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 just googled electric car charging points in out town. The ASDA one isn't shown.

As I mentioned upthread, every time I visit our local ASDA the two electric car charging spaces are always filled by ordinary cars, if I had an electric car there's no chance of me getting charged there while I shop. We have two co-ops (a large and a small) and a small Tesco in town, none of them has any electric charge points, and nor are there any public ones.

Well that will have to change.

Is it me, or are disability rights on the slide in this country in recent years?

So where is the shortfall in fuel duty going to come from? Oh yes I know the mileage charge. Once again the rural poor will be hit and because there aren't as many of them as city dwellers no-one gives a toss.

That's before you even start thinking of the ethics of how the lithium for the batteries is obtained. The countries with the biggest lithium supplies will become the new Saudis and also how do you think the oil producing nations are going to react?

I'm not saying that the current use of oil is sustainable but as usual the government has come out with some half baked scheme to make themselves look good to the green lobby without thinking through the consequences.

It is half baked all of it!
Kicking the can down the road knowing none of them will be accountable in 2030 for any of it! Typical political postering.

A friend of mine has a theory that what will happen is an actual change in the way people use cars, which might be prompted by both the widespread change to electric cars, and the advent of self-drive cars. His theory is that fewer people will own private cars, but that the norm will become like an Uber system, where you book a car for a particular journey and then return it to one of many charging points all over town.

I can’t see that working, I keep saddle bridle, horse feed in the back of my car, how would that work with not owning a car? What about pulling a horse trailer or a caravan?

@bonbonours

A friend of mine has a theory that what will happen is an actual change in the way people use cars, which might be prompted by both the widespread change to electric cars, and the advent of self-drive cars. His theory is that fewer people will own private cars, but that the norm will become like an Uber system, where you book a car for a particular journey and then return it to one of many charging points all over town.

In cities and towns maybe.

I do think owning cars will be only for the privileged, world travel will only be for the super rich.

@pinkbalconyrailing

too little too late. should be 2022 really.

imo it's a nimby thing. cars need energy to drive and even electricity sometimes comes from immensely polluting sources.

I would have liked more investment into cycle and public transport infrastructure.

individual car ownership needs to be more inconvenient and expensive.

Spot the mumsnetter not living in a rural location with main places for work at least 45mins away by car...

(And before anyone says it, we can't all "just move," rural places need people living and working there too, the whole population cannot suddenly descend on cities and towns, absolutely unsustainable.)

Those not in or near cities or big towns will be totally shafted by this unless there's a massive improvement in pace and efficiency of the technology for alternative transport.

There are 3 lamp posts on the road I live on. There are 26 houses. 15 of them do not have off road parking. The only way they would be able to charge their car is by running a cable across the pavement.

I think that some form of road pricing is inevitable but the most sensible proposals give a level of “free” miles to rural and disabled car users for whom public transport isn’t a feasible alternative.

This discussion tends to be polarised between “everyone should walk/cycle, it’ll make them fitter” “Public transport should be improved until nobody even wants to use private cars” “I can’t possibly use public transport because of my specific needs how dare you try and make car use more expensive for me”

We need a web of joined up thinking which incentivises walking or cycling where possible as the first choice, public transport where possible as the second choice, electric car sharing where possible as the third choice, and electric car ownership as the fourth choice with ICE a poor last choice for truly exceptional circumstances.

That will mean a carrot and stick approach making public transport better and car ownership worse for most people but I think you’d need some form of postcode allowance to recognise that the financial and energy cost of putting on an acceptable transport service in some rural areas would be ludicrous, and there private cars are the better option.

[quote 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[/quote]
Fecking idiot springs to mind.

With apologies, as I feel quite grumpy about it

Electric cars aren’t a problem for “rural people”. They’re a problem for the specific group of car-owning rural people who have to park on the street. That’s not a tiny number: from my decades of holidays in rural cottages (because no, I don’t fly abroad on holiday) and visiting family I know there’s a lot of quaint villages with challenging parking, but I’d be prepared to bet it’s not a majority of rural dwellers.

They’re also a problem for people who are so rural that they don’t have reliable electricity. A very small number who do require specific additional solutions.

@LearnedResponse it would be nearly half the households in my village. Most of these would be multi car households due to lack of alternatives.

Electric cars aren’t a problem for “rural people”. They’re a problem for the specific group of car-owning rural people who have to park on the street.

