The UK government’s decision to announce an end to diesel and petrol car production by the end of this decade is speeding up the need for many decisions about the future of this important industry. Yesterday the Business Secretary had to talk to the Commons about the future of Ellesmere Port, where Vauxhall has been making engines and then assembling cars based on the internal combustion engine for many years. He assured us he wants to help Vauxhall stay there, to make a new all electric vehicle. Clearly under government plans for the industry they cannot carry on making the current types of car for much longer. I hope he succeeds in his “discussions” as he called them.
The battery is an important part of the structure of an electric vehicle, and a substantial part of the cost or added value. Car assemblers are likely to want to be close to battery makers, to take delivery of the whole “skateboard” orĀ the sub assemblies which will comprise the battery, the wheels,Ā axles and the electric motor. Electric vehicles are very different to petrol or diesel cars. Designers might soon start to make them look very different too, as they do not need the same engine compartment and fuel tank in the bootĀ that we have grown used to.
In a wide range of questions from MPs wanting some of the new industry to go to their areas the Secretary of State was offered several good potential sites for battery production, and potential willing workforces. He was reminded of the possible production of lithium for the batteries from the hot springs that can be tapped amongst the granite masses of Cornwall. Because many other countries see the opportunity to gain investment in these new products and technologies, there could be some competitive bidding by governments in terms of support to the companies thinking of taking the risk of putting in large battery and car plants for the newĀ vehicles. Companies will expect help with site acquisition, training of staff and access to raw materials and power at least.
The Business secretary told us he expected to have one battery factory up and running by 2024, then added that he wanted more. 2024 is not far away. Governments have to accept that because they are leading these changes and want them, they need to work hard to help the industry adjust. The industry’s problem is they need to commit to huge investments in new products and plant before the demand for the electric vehicles has taken off. Meanwhile their cash flow from existing products has been damaged by the new controls to come on diesel and petrol cars. Sorting this out is going to prove costly and is full of competitive hazard for companies and countries.
March 2, 2021
Good morning
And I wonder if anyone has given any thought as to material security ? You know, whether or not the UK can guarantee that the materials to make said batteries cannot be interrupted by third parties such a China which seems to have rather cornered the market.
Oh the madness of such fools š
March 2, 2021
Mark B
Agreed, lithium and the other precious metals are located in which Countries, how much raw material exists, and are they politically stable ?
March 2, 2021
JR, off topic. But questions the same stupidity of Johnson decisions.
Johnson offers/allows all European football games to be played here! The UK slowly unlocks, data not dates, in June to import a wave of EU virus here! How about these mutations his govt bang on about? Is he mad? Or is this another level playing field to make sure the UK stays in EU virus lock step as well?
My suspicion is that this is part of the NHS free world service!
March 2, 2021
Should that happen all confidence and law abiding nature of people here will be lost.
Even now, scratching around to find people who’ve arrived and haven’t filled in customs forms is absurd.
As for the batteries, yes we need to get in with a certain nation to the west which has a policy of strategic stockpiles.
March 3, 2021
Johnson said data not dates and earliest dates for our release in June. In stark contrast yesterday he offered to host not only semi final and final but all European competition in July! A fixed date when EU is dragging behind on vaccinations.
After two days of hearing how the test trace system failed in trying to find an infected person!
JR, please explain the logic of his announcements and statements. I think he has lost leave of his senses.
March 2, 2021
āThe UK governmentās decision…ā And there we have it. Not consumer driven, not competition or brand driven …just a lunatic and arbitrary ādecisionāin our fair democracy. A line in the sand ( and they hope a pocket-liner) under the genius and skills of 300 years….SQUANDERED by greedy morons.
Will Boris be selling tickets for socially-distanced and masked viewing of his newly refurbed flat? Like they do to view the Palace at Versailles? Oh….
March 2, 2021
No today Johnson invites all citizens of the EU here in the summer to watch football matches! He did the same just before his lockdown last year with the Liverpool game! Same with Cheltenham races, Dido Harding on the board now track and trace czar who cannot find a person with a mutation!
Bear in mind our alleged scientists saying a booster might be required in autumn and it is not known how long the vaccines last for.
