EV opposition in the media is ramping up

[Paulie68]

Their latest line today is that development of renewables in Germany is leading to the rise of the far right.

The irony of it is almost too much...

 

[tsedge]

The irony of it is almost too much...

Must be wind turbines like these they are talking about.

 

[Robf]

Must be wind turbines like these they are talking about. View attachment 19082

Very Good

Media just follows stories that get the most hits, people are interested in EV's. There will be all sorts of stories, but EV's are the future and will continue to improve at pace (my first was a 22kw Zoe, about 90 miles in summer). Just smile and enjoy your brilliant drive and cheap motoring. If you charge from home, don't forget to wave at the people in the filling station que at the next fuel crisis, they love that and usually wave back, lovely

 

[Les burrows]

Having watched the video couple of times, it does make the point that if the U.K. is going to keep pace regarding EV’s we need to commit to building a battery giga factory here.
Well it was interesting to hear on the news tonight, that at least this could ave taken a small step closer ?.

Jaguar Land Rover-owner to spend £4bn on UK battery factory

Tata will build the electric vehicle battery plant in Somerset which will create 4,000 jobs.

www.bbc.com

CONFIRMED This morning to be built in Somerset and the HALEWOOD JLR Plant in Liverpool to build only EVs
Les

 

[Ruislip Resident]

CONFIRMED This morning to be built in Somerset and the HALEWOOD JLR Plant in Liverpool to build only EVs
Les

Cue the complaints about manufacturing built on the back of child slaves toiling away in the deep mines of wherever.

 

[Les burrows]

Cue the complaints about manufacturing built on the back of child slaves toiling away in the deep mines of wherever.

Rubbish, I don’t understand your downer on this announcement we have no idea what type of batteries are to be built there and lots more today are being made without these materials that you are referring to and the way they are obtained.

This is great news for the UK and the car industry in general it will probably create 100s of jobs apart from the environmental changes, it might make EVs are here to stay make no mistake about that and if they can build them in the UK all the better for everyone.

The only down side I can see is it’s going to be built in an area 200 plus miles from where the cars are being built and in that we have learned nothing from the downfall of British Leyland that made vehicle parts in Birmingham and than shipped them to Scotland to be assembled into cars

 

[Lovemyev]

CONFIRMED This morning to be built in Somerset and the HALEWOOD JLR Plant in Liverpool to build only EVs
Les

That is a much needed boost to the U.K. push towards EV adoption.
Interesting to hear what negativity the Daily Mail just HAS to put out on this great news.
They are building a battery plant at the old Nissan plant in Sunderland also I believe.
Halewood building EV’s and the “X” Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port ( fairly close by ) are just building EV vans.

 

[Les burrows]

That is a much needed boost to the U.K. push towards EV adoption.
Interesting to hear what negativity the Daily Mail just HAS to put out on this great news.
They are building a battery plant at the old Nissan plant in Sunderland also I believe.
Halewood building EV’s and the “X” Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port ( fairly close by ) are just building EV vans.

That’s correct jeff so for me it would have made far more sense to build the battery factory nearby not 200 miles away.
Les

 

[Gomev]

Rubbish, I don’t understand your downer on this announcement we have no idea what type of batteries are to be built there and lots more today are being made without these materials that you are referring to and the way they are obtained.

This is great news for the UK and the car industry in general it will probably create 100s of jobs apart from the environmental changes, it might make EVs are here to stay make no mistake about that and if they can build them in the UK all the better for everyone.

The only down side I can see is it’s going to be built in an area 200 plus miles from where the cars are being built and in that we have learned nothing from the downfall of British Leyland that made vehicle parts in Birmingham and than shipped them to Scotland to be assembled into cars

Les, I don't think @Ruislip Resident has a downer, but in the vein of this thread being about the anti-EV stories and the usual NIMBYs in this country I can see the claims coming that the new battery factory is likely to catch fire, set most of Somerset a wasteland and all the ingredients being mined by 12 year old slave labour, will probably cause earthquakes due to the weight of all those batteries.......... etc. etc. make up your own stories.
and yes it's a brilliant first step but we need more Gigafactories than just1.

 

[Les burrows]

Les, I don't think @Ruislip Resident has a downer, but in the vein of this thread being about the anti-EV stories and the usual NIMBYs in this country I can see the claims coming that the new battery factory is likely to catch fire, set most of Somerset a wasteland and all the ingredients being mined by 12 year old slave labour, will probably cause earthquakes due to the weight of all those batteries.......... etc. etc. make up your own stories.
and yes it's a brilliant first step but we need more Gigafactories than just1.

Well I did see it as a downer to be honest, why because where ever this factory was to be built could have been Spain it would have the same materials being used, no please don’t miss understand me I said in my first post I hope to god the materials been mined by children is coming to its end not what we want for sure,and today we have now new ways of building batteries which don’t use them materials and the materials that are been mined in that terrible way are not just for EVs the technology company’s of the world use them in everything even this phone what I am now using to write this message.

And your right the will be some other things to come as you suggest with your fires and earthquakes statement this is good news make no mistake for UK industry and the planet in the long run.
I have already mentioned why it’s being built 200miles from the plants I don’t understand, there was a short while ago one of these factories to be built in the northeast, why because that’s where Nissan build the cars sadly that idea as now been dumped I think.

