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

@SueEllenMishke

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.

Another person here who lives on a street with flats and on street parking. Can't see how they could fit a charger per flat here, which means people would be fighting over them every night so they could get to work the next day (village with 3 buses a day).

Of course, the people coming up with these schemes probably live in large cities with good public transport and/or in large houses with private driveways.

So basically at the moment it is only viable to have an EV if you have off road parking, you can afford to pay at least £200 a month payments or £20,000 to buy? It sounds only available for the rich

@Baileysforchristmas

So basically at the moment it is only viable to have an EV if you have off road parking, you can afford to pay at least £200 a month payments or £20,000 to buy? It sounds only available for the rich

Ah but there's a great plan involving streetlights...

6 streetlights on my street of approximately 100 houses, it's definitely a gamechanger. 😂😂

@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.

This is something commonly proposed, usually in the context of driverless cars, but I'm sceptical. I think car ownership will remain desirable. I want my car to be available now, not to hopefully arrive in 5 minutes but sometimes it takes longer. I want to be able to keep things (OK, clutter) in it, not have to remove everything every time I get out. I want to be able to load it with literal rubbish for a tip run, getting the interior dirty despite my best efforts, and not fear getting a penalty charge for that. And, a couple of years ago, I was driven out of my home and ended up sleeping in my car for a few nights.

Now perhaps car ownership will become a luxury most people are priced out of. I don't see that as progress.

Also the model of cars being replaced by taxis (which is what the idea really is) results in more mileage being covered all else being equal, although less parking might be needed.

Of course, the people coming up with these schemes probably live in large cities with good public transport and/or in large houses with private driveways.

Exactly. As for using lampposts and car parks well, the street lighting on my street finishes before it gets to our bit and there are no car parks locally. Parking/charging at work isn't an option as there is a two year waiting list for a parking space and the bit of wasteland I park on now doesn't even have parking bays so I can't see them investing in charging points.

To get to work on public transport takes well over 2 hours and costs a fortune because I cross a county border.

The power stations in this country couldn’t cope with everyone plugging their cars in at once.

Most of the people in my village can’t park outside their houses, what will they do?

It just seems like this government rushing something through without enough planning. Sadly happening a lot.

Having just tripped over a charging cable some idiot had lying across the pavement in the pitch dark it’s a no from me.

I haven't read through all of this, but some of the "It won't happen" comments read like wish fulfilment. There are obviously serious concerns about things like cost and access to charging where residents will have to share resources, but I don't understand people worrying about there only being five chargers in their town now when the ban comes in in 2030. Do people think we can't proceed because we don't have thousands of charging stations sitting unused just waiting for everyone to get their first EV?

There was a post way above about Crossrail. The two things aren't comparable at all. Crossrail is a single massive, highly technical engineering project where many, many companies are intricately woven together to play their own highly specialised roles in delivering that project. That's without even considering how they interact with government and other parties. EV charging is not technically complicated and the infrastructure as a whole will be delivered by different players set-ups all doing a small part of the whole - it's basically a multitude of small-scale projects. I do realise that's a huge oversimplification, but the fact competitors will all be going after the various opportunities means that if people want chargers they'll get them.

@byliss it's not just the nationwide charging infrastructure that will need upgrading. It's also the generating capacity. Do you believe that this Government has a credible plan to deliver both in 9 years?

There was the best comment in the Daily Mail today (ok, ok, I know that I shouldn't read it!) In response to the news. In fact it was top rated. It said something along the lines of
" I want to be able to drive a diesel or a petrol car! don't want to live in a world of electric cars and people toppling statutes and having protests. It's all so woke. I want things back to how they were".

I had to chuckle about electric cars and the environment being considered woke! If it was for that chap, we'd presumably still be riding horses, lighting our houses with candles and not commenting on online articles on the internet. As for the wokeness of this newly fangled protest things... I guess that he failed to take notice of his British history lessons where riots, civil wars and mass protests were commonplace.

Not that he needs to worry. I used to work for central governments climate change/environmental policy development team. And I can assure you that this will not happen by 2030. It's overly ambitious.

My family are farmers and rely on tractors to tow heavy machinery.
Surely electric is not a viable alternative?

I can almost guarantee that it will be watered down to a ban on 100% diesel or petrol cars and that they will allow efficient hybrid cars to operate (that self charge) or hydrogen batteries etc. There's a lot of other technologies at the forefront at the moment.

I don't know whether this can actually happen by the timescale set (and I don't have much faith in this particular government, no) and how/if certain obstacles will be overcome, @countrygirl99, I just don't think the comparison with Crossrail works.

I am not happy about this news at all.

I live rurally, drive about 50 miles return trip to and from work - public transport is not an option for me - there is one bus I could potentially catch if I arrived late to work every day and left bang on time - my clinic often overruns and I am late leaving work most days.

My nearest supermarket is a 20 mile round-trip.

My friend has an electric car. She cannot go very far at all - she cannot bring her car to visit me (a 70 mile round trip) as it does not have enough charge for that.