Johnson is not acting like a sane person.
Come on JR explain his decision after destroying our way of life, destroying the economy, destroying businesses, destroying jobs, destroying education. Please explain why he ends his lock down in June to invite all of Europe here when they are way behind in their vaccination programme?
March 2, 2021
Agree, absolutely stupid idea.
March 2, 2021
Why can he not be stopped? Where is Parliament?
March 2, 2021
Once again – spot on…..lunacy
March 2, 2021
No need for any of this manufacturing posturing.
Retailers will source new electric cars from China and India.
Our energy costs are too high for them to be made here.
March 2, 2021
Indeed they will. Whilst our industry declines because of the fools we allow in office under their climate change nonsense, China and India and elsewhere will laugh at us whilst they burn …………fossil fuels to increase their industries whilst bankrupting the west. Of course they have a different atmosphere than us in the west! We’ll still be wearing masks and social distancing and racking up debt………….for no reason as the elderly and those at risk will have long been vaccinated. All the stats said months ago, protect the over 60’s and those with underlying issues and the rest should get on with living. We need serious change in this Country if we are to survive these idiots in Westminster.
March 2, 2021
Yes we are witnessing what would have happened if the over 70s and vulnerable had been shielded from day 1 and everyone else got on with life.
March 2, 2021
SJS
Many millions did exactly what you suggest and self isolated, problem was infection let/bought into nursing homes, and also taken home and to other areas from hospitals, I am also sure many care workers who visited the vulnerable at home also unwittingly past it on. etc etc. then once it got a hold it simply spread, in those early days people were unaware you could be asymptomatic and be a carrier without symptoms.
March 2, 2021
+1 a date in the sand is the wrong way to achieve the change.
March 2, 2021
It can take over 100 KWH of energy to manufacture a battery storing just 1kwh. So if you want to make them in the UK we need a cheap on demand energy policy to do so competitively (we need this anyway for all sorts of other reasons too). This is a battery that will not even last very long and even more energy is then wasted in electricity generation, transmission, voltages conversion, charging and discharging. Energy even lost when the car is not in use.
R&D yes, early government pushed roll out of premature technology is bonkers.
March 2, 2021
You never give sources so who knows where you get your numbers from, but seriously you are complaining about a total of Ā£16 for UK electricity out of a cost of Ā£116 or so per kWh amortized over how many years – around 8 for for most batteries so Ā£60+ per year for an average 30kWh traction battery.
All systems have losses but EV energy efficiency is significantly superior to ICE – I haven’t seen you mourning the staggering energy losses of ICE which convert only 12 – 30% of the fuel energy to power at the wheels compared to the 77% energy efficiency of EVs (according to US Dept of Energy).
March 3, 2021
Only superior if you ignore the losses in producing and distributing the electricity and the energy needed to manufacture the care. Every Ā£1 of electricity charge the battery with you often devalue the battery by about Ā£2 too.
March 2, 2021
LL
Sitting in the petrol station while hubby went to pay… I sat opposite the electrical charging point.
150 kw… how much would that cost???
And we quibble over boiling the 3kw kettle too often!
March 2, 2021
The energy used in boiling your kettle depends mostly on how much water you put it in, and not the power rating. A full 3 pint (1.7litre) kettle consumes about 1/9th of a kWh to boil from 10 Centigrade tap water (much less if you live up a mountain where water boils at much lower temperatures due to lower air pressure). If you boil only what you need it’s ready sooner.
The cost for the fast charger is the beefy cables that have to be laid to feed it at least back to the local transformer and the expensive components to handle the power flow safely. Since that all has to be paid for they ate expensive to use.
March 3, 2021
You pay by the kWh just like at home just like with the kettle, so while you pay a premium rate for the high speed DC chargers the total is determined by how much you put into the battery.
I have a BP Pulse subscription so would pay 27p per kWh on that type of charger which works out at Ā£8.64 for an 80% charge. Normally I charge for free off my roof or at 15p per kWh off the grid.
March 2, 2021
No bother on that Will – we won’t be able to produce enough electricity to charge them all up anyway.
