The row over what kind of car led to the Luton car park fire reveals a deep divide over what cars people want to buy and which they think are good. I have Ā not posted items from people who claim the car was an EV or was a diesel as clearly this is an important contested fact. Some assumed it was an EV, some countered it was a diesel and some now say Ā it was a hybrid with a lithium ion battery. Let us have the truth from some independent authority.
The reason for the row is of course the fact that the establishment wants people to love electric cars, whilst many people do not want one for all sorts of reasons. They are looking for any more bad news to try to put the establishment off its huge support for EVs. If cars with lithium ion batteries do self immolate more often than petrol or diesel then that would be a big negative. Bringing down a whole new car park is not a good look. We must be thankful no one died in the fire. There are worries about newsworthy vehicle fires and about the difficulty in putting out a battery fire, and issues over how common these disasters are.
The underlying problem is the insistence of net zero governments that we should buy or accept products we do not want because we think they are dearer, less convenient, not so fit for purpose. Indeed in one case government wants us to accept a product, the smart meter, which is offered free. We all of course are paying heavily for this through our tax and energy bills. Despite the free offer, years on half of us refuse one. Huge money and effort is being expended on trying to get us to take one. They will not take No for an answer. They should Ā try instead to understand the wide disagreement with these products and produce better ones we do want.
Too many people see EVs as dear, with too limited a range posing big problems to recharge. The refusal of government to say how lost petrol tax will be replaced is also a major worry. Too many people think heat pumps are far too expensive even after a subsidy, and worry they would be dear to run and let us down on temperature on cold days. Smart meters are thought to be a change designed to overcharge or switch off power if supplies become too irregular.
The green revolution needs to take consumers with it to make faster progress. That will require improved products and services that people can afford.
October 14, 2023
The problem is that the so-called ‘green revolution’ IS taking people with it, Sir John. it is indoctrinating the young, and shaming some older people for enjoying their prosperity. Their brainwashed children are telling them the planet is ‘heating’ because of their consumerist lifestyle. If half of households have accepted ‘smart’ meters, that is a mark of how successful the climate religion has been in a few short years since your Conservative government imposed net-zero-by-2050 by law. No other country in the developed world had done so at that point. No Tory MPs opposed it. Your party was fully on board with the green revolution, apparently. I cannot see it ever being part of the solution, rather than being part of the problem.
October 14, 2023
Sunak, this government, the absurd BBC and Labour are all still fully on board with the net zero religious lunacy. Yet most sensible independent scientist, Nobel Scientists physicists and engineers know full well (and many explain) it is bogus science and a complete fraud.
Were Lufthansa airline to switch to using synthetic fuel (using electricity as the energy needed to manufacture this fuel) then nearly the whole of the German electricity generating capacity would be needed to keep just this one airline supplied with fuel. If they used electric battery aircraft it would be far worse still (& totally impractical anyway) due to the weight, limited range and volume of the batteries. Plus not good to fly with huge Lithium batteries that might well spontaneously combust while in the air. Not a good marketing point.
October 14, 2023
Just suppose it were all true then surely a measured approach towards the ādecarbonisingā would be the sensible approach?
How can manufacturing be the answer? Windmills, solar panels, EVs all have huge carbon footprintsā¦as do private jets. However the figures are twisted.
And as I have quite seriously said beforeā¦let those MPs who support our demise turn up in parliament in āReturn to the Stone-ageā clothesā¦ie not many! And transportā¦ie feet shod in homemade from hunted animal skin ( good luck with that!).
Or retract.
October 14, 2023
Even if a bit more CO2 were causing a serious climate fiery hell on earth emergency (it is not anyway) and if World co-operation with China, Russia, India, Africa… were remotely likely and if we had practical low CO2 tech. solutions that worked… then it still would not make sense to aim for net zero. This as there are far better ways to cool the earth if needed and adaptation would be much better, quicker and a cheaper way to save lives. There are far better ways to spend the Ā£Trillions that net zero would cost (even if it could be done).
Do we save 10,000 lives by maintaining dams properly in Libya or not bother and reduce CO2 a little and just hope for a bit less rain in 100 years time!
The war on plant, tree and crop food is clearly totally moronic.
I read in the Telegraph that:- “Tax office staff will be paid more to work a three-day week over summer as part of a trial to help improve āunacceptableā customer service levels. Under an āannualised hoursā pilot scheme ā which could pave the way for wider changes ā a selection of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) customer service staff will work fewer hours over quieter periods and longer hours over busier times of the year, such as the winter months during ātax return seasonā.
Might a rather more intelligent & better solution not be not to have large fine hard deadlines on 31st Jan or similar for companies. Instead slowly charge interest and a small daily fee so no expensive hard deadline exists. This way accountants and business owners will not be overloaded either and can spread the work out. They may have rather better more vital things to do for their businesses.
I have on three occasions held on an HMRC phone line for over half an hour only to be told by the answering robot after holding in effect “we are busy currently so piss off mate and call back later”. Not only that but v. often you get through to rather polite people but people who seems to know almost nothing about the tax system anyway. Letters do not work either you rarely get any reply though they do seem to get filed. Yes Mr A we have your letters of dates X,Y & Z on file but have not bothered to read them or to reply (if they do reply ever it is often clear they have not read your letter anyway). How much management and accountants time is wasted by the HMRC – must be well over Ā£100 billion PA. Yet the government complain of low productivity!
October 14, 2023
and the RSPCA would be outraged!
October 14, 2023
++
(I left out the word āshoesā)
Yes. They would, and they could vent their outrage on those who wish to ban plastic!
October 14, 2023
More ignorance of where the politics has/is taken this with manufacturers now (excuse the pun) driving it forward. EV buying intentions are increasing annually now over 50% exceeding ICE.
Technology is rapidly making buyers concerns obsolete with range and charging times improving soon to match ICE and costs are becoming comparable. All will further improve with time and scale.
Charging infrastructure a key concern but governments will address that. Germany for instance has announced a massive investment.
The arguments about EVs are tired/had their day. The market is demonstrating it. Other technologies, batteries, heat pumps etc will go the same way.
Like dinosaurs your view is becoming extinct.
Reply you exaggerate EV purchase and refuse to see the obvious problems with them. No comment on how they can add to CO 2
October 14, 2023
As someone once said to Harold Wilson – “You cannot buck the market !”
And with insurance and maintenance costs set to hit the roof on EV’s, one can say that decades later, that she was right then, and she is right now !!
October 14, 2023
Nigel, about 20 years ago my employer issued everyone with a brand new ‘smart phone’ (in an exercise known as “eating our own dog food” apparently). It had very limited ‘smartness’ and didn’t wotk very well as a phone either. The battery lasted about an hour if you actually phoned anyone. Privately, I continued to carry (and use) my Nokia, which was pretty dumb but actually functioned well as a phone and whose battery could survive a working day.
A year and a bit ago I purchased a lovely new ICE vehicle because (currently) it’s very much like my old Nokia – it works well and doesn’t have any practical shortcomings. In another eight to ten years time (if I am still driving by then) I may purchase an EV assuming of course that by then many of the problems currently associated with them have been resolved…
People aren’t stupid, they will look at something and think about whether it suits their needs (and pocket). If it doesn’t, then they won’t buy it. Simples. As for EV market share, I’d suggest that is mostly driven by tax breaks for Company Cars – which also leads to stupidity – witness my son being given a plug-in hybrid that he cannot (so doesn’t) plug-in. They pay for his fuel (so he doesn’t care about MPG) but this doesn’t seem very “Smart” to me either… š
October 14, 2023
I saw a report where a Panasonic EV battery plant in Kansas needed its own coal fired power station to supply it with the necessary electricity. It highlights the superficiality of the net zero nuts , who preen themselves with moral superiority about going green, but don’t care that their ‘green’ movement is built on a mountain of CO2 production, but as long as it is somewhere else, like China, they don’t care.
October 14, 2023
Not just the manufacture of the batteries but also the mining and mineral extraction too need loads of fossil fuels. Most (indeed nearly all) EV cars will never do enough miles (using low carbon electricity) to ever give a net total CO2 reduction, when manufacture of car and the short lived battery or batteries are accounted for.
October 14, 2023
‘To manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just one battery’
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/just-how-clean-and-green-is-your-electric-car/
October 14, 2023
Irrespective of wether it was a diesel or EV which started the fire, it was the presence of EVs and Hybrids that presented the fire from being extinguished. A nail un the coffin of the green revolution.
October 14, 2023
This points to the wider issue, ie current small electricity storage batteries are not good enough. But cars are the way to drive the research to develop the energy storage system that will be. It is clear that electric motors are now a step change improvement from ICE motors in both power and weight. The means to give then adequate energy needs to be developed. Compare the steam powered cars (there’s a conflagration risk!) to petrol powered cars of the early 20th Century. We know the money is being spent to find the right technology, we just haven’t got there yet.
October 14, 2023
“But cars are the way to drive the research to develop the energy storage system that will be.”
This is a rather irrational argument. Why not drive more R&D by putting more money into R&D. R&D for better batteries or other energy storage systems can be done easily & far more cheaply and just tested in the labs. When it works in the lab and is cost effective then test on on vehicles and only then roll it out. Rolling out duff premature technology with subsidies before it works or is economic lunacy.
