to think the penny hasn't dropped yet, for many people, that the trade in new petrol and diesel cars is really ending in 6 years

[JadeClade]

I think the price of second hand cars will go through the roof, at first, when new cars are no longer available, and people buying new homes now really do need to be factoring in where they are going to charge an electric car, and all sorts of preparations and plans are simply not being made

YANBU - we need to be planning and preparing, as individuals and society.
YABU- we don't need to think about it.

Of course you will. Might not be from a regular pump like you do now, but it will still be available, remember petrol is actually a waste product of oil refining. Most oil is used to make plastics, not power cars. There will be oodles of cheap petrol around for your classic car.

They haven't thought about people in back to backs, no off road parking, flats, and more.
Near me are row upon row of back to backs with a tiny yard. Not big enough for a car. How will they charge vehicles? Run cables across the pavement, not ideal for literally anyone using the pavement. Use lamppost installed charge points? I'm assuming one charge point per lamp post, and 30 cars needing to use it, so we are back to cables across the pavement. What will stop scrotes and drunks unplugging every vehicle they come across? Same in blocks of flats, cables trailing down from each flat?
Not thought through at all, not going to happen. The date will keep getting moved.
My plan is to buy two of the last petrol engine cars, that should last me until I cant drive.

Or the opposite could happen with prices rising. A motor writer recently said that he planned on buying a brand new petrol car in the year before the ban. Makes sense to me and I'll probably be doing the same, as there are no buses where I live.

@WimbledonHasselhoff what planet are you on? 😂😂 You do know there are no fucking corner shops to walk or drive to in many places of the world? Want to walk in Australia in the heat or in the north of Scandi in the cold with no suitabke roads? Used to walking my arse..your post is so ignorant it’s funny (but it’s not really).

@HiHoHiHoltsOffToWorkWeGo - I think that will be the bigger issue that eventually moves isolated people to EV- you can put solar panels on your house and control your access to fuel. If the petrol pumps become “speciality” at a few and far between garages for classic cars, it’s going to be a) expensive and b) logistically difficult to drive petrol cars long distances.

I suppose there used to be coaching houses at inns/hotels so if you were travelling the country with your own coach and horses, you could just turn up and there was somewhere to rest and feed your horses. The network of support has disappeared for horse travel that takes you away from home overnight. Petrol might go a similar “hobby only” way.

I lot of people I know drive perfectly reliable 10-15 year old sub-£5K cars, It's unlikely they would be persuaded to throw them away to get a disposable Chinese electric car shipped over to replace them.

I have a 10 year old small car. It’s been serviced every year and should run for a few years more. After that I plan to be car free. We already went down to one car last year. However this is only possible because we live in the centre of a small city with a great bus network and easy train connections. There’s no way electric could work in a densely populated area with most places converted to flats and not enough parking, nearly all of which is on street.

If you google Germany's opposition to the ban you will see that it is unlikely that the EU will be able to ban them:
A survey released Friday by German broadcaster ARD showed that the majority of Germans oppose banning combustion engines in new cars across the European Union. Germany has recently blocked an EU vote to ban the sale of new vehicles with combustion engines across the bloc from 2035

We're not talking about Australia though, are we? I was replying directly to a post suggesting that people in the UK who live rurally should carry on as they are, whilst those of us who chose to live where we can usually walk or use public transport should be denied a car entirely.

Perhaps you should learn to read. And if you think you need a car just to get to a shop, how about moving?

@Ourladycheesusedatum - are there street lights outside your houses /on your road? They they have an easy fix of street light chargers (they are on the side of street lights, not a massive thing for councils to install).

cables wouldn’t need to go across the path, just from street light to car. Most people don’t drive so much that they would need to charge every night. Some people would charge at work /supermarket etc.

I don’t live in a city. We have 2 cars. A newish small one and a big 15-year old Volvo who has basically never had a fault. Guess which is more reliable.

I agree.

Also, many commercial vehicles will still be around using diesel for decades. Commercial vehicles are not limited to just sleek low wedge-shaped delivery vehicles around Milton Keynes. We have forestry machines, farm machinery, telecoms and power grid vehicles, landscaping machinery. All used by small businesses.

What about domestic caravans and horse trailers. Are horses and caravans going to be banned in 6 years?

@WimbledonHasselhoff Why would I move when I have a huge house with a huge garden by the sea, with fresh air and water you could drink straight from the stream if you wanted to. I have lived in London, and I got sick of black snot. I’ll keep my car and my house, and you can stay in the city if you like.

Spot on.

The other side of that is engine efficiency and that is still terrible once put in a car. I think the Toyota Mirai is the best out there but the combustion engine is still only 40% so about the same as a diesel engine. That's still a huge amount of waste in addition to the energy required to produce hydrogen in the first place.

Synthetic fuels will be an option by 2030 too hopefully allowing ICE cars to still be a viable option.

The most obvious solution is the one Porsche are looking at - making an environmentally-safe petrol replacement which works with all the ICE engines out there. They're even developing the tech to manufacture it with solar energy as the input.

If that scales well (it's a reasonably large "if", I'll admit), the whole problem is solved and there's no need for global-scale infrastructure changes.

I think you are naive if you think this will happen!

I feel like I've missed something....is it not possible/won't be possible to buy a second hand electric car?

All those new electric cars now will be 7 years old in 2030, and cheaper than buying a new one.

We have a non electric car that we bought last year, and I reckon we'll be looking to trade in 5-7 years. I'd assumed at that point that we'd go electric, assuming the infrastructure has improved.

But what about those people that live in flats, or houses with no drive/parking outside...it's OK if you can charge your car when you're home, but it's not reasonable to expect people to have to go out for an hour or two just to charge the car. They're not going to want electric unless something changes.

Also 200 mile range isn't great for people that do longer distances, hopefully they find a way to increase this by 2030.

Yes and people are moving out of London to very rural places. A lot.

If you are used to having a car, but won't have one in the future, then now is the time for long term plans, isn't it - schools, homes, jobs, etc all need to be reachable without a car.

Someone needs to tell the planners this. We've had masses of new housing built a couple of miles from us with an inadequate bus service. Every time planning for another phase is applied for I object on the grounds that everyone will have to commute to work. There should be business or industrial parks also being built in the same area. Major house building should have opportunities for employment within 5 miles, not just massively enlarging places which are already commuter towns

There will be an election sometime around 2029. My guess is any party that says it will remove the ban will get a significant majority.

Err, not enough resources makes it impossible to happen. Electric vehicles are also now being researched as not sustainable and there is a move to explore hydrogen instead.

Exactly. The misinformation and nonsense that people spread around about EVs is just insane.

And if you think you need a car just to get to a shop, how about moving?

Lots of people need a car to go to a shop! Even if you're not that far there may be no pavement.

I think part of the issue is whilst it might look like noone is doing anything to prepare for this, car manufacturers have. If you were told you couldnt sell your main product in 6 years time, youd be investing heavily running up to it to change your product line ready. I think they will either be applying pressure to get it dropped by the uk and eu now before they make too many changes or they will be putting huge pressure on to keep it in place if its 2029.
Would they even be looking at improving ICE vehicles at this stage