The Department for Transport has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (174163):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to promote the uptake of electric cars by Government departments.. (174163)
Tabled on: 27 March 2023
Answer:
Jesse Norman:
Decarbonising road transport is critical to delivering the UK’s net zero ambitions and the Government has an important leadership role to play in driving this transition.
As of September 2022, over 25% of the cars and vans in the central government fleet were ultra-low emission vehicles, delivering this target well ahead of the Government’s December 2022 deadline. The Government is now going even further and has committed to its car and van fleet being fully zero emission at the tailpipe by 31 December 2027. Departmental officials are working with colleagues from the Crown Commercial Service and Energy Saving Trust to provide other government departments with advice and guidance to support them to deliver this commitment.
The answer was submitted on 31 Mar 2023 at 10:36.
April 3, 2023
It will be noted that the answer given to Sir John avoids the actual question asked, “ultra-low emission vehicles” are not EVs, whilst being “fully zero emission at the tailpipe” by a certain date necessarily mean using EVs.
April 3, 2023
But hugely emitting from the lithium mines to build them, from the power stations to charge them and the tyres emit more particulates as much heavier vehicles. More emissions cars but elsewhere is the reality oh and they do not have a tail pipe.
April 3, 2023
My understanding is that an Ultra Low Emission Vehicle is one that will satisfy the ULEZ rules for London, so anything built after 2016 should be ok, including all ICE vehicles registered after that date.
Hardly a glowing reference to the interesting question you asked, if only 25% of the fleet are of the type outlined above.
I wonder who pays the daily emission charges for those which do not comply ?
Oh silly me, that will be the taxpayer !
April 3, 2023
Surely TRUE commitment would be to scrap all govt. ICE vehicles by midnight tonight ( or within the next few hours), dispose of them in an eco friendly way (!) and immediately replace with fully electric vehicles. (I’d say horses but govt. has been unusually cute in ruling them out on the spurious grounds of methane).
Why not?
What’s the problem?
Why has this not already been done?
Isn’t err…”saving the planet” ( which requires none especially from this govt.) the supposed point? NOT delivering U.K.’s aka govt.’s overweening ambitions!
April 4, 2023
Just get them to use public transport. Oh, and no more home working.
April 3, 2023
Sometimes I despair.
These people, living comfortable lives on a decent salary think nothing of spending ÂŁ16,000 on an electric runabout. Parked in the front drive, it charges (at the moment) virtually free every night. It is ideal for the school run, shopping and as Mum’s taxi. Meanwhile the Mayor of London, that virtuous Mayor, who expands ULEZ for ecological reasons (of course), travels about in a ÂŁ300,000 bullet proof limo. Many other eco warriors travel a lot by private jet.
Down here in the Fens, I honestly do not see any electric cars. The nearest railway station is four miles away. Buses travel past empty or nearly so. We all use petrol and diesel cars from the last decade. As darkness falls, I see the occasional light in a nearby suburban house. Otherwise, darkness where a couple of years ago were fairy lights.
There is little or no discussion about the validity of Global Warming. Lots of assumptions. Lots of people speaking as if it is a done deal. Is It? What is the real evidence – for and against?
What car manufacturers, steel workers and ordinary people make of the ridiculous electricity and gas prices, I do not know. Meanwhile, of course, fracking is forbidden.
April 3, 2023
How typical of their government. Petrol/Diesel cars are much cheaper to buy & no more expensive to run, but the government spends our money on virtue signalling.
The absolute dishonesty about the cost of net-zero & the mulish stupidity continues.
The net-zero target must be abandoned & we must wait for technology to take us to a better situation when it is available.
No one got a subsidy to buy a mobile phone, so why does green energy & net-zero need subsidies? Because it is less efficient & more costly & no one in Government appears to have the common sense to see that.
April 3, 2023
Agree – The green revolution would fall apart if it wasn’t for taxpayer subsidy
April 3, 2023
glen cullen
It would have never gotten started without them. The Prime Minister had a dream at the time and offered subsidies for wind turbines aka windmills. They were “new technology” and that is how that came to pass
Incompetence and ignorance of mammoth proportions. All the politicians except a very small percentage went for it sheep like, to become a member of the new religious community that was born.
April 3, 2023
Let’s hope govt. drivers are VERY careful. Minor damage, like mounting a pavement, to the battery can cause a car to be written off and car becomes dangerous.
Very, very few people who can remove and repair these batteries and how to get rid of battery?
Obviously there was NEVER ANY INTENTION of mass rollout of these white elephantine unicorns!
April 3, 2023
Exactly.+1
April 3, 2023
Culbono
Not a supporter of EV cars at the moment as they fail on too many other counts for me, but bumping up a kerb is hardly likely to cause the damage you suggest, although driving through water too many times may pose a problem, given where they are located !
I would have thought the biggest problem would be running out of power, and not being able to move them by simple towing was a rather more likely a serious fault, as the cost of lifting and putting it on a flat bed lorry would be rather expensive and time consuming.
Think one major car manufacturer is reworking/recycling older batteries into re-conditioned battery units, but they are still hugely expensive !
