Imho it isn`t about fueled or electric powered cars and motorcycles or about people who urge for a new vehicle or a about a new field of sales and profits.

It`s more about a better, easier, sustainable and comfortable way of locomotion as that polluting one we are now practising since a century. Banning petrol cars in Uk (and in others coutries as well, e.g. Norway in 2025!) generates the chance of a new thinking and programming for new possibilities in mobility.

Using new electric technologies only to substitute fosile fuel and to keep old mobility habits cannot be the final goal.

Hmm. ‘Better, easier, sustainable, comfortable’ ? They sound like the sort of terms a politician would use to sell us a vision of something we didn’t want, a kind of restrictive iron fist wrapped up in a moral altruism velvet glove. I suspect most people weigh up i.c.vs electric more on the basis of cost and personal convenience.

At the moment electric vehicles are neither cheaper (to buy anyway) or more convenient (other than via artificial restrictions placed on i.c. vehicles by low emission zones and the rest), so even with the slightly sanctimonious aura surrounding them uptake is still sluggish. People see the grass roots level drawbacks even if they talk about ‘saving’ everything in sight - the planet, children, health, bees, or whatever you can think of.

We’re being sold these things using the language of a religious crusade - ‘fight the good fight, drive a Tesla. Forward towards sun filled pollution free uplands’. I’ve nothing against technology moving on but see what’s happening for what it is; I’ve yet to see any downsides to electric vehicles being discussed other than a few nebulous concerns about power station capacity and battery raw material supplies. We’re being sold electric motors as the perfect solution without any talk of the technology’s problems. If you say ‘what downsides’ that’s it exactly. Petrol vehicles were seen as the perfect solution to foot deep layers of horse dung in cities. It took decades before we realised they were worse than the horses they replaced. I suspect we’ll probably buy a battery car in the next few years but it’ll be because we can see which way the wind is blowing. It won’t be as a salve to middle class existential angst.

So which words would you use or like to hear to describe chraracteristics of a new form of traffic?

It´s easy to complain in a philosophical way about the wording and to use it as a argumentation against everything which points on the question: Is the classic mobilty we do the one we should do in the upcoming decades if we have a technology that can support new ways with benefits?

How do you know what people want if you prevent a possible change even in thinking about? If somebody tells me that something is impossible or that people in general don`t want something, than this is only a reflection of his borders of imagination but not mine.

I just said and queried when electric technology offers a lot of chances to change or upgrade the existing concept of mobility, why shouldn`t we try to think about?

I have gone through and I have adopted a bunch of new technologies in my life. Simultaneously I selfprogressed and I learned that archaic and usual thought patterns and new technology simmilar behave as antimatter to matter - they neutralize.

So where will be my personal benefit if I press a pedal of an electric car instead of a fueled one? Tesla tried to give me one as they started the first movement forward with their kind of (momently unsucessfull) autonomic driving.

Well cheaper would do as a start. It's just that glossing over the obvious practical disadvantages of electric vehicles by an appeal to higher ideals only gets you so far. We have local elections coming up here shortly and the literature flooding through my door is full of high minded idealistic intent. They're all trying to paint themselves as the moral party candidate (and usually the oposition as some kind of corrupt failures only interested in lining their own pockets). What virtually none of them are saying is what they're actually going to do - mainly because it then gives the press a standard to hold them to.

In practical terms electric vehicles are (currently anyway) inferior to the technology they're aiming to replace - less range, they take ages to recharge and a whole load of other stuff. Using my previous horse analogy it would be as if they were replaced not by cars but by donkeys or ponies on the basis they produced less effluent. So how do you sell a technology that in practical terms is a backward step? You push other attributes and ignore the inconvenient ones. In this case you cover battery cars with a glossy cloak of climate change / polution activism and paint petrol ones as the cause of the problem. If electric vehicles had to stand on their own technical feet and compete directly against i.c. powered ones they currently wouldn't be bought by many people. It's not mature enough and most people are happy with the way things are. E.v's are only making headway because the playing field is being tilted substantially in their direction to force the issue.

