Electric only cars

[klondike]

It seems the inevitable kicking forward of the 2030 deadline has started. Only a partial slippage so far but I expect more to come as there is zero possibility that 2030 could ever be met and probably this sticking plaster will come adrift too IMO.

Brussels Cancels Looming Ban on Internal Combustion Engine Cars – U.K. Government "Prepared to Follow Suit"

A looming British ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine cars was thrown into chaos on Tuesday after Brussels watered down its own restrictions amid opposition from the German auto industry. The Telegraph has more.

Experts and politicians warned that British rules due to take effect in 2030 are untenable following the European climbdown, which will allow internal combustion engines as long as they burn carbon-neutral petrol alternatives.

The European Union will now ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2035 but permit these so-called e-fuels following a backroom compromise forced on it by the German authorities and signed off on Tuesday night.

Sources suggested that Whitehall was considering following the Commission's lead by also allowing an e-fuel exemption. British carmakers Aston Martin and McLaren are already understood to be examining e-fuels as an option for powering future models.

Critics of the Government's Net Zero plans seized on the European Union's decision as evidence that a total policy rethink is needed, while campaigners including Greenpeace have said that it could slow down electric vehicle adoption. ...

The former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: "The 2030 deadline for the elimination of petrol and diesel engine cars in the U.K. is simply not achievable. Unless we delay, we hand a massive boost to the Chinese car manufacturers. They are already dominant."

Britain is to ban the sale of new cars that run on petrol and diesel only in seven years' time under plans drawn up by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

New hybrids will still be allowed until 2035, at which point the U.K. will only permit fully electric cars and other zero-emission [sic] vehicles, such as those which burn hydrogen.

The EU's e-fuel exemption will allow a synthetic alternative to petrol which is made by mixing carbon dioxide captured from the air with hydrogen obtained by splitting water molecules using renewable energy.

This is expected to be far more expensive than petrol, meaning it will initially benefit high-end carmakers whose customers will not be put off by the costs involved.

However, Benedetto Vigna, the boss of Ferrari, said this week that he expects the price to fall in coming years and experts believe it could be the thin end of a wedge that would allow carmakers to focus on producing lower-cost e-fuels instead of expensive battery powered cars.

Andrew Graves, a car industry veteran and professor at the University of Bath, said: "I think it's a very exciting technology that we're looking at, so that we can not only use it for things like motorsport, but we can also more importantly use it for keeping existing vehicles on the road. I think there's a lot of things that the Government needs to look at before it goes hell bent on just having a blanket ban on diesel or petrol."

Mr Graves added that there is already a risk that not enough electric car chargers and battery-making plants will have been built when the ban takes effect – a problem that may worsen if carmakers sense it is being watered down. ...

The Telegraph understands that the British Government is prepared to follow the EU's lead, with the Department for Transport understood to be amenable towards synthetic fuels so long as the industry can prove that they will be carbon neutral. ...

Greg Smith, a Tory MP who sits on the Transport Select Committee, said: "Groupthink has dictated battery electric to be the way forward for too long when we're already seeing the technology fail and not develop at the pace people need. The 2030 ambition isn't realistic in the first place and we need the innovators and the automotive companies to be given the time and space to produce a time and space and not just jump to the betamax that's available now."

The original story is in the Telegraph but paywalled.
This is from https://dailysceptic.org/2023/03/29/brussels-cancels-looming-ban-on-internal-combustion-engine-cars-u-k-government-prepared-to-follow-suit/

[Michael Rolls]

I am beginning to believe that, like the Red Queen in Alice, a prime qualification to be a politician in the UK - all and any part - is to believe six impossible things before breakfast. Given the state of our economy and infrastructure how can anyone with even half a brain - and that in sleep mode- believe 2030 was either achievable or an exercise in bloody chaos?

[Diasi]

The cost of the e-fuel will, no doubt, be beyond the means of many who can't afford an electric car.

I'll be ok with £20 per gallon as I do a very low mileage. 

[Raven]

I will stick with my diesel 4x4, they will have to pry the keys out of my dead hand, I simply will not have an electric car......No thank you very much. Himself feels much the same way.

[Michael Rolls]

me too - I have a hybrid, but only bloody duress. The sheer stupidity of this rush to net zero, no new ICEs, etc., heat pumps, defies common sense, never mind understanding. Is terminal stupidity a prerequisite to be a politician nowadays?

[klondike]

I bought a new petrol one month ago...

[JBR]

Yes, the EU (Germany, I suppose) has ditched its bright idea for now, no doubt to the benefit of the German car makers.
Naturally, we don't have any say, partly because we are not in the EU (thankfully), but more importantly because our backward MPs still seem to believe that the world is going to end unless we become all-electric!

I, too, will never buy an electric car.  I'm 70, not in the best of health, and so either I'll buy another new ICE car before 2030, or I'll do my best to keep this one going.
Strangely, VW (like our car) is a German brand, yet has decided to go all-electric and has discontinued the Golf.

[Ashy]

Is terminal stupidity a prerequisite to be a politician nowadays?

Yes. At the very least they have to believe that they will not have to live by the stupidity they wreak.

[dextrous63]

Cloud cuckoo land.  I doubt there ever was a proper intention to make it happen because it was never viable in the first place.

[Diasi]

Who in their right mind would buy any of these, although some tosser in Gainsborough has actually got a Citroen Ami which works as a traffic calmer as it's top speed is 28mph, & that's on a flat road.

It does about 20mph on the slightest of inclines.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/electric-cars/top-10-cheapest-electric-cars

[Michael Rolls]

I am beginning to think that the government is infected with corporate insanity. Can't find the source at the moment, but yesterday I read that next year at least 22% of car manufacturers' output must be all electric. For every vehicle by which a manufacturer fails to meet this arbitrary target they will be fined £15,000. Power is going to their collective head.
The windfall tax on gas and oil producers has proven every bit as disastrous as critics warned - 90% oc companies have reduced or ceased investment in the field, citing the tax raid and uncertainty over what the government will do next.
  does the government think it is doing - trying to ruin the country?

[Raven]

I bought a new petrol one month ago...

I wish my Yeti Girl was a petrol one. It's the only thing I don't like about it.

[klondike]

The ancient Peugeot 1.6 diesel I had would occasionally register 70 mpg on a run and rarely registered much less than 50 mpg overall. My petrol cars since haven't matched that.

[Raven]

My problem is that damn stupid dpf filter, the light is always coming on. Garage says I don't drive enough, and then I need to roar down the A9 in 3rd gear to burn the soot off. It does my head in. I think I drive plenty, over 100 miles a week.

[klondike]

Taxi drivers have similar issues. They solve it (illegally) by having the thing removed and the car software fiddled to get rid of the warning light   Replacing a DPF is expensive. I never had an issue with that but maybe my diesel car was built before the became compulsary. I'll see what google has to say.