The Conservatives recognised it was unrealistic to suppose we can ban new petrol and diesel cars in 2030 so they put it back to 2035. I gave one cheer,  then told them they also needed to scrap the £15,000 fine per new  petrol or diesel car sold above a maximum. They introduced a target of battery cars to be at least 22%  of the total this year rising to 80% by 2030.
The new government has brought the ban on new petrol cars forward to 2030. It has not yet revised up the percentage of battery cars, though presumably it wants a target to hit of 100% in 2030. This is unlikely.
This year with just one a half months to go battery car sales are at 18% instead of 22%. They do not seem to be heading for 28% next year. Fining manufacturers for making good petrol cars people want to buy is a disgrace. It is leading some car companies to think of manufacturing elsewhere. The industry is in crisis talks with Ministers this week,
The government should not fling more subsidy at battery cars. It should not fine car companies for consumer reluctance to buy battery. It should end this tyranny of false targets. This policy will helped industrialise the U.K. and provide a further big boost to imports. Why?
November 20, 2024
Another example of this so called ‘government’s ‘ incoherent lack of thinking something through
November 20, 2024
Destroying the motor industry will be seen as a win for Milibrain ad it’s a step nearer providing the high value jobs the government bangs on about. The fact that they are in China makes no difference.
The same can be said of the windmills he wants to carpet the country with. Mainly they will be jobs abroad
One area where the UK could benefit would be to award Rolls Royce a contract to build SMRS but we know the government will purchase from abroad
The tories started all this nonesense and now we wait for the government to raise taxes on ICE cars to force is to abandon them
The motoring cohort is bigger than the farmers. You ain’t seen nowt yet.
November 20, 2024
More great jobs for China and less co2 for the UK, now thats a Milliband win win ….and the UN love it
And less farms = less co2, another win, and we can fill those acres with chinese solar panels and chinese wind-turbines ….all part of the plan
November 20, 2024
The CCA was brought in under the Tories, so a bit of error acknowledgement from our host might be in order.
I like the idea of a cartoon of wild-eyed Milibrain riding a skinny donkey tilting at ….not windmills, obviously, but power stations….?
November 20, 2024
@David Peddy; To be fair, all the current Labour govt has done is revert back to a previously agreed international agreement to ban petrol and diesel vehicle sales by an agreed date (signed up to by a Conservative govt).
UK divergence matters not one jot in reality, unless the UK was to align ourselves with -say- Trump environmental and economic policies, along with a full FTA (some hope…), because the UK car and commercial vehicle industry is now almost entirely owned and run or supplied from other countries that are fully signed up to these zero emissions agreements the UK have to make and buy the vehicle technology being supplied by others.
November 20, 2024
It may well have been an “international agreement”Jerry, but whilst the UK is enthusiastically pressing on many nations are studiously ignoring this agreement or pushing forward the proposed date for banning sales of petrol and diesel vehicles.
November 21, 2024
@Sam; Indeed, but given from where most of the UK’s new cars, vans and lorries are sourced from (taking note of company ownership and R&D etc…
Whilst some in the motor industry are pushing EU policy makers to row back on any ban on new petrol/diesel vehicle sales it simply is not happening in any meaningful sense, even if the EU do bow to such pressure, +/- five years is gesture politics, not the needed re-evaluation of EV feasibility.
November 20, 2024
Also another diary piece that points out what is obvious to most people – but the government will still plod on regardless.
The previous Conservative government does not escape blame either.
November 20, 2024
To most people yes, but not obvious to parliament, every political party (less maybe reform), teachers, the labour membership and most of the news/social media
November 20, 2024
@glen cullen; Just a pity Reform and their dotting supporters didn’t find a clue, heed the clear warnings, prior to July 2024, rather than give Starmer a ‘leg-up’ at the ballot box, given Labour have been highlighting their environmental policies for the last 25+ years; In fact Niel Kinnocks conference speech (against Militant) in 1985 could as easily apply to New Labour’s war on climate change – You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in grotesque chaos…
November 20, 2024
We all know Labour rubbish. Let’s focus on building up the Tory Party. Let’s get creative!
November 20, 2024
Ed M ;
Not for me. Tory Party is just as signed up to the CAGW/Net Zero delusion and mass immigration as is Labour.
November 20, 2024
Good morning.
The UK Government has to wait for the EU to give its permssion before it can do anything. Anyone who thinks we have left is deluding themselves. We are lockstep with EU regulations and cannot differ. That is the so called BREXIT we have been given.
Germany and its economy is going down the pan. Energy underpins all economic activity and the failure to plan ahead is going to cost them dear. But it is worse than that. The EU is highly dependent upon Germany and its contributions as are recipient States. So when Germany fails, the EU will fail.
BREXIT was a golden oppotunity the British people gave to the governing class in this country. They took one look at it and said; “Nah ! We prefer to be told what to do. Thinking for ones self is too difficult.”
