Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Boris Johnson has demonstrated a spectacular lack of empathy for vulnerable people who cannot afford an electric vehicle.
Ban on new petrol and diesel cars in UK from 2030 under PM’s green plan
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analystNew cars and vans powered wholly by petrol and diesel will not be sold in the UK from 2030, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.
But some hybrids would still be allowed, he confirmed.
It is part of what Mr Johnson calls a “green industrial revolution” to tackle climate change and create jobs in industries such as nuclear energy.
Critics say the £4bn allocated to implement the 10-point plan is far too small for the scale of the challenge.
The total amount of new money announced in the package is a 25th of the projected £100bn cost of high-speed rail, HS2.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54981425
To his credit Boris Johnson has backed more nuclear power, so when the renewables fail some of the lights will stay on.
But the fossil fuel ban will hurt a lot of ordinary people.
Late night public transport in Britain is unsafe, particularly in high crime areas. A few weeks ago a NHS worker was assaulted and left with severe injuries after asking fellow passengers to wear a mask.
But even without Covid-19 there are risks.
In 2018 London tube operators installed metal detectors to try to curb spiralling knife crime, but only stupid criminals carry metal knives. Criminals in London frequently carry ceramic or plastic knives which don’t register on a metal detector.
Aside from the risk of being assaulted by gangs of professional muggers, travelling on London public transport late at night frequently means sharing a carriage with staggering drunks and tailored suit psychotics who have been snorting cocaine all evening.
Outside London late night public transport, if it is available at all, means long waits at dimly illuminated and often lonely bus interchanges.
Boris Johnson’s affordable vehicle ban will rip the safety net of having personal transport away from junior hospital nurses and other vulnerable late shift workers who cannot afford an EV.
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2029 will be a blockbuster year for ICE vehicle sales in the UK if this edict lasts that long, which I doubt.
“vulnerable people who cannot afford an electric vehicle.
These people most likely cant afford petrol car anyway.
2nd hand cars can last years, so its not going to change overnight.
I think it a bit like NZ ban on smoking in 2025.
(by then smoking dope will be ok thou )
It most likely not going to happen then as the government makes so much money from smokes.
Time for Nigel Farage to return & put the Tories feet to the fire. Apparently COVID made Boris’s brain go left.
The UK joins Australia in the list of countries that import all their cars.
Get a horse! Do it now because it takes them a long time to get a clue.
Critics are correct. Has anyone done a calculation of what the resulting increased electricity demand will be and what additional capacity will be required to meet it? In addition to adding capacity, the UK government will have to make up the lost fuel tax revenue.
Then there is the increased cost to new vehicle owners.
Conveniently, the 2021 Consumer Reports Buying Guide arrived this week. In the new car section there are listings for internal combustion, hybrid and pure battery electric vehicles. Prices are MSRP in US Dollars. There may be differences in trim which are not noted in the listings.
In the “Compact Electrics” category, prices range between $38,115 for the Nissan Leaf SV up to $47,270 for the Kia Niro EV (EX Premium). And that is excluding the outlier of $53,095 for the BMW i3 Giga Rex.
In the “Compact Hybrids and Plug-Ins” section, prices range from $24,129 for the Toyota Corolla LE to $29,889 for the Toyota Prius Prime Premium. There is no indication I could find for which ones are regular hybrids and which are plug-ins. If you compare the lowest price models in each category there is a 58% premium for the lowest priced electric over the lowest priced hybrid. There is also a 58% premium difference on the highest priced models (again, excluding the BMW).
In the “Small Sedans (internal combustion)” section the prices range from $17,220 for the Kia Rio S to $24,115 for the Mazda3 Select. There are two models listed in the $17-18K range and two more in the $18-19K range, so the Kia Rio is not that much of an outlier. Looking at the low-to-low and high-to-high comparisons again: 121% premium for the low-end electric and 96% premium for the high-end one.
Most interestingly, there one model with both full-EV and hybrid versions:
EV Kira Niro : $47,270 —- Hybrid: $26,805 (76% premium for the EV)
There are also “Small Sedan” in both Hybrid and internal combustion versions:
Toyota Corolla LE (hybrid): $24,129 — (ICE): $23,530 (2.5% premium for the hybrid).
