A group of environmental and aid organisations has spoken out, claiming that the government’s controversial plan to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040 doesn’t go far enough. Instead, they want to see polluting motors shown the crusher by 2030. The group states that bringing the deadline forward by a decade could serve to halve the country’s oil imports.
Such a situation will offer cold comfort to those drivers who are already concerned about junking their cars and upgrade to potentially more pricey, low-emission equivalents by the time the ban is brought in.
Benefits for all?
The report argues that moving the ban’s date forward by ten years will slash pollution and create genuine opportunities for investment in Britain’s infrastructure, as well as cutting down on oil imports by 51% come 2035. Gareth Redmond-King, head of climate and energy at WWF, stated,
“To ensure the UK doesn’t miss out on the jobs and investment opportunity in clean, modern vehicles, the UK should up its ambition. Cleaning up transport and boosting home energy efficiency must be priorities for the UK government in the forthcoming clean growth plan.”
The government is readying itself to publish said plan, which will set out how the UK intends to cut its carbon emissions to meet targets set under EU law. It must be hoping that this time the plan will actually go through, as previous attempts have been met with legal action by environmental campaigners.
Something must change
Research shows that, in 2016, transport made up 40% of the UK’s total energy consumption. Road transportation accounted for three-quarters of that figure. In addition, 40,000 premature deaths per year are linked to nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel and petrol vehicles. However, there are real concerns about how quickly a reduction in our energy consumption demands can be ‘hurried’ along – and if our energy supply infrastructure can take the strain even by the existing 2040 deadline.
The National Grid has already warned that plugging in your electric car outside your home could mean boiling a kettle inside your house will blow a fuse. Such warnings foreshadow how our local and national infrastructure might struggle to cope with a serious spike in energy demand.
Scaling the issues
Many solutions to polluting combustion engines are being touted, including the rollout of huge numbers of charging stations and electric cars that can recharge in mere minutes, not hours. Even so, the change will require project management on a scale rarely seen before in the UK.
Whether the cut-off date remains as 2040 or, as campaigners hope, is brought forward to 2030, serious questions and a seeming lack of a coordinated response still remain a real concern for the most important people in this ongoing process – us, the drivers.
Is the demand to bring the petrol and diesel ban forward the right move for Britain? Or are such plans ignoring the needs and realities of everyday life? Let us know your views below.
The whole thing is wrong. It should.be hydrogen cars. Just like HS2 is wrongly concived.
HS2 like Hinkley Point is another gov quango. designed to give a short boost to employment and a big boost to gov friends pockets.
Not all of us can afford brand new electric cars so bang goes my job
Agreed. and our leisure and holidays…….oh and yes it will then hit the economy
Good news, you’ve got 23 years to save for a second hand one!
Compromise at 2035 ???
Join the discussion Does the proposal cover marine also if so do ocean liners have to be crushed along with all lifeboats and pleasure craft?. what about all classic cars and motorcycles.
This is idiotic, they are banning new diesel cars from 2040, the headlines are misleading, and the ban is idiotic. It is older diesels that are polluting, not new cars which have sophisticated emission control systems.
The pollution problems are from older diesels, mainly buses, coaches and commercial vehicles, by 2040 the vast majority will not exist. Certainly the vast majority of diesel cars that are now over ten years old will have been scrapped by 2040.
So what will banning new clean diesels do?
Like brexit it will decimate the British car industry!
Be going back to horse and cart…
Yeah, right? I always thought that would be a good idea.
Electrification of the West Coast main railway line from London has been proposed for decades, yet has just been postponed again. Relatively speaking that is very straightforward yet the UK Govt can’t deliver. So even 2040 is cloud cuckoo land in terms of creating a national infrastructure to enable us to replace petrol and diesel cars and trucks.
Unfortunately Reg, the rest of the world has no input into the West Coast main railway line from London, and if it’s not replaced, it’ll carry on as it is.
But we already replace our cars frequently, and FORTUNATELY the rest of the world does dictate what cars are made available through economies of scale and by selling models in many different markets.
As all those cars share common fuelling standards – regardless of the electrification progress of our railways -our cars will get pushed to new global standards, driven (ha – no pun intended) by the leading countries with the most aggressive targets, such as China, India, Norway, Germany and (not a country, but a significant global economy in its own right, and incredibly influential…) California.
So will the UK push or be pushed by new standards? It’ll happen regardless!