As we have seen over the past two decades, our membership of the EU has undermined our ability to self govern. Because a nation that wishes to self govern tends to put energy as a key item in their agenda.
November 20, 2024
+1
November 20, 2024
Well said. We haven’t LEFT the EU, which is what we voted for. We have effectively been shackled as an Associate Member.
November 20, 2024
+++ Nail squarely on the head.
It was far too lucrative for many to remain tied to the EU
The EU was also a great curtain to hide behind, and pulling it back risks exposure of the incompetent, the self-serving and the down right mendacious.
Lower middle management types, student politics types, none of whom care a jot for an independent historical nation, have been given the licence to parade as statesmen/women under the protective wing of the EU.
November 20, 2024
It really doesn’t help when the political class has swallowed the ‘climate change’ nonsense. The destruction of our car industry along with all of our industry is to save <1% of a trace gas that comprises 0.04% of Earth's atmosphere.
As a result of this stupidity, imports will rise, leading to higher Co2 emissions from other countries. Particularly China which already emits 30% of all Co2 and rising.
Absolute madness, yet no one in power will stand up and admit it. Not even His Majesty's official opposition.
November 20, 2024
OA,
I donât believe â the political class has swallowed the âclimate changeâ nonsense.â
I think most of the career politicians see this as a promising bandwagon which they should join.
Self-advancement trumps everything else.
November 20, 2024
Agree – Even today, most politicians are still too scared to go against the CCC and the green media ….many will be too scared to even comment on the EV mandate and the loss of Ford jobs
November 20, 2024
They’re both (all) on the same side Old Albion. There is no opposition.
November 20, 2024
The British establishment said ‘ We don’t want finger pointing blame for anything, so let the EU decide. We can sit back in comfort and enjoy the luxury ride’.
November 20, 2024
@Mark B +1
Yes Government, the Blob has maintained its fight with the people of the UK in hope that it can contrive then force the UK back under even more control of the unelected unaccountable bureaucrat’s of the EU. While Labour and Starmer are more zealous about it, we cant forget the previous version of the Uniparty also refused to lets us leave, even their new leader fought and won to keep EU Laws embedded through out the UK, so we couldn’t diverge and have our own Legislative Parliment
November 20, 2024
This smacks of the kind of command economy I saw in the DDR when I lived and worked in West Germany back in the early 1980s. I had to visit the DDR in my brand new silver Mercedes, and the contrast could not have been greater : The air in East Berlin was almost unbreathable thanks to all the Trebants and other 2-stroke cars which were the only cars an Ostie could buy !
When I went back, 2 years after the Inner German Border was dismantled, every second-hand Golf in West Germany had gone East, and there wasn’t a Trebant to be seen anywhere!
A command economy didn’t work then, and it is already doing immense damage in Starmer’s Britain now.
Without massive subsidies to private buyers, the number of EV sales are not going to increase as Milibrain is hoping.
Labour can either see the British car manufacturing industry severely damaged, probably terminally, or they will have to back down and allow market forces to prevail.
Either way, my wife and I will most definitely not be buying an EV.
November 20, 2024
Indeed. For houses or flats without parking/charging (often the majority of homes in cites) EV are even more of a stupid buy.
November 20, 2024
@LL; “houses or flats without parking/charging”
Hence why businesses (even supermarkets etc), to get conditional planning approval, often have to provide employee and/or customer EV charging stations.
Some make a big fuss about how employees should be ‘back in the office’, not WFH, for eight hours or more. Now surely, if someone is on site for that length of time, eight hours per day should be ample time to fully recharge an EV – yes/no?…
November 21, 2024
Supermarkets, in my experience, restrict the time you can stay in their car parks to two hours before you get a fine.
November 21, 2024
@MiB; It’s three hours free parking around here, but even a two hour stay should be ample long enough, if using a fast charge. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way approving the push towards EVs, far from it, but opposition to EVs need more than rants about those without off-street parking/charging, such people will for the foreseeable future have the option of retaining their hydrocarbon powered cars, they just won’t be able to buy a factory fresh vehicle after any ban. Others will clearly be nudged, as is already happening with employers taking advantage of favorable terms when buying or leasing EVs as company cars & vans. I note Amazon have recently built new multi-million GBP distribution centre with parking for up to 400 LWB Transit van sized EVs.
November 20, 2024
@ Chris. I also won’t be buying an EV or a heat pump.
November 20, 2024
+1
November 20, 2024
and if I needed a wood fire, I’d burn this year’s logs! Sod ’em all.
November 20, 2024
don’t even think about buying coal …that was banned under the tories
November 20, 2024
We have large log burner in one room and are just installing a new gas fire in our lounge. l’m researching encapsulated diesel generators as a back-up for when Milibrain’s stupid policies cause power cuts.
Just enough power to run the central heating pump, the lights and a couple of TVs. The gas aga and the new fire require no electricity at all!
