Electric and autonomous vehicles

[whole diary]

[Red Squirrel]

That might be so if the level of oil availability in 2040 would be the same as it is now - it will be a lot less by then, while demand from the developing nations will be higher.

I would have agreed with you ten years ago, but with the exploitation of shale oil I'm not sure we're likely to hit peak oil any time soon. The hope is that the price drops so low that it gets left where it is.

As an aside, a lot of developing nations are in areas where cheap solar energy is likely to be more attractive on price than even cheap oil, if the price of solar continues to drop as it is doing.

[ChrisB]

If there were to be a further price drop from Shale, we'd have seen it by now. It's dropped as far as it has because of that.

[ellendune]

If there were to be a further price drop from Shale, we'd have seen it by now. It's dropped as far as it has because of that.

But shale oil is far more expensive to produce so if  the price drops too much they will just stop producing it!

[Red Squirrel]

If there were to be a further price drop from Shale, we'd have seen it by now. It's dropped as far as it has because of that.

Angry dolphins, I think! Shale has postponed peak oil, meaning supply will hold up; renewables will however reduce demand leading to a fall in price.

[ChrisB]

Or the unwanted oil being keft in the ground as mow to hold up the price. I can't see a reason why this wouldn't continue to be the case by OPEC going forward. Its not that they need the additional cash....

[Oxonhutch]

As an oil man, who's done a fair bit of shale oil (and gas), the feeling in the industry right now is not Peak Oil (that elusive maximum that never seemed to arrive) but rather Peak Demand.  With improving efficiencies and new technologies, this appears to be far more in the field of the expected.  Shale has merely put a cap on current (and near future) prices such that $60/bbl will be very difficult to break through with current untapped resource potential and under-utilised development infrastructure.

[Bmblbzzz]

Whatever happens to oil price and demand, Treasury isn't going to wait till 2040 to find a way to tax "automotive electricity". I'm going to guess we'll see something around 2021. The question is how they do it: A special duty for electricity from rapid chargers? Some way of deciding what domestic current is being used for, either technological or bureaucratic? Or just slap it on all electricity?

And yes, this stuff could really do with being split!

[ellendune]

Whatever happens to oil price and demand, Treasury isn't going to wait till 2040 to find a way to tax "automotive electricity". I'm going to guess we'll see something around 2021. The question is how they do it: A special duty for electricity from rapid chargers? Some way of deciding what domestic current is being used for, either technological or bureaucratic? Or just slap it on all electricity?

And yes, this stuff could really do with being split!

Demand pricing for high currents is seems the most likely to me. 

[TonyK]

Whatever happens to oil price and demand, Treasury isn't going to wait till 2040 to find a way to tax "automotive electricity". I'm going to guess we'll see something around 2021. The question is how they do it: A special duty for electricity from rapid chargers? Some way of deciding what domestic current is being used for, either technological or bureaucratic? Or just slap it on all electricity?

And yes, this stuff could really do with being split!

Oh, that I could do that! It is a fascinating discussion, which may even challenge entrenched opinions, but it doesn't belong here. Strictly, it doesn't belong anywhere on the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Coffee Shop forum, but I am sure that TPTB^▸ (The Powers That Be) (see Abbrevs list) will find a place, given that electricity is central to electrification.

Which takes me sort of back on thread. If we are going to electrify public transport, the mainline railway is the obvious place to start. National Grid power lines often follow railway corridors, putting supply options close to demand. Commuter rail lines and tramways use less power per train mile, if not per passenger mile - and I am sure that ET or II will provide equations. Only around 30% of the rail network is currently electrified, and with the sort of power the big trains use, it is clear that if we switched the whole network over to electricity tomorrow, there would be generational problems.