April 3, 2023
I got it from this article.
https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/ev-battery-damage-might-force-insurers-write-entire-car
April 3, 2023
Did someone just mention the increased insurance for an EV
April 3, 2023
Sir John,
They are cheats, they did not give a straight answer, as you must have noticed.
They just bought a whole load of NEW petrol cars, but not EV’s.
April 3, 2023
Elli Ron
He did answer but not clearly, you need to read between the lines, and that is the whole point.
New petrol or diesel cars are ULEZ compliant at the moment, until they change the emission allowances (some time in the future when they want more money) then they will fail, and the owners will need to pay, but because they are government or local authority owned, the taxpayer will fund any charges.
April 3, 2023
So those that cannot afford low emission vehicles have to use public transport or shanks pony! Fine if you live in urban areas. But my village has 1 bus a week to our nearest town 10 miles away! That situation will not be improved anytime soon!!!
April 3, 2023
Congrats to your nett zero government. They can afford it using our money, so ensuring that we the electorate cannot afford it. Government can virtue signal all the way to their next tax grab.
April 3, 2023
A useless answer to a serious question. Typical of the man who has brought little or nothing to the Party.
April 3, 2023
This plan could backfire. EVs are too expensive for most people. This policy reinforces the impression that Green Energy is for the benefit of the well off and state officials at the expense of the less well off. The more affordable EVs are made in China. More dependence on China.
April 3, 2023
Presumably this will justify more ministerial visits by private jet and helicopter since risking trying to get a fast charge for a ministerial Tesla would be a step too far. Perhaps the government ought to come clean on what the replacement cycle economics look like: anticipated resale values of vehicles with short remaining battery lives and frequency of replacement. It would also be interesting to know about the costs of grid reinforcement for all the necessary chargers: I don’t think we heard whether the plans for 80 charging spaces at the House of Commons car park ever went ahead, as they would have posed a substantial requirement on increased electricity supply. Swimming pools for the PM are much less demanding.
April 3, 2023
If Jesse Norman thinks that Electric Vehicles “Decarbonising road transport and is critical to delivering the UK’s net zero ambitions” he is totally deluded.
Electric vehicles increase CO2 very considerable as the cars and batteries need so much energy to construct them and their rather short lived and hard to recycle batteries. Also we have free no low carbon electricity to charge them with anyway. So keeping your old car is, almost invariably, far better for CO2 output.
Jesse Norman is a classics graduate so perhaps has some excuse and know zero about transport, physics, energy, CO2… but does he not have advisors who understand these things? I see that his wife Dame Bingham was Chair of of the vaccine task force for Covid. She might be best advised to keep very quite about this given the appalling harms the “vaccines” have done to people and the impacts on pregnant women & fertility levels.
She has a biochemistry degree so I assume she can read the extremely depressing statistics? Given them to the young was unforgivable and surely criminal negligence!
No chance of hiding this it will all come out it covers nearly all countries after all.
Perhaps she might explain to her husband the reality of EV cars and CO2 too.
April 3, 2023
Freedom of choice, innovation of competition, market forces – all bywords of the conservative party ….just how do those principal words fit in to the world of net-zero, banning cars & gas boilers, restricting where people can travel and pricing out the poorest with ULEZs who can’t afford the utopia world of EVs, Heat Pumps, Off Street Parking …every Tory MP needs to take a long hard look at themselves
April 3, 2023
Is there any research on the effectiveness of the current batch of public purchased EVs, the police cars, police motorcycles, NHS ambulances, council vans, council refuse lorries etc ….are we to continue without evaluating costs, benefits and effectiveness of introducing EV and banning ICE
April 3, 2023
glen cullen
Of course, they will it’s the only way they know.
April 3, 2023
More engineering know how from the MA’s and BA’s.
April 3, 2023
Jesse Norman claims that “Decarbonising road transport is critical to delivering the UK’s net zero ambitions”. Actually he is talking about the deluded Tory government’s ambitions; the people on the whole are not that stupid.
Parliament is full of people who claim to be educated but in fact are not as they have no understanding of Science and Technology because of an education system that allows people to ditch the hard stuff.
April 3, 2023
It’s easy for Govt to renew its vehicles. Just pass cost to the Taxpayer.
April 3, 2023
The most CO2 cost efficient vehicles on the road today are all over twenty years old ….its better to recycle than to build new
April 3, 2023
Its not a conspiracy but like domestic smart-meters the government can, via wifi, remotely disable and/or limit the use of your EV, and they can do the same with public charging points
April 3, 2023
Electric cars are being written off after minor damage to batteries, casting renewed doubt on their environmental credentials.
Roughly half of low-mileage EVs being salvaged have suffered minor battery damage – which can be caused by something as innocuous as mounting a kerb – according to Copart, an auction platform.
April 3, 2023
Electric cars are being written off after minor damage to batteries, casting renewed doubt on their environmental credentials.
Roughly half of low-mileage EVs being salvaged have suffered minor battery damage – which can be caused by something as innocuous as mounting a kerb – according to Copart, an auction platform.
Source DT article 03/04… so who’d both to own an EV. Contract Hire ok… but yes check the insurance premium hike first.
April 3, 2023
”Britain must rethink its net zero ban on new petrol and diesel cars after Brussels watered down restrictions across Europe, the chairman of JCB has said.” net-zero-watch