There is a web site claiming “42-inventions-from-apollo-program”. I am sure they could all have been developed without the programme for less than1% of the cost of Apollo. Indeed many were already invented or being developed anyway but the Apollo link was good marketing.
October 14, 2023
It’s a ‘demand led’ argument. The market exists…just waiting for the technology to fulfil the demand.
October 14, 2023
Totally wrong Peter, ever aspect of the ev is wrong.
I want to spend five minutes refuelling my car, not hours. I want and have unlimited range along with enjoying my journey through our beautiful country, not switching off the air con and staring at a computer with anxiety!
I will make my lovely old Subaru petrol car last my life.
The lies from the green lowlife make me more determined than ever. I will make my case to all the young people in my family to destroy the brain washing!
October 14, 2023
Yes, I agree with your analysis of the current state of the technology. Same back in the 1900’s, starting up a coal fired steam car vs an unreliable new fangled petrol car. When/If a power storage device is developed to provide adequate energy and rapid charging for an electric motor, ICE will very quickly disappear from our roads. At the right price.
October 14, 2023
The Royal Society have finally caught up with the fact that no battery system is feasible for trying to implement a renewables based grid. Just to support the UK grid would entail turning almost all of the world’s 1.4bn vehicles into EVs parked up to keep just our lights on according to their calculations. Research that should have informed government policy a long time ago.
October 14, 2023
I suspect you are right. Not helped by the often very tight parking spaces they now use (you can park but struggle to get out of the door once parked). Not so good to have cars only inches apart if they might self-ignite.
October 14, 2023
We need to ban all EV and Hybrid vehicles from enclosed car-parks until an investigation has reported
October 14, 2023
And Euro tunnel, Mont Blanc tunnel, ferries, freight ships…perhaps? But many must know the truth about the fire already.
October 14, 2023
I agree with that but would go further and ban the dangerous useless over grown milk floats!
October 14, 2023
Electric scooters and bikes are banned from the London Underground. Time for others to follow suit with EV’s and eHybrids from car parks and tunnels.
October 14, 2023
@Mark B – Royal Mail bans the posting of batteries, airlines ban them in hold luggage, so on and so on. Someone has to be wrong – both factions can’t be right.
October 14, 2023
Electric vehicles are the new diesel problem… Gordon Brown’s genius solution… howled that turn out?
October 14, 2023
Electric vehicles are the new diesel problem… Gordon Brown’s genius solution… how did that turn out?
October 14, 2023
I+w :
Correct.
Bev fires are both very fierce and unextinguishable and can release nasty toxic gases such as hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide. Consequently all that can be done is to contain or isolate them which is not possible on a ferry, on a channel tunnel train, in motorway pile up, in a multistorey/underground car park , in a house garage, or in a service workshop.
As a result bevs will increase many insurance premiums.
October 14, 2023
+1 they also increase insurance premiums for others you might have an old fiat panda but you might hit an EV which is easily written off and costs Ā£80,000. People driving expensive cars costs drivers extra money on their insurance costs same for people driving Roll’s Bentley’s, Ferrari’s… perhaps a limit on claims of others of circa Ā£20K max would make sense for the vehicle that is. Conversely driving a cheap car saves other drivers money on their insurance. Same for people driving Roll’s Bentley’s, Ferrari’s…
October 14, 2023
LL :
Yes, but I wasn’t just thinking of increasing car insurance. There will be increases in all types of insurance where bevs may lurk – house garages/driveways, (underground) car parks, work shops, ferries, bridges, tunnels, and as we have just seen, multistorey car parks. Just their presence parked ouside your house is a danger. An exploding large bev could cause the demolition of a entire crescent or many houses in an old, narrow terraced road.
October 15, 2023
Fire brigades are to purchase mobile containment tanks to submerge entire vehicles, consider the practicalities of rushing such large tanks to incidents, not to mention the issue of approaching and attaching lifting gear, the filling of the tanks with water and the environmental issues of subsequently disposing of the contaminants etc.
Search “Electric vehicle containment unit”
October 14, 2023
No, it doesn’t necessarily indicate brainwashing or agreeing with the climate crisis propaganda. People like “free stuff” and the younger generations love technology. One of my sons had a Smart Meter installed because he was offered one: it sits behind the TV completely ignored. He continues to leave the TV, games console and soundbar on permanent standby. And various other appliances have lights and timers which are kept switched on at all times.
The Smart Meter hasn’t saved him a penny, or saved any energy, it’s cost him to run and he is using more energy, not less. And I expect that is replicated in a great many households around the country.
October 14, 2023
Good point Donna. If a smart meter is showing continual usage of energy, then how much does it cost per year to actually have the meter running?
October 14, 2023
“Classical Antiquity left us a very important teaching that was simply forgotten by modernity since the Enlightenment:democracy-an already decadent part of the cycle of political development,according to Plato-precedes the transition to tyranny.”
October 14, 2023
What are the losses?
1200 cars
Personal property in the cars
Replacement vehicles for those that need to drive until they get paid out
Taxis
Hotels
Losses to airlines for the cancellations
Compensation for cancelled holidays
The replacement of the car park.
Then we get to the biggy. Losses from parking fines and selling parking. That’s going to be well into 8 or 9 figures.
October 14, 2023
If it was just a petrol car, it wouldn’t have coursed all that damage, it would’ve been confined to only that vehicle and put out by water ….I never in my lifetime heard of a car fire producing so much heat that it melts the concrete floor ….what could it do to a normal tarmac road/motorway (the whole area would have to be re-tarmac)
October 14, 2023
There government guidance for EV covered car parks …who knew ? Don’t think anybody has read it
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1168956/covered-car-parks-fire-safety-guidance-for-electric-vehicles.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0tXLIo7W4gzSFfUM-Hw3cpnK-b99vIqamL2v5pWfUGNSwpLscu3C9MFrY
October 14, 2023
Why indeed make people buy things they do not want? The government also make people buy NHS healthcare, state schools, expensive renewable/unreliable energy, overseas aid, the arts, government supported charities, sport, counterproductive wars, useless aircraft carriers, net harm Covid vaccines, lockdowns, test the trace, net zero lunacy and public transport they may not use, or want to use or use very much. Market rigging is hugely inefficient and hugely damaging.
So why does the establishment want us to love electric cars? After all they create most CO2 than keeping your old car and cost about 50p-Ā£1 a mile more to run (mainly in depreciation, extra tyre wear, higher insurance and financing costs). Not that a bit more CO2 is a serious problem anyway actually on balance a net good.
What is very clear is that once a large EV battery does catch alight it is rather hard to put out, gives off v. dangerous fumes and is likely to set alight to other vehicles nearby. Diesel is certainly less of a fire danger. So EVās rather dangerous in car parks, ferries, freight ships, Eurotunnel, under or near houses & in repair garages. There seems little doubt that the EV car industry has a PR arm that is desperate to downplay these risks. Insurance cost for EV cars are increasing & some companies no longer insure them.
Fair competition and freedom of choice please. Leave more money with tax payers as they spent or invest it far far more wisely than governments do.
If you see EV cars fast charging on a warm day the fans blasting out vast amounts of hot air to cool the batteries of large amounts of waste heat sound like jet engines. Not exactly efficient and the short lived battery life is further diminished by fast charging.
October 14, 2023
Well said LL. The most efficient spending happens when someone uses their own money to buy what they want. The least efficient? Someone using someone elses’s money to buy something for a third person.
As to Lithium bateries, am I the only one who remembers O level chemistry demonstrations? Lithium metal was stored in oil. When the teacher cut off a small sliver and exposed it to air it spontaneously combusted. Not an ideal feature for a battery component.
October 14, 2023
I don’t remember lithium, but I do remember sodium. I don’t think it spontaneously combusts in air, although it does oxidise quite quickly. Sodium reacts violently when dropped into water, generating enough heat to light the hydrogen it produces.
Sodium is like lithium on steroids, and is mooted for a future generation of batteries. What could go wrong?
October 14, 2023
Nor to I want people to be forced to fund the dire propaganda outfit that is the BBC. An organisation who does not recognise vile “terrorism” when they see it and who endlessly push the climate alarmist religion many times a day.
October 14, 2023
I saw a video report from a motoring journalist on a Audio A4 EV, Ā£90,000 worth , Ouch! It had all the limitations of an EV car, like 250 mile range , but what was really shocking was his report that you could buy a second hand one , 2 years old, 15k miles on the clock , for Ā£50k . A Ā£40k depreciation in a couple of years, that is expensive motoring.
October 14, 2023
Indeed about Ā£4 a mile just in depreciation and finance costs!
October 14, 2023
What will it be worth in another 2 years after you have added 10k or 15k miles?
October 16, 2023
LL:
You have convinced yourself that our aircraft carriers are useless. I normally agree with you, but not on this. We are a maritime nation and need a navy. The carriers are necessary, and at Ā£3 billion each, not expensive, when you look at all the other things governments waste money on. The cost of the two carriers is the same as the costs of accommodating illegal immigrants in hotels for one year.
October 14, 2023
You say āLet us have the truth from some independent authorityā well does this government have any independent authorities?