But it's not just a small number of rural people who will experience this problem. Many on this thread have said they live near citys / larger towns and have no drives, live in flats with very little parking, or struggle with parking near their homes.

@bonbonours

A friend of mine has a theory that what will happen is an actual change in the way people use cars, which might be prompted by both the widespread change to electric cars, and the advent of self-drive cars. His theory is that fewer people will own private cars, but that the norm will become like an Uber system, where you book a car for a particular journey and then return it to one of many charging points all over town.

Yep, that sounds very useful for self-employed people who carry all their tools and equipment around with them.

Absolutely AaronPurr I’m sure there’s far more people with that problem in cities - I was just responding to the flood of people saying this was going to be terrible for rural people in particular. Now the range of electric cars has increased it’ll only be a problem for the rural people who lack off street parking or reliable electricity.

It hits rural people hard because we drive further to get to work/school/shops etc. Also battery time is shortened by weather, using lights, wipers, road conditions etc so those in the north are hit harder by distances being shorter. It's not a bad idea, but outwith cities there is very poor public transport links, charging stations and very little money for change.

My brother works for sse and he says at the moment the uk isn't that far away from the lights going out let alone being able to sustain everyone in electric cars. So infrastructure needs massive improvement and we need to start looking at how we will produce more energy.

They’re also a problem for people who are so rural that they don’t have reliable electricity

Electric cars could help. By feeding electricity back into the house during a power cut.

@LearnedResponse

I think that some form of road pricing is inevitable but the most sensible proposals give a level of “free” miles to rural and disabled car users for whom public transport isn’t a feasible alternative.

This discussion tends to be polarised between “everyone should walk/cycle, it’ll make them fitter” “Public transport should be improved until nobody even wants to use private cars” “I can’t possibly use public transport because of my specific needs how dare you try and make car use more expensive for me”

We need a web of joined up thinking which incentivises walking or cycling where possible as the first choice, public transport where possible as the second choice, electric car sharing where possible as the third choice, and electric car ownership as the fourth choice with ICE a poor last choice for truly exceptional circumstances.

That will mean a carrot and stick approach making public transport better and car ownership worse for most people but I think you’d need some form of postcode allowance to recognise that the financial and energy cost of putting on an acceptable transport service in some rural areas would be ludicrous, and there private cars are the better option.

There's fuck all point "incentivising" walking and cycling here as there's feck all you could walk to or cycle to except supermarkets (so only buy what you can carry) and hairdressers. There are a few small employers but we are basically a dormitory for the much larger towns and cities which are car distance but have zero decent public transport.
As I mentioned upthread, they keep adding houses but fuck all else. We are going to need a MASSIVE sea change back to local employment and services to stand any chance of levering people out of their cars.

@Bwlch

They’re also a problem for people who are so rural that they don’t have reliable electricity

Electric cars could help. By feeding electricity back into the house during a power cut.

But then you can't go to the work or shop next morning - great.

Some people in more niche situations like living with unreliable electricity may need to invest in things such as personal battery storage at their properties, something to charge up during reliable or low demand times and then cover the unreliable times. Invest in personal energy production like solar panels

From where are we supposed to get the money from to pay for for this, on top of the apparently 'doable' £40k EVs?

Green New Deal grants or subsidies I suspect Mordeds. It won’t be a large number of people and it’ll be worth it to placate certain rural MPs.
For example Londoners claiming benefits can get 2 grant scrappage towards replacing their car with something that meets ULEZ standards, because the “this is a tax on the poor with old cars who need them for work” message was too hard to ignore.

Electric cars aren’t a problem for “rural people”. They’re a problem for the specific group of car-owning rural people who have to park on the street.

That is the vast majority of people in my village and surrounding villages. Very few houses have off road parking and those that do are incredibly expensive.

I agree that this will be an inconvenience to some people, particularly to some people living in rural areas, but living with the level of car pollution is a pretty big damn inconvenience to me and my DS, living in a city on a main road (and not being able to afford to move). He's grown up with an incredibly high level of air pollution, which will have affected the way his lungs developed, and almost certainly will have knocked a few years off his life expectancy - as it does for every kid that grows up like this, as a vast number of kids in the UK have to.

I'd say my kid's lungs and life expectancy are more important than your worries about where you might plug in your electric car.

(And it's a ban on new petrol cars, anyway. There will be millions of the old ones knocking around for decades, so people who need them can make do with them.)