Why is it only cars to be crushed? If 40% of emissions are caused by road transport, and say half of that is cars, then only 20% of all emissions is from private cars. Why is nothing being proposed for the other 80% of all emissions creators? Scrapping all fossil fueled cars is going to make only a small difference, yet cost the general public a small fortune.
Yes. Why does no one mention lorries? They are all diesel and have much bigger engines than cars. The whole electrical replacement idea is ridiculous, as many people have said, for lots of reasons.
The petroleum supply industry should be investing heavily in setting up a hydrogen supply chain before all cars go ‘all electric’. If the petroleum industry remains passive and waits for something to happen, a whole industry (car fuel supply) will become redundant. Replacing petrol and diesel with hydrogen would ensure the relevance of fuel stations and secure the investments made by forecourt owners in their sites over the years. Hydrogen is in a catch 22 situation. The demand is not there and will not be until the supply is widespread enough.
The electric car is the shining star at the moment, we should be making the case of its demerits: long charge time, shorter range, limited charging points, battery scrappage in 10 years time (what about that for pollution). The chemicals being used in the batteries having a restricted supply if all the worlds cars go electric. Some of these demerits will be sorted eventually, reducing the case for hydrogen. The inactivity by the petroleum industry is letting itself slowly becom irrelevant !
Quote “cutting down on oil imports by 51% come 2035” What will we use to produce the extra electricity these cars will need? I am concerned modern low emission cars will be replaced by higher emmision power stations.
If you’re genuinely concerned, Bobby, check our Fully Charged on YouTube to find out about all the renewable energy generation being produced in the UK. Such as the huge new offshore wind turbines installed in Liverpool recently.
Given the rapidly reducing cost of installing renewables (bearing in mind they’ve dropped far more than was predicated over the past 20 or so years according to a recent report) and that the UK has begun to have days where we produce more than 100% of our energy from renewables, I don’t think the next 10-20 years is going to be an issue for production.
From an economic point of view, you’d better hope we have enough electric cars to soak up all that renewable energy, or we’ll have to pay others to take it off our hands when the wholesale price goes negative.
Just as well I have two old bikes that are older than me!
A good headline, but something that will never happen. Where was the announcement for the construction of all the new power stations required? We are not producing enough electricity now let alone enough for millions of new cars.
How are we going to charge these cars? They will have to be done overnight as the most economic way. This will meaning hooking up outside your house. But like millions of other people I live in a little terrace house. I have 2 adult children living at home. This means 4 cars as there is NO public transport. Like the rest of the estate people simple park where they can. So we will need cables hundreds of feet long to be able to charge the cars, crossing roads and pavements. Health and safety will have a field day.
It reminds me of what my teacher used to tell me. Engage brain before opening your mouth. Like I said a nice headline but it will never happen.
Very good point Richard
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/honda/honda-clarity-review/
Not just old terraced houses have this problem, many new houses, flats and appartments are built without driveways for parking electric cars to charge them at home. Maybe low cost terraced homes and such should all have front driveways that can be used to park car for charging.
These people will be first to scream when the power to their lights and fridges goes off. I live in a street of terraced house with no drives, should be fun with cables across the footpath if you can park outside your own house.
Yes…well half that mayb…I thought that immediately it was announced diesel CARS shud be banned in 2030, not commercial…and the sale of diesel fuel banned for cars by 2040/45.
Petrol cars shud b banned from 2035 unless hybrid (only if battery technology hasn’t progressed enuf).
After 2040 diesel can only be bought for commercial vans & trucks etc with a licence to buy & sell being issued/needed.
What will anyone who needs a standby or mobile electric supply do? Even the Electricity distribution companies use mobile diesel generators when there is a local network wiring fault. Every hospital and other large building has a standby generator in case of power cuts. Battery banks cannot be relied on to provide continuous electricity for long periods, and would be very heavy to move if they had to be replaced every few hours with batteries recharged off site. Even for mobile use battery packs will be much heavier than a small generator and can of fuel.
… not to mention all marine transport from pleasure craft to cruise liners etc.etc.
Every ‘Green Energy Plant’ is backed up by diesel generators
But nobody’s said we’ll NEVER burn fossil fuels. For those rare occasions a diesel generator is required to belch into life, that’s fine.
I don’t believe I’ve heard of any proposals to scrap emergency diesel generators, so while it’s a good question – I think you can rest easy.
