Diesel / petrol banned by 2040 what do we do then
Comments
-
Well as I will be 95 by then if still around, I doubt if I will be caravanning!
But things will have to change, and I suspect caravanning as we know it now, will be a thing of the past. The trend is already towards Motorhomes and I guess that that will continue.
However, pretty well all MH's are Diesel powered so the problem remains. The whole thing relies on two key issues. Electric vehicles are no Bl**** good at the moment for our pastime. They have too short a range and cannot lug a heavy load about. Clearly there is still a lot of development to be done there.
The key lies in the engine development for the medium/heavy delivery vehicle. Every Transit van, Mercedes Sprinter van and countless other delivery vans are currently powered by Diesel so new engines need to be designed for them. Those are the engines that Motorhomes will require to be fitted post 2040.
TF
0 -
Just politicians' froth. The Gov't can't stick to promises, a policy, or a manifesto for 6 months never mind 23 years. And how many U-turns or changes of Gov't may there have been by 2040?
It'll help compensate for the pollution from China producing the electricity from its coal-fired power stations, a new one of which (so I've read) is, or was until recently, being built every week, and the multi-litre engine gas guzzling cars in America.
We'll be needing very long hook-up cables too. And who could we contact if we had Leverse Porality?
Still, if it does come about at least I'll have a peacefully silent ride to the polluting crematorium.
0 -
You are absolutely right, political posturing of the highest order.
So, the government have declared there will be no sales of new cars after 2040 powered by diesel or petrol
Lets think about this for a minute...
On the 1st January 2040, there will be in excess of 40 Million petrol and diesel cars on the road in the U.K. unless in the meantime no viable completely clean way for burning petrol or diesel has come forward. So let's assume we are STILL buying petrol and diesel cars in 23 years time, that's an awful lot of cars still burning fossil fuels on our roads at the point the government decides things will change. Given that the average life expectancy of a car in current times is 8 years, with a good proportion lasting up to 15 years, I don't need to spell out where this is going do I?
The government annual take of fuel duty is currently at approx £32billion, this will increase with inflation etc so probably double this figure in 23 years time. OK so not all paid for by car drivers, a bloody big proportion of it is though.
The worlds oil companies will not roll over and let this happen, 23 years is an awful long time to develop ultra clean burning of fossil fuels
and finally, unless a perfectly good alternative to petrol and diesel powered cars comes in the next 23 years, with the same convenience, ability, and cost, people power will prevail against any government. The people of the world will simply not let it happen no matter what any government tries to dictate.
So, no need to think about how the caravan industry will cope going forward, no need whatsoever to ask the Caravan Club to ballot the government (as suggested in another thread), no need to do anything different..... for a very very very long time.
0 -
Totally agree with you, It will be decades before it has any real impact on every day life. I would even go as far to say that my Son who is 32 will not see it happen.
0 -
Indeed, and don't you just love it when a U.K. Government sets a target date, because they are so good at meeting target dates and never extending them
0 -
When one takes into consideration the whole life cycle to produce, run, and dispose of electric vehicles this looks like a sure fire way of increasing pollution.One big positive of the Internal Combustion Engine is that it produces the power at the point of use. Making electricity far away, where someone else gets to breathe the air pollution, invokes the cost of transmitting it and the losses incurred shoving it down wires.
Then there is the problem of getting the electricity into moving vehicles. We have had electric tramcars, trolley buses, railways and Scaletrix for many generations but no-one has ever devised a way for overtaking to happen as smoothly as it does with independently powered vehicles. Maybe the future holds for roads equiped with power rails embedded in the tarmac and onboard batteries that are used for parking and overtaking.
However, as the proposals are (currently) for cars and vans there should never be a problem for motor caravans that are based on trucks and buses which both seem to fall outside the proposals.
0 -
Just a rumour.
Wiring is designed to power only light bulbs and could not take the extra load. Maybe if one turned off twenty lights there could be enough to add one charging point, but then there would be dozens of electric cars needing headlights as it was dark!
0 -
No, they'll be really expensive and in huge demand
1 -
The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad.
Michigan Bank advising against investment in the Ford Motor Company 1903
History is littered with similar statements about electricity, flight, computing, you name it, someone says it won't happen but it just might.
1 -
Most technology inventions are driven by necessity. War produces technical innovation as does scarcity. If the retail price of fuel suddenly increased tenfold you can bet that there would be any number of solutions.
Some say that there will not be enough electricity capacity but that is based on present batteries, chargers and networks. They will evolve along with electric vehicles.
One of many such developments will be wireless charging through coils embedded in the ground. Park your car and it will automatically start charging whilst you do the shopping.
