Another nice try mad-as/craig, Now looking forwad to those other 'critics' doing the same.....
PS: Is Tasmania near to Botany Bay ?....

That was my point Richard; "Some venicles can be converted" but why bother?; The main 'concession' here is to convert diesel cabs to petrol/LPG to extend their allowed 'lifetime' back to 15 years. This simply allows them to say they 'make concessions' but it is impractical and/or costly and thus esssentially meaningless of course. https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2018/0784

You are probably also aware that the Mayor's Transport Statregy is aimed at 'encouraging' Londoners to "walk, cycle and use public transport".....
Describing this as "unrealistic" does not even begin to cover it of course.

Yes, Morat, The motor industry is definitely a major 'lobby' here; Same with the Government's ideas about 'Driverless Cars'....
Describing those as 'unrealistic' is another 'understatement'

Similarly I strongly believe they _don't _actually want us to change fron ICE too rapidly, they want to tax us heavily for using it ! Some London boroughs are charging more for Parking Permits for Diesels ... or considering it; Motorists are 'easy pickings'. (Surprise Surprise)

eg. My local borough has numerous sneaky cameras (coupled with bad signage) that typically generate £500K per annum. Other Boroughs do the same too.... Similalry the latest 'craze' here is selling off the Tube Car-Parks to Developers.... but this and ULEZ etc is much more about raisng revenues than dealing with pollution of course

(Incidentally in 'the interests of fairness and transparency' I have been posting up details of these 'sneaky' cameras up on local SM site and may end up transported to Botany Bay myself....)

mad-as wrote:

the only electric vehicles that we will be driving in the future will be mobility scooters , might convert mine to petrol , who wants a race?

Been done and has to be done again..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=i2D2fP6yBzU

Excelllent ! Pretty sure i have encountered some of these things on the pavements !

good to see some competition , right up their with barbie car racing, all down hill them hear.

We have lawnmower racing in the UK, that looks quite fun http://www.blmra.co.uk/

We had unofficial, unsanctioned, free for all mower racing at my Father's place once (he had a handy field).
It was won by the team that built a dune buggy out of two landrovers and tied a push-mover to the rear bumper :)

to race anything can be good fun with the right people
we have mower racing to , and don't the open class go (bleeding kidneys all round)

Not sure abot mowers but these will have BIG FANS (so maybe Dyson can help ?!) :-

https://www.electrive.com/2018/04/16/electric-aircraft-startup-wright-electric-teams-up-with-jetex/

Another interesting idea - this time from the Aeronaytical Industry and planned for "around 2050" or so.

Not sure what the bigger problem is though, carrying their batteries everywhere with them... or the fact that jel fuel/jkerosene has over 50 times more 'energy per kg' than Li-ion batteries do... ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density (See chart)

These are being taken seriously (apparently):-

https://www.aerosociety.com/news/can-easyjet-short-circuit-electric-airliner-flight/

Alternatively you could just have a (concept) EV _based _on an airliner, or a cheetah, or a basking shark .....(?)

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/lexus-debuts-its-futuristic-electric-concept-car-at-the-tokyo-motor-show-with-seats-inspired-by-an-airlines-first-class-and-winged-doors-2019-10

RRST - Range Rover Shopping Trips - as a measure of CO2 Pollution ?

"If I drive a Range Rover to the supermarket I produce about 400g of CO2. Should we measure environmental morality in Range Rover Shopping Trips – RSTs? An RST is an ugly spectacle: me a paunchy middle aged guy, my wrap-around shades, in a ‘commanding’ driving position, nonchalantly palming my giant car between trolley-pushing pedestrians in the Sainsbury’s car park. Meanwhile in a studio nearby, a designer, loving the precision of razor sharp edges, draws a gorgeous slender bookshelf out of steel. It weighs 500kg, making about 1.5t of CO2, so jot him down for 3,750 RSTs: a daily Range Rover drive to Sainsbury’s and back every day for 10 years – and that’s just a morning’s work for him. An engineer churns out the same old steel picture frame instead of a timber one – that’s 2t of steel and 6t of CO2: she’s on 15,000 RSTs. A planner that insists on a brick facade produces 253t of CO2 – 632,500 RSTs. Bricks are bad. They’re baked, doh! If a contractor, balking at the unknown, persuades a client to make a block of flats concrete instead of cross laminated timber that’s 2,300t of CO2. Now we’re on 5.76 million RSTs. No matter that we’re peddling around on our Bromptons. We are actually all driving the Range Rover to Sainsbury’s... a lot."

