Any Colour You Like

Perhaps prompted by the reports that come 2040, Britain is to ban all new petrol and diesel cars, my daughter asked me last week if I would consider buying a hybrid, or an electric car in the near future. On balance, probably not, I replied, and the question may never need answering definitively since I will be into my eighties by the time the ban comes into force and for any number of reasons may no longer be driving anything.

The Toyota Prius, possibly the best-known hybrid on the market.

News of the UK's proposed ban comes hot on the heels of a similar announcement from the French government, and the decision by Volvo that all the cars they manufacture after 2019 will be entirely, or at least partially, battery-powered. The UK's move will also see the banning of hybrid vehicles, and so as with Henry Ford's remark in 1909 - that customers could have one of his Model-T's in any colour they liked, so long as it was black - come 2040, consumers will be able to buy any car they like, so long as it is electric, unless someone comes up with a viable alternative fuel source.[1]

Perhaps steampunk cars are the answer? Taken from repokar.com

The reasons for the proposed ban are clear and significant: air quality in UK cities, especially London, is so poor that it is thought to be responsible for at least 40,000 deaths every year.  Twelve-thousand people died in London in 1952 as a result of smog, resulting in the Clean Air Act of 1956, but whereas the so-called "Great Smog" was clear for all to see, the hazy conditions that are the only real outward sign of poor air quality today are easier to miss, but are having a marked and deleterious effect on our health. Obviously, something has to be done, and addressing pollution produced by cars with internal combustion engines is equally obviously a major part of the answer.

The Great Smog of 1952

But there is a whole raft of reasons why addressing the problem by banning cars needs a great deal more thought and consideration than I am prepared to give our legislators credit for. It is one thing to bring in laws to ban the sale of petrol driven vehicles, another thing entirely to comprehensively introduce such legislation without creating complete anarchy. Firstly, since the ban would be on new petrol and diesel vehicles only, the implication is that existing cars and vans on the roads in 2040 would not suddenly become illegal, but - although not currently stated - one imagines that existing vehicles would be given a deadline for scrapping, or at least incur punitive charges in terms of road tax and congestion charging. If not - and with current vehicles easily lasting twenty years or more - the proposed legislation could have little or no effect until 2060, or 2070 perhaps, unless other manufacturers follow Volvo's lead.

Then there is Fuel Duty, which for petrol and diesel currently amounts to 57.95 pence per litre and earns government the best part of £28billion per annum. No petrol or diesel vehicles means no Fuel Duty and a large chunk of government revenue lost, which would have to be recouped somewhere. Another means of fleecing the motorist - sorry, paying for the upkeep of the nation's roads - will need to be found.

Over half the price you pay at the pump is duty - and that is without VAT on top.

Driving or walking around my local neighbourhood, I have seen a few electric cars, but never seen one charging outside someone's property. And as the map below shows, public charging points in the area are thin on the ground. That is going to have to change if electric cars are to be a viable replacement for conventionally powered vehicles. And in our area - which I have no doubt is fairly typical - a very significant proportion of motorists park their cars at the road side, not in garages or on drives, so I remain curious as to how many of these motorists, who may have to park fifty yards or more from their front door, are going to charge their cars at home. Unless of course, there are public charging points every ten yards or so along the pavement.

Then there is the question of exactly where all the electricity needed to charge these cars is coming from? The National Grid, which has more than once in the recent past warned of potential power blackouts as demand outstrips supply, said recently that peak demand would increase by 50% if the country switches to electric vehicles. How will sufficient electricity be generated? There are suggestions that to cope with the increased demand for electricity, we would need to build ten nuclear power stations or erect 10,000 wind turbines. Given the controversy over the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear power station - not to mention the cost - I for one have absolutely no confidence that come 2040, the UK will be able to service all the electric vehicles that could be on our roads, either in terms of adequate supply or charging points. Unless we start now, building power stations at a rate hitherto unheard of, and covering the whole of the countryside with wind turbines and solar panels, in twenty-three years time there will be a whole load of cars that no one can drive because they cannot charge them up.

A designer's dream, never to be a reality?

Given that every new proposal, for every type of power station - be it nuclear, or coal fired, or wind farm - inevitably brings with it opposition from local residents and other pressure groups, and given that even once any objections have been overruled and planning approved, getting that installation contributing to the National Grid takes years, not weeks (Hinkley Point B came on stream in 1976, nine years after construction began), the announcement of the ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles ought really to have come after an agreement to build the requisite number of power stations, generating the necessary amount of power, had been reached.

Then there are the batteries that power electric cars. At present, the maximum range you will get out of an electric car is about 280 miles, but for that you need to buy the Tesla Model S, priced at a minimum of £57,000 - out of the question for the average motorist. For a reasonably priced car - let's say under £20,000 - the best you can get is the Renault ZOE (in fact it is just about the only one you can get) with a range of just about one-hundred miles, although if you can stretch to £30,000, one of their higher-spec models will run to 250 miles. If governments and car manufacturers are serious about converting us all to electric cars, then their maximum range - and battery charging times - are factors to which a whole lot of serious consideration must be given.

The Renault ZOE has a range that won't even get you from London to Bristol on a single charge.

The demise of the internal combustion engine and our conversion to electric cars is probably inevitable, but setting a date and sitting back and doing nothing else is not enough. Government -both national and local - legislators, energy suppliers, and car manufacturers need to get together now to start planning for 2040. If they don't then I shall not be sorry if by that time I have given up driving; possibly I would have no choice anyway.

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[1] Alternatives to petrol and diesel include steam and compressed air - I like the steampunk notion of a steam powered car. See https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/features/eight-alternative-vehicle-fuels-to-petrol-and-diesel-you-never-knew-about/