The Future of Cars and Energy / Newest Tony Seba Lecture
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM

It's the end of the world, as we know it.

Be prepared to give up your cars, everyone. Don't believe me? Watch the video. (btw, you can save time by clicking on the YouTube gear icon and speed up the video)

Paul, you had better trade-in your shiny new car for bike before that car becomes so worthless that you can't give it away. ;)

Doug :)

Don't panic Doug, ICE cars are going to be around for much longer than you think, I may buy another 5 or 10 before I'm ready to consider an electric car at an affordable price. The uptake is all going to depend on government investment in infrastructure, grants and emission regulation. I should imagine in parts of Europe who aren't able to switch to renewables yet, the uptake will be restricted, maybe on purpose, to meet emissions regulations of C02 and recently, N0x too. With current energy production methods, electric cars are responsible for more pollution overall, all be it at a power plant rather than an exhaust pipe (one HUGE tail pipe rather than millions of little ones!)

Compare a Tesla Model S to my Clio for example (pic below) in the UK, the Tesla would be responsible for 3.4 tons of C02 a year V's my cars 2.43, N0X and particulate matter (the ones that sell all the papers!) 7.35 KG's for the Tesla and just 4.74 from the Clio. Of course they help with local air quality issues, not an issue for the 90 plus percent that live in the countryside, and there are many other benefits too, but like I said, emissions are very important here, increasing demand on fossil fuel produced electricity could be a backwards step if we're not careful.

I'm not so sure, Paul. Per the video, every year, literally, solar collecting is becoming more efficient and cheaper. Because of that, electricity to run an electric car will eventually come from the solar energy stored in one's home battery storage system.

Solar isn't going to work in every country, my friend had solar installed almost 20 years ago. She recently had them removed as they weren't benefitting her at all. Britain has a lot of Historic buildings, national parks etc. We are very restricted to what we can do, my house is of historic interest and is listed, I cant even change the colour of my front door without permission. Britain is more likely to get clean energy from wind and tidal/hydro energy.

Anyone that removes their solar panels is NO friend of mine. :)

BTW, you misspelled "Wales". There should be an "h" in there.

The truth is, there are plenty of ways to generate and store electricity, a method for every country depending on weather, terrain, coastline etc and we're still finding ways now, so it's inevitable that electric cars are the future. There are only a few ways to extract oil and refine fuel, which is carbon and emission heavy in the process and the usage too.

P.s. I know how to spell the country I live in don't worry ;)

20 years is pushing the end of life for photovoltaic panels. There would have been a noticable difference in replacing them with new ones.

From Tony Seba's lecture... The cost of solar panels has been declining at the rate of 14% PER year for the past 15 years. He then went on to say, since 2010, it's been declining 16% per year. In another lecture, he claims the cost of labor to install the panels now exceeds the actual cost of the panels.

After 20 years of solar panel technical improvements the difference will be astounding.

Well Nissan certainly believes they are a good idea after installing 19,000 of them (along side the wind turbines) at thier UK factory:

Nissan switches on solar farm to power UK car production | Next Green Car

Paul, looks like you have a new addition to your family; a Honda Insight.

What other choices were you weighing and why did you ultimately choose the Honda?