The 1980s was a time when car ownership levels were considerably lower than they are today. Even with fewer motorways and bypasses, the roads were noticeably quieter, and it was perfectly normal to see hitchhikers trying to thumb a lift on the roads out of town. But, if you could afford it, it was a guilt-free time for motoring.
And this was reflected in the television shows of the time. The Dukes of Hazzard was one such example, where a couple of young men from the US state of Georgia enjoyed nothing more than to drive their Dodge Charger around the dirt roads of the fictional Hazzard county, with the local police in hot pursuit. Another show at the time, Knight Rider, even starred a talking car with an incredible array of gadgets.
Almost every film or TV show in the 1980s had a car that was as equally memorable as the main actors. Take, for example, the A Team, who drove about in a black GMC Vandura van with a prominent red stripe down the side. The show wasn’t specifically about cars, but having an eye catching vehicle was de-rigueur for the time. Likewise, the best police shows of the time all had memorable cars. The Professionals had a Ford Capri 3.0s, whereas Starsky and Hutch had a bright red Ford Gran Torino with a large white vector stripe down each side. Even if the show was not primarily about cars, a car always seemed to find its way to star.
Such was the prominence of cars in the television shows at the time that it was easy to forget that the future of the car, or performance cars at least, looked to be on very shaky ground just a decade earlier. The oil crisis of 1973 happened when members of the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) proclaimed an oil embargo targeted at allies of Israel following the Yom Kippur War. These included the US, Canada, Japan, and the Netherlands, and it led to oil prices increasing by 400% and severe shortages in supply. In the United States, queues at petrol stations were commonplace, and even the humble Volkswagen Beetle (Germany’s “peoples’ car”), had started to become very popular in a country where, previously, huge gas-guzzling Cadillacs had been king. [1]
The oil crisis only lasted for six months, but it brought about a huge culture shift in terms of the American people’s relationship with energy and car usage. President Ford signed into law a 55 mph national speed limit on the highways of the US - something that would remain in place until 1995 - and sales of gas-guzzling American cars dwindled in favour of smaller, more efficient European-made cars. In the late 1970s, US president Jimmy Carter even took it upon himself to have solar panels installed on the roof of the White House as part of his drive to encourage Americans to be more environmentally and energy aware.
And then, almost overnight, everything changed. It was the era of Ronald Reagan and he wasted no time in ripping down the solar panels from the roof of the White House, sweeping environmental issues aside, and declaring that it was “morning again in America”. King Car was back in business.
On this side of the Atlantic, stock market traders bought Porsche 911s, whilst young boys would pin Lamborghini Countach posters on their bedroom walls next to the posters of their favourite female film stars. In the music world, cars were everywhere too. David Lee Roth, for example, drove about in a customised 1951 Mercury convertible, whilst rock band ZZ Top’s classic 1983 album, Eliminator, featured a hot rod (a customised 1933 Ford) on the front cover. In the movies of the 1980s, cars featured front and centre in many, including the likes of Maximum Overdrive, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Back to the Future (where the time machine was, of course, a car). The car represented freedom and progress, and there was simply nothing glamorous about public transport. In the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, for example, the ultimate humiliation for the headmaster, following his failed bid to catch the protagonist in the act of truancy, was when he had to catch the bus home.
Yet it wasn’t just the car itself that was king. It was the internal combustion engine too. Young boys would lust over 5 litre - and even 7 litre - American muscle cars in the Top Trumps Car Cards of the 1980s. And, to European ears, the sound of an American V8 engine in real life was simply euphonious.
Whilst the US focussed on cars that went fast in a straight line, Europeans tended to focus more on handing and on developing the performance of smaller engines by coaxing as much power out of them with tuning, injectors and turbos. In short, Americans preferred raw power whereas Europeans, largely due to the higher cost of petrol, focussed more on handling and performance.
Most of us knew that we couldn’t go on using the internal combustion engine forever - after all, oil was a finite resource. Yet, at that time, the tacit understanding was that we would continue using it until resources became either too depleted, or too expensive, and we were forced to find an alternative.
The first nail in the coffin of the internal combustion engine did not, however, come about through resource issues, but rather from environmental concerns instead. In particular, it was the damage being caused to the forests and lakes of Europe and North America by acid rain. This is created by emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide reacting with the water in the atmosphere to produce an acidic rain that is harmful to the environment. And, whilst much of this is caused by emissions from factories and power stations, a great deal of it was also being created by car exhaust emissions too.
Then there was the issue of lead (or, more accurately, Tetraethyllead) in petrol, which not only contaminated our air, soil, drinking water and food crops, but also causes harmfully high blood lead levels in humans, especially in children. [2]
The problem with leaded petrol was solved by developing car engines to run on unleaded petrol, whilst the problem with acid rain was alleviated somewhat with the introduction of catalytic convertors in cars. Catalytic convertors, however, could do nothing for the emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide still being produced in power stations and factories throughout the world. Moreover, catalytic convertors have one major drawback: they actually increase CO₂ emissions in cars.