November 21, 2024
I bought a generator, but it is noisy. I have a 240 amp/hr 12 volt leisure battery in my garage. Via an inverter it will power central heating, router, tv, lights for about 11 hours. Or power is off for longer I could charge it with jump leads from car. Planning a couple of solar panels in garden to trickle charge it as needed. If the power goes out for days in the winter, Iâll need enough power from the solar panels over 8 hours on a cloudy day. Iâm working out the sums/researching now,
November 22, 2024
Mike
All that extra expense and worry because Government Ministers are stupid, and cannot see what most of us out here can see, crazy isn’t it !
Why can they not just simply build more gas, oil, and small nuclear power plants to generate enough electricity in the first place, far cheaper than the whole population doing what you have done/doing and sending most of that money into the pockets of overseas manufacturers.
November 20, 2024
It’s not like EVs represent any ecological solution. Their batteries require a huge quantity of minerals that have to be mined, and they still need a lot of energy to create the steel. Once built they require energy supplied from largely fossil-fuelled power stations. You think an EV is green? You phoney.
If you want ecological transport, get a bike and cycle to work and into town. Bicycles – the true green machine.
November 20, 2024
Bikes not as green as you think as they are powered by human food energy which is rather an inefficient form of energy and needs load of fossil fuels to produce, process, butcher, deliver, cook… Typically perhaps only 1-15% of this energy ever gets to the pedals.
November 20, 2024
They will of course keep rigging the market with taxes, ULEX etc. until you either have to buy one or just have to walk, cycle or catch public transport.
November 20, 2024
I am in Birmingham today and have to get to Cambridge for this evening, The quickest way to travel the 90 miles by public transport is Taxi to Birmingham Int. Train to Euston, tube to Kings Cross, train to Cambridge, taxi to destination. 3.5 hours+ and about 200 miles. Cost about ÂŁ100 single for one person. By car, door to door up to five people less than 2 hours 90 miles ÂŁ20 for five. The car is better for CO2 too especially if full.
November 20, 2024
Matt Ridley in the Sunday Telegraph:-
Now that Donald Trump and Javier Milei of Argentina are pulling out of the whole sham, we can begin to see a glimmer of hope that the Cop might one day fade into irrelevance. It will probably never die entirely but become about as newsworthy as, say, the Henley Regatta. Just less fun.
November 20, 2024
@Chris S; “The air in East Berlin was almost unbreathable thanks to all the Trebants and other 2-stroke cars”
You always notice what you are not used to, or have forgotten about, I bet those lucky DDR pensioners who were allowed to visit their West German relatives said simular things about the distinctive fumes from Four Stroke engines.
Much the same arguments about “unbreathable” air are made in 2024 about fumes from petrol and diesel powered vehicles, and was also made about non low emission vehicles in the 1990s. Yet people complain(ed) about LEZ and ULEZ legislation in the same breath…
“the British car manufacturing industry [will either be] severely damaged, probably terminally, or [Labour] will have to back down and allow market forces to prevail. Either way, my wife and I will most definitely not be buying an EV.”
Actually the British car [OEM parts] manufacturing industry could actually thrive in such a wide spread scenario, the Repro-OEM parts industry supplying the existing Classic Car industry is a Bn GBP industry and is already ripe for further expansion anyway, what the DBT would need to guard against in unnecessary off-shoring of such an industry (again).
November 20, 2024
Do you remember the incidents when sleepy pedestrians got hit by the silent local Prius (cabs etc)?
We all have to adapt to changing situations.
November 20, 2024
@MT; Not sure what your point was, but assuming your comment was a reply to me, yes and not just the sleepy pedestrians, the deaf pedestrian, the pedestrian full of spontaneous youth etc. and many have been hit by hydrocarbon powered vehicles too.
Strangely few were hit by those original EV’s, called Milk Floats – might vehicle speed be more of a factor, just as it is when pedestrians have become victims to the modern scourge of the silent arrogant cyclist who also thinks they have greater rights and privileges over mere pedestrians?
November 21, 2024
I doubt if speed had much to do with it. Being out on the road delivering milk at 5 am, when no pedestrians were around, would.
November 21, 2024
@Donna; Yours is a straw man arguments, so often made by those who have only ever worked 9am-5pm, or those who were back home from their local pub by 11:30pm…
Many milk floats were still to be seen on their rounds well into the morning, sometimes into the afternoons too; in the 1970s my mother used to compliment the milkman for delivering tomorrows milk today, often about 3pm, and no we did not live out in the sticks!
November 20, 2024
I will not accept an EV as a gift.
November 20, 2024
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
(or under the bonnet)
November 20, 2024
Oh I would but then sell it if I could find some wealthy virtue-signaller dope.
November 20, 2024
O/T An interesting item in foreignpolicy.com 18/11/2024 âRussiaâs plans to replace the dollar are going nowhereâ.
So Poklonnitsa Putina was wrong some weeks ago advertising the creation of a new money (the BRICS Bridge) competing with the US dollar following the BRICS meeting in Kazan.