We got endless government lies over the source of Covid 19 (the lab after gain of function manipulations), the net harm Covid Vaccines (even for children), the ābenefitsā of lockdown, the lies and threats from government (Osborne) before the Brexit vote (of the economic damage), the lies over the causes of the current inflation (mainly Sunak/Baileyās QE and lockdown). Nothing independent about the appalling Committee for climate Change, the MHRA, WHO, IPCC, the BBCā¦
The Gov. DoT Web Site still lies that cycling and walking produce no direct or indirect CO2. I say āliesā as surely even civil servants and Ministers cannot really be so thick as to believe this? Then again perhaps the civil servants are PPE or English Graduates.
October 14, 2023
+++
Agree 100%
In fact I posted similar before reading your comment! Sorry!
Really, they lie like kids doā¦getting deeper and deeper into bizarre claims when questioned. And now they are effectively putting an end to questionsā¦which really rather proves the point.
October 14, 2023
@LifeLogic –
‘The political class is in denial about the true crisis now afflicting Britain
āWe are not ideologically committed to limiting government in all circumstances.ā So says the summary to a new report on the Future of Conservatism for the Onward think tank, with a foreword by Michael Gove. No, really? In a way itās a tribute to the strength of tax-cutting in the Tory brand that, having presided over the highest tax and spend burden since the Second World War and a state that spends a trillion pounds every year, some party figures still feel the need to rebut it.Ā
The real question is whether anyone at all in British politics actually is committed to limiting government ā
Lord frost
October 14, 2023
Is there such a thing now as an āindependent authorityā?
People tend to pay very dearly for a āwrongā opinion!
October 14, 2023
We saw the appalling attacks from Governments on the lab leak (after gain of function manipulation) Covid19 (a theory now surely certain) and the attacks on the sensible and surely correct Barrington declaration people and those that (again correctly as is now clear) questioned the “safe and effective Covid vaccines” especially for the young and children.
So Andrew Flintoff agrees reported Ā£9m compensation with BBC after Top Gear crash. Yet just Ā£120K max for the many tens of thousands killed or serious injured by the government coerced Covid vaccines, and then only if 60%(is it ?) seriously incapacitated.
October 14, 2023
+++
Agree totally. 100%.
October 14, 2023
Of course not but there are plenty of front organisations(NGOs,think tanks,charities,etc) posing as “independent authorities” and these are the approved analysts the mainstream media put in front of the cameras across the full spectrum of issues.
Julian Assange:”Nearly every war that has started in the past fifty years has been the result of media lies.”And he has all the files to prove it.
October 14, 2023
MITCHEL – That is why the British Governmant have JA locked up in solitary confinement in the most secure jail in Engalnd. He knows TOO much and “where the bodies are buried”. But JA will have his day.
October 14, 2023
Consumer demand sorts out what is best. Only when that demand is excessive or harmful does it need moderating by tax, rationing or banning.
October 14, 2023
Yes I pointed out that an Chinese EV manufacturer went bankrupt yesterday owing a billion or so: the reason LACK OF DEMAND.
October 14, 2023
Lack of demand despite all the subsidies, tax breaks and market rigging!
October 14, 2023
Yes Yes Yes
If products and services are good, consumers will buy them ….whats wrong with this Tory party telling us what to buy like China & North Korea
October 14, 2023
Reported yesterday that our only UK EV van manufacturer (Arrival) is reducing its staff and capacity by a quarter ….lack of demand
October 14, 2023
@Bloke – The backbone of Conservatism, let the market decide. Confirming that we have not had a Conservative Government for over a generations just the Uni-Party
October 14, 2023
They forced horses off the London streets with various legislation in order to promote motor cars.
āTheyā are always so cruel in their greed.
And now it is the wrong sort of motor car because they want to sell a new sort ( apparently).
Whateverā¦very few will have the wherewithal to venture out of their 15 minute prison zone.
October 14, 2023
Interesting that horse manure just like CO2 is very good for plants, trees and crops. Horses are however not as efficient as cars but probably more efficient than people walking – this as they do not usually have a meaty diet and grass/hay is not that energy intensive to produce, transport and store. Unlike typical human food. Strange then that the government want to go back to walking and cycling but not to horses!
October 14, 2023
They arenāt keen on domesticated animals.
Methane is a great concern to them. (š±). And some other cr*p about a stabled horse emitting more CO2 than a car.
They prefer the odd black bear, puma or wolf for the ārewildingā.
October 14, 2023
Remove all subsidies and see if the people wish to but an EV ā¦..remember everyone is free to vote for the Green Party, but they donāt, they donāt want net-zero forced down our throats
October 14, 2023
++
Yes I read today that the subsidies are why various firms etc. are switching to EVs.
Will the govt. keep on subsidising them?
October 14, 2023
++++++totally agree Glen
October 14, 2023
EV’s, heat pumps, smart meters. For all the reasons you mention, we don’t want them, and following a very expensive ev purchase comes the depreciation and the insurance. Insurers, it seems, do understand the fire and accident risks! How quickly have the ferry fires and the ship load of ev’s burning in the Atlantic been forgotten!
Many of us also object to the environmental degradation to mine all the extra minerals and the utterly insane energy generation by wind turbines that kill bats and birds by the million and desecrate large swathes of countryside, solar panels covering huge acreage of good farmland.
All this on the back of fraudulent ACC and NZ. These and the Climate Change Act supported overwhelmingly by MP’s and Lords. The people are the victims of fraud.
October 14, 2023
And also the State and corporations using the net zero changes to track you. I was told you had to log in and give your name and address etc to an EV charger. You never needed to give your name and address when you filed up your car with petrol.
October 14, 2023
You can’t pay for using an EV charger by CASH
October 14, 2023
I can never understand the use of farmland for photo voltaic panels went we have acres of industrial and shop roofs which are already connected too the grid. I am tempted to believe it is hate of our beautiful country!
October 14, 2023
Nobody know the cause of the fire at Luton.
But diesel and petrol does not combust spontaneously.
Batteries do combust spontaneously and more batteries will combust more often.
Insurers will figure this out.
October 14, 2023
“Nobody knows the cause of the fire at Luton.”
Seems highly unlikely that “nobody” knows as yet!
October 14, 2023
I dread to think of the consequences of a multiple pile up which involves several EVs on one of our motorways – particularly the so-called Smart ones where the hard-shoulder has been converted into a running lane.
October 14, 2023
I’m waiting for the fire brigade to release their assessment of the Luton Airport car park fire. I’d rather not speculate until then.
They are very good at analysing fires.
October 14, 2023
So why did they report that it was a diesel and not a diesel hybrid ?
October 14, 2023
Do you really need to ask that question Glen, we already know they tell lies and will expect us to believe them.
October 14, 2023
Surely MPs need to urgently know the precise cause of this fire.
Reply That would be good
October 14, 2023
It’s not important to know how the fire started because once started the presence of bevs, which can catch fire easily, will ensure the fire is not only far more intense, with the release of toxic chemicals such hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide, but will be unextinguishable.
October 14, 2023
Perhaps multistorey car parks should have type of car segregated – EVs in one area – perhaps top level only, petrol/diesel below? Should an EV fire start, evacuation could start more easily from levels below.
October 14, 2023
Then the top floor collapses onto the floor below ad infinitum.
One ev on fire is super hot, consolidating them all in a single are will create an inferno super fast.
October 14, 2023
@Javelin – That’s the bit that confused me, the photos show a Range Rover as the source. It could be hybrid but they are not yet fully electric
Reply The hybrid has a substantial lithium ion battery. We do need to know exactly what type of car started this.
October 14, 2023
The make, model and reg suggests it was a range rover diesel hybrid ā¦.its the hybrid part thatās interesting and its that part which has suspiciously been omitted from news media and fire brigade reports
October 14, 2023
The type of car matters, but perhaps the reason for the fire matters more. Car spotters have identified the model based on the shape of the rear light clusters and the silhouette. It comes with a choice of engines, but all with a mild hybrid battery located under the chassis on the passenger side, away from the engine exhaust which runs under the driver side. Mild hybrids operate on battery power at low speed, for example when driven in a car park. Higher power output would have been used to ascend the ramps to the third level, increasing the risk that a battery fault would lead to thermal runaway and fire, probably leading to a cutout of motive power. Describing it as diesel powered is in the circumstances incorrect: the diesel engine would have stopped when the battery took over no later than when the vehicle slowed to enter the car park. The video of the fire shows white smoky haze consistent with a lithium fire, not black sooty diesel smoke, and the location of the intense seat of the fire is also consistent. It is clear that the battery was on fire when the video was taken, and very unlikely that it started anywhere else.
Perhaps sophisticated software could have detected the internal battery problem before it turned into a fire, and switched it out in favour of the diesel engine.
Reply It would be good to have a reliable statement from someone who had reviewed the evidence at the scene.
October 14, 2023
@Mark I don’t know about battery Hybrids but battery EV’s are permanently on and running, the battery has to be kept at a constant temperature. So park a fully charged b-EV for 24 hours and you know longer have a fully charged b-EV, it is heating or cooling itself.