But, at that time, although some scientists were beginning to get more vocal about CO₂ emissions, most were primarily concerned with toxicities in the lower, rather than upper atmosphere. And, in that regard at least, catalytic convertors were beneficial.
An eventual move away from petrol and diesel cars has always been inevitable because their respective fuels are the by-product of a finite, non-renewable resource. But in recent years it has been the environmental damage that they are causing that’s become the main driving force for change. And, as scientists and engineers toyed with ideas to provide a sustainable and practical alternative to the internal combustion engine, it seemed highly likely that cars fuelled by hydrogen fuel cells could be the answer. The reason was simple: Hydrogen did not produce any by-product other than H₂O – i.e. water. Moreover, it could be refuelled in a similar manner to a petrol or diesel car, with no need for overnight charging.
But hydrogen was still seen as a future technology, and what was needed at the time was a stop-gap, or a bridging technology, to help us to reduce emissions whilst we worked on a long-term solution to the replacement of the internal combustion engine.
The first stop-gap, so to speak, came in the form of the diesel engine. Diesel had been the primary fuel for ships, trains, trucks, buses and vans since the early 20th Century. Yet, whilst diesel cars had existed since as long ago as the 1930s, they were never particularly popular, except as taxis. Certainly, they have always been more economical than their petrol counterparts (and therefore emitted less CO₂), yet for many at the time, they were considered too slow, noisy and unrefined compared with the petrol car.
After the oil crisis of the 1970s, diesel’s popularity increased a little bit. Yet it wasn’t until after the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was adopted in 1997, and governments throughout Europe started to throw their weight behind diesel cars as a way of meeting CO₂ reduction targets, that they started to appeal to everyday motorists. This, coupled with the introduction of new technology (such as the Common Rail injection system) allowing diesels to have comparable performance to their petrol counterparts, resulted in the sales of diesel cars skyrocketing. From a 13% market share in Western Europe in 1990, the sales of diesels had risen to account for over half of the market by 2012. [3]
Yet diesel’s popularity was short-lived. Firstly, the World Health Organisation published a report in 2012 saying that diesel fumes could cause cancer due to their higher levels of nitrogen oxides and particulates.[3] And then in 2015, there was the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal, where the company was found to have programmed their diesel engines to activate emission controls only during laboratory testing, making them appear to emit 40 times less nitrogen oxides than they would under real-world driving conditions.
The second stop-gap was the hybrid engine. Hybrids are fitted with both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor, and there are a number of configurations in which these can work. Sometimes the electric motor is used in tandem with the petrol engine in order to help boost it’s performance and economy, whereas in other cars the electric motor and petrol engines operate independently, with the electric motor being used at lower speeds and the petrol engine kicking in at higher speeds. Furthermore, some can be plugged in to charge the battery (as you would with a fully electric vehicle), whilst others use either the power of the internal combustion engine, or the kinetic energy generated from braking to charge the electric motor.
Until recently, the idea of a fully electric car seemed to be very impractical. They had a limited range, long charging times and, worst of all, they were slow - very slow. Indeed, for many of us of a certain age, the idea of an electric car reminded us of electric milk floats – a slow, nearly silent electric van used to minimise the noise made during household milk deliveries at the most ungodly hours of the morning. With speeds reaching no more than 15mph they were amongst the least glamorous vehicles on the road.
Some years ago, in 2006, a film documentary was released by Sony called “Who Killed The Electric Car”. Written and directed by film maker Chris Paine and featuring Hollywood actors such as Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson and Martin Sheen, it focussed on the EV1 - a 2 seat, 2 door electric car produced and leased by General Motors from 1996 to 1999. It could accelerate from 0–60 mph in eight seconds and had top speed that was electronically limited to 80 mph. It was, in short, a world away from an electric milk float. [4]
With a stated range of between 70 to 100 miles [5], it had nowhere near the range of electric cars of today, however it was more than enough to get most people to and from their workplace on a daily basis. And, more than that, they were loved by the few people who were actually able to drive them. [4]
The cars were never sold on the open market, but were instead leased to selected individuals. However, in 2002, it was decided by General Motors that the leases would not be renewed, and, during 2003, they were all re-possessed by the company. With the exception of a select few which were disabled and given to museums, the rest were destroyed. General Motors argued that there wasn’t the demand to make them economically viable. Yet, despite this, many questions remained regarding their fate. Why, for example, were they taken away from owners who clearly loved them, and, furthermore, why were they destroyed? [6] [7]
One theory is that “big oil” was behind the mysterious disappearance of the EV1. And, whilst this may seem like just another conspiracy theory, there have been a number of mysterious disappearances and deaths over the years of inventors who have tried to make the combustion engine either more efficient, or obsolete entirely.
