UK looks to ban on petrol car sales from 2030

[Jay_Benson]

There is a new initiative from the UK Government to distract everyone from the shambles in the Prime Ministers office by announcing that they are now looking to ban the sale of petrol and diesel engined cars from 2030 - moving it forward from 2040. The ban looks to include hybrid cars from 2035.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-54937277

However there is no mention of motorcycles. Previously the Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) managed to confirm that the 2040 ban did not extent to bikes - hopefully this will continue to be the case until such time as the technology and infrastructure is there.

https://www.mag-uk.org/mag-confirms-...r-motorcycles/

There remains the problem for the people on his forum that we are looking at the availability of refuelling points worldwide and for the “plug” to be of a consistent type.

[tremens]

As I see it UK government is looking for more and more trouble, it definitely wont last till 2030 anyway LOL

[Jay_Benson]

Originally Posted by tremens

As I see it UK government is looking for more and more trouble, it definitely wont last till 2030 anyway LOL

Are you referring to the year 2030 or the time 2030?

[brclarke]

Ridiculous. What happens to all the current ICE vehicles? I assume they will be 'grandfathered' but for how long? How many mechanics and others will be unemployed?

Not to mention that your average working Joe or Jane who needs a private vehicle doesn't have $40,000+ to buy a new electric car! But I guess we'll all just switch to riding bicycles...

[Tomkat]

Originally Posted by brclarke

Ridiculous. What happens to all the current ICE vehicles? I assume they will be 'grandfathered' but for how long? How many mechanics and others will be unemployed?

Not to mention that your average working Joe or Jane who needs a private vehicle doesn't have $40,000+ to buy a new electric car! But I guess we'll all just switch to riding bicycles...

Well the textbook answers would be that ICE vehicles will continue to operate and be supported for as long as they continue to run, but will gradually disappear by natural attrition as no new ones are being sold. In the meantime garages and the like would transition over to supporting EVs and it will become harder to find petrol stations.

As for ownership, most cars these days go on PCH plans so users don't feel the upfront ownership costs. Although rentals would be higher due to the production cost of the vehicles the lower running costs offset that, and you may find govt subsidies being thrown in as well. Ultimately a lot of the lobbies that are supporting the EV trend would be more than happy to see people abandoning personal car ownership and making more use of cycles, buses, etc.

Bikes needn't expect to be exempt for long. Transport planners already view them as dirtier per passenger mile than public transport or shared cars. Better get used to electric bikes, because if the car market fully goes over to EV bikes will have to follow. Remember what I said about petrol stations becoming scarce?

Whether it actually happens is another matter. It's easy to make a law, but laws can be unmade and if the country isn't ready for the changes that law will bring in, there will be irresistible pressure for a U-turn, or at least postponement. And the main reason is likely to be the country's energy generation and distribution ability. Millions of cars and bikes on the road today would be plugging into the electricity grid, drawing heavy current. Users without private charging points would face huge problems of finding public ones. Even using overnight supplies, when business and domestic use is lowest, the demand for electricity to charge EVs would be immense. You won't build new power generation stations and distribution networks in 10 years, even if you increase the availability of charging points.

Assuming it does all go ahead, whatever the date, it would have a massive impact on adventure motorcycling. If the LWU series on electric Harleys proved one thing, it's that electric bikes are useless outside of a well developed urban environment. Can you imagine taking an electric bike through Central Asia or along the Road of Bones? You can carry spare petrol without too much difficulty, not so spare electricity. This would present a dilemma, should we ride electric bikes which may be the only supported means of transport in developed nations, but which would be unusable outside them; or should we cling on to petrol powered bikes that can travel the world, as they become harder to fuel at home, hit by emissions taxes and with parts becoming scarce as they are no longer made?

[Mezo]

I think banning ICE vehicles from big city's is a good idea, i remember blowing my nose at night after a days work in London & it was black with diesel soot, but a nationwide ban is simply playing politics.

I feel many tree huggers fail to understand how electricity is generated (coal fired power stations) all they are doing is swapping one fossil fuel pollution for another, but it looks clean/green & keeps the ill informed thunberg millennial`s happy.

And besides, you think SE Asia or South America are going EV this century? nope.


Mezo.

[Jay_Benson]

And the solution is here