March 2, 2021
hope they arrive with a fully charged battery !
March 3, 2021
A fully charged 40KWH car battery hold about Ā£4 of electricity which might take you 130 miles if you do not need the heater or wipers and it is not too cold day.
March 2, 2021
Once again the political class come across as clueless fantasists. They are set on destroying a whole industry in the space if a few years. The supply chains, from raw materials to manufacturing do not exist at the scale to support the switch to electric – either in the UK or globally. The supply chain to refuel the wholesale switch to electric does not exist – either in the UK or globally. The economics to support businesses to fund these changes and replace government tax and duty streams does not exist – certainly not in the UK. The reality is that ownership of a car will become the preserve of the very well off. Levelling up, in reality, will become levelling down. The freedom and mobility provided by the car will become a thing of the past. Welcome to The Great Reset. And all imposed without your consent.
March 2, 2021
Exactly but all but a handful voted for Milibandās insanely damaging āClimate Change Actā. Deluded unscientific plonkers.
March 2, 2021
+1
March 2, 2021
+1
March 2, 2021
and this isn’t a Labour government …its Tory !!!!!!!!!
March 3, 2021
Tory but deluded socialists alas in the main.
March 2, 2021
Compared to what? Oil?
Where do we get oil petroleum and diesel from, how risky is the supply and supply lines from those countries?
Cars currently rely on platinum and palladium for exhaust processing while production also relies on cobalt as a catalyst to remove sulphur.
One thought – once you have burnt the petrol or oil it is gone, you have to dig up some more. Once a battery has come to the end of its working life you recycle the Lithium to make more batteries. There are ways to create synthetic hydrocarbons eg Fischer-Tropsch but this is energy intensive so you will need lots of energy for future hydrocarbon production and energy storage just as you would for battery or H2 prodction and energy storage.
It is depressing how many people do not wish to confront reality and just kick the can down the road to future generations to the point of demonising any attempts to find alternatives before we really, really need them.
March 2, 2021
@Dixie
I agree that there will be change …… there always is.
However, I do not believe that the Government has adequately made its case. I think we will need to kick the can down the road for a while longer.
March 2, 2021
I agree governments haven’t performed at all well, it is not a party thing the problem is the attitude in the political and civil servant classes.
My concern is that I don’t think we have the luxury of time to keep kicking the can down the road, the issue is not climate but economics and geopolitics.
March 2, 2021
The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) have requested freedom of information on a Government white paper with regards to the carbon neutral plan. Apparently itās a bit scant on a lot of detail. Itās likely to cost Ā£250 trillion but isnāt easy to find the info. Itās possible MPs (and the electorate) are being mis-led as to the true costs and the ensuing hardship.
March 3, 2021
What has been the true cost to build and maintain the oil economy not forgetting to factor all the costs including cleanups and wars?
March 2, 2021
and once you used the electricity it is gone for good.
March 3, 2021
You can generate the electrical energy from a variety of sources. There are options for creating HC fuels but all involve R&D, investment and lots and lots of energy.
But the Lifelogic brigade don’t want to spend anything on R&D they just want cheap stuff out of someone else’s ground and no inconvenience to their tidy little lives.
March 2, 2021
PPE degree then?
March 3, 2021
No, science & technology.
March 2, 2021
We have a much more secure and diverse sourcing for hydrocarbons than for car batteries, most of which depend on China at some point in the supply chain.
March 2, 2021
@Mark B The Chinese have cornered the market as a result of aggressive highly subsidized pricing structure, making production by commercial operators un-viable. Rare earth material are not that rare, its only the cobalt part of the battery that is a concern and that’s political – it comes from places with nasty people at the helm
March 2, 2021
and one important focus of R&D is to remove Cobalt from the equation.
March 3, 2021
@dixie – Elon Musk suggests he has found a way
March 2, 2021
Energy costs, labour costs, red tape and very high (and it seems still even increasing taxes – we shall see tomorrow) taxes will make in generally uneconomic to manufacture them here.
