You don't "need" a car for those, it means that you have chosen to live somewhere (or have taken on activities, or a school) that you can't either walk to or get to by active transport.
Part of decarbonisation is personally recognising that our current lifestyles are taking far more resources than the planet can possibly deliver. If you can't fit in 4 or 5 activities for the kids over the weekend without driving them round the area then I would say you are expecting too much! There's a lot to be said for letting them enjoy some boredom.
As a teenager my weekend entertainments were an hour on a bus to school (again) on Saturday morning for a brass band session and back home again, then off out on a bike with my friend, and out with him again on Sunday afternoons. No gym/football/ballet etc. You cut your coat according to your cloth.
BUT :-
My son is in a football team and needs to play home and away games on Sunday mornings, which means there are no buses or trains AT ALL for many of the locations. Sadly a car is essential and everyone arrives by car. The only alternative would be a taxi, but besides the cost there's the fact that the taxi will be potentially be driving there or back empty and doing more mileage.
I guess he could not play football and just stay home playing Xbox or something?
Not everyone gets the school they want, and many will have little to no public transport options. My son can use the bus (and does) and once or twice per week his bus home doesn't run - at all - and he's over an hour late.
If you read my posts over the years, I am a strong advocate for people using public transport and cycling etc, but I've always said that many people will need a car some of the time. The key is using the car as little as possible and not always considering it the first option.
I don't think you're going to succeed in telling people they should either move or give up doing things, and just sitting at home instead. In fact, most people are going to react negatively and be even less likely to be willing to consider alternatives.
Indeed. My granddaughter lives over 30 minutes walk from the nearest primary school that could take her. That is thirty minutes if I rush her, we allow 40 minutes.
Next year she starts secondary school. The nearest one is even further away (probably 40/50 minutes walk) and she is not in their catchment area o we will see if she gets in. The next nearest one has a bigger catchment area. The bus routes do not favour a journey from her side of town to the schools on the other side of town.
I think this thread assumes there are people that do think a car is essential, even if it technically isn't. Far better to have an electric car with zero emissions at the point of use, and then try and encourage people to use it less.
I suspect a conversation about whether anyone should have a car is probably for another thread. I really don't think we're going to succeed in convincing people that a car isn't necessary - and surely if everyone did, we wouldn't have taxis or getting a lift (as they'd have got rid of their car too, no?).
This is the problem and in the UK we have become more and more dependant on having a car.
What happens if you live in Croydon and work at somewhere like Gatwick.
You need a car to get to work for the early and late shifts
Like someone across the road from me.
Indeed, xx06 all night.
However, if you would be one of the very few people who actually did need a car in London, such as certain disabled people, you'd just not choose to live in one of these blocks, which are intended for non-car-owners.
Goodness knows why one would choose to live in central Croydon if one worked in Gatwick, though. It's expensive and not very nice. You can live in a nicer place much closer for less money.
There is a 24 hour train service but it means getting to East Croydon station and relying on the service. Guy opposite drives and I expect he is half way to Gatwick in the time it would take him to go to East Croydon railway station.
The person I am describing lives in social housing so would not dare to move and lose it for a job that might not last. It is the price we pay for having a mobile workforce. His job is as a baggage handler and he is probably too knackered to bother with public transport.
It is a pity. I would prefer him to use public transport but then :-
I confess - Going beck 25 years I used to drive to Redhill from Croydon for a day job. I actually started the job with an annual season ticket but I refunded it after many weeks being unused because I could not afford the unreliability. My next job was near East Croydon station so I cut the whole cost and ordeal of commuting out and took a pay cut to achieve it. But I was a computer programmer and it was relatively easy for me to be choosy about jobs.
The thread title is switch to electric vehicles, do we really need electric cars with their £1000 sound systems, touchscreen with satnav, audio, phone dock, automatic boot opening, fancy stitching on the upholstery etc etc when the school run, the trip to the supermarket or hospital or garden centre etc could be covered by a reasonably speedy electric golf caddy.
park in the supermarket, automatic number plate recognition, plug it in, pay for your shopping and 10kw charge at the same time, drive home.
cost for this disposable household item, well not much more than a couple of TVs and a latest iPhone
i shall go away and hide
I tried having more than one road vehicle for a while but the costs do not stack up. Better to run one juicy car then have to tax, insure and maintain a second more economical car. What I also do is stick to walking (and buses) where I can.
Quite often there are volunteer drivers who do this sort of thing. I know there's such a scheme in our village.
Yes, my mother volunteered for a charity called "Hands".
There will always be those for whom an individual tailored solution is required, what is needed is a way of replacing all those millions of aging ICEs such as Ford focuses, VW golf's Peugeot 208s etc which are in use today and whose owners simply could not afford an electric car, I will say again, simply could not afford one.
looks like a small no frills runabout may now be available.