Won’t happen, not unless the batteries can be charged in less than 4 minutes which is about the same as petrol/diesel. The batteries would also need a range of at least 500/600 miles, which is still considerably less than most current vehicles & because they’re expensive to buy or leased or whatever they do with them, they’d need to last the lifetime of the car, which should be at least 10 years. Unlike now, the cars should be affordable. The logistics of providing enough plug in points & electricity is horrendous. It’s also been pointed out about how you get around plugging in your vehicle when you’ve had to park it 100 yards down the street because you live in a terraced house. I drive a 2004 Jaguar S Type SE. It has a V6 2.7 litre twin turbo diesel engine, averages 33mpg around town & 45mpg on a run. It looks nice, is supremely comfortable & fast. To replace it for a new model, which I don’t want to do, would cost somewhere around £35K. Can someone explain to me what good a £2000 scrappage scheme is to me? Especially as it’s worth a lot more than that. Would the government give me £35k to replace it? Well we know the answer to that don’t we. Even if I put another £5k towards another car, all I’d end up with is a tiny, tinny little matchbox on wheels. Some manufacturers have also said that to get the money you’ll have to buy a new hybrid vehicle. All I can say is that buying new cars is a mugs game, as soon as you drive it off of the forecourt, depending on what you’ve bought, you lose £5k & sometimes more. As I said it won’t happen, it’s just sound bytes from the numpty environmentalists.
All very well to say ban ‘dirty diesels’ (nice little catch phrase) ban this ban that to help our environment and our children’s future.
Consider the movement of goods by other than HGV’s on long distance haulage. Basic commonsense tells me battery power can not provide the power requirements to cope with our need for goods.
I can’t argue about banning the worst polluters, but politics has go into this one. Our electricity is not exactly green so at the moment electric cars don’t really help if they run on electricity generated from a polluting source. Interestingly most of out so called green electricity plants, wind turbines and solar panels, product huge amounts of toxic and radioactive (wind turbine magnets) waste, to add to that they are backed up by rows of diesel generators hidden in the countryside. Interestingly on the subject of Nitrous oxide – gas fired central heating in our houses is a bigger source. Why no concentrate on getting our houses green first
Actually, yes, electric cars do help even if they’re powered by electricity generated by fossil fuels.
First, you remove local air and noise pollution. Second, you benefit from the efficiencies of scale from one large fossil fuel burner compared to many little fossil fuel burners.
And in other good news, our grid supply is the greenest it’s ever been, and continues to get greener – not because we’re so precious about saving the environment, but because renewables are already the best ROI for energy production.
Economics run it all.
“the government’s controversial plan to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040”
Something that doesn’t exist. an announcement has been made of the intention to ban the sale of new pure petrol and diesel cars by 2040, but no bill has been passed through parliament to do this and I wonder if that will happen in the life of this government.
even if the law is passed, if you already own a petrol or diesel at that time nobody is going to make you scrap it before the end of its life.
It would be interesting to find out how many of these people there is morons
All of this is cloud cuckoo land on so many fronts. Not enough generation available let alone clean generation, cables across footpaths, tax income from fuel use, gone – where will that come from, what price electricity compared to oil based fuel, electricity is hideously expensive now I would not want to use it to charge big batteries up. They need to keep working on getting diesel and petrol exhausts cleaner and stop this pie in the sky madness NOW!!!!!
Why don’t they do it right and ban all wood burners, solid fuel fires, all central heating by gas, oil and wood pellets, all petrol, diesel and parrafin fueled devices and make everything powered by electricity only. The only electricity allowed must be from solar power, wind powered or wave powered, enjoy life with no fridges, freezers, warm showers, cold washing machines, raw food and no heating as there will not be enough electricity to power cars, busses, trains, trucks and industrial plant. We will end up poisoned by battery production and disposal emmissions.
Why is it always us the driver that is targeted. My car has always passed it’s emissions test even though it’s a 4×4 2.7 jeep cherokee. I’m disabled and need a large car to carry my scooter I’m also on benefits so I would never be able to afford one of these newer cars. I also live in rural area and have to attend many hospital appointments. They should look towards cleaner fuel. I know that the states had developed a clean fuel so why not work on that. Next what about industry and jobs all the many thousands of car dealers, I used to be one myself before my health deteriated.
The future looks bleak for us will we have to go back to horse and cart again. Travel across the country will be severely affected I have no train station near me and the public transport is a joke. I think it’s time that us the motorist stood up against what is going on. The report on premature deaths I fear is greatly exaggerated. Let’s look towards cleaner fuel and investment in finding that
Why does this post quote the Telegraph’s selective quote of the National Grid report and not just quote the Nationa- oh, wait – because the author didn’t read the report. They read the scaremongering newspaper article and cherry picked the fringe case that doesn’t apply to homeowners. More FUD about our ‘ailing’ electricity grid.
