Top Gear
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 10:55AM Sunday night’s are back to normal for 6.5 million people in the UK, due to the return of a perennial favorite, BBC’s Top Gear. I want to state that I am a fan of the show, I think the format is strong and the presenting team are now globally recognised as being excellent for the job.
I was reminded of its return by my tweet-stream. According to the twitters, the men in jeans were talking about electric cars. I got a lot of tweets about it, 100’s, I suppose all expecting me to go off on one.
Well, not quite.
When all was quiet on Sunday night, I flipped open the lappy and watched the show on iPlayer.
It was indeed very interesting, there was a glimpse of the truly remarkable, but I have to agree, maybe not currently relevant electric Jaguar C-X75.
The chaps then went on to discuss the price of drill and burn fuel, Mr Clarkson actually acknowledged the increasing cost and difficulty of getting oil out of the ground (for those outside the UK we are now paying around $8 US per imperial gallon) and they managed to work in the classic Top Gear ‘fact’ that ‘from what we’ve seen the electric car just isn’t ready yet.’
They then discussed the now tiresome idea that it would take Mr Hammond, 4 days to drive from his home to the Top Gear studio and back.
Unlike previous episodes of Top Gear which have driven me to rant on YouTube, this time I smiled and felt quite relaxed. There was no need to rant, the wording of ‘from what we’ve seen’ said it all. They aren’t interested, their blinkered view makes them ignore what is going on and they are rapidly being left behind.
Last week I read this report http://bit.ly/f1Cggw which gives some credence to the feedback I’ve been getting, particularly the rich middle class.
I’m talking about people who drive around in Range Rovers, large BMW’s and thirsty high end Audi saloons, people who run their own businesses and send their children to private schools.
This lot are suddenly getting in touch with me, the scourge of the Cotswolds. I have actually heard that I’m referred to as ‘that annoying old lefty up the road’ by some of my not so near neighbours, so you can see we don’t always see eye to eye.
Why are they getting in touch? For one reason only, because they all know we drove an electric car for a year, my Mrs was a very good quiet ambassador, lots of posh ladies saw the car and were impressed. They like my Mrs even if they think I’m an old loony leftie.
‘How can we get hold of an electric car?’ they ask me, they don’t ask about range anxiety or express doubts that the technology is ready. They talk about two things, they don’t feel good about burning drill and burn fuel anymore, and they know they are spending between two and three hundred quid a week on petrol, just doing the school run and getting to and from work.
Drive a big SUV five or six hundred miles in a week and it wallops even the most well padded wallet.
No mention of the basic, vital human need to ‘drive to Scotland’ at the drop of a hat or what happens when the battery runs flat. I readily admit that these are the sort of people that can afford a Nissan Leaf or Toyota RAV E4 in their spacious garage charging next to a lumbering Range Rover. For them, £22,000 odd is nothing, a skiing holiday maybe.
But as many on the twitters have commented, this running cost advantage (and it is huge at present) is surely short lived.
One thing is certain, once electric cars become more common, I’m talking one million EV’s on the roads, the Government will have no choice but to start raising tax from this technology in some way.
I have spoken with numerous government officials about this, and the verdict is unanimous. You can’t tax electricity for cars.
I know from experience that you can plug an electric car in anywhere (you might need an extension cable).
But think about it for a moment, a public charging post (taxable) a special home re-charge unit (taxable) or the plug socket next to the fridge, the plug socket at your neighbours house of round the back of the office at work. The solar panels on your roof or the big wind turbine in your spacious garden.
Electricity can come from so many sources, (there is a retired engineer in Wiltshire who charges his Tesla from a converted mill water wheel.
Electricity is not taxable and clearly civil servants have already worked this out.
The prevailing opinion is we will be taxed by miles, not volts. Some modern cars have built in tracking devices like phones. It will soon be possible to log the miles you drive on a central database and pay some kind of tax on that.