November 20, 2024
Wrong. They never intended to create a currency per se. Just a means of trading and exchange without the USD.
Letâs hope Trump can salvage something.
More importantly on 25th September Russiaâs nuclear protocol changed. Biden knew this and so did Starmer before he authorised Storm Shadows to be fired into Russia.
This is very serious. They should both be summarily removed from office having put us in the crosshairs – which Starmer admits.
November 21, 2024
It’s more about BRICS creating new payment systems and using their own currencies in their mutual trade.These things are happening,notably with Russia/China,Brazil/China and Russia/India trade.Russia last week announced that Iran has fully integrated its payment system with its own, giving a further boost to already burgeoning bilateral trade and enabling Iranians working or visiting Russia to withdraw cash-and vice-versa. Exchanges for agrifoods,precious and base metals are also migrating east-and will utilize yuan-pricing.
You need to be careful with trade statistics because they are usually drawn from SWIFT transactions-and a lot of non-dollar trade takes place outside SWIFT.
Foreignpolicy.com can be useful sometimes but it is an American publication committed to US hegemony.I have read an (increasing) number of articles from that source in recent years that are certainly not objective.
November 20, 2024
I’ll take it off your hands, but will never buy one.
November 20, 2024
You defended free trade well last night. Its principals should apply internationally as well as within our home market. I would highlight one exception. China having cornered the lithium market is intent on destroying US, UK , and EU car manufacturing by the simple ploy of flooding those markets with give away product. Trump is wise to it, Germany specifically with VW in China is wakening to it. With Starmer in charge our car industry is wise to look at relocation. He and his front bench, communists at heart, believe in five year plans and industrial quotas. All of which will drop them into chinese pockets, where they will find some of their emenant predeceasors. China meanwhile has switched from Chairman Mao’s great march to rampant imperial capitalism, via financial dependency, throughout the World. Trump , a born deal maker is all to aware of the game being played. Most of our politicians are totally out of their depth. They need to wake up and smell what is being cooked. The new chinese embassy, spy and commercial base, should be the first Trojan Horse to put an end to, before it is hauled ashore.
November 20, 2024
Agree.
We will be running both diesels until they drop.
If something requires a subsidy to sell, then it is not worth the original or ongoing cost.
Why should the taxpayer fund a commercial company to pay fines or taxes.
November 20, 2024
The car industry is up the creek without a paddle. It is all the fault of successive governments. Perhaps Starmer met with Xi Ping to negotiate paying over the odds for cheap Chinese EVs to replace the UK car industry.
November 20, 2024
Starmer began his address to Xi with”…we are both global players,both global powers….”.Xi must have thought (even if he was too polite to say): “I’ll do the jokes thank you very much.”
November 20, 2024
Starmer spoke the truth. The UK punches above its weight in respect of Global mayhem.
November 21, 2024
Very good!
I wonder,has he yet practised the imperial Chinese ritual of the ‘three kneelings and nine kow-tows’ – assuming he is permitted a visit to the imperial presence?
The result of the UK’s first trade mission to China by Lord Macartney in 1793 was the Qianlong Emperor’s (in)famous Second Edict to King George III:
“Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its borders.There is therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce.”
Still quite relevant !
November 20, 2024
Agree – and The Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT) has sold out big time to China, lock stock and barrel
November 20, 2024
This whole scheme of fining manufacturers of cars and gas boiler for selling too many of a certain type is Orwellian and could only have come from a Marxist government, but then it was the Conservatives who introduced it. Perhaps good evidence why they deserved to lose the election.
The Net Zero policy, now pursued by the fanatical Miliband, is so irrational in both theory and practice and so unlikely to achieve the minutest change in the climate (beyond what nature does) that one doubts the sanity of our entire political class.
Even the Telegraph newspaper, which is very sceptical of Net Zero in practice, has never published a word in any letter or comment challenging the hypothesis of anthropogenic CO2 controlling the climate, which makes me wonder whether something or someone is preventing them from doing so.
November 20, 2024
We should have fined Supermarkets for selling things like tasteless green apples from France when they started dumping them cheap. At least the consumer refused to buy, that soon ended that.
November 20, 2024
This government just like the last will not back down from their insane Net Zero policies. The people of the UK only have one option: to vote them out of office.
November 20, 2024
Until a political party aspiring to government calls out the man-made global warming scam for what it is, net zero policies will continue be the order of the day. Tinkering at the edges and saying we need to slow down a bit, as Sunak did and as our host does, won’t work. As long as the public are manipulated into believing the planet is threatened, there will always be political capital to be made by going along with the scam. This is why the Conservative Party in government, with dozens of MPs committed to the climate change delusion, could never tackle the problem. They believed that was where the moral high ground lay and that Britain should set an example. That is why we continue to buy ‘eco-friendly’ Chinese EVs and suchlike products made using energy from fossil-fuels. The political class here, and their media servants, want us to believe that we are somehow superior by acquiescing in our own economic suicide. Only when that is successfully challenged in the political and media sphere will we get off this road to ruin.
