More bad PR for electric cars...

Billionaire shipping mogul drowned after making fatal mistake in her Tesla

The sister-in-law of a top US politician drowned in her Tesla after she was unable to break the strengthened glass as she sank into a pond. Angela Chao, the sister-in-law of Mitch McConnell, died last month after she reversed into a body of water on a private ranch in Texas.

The 50-year-old was driving home in her Model X from an evening with friends when she attempted a three-point turn accidentally put her car into reverse. But the type of glass used on the windows and the sunroof is nearly impossible to break underwater, according to the American Automobile Association.

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Points to note: In order to break glass in an emergency, Tesla owners are encouraged to carry a Browning 9mm high power pistol in the glove box. Failing that, a cordless nail gun may suffice. 

On the roads in reality the cars do very little damage, the lorries with their weight distribution as they round bends and bounce on the straight are the real killers. Cars may exacerbate a problem caused by lorries and in small minor roads with poor surfaces but the lorries do the real damage.

It is the suction effect of self propelled rubber tyre vehicles that causes the worsening of such cracks and it is the overall axle loads that deforms and breaks up the road surface to all its depth. The design used to be based on what they termed the standard axle and that was calculated from commercial vehicle usage. Cars do not do much apart from worsen problems created by lorries as far as I am aware. Heavier cars will have an effect on side roads but little on the heavily used roads where it is commercial vehicles that create the problems as can be seen on hills on motorways where deformed rutting is often obvious due to lorries in lower gear keeping to the inside lane.

I do not want one either and I have had a van and every bump is felt .

That sounds terrifying. I understand that he couldn't slow down, but why was he doing 100 mph in the first place?

A few things on Rowan Atkinson's article. He says that BEVs decrease pollution cities, but a properly tuned petrol car emits only CO2 and water - i.e. no pollution. He also says that combustion engines using hydrogen could be used to cut pollution but the problem is that they churn out more NOx than diesels, because air is 70% nitrogen and hydrogen burns at a high enough temperature to oxidise it. JCB say that they've cracked this problem, but I'll believe it when I see it working in production.

He says that solid state batteries are much lighter than Li-ion batteries. It's true that the prototype solid state batteries are lighter but can this be replicated in production at a viable price? It hasn't been done yet. They are much safer though (they don't catch fire). I personally think that it's irresponsible that we're allowing the manufacture of cars with Li-ion batteries - they're way too dangerous.

He mentions synthetic fuel (made from CO2 and water via wind/solar energy). This is a nice idea but the cost of the energy required to make this fuel is huge. The big advantage of using oil to make fuel is that the Sun has provided all the energy that's needed to make the hydrocarbons necessary (for free) to make fuel - that's why it's cheap. I can't see synthetic fuel ever being cheap enough to be viable for mass transport. Even solar and wind energy is very expensive.

His point about it being greener to buy a petrol car and keep it a long time is a good one - but it's been said before many times. The real reason why BEVs are going to prove to be VERY "ungreen" is because the battery is a hugely expensive component and the cost of replacement means the car is a write-off. Yet the battery is very easily damaged and very vulnerable because it's mounted so low down. Any damage means it has to be replaced. This will NEVER work.

Peter Cardwell interviewed a guy who does blogs on BEVs the other day. He was bemoaning the fact that 2 years ago he bought a Porsche Taycan (£120,000) but it's resale value now is less than the cost of a replacement battery (The battery costs £45,000 not including labour). That's crazy. He also said that he gets threats from people warning him not to knock electric cars - I wonder who they come from. I can imagine that there is a lot of money riding on these cars being a success and many people want to stifle fair criticism.