Ban on new petrol and diesel cars in UK from 2030 under PM's green plan

[dwhite60]

I'm in the states. Starting to consider a new car but, with Crazy Joe and Kamala talking about ending fossil fuels by 2025 I'm in a spot.

I could end up with a car I can't use or sell because there's no fuel for it.

Tesla is out of my price range. Prius is a hybrid so still needs dinosaur blood. I wouldn't fit in a Prius anyway.

Current car has 186,000 miles on it. Might just drop in a used engine and transmission.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Having a car sit idle 95% of the time is a massive waste of money, resource and space

What are they going to use the space outside my house for or the place I park it at work, I live in a small market town in Cumbria public transport is a joke and has been for donkeys years there are no bus stops or train stations anywhere near where I work people need to remember we don't all live in big towns and cities.

 

[Rodcx500z]

The way forward is Hydrogen: the cleaner, greener fuel that will power the future | MoneyWeek

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

The fact of the matter is it needs to happen as the planet is already screwed. There are too many of us using too many resources. Whether change should be consumer and industry led or or government led is tricky. Other countries have already made the announcement.

This seems to be one of those cases where government does have to step in and say "you will" rather than "we'd like you to" as big business won't as theu too much at stake. The only reason they'd consider alternatives to fosil fuels is because there's more profit to be made or fossil fuels will run out.

The only surprise is that a Tory government has made the announcement. That daid, rest assurred they'd hand out big grants to the oil companies who will plead poverty when they've probably been buying up and killing alternatives for decades.

Those who live in rural areas will be hardest hit as successive governments have under-funded and sold off public transport, allowing private operators to kill unprofitable routes. It looks like the time may have come to renationalise public transport and run it properly so everyone gets a bite of the cherry.

 

[Richie_asg1]

It looks like the time may have come to renationalise public transport and run it properly so everyone gets a bite of the cherry.

Well if there was an effective and subsidised public transport system, there wouldn't be the need for cars in cities at all. In country areas why not keep vehicles that run on a more friendly fuel alternative like Biobutanol, or peanut oil.
It's not impossible, just that we have allowed corporations and big business to decide what the public gets for far too long, and that turned out to be big oil and transport that will burn it.

 

[JockyBrewer]

Has anyone considered that an awful lot of UK new cars are bought as company cars & that they then trickle down to us mortals through the 2nd hand market?

I know of a couple of people who have plug in hybrid company cars - for tax break, but they never charge them at home - why should they use their electricity when they have a company fuel card - so the car is never 'plugged in'

I know not all companies run their fleets like that, but if all companies reimbursed based on miles driven then maybe people would actually charge them like they are supposed to.

My employer is mostly killing their company cars off. More productive to have our sales and account management guys doing video calls than driving around.

Working from home has been such a success that they are seriously looking at making it a full time thing with a nominal office.

I’m sure they aren’t the only ones.

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

Well if there was an effective and subsidised public transport system, there wouldn't be the need for cars in cities at all. In country areas why not keep vehicles that run on a more friendly fuel alternative like Biobutanol, or peanut oil.
It's not impossible, just that we have allowed corporations and big business to decide what the public gets for far too long, and that turned out to be big oil and transport that will burn it.

Unless generated from waste, biofuel is not the answer. An awful lot of people in the world die of hunger and malnutrition. Growing food cheaply in the third world (which is what will happen), shipping them across the world only to burn them here will make matters worse.

 

[JockyBrewer]

What are they going to use the space outside my house for or the place I park it at work, I live in a small market town in Cumbria public transport is a joke and has been for donkeys years there are no bus stops or train stations anywhere near where I work people need to remember we don't all live in big towns and cities.

Well these are only my predictions, but as I see it this will be public transport, just in a more convenient door to door way.

There will still be private vehicles for people that need them, but I think that in towns and cities most people will choose the autonomous car hire simply because it’ll be cheap enough to make it an economic no brainier vs having their own car, and needing parking for it.

People can go back to having front gardens, and street parking will go away, leaving more room for walking and cycling.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

So they want me to swap my car to one that causes even greater damage to the planet Lithium mining: What you should know about the contentious issue then there is the human cost mining this stuff This metal is powering today's technology—at what price? still want to own a car that does this

Still want to own a mobile phone then?

There's lots of crap that happens in the world to support our nice Western lifestyles - and if you're wanting to play Top Trumps with Bad Things, how about all the wars and tanker spills caused by oil?

The only hope is that as lithium gains in profile, so do the abuses - nobody used to care much about the problems in eg tantalum mining before it became a vital part of iPhones.

Thats my last post on this matter

Hmmm....

The way forward is Hydrogen: the cleaner, greener fuel that will power the future | MoneyWeek

What's your point? It's a puff piece encouraging people to invest in certain shares, whilst saying hydrogen is “relatively uneconomic over anything but short distances”. For transport you just can't get away from the fact that electric vehicles use the same energy twice as efficiently, and can/have got off the ground without major investment in a new fuel infrastructure. As I say, hydrogen will have a niche in transport - it works reasonably well for buses for instance - but it's at a massive disadvantage for cars.