November 20, 2024
Optics – this government and the previous one wants to crow about their initiatives on the worked stage.
This gives us carbon accounting (look how much of our emissions we have outsourced everyone), heat pumps and electric car targets.
For the likely outcome of our zeal to show the world how net zero we are please see diesel vehicles, building cladding and roof spray on insultation outcomes. All idealistically promoted government (EU as observed above) initiatives from the past.
November 20, 2024
Sorry Sir John, but Sunak “recognised” that banning the sale of new petrol/diesel cars in 2030 was unrealistic when the EU effectively gave him permission to do it by moving the goalpost first. The Not-a-Conservative-Party is fully signed up to the Net Zero nonsense and is not allowed to compete with “our friends” in the EU.
The British Establishment supports the aims of the UN and WEF, which involves destroying our economy using “climate change” and the ludicrous Net Zero project as the justification in order to “build back better.”
What they haven’t factored in is that they can stop people buying new petrol/diesel vehicles but they can’t make people buy the expensive, defective, unreliable and dangerous EV alternatives.
So the question is … are they prepared to destroy British car manufacturing, rebuilt since the last time the Socialists destroyed it in the 1970s, or will they back down. Sadly, the decision will be made in Wolfsberg (VW), Stuttgart/Baden-Wuttemgerg (Mercedes), Munich (BMW), Berlin, Paris and Rome.
Our puppet politicians will just tug their forelocks and do what their Masters permit.
Good to see you on GB News/Farage yesterday.
November 20, 2024
Spot on Donna
November 20, 2024
A twinge of nostalgia when I read that Sir John is still an MP, at least according to Georgia Pearce of GB News. I would have expected better, since she says she has 5 years experience working at the Daily Mirror and Daily Express. Oh wait – she was a ‘video editor’…
November 20, 2024
Your concern for the auto manufacturers Sr John, is welcome, but just remember this.
Our entire manufacturing industry has been destroyed by Net Zero Policies.
Net Zero was a Tory policy introduced onto the stature book by Theresa May.
Not very good is it?
November 20, 2024
For mentioning her and Tories in the same sentence you should go and stand in the naughty corner.
November 20, 2024
Off topic: anyone who still thinks the Covid Tyranny was about public health should google the following “Neil Oliver STUNNED as Dutch Official Reveals Covid-19 was ‘MILITARY Operation’ in SHOCK Admission.”
November 20, 2024
Donna
Thank you for this! Just watched it, fascinating!
November 20, 2024
The netzero brigade simply don’t want the masses to have cars. If we are not prepared to fork out for the expense of EVs then HMG will make sure we don’t use the petrol cars we are so comfortable with.
Councils have been busy installing cycleways and 20MPH zones so that the convenience of travel by car becomes an irrelevance. The forward planning documents that councils sent out not so long ago, seeking residents views, didn’t mention 15 minute villages, but if you look closely areas are already zoned off. Of course councils took no notice of any unfavourable responses, but they had to go through the motions.
The point is that netzero will destroy personal car ownership, except for the rich elites who control these things. If jobs are lost and factories forced to close that’s all part of the plan and considered a price worth paying.
In any case, as our industrial capacity becomes pointless, steel will be hard to source, and supporting manufacturers for car parts will die out, along with the big car plants. This is all foretold in the ‘Absolute Zero’ bible.
November 20, 2024
As the vast majority of my journeys are less than 50 miles (most commonly about 15 miles to the nearest town and back), Iâd be quite happy with an EV and home charging. When I see a suitable second hand EV that is suitable and sensibly priced, I will buy one.
I will buy a new petrol car a year or two before it becomes impossible to buy one – to use on my occasional long journeys. This will âsee me outâ.
November 20, 2024
Or one hybrid to do both jobs perhaps?
November 21, 2024
I have a Yaris hybrid which is only used when I donât have my dog with me. I have my dog with me most of the time so any EV I buy would be used in place of a big petrol estate car – so it will have to be pretty big and have a low boot for an ageing Labrador to get into the back. Iâd actually replace the Yaris with an EV and keep the big, old petrol estate for long journeys. When we go away with the dog, he and his gear takes up half the car.
November 20, 2024
But Tractor production is up, comrade.
Fool. We donât want to be helping farmers.
November 20, 2024
It is all intended to spite Mr Tractor (JCB).
November 20, 2024
The so-called conservative government made a habit of fining businesses for matters without their control. Cars is one example. Smart meters is another.
November 20, 2024
For lots of reasons, I cannot envisage buying a battery powered car.
1) the range is never as good as advertised and physics dictates it goes down in cold weather.
2) insufficiency of charge points. As for point one, twice the number are needed in very cold weather. A routine trip of 250 miles will take longer than the four hours it requires under liquid fuel.
3) fire risk. Although the risk is low, battery powered cars are much more likely to catch fire and very quickly get out of control. With two small children in the back, which one do you save?
