I read an interesting little article yesterday on the BBC website,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22001356, in which scientists have said that due to the nature of battery production and how the electricity is made, electric vehicles can actually work out far worse for the environment than their oil-powered rivals.
It's not new news, studies (for those who watch Top Gear!) have said since day 1 that the Toyota Prius is one of the worst cars to buy in terms of carbon footprints because of all of the manufacturing and transportation involved in their production... example here...
http://helenathegreat.hubpages.com/hub/Prius.
My personal stance is that I'm all in favour of finding ways of saving the environment, but not so that it'll hurt my pocket too. Manufacturers have been searching for YEARS for a viable alternative but, as the conspiracies say, the oil companies can't allow it, but what about a little invention that's been around for 120 years and produces absolutely no pollution? Okay, for some this is seriously old news, but for those few who don't believe me, like the girl who served me tonight in Asda I want to get this off of my chest
When Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine back in 1893 it was a revolution. He designed an engine that ran on vegetable oil. Over time this has got blurred, people have got lazy, governments have got greedy, and people regularly pay silly amounts at the pumps, for what?
Today we had a long day. We drove from Bournemouth to Dover, then went to Bruges, St Omer and Cite Europe before driving back to Bournemouth again. 604 miles. The car averaged a particularly good 50.54mpg... on cooking oil that I bought last night from Asda for £1 a litre. Is that even possible? Put it this way, my car has had nothing but cooking oil in it for the last 4 months now and it's never missed a beat. It runs as smoothly now as it always has. Diesel engines WILL run anything. Vegetable oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, today it was actually running on Crisp 'n Dry
but the point is that it's the components bolted TO the diesel engine that can't handle it. On Xantia's for example, Bosch fuel pumps have no problem. Lucas pumps don't like it because it caused the gasket to leak. 55 litres of bargain basement cooking oil got us to Bruges and back, and it's still registering zero emissions... so what is the whole big deal with electric?!
The world HAS invented a means of transport capable of saving the environment, and it's an 18 year old Citroen Xantia sitting outside my house
The real irony about it is, as I enjoy pointing out, my car is actually better for the environment than my beloved electric C5, yet I still pay top rate tax as it's a 'big engine'... go figure