So yes, sell me an electric vehicle but don't kid me that as a means of personal transport it's better than what it's replacing. As things stand now (and without being nudged by the prospect of an i.c. ban) it patently isn't. When I buy one it'll be because it inhabits the bottom of my personal cost vs convenience curve. Driving along surrounded by a miasma of feel good morality but knowing I'm paying over the odds for something that can't do what the old petrol car could isn't a route I see myself going down any time soon. Yes, ev's do have the potential for opening up areas such as self drive that might be tricky with i.c.vehicles but we're nowhere near that stage yet (and no doubt when we are there will be another bunch of politicians promises about how it's safer, more dependable, easier than diy'ing it etc). Technology does move on and there's no doubt e.v's time is about to come, but I can't think of anything else comparable that's been given a bigger social subsidy push than this.

The thing with petrol engined vehicles is they sold precisely because the advantages were obvious to all. There was no legislation needed, beyond making them legal. No need for big stables, they didn't die or break legs, you didn't have to employ grooms or feed them whether you used them or not, they could go faster and further, they didn't get tired, etc etc. The case for EVs is completely different. We have a mode of transport that has evolved to a very sophisticated state and we are being commended to abandon that and adopt a solution that costs more to buy, has inferior range, takes longer to refuel and has unknown durability. Whether it is ever better depends very much on quantum leaps in electrical storage systems, and major expansion of the country's electricity generating and storage systems (nothing nebulous, the sums have been done). Bikes look to be exempt, fortunately, though if the changeover does go ahead we as petrol users will find petrol stations becoming more scarce.

As we approach the cutoff date I'll be interested to see what happens. Lithium is a finite resource and everyone talks about expanding the charging grid with little thought about who's going to pay for it. Laws can be changed as quickly as they are made.

Bikes may in theory be exempt but for all practical purposes a lack of petrol stations may render them obsolete.

I suspect that there will be two technologies that emerge from this in much the same way that we currently have petrol and diesel - battery and fuel cell. Fuel cells can be refilled easily and power the electric motors and the generation of hydrogen can smooth out the variability of demand for electricity so making it more efficient.

Another changes that there may be is a new world economic order emerge as those countries that can generate electricity from renewables such as solar, wind, hydro and tidal start to export their hydrogen / electricity. Whether geothermal comes into play is another factor that may level the playing fields across the world.

Heart the same argumentation about pricing and philosophy when first mobile communications companies startet selling phones end of 80s. Didn´t bother me back then and regardless of mass meanings around I bought shares as much I could afford. Did the same with Apple a couple years later...

You know there are allways years that are questioning and there are years that are giving answers. Will be repeated by electric vehicles and their new forms of mobility. Same question of time as in the end of 80s.

I think the main issue here is the gap between looking at roads and vehicles as a practical infrastructure to move people and goods, or as something we actually have feelings about. If we take a practical, economical, society based view, it should be clear that we should find a way to move people and goods in the way that best balances time, cost, environmental impact, and safety. Since most travel is short distance (and long distance travel is better done on public transport if looking at the same parameters), this means that mostly electric, self-driving vehicles should be the norm. What about cyclists, motorcyclists, veteran car enthusiasts, or other people who love to use the roads for recreation? No room for us. The road is for transport.

Obviously, we don't want this. But rather than fighting every little piece of progress (which is a fight we'll lose) we should make sure that we don't lose the big fight, that we're still able to use the road network as a means of experiencing personal freedom.

When the first IC vehicles came out there were a lot of hurdles to cross. There were no fuel stations anywhere--the best you could hope for was somewhere that sold kerosene in bulk(good luck with that! The roads both in the city and in the country were made for horse/wagon transport. Outside the cities roads were basically mud paths, easier for a team of horses than a low powered car. A real problem in cold/snowy weather. They were impossibly expensive--all were hand made, only the rich and well to do could buy one.. Ford designed and priced his cars so that his workers could save up and buy one. There were no mechanics anywhere--you had better be a good mechanic or the car was useless. The first person to ride a bicycle from Ruidoso NM to Socorro NM, over 100 miles, took several days-made headline news, maybe this new and exciting thing was the wave of the future!!
Thank goodness my family kept to horses--those new fangled, smokey, noisy, complicated, impossible to fuel inventions of the devil will never last.:)