In other sections there are other cases of hybrid and internal combustion equivalents:
Toyota Camry LE (hybrid): $28,949 — (4cyl): $26,364 (9.8% premium)
Honda Accord EX (hybrid): $29,780 — (4cyl): $28,345 (5% premium)
Ford Fusion SE (hybrid): $28,290 — (4cyl): 27,720 (2% premium)
Based on recollection, I believe the hybrid premium has come down from several years back. One model, the Lincoln MKZ shows the same price for both hybrid and ICE versions.
So the net effects of banning new internal combustion vehicles are:
* New cars will cost considerably more if pure EV, slightly more if hybrid. If the ban extends to hybrids later, everyone pays more.
* Fuel tax revenue will decline
* Additional electric generation capacity will need to be installed, and at least some mains upgraded.
I don’t know what portion of UK population live in apartments and other multi-family structures, but those that do will probably not have a charge-at-home-at-night option.
I’ve often wondered why, if we really have a climate emergency requiring a massive restructuring of the industrial sector, are we still paying for people to get degrees in subjects that can’t possibly contribute? Make all the non-STEM students shift to studying something useful. We do not need “Marxist Film Studies” graduates.
Alan, I did a rough calculation tonight, We need about another 50GW of generation – so we need to double the UK grid. Now the only feasible way to do that to build 20 large nukes, but the whole grid needs to increase in capacity. I would say that is a £300bn project more or less.
Before you add in the cost of charging stations.
if you try to do it with windmills batteries and solar panels it simply will not happen at all.
Ain’t gonna happen. It’s virtue signalling nonsense by Boris so Carrie (Princess NutNuts) will let him back in the bedroom
This is a direct consequence of something you might not even think about – back when they dictated what kind of light bulbs could be sold. Once they found out they could dictate that, they are now using the same logic to dictate other things.
Had they NOT dictated what kind of light bulb you can use, millions of compact fluorescent bulbs would not now be contaminating waste sites with mercury, and the much more efficient LED lights would have caught on faster. These elites never stop to consider learning the consequences of past mistakes – they just move on and remake them.
At least in the U.K you can drive a significant percent of the land distance before needing to recharge. In the U.S., and especially places like Texas electric cars make no sense except for inner city driving. My daily commute was 60 miles a day (30 each way) with random traffic jams. You almost always have either the air conditioner or heater running (although this year has been strange, weather has remained pleasant longer than usual). If you tack on a business meeting or two…forget it – you are going to be walking.
I will convert my truck to propane before I give it up.
Apparently they the ‘ScienceAdvisors’ as heard on BBCRadio4 a few times, assuming I recall correctly, are suggesting our EV’s, well those that can afford them IF there is enough Cobalt even just for UK (Note: Believe from previous WUWT articles Slave Labour Cobalt Mining is involved), will be provide some of the UKNationalGridStorage – NeedsA Check
The Joy of Midwittery. Obviously people will pay tens of thousands of pounds for electric car batteries which wear out after a limited number of cycles and then hook them up to the grid so the government can suck the power out of their car at any time to save having to buy batteries to provide grid power.
It takes time to gen up a crisis with bad management at the national level.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/desperate-fuel-venezuelans-steal-pdvsa-120211381.html
Venezuela is a good reminder for people who believe “they couldn’t possibly be that stupid.”
Its very difficult to change the minds off people who believe their entitlements are more important than their efforts. Even when they are starving they sit and wait for someone else to provide for them.
At no level is this timetable realistic .
Just consider who much worked would be required to have the charging points for all these EV’s , think of the millions that have no street not private parking , meaning you have to dig up countless pavements.
And then deal with supply and vandalism for all those points.
And they still have failed to deal with the there killers , range ,cost and charging .
While how many people do you think will have any hope of paying 30,000 plus for car ?
There is a very good reason that second hand cars sales are so large, and that is affordability .
Empty gesture that will leave a problem for someone else. With a return to all those right hand drive ‘nearly new’ cars from the EU , that used to occur because the significant costs difference or manufacture rip offs that used to occur.
Boris is badly fumbling the Brexit. He got off to a good start but we suspect that Princess Carrie is a remoaner as well as a green believer, and she’s getting her way.
There are more important things that the Australians should have been concerned about.
“A low-flying space rock set a record last Friday (appropriately, the 13th), when 2020 VT4 passed just under 400 kilometers (250 miles) over the Southern Pacific, 2020 VT4 would have certainly been visible as a fast-moving, +3 magnitude ‘star’ on its out-bound leg south of Tasmania in the pre-dawn sky.
