Let's have a heated debate!

This was the most read BBC News article this afternoon - an electric bus caught fire. It's still on their front page.

There was no mention on the front page yesterday of this bus fire:

It was on their local Gloucestershire page.

Why not the front page though like today's one?

Anything to do with it not being in London?

That won't have helped but let's be honest, it was almost certainly because it wasn't an electric bus.  I've raised this bias before.  Not sure what it will take to change this.

Talking of electric vehicles, don't we all hate electric scooters?  Usually ridden with no care and attention either on the road (ignoring the rules of the road) or on the pavement (ignoring the safety of other pavement-users)

That is why the Mayor of Paris found it so easy to get them banned.

And people riding them look like tossers.

However, according to The Conversation, e-scooters are actually displacing four times as much demand for oil as all the world’s electric cars at present, due to their uptake in China and other nations where mopeds are a common form of transport.

So they are a good thing!?

Talking more of electric vehicles, The Tyre Extinguishers have been at it again.  This time targeting a Tesla Model X in Bristol.  The news sites seem perplexed that an "anti-gas-guzzler" pressure group would target an electric car but they did point out back in 2022 when I last gave them a mention, that their beef was more with SUVs - a sentiment I agree with albeit for completely different reasoning. To quote them from today's story,

"Electric cars are fair game. We can't electrify our way out of the climate crisis. The danger to other road users still stands, as does air pollution (PM 2.5 pollution is still produced from tyres / brake pads). A child killed by an SUV doesn't care if its (sic) electric or petrol."

Their grammar isn't too hot - that "(sic)" was added by drive.com.au together with another one where they talk about "SUV vehicles"

But then the electric side of the argument did point out that regenerative braking produces no brake dust - a fair point well made.

And drive.com.au also point out that, 

"Under Victoria's Litter Act of 1987, it is an offence to place leaflets on any vehicle, as the leaflet could be blown away by the wind or disintegrate in rain – with fines of more than $950 applicable for each instance."

Victorian law doesn't apply in Bristol but the potential for bits of paper (and don't forget the trees they were made from) could be floating around the River Avon doesn't sound very climate-friendly.

Three different stories for debate in one article - who would have thought that electric vehicles could be so controversial?