Britain banning fossil fuel cars by 2040

[Carlos Vandango]

I see you've gone for the power upgrade too. Five legs.

 

[chriscroft]

One "vision of the future" that I found quite interesting is going to horrify people here: The idea that car ownership might become a thing of the past quite rapidly.

1. Self driving cars become mainstream
2. Self driving cars start "earning their keep" whilst you don't need them by opting in to an Uber-like service
3. If there are loads of self-driving ubers around why bother having your own? Just lets companies by and unleash fleets of them

The end result is car ownership being a weird niche like classic car ownership is now (and probably us lot clinging on to our beloved T10 vans by then!)

It seems highly likely that what you describe will be the future mode for personal transport, but most of us cart a lot more than ourselves around in our T6's, so this model is more difficult for most of us on here I suspect.

 

[chriscroft]

There are electricity losses in transmission, primarily due to it being converted to heat, but in the UK the figure for losses between generator and consumer are closer to 10%.

Thanks for that @Davenjo, I think my 50% related to an average overall loses including the actual generation not just the transmission and distribution.

 

[andys]

One "vision of the future" that I found quite interesting is going to horrify people here: The idea that car ownership might become a thing of the past quite rapidly.

1. Self driving cars become mainstream
2. Self driving cars start "earning their keep" whilst you don't need them by opting in to an Uber-like service
3. If there are loads of self-driving ubers around why bother having your own? Just lets companies by and unleash fleets of them

The end result is car ownership being a weird niche like classic car ownership is now (and probably us lot clinging on to our beloved T10 vans by then!)

I think this is exactly what will happen

 

[chriscroft]

Toyota have a hydrogen fuel cell car called a Miraim, this seems a better technology to me than batteries at this moment.
Graphene might be a game changer for batteries but it is a way off yet.
The next 5 years will certainly be very interesting regarding vehicle propulsion.

 

[mopardave]

I'll be 76 by then......inshallah. Suspect I'll have bought my last new car well in anticipation of that load of bollox! Didn't Phoney Bliar's lot tell everyone to buy diesels a few years ago 'cos they'd save the planet.....we'll see.

 

[Davenjo]

Thanks for that @Davenjo, I think my 50% related to an average overall loses including the actual generation not just the transmission and distribution.

That makes more sense - a lot more energy is used to generate, via burning coal, oil, gas, etc., to create steam, which, in most cases, is subsequently lost, than the electricity that is being produced - efficiency of coal is typically <40% I believe.