The asteroid was spotted by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii in the early morning hours of Saturday, November 14, just 15 hours after approach. This is not uncommon for fast-movers, especially asteroids that are coming at the Earth from our sunward blind spot, like 2020 VT4.
The asteroid- 2020 VT4 is estimated to be 5 to 10 meters (16-32 feet) across, about the size of a small house. Earth just missed occupying the same space as the perihelion point for the asteroid, which occurred just 20 hours prior to Earth passage.”
more here : https://phys.org/news/2020-11-asteroid-vt4-skimmed-earth.html
If the UK really believes that the use of fossil fuels is bad the they should immediately ban the use of all goods and services that make any use of fossil fuels either directly or indirectly. Such a ban if fully enforced would lead to a very rapid depopulation of the British Isles which would be a great help to reforestation efforts there. Considering that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control, the elimination of all fossil fuel use and the depopulation of the British Isles would have no effect on global climate.
The lack of knowledge is stupefying. Where do they think the electricity will come from for the electric vehicles ? Do they have a dozen new nuclear plants in the pipeline ? I wonder what happens to the price of electric batteries as the rare earth elements become harder to find ?
Johnson may know that in 2030 AMO and European temperatures are half way to cool bottom, and nobody is interested in carbon dioxide anymore. So the promise can be then forgotten.
The IONITI EVcharging company run by German hi-end car manufacturers charges (ha!) 0.69 euros per kWh. So a Leaf full top up costs you about £30 for c. 180 miles. And 3 hours? In five minutes I can put 480 miles into my clean Adblu diesel for £55. Bargain . What are charges here?
This is so frustrating. People don’t vote for turncoats. There is an element of trust in voting and when this sort of thing happens you feel like you may have well as voted for Corbyn.
God, I hate politicians.
The choice in pretty much every Western democracy is ‘bad government or worse government’.
It takes money to change the political landscape and almost all of the people with money want to preserve the status quo.
Yep, I read about this yesterday. At least 40 million cars off the roads by 2030, ban on new ICE powered cars, everyone who wants a personal vehicle it must be electrically powered and all road users will be charged GBP1.40/mile.
I wonder to what extent the drive to make transport and energy unaffordable has to do with the self-proclaimed elites:
a) wanting to stop the ‘lower classes’ from clogging up their favorite holiday destinations;
b) basking in a little bit of schadenfreude from crapping on the ‘lower classes’; and
c) being genuinely concerned about human pressure on the environment and convinced that the only solution is to curtail the travel and consumption of the ‘lower classes’?
The UK should have room for a party of realism soon, it would appear.
Doesn’t matter. The next election is several years away. By then the UK auto industry will have been shut down.
Exported to the EU
I may have missed it, but I can’t see any comment about what happens if other countries and their car manufacturers don’t follow suit. What happens to UK exports if overseas customers don’t want electric cars?
“ianprsy November 19, 2020 at 3:28 pm
What happens to UK exports if overseas customers don’t want electric cars?”
I worked for Honda in Swindon in the 90’s. There was significant overcapacity in the industry then. Most surplus cars were shipped off to the channel islands. There are vast tracts of land where new and near-new cars parked up for disposal.
What one wants will become irrelevant, there won’t be a choice. We know how these sorts of elitist draconian policies, eventually, turn out.
But the major European and EU manufacturers ARE following suit!
The EU requires manufacturers to achieve low carbon standards across their range of cars offered for sale: for every gas guzzling SUV or high performance car you sell, you have to balance it with EV sales.
This is driving an enormous investment in EU EV building.
(Every other car advert on UK TV is for EV or PHEV).
On a separate note: UK car exports are probably doomed by a no deal Brexit: Every major manufacturer is on record as saying they’ll move to the EU if its no deal record. I can give you the quotes if challenged.
(There are no entirely British car makers in the UK any more: all foreib owned/run)
“griff November 20, 2020 at 12:37 am”
Where do EU car makers make there cars? Hint: It’s, largely, not in the EU.
Morgan?
Is that ALL diesel vehicle sales? IOW do they think they are going to get by with electric commercial trucks?
Morons.
And our very own Great Leadder, he with the spotted socks, wants the same.
Morons.
Interestingly, they do not expect to be around to test the plan in 2030. Probably enjoying the good life eating Swiss bank accounts.
That British brand of “populism” is very bizarre.
COVID-19 was a prequel for “climate action” for the UK.