Take Tom Ogle, for example. Ogle, from El Paso Texas, created a vaporised fuel system in the 1970s which was reputed to have enabled a car to travel over 100 miles on a gallon of petrol. Yet his invention abruptly disappeared following his death in 1981 of suspicious circumstances. [8]
Another inventor from Canada, Charles Nelson Pogue, is said to have invented a carburettor that allowed him to drive 200 miles in his Ford V8 on one gallon of fuel. His invention is said to have rattled oil companies at the time and even affected the Toronto Stock Exchange. Yet his carburettor would never go into production and he himself went very quiet. Later in life, he admitted that he had been threatened, but would not say by whom.
Even the inventor of the diesel engine himself, Rudolph Diesel, mysteriously disappeared in 1913, with newspapers at the time suggesting that he could have been murdered. Certainly his engine, which was 75% more efficient than the steam engines of the time, and able to run on non-petroleum products, would have seen as a threat by many.
Yet, whether the conspiracy theories concerning “big oil” are true or not, the fact remains that the electric car has finally made it to the mainstream.
There are a number of reasons for this:
Firstly, fossil fuel resources are getting scarcer and more expensive. Conventional oil production, for example, has passed the point of peak production meaning that, in order to keep up with demand, we now have to use ever more inventive ways of extracting oil, such as fracking and deepwater drilling.
Secondly, there is the growing understanding that we need to take urgent measures to address the world’s rapidly changing climate, and the way to do this is to reduce and eventually eliminate our burning of fossil fuels. Many countries have now introduced dates when the sale of petrol and diesel cars will be banned altogether. Scotland, for example, plans to ban them in 2032, whilst Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands plan to do so in 2030. The earliest ban will be in Norway, where sales will be banned in 2025.
Thirdly, there is the fact that the electric car of today is a far superior product to the electric cars of the past. Electric cars on sale today are fast – faster indeed than many petrol and diesel cars - and have greatly increased ranges, coupled with decreased charging times. Additionally, they are modern and filled with gadgets such as lane control and autopilot capabilities. In short, they are appealing to more and more of us.
Leading the charge for the electric car is Tesla. Founded in 2003, in Palo Alto, California, by Elon Musk and engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, they were apparently inspired to start the company after GM recalled all of its EV1 electric cars in 2003. Their first offering, the Tesla Roadster, was prototyped in 2006, in Santa Monica, California, and full production started in 2008. However, whilst they have continually had record years in terms of car sales, they have never had a single year in profit, due to high costs and tight margins. Whether they can remain in business in the long term remains to be seen. Yet in many ways, it is irrelevant, because Tesla have almost single-handedly revolutionised both the car industry and our perception of the electric car itself. [9]
Every major car manufacturer is now producing electric cars for the mass market, and it seems that the electric motor (as opposed to the hydrogen fuel cell) will be the natural successor to the internal combustion engine. On the surface, this all seems well and good. After all, the effects of climate change are becoming more apparent with every passing year. Yet perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is whether they are truly the panacea to our environmental and resource problems that the likes of Elon Musk would have us believe. [9] [10] [11]
Certainly fire safety has been an issue, with numerous reports of electric vehicles having burst into flames after a crash, or whilst charging. There is also the risk of electrocution whilst charging, as well as the risk of battery leaks and electrolyte spillages. These, however, are not major issues. Firstly, electric vehicles are in their infancy and many of these issues will be addressed in the course of time. Moreover, petrol and diesel engines both have risks associated with them as well.
The biggest questions regarding the viability of the electric car as a successor to the internal combustion engine come down to issue of the environment and to the resources required to build and operate them. After all, the whole point of switching to electric cars is precisely to address the environmental and resource issues that we currently have with petrol and diesel cars.
One thing that is certainly worth taking into account is the amount of energy and CO₂ emissions that it will take to replace every petrol and diesel car currently in existence throughout the world. Certainly, it’s true that every car in existence will need to be replaced when it reaches the end of its life span (after all, we aren’t driving Ford Model Ts or Cortinas anymore). Yet, legislation in a growing number of countries means that they will be forced off the road much earlier than they ordinarily would. And, with an estimated 1.5 billion cars currently on the road, that is no small matter. Producing a medium-sized car is estimated to create more than 17 tonnes of CO₂ – about the same amount produced by three years of electricity and gas use in an average-sized house in Scotland. Moreover, the amount of CO₂ emitted in the manufacturing of a car is essentially the same as the emissions that a petrol car will emit from its exhaust pipe over the course of its entire lifetime. [12] To put things into even more perspective, it takes about seven gallons of oil just create a single standard-size car tyre.
