Are Electric Cars the biggest con on the planet???

ICE will never be banned, it's our heritage! They just don't make very much sense to continue developing in a world that can quite easily switch to developing BEV's which overall are a marked improvement.

Steam trains and traction engines were never banned, they're celebrated and welcomed wherever they go - as will interesting ICE cars in decades to come. Anyone worried about change should do the smart thing and buy and protect a really interesting ICE car for the future. This is not an end of days scenario, this is an opportunity to move on to an exciting new period in cars and also an opportunity to make a smart and fun investment in the past.

Wind turbine payback period is anything from 5-6 months to 2 years. Not bad for something with a design life of 20 years.

What's the payback period for a new oil rig?

That's not at all what I'm saying or what I believe.

Both types of vehicle have their environmental impact, but in many ways EVs are not as "innocent" as they are made out to be. Far from what is marketed in the pro-EV propaganda these days, they neither tackle pollution nor are emissions-free, given what's going on behind the scenes to produce, keep them running and later scrap them.

It's just that for many (though by no means all) who believe the spiel and dare I say it are virtue signalling by showing off they have some green credentials, what's not available to one's senses (i.e. what you can smell and see) means it's been eradicated and therefore "congratulations me, I believe I'm doing good". Out of sight, out of mind...

It hasn't. It's just been shifted and harming somewhere, something and someone else.

For example, nobody is talking the about the envoronmental and ecological impact of and human exploitation in the mining of lithium; or the financial, environmental and human cost in getting the infrastructure up to scratch; or the impact of overhead cables (visually and on migrating birds) for HGVs as a means of powering them.

There's also the personal financial cost: for many it really is not economically viable but they buy into the craze and consider it an investment of some sort that will pay for itself when it really never will.

When enough people do switch over to EVs or ICE is no longer a viable option, charging tariffs will end up worse than fuel prices and posterity will still be lamenting price increases when they're not lamenting being "priced off the road", "road tolled to death", how much it costs to replace a battery pack and looking in the classifieds for things like "battery recently changed - all paperwork available!!!".

Personally speaking, unless there was a super cheap but ultimately fantastic quality Chinese EV available (which I'm sure in time there will be, with China increasingly having a marked presence in both the EV and ICE markets), financially it's not viable for me and so would be a would be complete false economy.

Another thing I'd point out is that people need to stop thinking that globally the ICE is going anywhere anytime soon. It isn't. It may be in certain markets and countries, but they are not representative of the entire world. The combined population of those countries not seeking to eradicate ICEs and therefore remaining reliant on them is a much greater proportion of the world.

The clue is the name. PISTON heads. The forum is about piston-engined cars and bikes which will always be more fun, more sexy and sound a million times better than 1 speed, silent, robotic, zzzzz machines.
Again the thing everyone needs to process is that whilst we are 0.9% of the problem we cannot like dictators force heat pumps and unaffordable heating bills and compromised electric vehicles onto people who don't want them.
If they are really worried about the planet then cut air journeys by 50%. Planes use horrific amounts of fuel.

For my hobby cars I am sure I’ll stick with pistons.
But for the daily driver. Whatever. Self driving and electric is fine by me. I’m not “having fun” stuck in rush hour traffic.

Made out by who? Nearly all the major EV manufacturers have now published their CO2 footprint compared to their ICE vehicles.

None of which you're able to provide a reference for.

Yes, if you're shifting pollution from the doorsteps of communities (inner London, Hafodrynys etc) and moving it to central power stations and a mix of Renewables you are doing good because you are positively impacting the health of people in your community.

How? You think the emissions of a CCGT power station and a Euro 6 diesel are equivalent?

Except all the major manufacturers have made public statements on the sustainability and ethical standards of their supply chains, including lithium and cobalt.

It's almost as if Iron Ore and Aluminium mining and fossil fuel extraction doesn't have a financial, environmental and human impact?

The overhead cables comment is somewhat hilarious.


And yet the USA, China and Europe all have policies for the electrification of private car ownership... An easy 25% of the global population and significant part of the global car manufacturing base.

And regardless of whether that does anything to global CO2, it does make a huge difference to local air pollution.

I think you're deluded. They'd stick with what they know, complaining about range/charging times etc. and likely never even test driving an EV in the first place. Most people don't like change.

This. The genuinely interesting ICE cars will be with us well beyond 2030. Let's be honest here anyway, a lot of the recent ICE performance offerings aren't as much fun or sound as good as they did 10 years ago anyway. Auto everywhere, forced induction, smaller capacity etc.

I see the angry ICE brigade are back again with their EV bingo word set. These arguments don’t need repeating. Also it doesn’t matter. Net zero will mean every single one of us so you will have to offset that ICE if you want to keep it and it will be very expensive to do so. EV is about the future and it’s ok if you want to stay in the past but it won’t be easy. Costs will be high to keep them going and fuel stations will shutdown. It’s going to be a PITA to own ICE.

Petrol/Diesel - Extract, refine, distribute, burn once.

Batteries - Extract, manufacture, distribute, recharge 1000's of times.

And before you go "yeah but you have to burn coal to charge it!!!", like many EV owners, I recharge during the night when there is cheaper excess energy, or from my own solar.

Legally we are bound by it so the more serious we get now the easier it will be later. EVs are not a long way from net zero. 1-2 years they have already beaten ICE for emissions https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportat...

They can and do already fit into a circular economy, the batteries are recycled with some reused for energy storage and others reprocessed back into car batteries.

Once our energy supply is 100% decarbonised then it is completely a no brainer to be electric. You will have net zero at that point.