It might be great for those who live in London or other cities/big towns. For the rest of us, I don't think it is such good news.

I plan to buy a new diesel car in 2029 and keep it going for as long as possible.

All the people who live rurally posting here - do you care at all about the lung health and life expectancy of the children growing up in cities, for whom this will be transformative?

Your kids might have fresh country air. Mine hasn't, ever.

there are 40 million cars on the UK's roads
www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-news/motoring-issues/2020/how-many-cars-are-there-in-the-uk/

...

the total number of locations which have a public charging point installed is 12,734, the number of devices at those locations is 20,238 and the total number of connectors within these devices is 35,327.

www.zap-map.com/statistics/

just had a look at the map for the small market town where I live - population approx 20,000 so probably around 10,000 cars. A quick scan shows around 30 public charging points.

There won't be enough charging points in 2050, let alone 2030

As with Covid scare mongering this tread shows that Mumsnet is promoting government propaganda - Great reset in this case.
People who believe this Green agenda is good for the country have no critical thinking.

A lot of these examples don't seem to look at the vast changes that can happen in that time - a ban on new petrol cars in 10yrs means a gradual phasing out over 30yrs. In 30yrs cars and charging technology are going to change an awful lot. At the moment overnight charging is common but rapid charging is possible. Range is increasing greatly as is the types of vehicle available.
Infrastructure is not just reliant on government (if it was I'd agree we may struggle) but also private investment which has already shown an appetite for this.
Think about how far we've come with mobile phones in 30yrs from almost non existent rarities that were a novelty to ubiquitous necessities that go everywhere with us. I'm not sure we would have predicted that back then so I think it's hard to predict exactly what direction we will go transport wise over the next 30 or so years.

@annie987

My family are farmers and rely on tractors to tow heavy machinery. Surely electric is not a viable alternative?

www.tesla.com/en_gb/cybertruck

This ban is hugely ambitious, less than a decade away.
As said, electric cars are expensive and what about people who live in flats, can’t have charging points?
Surely electricity will go up in price as we use more? So our carbon footprint will just switch to electric ? ( I get its better than fuels).
Will lots of jobs be lost in this industry, I’d imagine it will be, surely? Particularly these independent petrol stations in rural areas.
Finally, what about the loss in revenue to the government? Rishi Sunak is already talking about drivers being charged for the miles they do..
If the government lose billions in fuel duty, VAT, that means other things will go up...

Correct me if I’m wrong but drivers can still buy Petrol and diesel as they normally would in 2030?
The ban just means manufacturers can’t produce cars that use petrol or diesel?
Surely there would still be millions of car drivers still using petrol or diesel for many years to come?
If I was going to buy a new car tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to afford an electric car, it would be a petrol.

Remember Boris promised enough PPE for care staff. And that covid would be over by summer. And then Christmas. And now , who knows?...
And now promises enough charging points in little over 9 years time. And people buy into this?...
Boris is a champagne capitalist. He’s only ever lived in London and cities and doesn’t rely on a car, probably would never need one himself anyway.
I could technically buy a petrol car in 2029 and have it for 20 years, thus filling up on petrol over that time?

I think what we'll find s that there will be different approaches for different locations, occupations, and so on. Electric may be pat of a solution for city dwellers, but my guess would be that much of it won't be privately owned.

I think what we would see ideally in cities is most people living in walking distance to work and amenities, a certain amount of mass transit, supplemented with different types of electric for people who are working in mobile occupations within city and to hire for others as needed and for trips out of the city.

The important point though being that not only would many of the vehicles be electric - there would be fewer of them, buy a long way. That accounts for quite a few people. We could also see reduction of large transport vehicles into cities and better use of trains.

Rural areas would be a different story and might require different solutions, but fewer gas vehicles does not have to be the death of rural areas.

While it should be obvious, it seems like it isn't - the age of the private car has overall been bad for rural areas and villages. In many cases they have emptied out as people are pulled in by the gravity of cities, not only for jobs but services and entertainment. Two generations ago many of these places were more self-sufficient, has more services, and better public transport links to nearby larger towns and cities and also to outlying areas.

@annie987

My family are farmers and rely on tractors to tow heavy machinery. Surely electric is not a viable alternative?

Electric could well be good for tractors. There are already models available commercially. A big advantage of an electric motor is maximum torque at zero rpm, so no need for a clutch or fluid coupling. And I think weight isn't such a bad thing in a tractor either?

But if you do want to stick with fossil fuel, there's no plan to ban it for working vehicles any time soon.

@MagnoliaXYZ I have an electric car. Work is a 45 mile round trip, I also have a horse, who is a 40 mile round trip from home. Even in winter, pouring down with rain, heating in full, heated seats on, lights, radio etc it uses about 15% battery for a trip to the stables.

I did a 120 mile trip to my mums, and got there with plenty of battery left at motorway speeds. Charged it over night when I got there, and the battery was full on the morning (this was charging on a 3pin plug - so very slow charging speeds).