On Sir Johns doors step and a constituent of his is a company that developed the systems used by French Car manufacturers. The were running ‘mules'(disguised vans) around for a long time before production started up. The guy who runs it has been around for a long time – a great engineer, that why Ford gave him an original GT40 as a thankyou for his work on it.
The only Hybrids I have technical info on are the ones used in motor sport, my Son is a design engineer of the Systems ā however they tend to be capacitors for storage.
October 15, 2023
I consider the information reliable. It comes from several different groups and individuals independently reaching the same conclusions by assembling the evidence from witness reports and video. Contributing expertise comes from firemen, car repair businesses, oil refinery workers (who know about fuel flammability), chemical engineers etc. Frankly, the official investigation would struggle to muster a better team.
The similar car park fire in Liverpool at the Echo Arena at the end of 2017 was started by an electrical fault in a petrol engined Land Rover. Reading the formal assessor report, they had to rely on CCTV evidence of smoke from the bonnet before flames emerged from there to reach that conclusion, although they were able to find the burned out vehicle and inspect it as it was not in the part that collapsed. Police interviewing the driver were only concerned to establish that he had not deliberately set the fire or behaved recklessly, but the assessor never got to interview the driver.
It is odd that the driver was not the first person to call 999, and that there has been no mention of him being interviewed by police or fire personnel, or even spotted by other witnesses. They will trace him from ANPR at the carpark entrance if he has not come forward. More questions the media failed to ask.
Reply Which do you find reliable and why?
October 14, 2023
Journalists have made no attempt to investigate and analyse the information. Video of the car park collapsing into the area near the exit barriers was described as the explosive origin of the fire, when it was in fact alight in all the upper floors. But it made a sensationalist headline. Comment suggested some people believed the story rather than checking with their own eyes what actually was recorded, and some misconstrued it to imply a bomb because (rightly) they mistrust the media but fail to find reliable sources.
A short video of the vehicle alight in the early stages of the fire offered enough evidence to identify the model (corroborated by eye witness) and the source of the white hot fire under the chassis on the passenger side. Consideration of information about the model from the manufacturer corroborated that evidence. The press persisted in failing to consider the evidence, and instead have in several instances run stories reinforcing the initial claim that it was a diesel and trying to downplay the role of EVs in later making the fire unmanageable. They would have done better to consult informed opinion e.g. in motoring forums.
Some of the press have launched a Grenfell style investigation of the design and construction of the car park, which may lead to future improvements. It should be clear that future designs will need to allow for the rising number of EVs which once alight are best left to burn out (lithium batteries supply their own oxygen which is why CO2 and water extinguishers do not work, and water reacts with the battery), whereas ICE fires can be doused. Recommendations need to be backed up by proper fire testing to show they are effective in reducing risks.
Where the media appear to have failed is in providing public education about how to react when faced with a vehicle fire, especially in a confined car park. In part this seems to be allied to the reluctance to discuss fires in hybrids and EVs. That is a disservice, because they pose extra and different hazards with toxic smoke and the ferocity of lithium fires. The advice should be to get away, avoiding toxic smoke by crawling if necessary, and call the emergency services.
October 14, 2023
There have been advocates of āgreen revolutionā since the 1970s. They and their successors in NGOs, political parties and governments eventually realised that enforcement is the only way to get their way. I take some comfort and optimism from the fact that such people are fundamentally afraid of debate. The truth will out, whether or not the Luton fire is acknowledged as being caused by an EV. There is no general support for Labourās decision to reinstate the previous date for the ban on the sale of proper new cars. The challenge is to somehow make meaningful debate take place, despite the obstacles such as the BBCās own shameful ban on climate change scepticism. Itās to be hoped that a majority of the voting public and politicians will see the light before the UKās current progression towards a version of Venezuela becomes irretrievable.
October 14, 2023
Sir John, a lithium battery fire emits large amounts of hydrogen fluoride, a particularly toxic gas. Its effects are worth examining – – anyone advocating the widespread us of lithium batteries should think twice.
JF
October 14, 2023
Indeed perhaps the thought that EVs might well be on fire inhibited and delayed the fire fighters.
October 14, 2023
Wasnāt one of the prerequisites of all this that the wealthy few would not need the common man any more? Not for wars or labourā¦ie sling us away!
All would be done by obedient and efficient ( snigger) AI?
Yet apparently they still want our tax money?
And are disturbed by falling productivity?
Donāt they understand how disincentivising all they have done has been?
WE are NOT machines.
WE have feelings and have been hurt and let down!
WHY would people WANT to go to work just to try to keep up ( impossible) with rising costs?
And EVERY tool for survival has been proscribed.
October 14, 2023
Thatās why they want to implant chips that ācommunicate directly with our brainsā.
They want machines (or as the Narcs say āappliancesā).
October 14, 2023
Injected under the guise of a vaccine jab ā¦Iāve seen the movie āInner Spaceā
October 14, 2023
we should insist ALL MPs are scanned for chips, like animals at the vets!
October 14, 2023
We must allow business to innovate through better processes, materials, etc to make things that are less demanding on the environment AND on our pockets (the 2 should go together!)
While the government hogs all the money and strangles innovation and the mainstream media is full of propaganda, there is little chance of doing what is right for the environment.
Look what’s happening in Wales. These people are amateurs.
October 14, 2023
Nigel Hunt loses his university role after saying Welsh road signs are “potentially dangerous”. Wrexham University professor calls Welsh road signs dangerous.
Another person fired for telling the truth – rather like James Damore at Google.
October 14, 2023
We all know NZ is Marxism through the back-door and once the sewer crawlers who run the West embed digital currencies those who fear direct State control over our economic, civil and private lives will see their fears realised in full technicolor glory
Progressive is regressive
Green is fascist
Kindness is now anti-libertarian
Women’s rights is misandry
Racial equality is identity based discrimination embedded into law
Al of this politics is designed to deceive by using moral sounding labels to conceal its real, sinister purpose. And people unwittingly vote for this barbarism because people haven’t woke up to the fact that politics has now moved on from merit, democracy, accountability and equality in the face of the law to a world in which identity rules and those who are deemed to be unsuitable are targeted
The British people are stupid, ignorant and naive
October 14, 2023
@DOM +1
October 14, 2023
What do you propose they do? The rule in politics is that you never define a problem without having a solution to propose.
October 14, 2023
When will politicians recognise that they are supposed to be the servants of the people not their masters? Who do they really represent? Starmer chooses Davos before Westminster. How many MPs have direct or family links to the WEF? One thing is for sure, this is the worst House of Commons in my lifetime and I have witnessed many bad ones.
October 14, 2023
This House of Commons is what people voted for. Blame the electorate.
October 14, 2023
@Brian Tomkinson +1 Exactly who is it that empowers and pays them? This personal self gratification has to stop.
Everyone else see it. they ignore that they are the problem – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/13/the-political-class-is-in-denial-about-the-true-crisis-now/
October 14, 2023
++Agreed, Dom I wonder how long it will take the population to wake up to their situation
October 14, 2023
But what is the solution? For decades the population knew the EU was a problem, but it had no means to redress the problem – until we came up with the BDI in 1999. Then the pressure was on the political parties and UKIP could take seats away from people though not win themselves. That allowed the precious few in ten parliamentary party to get the Referendum ā¦ and etc.
So what is it you propose they do? And please donāt say āvote for a new untested party of well meaning people.ā
October 14, 2023
Who would buy the Starmer glitter incident as wanted? It was strange, in that it revealed signs of being officially planned for creating his ācalm reaction and sleeves rolled up stanceā. Equally strange was the way the activist suddenly slid backwards as if standing on oil, and also being subject to police action.
Heckling, placing an arm around someone and throwing glitter are unusual and distract attention, but where is the harm? A party conference is not as revered as a religious service, where its audience chants in supportive response, embraces or confines confetti to outside.
However, glitter is made from aluminium. Much spreads widely around children from cards and projects at Christmas resulting in some becoming ingested which might contribute to cancer developing years later, as research indicates. Avoiding buying glitter appears a better long term policy.
October 14, 2023
The Luton fire brigade has determined that the vehicle that was at the centre of the airport fire was in fact a diesel Range Rover, with with an electrical fault. The anti-EV, pro fossil fuel propagandists are up to their usual antics by attempting to cast doubt on the facts
The SMMT has released interesting car registration figures for September 2023. Despite the endless, repetitive anti-EV propaganda in the right-wing press, 101,872 BEV, PHEV and HEV electric vehicles were registered, or 37.4% of a total of 272,610. And this despite Kwarteng’s imposition of a 20% VAT rate on public EV charging
Year to date 520,093 BEV, PHEV and HEV vehicles have been registered, or 35% from a total 1,451,908.
So where are the 40,000 extra charging points that Kwarteng cancelled during his tenure as SoS Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy? Large numbers of new EV drivers are going to be looking for them
October 14, 2023
It is very early days SG as little forensic investigation has occurred as to the cause of the Luton Airport fire.
PS
Land Rover have made diesel hybrid Range Rovers with a battery pack, since 2013.
October 14, 2023
I do not believe a word you say! What ever they lie about I hope will be defeated.
October 14, 2023
Thank God David Frost is looking for a seat. Here is a product we want to buy! Anyone on selection committee on this blog, get in touch with him asap.