Invasion of privacy? I don’t know, all the time I drove the iMiev it was being tracked, I didn’t think about it, it’s the same for our phones and we’ve got used to that.
So of course the cost of driving an electric car will increase as they get cheaper to buy and more common on our roads, but it is obvious even to the kings of the petrol head people that it will still be nowhere near as expensive, both to us individually, and to the nation as a whole, as driving drill and burn fueled cars.
We can generate electricity without importing billions of tons of stuff from dodgy, unreliable overseas suppliers. I know we don’t but we can. We can’t drill for oil in Berkshire, we did drill for oil in the North sea but we burnt our way through that in 30 years.
That is the essence of my argument, electric cars can be sustainable, drill and burn cars cannot.
Reader Comments (42)
The usual nice balanced post Mr Llew. The problem I have with Top Gear is that it is supposed to be a motoring TV show. Yes I know that people say it isn't, that it is now an entertainment show but cars is what is at the heart of it and they treat EVs like they are completely redundant technology, only used by mad "wet liberals" It's like they can't be seen to be in anyway positive about them because it doesn't fit in with their laddish personas, they are for veggies and mad people. This constant sniping does make me wonder about if they are somehow getting a bung from oil companies to rubbish any non-fossil fuel technology. They do seem overly anti electric car tech.
do modern cars REALLY have tracking devices as standard? Their onboard computer will no doubt have a record of how far and how fast you've driven, but i doubt most GPS units (I'll admit these are standard) keep much of a record of where you've driven and I really doubt they have a transmit function at all.
Yes, there's an increasing netowork of ANPR cameras ofr enforcement purposes- but they're hardly blanketing.
I'm pretty sure it is more than possible to drive the length and breadth of the country without there being any tracking data on you in a modern car- especially a modern ultra-efficient diesel with a "Scotland and back from london" range.
I'm not trying to be dispariging- I'm a cyclist and public transport user who is favour of both electric cars and per-distance, conjestion adjusted road pricing. I'm just querying what appears to me to be an odd assertion.
Let my start by saying I found your comments largely to be balanced and fair. EVs are going to be cheaper to run than drill and burn cars. For most motorists on most journeys they are clearly a better choice. I would not necessarily agree with your comments about what supposed knowledge, or not, Top Gear presenters have about EVs. The ones they've trashed in the past, primarily the GeevWhizz and the Prius, seem to me to have self-evident flaws. We may or may not disagree on that. My main problem with this still comes from something you seem to blithely disregard: the range issue.
On Thursday night I will be driving to Germany, a distance of roughly 900 Kms start to finish. It is my choice to go by car despite other alternatives. It best suits my purposes. This is a journey I undertake at least once a month. Am I right in thinking that this journey would be impossibly inconvenient in an EV? Currently I can complete it in around 8 and a half hours driving time (add on ferry crossing to that).
The show as usual very good banter and very entertaining. I am Pro electric (not pro battery) and get some stick for always pointing out the negative about EV's. Surely it is right to make people, who do not do their research (as I have) about the negative points of electric vehicles.
I visited a Nissan dealer yesterday and was told they will not be selling any "as they are too expensive". I then found out that Scotland will only have ONE Leaf dealer. Same day I visited a Vauxhall dealer (as it was on my way home) and asked about the Ampera. Knowing it was due for an early 2012 launch, I expected someone to have at least heard of it. No! No one in the showroom even knew what it was. Now put that down to an isolated case, but it does show the perceived impression that salesman are only interested in selling and of course commission money might just be true.
I'm sure the current £5000 grant will not last and that (in an ideal world) if every ICE car was replaced with a EV in the UK, then any Government would have to re-consider the current impact of 'no road tax' for EV's on it's finances.
Electric cars are like the first mobile phones in many ways.... Many people don't understand why anyone would need one, expensive, batteries don't last long, everyone thought owners were 'posers', and you could only use them in certain places. Pretty accurate comparison? Especially if like me you had/used one of said phones!
