Hi, on the subject of pedestrianising city centers. For many years (since 1987 until 2021) I was a motorcycle courier in London.
Over the past 5 years or more there has been a creeping policy of pedestrianising the streets of the West End and City and other areas.
This has nothing to do with low emissions, purely banning all vehicles from certain areas, including electric and low emissions vehicles.
The end result being it is impossible to deliver to these areas without getting a fine or a parking ticket.
An example of this, you have a delivery to make to an address in a no vehicle, pedestrians only street. So you get as close as you can to that street and park up in a loading bay or on a single yellow line ( where you are allowed to do when making a delivery). You wander off to make the delivery, then on your return you find you have been given a parking ticket.
Naturally you appeal the parking ticket. But often the appeal is unsuccessful because you are only allowed a few minutes to deliver or the traffic warden didn't see you making a delivery ( well if you are delivering to a different better he wouldn't see you).
So for doing your job you have to pay the fine £60 or more, half a days earnings.
That was one reason why I packed up being a motorcycle courier last year.
Eventually the companies in these areas will find it impossible to function without these deliveries being made. The companies will close down or move out of city centers.
Once they move out these areas will die, no companies, no customers for the cafes, restaurants and shops.
A real genius policy!!!!!!!!

This arguing seems rather pointless. When Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and/or Kawasaki have electric motorcycles on the local dealership floor, I'll consider buying one - and we aren't there yet.

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

I believe Volvo are the only manufacturer who make the same model with the choice of both ICE and EV.
Assuming you aren't going to throw away an ICE before buying your EV, in comparing both they say the carbon footprint break even point is 200,000km. Less if the electricity used to recharge comes from a low carbon source.


https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-...int-report.pdf

Your brand loyalty is admirable but remember, the world's biggest manufacturer of electric cars didn't even start producing cars until 2008, and that was in an environment when EV technology was largely unknown, unlike today when it's common.

I wouldn't buy an EV myself today, but not because I think they're a buzzkill or somehow untrustworthy, rather due to concerns over weight, range and recharging, particularly out in the boonies. Maybe in future that'll become a non issue. Certainly as an urban commuter right now they're a no-brainer. And you don't need to scrap off your 1-year-old oilburner to do it, just sell it on and let somebody else run it in the knowledge that when it eventually dies they'll be buying an EV themselves to replace it.

Honestly, the degree of luddism on here is shocking. Not aimed at you brclarke but some of the guys...

Interesting debate, for the most part.

I love my older oil burners, simple to maintain,will run on anything,and were orginally designed to last and last vs today's almost planned obsolete versions.

Those days will not come around again, today manufacturers honestly design to a price point and factor in all sorts of details that were never a concern to designers 30 years ago. And this goes for everything from washing machines to airplane's.

I wont bemoan that, because I cant change those things. Manufactures tell us they build want buyers want, and they seem to get it right most of the time, because folks do buy,perhaps because they have limited choice (price, availability,warranty coverage, included service plan, ect ect) or maybe they really do want that stuff!period.

I do almost all my own maintenance on everything I can, from the house heat pump to my vehicles and everything in between, What I most blown away by, is how crappy a lot of the stuff we buy today is, cheaply made with lots of plastic parts that only snap together once,poor fastener choices,thin sheet metal, name it. Again, nothing I can do about this, as almost every brand of everything has these elements in it.Therefor your choices are limited.

As I have "aged", my biggest gripe is trying to find value in what I purchase, quite hard to do in most consumer products.

In respect to electric vehicles, I am not a fan, but not for the reasons that I like the "noise" a ICE makes, its mainly that fact that I need to spend quite a bit of money to acquire one, and that they are loaded with "features" that I am not really wanting to pay for or want.

But recently on a trip to Portugal I was able to test drive a 2022 Dacia Spring,my god I fell in love,inexpensive to purchase,very easy to drive,and not bogged to the gunnels with "tech", it was just a car with with an electric drive train! How refreshing!

I live near Montreal, I would have one in a heartbeat to commute to the office and do perhaps 90 plus percent of my runs, it has heat,A/C and a radio.5 doors and seating for 4,Awesome! 20K euro including VAT.

