Banning petrol and diesel cars !

[68 beeper]

Any one heared of the ban coming in from 2032 ?...

[ChrisN34]

Wont ever happen. They may ban the sale of new petrol/diesel cars, but they will never ban existing cars.

[Blue]

Yes, the push towards electric is gaining momentum, none of the major manufactures will be making combustion engined vehicles for much longer. within 10 years London could ban petrol and diesel vehicles and other cities will follow. Given that there is very little profit in selling petrol these days, once the demand has dropped off it will become much more expensive or garages will just close. Petrol not being freely available rather than legislation is what is going to cause us problems IMO.

[Dave999]

they will end up turning central london into something akin to the CBD of LA i.e run down full of discount stores and closed up places....

everyone drives ro out of town shopping areas or they did must admit i have not been for 15 years

[MrNorm]

I wouldn't hasten the end of IC engines! The transition to electric will take quite a while, and even once the battery technology is adequate (charge times/range/weight) the infrastructure to support the massive amounts of electricity required is going to require a lot of thought and money. You'd need a substation at every motorway services if you want to use the grid. And multiple new powerstations. So will need massive amounts of renewable electricity (sun/wind) and a way to transport that easily cheaply from where it is produced, or produce it locally where it is needed. Either way, with wind/solar it makes sense to have a way to store it because the cost of generating is not substantial compared to the cost of investment, and also so you can use what you need when you want it. Enter power-to-liquids or power-to-gas. Basically once you have enough renewable sources of electricity with cheap enough power, there are quite a few ways to convert it to liquid or gaseous fuels (hydrogen and methane=>methanol being good ones) which make it very energy dense, and either zero carbon (hydrogen) or carbon neutral (methanol if you use CO2 to make it) if you burn it. You can even synthesise petrol and diesel, though not sure that would be the best choice. There are good reasons why liquid fuels may still be needed (airplanes, possibly trucks etc). So although none of this will happen with classic cars in mind, I'm very hopeful that we will have future 'green' , liquid fuels that we can run in our cars!! And maybe even make affordably from our own wind turbine in the garden!!

[Super Sloth]

The proposal is to ban sales of new petrol / diesel by 2040. A car has a life cycle of 12 years in theis country so by 2052 you'll start seeing the closing down of a lot of fuel stations.
4 star was phased out a long time ago, but you can still get hold of it if you want it?

I reccon we've got about 33 years worth of being able to get petrol easily. That'd make me 66, assuming I live that long? Average age is 77 so I reccon I'll be alright.

[ScottyDave]

33yrs you reckon well I'll be in my eighties so I'd be happy with that, if I make it

[morgan]

Or this...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48956000

[Blue]

With yesterdays huge electricity supply failures, we are clearly not ready for hundreds of thousands of cars to start plugging into the national grid...

[Stu]

Spot on, Blue.

[morgan]

Couldnt agree more; but this is politics, not common sense.
The car is now satan and the electric push is gonna happen regardless.

Wont make a jot of difference. China and India will continue burning millions of tons of toxins and a few liberals in eco-cars over here wont make even the tiniest dent I'm afraid As I said, its politics, not actual positive action.

[Blue]

Yes of course it's politics, under the guise of tackling the environment it's really about raising revenue and selling new cars. Electric cars aren't the answer, and at some point they will be scorned in the same way diesels have IMO.

[mr m]

lots of my customers have been slagging the cars like tesla as long journeys for these cars is a pain due to power top ups needed and our the stations with the facilities are somewhat few in the real world electric is not the way to go for a long time, hybrid is the current best bet to be green
this makes sense