Furthermore, whilst electric cars may reduce the amount of CO₂ produced, compared with a petrol or diesel car, they do not eliminate CO₂ altogether. Indeed, they are estimated to emit as much as 50% of the emissions that petrol cars do over their lifetime - not directly, but as a consequence of them using electricity generated from the likes of coal, oil and gas. [13]
Then there is the fact that we have really have no idea whether we will be able to ramp up the electrical power available to charge all of these vehicles when we have an electrical grid already under tremendous strain as it is. And, if we are serious about reducing CO₂ emissions, then we really can’t be looking at making up for the increased demand for electricity by building more coal, gas and oil power stations. It will need to be from a reliable, renewable source. Furthermore, nuclear is also not an option until we can finally solve the issue of long-term storage for spent fuel rods, safety issues, and the fact that uranium is itself a finite resource in much the same way that fossil fuels are.
Batteries are another issue. Not so much in terms of their range (although that is an issue), but in terms of whether or not we have the resources to build enough lithium–ion batteries to power the world’s entire fleet of motor cars with electric motors on a long-term basis.
In 2015, the U.S. Geological Survey produced a reserves estimate of lithium which stated that we had around 13.5 million metric tons left. With global production at that time being around 37,000 tons per annum, it was enough to last another 365 years. Yet annual sales of cars today are around 100 million worldwide, and if every single car produced was electric rather than petrol or diesel, it would require around 800,000 metric tons of lithium to produce the number of batteries required. And, if that were to happen, then the 360, or so, years that we currently have left will dwindle to less than a 17-year supply. As Tam Hunt at Greentech Media says: “Can lithium batteries scale up? The short answer is, with current reserves, not just no, but hell no.” [14].
To make matters worse, lihium-ion batteries only have an estimated life expectancy of 10 years and, whilst they can be recycled, it is a costly, energy intensive and difficult process to do so. Consequently, lithium-ion batteries are rarely recycled, and there are currently very few recycling facilities in existence. There are, for example, no recycling facilities to be found in either Scotland or England, with the nearest facility being located in Belgium. [15] [16] [17] [18]
There are also ethical implications to be considered in the production of batteries. Lithium-ion batteries not only use lithium, but also other finite metals, including nickel, manganese and cobalt. Of these, cobalt is used to stabilise the battery during recharging. Yet the vast majority of cobalt supplies in the world are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo - “a country whose rule of law is among the weakest in the world and which consequently has a terrible record on working conditions and child labour” [19].
The internal combustion engine is almost dead in terms of it’s future in powering the motor car. Yet it will live on in ships and trains for some time longer. And whilst light aircraft with electric motors do exist, the size and weight of the batteries mean that it is unlikely to be suitable for larger commercial aircraft in the short term. However, whilst the fuels of the future concerning commercial and public transport may be uncertain, the future of the car would appear to be more certain. We are now witnessing what seems to be an irreversible trend towards embracing the electric car worldwide as the solution to our future personal transport needs, Yet, despite this, serious questions remain as regards it’s viability to be a long term solution that can address both the environmental and resource issues that we will have to face in the 21st Century.
There are still many issues to surmount and many unknowns that will materialise in the passage of time. For example, the current practice of car parks being equipped with charging facilities in just two or three spaces will seem woefully inadequate in just a few short years. Moreover, allowing companies such as Tesla to build charging stations that can only charge their make of car also seems unsustainable in the long term.
These issues are relatively minor, however, and will no doubt be sorted out before too long. Yet there are a number of fundamental issues that will need to addressed in order for the electric car to prove itself as a long term, viable alternative to the petrol or diesel car.
Firstly, will we be able to ramp up our electricity supply to meet the demand from electric cars in a renewable and sustainable manner?
Secondly, can we develop a way of producing the cars in an environmentally-friendly manner?
Thirdly, how will the resources necessary to build and power electric vehicles be sourced in the future?
Perhaps the final question we should be asking ourselves, however, is whether just replacing the powertrain of the motor car is even a genuine solution at all. After all, electric vehicles will do nothing to solve the problems of gridlock, nor the requirement to build and maintain ever more roads for them to travel on. It requires around 95,000 gallons of crude oil just to construct a one-kilometre section of tarmac road. [20] Electric vehicles may be less damaging to the environment, and less resource intensive, yet they still use up finite resources - both directly, and indirectly - and they are still environmentally damaging.
Humans have existed for around 200,000 years and we have driven cars for just 0.0005% of that time. It is a very recent phenomenon. And whilst the era of personal transport has been both liberating and fun, it has, in many respects, been a very selfish era. If we are serious about investing in a long-term sustainable and liveable planet for our children and grandchildren, we should surely be looking first and foremost at better public transport for all, and adjusting our living and working arrangements to eliminate the need for personal transport altogether. After all, we will simply not survive as a species if our aim is just to minimise the damage to our planet, rather than to stop damaging it entirely.
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