Looking at the Dacia, it would need to be slightly adapted for our climate here (there is no underbody splash pan under the mechanical bit up front,and the salty snow would just decimate that). Also since in North America many folks would not know why there can be 3 pedals in a vehicle, they would need to incorporate a P (park) detent in the gear selector,lest we would have run away Dacia's everywhere as no one knows about hand brake use(Parking brakes) here.


I think cities would be nice places if we didnt have the cars and trucks that run through the place all the time (ICE versions), in Montreal they drive 45ft semi trucks through the middle of the city all the time for deliveries ect, silly ,stupid and wasteful , but the high cost of alternatives make it hard to justify the transport companies cost to change the fleet.

So I think we can go ahead and make these LEZ's, but give us (at least in North America) the choices to purchase some of these low power,limited range,shrewdly built vehicles that we can purchase new for 20K, I promise I would the first in line to buy one.

This would save my old Land Cruiser,4Runner and Range Rover for the further away or load carrying jobs that they were designed for.

I may be talking out of my butt here, but as I do have a house with a place to park and recharge the vehicle it would do me nicely, but for those living in more densely populated housing or no on street charging, the electric vehicle dream is not realistic yet, and that fault lies with the cities and governments that talk a good talk, but rarely have to live with the actual facts on the ground.

Anyways, enough of that. Thing change,either by design or decree. I dont have to like it,but I would like my choices to be mine.

Cheers,

Paulo

I quite like the ‘ambience’ that’s been built into fuel driven vehicles- the noise (not the volume so much as the timbre), the driving characteristics etc, but not to the point where if electric vehicles were more practical for the sort of driving / riding I do I wouldn’t jump ship in an instant. Unfortunately they’re not - yet anyway. And if what I saw last week ‘yet’ might be quite some time.

We drove about 300 miles north from our house near Oxford, most of it on the M1 + A1 combination that’s the main artery north. We stopped at two main service stations and looked at what electric charging facilities were available. The answer was three charging points at one and two at the other. That in areas with over 500 cars parked while the owners were taking a break. All the charging points were in use so if you’d turned up with a flat battery it might be a long wait. In the town where I live there are no public charging points at all. Lots of private ones but if you’re a tourist in an electric car, good luck.

I’d be happy to drive electric but not the way things are at present. They’re overpriced and only suitable for commuting 10 or 20 miles each way to work. Anything else becomes an expedition rather than a journey.

A relative has an EV. The range on his is around 300 miles depending on the weight of his right foot - he uses it for his work, and he does around 25,000 mile per annum. His only comment about the availability of charging points is that he now plans a little bit more than he used to. Would he go back to fossil fuel? Not any time soon.

The number of charging points is going up as the number of petrol stations falls. In years to come it will be a case of those using petrol / diesel will be the ones having to do the planning of where to refuel.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

One of the big selling points of electric vehicles is that they cost so little to run ( once you have bought one).
So assuming you have just spent £20,000- £100,000 on your brand new eco friendly vehicle, what will you do with it?
Will you leave it parked in your garage, drive, street being charged up or will you use it.
If it is actually cheaper to drive your electric vehicle than use public transport, a bus, a train, you will choose to drive your electric vehicle.
End result being that people who previously used public transport to commute work will instead switch to using their electric vehicles. After all it is cheaper and oh so kinder to the planet than gas burners.
So towns and cities will become more congested with electric vehicles.
Right now electric vehicles do not seem to have to pay fees to drive in city centers. If in 5-10 years when the traffic jams are entirely made up of electric vehicles what will governments and councils do? Either raise the price of car charging points or start charging electric vehicles to drive in town and cities.
And what if everyone was to buy an electric vehicle.
Charging will be fine if you have your own garage or drive to park and charge your vehicle. But the vast majority don't have these. So will we see long extension cables dangling from high rise flats so as to charge your vehicle, or disputes between neighbours as to who has use of the limited charging points in the street.
Oh yes, electric vehicles are portrayed as so cool, trendy and will save the earth in the TV adverts, but so much needs to be resolved before they are the answer to pollution and congestion.

Not sure if you've been into many city centres since leaving your courier job, but the ones I've seen seem to be managing to thrive. Deliveries get made outside peak times, people use park and ride schemes, etc. The only places where centres are in serious decay are the ones where employment levels are chronically low already. Traffic is the least of their problems.