Well TG, an entertainment show, has started to crack, though in a sort of, "should I get the Polifilla out" kind of way. Robert's comments on taxation are interesting. Technology to tax the electricty for vehicles is under way, a sort of differential between "Red" Electricity and "Duty paid black" Electricity (aka Diesel) can be done through legislation, by standardising the frequency of the of the electricity feeding the car. I don't mean how often you charge I mean in technical term 50Hz euro standard. Making a vehicle only accept 100Hz from a black box would mean you'd need a black box to produce 100Hz to charge your car, not the socket next to the fridge!!! 100Hz by the way is safer than 50Hz for all sorts of reasons which I wont bore you with, but the black box becomes the standard, and the point at which, you guessed it, you pay your duty...! Smart metering at the home is comming, and closer than you think.... once the USB bill was passed forcing the humble mobile phone to standadise the gate was left open...Euro, Global, what ever, we can standardise much quicker now.....
good for EV's, good for Goverments as they move from Carrot incentives, to Stick high fuel prices to push us EV....good for technology and innovation....
D
From the start it seemed obvious to me, and I virtually hit my head against the wall whenever I hear the counter arguments that make little sense if you think about them for more than five minutes.
1) It's clear to me that we cannot sustain our reliance on petroleum for vehicle fuel. It has to change, because we're simply running out.
2) This is early days for EVs. We're still taking baby steps to test the waters, see what works and what doesn't, and what needs to be done to make it work right for the majority of the world. This will take time, experimentation that may not always succeed, and some brave souls to be guinea pigs with new technology and to speak up for it where it goes both right and wrong.
3) Electricity is the obvious choice, and as the technology for batteries and recharging develops (and it is, rapidly) for the next 20, 50, 200 years it will get better, more efficient, and address all the short-sighted arguments against, sooner rather than later, and with ease.
4) I reiterate: We have no choice. Alternative energies and technologies must be found. It's that simple.
Driving to Scotland may be difficult now, when EVs are rare as hen's teeth. But in 2015 there will be more charge points which will be faster, better batteries with longer usage, and people will get used to charging overnight, or while having lunch, or in the supermarket. Eventually, in 20 or 30 years, every parking space will have a charge point or induction mat, every intersection will have induction mats for when cars are idling at the traffic lights (perhaps even at regular traffic-jam hotspots too), every home garage will have fast chargers, and for a while an alternative internal combustion car, if the EV truly isn't practical for the planned journey.
The plans are afoot, the doubts are being addressed; the future is inevitably electric.
Just a quick comment to point out that 'Road User Charging' is perenially suggested by those in the field of transport economics (Hi!) as a more equitable way of reducing negative externalities from car usage and hopefully ameliorating some of the damage that is done. However, every time it's suggested it seems to founder on the 'THEY CAN SEE WHERE WE'RE GOING!!!!' argument, which is somewhat depressing.
The definitely pro-car RAC foundation came out in favour of it:
http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/governing_and_paying_for_englands_roads_glaister_main_report.pdf
Even if the British public seem a bit confused:
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2636
I don't think the argument is fuel or pollution based. Most people will agree we need to reduce or stop using fossil fuels and reduce pollution. That is not debatable.
What is the current argument is that many pro EV are telling everyone that most people could use a pure EV now and they are going to save all the oil, etc, etc. They can't! Even the great Robert has stated in a video that "currently 15-20%" could switch to a pure EV.
It's interesting that Youtube now has videos of Teslas racing ICE cars. Why? The ICE is using fossil fuels and possibly the Tesla has used some to charge it's battery. Just to prove a 300m dash the Tesla is fast. Try a 500 mile race! Or better still don't race and save fuel!
Seems some Pro EV think it's now OK to drive a EV because it's a zero tailpipe emission vehicle - that would be correct if they HAD a tailpipe. And to add you do still have pollution from the tyres ;-).