In fact, while figures of how much electricity is produced by different sources are bandied about, hailed, or debunked, it remains a truth that less than 40% of our nation's energy use is, at the point of use, provided by electricity. We have HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) that use diesel to produce electricity to power motors that transport a few hundred passengers and a few hundred gallons of diesel and a generator/rectifier rig weighing a couple of hundred tonnes each train. We heat our homes by oil, LPG^▸ (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) or gas (or coal and logs in the case of my Devon hideaway), most of us cook our food by gas. And the big heffalump in the room is the 90%+ of road vehicles powered by fossil fuels.

We need to turn this around, or at least the conventional wisdom says, and I don't disagree with that. I will not shed any tears when coal finally disappears off the power generation agenda, nor oil, which is almost gone in this country anyway.

The Chancellor has no problem in balancing the books. The market will do it for him. Currently, the VAT^▸ (Value Added Tax) rate on household power is a quarter that of goods, and while you can trickle charge one of your Teslas in the time it takes to entertain your supermodel missus and her Ukrainian cousin you will not be able to separate automotive power from home consumption. The Chancellor will instead find ways to levy the tax at the point of production rather than consumption. When the price of such cars drops, however, you may find it cheaper.

We may find electricity becomes expensive in a progressive way, as Bmblbzzz suggested, and as actually happened in, I believe France, when a primitive leccy meter tipped ball bearings into a container as you turned on the appliances. Think - why else would we have "Smart" meters? Some apparently learned academics suggest that we can all use our washing machines at 3 am when don't want our sleep interrupted by a washing machine, so that we can use wind turbines and solar power to do the business. I'm not sure about you, but I don't see the sun shining at 5 pm on a December night. Nor do I see the wind blowing during those sometimes month long winter highs. The "Smart" meters are no different to the plans for differential pricing by petrol stations to change the price throughout the day, tried in the early eighties, and abolished in the early eighties. We all love a bargain.

Before you say I am pointing out the problems without suggesting a solution, I am up for Thorium rather than Uranium as a fuel for a chain of nuclear power stations. That would power the base load of around 30GWh, any excess being used to charge electric cars.  Or storage heaters. There would be no need for any batteries, at least not until we have several million wind turbines, possibly one each, as we need diesel backup for each MWh now.

[ellendune]

Some apparently learned academics suggest that we can all use our washing machines at 3 am when don't want our sleep interrupted by a washing machine, so that we can use wind turbines and solar power to do the business.

Warning:  This is not recommended by the fire and rescue services. Domestic appliance fires are more common that you think and at night present a much greater risk.  I speak from experience. 

[Red Squirrel]

...you will not be able to separate automotive power from home consumption.

Our home charger, part-funded by an OLEV grant, reports our usage via a wi-fi link. It's not a giant leap to imagine that this information could be used by HMRC. Of course you could get around this by trickle-charging off a 13A socket, but with the data available it would be as easy to prove you'd done this as it is to dip for red diesel.

There would be no need for any batteries...

So what shall we do with the thousands of spare ten-year-old car batteries that still have a 20-30kWh capacity remaining? Seems a shame to throw them away...

Incidentally, whilst (as you may have noticed) I am a strong advocate of CAVs and BEVs^▸ (Battery electric vehicle), I do absolutely agree that public transport should be the first priority for electrification. The best time to electrify the railways is twenty years ago; the second best time is now.

[broadgage]

I suspect that attempting to charge a higher rate for electricity used for battery charging will be fraught with difficulties and open to fraud.
Simpler to give up on that idea and raise the money by either a flat rate road tax, or by charging for road use per mile.

[ChrisB]

Yep, I reckon road tax.....

[Bmblbzzz]

There are various examples of the same thing being taxed at different rates according to usage: industrial ethanol is cheaper than pure ethanol for making into drinks, heating oil is cheaper than diesel for your car, and until the 1970s electricity in Italy was cheaper for lighting than for other purposes. That was simple to charge with two separate meters and simple to cheat by special plugs which would fit a light socket. It's probably technically possible to do something more sophisticated to determine usage now, but it might not be worth it.

[ChrisB]

Indeed - a requirement to fit another meter with the charger?.....