October 14, 2023
I reckon that āgreenā products have been secretly forced on us for years now.
October 14, 2023
I for one do not want a green revolution because the word implies imposition. By all means do everything practical to clean up the planet, change the bad habits of individuals , government and industry for better health outcomes and a more pleasant environment, but it in a concensorial market led way. Telm the car industry what you are trying to achieve, incentivise them to head in that direction producing product that the market is keen to buy. Having seen what is going on in the car industry worldwide it is very obvious that EVs are only a stage developement for part of the market with huge downsides not least of which is cost. The ignorant of Parliament and government should back off, stop dictating and do their research before leading the country down a cul de sac. We are begining to hear how we got nett zero from Boris’s pillow, a bigger disaster than even electric vehicles. It is we the electorate and population who always end up paying for government’s grotesque incompetence. Depressingly I see no end to it.
October 14, 2023
Your headline today says all you need to know about how Parliament is not working at the moment, and this has been the case for the past few decades.
You must Buy an Electric Car
You must buy a heat Pump
You must go to University
You must build a new house to these insulation standards
You must purchase on line
You can only communicate on Line.
Restrictions on movement with ULEZ areas, which have different standards in differing parts of the Country.
I have no problem with progress and moving forwards with technology and proven development, or even suggesting improvements with anything, but let it be by choice, not by taxation ir penalties.
October 14, 2023
+1
October 14, 2023
Under a Tory government ….who’d have thought it possible
October 14, 2023
Dear Mr. Redwood,
The Luton Airport fire happened on Tuesday the 10th of October around 9pm. Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service revealed on Wednesday morning the cause of the blaze was a diesel SUV car. We donāt believe it was an electric vehicle, the Fire Service said.
It certainly would be nice to hear the truth from some independent authority. However, the indecent haste at which the Fire Service proclaimed it was a Diesel car that caused the fire raised my suspicions! Why were they so keen to say it was a Diesel? It might well have been a Diesel but it was as if someone, from up on high, had told them “quick, for god’s sake, tell the peasants it was a Diesel – we’ve enough problems with electric cars already”!
Reply Yes it was unusual given the normal line we need to undertake a thorough investigation of the causes of the fire.
October 14, 2023
Its more than a worry if the fire brigade have been told what to say !
October 14, 2023
GC- The Fire Service like all others ARE CONTROLLED. Rmember a few years back when they would not enter a pond to save a drowning man. Too much regulation, deliberate in many cases.
October 14, 2023
One thing for sure the authorities must certainly know by now if the vehicle was hybrid or not. Also if it was the true cause whether it set off other electric vehicles nearby. If it did not why did it take so long to put out and cause so much damage. Just a normal extinguisher would normally have been sufficient if done quickly. Early reports suggested the driver knew the vehicle had problems when he parked it. Airport have fire stations and staff do they not?
It does seem we are getting only selective information or even lies perhaps. Just as we did on Covid19 origins, the “safe and effective” vaccines, the pointless lockdowns, the many net zero and “renewable” energy lies…
October 14, 2023
…and why is our government buying and funding offshore wind-turbines knowing that they’ll never help decrease the cost of domestic energy …why are they using taxpayers money on renewables that cost us extra and something we never voted for ….the first time I heard about the tory green revolution was ‘after’ the 2019 election
October 14, 2023
Yes, another little unwanted gift from Johnson. Letās never forget all he did for us.
October 15, 2023
all he did TO us, or did FOR us?
October 14, 2023
I have this feeling that the provision of recharging infrastructure for 20 to 30 million EVs will be embarked upon (a project bigger than HS2) taking several years during which the technology will radically change. I suspect there could be a move towards batteries that are not part of the car’s structure and can just be swapped at what passes for filling stations – surely more rational than what we have now – and before the huge recharging parks are even completed they will be obsolete. I still fail to understand why anyone rational would actually purchase one of these things.
Listening to a few minutes of Question Time last night I was struck by the way climate issues were discussed sounding like a baying mob being pacified by politicians who didn’t sound as if they believed what was coming out of their own mouths.
October 14, 2023
The plan clearly is to price most people off the roads which is why the Government have no serious plans for extra generating capacity, charging facilities or grid capacity. They know most people will not be able to afford EVs and most living in cities have nowhere to park and charge them anyway.
October 14, 2023
So David! You buy car with an expensive new battery and after a few weeks you need a long journey. After a couple of hundred miles you exchange the battery with a fully charged four year old one and go happily on your way āREALLY!
Iāll keep to Petrol/Diesel!
October 14, 2023
Perhaps, just perhaps the masses are at last beginning to see through ‘net zero’
We’re being pressured to buy an expensive electric car without sufficient means of charging it when out and about. Whilst having to hope it doesn’t self-immolate.
This will supposedly will help reduce the UK’s contribution of 1% of global CO2. (0.00045% of the atmosphere)
Meanwhile the Chinese who probably made the car, continue to pump 30%+ CO2 into the atmosphere.
October 14, 2023
Sir John, you echo the thoughts of so many. The Net Zero project has been a disaster from inception, itās uncosted ill thought through legislation to the draconian mandating of policies that are damagingly expensive and impractical for most working people and their families. There has been a systematic unwillingness by government to consult and communicate. Open debate has been discouraged, indeed the BBC and many āInstitutionsā argue the science is
āSettledā! Yesterdayās article by Emeritus Professor of Engineering & Physics Michael Kelly (notalotofpeopleknowthat) starkly highlights the breadth and scale of the Net Zero project, exposing the project as totally unachievable. It should be compulsory reading for all MPās and Civil Servants including the Climate Change Committee. The Luton Car Park fire has all the hallmarks of a Lithium Ion battery fire with huge repercussions on vehicle insurance and the wisdom of under cover car parking of certain type of vehicles. The public need open and honest answers and reasonably swift ones at that. We are bound to be suspicious when this information is not forthcoming?
October 14, 2023
Yes, why make people buy what they don’t want? I, for example, don’t want around 80% of the public sector’s ‘services’. Reducing my tax to 20% of the current level is a wonderful idea!
October 14, 2023
Exactly, & why give people soft tax payer student “loans”, when over 50% of these will never be repaid and this for degrees 75% of which are of little or no value anyway. Once again encouraging them to buy duff products they do not really want or need but for the bribes.
October 14, 2023
It was a hybrid. The fire was bright orange and coming out of the front left floor of the car exactly where the batteries are on a hybrid. A diesel car fire puts out black smoke out of the top of the car from the burning plastics and half burnt fuel not a bright orange torch like flame coming out down and sideways.
There are so many EV fires now you have to be intentionally ignoring the evidence to not know they’re dangerous. A bit like a certain medical intervention. Apparently people can see loads of evidence yet ignore it because of their politics. This is very bad for our future.
October 14, 2023
Correct
October 14, 2023
Well Iām a housewife, I knew immediately that it was a lithium battery fire. Mine was one of the comments immediately after the fire that Sir John chose not to publish because he prefers to have official confirmation. Surely the fire service know more than me and if not, why not?
October 14, 2023
“Let us have the truth from some independent authority” – delighted to assist, constained only by want of knowledge. I have seen plausible reports suggesting the answer is diesel and electic vehicles both contributed: –
Seemingly fire originated in the electrics (a not uncommon cause apparently) of a Land Rover c. ten years old and wholly powered by diesel. On arriving, fire fighters saw the fire had spread to other vehicles, inculding EVs (know to burn hotter and quicker than ICE vehicles). They made a decision (I do not know how much influenced by the presence of burning EVs) to fight the fire only from outside the building (the multi-storey carpark) to lessen risk to firefighters (a prudent move given the subsequent collapse of some of the building as the fire progressed).
October 14, 2023
Once again, Sir John has put his finger on the nub: the obsession with reducing energy use is a political top-down command-economy diktat, which has little popular support, except among those (such as academics, politicians and corporates) who have their salaries, pensions and most of their daily energy costs directly subsidised by their institutions.
When I was working in the Pacific area, I came across many UN-, Peace Corps- and missionary-led ‘development officers’ whose basic assumption was that that the ‘nationals’ (a word that replaced ‘natives’) wanted birth control, radio and television networks, white goods, and vehicles – a projection of the white visitors’ own innate and unquestioning western liberal viewpoint. Very few of these ‘developers’ recognized the plain truth: that what the indigenous people wanted, they already had – individual freedom, communal cohesion, and a great deal of leisure; and as they were far too polite to tell the keen young zealots dashing among them in brand-new Range Rovers to go away, the zealots learned nothing.
We too retain our instinctive traditional values. So far, we have been very polite, but as it now gradually dawns on the people that their politicians are trying to control them as if in a fascist or Marxist state, that may well change.
October 14, 2023
Its got nothing to do with the quality or quantity of products and everything to do with freedom of choice
For decades & centuries Britain has been a people of traders, of market traders, free consumers, and our desires have been capitalist based upon improving our own capital, our own resources, and our own assets ā¦and now during the last decade we have a conservative government acting like a communist command government telling us what we can buy
This green communist Tory government goes against the very thing that makes Britain ā¦.Britain
October 14, 2023
š¤š»š¤š»š¤š»š¤š» well said Glen.
October 14, 2023
+1
October 14, 2023
for ‘Range Rovers’ read ‘Land Rovers’!
