Government brings car zero emissions deadline forward to 2035 | NEWS

 

Currently (pardon the pun) there are no sustainable, useable and affordable (to the average man/woman or gender neutral person) long-range electric cars. The general population can’t afford to swap to electric on a whim and they aren’t useful for Fred and Mavis if they want to do their two-week family holiday to Cornwall.

 

Trip hazard 

 

Not only that but we haven’t got the infrastructure to charge millions of them on the street (or outside peoples houses on the road if they have no drive/garage etc.). Imagine the risk assessment with thousands of extension leads crossing roads/pavements in the cities? 

 

Despite that, and the fact that battery production is harmful to the environment. Plus research from the University of Liège in Belgium that found it can take up to 435,000 miles before a 60kWh electric car using a battery made in Europe is “Greener than the average petrol car.” Boris Johnson has announced ahead of the COP26 Climate Summit, that the government has decided to bring their self-imposed 2040 deadline for the ban of all new fossil fuel cars in Great Britain forward by five years to 2035.  That’s not far away.

 

By my dubious maths, it’s only 15 years…

 

That’s just 15 years before you can no longer buy new petrol, or diesel-powered cars and for the first time, that ruling has been made to include hybrid vehicles and plug-in hybrids as well (not good news for companies who have spent billions developing hybrids). 15 years isn’t a long time, think back fifteen years to 2005 when the Arctic Monkeys were at number one in the charts with I bet you look good on the dancefloor and Tony Christie spent seven weeks at the top with the Peter Kay revived Amarillo. It seems like only yesterday. It was also the year when the Vespa GTS 250 first arrived. 

 

"Ooh look it's one of those old fuelling machines..."
“Ooh look it’s one of those old fuelling machines…”

 

What about our scooters?

 

At the moment it’s unclear how powered two-wheelers will fare into this new transport regime, although the Department of Transport said it won’t immediately affect two wheels. Don’t for one minute think that we’ll escape though. Cars are on Euro 6 at the minute, whilst Powered Two Wheelers/tricycles/quads are just on to Euro 5 (it came in on Jan 1st but will really take hold from Jan 2021). Each Euro classification slowly strangles our machines, emissions are reduced by around a third with each new Euro level. Think of it as a long term smoker with COPD. 

 

Although electrifying bikes and scooters is all the rage and they make a great city/town or short commute option – you can’t currently tour the country, Europe or the world on one. Unless you like hanging around beside a three-pin plug for hours on end. 

 

We’d better hope that some adventurous boffins (hopefully this forthcoming two-stroke Formula One tech will help) create synthetic clean-burning fuels that can confine these electric vehicles to the hazardous waste bin or we’re all doomed…  

 

 

UK Electric sales stats 2019

 

  • Last year, 37,850 battery-powered electric vehicles were sold in the UK – one every 15-minutes according to research. That’s a 144% increase on the previous year but still only accounted for 1.6% of the total UK new car market.
  • 1,498,640 petrol-powered cars were sold last year (64.8% of the market)
  • 583,488 diesel cars were sold in the same period (25.2% market share)

SLUK Shop – spend money on our plastics, have less cash for fuel – saving the environment since 2016

800-9

 

Currently (pardon the pun) there are no sustainable, useable and affordable (to the average man/woman or gender neutral person) long-range electric cars. The general population can’t afford to swap to electric on a whim and they aren’t useful for Fred and Mavis if they want to do their two-week family holiday to Cornwall.

 

Trip hazard 

 

Not only that but we haven’t got the infrastructure to charge millions of them on the street (or outside peoples houses on the road if they have no drive/garage etc.). Imagine the risk assessment with thousands of extension leads crossing roads/pavements in the cities? 

 

Despite that, and the fact that battery production is harmful to the environment. Plus research from the University of Liège in Belgium that found it can take up to 435,000 miles before a 60kWh electric car using a battery made in Europe is “Greener than the average petrol car.” Boris Johnson has announced ahead of the COP26 Climate Summit, that the government has decided to bring their self-imposed 2040 deadline for the ban of all new fossil fuel cars in Great Britain forward by five years to 2035.  That’s not far away.

 

By my dubious maths, it’s only 15 years…

 

That’s just 15 years before you can no longer buy new petrol, or diesel-powered cars and for the first time, that ruling has been made to include hybrid vehicles and plug-in hybrids as well (not good news for companies who have spent billions developing hybrids). 15 years isn’t a long time, think back fifteen years to 2005 when the Arctic Monkeys were at number one in the charts with I bet you look good on the dancefloor and Tony Christie spent seven weeks at the top with the Peter Kay revived Amarillo. It seems like only yesterday. It was also the year when the Vespa GTS 250 first arrived. 

 

"Ooh look it's one of those old fuelling machines..." “Ooh look it’s one of those old fuelling machines…”

 

What about our scooters?

 

At the moment it’s unclear how powered two-wheelers will fare into this new transport regime, although the Department of Transport said it won’t immediately affect two wheels. Don’t for one minute think that we’ll escape though. Cars are on Euro 6 at the minute, whilst Powered Two Wheelers/tricycles/quads are just on to Euro 5 (it came in on Jan 1st but will really take hold from Jan 2021). Each Euro classification slowly strangles our machines, emissions are reduced by around a third with each new Euro level. Think of it as a long term smoker with COPD. 

 

Although electrifying bikes and scooters is all the rage and they make a great city/town or short commute option – you can’t currently tour the country, Europe or the world on one. Unless you like hanging around beside a three-pin plug for hours on end. 

 

We’d better hope that some adventurous boffins (hopefully this forthcoming two-stroke Formula One tech will help) create synthetic clean-burning fuels that can confine these electric vehicles to the hazardous waste bin or we’re all doomed…  

 

 

UK Electric sales stats 2019

 

  • Last year, 37,850 battery-powered electric vehicles were sold in the UK – one every 15-minutes according to research. That’s a 144% increase on the previous year but still only accounted for 1.6% of the total UK new car market.
  • 1,498,640 petrol-powered cars were sold last year (64.8% of the market)
  • 583,488 diesel cars were sold in the same period (25.2% market share)

SLUK Shop – spend money on our plastics, have less cash for fuel – saving the environment since 2016