...
B@LLOX!

An impressively well-argued and thoroughly informed case there, I see.

Now... are you going to put your case as to why you think it's "B@llox", or are you just afflicted by some bizarre form of online Tourette syndrome?

 

[johnny2007]

An impressively well-argued and thoroughly informed case there, I see.

Now... are you going to put your case as to why you think it's "B@llox", or are you just afflicted by some bizarre form of online Tourette syndrome?

I won't waste much time on a simple concept, but I invite you to speak to the gallant people of africa about the cobalt and lithium mines.
In fact, ask about any mine over there.
Anyone driving a prius has got blood on their hands.
Blood of their own fellow human beings.
I understand that nowadays our fellow humans are to be considered a threat, including close relatives, but killing them to show off how green we are is a bit too much for me.

 

[Avocet]

I won't waste much time on a simple concept, but I invite you to speak to the gallant people of africa about the cobalt and lithium mines.
In fact, ask about any mine over there.
Anyone driving a prius has got blood on their hands.
Blood of their own fellow human beings.
I understand that nowadays our fellow humans are to be considered a threat, including close relatives, but killing them to show off how green we are is a bit too much for me.

Good job nobody ever got killed as a result of extracting oil then, eh?

Lucky we don't have about 30,000 premature deaths a year due to poor air quality?

 

[johnny2007]

Good job nobody ever got killed as a result of extracting oil then, eh?

Lucky we don't have about 30,000 premature deaths a year due to poor air quality?

People working in the oil industry are not slaves.
You will not find children extracting oil with bare hands.
Of course, like in every other job, accidents happen.
I remember a pharmacist who slipped on a liquid he had just spilled, banged his head and died.
Do we stop taking pills because of this???