We want EV's to succeed and they will, but no one like preachers and people banging on as if they are the saviour of mankind. IF that were the case why do Nissan still make ICE cars? I don't see any pressure on them to stop making ICE cars if the Leaf IS so wonderful?
Top Gear has definitely always been hugely unfair to EVs. However, I would say that their comments this week are accurate; from their point of view.
Hammond said, 'from what we’ve seen the electric car just isn’t ready yet'. Remember, these are three guys who regularly go on extremely long driving trips, so it's fair to say that they can see no use for EVs in their current form.
This will have to change soon. They will be placed in the situation (probably this year or next) where they have to test one of the new EVs. As has been mentioned the cracks are starting to show. This week's 'petrol is too expensive' will become next week's (or month's) 'What else is there?'.
I believe it won't be very long before we see an EV on Top Gear about which Clarkson say something along the lines of 'Finally, someone has created a proper electric car! This is best electric car in the world!' or similar.
And then he'll blow it up!
I agree with Mike H's comments above. Lifestyle still does play a large part and the TG presenters are, I would say, hardly "average drivers". A journey you have to stop to plug your car in for is going to go down like a lead balloon (and rightly so!). I expect, as many have said, that EVs will get better. There will come a time when there is one that can do a decent day's journey at national speed limits and last all day (or as long as the driver can), be plugged in and then be ready to go off again next morning. At this point the EV will truly have arrived. I don't necessarily think that TG are unnecessarily bashing EVs. It's just that the EVs up until now have been easy targets. The minute one comes along that fits the bill I think they will say so. After all, they have wallets too. By the way, wasn't it true that when they tested a Tesla a while back they only got 62 miles out of it? I stand to be corrected.
Top Gear let me down; I've probably watched every episode since the '70's. Then one day, they did something that I naively thought they'd never do; they rigged the show.
It wasn't subtle, they pretended to run out of power in a Tesla then pretended that it had broken down due to a fuse failure. They told us about how EVs were no better than mechanical cars as the power was sourced from dirty fuel. These are things that I know to be untrue; I knew the people at Tesla who handled the episode long before the episode aired; I saw the look of sorrowful & utter disappointment in their faces after the episode aired; they were cut by the way the show had lied.
Next, they told us that a hydrogen fuel cell experimental vehicle was great! They said it was fun to drive and had plenty of performance.
How many other cars have Top Gear promoted that do 0-60 in 15.8 seconds?
I realised that, in one episode they'd just, basically, lied.
Now I watch them test the 911 against the Merc & Ferrari... who won? The highest bidder? The one that lent them the most stuff? I can't tell.
I watch the races, the excitement is gone, I can't help thinking it must be rigged so there's no fun in guessing the outcome.
They spoilt a really good show.
@ Michael Thwaite
You say Top Gear "lied" about the Tesla. If it's so clear cut then why aren't Tesla suing? After all, TG is probably the best publicity Tesla have so far had.
@Al__S "do modern cars REALLY have tracking devices as standard?"
Let's not get all 1984 about it but.....
For example, The leaf's in built computer has GPS and a constant connection via the mobile phone network to Nissan.
So to track the car you just need the relevant bit of software installed, that's all !
It would be possible to tax based on the mileage done with something as simple. One method can be that the mileage is recorded when the car is MOT'ed and reported back to the IR. You get a bill then based on that mileage, minus any that you might have paid in advance. You can then pay monthly (in advance) towards the next bill which will come after your next MOT. For those who sell a new car just before it's first MOT is done, easy, catch them when a car is serviced, repaired, or sold (the new owner reports the mileage). No need for trackers, and it's a myth that everything that has a GPS device is automatically tracked or even can be tracked. A GPS device is in effect like a radio receiver. Assuming you can track someone because they have one is like assuming you can track people listening to their radios. The tracking element comes in when something interfaces to the GPS unit, gets the current location, and then reports it via phone or other transmitter. If it's phone though, the GPS isn't even necessary as it's position can be triangulated from it's interactions with celltowers.
