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.

I agree with every word of this

Not sure if this has later been addressed, but we actually looked at a new build house which was set up similar to Radburn styling (communal car parks with pathways to houses) - it was a Lovell home for those familiar with the style - and they had designated parking with an EV charge points. There was social housing on the same site which was a block of flats and I believe the parking was similar. Each resident has a card to operate the charging point.

This could easily be replicated to blocks of flats which have car parks.

That being said, a 2030 target is absolutely not going to happen. Apart from anything else; we don’t have the capacity to deal with EV at the end of their life cycle!

Even in cities with good public transport links, it doesn't mean that the public transport is actually any good though.

Used to get the bus home from work, 1 in 2 scheduled buses never arrived, they just disappeared off the tracking when it was meant to be due. Then the ones that do arrive, half the time they're full to capacity due to the previous bus being missing, and so doesn't allow anymore people on.
And then if you do manage to get on one, you feel unsafe due to a rowdy group, or a person being violent cus they're off their head.

Not to mention the amount of people who get on the bus and don't pay, ignoring the driver and just going to sit down on the top deck. Cus' then the whole bus gets stopped, the Police get called and everyone has to wait for them to get kicked off... it's really not a nice experience at all these days 😥

I'll predict this now: eventually the dwindling numbers of petrol and diesel cars on the roads will mean that no one is making a profit on the distribution and sale of it. Petrol stations will close down.

Petrol will be diverted to countries with lower environmental standards. Petrol being widely available in India isn't much use to me in the UK.

The nearest petrol station could be in impractically long way away. Good luck getting DPD to deliver 30L of highly explosive liquids.

Yes there are street lights, yes I agree chargers could be installed, they better get on with it.
If not enough chargers are installed to cope with the potential useage, there will be riots. So having walked around this area, given the recent change of street lights to conform to some directive (some streets have lights only on one side) I have concluded, that cables will be laid across pavements.
No point putting one charger in a street light (even if I go wild and say 4) for 20 houses, some of which are over the road. Charging vehicles as far as I know takes a couple of hours to overnight. What are we going to do when our car has been unplugged overnight?

My workplace has put two charge points in, for 650 employees. And they are to pay for. I imagine most people will resent having 15 different apps (services, supermarket, garage, work place, shopping centre etc) to pay for charging the car when they can charge at home.

Of course batteries degrade over time (like your phone) and eventually need charging more often or for longer. My last phone would last 3 days on one charge, 2 years later it needed charging daily.

No thought has been put into this. It needs to be an option. I see a lot more electric cars than I ever thought I would. So lets keep doing what we are doing, slowly the infrastructure will build around more people having electric cars, and that's fine. The people in the flats and back to backs will sort it out given time.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3c9b3c10-2b07-11ee-aede-28bc53acbdb8?shareToken=61c49c1f537f7ff3656de041dbda8942

Absolutely fine with me, as long as you're not suggesting, like the PP, that I should have to give up my car simply because most journeys can be done by public transport or walked. And if there's any financial burden/disincentives to drive, they should apply to you, as you have chosen to live where you need a car more, and not apply to people like me who already minimise car use. Then it's fair - you can revel in your big house and fresh air and I can revel in being charged less money. I'll even join the campaign for better public transport for you, which I know is appalling as I used to live more rurally myself, and is one of the main reasons I chose to move.

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

It’s perfectly possible. Ours was second hand. I can’t remember how much it cost because it’s been a few years but around the £5k mark. But that doesn’t fit the ‘EVs are really expensive/environmentally unfriendly’ BS that people like to spout…

Greener in that they produce no (direct) emissions during their operation but not greener in their manufacture. If you have a diesel or petrol car which already exists, it is greener to run it into the ground than manufacture something new.

And if there's any financial burden/disincentives to drive, they should apply to you, as you have chosen to live where you need a car more, and not apply to people like me who already minimise car use.

And what about people who can't afford to live in more urban areas/social housing lists too long?

This.

However the purchase of new petrol cars will go through the roof in the couple of years before it's supposed to come in.

I agree with PPs. It isn't going to happen. The infrastructure isn't there to support it. There's no joined-up thinking.

I have two vehicles

1. A specialist commercial vehicle. They've made a prototype of an electric version, with a list price of £95,000 to £142,000 depending on your options. Unfortunately it wouldn't work for my business - most vans do A, B and C, the prototype only does A and B, but I'm a specialist who only wants and needs C.

I bought my second hand petrol version for £15,000. I do not have £95k+ available to me and there are zero second hand ones on the market.

1. Last year I bought a white van which looks professional but doubles as a family car, so I got a LWB crew cab (two rows of seats). I did look, but couldn't find an electric version let alone a second hand electric version - there weren't even that many petrol / diesel LWB crew cabs on the second hand market.

If your criteria is "I just need a medium sized family car" then I'm sure you will have lots of choice.

Those of us who have requirements for any sort of use beyond family transport are being ignored - and drivers of commercial vehicles are usually those least able to switch to public transport because of the sheer amount of kit we have to carry.

And if there's any financial burden/disincentives to drive, they should apply to you, as you have chosen to live where you need a car more, and not apply to people like me who already minimise car use.

