No petrol and diesel cars by 2040

[Vagabond]

I shall be 106 in 2040 so will probably be driving an electric mobility scooter anyway. Car or scooter will be driven by rechargeable batteries,

 

There will be two problems that have not been addressed so far

 

1 The car driving population will almost certainly swamp the availability of recharging points. Recharging will take much longer than filling up with petrol. The problem is academic from my perspective but the best of luck to you youngsters

 

2 Rechargeable batteries do not last forever so there will be a problem of disposal. Batteries are packages of chemical nasties that will be rejected by your local council dump. Think of the fuss some councils make over fridge disposal and multiply by the number of cars on the road and the frequency of replacing batteries.

[ayjay]

I can do 600 miles on a tank of diesel.

 

A simple 500 mile round trip becomes a nightmare with an electric car, you could spend over 24 hours recharging the damn thing en route.

 

With a current mileage range for an affordable electric car at less than 100, (and that's barely changed in the last 25 years) I think it's pie in the sky to think that battery technology will have moved on enough by 2040 to replace what we have now (at anything like an affordable price).

 

 

[Ken L]

A few potential solutions.

[Phone]

All,

 

Ayjay, You no doubt will not participate in such mundane decisions. Just tell your car when you want to arrive and return. Oddly, this month's Fortune Magazine talks about "cars of the near future" in their Analytics section. Seems we are on track toward driver-less transportation and augmented reality (even flying cars - problem seems to be regulatory barriers).

 

No need to comment on this. """"""46% of EU businesses say they expect to scale back the use of UK suppliers and technology. As BREXIT promises to roil trade agreements, Britain could find the worst of the economic fallout is yet to come"""""" (Phone comment: fearful techies are leaving you out of the loop for future innovations. Those jobs will be elsewhere.)

 

Phone

[chesters1]

Is there a need to? If it's produced as a biofuel, then unlike fossil fuels, growing the plant material, fermenting it and burning the ethanol doesn't add to the net amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The biggest issue would likely be using land that would otherwise grow food to grow fuel.

Unfortunately negative or even neutral impact is a pipe dream ,no doubt we will import things from the far side of the planet to save 35p ,hundreds of lorries taking it to some huge power grabbing fermentation plant ,hundreds of lorries dumping the spent waste somewhere on the land costing a small fortune so we dont annoy the do gooders putting it in holes cheaper ,then ofcourse theres distributing it .the emissions may decrease in your car but unless everything else is using it polution is going to be present.

Then ofcourse once every car is ethanol or hydrogen fueled some tax will be introduced under some other excuse ,rubber tax ,window tax (not for the first time) or steering wheel tax ,five years later some hidden data will appear that burning alcohol is far worse than dropping a nuclear bomb on a school giving yet another excuse to force drivers off tge road so they are empty but for mps in their free cars

Edited July 26, 2017 by chesters1

[chesters1]

I shall be 106 in 2040 so will probably be driving an electric mobility scooter anyway. Car or scooter will be driven by rechargeable batteries,

 

There will be two problems that have not been addressed so far

 

1 The car driving population will almost certainly swamp the availability of recharging points. Recharging will take much longer than filling up with petrol. The problem is academic from my perspective but the best of luck to you youngsters

 

2 Rechargeable batteries do not last forever so there will be a problem of disposal. Batteries are packages of chemical nasties that will be rejected by your local council dump. Think of the fuss some councils make over fridge disposal and multiply by the number of cars on the road and the frequency of replacing batteries.

At the moment most electric cars cannot get new batteries they are built in as the car is but i think by 2040 a simple slide in system will be fitted so instead of charging you simply change the battery at some former petrol station ,you unplug it sitting on a trolly put your spent battery on another and plug that into charge (chesters1 thought of this first mr historian) not much difference from today but more jobs on the forecourt moving spent batteries to chargers and full ones to cars.

The trouble is without mandatory regulations forcing car makers to use a standard battery they will all try and make their own versions so they can still use dedicated forecourts and raise prices as its sole supplier.

 

To get rid of broken batteries we will simply send them to some distant country to polute their region ,instead of getting rid of polution like today we just ship it elswhere probably expensively

Your food waste for instance isnt magically recycled you cannot safely deal with meat so we give farmers £30 a ton to have it dumped on their land and its nasty stuff indeed

Your papers are probably being examined by chinese people for bank details and your electronic waste being burnt in huge pyres for the metal as we speak in china and india ,recycling as we call it has nothing to do with saving the planet just getting it out of sight as quickly as possible anything to give the impression its not dumped in a hole in surrey

Edited July 26, 2017 by chesters1

[Martin56]

Teleportation could be be answer & probably will be - when the Government of the day has worked out how to Tax it.

 

I believe it's already been done - for Minute distances??

 

"Beam Me Up Scottie" & before any Trekkie pulls it - Yes I know the Quote never happened in ANY episode!!

 

Not a fan myself though.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Martin56

[gozzer]

I have had an idea, I think it might solve the electric truck problem with range.

How about you have one prime mover, or engine. Then you attach lots of cargo carrying trailers for the engine to pull..

 

If you put this on a special roadway you could run special cables so that the prime mover can pick up current to keep itself charged as it goes along.

You could call it, oh, I don't know, a train or something.

 

Or, we could build a system of waterways, and use large boats to transport bulk, non perishable goods. These could have a series of chamber like 'lifts' that would use water to raise or lower the boats up, or down, according to the topography of the landscape. They could even use the passage of water through the 'chambers' to make small hydroelectric generators at each one. We could maybe use horses to pull these 'boats', or if the animal rights people object, use the inevitable future mass of unemployed youths to pull them. Save energy, and reduce obesity, in one stroke!

 

John.

[Sportsman]

I think we might be on to something here John.

I'm amazed that no-one has thought of it before.

Now, how do you put a tax on horses?

[gozzer]

I think we might be on to something here John.

I'm amazed that no-one has thought of it before.

Now, how do you put a tax on horses?

 

No Dave, the horses produce valuable fertilizer in their crap, the unemployed on the other hand don't, so maybe a tax on them?

 

John.