The object of this thread is to try and fight off the opposition to progress that’s what I thought anyhow, not to rise doom and gloom at every announcement that’s made I agree this is just 1 and we need a lot more if we are to change things for the better if it’s not already to late looking at the news bulletins from all over the world on the news which we are getting.
Les

 

[JimD]

@Les burrows I strongly suspect that our wonderful government (who's lack of ongoing financial support for the NE battery factory resulted in it being sold off to an Australian Corporation who may never go through with it) made sure that the generous grants it's giving for the Somerset factory were only available for the area they wanted the factory to be built in.

That would be the area where they needed some extra votes.

 

[MartinSEsr]

They caused Brexit, though. For sure you could call that the wrong side of history, because it was epic self-harm, but it happened nevertheless.

Why don’t we all start rumours that the nearby filling stations are short of fuel? That would cause everyone to race out and fill their tanks, and there would be a fuel shortage within days. We could all chuckle as we drove around merrily.

Only joking of course!

 

[Rolfe]

We don't need to start the rumours to see this happen, it will undoubtedly happen at some point for some reason.

Naysayers scaremonger about EVs running out of battery, but what they forget is that there is electricity pretty much everywhere. There are far more public charger locations than there are petrol stations already, even if some of them are a single type 2. Then there are all the people with wall boxes. Six within five minutes walk of my house, that I've noticed. (In addition to the public charge-point.) For comparison the nearest petrol station is nine miles away. If someone had some sort of crisis and was really low on charge, it's likely that a fellow EV driver would help them out with enough to get them onward bound for a tenner.

Then, suppose you have your granny charger in the car, anywhere that has mains electricity is a potential fuel source. It's unlikely to come to that, but the possibility is there.

Given that EVs don't just stop dead when they run out, the way an ICE car will do, and you've got several miles of creep in turtle mode if things get really serious, it's a wonder if anyone actually comes to a halt with a bricked car due to the HV battery going completely flat. There's a video somewhere that says the AA reported that this is "very rare", but even there I wonder if these were early EVs with a very short range.

I've never actually heard an EV driver describe the experience of running out of charge (apart from the guys who have done it on purpose to test the range, and put the results on YouTube). Most ICE drivers have run out of petrol at some point, I reckon. But a stranded EV? I think it must take a very "special" set of circumstances for that to happen.

 

[siteguru]

I heard on the news today that environmental protesters are blockading the Ineos Grangemouth facility - that's the source for ~70% of Scotland's fuel. So @MartinSEsr's "joke" might become a reality up here.

Twenty people arrested in Grangemouth climate protest

Police officers with specialist climbing equipment were deployed to remove the protesters.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Rolfe]

That's the sort of thing I was thinking about.

 

[Les burrows]

@Les burrows I strongly suspect that our wonderful government (who's lack of ongoing financial support for the NE battery factory resulted in it being sold off to an Australian Corporation who may never go through with it) made sure that the generous grants it's giving for the Somerset factory were only available for the area they wanted the factory to be built in.

That would be the area where they needed some extra votes.

Hi Jim you could well have a very valid point is there not a by-election in Frome this week I think that’s in Somerset so put this out today could well help votes and once that is over next week we might hear sorry change of plan we have decided to build it near to the vehicle manufacturing facilities as they are loads of Brownfield sites in the dark industrial north west and east and little or no transport cost to deliver the batteries once they are made makes more sense to me.
The mind boggles.
Les

 

[Gadget Geek]

And if the Daily Fail start spouting rubbish about chemical pollution from the old ordnance factory and the enviromental damage caused by mining the battery materials, maybe they should look at the Niger Delta;

Complete destruction of the environment caused by recurrent oil spills. The pro-oil medai never seem to mention this.

 

[Tonych]

What would also help immensely is people who charge at home and very occasionally charge on a long journey stop saying it would be guaranteed to be a nightmare without home charging. In essence they are doing the same as non EV drivers commenting on EVs. Doing the occasional charge on route in no way, shape or form gives you the experience or knowledge of those who live successfully with an EV, but without at home charging.

I dont have access to home charging, and although it required a bit of a change in mindset and expectations, dont have any particular issues charging at public chargers. I get a bit annoyed that the EV cabs locally insist on charging to 100% on rapid chargers. However I have also begun to learn Zen and the art of charging, and understand that if they drive around everyday with a max charge of 80% that's going to limit their day. Just seems a bit selfish and "not playing the game" tho

 

[Rolfe]

Surely the time they wait to get to 100% would be better spent driving the cab down to 20% then coming back to the charger when the charging speed will be much quicker?

 

[Tonych]

Surely the time they wait to get to 100% would be better spent driving the cab down to 20% then coming back to the charger when the charging speed will be much quicker?

I agree, but given the need to queue often for the rapids (our local Tesco Extra has one rapid and 6 22kw posts) I imagine they think, let's just stick with the rapid. I did ask a cab driver if he would mind connecting to one of the 5 available 22kw chargers as he was at 90% and he just gave me a look and got back into his car.... I guessed the answer was no with some expletives not expressed