4) insurance. Thanks to battery instability, a minor crunch means a write off. Itâs reflected in the cost of insuring the vehicle.
Maybe one day, but not yet and probably not by 2030.
November 20, 2024
More electric cars on the roads actually pushes up everyoneâs insurance. Also slow to charge, heaver and more tyre and road wear.
November 20, 2024
A warped policy, that dishes out punishment for not doing as someone says (usually one person with a personal opinion) all without a viable alternative option in place.
Its part of the previous Conservative Governments miss-guided approach to solve a situation, that may or may not exist. What are the chosen UK Government alternatives other than close UK Industry down and import, import, import. In doing so they have increased world CO2 emissions exponentially.
All battery cars, available for the UK consumer are from 2TFâs new best friend China. Putting China in control via their software in all UK transport doesnât seem a great idea. While people may think they are aware of what is a Chinese brand and what is not, they are being misguided, beyond the likes of BYD, you have the Mini, Lotus Cars, Volvo, VW, Teslar familiar UK names that have China in control. Even the next rush of cars from JLR, Jaguar etc. has China in control.
Batteries in EV are external controlled via the internet, reporting of use and controlling use is all done from the source, for the UK that means China. A battery EV can never be parked up and switched off, its an always on devices, the Chinese controlled software monitors the battery keeping it by heating and cooling at a ready state. It then by default can be switched(killed) off completely by China.
Only lunatics would pass UK manufacturing to a foreign power, only the inept would ensure UK wealth leaves the UK by Government decree. But that is exactly what May, Parliament, Johnson, Sunak and now Starmer are ensuring happens.
Cancelling something, UK supply, without establishing an alternative (a UK alternative) is an act of Terrorism on the part of the UK Parliament. If they had done nothing the World would have less CO2 production
November 20, 2024
The UK car industry has been in a dire situation for decades.
Why doesn’t the UK make brilliant cars like the Germans: 1. Design 2. Engineering 3. For the mass market. 4. And German cars as opposed to making cars for foreigners?
Sure, problems now with the German car industry but it’s a blip in their history overall of making cars and they will diversify in the future into tech related to cars whilst also still making cars.
Are the Germans better than us? No.
We are the nation of Cambridge University, Sir Isaac Newton, the Spitfire, The Lancaster Bomber, the Mini, JCB, Rolls Royce.
We need to think big. And government has to play a role – like in the German car industry.
And we need a strong car industry: 1. High-skilled, well-paid jobs 2. High exports 3. Give ballast to our economy 4. Creates a sense of patriotism to be creating cars like this 5. There is something masculine about making stuff, in particular high quality cars
November 20, 2024
And whilst we focus on turning Cambridge into the world’s Silicon Valley, we should be focusing on the car industry in the North of England – Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds area to create wealth in the north so as to relieve the tax payers down in the south!
Got to think big.
Plus this would all lead to making Brexit work – we’ve got to put some COJONES into Brexit instead of b-thing and moaning about remainers / WOKE / liberals / socialists / Marxists.
Let’s build cars!
And focus more on the high tech industry.
November 21, 2024
Toyota and Nissan make excellent cars in this country. Honda used to but, alas, have pulled out. I wonder why they took the decision to shut a plant they must have invested many millions in.
Reply Falls in demand for their vehicles globally. They shut Swindon and Turkey as they had spare capacity in Japan to cover their orders.
November 22, 2024
Toyota is foreign.
Why aren’t we making British brand cars and setting up companies in Japan?
Why do the Japanese get to build their cars here?
We are the United Kingdom. Not some second rate country that can’t make cars. But we don’t. Our own cars. Why not? (And I’m talking about high quality cars that the general population can afford and bring in far more money – not sports cars).
November 20, 2024
+1
November 20, 2024
No wonder conspiracy theories abound about this government’s aims to destroy British industry so it can be bought up for cents in the dollar and to erase national identities so that we will simply roll with the globalists’ designs.
A command economy will not work. They know that but perhaps the plan is simply to destroy the economy so that we have a majority who are state-dependent for jobs or handouts.
November 20, 2024
If i were in a manufacture’s shoes and my sales of EVs was unlikely to reach the Government target then I would have no alternative but to scale back the manufacture of ICEs so that their level of production ensured that the Government target of EVs was achieved. Of course reducing the production of ICEs would entail laying off a major portion of the work force. Hey Ho – 18% now equals 22%
November 20, 2024
Eco zealots want to get rid of cars and replace them with rickshaws. Iâm not joking or being sarcastic.
November 20, 2024
When farmers have mortgages then the price of food will become more dependent on interest rates which means inflation is more difficult to control.
November 20, 2024
I think you will find farmers typically borrow from banks for those incredibly expensive machines they need.
Might as well be a mortgage.
