2030

[Darnpistonbroke]

So, how about it? This magical date set for just over 9 years time? is this the end of motorsport as we know it? Piston engines and horsepower gone? Formula 1, rallying, Le Mans?
Sad times ahead I think.
I think that now this date has been set, motorsport will start changing from right now as development for tomorrows cars start right now on the track. But if there is no tomorrow to develop into......
Electric racing just cant be the same. I cant see how endurance races such as Le Mans can go electric. Time will tell I guess.

Although the planet comes first and rightly so, this seems to be a bit of a knee jerk reaction to a problem that has been apparent for decades. The transition should have started years ago at a slower pace. The government have created quite a monster in various guises over the past twenty odd years, I guess its up to us, the public to foot the bill!

Just sayin'.

David.

[Gatwick Axe Man]

And we might want to think about putting our trailers, caravans, horse boxes, boats etc on Ebay while they are still worth a few quid.

The camping holiday to France is going to become a thing of the past pretty damn quick unless you want to spend half of it charging your fancy, no tax (for now) multi mile "car". "ooh mine has a 250 mile range, how far does yours go"?

So I can make it to Portsmouth so long as there's no one else in the car and I don't actually take anything with me, and I should have enough charge to get off the ferry (the one that has NO charge points on board) and hopefully find a French charging point that I can sit at for several hours, so long as it fits my English car. I can then drive for another 3 hours, so long as I don't use the air con' or indicate or have the radio on or use sat nav' or........ and then I sit for yet more hours at another French charge point, assuming of course that both countries have the electricity capacity to charge the thousands of cars that now don't do more than 250 miles before stopping. So how many clean (nuclear) power stations will be needed to power the "green revolution" and how many years will the public enquiry's take because the tree huggers couldn't possibly have "those things all over the country"!

And when do the government start charging (money) and taxing the whole damn electric car industry? About as soon as they calculate the loss in revenue from fuel duty!

As an after thought, the ban is only for "new" cars as far as I can work out? So mine "will" be finished before then and "will" have and age related plate and "will not" be "new". Sorted, off to France in the Cobra. Where's that thread on tow bars?

Graham.

[dgosumo]

Isn't it 2035 for Hybrids - do F1 cars count as Hybrids?

[aaronjb]

And when do the government start charging (money) and taxing the whole damn electric car industry? About as soon as they calculate the loss in revenue from fuel duty!

Rishi is reported to be eyeing up a per-mile charging scheme - I guess that would come in with the new cars in 2030 when they are all reporting their current position/speed/etc back "home"

[Gatwick Axe Man]

Is an electric car not already (technically) a hybrid?

Fossil fuel burning engine connected to a generator transmits electricity down a wire to be stored for use at a later time?

[AKBaz]

Stupid, stupid, stupidity.
Ban fossil fuel vehicle sales after 2030, might as well call an end now for new vehicle sales. Who in their right mind is going to buy a new car, maybe for the next 5 years but after that just buy a decent second hand one.
I was looking at an email from Mercedes Benz commercial, their new Sprinter will do a laughable 75 miles on a full charge albeit with no weight onboard, lights or wipers radio on etc, all for £45,000 + vat lol.
Trying to force the future will only punish the poorer working and middle class. This idiotic knee jerk policy will mean the Conservatives will lose my vote.

Baz

[simon]

Jonny Smith (late brake show, car pervert) has done a nice piece on an electric MGB. New shell, independent suspension 160-200 mile range.......a lovely thing, but 88 GRAND!
The future’s expensive if the future’s electric.
Simon

[KevinW]

There will still be millions of petrol/diesel guzzling cars on the road for many many years to come. The slight worry is what road tax class they may be put into, but when the govt cannot afford to kill the haulage industry I see no end to filling stations for a good few decades.
Hybrids will be where the wiggle room is. And if current Spanish law is anything to go by (where a Hybrid is basically a gas guzzler with a diddy starter motor on the back wheels that can move the car at 5 mph for a few minutes) then there will be loop holes in place to ensure
there is no great disruption to the car industry and fleet sales.

I think a lot of this is designed to encourage more manufacture of electric vehicles, which will stimulate more demand which will drive down prices. I think I saw a statistic a few years ago that the largest group that buys new cars is the over 55s that want a little run around pre/post retirement. EVs fit the bill. For other applications I cannot see how EVs can fill the usage gap.

I dont know what we'll do with all that spent heavy metal battery tech, but hey ho.

The whole thing is just a dead-cat distraction from the current crisis and a need to show some longer-term leadership- its a bit like George Osbourne's Northern Powerhouse: lots of mouth, and no trousers.
Anyway, Boris will be gone in a few years time and Sunak will Conservative leader. Whatever you think of the current lot, and with Cummings gone, Sunak is about the only one that demonstrates he does have a brain, albeit bathed in liquid ego.

[aaronjb]

I dont know what we'll do with all that spent heavy metal battery tech, but hey ho.

That's your grandchildren's children's problem, so who cares? I believe that is the government approach You know, the same way we dealt with nuclear byproducts by shipping them off to other, lower class, unscrupulous countries and then acting surprised when our recycled metal turns out to be radioactive (https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...e-scrap-metal/ - same story is repeated every few years with a different thing showing up as radioactive and coming from either Russia, India, China or South America)

[ChrisP]

EV’s are not the answer in my view. Even with battery advances it will remain too complicated and inflexible. I can see hydrogen as a better solution.
So much waste in the national grid distribution too. So even if the infrastructure is in place the losses in efficiency would be vast without a localised energy solution.
Let’s face it, most people in densely populated towns and cities just don’t have the accessibility to charging points and never will purely due to space and logistics.
Just can’t see it working. I fear a lot of wasted money and effort before it becomes obvious though.
Mind you, the thought of hydrogen freely available has its issues. A lot of people can’t be trusted to light a barbecue safely never mind use hydrogen!!