18 November (Part 3) - Vote Boris, get Caroline Lucas
The first thing I would do after coming home from work in the Winter of 1963 was grab some coal and light the fire. Those were the days when
one could leave school aged 17 - almost 18 in my case - and save enough to buy
your own small house in time for your 21st birthday. Something has gone horribly wrong hasn’t it?
Six years later I upgraded to gas central heating and now I have two friends -
acquaintances I have met four or five times that is - who have moved over to a
heat pump which is a sort of reverse refrigerator that extracts heat from the
air outside. Even cold air is 270 odd degrees above absolute zero so there is plenty there for the taking.
I have resisted the idea because it needs bigger radiators than a gas system and would be a bit of an upheaval.
The point I am trying to make is that these things evolve slowly and people
decide for themselves when it is right to make a change that suits their
circumstances and their budget. Freedom of choice is part of Conservatism as far
as I am concerned, so what the effing hell is Boris Johnson doing imposing his
(Carrie’s?) will on the masses? No more Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) by 2030. Far too dictatorial and
not what one expects from a so called libertarian.
Everyone who has ridden in my electric car thinks it is wonderful, even the
petrol heads vow to buy one when they can. When being the operative word.
One used to run a nine seater wagon because he had six children. They have left home
now so he has downsized. Just as well there is nothing bigger than a seven seater electric car - the
Tesla Model X - and it will cost you best part of a hundred grand.
Maybe there will be a choice for such people in ten years time. It is now
possible to get a Transit sized electric van from Mercedes and Amazon have bought several
hundred of them. Small vans are made in France and in Sunderland but does anyone
do the Berlingo style conversion for wheelchair users? Not yet.
You
can buy a 100% electric bus from Alexander Dennis but the technology is
entirely Chinese and apart from Tesla every manufacturer sources batteries from
China. Why does Boris want to be in hock to China again?
Last year there was a one year waiting list for electric cars and the reason was
mainly battery supply. Things seem to be a bit better now.
Listening to the radio today I have heard the most amazing rot spoken about
electric cars. They need a new £10,000 battery every three years, they spew out
particulates from the brakes, you can’t use them in the wet, they won’t go 450
miles non-stop like a diesel and the National Grid will keel over and die.
Everyone will need a home charger at a minimum cost of £1,600
and they can’t stop quickly due to their weight. (TalkRadio phone in this afternoon.)
There have been many examples of electric cars doing more than a million miles without a battery change.
The few that require recycling now are recycled for other uses. Will there be a
reason to recycle thousands of batteries a year instead of a few dozen? That could be a problem.
Electric cars only need the brakes if you drive like a loon. Whilst it is usually
adjustable the speed of an EV is regulated by the accelerator pedal. Take your
foot off and it stops very rapidly. It takes a bit of getting used to but most people like it.
If you look at the front wheels of an ICE car they will
often be black with brake dust while I can wipe a cloth over mine and it stays clean.
One of the fellows I met at an electric car convention had parked his car in
Cockermouth when the flood struck. His Renault Zoe was the only car that drove
out of it. The carpets were a bit of a mess but mechanically and electrically it
was fine. I saw his video.
Who drives 450 miles without stopping? My car is by today’s standards a
charging tortoise. At best around 300 miles of range added in an hour. The best
now exceed one thousand miles an hour. What will it be in ten years time?
Recharged in the time it takes to go for a pee.
The
National Grid says the power situation is manageable. Why do so may people
not think that experts have been looking into the future? Craig McKinlay MP has
been on TalkRadio while I’ve been writing this saying that there is not enough power available.
Are all MPs that ignorant? (Please don’t answer.)
Maybe he should look at these videos and educate himself.
Balancing the Grid Part 1 -
Balancing the Grid Part 2 -
Balancing the Grid Part 3.
Part 2 is particularly instructive. (Full disclosure: I met the YouTube author once. He
is one of the country’s leading battery chemists - and a Scottish Nationalist.)
My home charger is the most advanced you can buy - except for the latest model
of the same thing - and it cost me £380 including the installation cost. There is a £500 government grant.
Slow stopping? I constantly worry about being rear ended and when the
auto-stop
reacted to a pedestrian in the road quicker than I did the seat belt nearly cut my arm off.
If the braking was deficient it would not have met the NCAP5 requirement but
idiots are allowed to broadcast unchallenged. Why does that conjure up an image of Matt Hancock?
Whatever the advantages of an EV the big problem with Boris’s plan
is, as usual, he hasn’t a clue about how ordinary people live and how tight their budgets are.
A year before I bought my electric car I laid down the criteria it must meet
before I bought one. Mine met all the criteria apart from price. Since then not
one new model has met my minimum requirements apart from the KIA Soul which is mechanically the same as mine.
All the cheaper models are cheaper for a reason. Fine for pottering around town
and maybe a 100 mile round trip but it is still the case that very few will do 250 miles without any need to worry.
Boris Johnson appears to be on a mission to annoy as many people as possible.
Long term Carrie’s ideas are probably reasonable but she should learn that we do not all lead her privileged life style.
The petrol version of my car is only half the price of the electric although it
isn’t nearly as well equipped with bells and whistles.
On the other hand i believe the electric Mini is just a little cheaper than the petrol
equivalent. Things may be improving but a true Conservative doesn’t wear a silly
little moustache and lets the people decide what is right for them when the time
is right for them, which is why I no longer have a coal fire.