November 20, 2024
The average joe believe that the mandate was introduced widely, across the world effecting all global car manufacturers collectively âŠ.well its not, its only happening in the UK and it started in Jan 2024, 22% EV cars & 10% EV vans âŠONLY IN THE UK
November 20, 2024
The tyranny is designed to drive us off the roads. As overall new vehicle sales decline the vehicle fleet is ageing and we will depend on being able to maintain the existing fleet. Some vehicles will have to be cannibalised for parts no longer supplied, reducing the fleet still further. We are headed for Cuban levels of transport by 2035.
Meanwhile it seems the incoming Trump administration will peel back the federal emissions standards to try to breathe new life into the rust belt automotive industry that voted to keep their jobs. California will doubtless continue to wreck its economy with its high CARB diet because it can impose its own standards. People are voting with their F150s to drive elsewhere to prosper.
November 20, 2024
“Jaguar goes woke: Fury as car brand scraps its famous logo, goes electric-only and introduces chic ad campaign and says it’s prepared to lose 85% of traditional customers” headline in today’s news shows its getting desperately indeed. How humiliating for such an iconic British symbol of engineering and design that produced the E type and XJ jags. Sad times indeed for the car industry.
November 20, 2024
UK 123
Yes difficult to believe isn’t it.
November 20, 2024
The Ad, With not a car in sight, Jaguar Land Roverâs chief creative officer, Gerry McGovern, was forced to promise reporters his team had ânot been sniffing the white stuffâ….
November 20, 2024
As the famous Battery Sergeant Major once said âoh dear, how sad, never mindâ âŠitâs a dead duck
November 21, 2024
Geoff Buys Cars podcast on YouTube has a hilarious commentary on the Woke Jaguar nonsense and some of the comments are classics.
Glad I don’t have any shares in the company, which has just pushed the self-destruct button.
November 21, 2024
How to do a 180 turn in a Jag…
November 20, 2024
What do you think of the new Jaguar car ad and branding John ? Think it will boost Jaguar sales ?
Reply When they go all electric theyâve lost me as a customer
November 20, 2024
Have a look at Jaguarâs âwokeâ Director of Brand Strategyâs presentation, if you want a laugh
https://x.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/1859220552822538406
November 20, 2024
OMG! Is it meant to be comedy?
November 20, 2024
For decades to come, there will be case study after case study, on how to lose your brand value in 24hrs
November 20, 2024
They want to foster a culture in which ‘all their employees can bring their authentic selves to work.’
That should be nice. ‘Today, I feel like making seat cushions/fitting mirrors/not doing a lot.’
Does everybody else recall the disgraceful extent to which Jaguar peppered this country with fearmongering EU propaganda, not just before the Referendum, but remorselessly until we left?
Now’s the chance to help them bankrupt themselves and get our own back.
November 21, 2024
Sad coincidence that John Prescot aka 2 Jags, & Zero Jags passed away on the same day who championed Climate change Kyoto RIP.
November 20, 2024
Dear Sir John,
I wonder how these regulations will affect Northern Ireland, especially between 2030 and 2035, when the EU single market, which includes NI, bans new ICE vehicles. And what are the knock-on effects, if any, on the single UK market. In particular, how might imports of right-hand drive vehicles from Japan (and conceivably India) be affected?
November 20, 2024
âIt is leading some car companies to think of manufacturing elsewhere.â
Make no mistake, this is part of the plan to reduce our CO2 emissions by 81% by 2035 and 100% by 2050. It is also designed to reduce emissions by reducing the number of cars on the road and miles driven.
When we are told that we are to be the leaders in fighting climate change to save the planet by cutting our CO2 emissions they mean we are to be the sacrificial lamb for a doomsday cult. PM Johnson made it clear we must atone for our sins for starting the Industrial Revolution when he proclaimed to the World at the UN 22/09/2021 âWe were the first to send the great puffs of acrid smoke to the heavens on a scale to derange the natural orderâ.
CAGW caused by burning hydrocarbon fuels is entirely false. In fact the greenhouse gases, mainly water vapour and a tiny amount of CO2, do not warm the planet at the surface as shown by Shula and Ott. The cooling is by convection, latent heat and weather. Instead they cool the planet by radiating energy out to space at the very top of the atmosphere.
The planetâs temperature has always varied. We have exited an ice age just 11,000 years ago and eventually the current warming of 0.14 degrees C per decade, which has yet to bring temperatures higher than other periods since this ice age, will turn to cooling whether or not sacrifices are made to the CAGW doomsday cult gods.
November 20, 2024
That quote confirmed Johnson to be a total fool, so much for an Eton education.
Probably was taught etiquette and fine wine and port, but no commonsense or science.
November 20, 2024
Now Labour has been in power awhile we begin to see the effect. First the OBR kill the lie of the ÂŁ20 Billion black hole and after declaring the budget inflationary. Now inflation rises from 1.7% to 2.3 %, according to the ONS. Public Sector pay rises with zero productivity requirement are wholly responsible. The ever rising cost of energy will ensure inflation marches on. Appearances of sundry labour spokesmen or flak takers confirms they are running scared, they realise they are already time expired. You cannot do much worse than gaining power on 20% of the vote and then going backwards. Add to that, post election, governing for a very narrow segment rather than the whole population.