October 14, 2023
@mancunius; Somewhat splitting hairs there, āRange Roversā or āLand Roversā, same (original) company, same production lines, many common parts, the only difference is level of trim and showroom price tag! š
October 14, 2023
Why do they try to make people buy things they don’t want?
Because, as the wonderful Neil Oliver repeatedly says on his GB News Show “it’s not about what they say it’s about.” It has nothing whatsoever to do with the environment, let alone the climate. That is just their excuse and the means by which they believe they can garner enough support and/or acquiescence from the gullible and poorly informed to achieve it.
Globalist Institutions, national Governments and global Corporations have united to force the change on reluctant populations, and they each stand to benefit enormously.
It’s about control of the masses; rationing resources and transfer of wealth from the middle and working classes in the west. They intend to destroy our standard of living in order to achieve it.
October 14, 2023
Car and vehicle propulsion is more likely to be dependent on hydrogen rather than on anything else ; the trouble is that the manufacture and introduction of battery propulsion has had more to do with ease and cost of production than anything else . At the moment only JCB have moved towards the hydrogen alternative .
I am not going to be persuaded into using – so called “enviromentally friendly” changes until sufficient time and proofs have been established – my petrol driven car has a low mileage and my oil boiler heating system is extremely economical .
October 14, 2023
B+Y :
Hydrogen is not the answer except for very limited and specific uses, such as possibly buses or HGVs operating from a single depot.
I suggest you read :
https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/hyd_economy_bossel_eliasson.pdf
It would make more sense to convert the hydrogen to methane using the Sabatier process even with a further loss of energy as methane is far easier to distribute and has already an exising distribution system and all the necessary appliances, such as gas boilers in millions of homes. There are even millions of vehicles already running on methane (LNG) and all existing ices can be converted to methane (LNG).
However, the best solution of all is to cancel Net Zero as there is no climate emergency and increasing CO2 from our current level does not cause further warming bcause of IR saturation, as shown by Happer & Wijngaarden.
October 14, 2023
Thanks , Bert .
October 15, 2023
OR – Your mentioning methane reminded me of the bus crash near Venice, at Mestre, earlier this month where the vehicle caught fire and lives lost. It was reported the coach had a methane diesel hybrid system but then that was contradicted by a claim the vehicle was in fact an all electric model.
October 14, 2023
Agreed Sir John, 110%
October 14, 2023
I wish I never had my smart meter its more expensive we have no control over meter reading they sometimes get the wrong
Readings and won’t refund us when they do
As for cars I can’t aford my existing car with the high fuel cost and road tax , but I see people driving round in new cars every three years at tax payer expenses.
October 14, 2023
I got that smart-meter call yesterday, and another today, I told them that yesterday I said ānoā and they had the gall the ask if Iāve changed my mind and why havenāt I ā¦I just hung up
October 14, 2023
GC – It is caled CONTROL of the MASSES.
October 14, 2023
The cost of fire damage and accident risk to ev’s is now a well known factor and is reflected in the very high cost of insurance or even refusal to insure.
It is now time for a campaign to ban these vehicles from public roads on the grounds of public safety. It must be a matter of luck that there were no serious injuries or lives lost in the Luton airport car park conflagration.
October 14, 2023
Sir John: “The underlying problem is the insistence of net zero governments that we should buy or accept products we do not want because we think they are dearer, less convenient, not so fit for purpose.”
And indeed immoral and hypocritical. Immoral by reference to the thousands of tonnes of earth that have to be shifted to get at the lithium and the associated rare earth metals, and the use of Chinese slave labour and Congolese child labour in the supply lines. Hypocritical by reference to the need to use heavily consumptive diesel fuelled earth moving vehicles in the extraction process.
October 14, 2023
Juging by most peoples comments, they should vote independent, free from control and influence, but that won’t happen because of the media, who control them.
October 14, 2023
Well Paul I will be voting Reform Uk and I am working to encourage others to do the same!
October 15, 2023
Same here. I’m not voting for any Party which supports the Net Zero lies and lunacy.
October 14, 2023
The Boris Johnson creed was to put the UK at the for front of Net Zero technology and production. Yet then he brought in the Import only strategy that is still maintained today.
Some figures have recently been published that the largest Chinese car manufacturer is loosing $32,000 on every car produced. While at the same time opening at least 2 new Coal powered powers stations a week to pollute the World. The CCP makes up the shortfall, so that the weaponising of trade can continue.
In to that equation you have to factor in that the Car Industry in the UK is up in arms with the EU’s desire to add tariffs on vehicles that do not have at least 45% content sourced in the EU or UK. The presumption is they want to avoid UK manufacture and maintain the position of importing 55% of every vehicle sold to be just assembled here.
Even the much heralded subsidies for the India Conglomerate TATA, turns out to have the Chinese as its partner and component supplier. Yet British Volt along with other home grown enterprises that have the technology the were with all, can’t get of the ground due to the UK being flooded with cheap subsidised alternatives and lack of similar taxpayer bailouts to rebalamnce this war waged against them
How does this Conservative Government square encouraging cheap subsidised products flooding the UK market that inevitable stymie the development of a UK economy in these industries?
October 14, 2023
British Volt could not attract the market to invest. In terms people donāt want to buy or invest in this dodgy government-dreamed-up-new-world. They donāt think itās a goer.
The Chinese will lose billions because the people, (the market) have no input. The Government which has no politicians, only a bureaucracy, invest all the money so there is no break on them backing the wrong horse. With luck they will go to hell in their own handcart.
October 14, 2023
Arenāt lithium batteries in mobile phones, iPads, remote controls for your home tv, in hearing aids and on? Weāve been driving around in petrol cars for years arenāt they dangerous. I remember a Pinto that had a fuel tank fault any rear end collision it blew up.
I want to know what happened with this car as soon as possible, for example, did someone flick a cigarette, I donāt recall people being told not to smoke in car parks. In every petrol station people are told not to use mobile phones, I see people all the time on their phones in these stations. I am most worried about people who live above car parks and if EVs can just self combust then they need sprinkler systems fitted above EV parking areas until this potential problem is engineered out.
As for smart meters, what extra protections do people believe old meters give them, they can still be cut off, they can be rationed by being cut off in certain areas at certain times. Half the time smart meters arenāt even connected, theyāre always off line. They know your power usage. I wonder what Labours position is on these meters, they are much more authoritarian, although their unions might kick off about the loss meter reader jobs but arenāt they getting customers to read meters themselves now anyway.
October 14, 2023
a-tracy : “I am most worried about people who live above car parks and if EVs can just self combust then they need sprinkler systems fitted above EV parking areas until this potential problem is engineered out.”
Ev Lithium battery) fires cannot be extinguished by any known method, including sprinklers, and can release nasty toxic gases such as hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide. Consequently all that can be done is to contain or isolate them which is not possible on a ferry, on a channel tunnel train, in motorway pile up, in a multistorey/underground car park , in a house garage, or in a service workshop.
They’re far too dangerous to be allowed.
October 14, 2023
+1
October 15, 2023
Thanks Richard, would a fire blanket contain it or snub it out?
October 14, 2023
Maybe the supporters and strong promoters of EV’s should tell us all how many petrol or diesel powers V’s self immolate. Just England’s figures will do, say in the last five years.
What is the proportion/percentage? If they are thus dangerous why is it so many are purchased without fear of any such event?
October 14, 2023
@ Prangwizard – I am not an EV promoter but can answer you with data from the U.S.A. (where the much larger car parc allows for a bigger sample size) for (I beleive) 2021. Insurance referral website AutoinsuranceEZ on its page gas-vs-electric-car-fires analysed data from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and found car fires by fuel type per 100,000 sales were: –
Hybrid (electric plus ICE) 3,474.5
Petrol or diesel 1,529.9
Electric 25.1
The uk website Fireservice reports every year in the UK, over 100,000 cars which equates to nearly 300 a day go up in flames and around 100 people die as a result. Around 65% of these fires are started deliberately to cover criminal activity, to make a fraudulent insurance claim or as an act of vandalism. One in 12 reported stolen vehicles will be burnt out.
October 14, 2023
In the USA they have recognised they are now vulnerable after many years of exporting jobs, that then permitted foreign powers to weaponise trade and wage what after-all is a war against the USA. To redress the imbalance Biden(the so-called clueless POTUS) introduced the IRA to redress the imbalances, I don’t agree with it, other than the situation were TaxPayer Money should only find its way to those Companies that call the USA home, and are based and incorporated there.
Its simple, home grown enterprises do more than just provide jobs to those that pay taxes, they them selves contribute(taxes etc) to the society they work in. Meaning the money goes around and around, instead of leaching the Countries wealth to fund regimes in other domains. (The general ‘wheeze’ applied by foreign based entities is the administration fees they have to pay into their home countries. These fees by coincidence equal the same amount that if left in the UK would attract tax. So they get to avoid contributing to the UK)
This UK Conservative Government prioritises the funding of foreign taxpayers with UK taxpayer money. Think the building of Chinese coal powered power stations(more World Pollution), they need them to supply the UK’s needs, foreign windmills, foreign solar panels, foreign steel, foreign energy. An endless list of sacrificing UK Industry, exporting UK wealth and for what? The depreciation of the UK to satisfy and aid personal self gratification.