No it should not be brought forward
How does this affect lpg/petrol vehicles. The government never really got behind the lpg thing
strange but you only see VIP’S in big 4×4 or high powered cars not a little 1 litre corsa or electric to help the pollution let them take the lead.
Hi Johnathan, I am 69yrs and drive a 2.5 v6 Landrover freelander, I aint no vip, just practical, and yes, I pay extra tax, and insurance.
For some people this sounds like a great idea, what a shame for them that it’s total nonsense & will remain total nonsense even if the petrol & diesel cars Are taken off the roads, electric cars are a dead end & will not change any time soon, even if you forget the lack of power styations as the biggest hurdle there’s still the problem of the batteries losing charge in cold weather, so that wonderful environmentally friendly (hah that’s a joke too) electric car that does 200 miles on a single charge on a good day will suddenly do a fraction of that when the snow starts falling, people ARE going to die because of the electric cars & Elon Musk will be proven to be the Dangerous Fraud that anyone with common sense already knows he is.
I drive a 5 litre Mercedes benz SL, love the power and want to keep driving it.
Battery technology does not provide the range we need & the batteries currently available are rediculously expensive to replace. Then there is the not so small matter of providing the infrastructure required to charge all these batteries. Meanwhile petrol & diesel engines are getting cleaner but I don’t suppose environmentalists will ever be satisfied.
I wonder why more effort was not put into developing hydrogen powered vehicles?
Why is this talk about Diesel and Petrol cars all the time. What about the lorries, buses, trains, planes, ambulances etc etc that all run out it. Yesterday, in an underground train station where there are 12 platforms and 3 tracks to each platform and they have a middle line and on 4 platforms there trains in but then on the middle line there were empty diesel trains running with their engines going and the air was completely awful. Why have these train engines running for is beyond me. So I say not only scrap our cars but all the other aforementioned, too.
I see the fake news “40,000 premature deaths” is rolled our again in the article like some Green religious mantra.
The self same group the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) have now said they may have got it wrong and it is not so clear-cut!
But of course the seeds are sown and the government/councils can see a whole new revenue stream of taxation and restrictions on car use opening up.
With yet another car hating London Mayor leading the way and setting the pattern for many towns and cities to follow.
See http://www.cantpaywontpay.london
Or just sit on your A – – -e as your apathy is the governments best weapon!
I appreciate the concern over the environment, but I think the Green community is picking on fossle fueled vehicles. What about the articulated lorries for the haulage companies? Are they so certain thatpowerful electric motors will have been developed to pull these vehicles? or are we all supposed to collect our goods from the depot in our little electric cars? What about those who do not drive or cannot afford to have a car? What about the employment of those in the haulage sectors? Stop scare-mongering about the environment. One contributor has already told us that only 20% of emission are from cars. Then why can’t they tackle the other end of the equation first?
A lorry is quite capable of reducing its nitrogen dioxide emissions to similar levels to a small car, by injecting a solution of urea into a special catalytic converter. The solution is known by its trade name of AdBlue. It converts NOx to water vapour, nitrogen and a small amount of CO2. If that process works so well in lorries, why not put the technology into diesel cars, rather than demonising them?
The problem with battery-driven cars is their short range, and the time taken to charge their batteries. Frequent fast charging shortens the life of the battery.
Cars could be designed with easily replaceable standardised batteries, clamped underground the floor pan. Fuel stations could keep a stock of ready-charged batteries, and one of these could be fitted in place of a discharged battery in a matter of minutes.
Not underground, underneath! B….y predictive text!
I have a 2009 diesel and intend to keep it! (Could not afford to change it, anyway). Why the car companies suddenly offering scrappage allowance? Is the car market in trouble? Why aren’t we being offered scrappage by the Government and would it be better to give us an incentive to have ours cars run on say, oil (used, not grown instead of crops in poor countries). Some diesels already run on oil. Where are the innovators? I smell greed somewhere.
Two-thirds of our power stations are steam engines burning fossil fuels. Biomass is shipped from Canada and then goes by train across the Pennines. Where’s the environmental benefit to using that to recharge EV’s even if you could? And even the National Grid have said we can’t. Solar power only works in daylight (unless you have extreme batteries) and is then affected by the weather. Windfarms don’t work when there’s not enough wind (or too much). So unless we all do what Elon Musk suggests and replace all our roof tiles with solar tiles linked to batteries, we have to still rely on fuel stations. Unless they are like Tesla’s superchargers and generate stored solar power on-site, the only real solution is hydrogen to power fuel cell vehicles.