@Neil Carmichael
Robert's now changed his orginal post (sensibly)- it originally claimed that the majority of cars sold the last five years or so feature that technology. I wasn't saying it wasn't possible; just questioning the assertion that it was already "normal".
@pukkatronic That would've been bad form, besides, how do you define 'bad journalism'?; they did ultimately extract an apology, or at least an acknowledgement that it has all a 'bit of a mess": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Top_Gear#Tesla_Roadster_road_test
In reply to @Dr Dorian Hindmarsh - "Making a vehicle only accept 100Hz from a black box would mean you'd need a black box to produce 100Hz to charge your car, not the socket next to the fridge!"
Making your mains electricity 100Hz instead of 50Hz is a trivial engineering exercise and not an issue at all if you are generating mains from your own solar, water or wind power (look up electrical inverters). Road charging will be how they tax, and rightly so. If my car is sat on the drive not going anywhere very often, maybe 5k miles per year, why should I pay the same tax as those that drive 30k miles a year?
Road charging doesn't need to use tracking devices. Every year cars are taken for MOT and your mileage is recorded and entered into the big DVLA computer system. What's the problem with them just sending you a bill every year? New cars that don't require an MOT (under 3 years old) would just need their mileage checking (could be done online as any discrepancies would be detected at the 1st MOT).
The most complicated and expensive method of doing something is rarely the most effective.
As for Top Gear, I look forward to the day they have a star in a reasonably priced electric car (that I might be able to afford one too!). Maybe, you Mr Llew, should stalk their film shoots in your EV until they take notice of you :)
@Dr Dorian Hindmarsh- I'm genuinely interested as to why 100Hz is considered safer than 50Hz- I can find no reference for this.
@Karl Johnson and Dee Dee
Your idea for simple mileage based road pricing does sound good, though the advantage of more comlpex systems is that they allow different rates to be set, eg punitative rates during rush hour where credible public transport options exist.
Let me add a few thoughts on this road-charging malarkey that are relevant to me. How would it work if, as I do, you do your motoring internationally? Ok, fine, I get charged as I motor along in my "home" country. When I am abroad is it free or is an international payment system envisaged? The one thing about fuel taxes currently is everyone along my route gets their pound of flesh. If I know one thing about international driving it's that sometimes the charges imposed do not apply. An example: foreign registered cars do not pay the London congestion charge (the German ADAC actually advise members to ignore any bills should they be received). Any thoughts?
@Al S "credible public transport options"
Aha! you must live in London or some other large city!
But seriously, yes you are correct, that would be a useful option, but does not need a GPS unit. A simple electronic tachograph could record what proportion of your mileage was done at peak times. Having designed and worked with GPS vehicle tracking systems I know how unreliable and easily fooled they are (by things like trees, rain, buildings, other vehicles etc)
Anyway, we digress...
@pukkatronic With the current road tax system you are charged for using UK roads even when you are out of the country and not using them. Obviously I'm talking the actual Vehicle Duty tax rather than the tax through fuel which is the non-issue for EVs. And I'm living in cloud cuckoo land where road tax is used to maintain roads and fund an integrated public transport system.
firstly, being taxed for travelling distance through your Milometer, would never happen, it does'nt now, I have a car that cover 3K Miles a year, and pay more in road tax than the daily runner next door! you do pay more for using, obviously! it's called fuel duty! guess why the interest accross europe in Voltage/current duty....it fits the same model...no change to gov. vehicle taxation depts....
secondly, the human body is (and most living things) are suseptible to current. the voltage that carries the current does us harm by its amplitude (how much) and the time traveling in the body, (frequency) (there are certain parameters, e.g. 100V is alot less dangerous than 1000V for the same frequency) now if your passing 50Hz through the body, the sustained current flow and there for the intensity effect on the body is twice as long as 100hz. the danger zone is 15Hz to 100Hz, and there are several papers on the subject.