All the while this unfair discriminatory approach by our own Government stops UK enterprise from getting out of the starting block. They were with all and talent exists in the UK, this Conservative Government shutters it
We have a UK Conservative Government, that is not Conservative and is waging war on the people of this country.
October 14, 2023
The part missed and it was pointed out by David Frost, cancelling and banning things before there are viable plentiful alternatives at the right price is not how things work in a free sovereign democracy. That’s Dictatorship.
Also worth a read his view on the State of UK politics and sort of points to the flaws in today’s Political World. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/13/the-political-class-is-in-denial-about-the-true-crisis-now/
October 14, 2023
+1
October 14, 2023
‘If cars with lithium ion batteries do self immolate more often than petrol or diesel then that would be a big negative.’
The frequency of EV fires is not as important as whether they burn more hotly so weaken the integrity of a building designed for a fire fuelled by petrol or diesel.
‘the smart meter, which is offered free’
It is not free, it is at the cost of ceding more control over the supply, as you later touch on.
‘The green revolution needs to take consumers with it to make faster progress.āThat will require improved products and services that people can afford.’
Stop intervening in the market.āNormal progress would probably produce technologies using less power and generating fewer emissions anyway.āThatās what history suggests.āAnd with deflation bundled in to offset the fiat inflation.
October 14, 2023
”Stop intervening in the market”
the best line and a line which should be tattoo on every Tory MP
October 14, 2023
Hello Sir John,
My question is simple. Can we be told how many MPs drive EVs, how many have installed heat pumps and smart meters? It should not be that difficult to canvas 650 people and we would then know whether our MPs are walking the walk or just talking the talk.
It is shocking that a so-called “Conservative government” has mandated that car manufacturers must sell 22% of their volume as EVs in 2024!
It seems many people don’t believe in God but Net Zero is their new religion, worshipping the creation instead of the creator.
October 14, 2023
Agree
October 14, 2023
Keith from Leeds āMy question is simple. Can we be told how many MPs drive EVs, how many have installed heat pumps and smart meters?ā
At the beginning of this year I wrote to my MP asking for the Governmentās reason to pursue Net Zero bearing in mind we emit just 1% of global CO2 emissions.
The answer came that we needed to show global leadership on the issue (saving the planet from CAGW) and setting an example to the rest of the world is the best approach to tackle climate change and protect the environment.
In the light of this answer I would suggest that all MPs should āset an exampleā to the rest of the UK and ensure they and their households install heat pumps in all their properties and only use electric vehicles. And fit smart meters set so they take part automatically in any DSR (Demand Side Response) requested by the National Grid as a result of a lack of electricity generation.
October 15, 2023
MPs wouldn’t pay to install heat pumps. They get taxpayers to fund their first home and then switch and get them to fund their second (and in some cases, third) one.
Reply Not true. An MP like everyone else pays the costs of their main home. If they are from outside London they can claim rent for a small London flat, but not the mortgage or capital cost of a flat they buy.
October 15, 2023
Why would we need to show ‘Global leadership’ ? It really is about time our MPs awoke and smelt the coffee, very few countries are remotely interested in UK opinion about anything.
October 15, 2023
Half the world ignores us and the other half laugh at us
October 14, 2023
Having read the comments about the explosive tendencies of lithium batteries, I wondered if Smart Meters used them.
Brief research suggests that Gas Smart Meters might have a lithium battery. Does anyone know if this is true? And if true, what could possibly go wrong!
October 14, 2023
Friends from down-under tell me that the ānoā vote in todayās referendum has won, (won massively) and they tell me that the vote wasnāt about indigenous people but about continued wokeness ā¦.the Tory party should take note
October 14, 2023
āThe underlying problem is the insistence of net zero governments that we should buy or accept products we do not want because we think they are dearer, less convenient, not so fit for purpose.ā
The purpose of Net Zero and electrification using more expensive and substandard appliances, and where batteries are involved, even dangerous appliances, is to impoverish us through the rationing of meagre, expensive and intermittent supplies of energy, food, heating and transport and to be able to control us even down to the individual level through the use of smart meters.
The reason given for implementing Net Zero is to save the planet. But there is no climate emergency/crisis/breakdown caused by anthropogenic, or even natural, emissions of CO2. Table 12.12 on p1873 of the IPCC WG1 shows no worsening weather. Happer & Wijngaarden have blown completely out of the water the idea that increasing CO2 levels leads to increased warming because of IR saturation. The Antarctic Vostok ice core data shows CO2 following temperature and there is no CO2 explanation (anthropogenic or natural) for the last ice age and the planetās subsequent warming. Nor for the pre-industrial Minoan, Roman or Medieval warm periods when barley was grown in Greenland and vines grew up by Hadrianās wall, all when CO2 levels were lower than today.
CAGW, has been described by the 2022 Nobel Physics prize winner, Dr. John Clauser, as āa dangerous corruption of science that threatens the worldās economy and the well-being of billions of peopleā
We need more atmospheric CO2 not less to green the planet and grow more food. We should increase use of affordable, abundant, reliable hydrocarbon fuels, or nuclear, to provide greater numbers of people with electricity to lift them out of poverty.
October 14, 2023
The point some are missing regarding the Luton fire is this, ONE car catching fire should not have caused the partial collapse of a multi-story car park, even if the fire spread top other vehicles, more so if the fire started on the top deck open to the skies. Might I suggest less is made of the type of car and more perhaps about the design of the building?!
That said, the one thing I have worried about in vehicle design fort many years is the now universal use of plastics to manufacture fuel and oil tanks on modern vehicles, being cheaper than steel, and as I understand it necessary for petrol due to the imposition of Ethanol based/mixed fuel, baring in mind Ethanol is more difficult to extinguish once alight aa I believe has a lower flash point that refinery petrol…
October 14, 2023
A car petrol or diesel fire canāt ignite another car four feet away, it might singe it but not ignite it, and they most certainly wouldnāt melt the concrete floor ā¦.only an EV can do that
Car petrol/diesel fires arenāt new ā¦.they donāt do that amount of damage
October 14, 2023
@glen cullen; “Car petrol/diesel fires ..//.. donāt do that amount of damage”
Oh yes they can, and have! That is why I’m shocked at the *possible* design issues with this (five year old) building, even if social media is correct, that the seat of the fire was a EV traction battery, its not as though lithium-ion batteries and their problems were not known before 2018.
October 14, 2023
Perhaps sprinklers in the Luton building where over a thousand closely packed cars were parked, might have stopped the disastrous result.
October 14, 2023
Not if a battery fire it won’t.
October 14, 2023
Water sprinklers can’t put out an electrical EV fire ….all enclosed and underground car-parks would have to be redesigned
October 14, 2023
Water sprinklers in such a situation would likely spread the fire if either petrol, diesel or oils have escaped or can over-spill with the addition of water, in the same way as pouring water on a chip pan fire is fatal.
October 15, 2023
Then the outcome from this car park fire might need to be a large increase in the gaps between parked vehicles and the introduction of better fire detection systems as well as better fire fighting equipment and trained staff on site.
PS
A quick Internet search asking “fire fighting an EV car fire” says to use copious amounts of water and other articles saying the same thing.
Sprinklers would have drenched all the vehicles nearby not yet alight.
But I’m not an expert like you.
October 15, 2023
@Martin in Bristol; “as well as better fire fighting equipment and trained staff on site.”
This at an airport, where they tends to have very highly trained firefighters 24hours on site, along with all the necessary equipment to put out various types of fire, without either an airport is not allowed to operate!
“But Iām not an expert like you.”
Oh you are far more the expert, with your internet searches. I merely learn about how to deal with vehicle fires (and their contents) during my apprenticeship many moons ago now… š
October 15, 2023
Pedantic comment from you Jerry.
Sprinklers may have made a big difference.
I have shown your comment about water and chip pans is wrong.
Chip pans are an oil based fire.
And copious amounts of water is what experts are recommending for EV fire control.
Perhaps you should have done some up to date research before opining.
October 15, 2023
@Martin in Bristol; Whatever, my chip pan comment was about oil based fires, given the contagion seen at the Luton fire…
The problem as I see it, as someone who perhaps knows a bit more about vehicle design, the traction batteries of the average electric car are built in to the underside of the floorpan (the chassis) of the vehicle, were it will be difficult for copious amounts of water to have any real effect, at least initially. The only way I can see such sprinklers might work is if they were built into the floors of the carparks, and that likely presents many design challenges.
October 14, 2023
The Fire brigade with two engines could not put out this EV battery fire! How would sprinklers help?
October 15, 2023
Because sprinklers would have drenched the whole area in seconds.
And all the cars not near the first burning vehicle.
The sprinklers would have been fighting the fire before the fire brigade got there.
Seconds count.
October 14, 2023
Where is the massive increase in on demand generating capacity? Where is the massive increase in the HT grid? Where is the massive increase in the local electricity networks? Where are all the public charging stations for those that don’t have their own driveways? Why are we governed by stupid Arts graduates whose lack of knowledge of science is taking us into the mire of a wrecked economy from Net Zero insanity and wrecked health from the mRNA bioweapon?