Most likely (and fingers crossed) the EVs of today will be an ideal second hand car for ICE users on a budget in about ten years time. That is what I am hoping for myself (I m hoping they will be cheap and still have usable batteries).
Which has to drive to you and then from your destination, so using your own EV means less congestion.
I don't think we can get everyone in the UK to give up their car anytime soon as there are so many justifiable reasons to need one (some bigger than others). The key is people not using a car every single time and feeling comfortable to walk, cycle or take a bus or train.
I do think a lot of people could get by with a smaller car than they actually buy and potentially rent a bigger vehicle or get a taxi for specific occasions. Again that would reduce congestion and even things like reducing road wear etc.
But this is a thread about switching to EVs and not about changing from an ICE car to absolutely nothing.
I am pondering a smallish ICE (long arms and legs) and then hiring a van for my most important holiday camping. It is the other moving/diy tasks that ruin the idea.
Everything made in China is cheaper because they have the natural resources and labour is cheaper.
Or perhaps they dump electronics on us to destabilise European manufacturers?
Perhaps you should buy nothing from China.
The internal politics of China is not our concern.
It would be stupid to choke off supply of cheap, high quality EVs that will help decarbonise and stop pumping pollutants into the atmosphere.
China has a rather bad record when it comes to how they treat people. I do not want to support that. They are not a democracy and look at what another large communist country (Russia) is doing to a fledgling democratic neighbour (Ukraine).
Bear in mind if (hopefully not when) we need to stand up to an invading force we are n danger of not having an industry on our soil that can make the vehicles and other tools required for war.
It is when it means that our car industry is closing down, affecting long supply chains and their employees, laying off workers, depressing towns etc. Yes, our car industry should have foreseen this, but I do have a suspicion that China are plaing a long game to exert greater influence over the world, and we have been caught napping.
We need to make better but we need to avoid putting ourselves in a weak position.
If the UK embarks on protectionism and levies punitive tariffs to block Chinese imports, there are consequences. We end up with fewer cars to choose from, meaning that we end up spending more on cars and as a consequence we have less money to spend on other things. That ends up hurting small businesses in our local areas.
Oh I agree protectionism is a two edged sword but there are also consequences in carrying on in the dream world that believes China is not a competitor.
I have not suggested tariffs. I agree that free trade is preferable, but when China subsidises its car manufacturing, either by low wages, or cheap and dirty electricity, should we accept unfair trading? Should the UK Govt offer financial incentives to manufacturers in the UK?
I am not against EVs, but they're just not for me at the present time (but maybe the drivability of EVs may not match that of ICEs - they may feel too disconnected from the driver, but that is a personal view).
We are still in the early evolution of EVs, and there will be a time when they are as cheap and convenient as an ICE in terms of range and charging facilities. I just don't want to be an early guinea pig with uncertainties about depreciation and future values. Who would buy my EV in a few years' time, when a new EV could be cheaper and have a greater range? Maybe ICEs could be cleaner than EVs in the future - they will still be built in the future for markets where EVs are not suitable. Who knows what will happen?
I agree it is unfair trading and I also feel EVs are still evolving.
I do find it odd that so many in this thread are very pro-EV and pro-"net zero"... Yet are happy to fund a deeply corrupt authoritarian regime on the other side of the world which is currently releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide and showing very few signs of curbing those emissions.
Buying some stuff from the PRC is unavoidable unless you want to go off-grid and live in the woods, but you do have a choice over which vehicles you buy, for now.
I am afraid we are sleepwalking into becoming helpless dependants.
Wage levels vary across the world. The cost of living is lower in China so wages are lower. You can't seriously refuse to trade with a country because wages are lower there. There are many countries where wages are higher than the UK. By your logic, Switzerland shouldn't allow trade with the UK because wages are lower in the UK.
As for subsidies, the UK needs to comply the agreements made with countries that the UK has free trade deals with.
Thing is Switzerland and the UK are democracies and not authoritarian so I don't mind trade either way there.
So just ignore the even greater societal chaos that will happen as a direct result of climate change?
So we can stand on our eco pedestal at what cost ?.
Freedom gone ?.
One of the reasons that progress is so slow is that there's plenty of time to procrastinate. Just adding 5 more years of feeding new IC vehicles onto the roads not only sets back progress in EV development, but also steepens the climb of global temperatures, likely to the extent that it becomes self accelerating, and beyond re covery. Deadlines, even if despite serious effort, they are missed are essential the maintain momentum. Those less than say 60 years old have much to fear from a 2+ deg C rise, and the social breakdown would be far greater than frustration that cars are scarce or expensive.
I am one of those who suspects that we might already have gone over the tipping point into run-away global warming. But I am still going to hope it is not too late and so carry on trying to be green. But that does not mean alienating our population just to make ourselves weaker than the likes of certain countries that are doing less than us on ecology.