Of course there is another option; the continued development of petrol and diesel engines which ultimately will be greener than fossil fuel burning power stations or shipping biomass halfway round the world. And all those people with classic cars, from Minis to Ferraris will still want to drive them.
I don’t think they’re talking about petrol and diesel as such. What they will have are plug in hybrids! Unfortunately, these use more fuel than conventional petrol or diesel only vehicles.
Nicola has just closed our power stations in Scotland and wants more wind power, when everyone is running these electronic vehicles comes home 6pm after work and we all plug them in to recharge at the same time, what happens as the nation tunes in to Corrie and the kettles are switched on at the commercial breaks? Then someone flicks on the lights witch and blows the fuse!! I love in a block of flats with restricted parking as most families have more than one vehicle how many charge points will be available! Will l be able to drop an extension lead from 5 floor’s up?? I think not.
All good points as both my husband and I have said the same things. Although the other problem is I can not imagine an electric car towing my twin axle caravan like our Kia Sorento with ease – why should I down grade or give up my caravan, it would mean purchasing a complete new rig!. (both car and caravan) I don’t think so.!! – Also what about these motor homes – I have not see anything about those being turned to electric.It is about time that this government and their advisers stopped picking on the motorist and those who can not afford to just go out an by new cars . The other point I would like to mentions is what about our transport system are all our trains and busses being upgraded !!!!! I know they are doing a lot of work in and around London , but again the engines are still diesel!
What a waste of time when 16 of the big tanker put out as much as all the cars in the world
Soon it will time to vote for sensible people who use their BRAINS
I agree that they should be banned from 2040, at which time there should be suitable electric cars about
I Really think we in the UK should focus on collecting all this hot air and methane gas that is clearly being wasted.
The whole thing is wrong. It should.be hydrogen cars. Just like HS2 is wrongly concived.
HS2 like Hinkley Point is another gov quango. designed to give a short boost to employment and a big boost to gov friends pockets.
Not all of us can afford brand new electric cars so bang goes my job
Agreed. and our leisure and holidays…….oh and yes it will then hit the economy
Good news, you’ve got 23 years to save for a second hand one!
Compromise at 2035 ???
Join the discussion Does the proposal cover marine also if so do ocean liners have to be crushed along with all lifeboats and pleasure craft?. what about all classic cars and motorcycles.
This is idiotic, they are banning new diesel cars from 2040, the headlines are misleading, and the ban is idiotic. It is older diesels that are polluting, not new cars which have sophisticated emission control systems.
The pollution problems are from older diesels, mainly buses, coaches and commercial vehicles, by 2040 the vast majority will not exist. Certainly the vast majority of diesel cars that are now over ten years old will have been scrapped by 2040.
So what will banning new clean diesels do?
Like brexit it will decimate the British car industry!
Be going back to horse and cart…
Yeah, right? I always thought that would be a good idea.
Electrification of the West Coast main railway line from London has been proposed for decades, yet has just been postponed again. Relatively speaking that is very straightforward yet the UK Govt can’t deliver. So even 2040 is cloud cuckoo land in terms of creating a national infrastructure to enable us to replace petrol and diesel cars and trucks.
Unfortunately Reg, the rest of the world has no input into the West Coast main railway line from London, and if it’s not replaced, it’ll carry on as it is.
But we already replace our cars frequently, and FORTUNATELY the rest of the world does dictate what cars are made available through economies of scale and by selling models in many different markets.
As all those cars share common fuelling standards – regardless of the electrification progress of our railways -our cars will get pushed to new global standards, driven (ha – no pun intended) by the leading countries with the most aggressive targets, such as China, India, Norway, Germany and (not a country, but a significant global economy in its own right, and incredibly influential…) California.
So will the UK push or be pushed by new standards? It’ll happen regardless!
Why is it only cars to be crushed? If 40% of emissions are caused by road transport, and say half of that is cars, then only 20% of all emissions is from private cars. Why is nothing being proposed for the other 80% of all emissions creators? Scrapping all fossil fueled cars is going to make only a small difference, yet cost the general public a small fortune.
Yes. Why does no one mention lorries? They are all diesel and have much bigger engines than cars. The whole electrical replacement idea is ridiculous, as many people have said, for lots of reasons.