Reply I was told when out and about today of problems with getting enough electric power for new homes even without an EV charger
October 14, 2023
Reply to reply. The native British population is decreasing and the rate of decrease will accelerate. We have no obligation to house the world, who ādemand housesā free of charge.
The hoards in British cities supporting those who state openly that the extinction of Jew and gentile is their aim is causes much distress – and there has not been an āincidentā yetā¦
Scrap the building, expel the criminals who are in our country illegally. The Government needs to make āsome difficult decisionsā and follow through.
October 14, 2023
Diesel is really difficult to set fire to – you will struggle to ignite it with a match. Lithium on the other hand ā¦,
October 14, 2023
We have a bizarre crowd of individuals that now populate our political class. I am sure there are Conservatives in the Conservative Party, and I am equally sure the collective ‘Blob’ has ensured the party leadership has been made fully aware that should they rise through the ranks there will be even more dissent from them than there is now. So we will never see a Conservative or Conservative policies being played out from the Government
The cabal’s that surround all our party leaderships give the appearance of not able to think but to do as they are instructed. The reason we have the conspiracy about a Socialist WEF being in charge is because it plays out daily, there is no party divide when it comes to the drift to the left. There is no party divide when in comes for more money for to bolster the State. There is no Party divide when it comes managing expenditure.
October 14, 2023
Sir John
How do you respond to this increasingly stated view please?
It is quite a frightening scenario as it equates to a complete lack of democracy.
October 14, 2023
Labour has declared war on the Public School(bizarrely now called private). Every place taken up in a fee paying school creates less pressure on the State Sector, that is either very good or under par and that has nothing to do with background all to do with those that indoctrinate as opposed to teach.
So if Labour taxes the fee paying sector, that means less will be able to afford it, a very Socialist idea, a bit like making it unaffordable or hindering you from your owning a ‘car’! If less people can afford to pay school fees that means more places will be required in the over crowded State Sector. This highlights the basic problem for those that finish up in UK politics, they fail to ‘think’. Maybe(I doubt it, as choice should be the only criteria) there is a case of one class of school for all, the easiest way to achieve that is to make sure in the first place before anything else that the State Education Sector out performs the Fee paying Sector. Then they could have a case.
We are still embroiled in the previous Socialist indoctrination concept pushed out by all parties of the Left, the Comprehensive School. Is education all the better for it? There are no signs of improvements. Our young still have to roll the dice they either get a school that teaches how to learn or one that indoctrinates and labels everything.
October 14, 2023
The situation is the same for the NetZero luvvies, we would have all moved in that direction if it offered something better and that the so-called new way did something other than seek to punish, ban and cancel. We must keep reminding ourselves only 6 Countries on this massive planet of ours out of 197 have chosen this path of destruction. The Worlds largest polluters have declined to engage in this lunacy, they have declined to throw their economies in the bin.
So our WEF lead Socialist Political class is aiding and abetting as instructed the destruction of the UK rather than serve the people that empower and pay them.
October 14, 2023
Airlines state that all lithium batteries must be carried in hand luggage. It would be interesting to know whether they have any special arrangements for dealing with a fire in one of these products.
October 14, 2023
open a door and throw it out?
October 14, 2023
Surely questions are, “What car caused all of this damage”? Why did it manage to do so much damage? “Why are the authorities being so guarded with this information”? “Do they not think the delayed flyers have a right to know”?
No answers and we’ll all think we are being ignored again. Because we are not worthy?
October 14, 2023
and now for something surprising.
The German finance minister has extended a surprise invite to the UK to take “new steps” on post-Brexit trade relations with the European Union (EU). In a BBC interview, Christian Lindner said: “If you want to intensify your trade relationship with the EU – call us!” A government spokesperson said the UK was open to “new opportunities” across the globe.
Mr Lindner also said the German economy and energy supplies remain strong.
He is the leader of the German liberals, part of the ruling coalition led by the centre-left SPD of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. During the discussion on the margins of the IMF and World Bank’s annual meetings in Marrakech, Mr Lindner said that the UK had a “standing invitation” on future talks aimed at reducing trade barriers, or “obstacles in daily business life” that had arisen.
Will somebody please explain to him that we wish to see trade decrease with EU, but increase with the rest of the trading world? The barriers he mentions are EU imposed.
October 14, 2023
āMr Lindner also said the German economy and energy supplies remain strong.ā šš¤£
October 15, 2023
Germans not normally known for a sense of humour!
October 14, 2023
Having served a five year engineering apprenticeship (many years ago) with one of the big fire and safety manufactures, where we demonstrated to customers how you could put out a big oil fire, or aeroplane fire with our products and machinery, including the use of airfield crash tenders..
A further 5 years in the research and development department in the motor manufacturing industry, I am surprised by many of the comments and simple conclusions that many are drawing from the Luton Fire.
Yes fire can be controlled after a fashion depending upon the location (outside/inside), access, speed of action taken, the structural design and material used in the building, the safety processes within the building, sensors, sprinklers, and the type of medium used to suppress the fire, be it water, foam, powder, a blanket etc etc.
Yes we need an expert forensic examination, but given the heat produced, that may prove a little more difficult and time consuming that people think.
I certainly would not want to be standing anywhere near a car fire once it got hold, be it petrol, diesel, or battery.
In the very, very early stages of a petrol or diesel fire you could put a fire out with a small hand held extinguisher, but only if you knew what you were doing.
Electric vehicles are a totally different matter, as my firefighter neighbour has informed me.
Let us wait and see if we get a proper and detailed report, or a simple cover up.
In the meantime, and if true, ask yourself what person in their right mind would drive around in a vehicle that has a known fault, and parks it in a busy enclosed car park, for what would be an extended period of time.
October 14, 2023
No party will receive my vote ( & that of others I speak with ) all the while there is compulsion, threat & risk of criminality through non – compliance of their Net Zero directives & their insistence to spend my money on replacements I do not want or need. Also not interested in Ā£notes being thrust in my pocket in order I may have the pleasure & ‘benefit’ of having pylons in my locality, nimby or no ! That goes also for any policies relating to votes being given to 16/17 yr olds & non UK citizens ( e.g. some categories of EU citizens ), migration pacts which could never be to our advantage, the bulldozing of democratic input, planning / build procedures or compulsion vv land purchase. There’ s still a long, long list of things we need to hear about from both Conservatives & Labour. What next – taxing our gardens possibly – I jest, but come to think of it, even that was mooted only a few years back …..
October 14, 2023
āWhy make people buy what they donāt want?ā
Contol, and the removal of competition. Thatās what itās all about.
October 14, 2023
600 boat people in the last 7 days, none in the last 3 days. Events will not cause the government to alter policy, though the weather might slow it.
October 15, 2023
The government is using huge amounts of our money to bribe companies and their employees to run EVs as company cars.
Today a friend told me that he has just ordered an Audi eTron SUV which, he tells me, will cost him just Ā£35 a month in company car taxation. Had he chosen the Ā£10,000 cheaper petrol or diesel version, he would have to pay Ā£450 a month in extra tax !
Fortunately for him, his employer has obtained grants to install charging points at its head office and all of the branch offices he visits each week. Charging there is free.
Bribery is the only way the government has any chance of hitting its 22% target for EV sales nex year. My friend readily admitted that if he did not get a company car, he would, like me, still be running a diesel Audi.
October 15, 2023
My son got a hybrid EV/petrol company car for tax reasons. He can’t charge it at home and doesn’t use public chargers – none of which are near his home. He charges it for free when he goes into the office about once a week, if a charger’s available, and the rest of the time it runs on petrol.
October 15, 2023
Why make people buy things they don’t want?
That’s not what’s happening here. The idea is to stop people buying those things because they either can’t afford them or because they don’t want them.
There are darker forces at play here.
October 15, 2023
Oh Yes… but why do we not hear this common sense from Tory leaders?
October 15, 2023
JR said “Let us have the truth from some independent authority.”
I agree, but such requests are challenging in the age of the Ministry of Truth, sorry the ‘2019 Trusted News Initiative’. A recent video from ‘Geoff Buys Cars’ on Youtube was fairly informative. At least he’s not from government or industry which increasingly seem to let us down when we ask for answers.
He thinks it likely that it was a hybrid diesel vehicle from JLR, i.e. it had a lithium battery. If so, the earlier ‘diesel car’ answer from various sources was possibly the truth but not the whole truth.
October 15, 2023
Honest common sense from JR.
The government can give its reasons and explain its preferences, but people should be able to make their own choices without subsidy or taxation or fining firms (effectively fining customers) for not selling (buying) as many electric cars or heat pumps as the government arbitrarily decides.
Net-zero is a ruinous agenda, based on a falsehood, and gives economic advantage to countries that don’t do net zero.
There is already more than enough CO2 to absorb all the radiation within its absorption bands from the sun (or re-emitted as black body radiation from the earth). Adding more CO2 makes no difference – there is no more energy to absorb – changes in temperature are due to small fluctuations in output from the sun which we cannot control. From whence we’ve had ice ages and small temperature variations since the last ice age.
(CO2 both absorbs and re-emits radiation, and it rapidly distributes heat up through the atmosphere – and water vapour does the same thing).