https://www.ribaj.com/intelligence/sustainability-think-in-range-rovers-and-accept-personal-responsibility

At last.
Clarity and scale.
Cars, it turns out are not the evil that they are made out to be.
Thanks for un earthing that Gem.

It does not realiy matter if it is 11, 21, 31 years of course..... and even banning Cotton Buds and Straws etc is basically a 'joke'
but it gives us an idea how totally clueless they all are about it (and how stupid they believe us all to be for that matter ?)

Fortunately it's probably all Academic as there are now kids who are smarter than 'Presidents' (be they Trump or Johnson):-

And quite a few Scientists who are smarter too fotso.......

(and many of these short-sighted Politicians will be history in 11,21,31 years time of course... these kids won't...)

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/05/climate-change-11-000-world-scientists-declare-climate-emergency/4168388002/

"Coming Soon To a City Centre Near You" (?)

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/city-council-congestion-zone-diesel-3483921

(If Bristol can pull it off it will be copied elsewhere of course..... )

Thanks for that one Dave, you've just given me the ammunition to delete diesels totally from our new work fleet.

Well as far as I can tell Richard diesel vans would be excluded (but would be charged per day instead).

However the problem with these schemes of course is when local coucils start to try to 'out-green' one another.

You will no doubt already be aware that many folks think EVs are car tax exempt too; Lost count now of the number of times I have had to explain that is for the First Year only and then it is typically £320 pa (Tesla). Ditto for Hybrids (eg/ Typically £35 First Year then £135 - Prius)

Obviously this is all less of an issue with Business vehicles but, as I also keep having to explain to prospective (and overly-optimistic) EV/Hybrid customers, "It's a diiferent 'model' to ICE"... and it is not all good news ! Incidentally my own interest/scepticism started a few years ago when someone from Nissan stated the range of a Leaf was "£109 miles.." No mention of driving conditions, terrain, battery life etc of course... just £109 miles...!!

The way I read it is that all diesels, including private cars, are excluded from the central area, while diesel vans (assuming they class a CDV as a commercial vehicle) will have to pay a charge at certain times of the day and be excluded at others. At the moment it is costing £23 a day to go into central London and this is a cost that we need to avoid. Hopefully, in my view, other councils WILL try to out green each other, the more places diesels are excluded from the better. Even though I will have retired by the time the new fleet is rolled out, I'd like to think I can leave a legacy for the others that is better than the poxy diesel Kangoo vans we have now. I'm pushing towards self-charge hybrid estate cars although as they are taken home every night, but with no private use, there is still a question mark over the BIK status.

Re the Leaf, a woman that works in one of our offices bought one for herself but lives 35 miles from the office. She found that when she first got it, in the summer, she could get to work and back on a full charge. In winter, with lights, heater, wipers, etc on (not to mention the reduced battery performance due to the cold), it ran out of charge before she managed to get home. She started charging it at the office during the day until others started asking for a contribution towards their petrol costs for going to work. She ended up swapping it for the uprated model that could actually do a 70 miles journey whatever the conditions......

