My first statistic was the percentage of fossil fuel burnt which of course includes power generation, shipping, aircraft and agriculture.

The Australian study tried very hard to calculate the carbon footprint of the average household and included food, and transport and other goods and services.

The statistic you quote is useful if you want to demonise the motor car. But don’t be surprised if, after driving all the cars off the road, there has been no meausurable change in fossil fuel consumption.

On board storage can be supplemented by induction from cables under the road bed - the technology developed here in NZ by Prof John Boys of Auckland University. The cable can also be used as a guideline so that you can drive on to the motorway, engage the system and read a book while drawing power from the same cable which has turned a whole bundle of cars into a “train.”

The Nats don’t pay me anything. I’ve never voted National and I’m not a member.

Born poor immigrant working class. Made my own money by, you know, working and investing. Yes, I can afford a Tesla if they, or their cousins, turn up.

I’ll gladly take you for a spin

>>As a guest on frogblog your views are welcome, but confrontational comments don’t get us very far and “put downs� are unnecessary!

Ironic. Apparently I’m the resident “troll” for speaking the truth as I see it.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20080703TDY08307.htm

For me, the time to ramp production of on-board storage is the key issue.

For example, Toyota announced last month that it will ramp production of its batteries to 1M by 2010.

http://tinyurl.com/6opcal

Sorry but that’s not going to cut it, especially since rate of replacement of the fleet is going to need to climb beyond the usual. So I think the market is going to do its thing and price these new cars out of the hands of the middle class and below in NZ.

I’d like to hear from Alex, BP and Owen on solutions to that problem (production ramp up of storage). Not because I think there are none, but because it would be a more interesting discussion

In the meantime while we work that one out it would seem to be prudent to think about urban design and transport ’stop gaps’ such as PT so we can avoid the gray slabs of Paris while also avoiding the continued sprawl of Auckland and our other big cities.

If you just look at oil, the percentage of oil used by the private transport fleet in 2007 was 67%. Again, this excludes the oil that was used by commercial transport.

Agriculture used 4.3% of the oil in 2007.

So clearly it is the motorcar that has the oil consumption problem. I never said that the car would disappear, as BP and others have suggested, only that we need alternatives, fast. I never claimed that we would not need roads, either, as Owen likes to say.

Since BP is such a Blue Sky optimist, I’ll wait for him to pick me up in his Tesla, because obviously the Nats pay him well enough to afford one. When the masses can afford it, I’ll believe it. That day may come, but not until we go through a very painful withdrawal from our oil addiction, which BP and his mates are in complete denial of. In the meantime, I would like to see some public transport alternatives for our cities, so the average kiwi can commute. (again, not the rural strawman Owen, please)

However Wendell Cox took up the base data and found that:
Lower GHG emissions are associated with
• urban fringe locations, not the core.
• higher rates of detached housing.
• greater automobile use.
• lower population density.
Read the report at:
http://www.affordablehome.com.au/files/pdf/research-pdf/RDC_ACF_Greenh ouse-Report.pdf

And uk-kiwi must be one of the very few who regards the Paris slabs with affection. They are the centre of just about all the social unrest in Paris.
Lighweight, adaptable houses with room for a garden and some expansion are the key. IF you force everyone into downtown all you do is increase congestion.

Roads are not the result of the invention of the motor car. They are incredibly useful - that’s why the Romans built them and we still use them. All the main roads in Auckland city were built before the invention of the motorcar. All we have done since is add about 3% of the network as motorways.