Save the planet or . . .

My council changed their livery about 10 years ago and there are still vans with the old paint job, I'm quite pleased that they didn't just paint all the vans. Mind you I live in the worst-off London Borough and we have been bailed out by the government so they aren't cost conscious in many ways

Sazz1 you have a right to your opinion, and your concerns, which are not negated by others recounting problems with diesel or petrol cars. For me currently it’s the cost, but that concern has already been pooh -poohed by some who don’t have that problem.
Eventually prices will come down, we will move away from fossil fuel cars and the problems will have been worked out.
Until then . . .

sazz1

I will never buy an EV. Son works unloading new cars from ships. He's seen a whole deck catch fire with EVs and also one go up on the transporter lorry. Didn't make the press though. Also I've read of someone trapped in one on fire and burned to death, 3 London busses EVs catching fire, 2 jaguar EVs where breaks failed and couldn't be stopped. Also a ship actually sunk due to EVs on fire they were carrying.
There are probably loads of others that I haven't read about but that is enough for me. Not every incident makes the press.
They are not ready for production yet imo. I can afford one but no way do I trust them.

Have you seen the Luton Airport car park fire, that was started by a petrol Range Rover hundreds of cars burnt out, of course nobody has ever died in a petrol car fire.

I will never buy an EV. Son works unloading new cars from ships. He's seen a whole deck catch fire with EVs and also one go up on the transporter lorry. Didn't make the press though. Also I've read of someone trapped in one on fire and burned to death, 3 London busses EVs catching fire, 2 jaguar EVs where breaks failed and couldn't be stopped. Also a ship actually sunk due to EVs on fire they were carrying.
There are probably loads of others that I haven't read about but that is enough for me. Not every incident makes the press.
They are not ready for production yet imo. I can afford one but no way do I trust them.

Katie59🤣🤣🤣

Mollygo

My initial conversation was around the rise in rates, whilst councils claiming hardship were buying/leasing fleets of EV.
Re the costs you mention Katie, how many people who can only afford a used car, buy one with the intention of replacing the engine.
I’m not disputing the environmental impact savings of EVs (apart from the mining aspect). There’s an excellent article on the progress of EV and HEV and the challenge to make them cheaper to produce. www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car

However, I hope I’m right that you’re not implying less well off people should go car-less if they can’t afford an EV, or afford to buy an EV with a battery that may or may not need an early replacement, depending on usage factors or even chance.

In the past technology was straightforward and owners could do a lot of DIY or use backstreet workshops to maintain cars, the latest cars have much more complex electronics that need specialist computer and internet updates, only available to main dealers. They are going to be increasingly expensive to keep running when the warranty runs out.

A friend has a small Kia diesel 9 yrs old value £4k or so engine has gone wrong, nobody can fix it, they say it will cost too much. Many older cars fail the MOT just because the emissions are too high and it’s too expensive to fix them. EVs have maintenence issues as well DIY is not practical, but cheap S/H EVs are available now, most are only 5 yrs old so, not ultra cheap.

You don’t have to have an EV, petrol cars are available new for 10 yrs, then it’s likely they can be used for 20 yrs+ after, subject to zero emission zones

Regarding HEVs you can buy one today from Toyota your problem is refueling it there are very few hydrogen refueling places, the technology problem is producing hydrogen, it’s going to be decades before enough carbon free electricity is available to produce it on a large scale.

My initial conversation was around the rise in rates, whilst councils claiming hardship were buying/leasing fleets of EV.
Re the costs you mention Katie, how many people who can only afford a used car, buy one with the intention of replacing the engine.
I’m not disputing the environmental impact savings of EVs (apart from the mining aspect). There’s an excellent article on the progress of EV and HEV and the challenge to make them cheaper to produce. www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car

However, I hope I’m right that you’re not implying less well off people should go car-less if they can’t afford an EV, or afford to buy an EV with a battery that may or may not need an early replacement, depending on usage factors or even chance.

Cost will be similar to replacing an engine on a car, on a mid range car a new engine can cost £20k, even a S/H engine from a salvage car costs £8 or 10k. Many cars are being written off early because the cost of repair is so high, petrol and especially diesel engines with emission control are highly complex and expensive to fix.

Katie59
Others say the batteries don’t last, I’m sure some have had faults but generally they are lasting well and a 15 yr life looks realistic.

I’m not sure it’s the length of time they’ll last as much as the cost of replacement that worries people. Granted the cost will probably come down over time, but the impact on the second hand market where buying a second hand car with the possibility of imminently needing a very expensive battery is worrying. In our family, we mostly buy second hand cars , not out of virtue of reusing things, but out of necessity.
Once again poorer families will be most impacted-however great their concern for the environment might be.

There are lots of myths about EVs and there is an active “Hate EV” camPaige in the press. Every EV that catches fire there is headlines, in reality there ate 10 times as many petrol or diesel cars that catch fire.
Others say the batteries don’t last, I’m sure some have had faults but generally they are lasting well and a 15 yr life looks realistic.
Only suitable for short journeys, all brands offer EVs with 250 mile plus range, some much more, our Jaguar IPace will go from the midlands to Dover or the Lake District or North Devon on one charge, plug it in have a meal and travel on if you want.
Not enough chargers, 95%+ of charging is at home using Off Peak power, cost around £5 for 200 miles range. We do occasionally use en route chargers where a round trip is more, so we stop for 20 mins add 50 miles the charge fully at home.
As for councils changing to EVs, it’s a “no brainer” maybe they cost more but running cost is vastly smaller and no pollution for urban work.

