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back to article London's e-van drivers club together

London’s leccy van users have locked arms in the hope of persuading the city’s petrol and diesel van drivers to support Mayor Boris Johnson's initiative to make London the world’s e-vehicle capital. Sainsburys_Online_Edison_SM Sainsbury's already uses e-vans and plans to support the project The plan is that all of the …

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  1. Camilla Smythe

    Do deal with London E-Train Drivers

    For Onion Membership.

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  2. The Indomitable Gall

    Nimbyism

    Isn't this e-London nonsense just 21st century nimbyism? Let's improve the environment -- zero emissions in London! Stuff the vast inefficiencies of batteries, transmission losses etc. The most important environmental issue is a wee bit of smog in my garden!

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  3. Vision Aforethought
    Go

    All the better for children...

    ...being diesel particulates are fairly harmful to the wee ones. Re outsourcing the smog to elsewhere (NIMBY), surely it is easier to clean up one or two power stations than X thousand vee-hic-ules. Where I live in Oxford, dirty vans running their engines outside lead to silt building up in our house - and it's back there after being cleaned up every week. Imagine how much of that is in our lungs! Way to go Leccy Tecchy White Van Man*! You're now a Green Van Man*! *Uhm, Person?

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Would of thought....

    ....the like of Dairy Crest have largest number of leccy vans. Granted they have no sides, but have a cab and "trailer". Or am I the sort of person that struggles to see the difference between a minibus and people Carrier, well apart from £20k

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  5. Hrishikesh
    Go

    @The Indomitable Gall

    Remember, the leccy vans are not being driven off the alkaline batteries (the kind you put in your telly remote) but rather rechargable ones, with a (hopefully) average life of 8-10 years.

    Electricity is one of the *most* efficient (in terms of transportability - aka power grid and energy-input-to-work-done ratio - aka motors) around. Plus, as @vision aforethought pointed out, it is FAR easier to clean up ONE huge power plant (or stick it in the middle of nowhere and ship electricity out) than it is to cleanup the tons of pollutants being put out by carbon-fuel-powered engines in the cities and town everywhere.

    Plus, once you've got the "last mile" (so to say) sorted out, you can concentrate on efficiencies and greenizing the generation (hydro-electric, nuclear,wind, whatever) and get rid of the pesky pollutants in one (or a few) fell swoops.

    I just wish the uptake was a lot faster.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Green?

    I wish companies would stop using the "green" moniker for this initiative.

    The power for the vans comes from the national grid and the national grid sources the majority of its power from.....coal.

    A step towards something better, yes, Green, no.

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  7. Emily Parry
    Stop

    Great idea - but can't you wait a bit longer?!

    OK, yeah, creating wider urban clear zones without necessarily stiffling transport trade in a big city like London is going to be a very good thing. In fact, I'm sure electrification of transport is the way forwards, BUT NOT YET! Has any body yet checked exactly how much emissions will change should road transport go electric or how much fossil fuel will be consumed, keeping in mind how non-renewable our electricity supply system is, not to mention how inefficient the power production side is?!

    I'm trying to work on that, but please can't the world hold their horses on the electrict frontier while I and other sciency people work out how it should be done? If we end up through power stations emitting more Green House Gases and burning more fuel to support electric vehicles than those vehicles do as they stand, then nobody's going to be that happy about it. Somebody tell them they need to put renewable distributed energy generation across London for this change to have all the benefits we keep assuming are already there.

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  8. Danny Thompson

    Now is the time

    ... not some distant future! As others have said, it is far easier to clean up the emissions of a power generation plant than ~30,000,000 fossil fuel burning vehicles on the UK's roads. The energy efficiency of EV over ICE vehicles is already proven, but the misinformation is now being touted about transmission losses. Thats ICE people, ICE, not EV!

    We have to start somewhere and viable EV is here today, right now. There is no need to wait another ten to twenty years. Necessity being the mother of invention is already showing us new and improved battery practical storage technologies. In the lab the prospects are better still.

    Power distribution is a given - its already in the ground and far more efficient than having yet more ICE powered vehicles shipping tons of liquid fossil fuel around the country - how inefficient is that!

    London and these delivery companies are to be applauded for making these efforts despite all the nay-sayers. These companies will be remembered for their early commitment to helping ease the London environment.

    And whatever developments are made to electricity generation will only serve to improve the benefits overall. But there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to delay the deployment of EVs into practical use.

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