• Question: What do you think on the topic of electric vs petrol cars? Which one do you think is the best minus the drawback of a petrol engine's emissions? if you were to have a car, would it be a Ferrari or a Tesla?

    Asked by King Julian to David, Gemma, Juhi, Matt, Stéphane, Yinka on 5 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Juhi Gupta

      Juhi Gupta answered on 5 Mar 2018:


      Hi,

      I would like an electric car! But I also think that we could create something better than both petrol or electric cars. For example, the University of Liverpool students have made UK’s fastest human-powered bike: https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2016/09/20/arion2-breaks-british-womens-world-land-speed-record/
      Future transport is an exciting area for innovation!

    • Photo: Stéphane Berneau

      Stéphane Berneau answered on 5 Mar 2018:


      This is a good debate! Electric cars are eco-friendly, however, they are not yet for long distance use. More advanced development is required to make the electric cars a true rival for the general population. There is a lot of hybrids out of there.

      A Tesla is a dream for a scientist (at least, that is what I think). I would prefer it with the autodrive function included so I could enjoy watching the world around me while driving.

    • Photo: Gemma Chandratillake

      Gemma Chandratillake answered on 5 Mar 2018:


      If by “best” you mean most environmentally friendly, I think you need to take all the factors into account and figure out which is the best for the environment overall – not just the driving, but also the manufacturing and disposal processes. The answer will also depend on how much the car is driven before it is scrapped, and what kind of journeys it was used for.
      A lot of scientists lust after Teslas – but I’m not really keen on cars as status symbols, even electric ones! I’ve been in a Tesla and they’re nice but a bit big for what I need. You also need a place to charge it (I don’t have a garage, or a driveway) so it wouldn’t work for me. I think my husband would be happy with either though!
      I don’t think we’ll own cars for much longer. I think they’ll be self-driving, and/or driving services like uber, will take over. This will make the roads less crowded and mean that we have to manufacture fewer cars (good for the environment). Most driverless car companies are in California and California has just allowed fully driverless cars (so no safety driver at all) to test on the roads starting in April: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/02/27/california-approves-fully-driverless-cars-public-roads-testing/378703002/

    • Photo: Matt Bawn

      Matt Bawn answered on 6 Mar 2018:


      What is the difference and what are we talking about? Both require alot of resources to build, maintain and power. Yes the tesla is powered by electricity but at th emoment most of that still comes from fossil fuels. Apart from that an individual country needs to spend a lot of money and resources on the infrastructure needed for everyones personal transport vehicle. So I guess what I’m suggesting is perhaps they both represent something we need to move away from to some extent, which is the belief that everyone not only has the right but also needs and deserves their own vehicle. I am also guilty of this so I don’t want to sound as if I am on the moral high ground. I think we need to be aware just how much resources go into making all of th ethings that we now consider normal and common-place, we nearly all now carry around computers more powerful than those that were begind the moon landings in the form of our mobile phones. All the new devices consume more resources and ultimately more power and so perhaps we could be more creative when it comes to ideas of how to generate this power. A few years ago I remember reading about fashion designers who made clothes that could power phones through the wearers movements for example.

    • Photo: David Howard

      David Howard answered on 6 Mar 2018:


      Electric cars are going to be the future. We will one day run out of oil or it will become prohibitively expensive. Obviously both electric and petrol vehicles generate emissions, but if the electricity produced for electric cars is able to be done using greener technologies this will be better for the environment. I would personally go for a Tesla now, although I did used to have a Toyota MR2 which was great fun.

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