Ban on new petrol/diesel cars by 2030 - AIBU to be excited?

[almostautumn]

The government are set to announce a ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. As someone who lives in a polluted city (London) and worries about the effect that carbon emissions are having on my family’s health, I’m so excited by this news because I think it will really change our children’s lives for the better. And it’s fantastic that it’s only 10 years away!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54981425

I have reservations
Where will people charge their cars if the only can park on the road.

I frequently need a vehicle that will do 600 miles in a day, how will that work without frequent lengthy charging stops

@FixTheBone, my diesel estate car costs me, monthly, including fuel, around £160. We bought it outright for around £1500, so no additional costs there. The idea of spending £400 a month on a car is ridiculous to me, that is more than my monthly food budget for 5. My car fits all 5 of us, plus camping equipment for a long weekend. We live somewhere without a driveway, and the only local charging stations are in out of town shopping centre car parks. We buy old, reliable cars and don't change them until they are ready for the scrap yard. I don't see how changing all new cars to electric is going to be a benefit, or even possible, in only a decade.

Anyway, why the obsession with a few exceptions, that vast majority of people in the UK don't live the back of beyond, and for those that do there will exemptions. All this WhatAboutMe is usually what holds us back from going forward. I don't live in the back of beyond! Even when I lived in a small ham, 15 houses no road names, it wasn't the back of beyond.

I love less than 10 miles from a small city. As do 100,000+ others, in this direction alone. Some of them already do have EVs... they have driveways and access to solar energy. The nearest EV station is about 8 miles away. The nearest solar farm less than a mile. We aren't backward you know! Nor isolated. We're just rural, with a set of geographical restrictions that haven't yet been properly overcome for many modern amenities.

This WhtaAboutMe is actually a very real shout from many people who live in ordinary places, just not highly urbanised ones. The places many urban dwellers see only as holiday destinations or too far to travel too. We only have trees, after all!

Modern electric cars will do 400 miles on a charge. Technology improves all the time. Now, granted, we cannot all afford a new top of the range car. But we have to start somewhere. It isnt as if in 2030 we will all be forced to go out and buy an electric car - we can keep our existing petrol cars and hybrids for now! And then hopefully there will be a bigger second hand electric car market, infrastructure for charging will improve, by the time we are ready to upgrade our cars.

I'm all for it. If the government doesnt set a firm deadline, nothing will change. And change is desperately needed.

@the80sweregreat

I'm just musing on how the charging cars will work I guess! I have visions of loads of cars all charging away at the services whilst the owners are having a cuppa in the service station ( if that will be still be allowed!) then discovering it gone when they get back. I've no idea how it will work and most take around forty minutes to charge I believe? Anyway, if it happens I'll have to live with it and change my behavior etc, but I can see so many flaws with it all and how people will charge them up will be interesting to see especially those without driveways etc.

I can only really speak from experience of Tesla. You can choose how much to charge your car for. When mapping out a journey it considers how long you’ll be at a super charger. They are also working on improving the charging speed all time too. Some are faster charging points than others.

30 mins is the average for us, it takes much less time to charge to near full than charging a battery right to the Max. If you want to stay a extra 10-15 mins it will max it out for you. If you over stay longer then 5 mins once Cheever to whatever level you’ve chosen (you are notified by app) then it will start to charge you an over stay fee.

End game like PP have said, the cars are to be autonomous and maybe I’ll be able to rent my car out for collection and drop off services when I’m not using it. I’ll need to reap some of those £££ back

If you own a car I think you really should have a designated parking if no drive. Sigh

So, as well as the thousands of additional houses we are having to find space for we now also have to find electrify miles of residential and country roads to designate them allowing people to charge their cars

Actually, maybe we could have a park and ride from the solar farm, we could fight over who has which array to charge from!

@Chuchyduck

I agree with you, it is absolutely fantastic. Except that it should be sooner, in the next year or two, rather than 10 years. What we are doing to the planet is appalling.

You do realise that electric cars aren't that 'green' either?

And although I realise long term it's a good thing, there's going to be a lot of unemployment following this

The principle is fine, but I think the govt should stick with its original target of 2040.

there's around 25 million dwellings in the UK and 40 million vehicles. It will take many, many years and £millions (if not £billions) to install the infrastructure needed to adequately power the required number of electric vehicles.

Has anyone mentioned lorries yet or commercial vans or ambulances ? What will they all have to do? Ambulances are out in the roads all the time and have to get to people fast! Lorries will steal all the chargers in the service areas ..
will they be exempt?

[quote TibetanTerrier]@Bakeachocolatecaketoday

Presumably you're paying two monthly payments for leasing the batteries as well as the other running costs? Or did you buy the batteries? I need to change my car and would love to go electric, but I'm a pensioner whose income will not be increasing a great deal in future, and I don't want to commit to battery leasing payments for eternity. The batteries are a considerable commitment and I really think they need to do something about the way they're currently being charged if the majority are going to be able to go electric.[/quote]
No - Batteries included. You don't tend to get separate battery leases any more. Some older vehicles may have leased batteries but not many.