Where are these places that everyone can move to? You know, the places with jobs for all and affordable housing etc where you can walk/cycle to everything. Your One person's minimal car use can be another's extravagant and selfish, car use. Is minimal objective set eg max 100 miles per annum per household or subjective to the individual car user?

My main takeaway from this thread has been:
-We really need decent public transport. A minimum guaranteed service at a standard price throughout the country, preferably linked to an app so you can see where your bus is. The railways (especially the transpenine service) has to be overhauled.

• Our electricity infrastructure needs upgrading ASAP. I know of quite a few projects in the south west that have been delayed or mothballed because National Grid can't cope or get the hooked up.
• I have no answer on the farmers dilemma but more accessible flats and sheltered housing in towns will give older people more choice about where they want to live. In terms of relocation, they are the fastest-growing cohort and having them closer to shops, services and the hospital just makes sense.

So how do you plan for something that is just not possible because you can not charge a car up . But you need a car ?

where is all the electricity to charge to charge the cars going to come from ?

Manufacturing anything isn't green but if you can remove the emissions at the point of use, it has to be a better option no?

Volvo's study is already out of date (as manufacturing methods improve) but EV's are significantly greener over the lifetime of the vehicle and especially if the batteries are recycled or repurposed.

Sticking with your existing petrol/diesel is fine and I'm doing the exact same thing with my weekend toy. But it's preferable when changing your main car to buy something greener.

We are intending to go down to one car but will get a hybrid not fully EV .

we already have charging point but other than that round here no infrastructure .

Re planning, I know many people who tried to plan for their old age and the risk of being unable to drive by moving to a village or suburb with services and public transport only to find a few years later that the services had been shut down and the public transport withdrawn.

I am still lolling at the idea people in the countryside drive to the ‘corner shop’ because they don’t like ‘moving’. You might drive to a village shop, in another village, because your own and the one in the couple of villages nearest to you have closed down.

But then it is always clear on Mumsnet that there are many people in cities and particularly the south east who have absolutely no idea what it is like to live in other parts of the country and the people making policy are drawn from that clueless crowd.

The manufacture of fuels is by far the biggest use of oil, around 50-65% is used just for petrol and diesel (depending on the type of crude), add in other fuels like heating oil or jet fuel and it's closer 80%.

The manufacture of plastics, resins, and other petroleum-based products only accounts for c.16% of oil consumption.

If road transport moves away from fossil fuels the demand for (and price of) oil would plummet. Which is probably why there's so much resistance to the idea, at least until the moneymen can divest from oil.

It's not that 'people' need to plan for it. This is a top-down forced change. That means the government needs to plan for it. That means they need to increase infrastructure. There aren't enough homes in cities for everyone to move there. There are valid reasons for people living rurally. There are valid reasons for people needing commercial, off-road and 4wd vehicles. There are valid health, disability, age reasons why cycling/walking/public transport isn't suitable for over 20% of the population.

The capacity of the grid needs to be increased (again - only the government can do this) and it needs to happen in a way that doesn't put highly volatile and flammable battery-bank substations in deprived areas (this is their current stealth policy).

If the government is so out of touch that it thinks everyone's lives are like their inner circle ie two homes - one city/one countryside- with drivers or able to cycle to work or take public transport. They are completely ignoring the needs of the elderly, those with young families, those with disabilities and ignoring that public transport is expensive, unreliable, unsuitable for many and current provision is woefully inadequate for needs.

They may think it doesn't matter if the 'civilians' struggle but our economy depends on those people being able to work, shop and spend. The ball is firmly in the government's court.

I don't understand the panic here.

You will still be able to buy and sell petrol and diesel cars after 2030 but they will not be making any more.

I plan to buy my last diesel car in 2029 and that will see me out. Most people don't go out and buy a brand new car anyway so stop panicking and just make sure you have the best fuel driven car you can afford when the deadline comes so it will last you as long as possible.

Most fleet cars are already being changed to electric as there are incentives for companies to buy them. This means that by 2030 there will be lots of cheap second-hand electric cars around for those that want them. The Government is also actively trying to encourage companies to set up battery plants here so there should be more affordable replacement batteries for older cars and better re-cycling of the old ones.

Sorry to burst your bubble, this is bollocks.

I own a Toyota Hybrid self-charging, for a 1.8l petrol I get on average 65mpg and my ev time is around 35-50% of journeys, depending on where or how I drive.

Toyota offers me 10 years warranty and 15 on the battery.

How is that worst of both worlds?

There is not enough infrastructure for all electric cars yet, not enough plug in points or power

Non electrical cars will continue

People ate still driving classic petrol cars now

Maybe around 2050, when (if 2030 actually happens), the ICE cars are mostly scrapped - remember the average life is 13 years and many make it to 20!

Certainly throughout the 2030s there'll be no shortage of petrol stations. Maybe they'll starting thinning out and a few closing, which will probably accelerate in the 2040s.

You also have to remember that lorries aren't all going to be electric any time soon, so there'll still need to be filling stations for diesel, and they'd be insane to have diesel stations which didn't also have petrol, so the network or motorway filling stations, truck stops, etc., will be continuing for the foreseeable future.

So worse case scenario is maybe having to drive a few more miles for your petrol if your nearest filling station shuts - it certainly won't be "impractically long way away" simply because lorries need fuel (plus ICE cars needed for towing caravans, trailers, plus farm vehicles, etc etc.)