The higher the frequency the less likely hood of damage to cells and nerves. untill you get into the very high frequency stuff, then you actially excite the cells by hitting their resonance such as water in a microwave, and you cook!
The whole vehicle/fuel tax needs a re-think. For one, the Government is not serious about pollution. If it were it would ban cars that cannot achieve a decent MPG (I think 40mpg is a fiar figure these days). Ban cars that that emit more than 150 g/km of CO2. Ban more than one vehicle per address. Reduce the speed limit from 70MPH to 60MPH and Police the limits. All feasible to reduce emissions, fossil fuel use and possibly accidents. Why don't they? Because if it was not for the motorist the country would go bust.
Electric cars will have to pay some for of tax to be used in the future. If the tax free/grants continued, then the Government would very soon go bust - should everyone change to electric. I owned a LPG car when grants were available for conversions and LPG was 28p a ltr. Grants now scrapped and close to 80p a ltr. Whatever cheap or free way motorists find to fund motoring, Governments will be right behind you waiting to fleece more money.
Just in from The Engineer magazine: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/survey-reveals-growing-acceptance-of-electric-vehicles/1007095.article or click here
There are a couple of problems with @ Dr Dorian Hindmarsh's 100 Hz box as I see it.
1. I could make one myself and plug it in wherever I want.
2. Depending on the method used to step up the frequency it introduces power loss into an already 'leaky' system. Current 'generator to wheel' losses run at about 30% and adding a power converter into the process would probably take that total loss up to approx 40%.
As an example(nice round numbers): assuming 10% losses on a fast converter/charger running at 40A/250V then the black box will be pumping out 1KW. Nice heater for the garage, though.
I think, to maintain credibility, the 'national' system/standards must be designed, at the outset, to be as efficient as possible. When it comes to high power electrical systems that usually means keep it simple and basic.
@ Clive Sinclair
You said "Reduce the speed limit from 70MPH to 60MPH and Police the limits."
Simple question: how? You cannot physically put a camera or police car every 400 yards. Maybe an in-car device? This wouldn't stop the speed, just punish speeders retrospectively. The speed issue, to me, is a red herring. The best anti-pollution measure is to migrate car drivers to cars which pollute less and take the heavier polluting cars off the road. You do this by providing like-for-like alternatives that don't run on fuels you drill for.
@pukkatronic Are you seriously saying reducing motorway speed from the common 85mph to 65MPH would not reduce fuel consumption? It's been proved time again that it does. We need the Police to stop this practice of ignoring speeding unless it is above 85mph (common practice among many forces).
Try driving you car for a week at 10-15mph less on motorway journeys for a months and you will be surprised at the savings.
I already said ban cars that cannot achieve 40mpg and produce lower CO2 emissions - plenty available in the UK
And of course anyone who speeds should be punished - by having a built in speed limiter installed. These and other measures need to be seriously considered if people and the Governments are serious about saving fossil fuels and reducing emissions.
@ Clive Sinclair
I'm not disputing the fuel consumption argument at all. I myself recently decided to slow down on motorways to save money - and I'm talking German motorways where I regularly travelled at 130 mph (legally) not a paltry 85mph. ( I lived in Germany for most of the last 6 years.) I'm saying that clamping down on regular and fairly trivial motorway speeding is unenforcable. The minute you start fitting compliance devices is the minute you initiate a police state on drivers. Drivers are also voters.
Your 40mpg statistic is also interesting. I did some quick sums and worked out that using it my Audi A4 2.8 should have to do 545.5 miles on a full tank (62 litres) to comply. Going at a steady 70mph on a motorway journey I get around 620 kms out of it which is around 250 kms short of the 877 kms it should be doing using such a formula as yours. Should the car police be round at my house to tow my car away?
My (non-EV) Smart is most efficient at 59mph.