EVs are the future for now, maybe sometime in the future Hydrogen will supersede them, when they can produce enough “green hydrogen”, the hydrogen we have now is almost all reformed from Methane. It’s likely that Hydrogen will be used in shipping first then trucks.

On the subject of saving the planet, France are stepping up to the plate.
Penalties on throw away fashion companies.

www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-lawmakers-approve-bill-apply-penalties-fast-fashion-2024-03-14/#:~:text=PARIS%2C%20March%2014%20(Reuters),to%20offset%20their%20environmental%20impact.

Germanshepherdsmum

We have received two of these glossy magazines just this week - one from the county council and the other from the district. They contained very little useful information. I can’t imagine what they must cost to produce and distribute (via the postman - I doubt the PO provide the service for free). The useful information - phone numbers for different services - could have been put on a black and white A4 sheet.

We used to have a buy to let in a NN town. When the tenants moved out we found the shed was full of those glossy mags.
So much easier to store them than deliver them!
We phoned NNDC but they didn’t want them back!

4allweknow

Callistemon21 Dont worry about the 20 mph. Have lived in a 20 moh zone for 15 years and limit ignored by most residents, van and school bus drivers. Not enough police are available to catch speeders and that's even with some police officers actually living in the area. Speeders will be caught initially to try and highlight the "success" of the change but then it'll be back to normal.

Most of us are obeying the rules but there is often someone behind tailgating!

Callistemon21 Dont worry about the 20 mph. Have lived in a 20 moh zone for 15 years and limit ignored by most residents, van and school bus drivers. Not enough police are available to catch speeders and that's even with some police officers actually living in the area. Speeders will be caught initially to try and highlight the "success" of the change but then it'll be back to normal.

Councils routinely waste or mismanage money.I’ve got a friend in Tower Hamlets who tells me about the mayor who has grandiose plans and is taking over £20 million out of council reserves for pet projects as well as spending eye watering amounts on his own staff and office.He was formally accused of fraudulent use of money amongst other things such as buying votes to get into his position but then voters reinstated him.
Google Tower Hamlets mayor, an eye opener.

The move to electric vehicles is being heavily promoted at government level, there is an office specifically dealing with the transition to electric vehicles, and they are supporting councils to transition, build ev ports etc.

It seems that most councils lease their vehicle fleets, so they are doing what is expected of them as leases come to an end?

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-zero-emission-vehicles

Casdon I don’t know. Sitting in the doc’s, we weren’t doing an in depth research. Simply that we had both noticed that all the council vans we see are new and electric.

In some cases local authorities are hopeless at managing money. This becomes all the more apparent when there is less of it. I don’t agree with acquiring evs when there are more pressing calls on the budget. Sporting chance? You must be joking - they’re gambling with taxpayers’ money.

If they don’t go green money ( even more money 😉) will be withheld from central government.

Council's are struggling financially due to Central government not funding them sufficiently. It makes me cross to have one opinion that Council's waste money when they have to jump through so many hoops. Then electric vehicles getting a bad press when, like it or not, it's the future - and I have grandchildren so not for our generation but let's give them a sporting chance?

Are you saying that the vans they replaced with electric vehicles didn’t need to be replaced at all Mollygo? Do you know if the council actually purchased new vehicles, or got them on 3 or 5 year leases, most of them are?

www.local.gov.uk/case-studies/replacement-council-fleet-vehicles-zero-emission-versions#:~:text=Introduction,of%20them%20are%20lease%20vehicles.

On the basis of the information available this feels like half a story to me, but maybe the answers are available.

grandtanteJE65

What would the person you were speaking to have prefered the council to do with their money?
As I put in the OP we know the answer.
She (as a food bank user,) and I, both know that we need to reduce the use of fossil fuels, but it’s the council’s ability to have money whilst crying poverty that we were both discussing.

I can see that an EV is great if you just use it locally - though personally I use public transport for these journeys. Maybe this means they are right for local authority use, but I can see the point that Georgesgran raised earlier about all of them needing to be charged overnight, possibly at home. Recharging in a depot would need a lot of power.
I've learned from friends and relatives that an EV's batteries don't have a very long life, which is why most of them lease rather than buy now.

I live in an area which is very popular with retirees. The younger ones, like us (70s) of course have the internet and mobile phones. Those much older (90s) can be a very different kettle of fish.

Germanshepherdsmum

Unfortunately a lot of elderly people who might find some of the service information and phone numbers helpful don’t have the internet.

I have to confess to knowing very few people who don't use the internet, even the very elderly here. And many who don't use the internet do have mobile phones and are on our local WhatsApp groups through their phone. Our local authority use WhatsApp for communications for some groups now.
It would be interesting to know what proportion of these expensive magazines are thrown away unread, though there is obviously no way of checking.