But we have to start somewhere. And that somewhere is infrastructure. I'm not against EVs, really I am not. But I am against new laws that don't take into consideration the geographical realities many people live in.

The stumbling blocks round here include high density housing on narrow roads; rural roads, forest roads, lack of parking next to houses and lack of space to legally build EV charging stations, commercial or residential.

If someone was to come here, and many places with similar issues, and properly discuss the problems I would be first in line to get information and to offer help.

I am already working with local councillors on various accessibility issues... I might put this forward as another strand of their Local Plan work!

@Rollingfog, you can't have designated parking because the streets that some people live in aren't big enough. It's made worse by multiple car households. As said the whole country doesn't have reliable electricity, we need to get that sorted out first. Most people would be priced out of owning a car.

A Neighbour has an electric car. He leaves it plugged in most of the evening. When I first saw the lead I thought that he was vacuuming it. I don't know if the lead would cause any issues for someone in a mobility scooter. It's the same thin, heavy duty wire that construction equipment uses. We live in a rough area and it's left alone.

How is it going to affect the petrol industry and those across Africa working in those industries? They already compete to work for around £2 a day. I suppose there will be leasing schemes as there is now, otherwise the majority of car drivers won't be able to afford a new car and it will take another three to eight years for second hand ones to become available at an affordable price.

@SoupDragon

We have recently switched to a model x Tesla, anyone who thinks it won’t happen needs to go drive a Tesla.

It's over £80,000!

😂😂

And there you have it.. But apparently all we peons need is education, not our own driveway and/or a fuckton of cash.

I frequently need a vehicle that will do 600 miles in a day, how will that work without frequent lengthy charging stops

With current technology, it won't. You will need to adapt to cope.

Given that it’s just a ban on NEW cars it’s far too late IMO. Traditional cars will still be available for years. They should ban sales of fossil fuel cars within months if they were properly serious.
I’m an EV driver. Yes the infrastructure needs investment but there is time yet. 70% of the population (guessing) could cope really nicely with an EV by charging at home or at work, once long range EVs are commonplace (200+ miles is doable now, but quite expensive).

@Bwlch

I frequently need a vehicle that will do 600 miles in a day, how will that work without frequent lengthy charging stops

With current technology, it won't. You will need to adapt to cope.

Nobody needs to do 600 miles a day in anything other than exceptional circumstances. If people carry on thinking that driving 600 miles a day is a good idea then frankly we’re all screwed.

It probably won't change the lives of the children that mine the cobalt and lithium for the better.

But they're in Africa so who cares. As long as people can take the moral high ground and virtue signal they're doing their bit for the environment 😂

@the80sweregreat

Has anyone mentioned lorries yet or commercial vans or ambulances ? What will they all have to do? Ambulances are out in the roads all the time and have to get to people fast! Lorries will steal all the chargers in the service areas .. will they be exempt?

It's only cars at the moment....

The 10 point plan sounds lovely... but will mean a root and branch change to how rural and remote areas are seen and supported by urban centres... and I don't mean as sites for the next generation of small and advanced nuclear reactors or hydrogen factories. I mean all the usual basic infrastructure such areas have been deprived of over the last 50 years or so.

You can 'charge from home 'if you have a driveway and many people can't park outside their house now as it is let alone charge anything up!

there is no way that 70% of UK households could easily charge their vehicles at home or work. I'd amazed if the figure is even half that.

@Gobbycop

It probably won't change the lives of the children that mine the cobalt and lithium for the better.

But they're in Africa so who cares. As long as people can take the moral high ground and virtue signal they're doing their bit for the environment 😂

Quite! Well said.

@TalbotAMan and what about boot space for all my nursing stuff as there is a lot and I need it every day? What about cases if we go away as a family? Nissan Leaf would not suit my situation

Our electric car has plenty of boot space and a boot in the front too as there’s no engine space required.

@AlecTrevelyan006

there is no way that 70% of UK households could easily charge their vehicles at home or work. I'd amazed if the figure is even half that.

A significant proportion of people have offroad parking so that's them sorted fairly easily. What if you then put charge points in all car parks?

Nobody needs to do 600 miles a day in anything other than exceptional circumstances. If people carry on thinking that driving 600 miles a day is a good idea then frankly we’re all screwed. Yep as DH is one of them and he drives across the UK surveying and working on sites that provide telecoms etc.

He can be working in the middle of a city one day then up on a mountain top the next. He will have to stop and refuel more slowly, more often. Hotels and B+Bs across the nation will have to offer him reliable EV charging, AirBnB and the smallest of B+Bs included. That'll cost a fortune for people who are already amongst the hardest hit by covid.

He will be surveying and fixing fewer sites for quite a while, making telecoms more expensive as more teams will be required to cover the same work.

There will eventually be a levelling out as technology advances but in the interim period?

Oh! Actually, forget that, He'll have retired!