Budget: Cash for driverless and electric cars - but no mention of cycling

kil0ran wrote:

oldstrath wrote:

earth wrote:

Although there is no direct award to cycling this will benefit indirectly because electric cars will not be producing local pollution and I dare say driverless cars will become safer than human drivers.

You dare say it if you want. But it won't happen by magic or good intentions, because it will cost the companies. It will require regulation, well planned and strongly enforced. Just the things this shower are utterly uninterested in. So much simpler to accept a few deaths, get rid of cyclists, and take the money.

The only solution I can see is an EU-mandated safety firmware as part of type approval. That way each car can be engineered in the knowledge that all other AVs will respond identically to a given safety situation. Otherwise I can imagine a situation where manufacturers tune their AVs to match brand values (i.e. anything painted black from VW/Audi will be mandated to drive like an utter cockwomble around cyclists)

What is this EU of which you speak?  Remember: by 2021 we'll be that little tax haven off the west coast of Europe which used to be very important on the world stage, historically...

davel wrote:

brooksby wrote:

Isn't the problem with electric cars supposed to be that all that electricity still has to come from *somewhere*?  Some  commenters are already doing a Cassandra on our ability to power just the stuff we already have, without throwing electric cars into the mix...

But electricity can be produced via numerous sources - even if some of them are currently inefficient. Getting a large proportion of cars onto electricity at least moves them onto that potential mix, and away from oil dependency.

I don't disagree.  I'd just meant that we are closing traditional power stations at a greater rate than opening new ones (probably a good thing in the long run), doG alone knows when or if any new nuke stations will open, and there aren't enough wind farms (yet, but there still doesn't appear to be enough money in wind or solar to attract the government and their backers to start touting it big time...).

So, our requirement for power is increasing but our capacity to generate it is falling, and now we want to try and swap over to electric cars.

Er ... = "modern life is complex".

It is complex, and a bit chaotic, but if we want a greater electricity generation capacity, we can have it. Indeed we already have much more than we need a lot of the time - demand is very 'peaky'. But millions of EV batteries connected to a smarter grid would be incentivised to charge cheaply off-peak (e.g. overnight) and paid to feed-in when demand peaks. They're as much an opportunity as a threat to the system.

As for actual additional generating capacity, it mightn't be through new nuclear (which seems entirely uncertain) but renewables, gas (not perfect but cleaner than internal combustion vehicles), and - critically - demand-side measures (e.g.  incentivising major users to turn down demand at stress times) - are realistic. Generators will build plant if there is the demand for the electricity, especially if backed by government guarantees (the government already does this through 'Contracts for Difference' and capacity payments - they may just need to do more).

It'll be a bumpy road to get there but it's technically and politically possible.

brooksby wrote:

davel wrote:

brooksby wrote:

Isn't the problem with electric cars supposed to be that all that electricity still has to come from *somewhere*?  Some  commenters are already doing a Cassandra on our ability to power just the stuff we already have, without throwing electric cars into the mix...

But electricity can be produced via numerous sources - even if some of them are currently inefficient. Getting a large proportion of cars onto electricity at least moves them onto that potential mix, and away from oil dependency.

I don't disagree.  I'd just meant that we are closing traditional power stations at a greater rate than opening new ones (probably a good thing in the long run), doG alone knows when or if any new nuke stations will open, and there aren't enough wind farms (yet, but there still doesn't appear to be enough money in wind or solar to attract the government and their backers to start touting it big time...).

So, our requirement for power is increasing but our capacity to generate it is falling, and now we want to try and swap over to electric cars.

Er ... = "modern life is complex".

[

quote=PRSboy]

I do find it distasteful that taxpayers are subsidising the purchase and running costs of £30k+ EVs.

What exactly is the obsession with driverless cars anyway?  Most cars have one occupant as far as I can see.

[/quote]

if the van, bus, taxi or lorry fleet you own doesn't have to pay any drivers you will make more profit. 

The logistics of delivering stuff change dramatically. Because the delivery vehicle no longer needs a human occupant you can stick it, along with others, on the back of a lorry, also driverless, for the trunk journey. For the last mile each of the vehicles drives itself to the drop-offs where the recipient unloads it, or it unloads a secure container itself. It's an Amazon locker on wheels.

If it's a taxi you no longer have a human driver, but can choose whichever extreme political views you want it to rant at you, although anti-cycling bigotry will remain compulsory.

Vans will be equipped with blonde-recognition software so they can shout "awright dahlin'!" automatically, to make sure the lucky ladies don't miss the experience.

For the rest of us, they will be safer, even if they're not perfectly safe. And with electric motors they will be cleaner.

They will reduce congestion in cities because there wil be fewer of them, and because they will operate in conjunction with other traffic and with the road infrastructure to optimise conditions, rather than competing for space.

There are a couple of downsides, as far as I can see. 

First, people love driving, when conditions are a vague approximation of the adverts, which is rarely. They won't want to lose this. They need a substitute. Cycling?

Second, job losses. A lot of drivers are going to be out of work and they can't all become baristas. We need to be able to deal with this. Rather than let the market take the profits while the rest of us pay the costs, we will need to tax the shit out of the corporations, Amazon etc. to deal with the consequences of all this. My view is that we need to be looking at universal basic incomes, à la Finland.