A lot of young people are concerned about climate change but that isn't necessarily enough to steer them to preach EVs or buy one themselves. From learning to drive and through college / uni my son ran typical student type cars, old Corsa, Astra, etc and he's had that type of car until recently. Now three years into a well paid job after uni he decided it was time for something a bit newer and better, he acknowledges climate change but didn't consider an EV, he likes the type of cars I used to drive and an EV would be less convenient. First he looked at V8 BMW 7 series but settled for a BMW330... Would expect a lot of young kids will aspire to drive cars much like their parents / brothers / older friends cars (which were not EVs) especially if they're used to longer road trips which they know an EV couldn't manage due to short range. An EV wouldn't have suited me at 19 years old, I thought nothing of jumping in the car and nipping to Cornwall for the weekend, me and the girlfriend at the time did that regularly... but back then could make the 350 mile trip in 3 hours 15 minutes driving at night stopping once for 10 minutes to refuel and marvel at how nice and grey the inside of my exhaust looked lol. Son still has the Astra so between him and his girlfriend they have 3 petrol cars (she recently swapped her diesel for a petrol), he uses the Astra to park at the train station or if he drives to work in Leeds he takes the BMW. Both acknowledge climate change, both would probably rather more people use EVs if it helps climate change, just as long as more people doesn't include themselves. Would expect a lot of sub 17 year olds who preach climate change and EVs suddenly to have a change of heart regard EVs when they reach driving age! Even if a kid would prefer an EV over an ice car they may only be able to afford an older ice... so a quandary have no car or have an ice car. If they can afford an EV they might not be able to charge it at home when they want/need to if they've already persuaded mum and dad to buy an EV and dad's car takes the best part of all night to charge whilst drawing a high fraction of the household's electrical supply capacity (or is merely parked in the way so kid's car couldn't charge at the same time). Having run an ice car with practically unlimited range (except for pesky 5/10 minute fuel ups) a kid now more grown up is in the same situation as other adults - swapping to an EV more expense and less convenient than they had to start with, especially if they like/need longer trips.

Just finishing LPG conversion of an Infinity (to Nissan what Lexus is to Toyota) M350 hybrid.

Unfortunately Richard I have had some dealings myself with Local Authorities / Councils - and they seemed pretty clueless. eg In one meeting we were shown 'lovely' sketches of their planned Public EV Charging Stations ... but they clearly had no ideas whatsover of the likely demand and/or how much they would charge for using them... (except it would be more expensive that at home because of installation costs and 'convenience premiums' ). It needs a lot of additional work/research/etc but in the meantime I suspect Councils will mainly compete in terms of just how many Public Charging Stations they have as compared to the others (?).

Similarly if they are banning diesels from town centres due to pollution concerns does that mean they will providing Park/Ride schemes instead ??

As for your Fleet Legacy work the Polar Bears will be impressed for sure !!

The Leaf you mention sounds like one of the worse cases i have heard of ... maybe she just left the hand-brake on (?!) but seriously is the kind of thing Manufacturers should think about (as apparently the whole ICE "over-stated MPG" fiasco should have taught them something (?)

Yes Lpgc, the psychology of 'car-buying for kids' is definitley changing too and will conitoune to thanks to EVs, and I would say we are on a bit of a 'cusp' too, but it's down to price of them too (notably second-had, or "pre-owned" as the like to say these days (as though that makes any difference...) but c.5K is too much for most kids. Lots more manufacturers are now jumping on the EV band-wagon and that will 'trickle down' (eventually) too. Not sure that many kids are attracted to the idea of an 'old' EV (with limited battery life etc). Many kids are staying at home more due to appaling Property Prices and in theory have more 'disposable' incomes but as far as cars themselves are concerned Insurance costs in particular work against that - and it does not surprise me that so many now seem to prefer Public Transport and/or bikes anyway !!

A quick aside, how many hybrid-owners are converting to LPG ?

Another quick aside but this makes good watching/reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

Meant to post it up earlier but I am sure many of you know the story of GMs (lease-only) EV1s...,
and now all crushed....Short Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3OnYjP4FTk

davew wrote:

A quick aside, how many hybrid-owners are converting to LPG ?

Another quick aside but this makes good watching/reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

I haven't converted many hybrids, can think of a few reasons why. But there's increasing interest from particularly taxi drivers and again can see why (emissions zones etc).

Would say ultimately it was consumers who killed off electric cars first time around due to ice cars having better range. Even if fledgling battery/electric companies developed infrastructure (forecourts etc) at the same rate as oil companies would expect things to have gone the same way. When comparing winners and losers of old tech a common analogy is VHS vs Betamax but at least they both had adequate play time, would expect if there was a 3rd competitor format which only had 20 minutes max possible play time it would have lost before Betamax even if tapes/media was much cheaper.