0 -
The worlds oil companies will not roll over and let this happen, 23 years is an awful long time to develop ultra clean burning of fossil fuels
Indeed so, NigelAsh. The price of oil would plummet and we've seen the effect of that already, especially the effect on pension funds which are heavily invested in oil. Oligarchs in the OPEC countries would sell their expensive property portfolios bringing prices crashing.
Billions (which we won't have) would have be spent constructing numerous nuclear power stations or covering our CLs with solar panels.
Like so many poorly thought out political brainwaves the whole saga about 2040 will gradually degenerate into being 'a target', then 'an ambition', then it'll be phased, then it'll fade away for another 10 or 20 years and we'll be told that the politicians (mindful of their political careers) 'misspoke', giving 'alternative facts'.
0 -
Perhaps electric cars will tow a dynamo behind to charge the battery, or have a windmill on the roof to harvest wind power and of course the body will be one big solar panel.
0 -
That's interesting hitchglitch, this is the first major change for a generation, I'm sorry I won't be around to see what develops. My Dad worked on pulse codes, it took years to improve but it happened, much more ahead in new developments.
0 -
NigelAsh. I am also forced to agree with your timings. Lets just look at what has been achieved so far. And in this I am NOT being party political because both the Blue, Red and Yellow teams have had fingers in this pie.
Firstly a Govt decides that there are too many cars on the road so the answer is to hike up the cost of fuel to make it the dearest in Europe. AND at the same time they propose an annual price increase above inflation.
Then they discover that the price of fuel is adversely affecting the cost of living index and there's an election looming, so reduce the price of petrol quickly! THEN they discover that diesel is cheaper and produces less Greenhouse gasses so lets encourage everyone to buy diesels !
Then they start to worry about diesel particulate emissions, so to stop everyone worrying they announce a new age of Electrification of the railways. The flagship of the new electrification program is to be the complete electrification of the main Paddington to Swansea route using new cleaner Japanese bullet style trains taking their power from overhead lines. A second main line will follow a similar route as the Swansea line but then branch off through Bath and Bristol Templemeads to the West Country finishing in Plymouth.
But oh dear, the new fantastic electrification program is so far behind now that we cannot finish either route in time so we will have to fit all those lovely new electric trains with Diesel engines instead!
So we will take everyones mind of that failure and start talking about HS2 long before HS1 is finished!
And we will ban the diesels that we encouraged everyone to buy! But SCHHH don't tell anyone that we are busy fitting diesel engines to all the new electric trains!
TF
0 -
I know it has just been announced, but it is already in motion. For example, Southampton City Council in there wisdom are banning ALL diesel cars from October!, from the City Centre, without any Park & Ride! We often tow through the centre of Southampton
We need a diesel for towing the caravan, (torque, weight etc) and it is our only form of transport
Is the Caravan & Motor Home Club going to lobby the Government to try and stop this madness by 'Greens' to get rid of Diesels, modern diesel engines are just as clean as petrol
0 -
When it comes to foreseeing the future...
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers - Thomas Watson IBM
Even a fairly modest switch to EVs will require more electricity. If the government was "really" serious, they would be insisting that every new large commercial building had a roof made of solar panels with existing ones given a timescale to implement them as well..
0 -
Cyberyacht - not just commercial buildings. Or only the solar farms. How many houses are there in the UK? I would guess at least half would be suitable for a solar installation. Yes it helps ordinary people but it also puts power into the grid. I read somewhere that if we all had e cars we'd need 50 more nuclear power stations. At the current (ouch!) rate of building them it ain't gonna happen by 2040!
0 -
It won't happen, there's no way the energy infrastructure will be in place in time. Currently U.K. new car sales stand at approx 2.7 million per year so if the government think they will have the energy resources in place to charge this many vehicles in the first year of their proposal, they are living on cloud cuckoo land. It has taken 5 years to agree on Hinkley Point before a shovel went into the dirt, and it won't be online for another 8-10 years. Dozens more Hinkley Points will be needed to supplement the demand required for transport, solar and wind farms take far too long to agree planning and only supply a tiny fraction of the U.K. energy needs.
2040, more like 2060 if not further away than that.
0 -
On one day? Just over 21% of uk energy is supplied by nuclear power but half of the stations that supply this will be offline by 2025. The government want to build a further 8 plants but Scotland have refused to have any new nuclear plants in their coastline.
If there are 2.7 million electric car sales in the first year of this proposal and they each charge at roughly 7kw, to charge them all overnight at the same time would require approx 19 Gigawatts
The proposed output for Hinkley Point C is 3.2 GW
Current U.K. Solar Power produced just under 9GW for one day earlier this year.
There's a long way to go before the energy supply resources will be in place ready for an influx of millions of electric cars. I don't think it will be in place for 2040 and then there's the problem of 60 or more trailing cables along a typical terraced street in a City, yet to see how that isn't going to be a big problem
0