Compare that with blending hydrogen into the natural gas supply at 20% - there's no losses to compression, you're using existing transmission and end-user equipment so there's no capex beyond building the hydrogen plant, and energy is converted at the end-user at roughly the same efficiency as natural gas. It's a much more level playing field, and is already being done quite a bit in Asia.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I'm in the states. Starting to consider a new car but, with Crazy Joe and Kamala talking about ending fossil fuels by 2025 I'm in a spot.

I could end up with a car I can't use or sell because there's no fuel for it.

No you won't - Biden is talking about ending subsidies for fossil fuels by 2025. He's aiming for net-zero by 2050, so you'll still be able to buy hydrocarbons until then. You'll be fine with hydrocarbons for the next car you buy, and probably the next one depending how often you change.

 

[terrym]

It's not impossible, just that we have allowed corporations and big business to decide what the public gets for far too long, and that turned out to be big oil and transport that will burn it.

Our economy is consumer driven.
Example 30 years ago there were few SUV type cars. Now most (?) vehicles sold fit somewhere in that category. Why?, Because people like the look of them and so go out and buy them. If people hadn't wanted to buy them they would not have been the success they have become. So manufacturers need to supply them. If they don't their competitors will take over that sector of the market.
And the numbers of households having two or more cars has increased because more people want cars because it provides them with transport flexibility. It not a question of manufactures making more cars to force people to buy them.
And electric cars are also an example of this. At the moment no-one if forcing folks to buy an electric car in spite of government and to some extent manufacturer pressure and incentives. But so far the uptake has not been good compared to oil driven cars. Why? Because consumers are wary of them for a variety of reasons.

 

[JockyBrewer]

Does anyone know anything about the practicalities of aluminium air batteries? They seem perfectly suited to car use if a fast change system can be devised (I’d be gobsmacked if it can’t).

 

[marshbrewer]

I'd love to have an electric car, well to be more accurate, an electric company car. Unfortunately, the range just isn't there at present. My next one, 2022, will probably be some kind of hybrid unless family size cars with a genuine 500 mile range are available. I fully expect the one after that to be electric, however.

 

[Lowrider]

So I get they will have to tax something, but taxing road miles just hits commerce and those that live in the country.... whilst those making the rules, walk, cycle and utilise heavily subsidised public transport to get around their cities.
So country living becomes even more expensive.

 

[MmmBeer]

So I get they will have to tax something, but taxing road miles just hits commerce and those that live in the country.... whilst those making the rules, walk, cycle and utilise heavily subsidised public transport to get around their cities.
So country living becomes even more expensive.

Why not just force Amazon and Google to pay their back taxes instead.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Does anyone know anything about the practicalities of aluminium air batteries? They seem perfectly suited to car use if a fast change system can be devised (I’d be gobsmacked if it can’t).

Al-air are great in theory - very high energy density that can give cars with 1000+ mile range and basic ingredients are cheap as chips - but historically the reality has rather different. They've proven rather "fussy" for reliability/long-term endurance, and overcoming those problems has traditionally meant expensive toxic reagents. An Israeli company called Phinergy made a big splash with Al-air a few years ago but seems to have gone rather quiet since, which suggests they haven't worked out the boring bits of going from a molly-coddled demonstrator to commercial reality.

There's a former RN nuclear engineer called Trevor Jackson who claims to have solved the problems, with an electrolyte you can drink (which he does as a party trick for investors) and a claimed cost of <US$80/kWh which is cheaper than current lithium batteries. Apparently his company Metalectrique has signed a deal with a company that has ended up with the rights to the Austin name - I suspect they're a good few years away from commercialisation but we'll see.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

So I get they will have to tax something, but taxing road miles just hits commerce and those that live in the country....

Most likely it wouldn't be done on miles, but on congestion - driving at 10mph in cities would be taxed (a lot) more than driving at 40mph on a country road.

 

[JockyBrewer]

So I get they will have to tax something, but taxing road miles just hits commerce and those that live in the country.... whilst those making the rules, walk, cycle and utilise heavily subsidised public transport to get around their cities.
So country living becomes even more expensive.

Easy enough to tax electricity, as petrol is now. A flat tax rate is regressive.

 

[jof]

Easy enough to tax electricity, as petrol is now. A flat tax rate is regressive.

How can you do that without a special electric meter for the car to avoid hitting people who rely on electricity for heating (old economy 7 & new heat pumps)
Only way would be to mandate car charging at a different voltage & then meter that voltage output differently from normal electricity.

Same with this road pricing stuff. Are they going to factor in the kerb weight or MPG numbers to weight the charges so heavier / more polluting vehicles pay more? I doubt it - thats why all those SUV tank drivers think its much better than tax at the pump

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Easy enough to tax electricity,

So the rich bloke who has the money to buy the latest most efficient car and who can afford to put solar panels on his roof and charge his car on his drive gets almost free travel and the plebs queue up at the only lamppost in the street that has a charger.

My tongue was slightly in my cheek when i posted but i am sure you get my drift.