Interesting comments in this article.
Well, there is VAT I think, but if you look at the DOC of an electric car versus a petrol car, the difference is (not looked at it lately) somewhere between 10x and 100x in favour of the electric one
Interesting. At Swedish tax levels, the energy taxation of electricity and petrol are similar – about 30% higher for petrol based on energy contents. Then there is an additional carbon dioxide tax on petrol.
The total taxation (including VAT) for electricity is about 4 eurocent/kWh and for petrol about 9,4 eurocent/kWh. The efficiency of an electric car (based on the amount of electricity taken from the grid) is about 70%, while the efficiency of a petrol car is about 25%. That means that for the same power output, the fuel used by a petrol car is taxed 6-7 times that of the electricity used by an electric car.
Airborne_Again wrote:
AnthonyQ wrote:
If you believe Moore’s Law
I do, but it was never intended for technology in general, only microelectronics.
I know the origin of the “law” but the principle gets quoted for many technologies these days including PV cells, batteries etc… And the period of doubling gets adjusted too, to suit the observation …from the original of every two years to 18 months or whatever….of course it’s not strictly a law…just an empirical observation…
Well, there is VAT I think, but if you look at the DOC of an electric car versus a petrol car, the difference is (not looked at it lately) somewhere between 10x and 100x in favour of the electric one.
If you imposed enough tax on electricity to offset the loss of the hydrocarbon tax income, your average electricity bill (£600 in the UK according to google) would go up to crazy levels.
Peter wrote:
electricity which is extremely cheap because the powers to be have not yet got around to taxing it.
Is electricity not taxed in the UK? It certainly is in Sweden!
AnthonyQ wrote:
If you believe Moore’s Law
I do, but it was never intended for technology in general, only microelectronics.
rather the fact that they don’t stink
That’s because the stink is produced elsewhere and, if the coal fired power station is located near the eastern border, the acid rain gets dumped in the country next door 
I know centralised generation can be efficient but the steam cycle caps the over figure at around 40%, and I am not sure there is any overall benefit to burning fossil fuels in a centralised manner relative to burning them in a distributed manner. Maybe there is a second order effect…
The low efficiency of the steam cycle is fine with nuclear power but currently that is not very popular, especially in some places. Maybe that will change, too… IMHO it will need to change if electric cars are to have a future. Any bag of a fag packet calculation shows the huge increase in the power demand.
This is completely orthogonal to a fuel cell discussion 
Yes, Peter has understood Elon’s play with words. Electricity, to produce hydrogen, to produce electricity is only about 50% efficient at best.
But if it could be stored efficiently, a fuel cell powered motor would be light, quiet and not particularly affected by altitude. But fuel cell technology and hydrogen storage still has some way to go.
I believe Peter is correct in his interpretation of Musk’s somewhat cynical statement about Hydrogen…he meant it will always be “in the future” (never the present)
Hydrogen is inefficient because it takes a lot of energy to make, compress and distribute it. Oil companies would love to produce and transport hydrogen and they’re pushing the technology with Toyota (author of the article is a Toyota employee). I don’t think hydrogen will be used in cars on a wide scale, because batteries are a better solution. For aircraft, where batteries are not an option due to low energy density, hydrogen sounds interesting. Cost of a hydrogen refueling station is high compared to a charging station, but with aircraft we would need much fewer of them that with cars.
BTW electric cars have a limited future IMHO because their current USP is electricity which is extremely cheap because the powers to be have not yet got around to taxing it.
I’m driving electric 3 years now and in my opinion the main advantage of electric cars is not cheap fuel, but rather the fact that they don’t stink. I wouldn’t drive petrol/diesel even if the price was equal. Would feel bad about it.