To add to their woes, they have ensured that fringe impoverished pensioners lose the winter fuel allowance. Clever move that.
I suspect our farmers, through lack of government engagement, will pursue a policy of disengagement with anything to do with government. It could set an example to all of us to quietly rebel. We can support farmers by sourcing all our meat, poultry, eggs and milk from farmers, farmers markets, and any retail outlet that sources with local farmers. Only use supermarkets for tahini or out of season asparagus.
It now costs ÂŁ1.65 to send a Christmas Card first class, never mind the cost of the card itself. Advice, select a suitable picture from gallery on your computer, add some suitable words like Merry Xmas and email them. The Post Office is so distant from marketing that is reputed to be cheaper to fly to Serbia with 100 cards and post them there. Even better set up a business in Serbia , receive parcels of cards via a carrier from the UK and post them plus a fee. Would Del Boy’s yellow peril get to Serbia.
November 20, 2024
Indeed the knock on effect.
Fewer cards printed, fewer people needed to print them, sell them, deliver them, thus unemployment goes up, Profits and income for outlets and charities goes down, so tax take goes down.
November 20, 2024
But let’s remember it was a conservative government that brought in this legislation! That indicated just how far they had left conservative values behind.
Regarding Labour, the PM and cabinet have no idea how to encourage UK industries. They will probably let the UK car industry die on the altar of Net Zero and other vital industries, like steel, then wonder why the UK economy crashes down and we have massive unemployment, meaning they lose most of their seats at the next GE.
Sadly, they will do an immense amount of damage by then. If they are too thick to regard Farmingh as a vital industry what hope is there?
November 20, 2024
‘Ford has announced it will cut 800 jobs (4,000 throughout Europe) in the UK. The company said it had to act because of intense (chinese) competition and weak demand for electric vehicles’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20626dy9d6o
November 20, 2024
‘You can have any model you like, except an EV.’
November 20, 2024
Goodbye Vauxhall, Jaguar and Land Rover.
November 20, 2024
So why didn’t they fight againt net-zero and the EV mandate ….they all thought they’d make a tonne of money from government subsidy …like tesla
November 20, 2024
The national charging roll out has stalled and has gone into decline. Those relatively few EV cars on the road are badly served by charging points so there is a disincentive to switch to them now.
This is not about giving people freedom to travel but about taking it away in the guise of net zero. All sticks and no carrots.
November 20, 2024
JR: “It is leading some car companies to think of manufacturing elsewhere.”
Actually, it’s leading many British residents to think of *living* elsewhere. There are plenty of nations that are not daft enough to hobble their standard and quality of life with a suicidally hasty de-industrialisation.
November 20, 2024
The problem with Oxbridge MPs (RE: Rachel Reeves)
There is this crazy presumption that because you’ve been to Oxbridge therefore you’re going to be the best candidate to be an MP.
Ms Reeves has made changes to her CV. The big question now is was she an ‘economist’ at the Bank of England or not. If she was, then I think she should be OK. But if not, and she worked in admin / IT or something as opposed to a senior executive role, then clearly she is not an economist. And so fails in telling the truth as well as being qualified (although it’s up to the British public if they’re OK with someone from admin / IT being Chancellor but as long as the public know the full truth of her claims on her CV).
Another reason why we’ve got to TRY and get more MPs into Parliament who have got proper business executive / entrepreneurial experience (someone without a university degree and who started their career making tea but then went on to do business plans for that company and lead that company (and to growth) etc is much better qualified to be an MP than most MPs in Parliament).
Reply Rachel Reeves studied economics at Oxford and the LSE. I set up a new business and led a large quoted company, but the media and Parliament never thought that relevant. Parliament is all about government and politics.
November 21, 2024
Hi sir. I’m not talking about you. Regarding Rachel Reeves, studying economics at Oxford does NOT make her an economist (only in an academic sense / in a teaching environment). Being an economist is doing the job for real. But even if people dispute this, fine. My real argument is that she says she was an economist at B of E. Was she? Was she an ‘economist’ at an executive level or more in something like admin? Big difference.
November 21, 2024
I am afraid that the once-great Jaguar Cars is heading for the scrap heap.
Not only are the new management converting to 100% EV production, but they are hiking prices to above ÂŁ100,000 across the board.
To make matters worse, they have just launced a rebranding campaign which is about as far away from Jaguar’s origins as it is possible to be. The advert does not mention cars at just modelsâŠâŠâŠâŠ.. wearing extreme catwalk clothing in lurid colours.
Just who do they expect to buy their cars in future ? The company admits that it expects to retain only 15% of its existing customers ! So it’s more like a brand new start up company. They admit, there is no plan B.
Elon Musk posted on X ” Do you sell cars ?” because from the advert you would have no idea.
Even the famous leaping cat has gone, in favour of a very boring and nondescript logo.