Electric cars with current technology, limited range, very expensive, short lived, slow to charge and heavy batteries and insufficient clean electricity anyway make little or no sense. Keep you old car a long as possible is the best plan for most people. It is an idiotic plan driven by virtue signalling, technically ignorant MPs deluded by the climate alarmism religion. When they make sense people with buy them without be forced or bribed to.
March 2, 2021
Not bothered about the world being largely dependent on a brutal salafist regime for its oil, though?
March 2, 2021
Mic. No, because it gets the job done. Ships, planes, tanks and lorries. Try living without them.
March 2, 2021
Where did you have in mind? the USA? Russia? Norway? The UK itself?
March 2, 2021
The business destroying jobs destroying heavy taxing Fake Tory govt for you. No plan, no direction just want to say popular things to minority groups. Utterly useless.
Bring on elections. For our national well being and safety they have to go.
March 2, 2021
Fully agree – will the real Tory government please step forward, where are all the grey men ???
March 3, 2021
@Hope, sort of agree – but were is the alternative, everyone is fighting to be more left wing and caring to appeal to the WOKE fraternity, having a position that total neglects on the Country, its majority and its prosperity
March 2, 2021
Mark,
This govt let Tata steel fail to EU competition and state aid rules even though steel manufacture is central to national security!
One could also cite food security for N.Ireland but look at the govt sell out in this regard. Lewis confirming the protocol is remaining!
It is in our national interest, way of life to get these betraying fake Tory fools out of office.
March 2, 2021
Not The Great Reset but The Great Reckoning. This is what the transfer of wealth and power from West to East looks like.
A UK worker on 10x the pay of a Chinese is unsustainable economically and environmentally. The only way to sell poverty is to tell us it’s for our own good.
March 2, 2021
No meat, no heat, no car, a bicycle only, no fashion – a boiler suit instead. And no pubs or restaurants.
What does that look like ?
March 2, 2021
The cost of this madness is going to make the Covid cost look like peanuts.
Where he hell is Parliament, what happened to āthe Govt proposes but Parliament decidesā?
How is it we have ended up with an authoritarian PM, apparently unstoppable?
March 2, 2021
Ultra-fast water-cooled charging stations need to be rolled out as quickly as possible. Range anxiety is a thing of the past . The electric vehicle driver will pay as much at these new charging stations as it costs to fuel an internal combustion engine. The business secretary needs to keep up to date with these new developments
March 2, 2021
Water cooled charging show that lots of wasted heat energy is produced the charging process. Fast charging wastes more and all lowers the life of batteries in general. The expensive batteries can be devalued (depreciated) by circa Ā£2 for every Ā£1 of electricity you charge them with.
March 2, 2021
And an IC engine doesn’t waste far more energy in the form of heat? Pull the other one.
March 3, 2021
LL, Where did you get these numbers from? I guess Sir John would not prevent you from quoting your sources of information. So why do you always bring your āscienceā without any reference?
March 2, 2021
Utter nonsense. Range anxiety is the main drawback of battery electric cars.
March 2, 2021
Range may be a drawback, the anxiety comes from not being aware of what you are doing and not thinking ahead.
in 2015 Liverpool-Victoria found that over 800,000 drivers in the UK ran out of petrol so perhaps not being aware or planning ahead is not uncommon and clearly a petrol/diesel car won’t prevent you running out of range.
March 2, 2021
But if you run out of petrol its only a walk to high street petrol station to buy a can of fuel and you’re on your way 30mins and Ā£10
If your EV car runs out of electricity you have to call recovery low-loader possibly 3+ hours and Ā£250
Big difference
March 3, 2021
My EV contract includes free recovery while I always have green flag/AA or RAC cover on my own vehicles so not Ā£250, most mainstream recovery now carry a charger. There are now chargers all over the place and the car knows where they are and warns you if you need to top-up so why would I run out near a high street if I am paying attention.
March 2, 2021
Dixie, Whilst a petrol/diesel car doesnāt prevent those unable to plan their journeys from running out of range it does enable the vehicle recovery services to quickly solve the problem by a quick fill up of fuel.
This will not be so easy for an ev and I dread what will be the outcome when a hundreds of evs become stuck on a motorway either because of an accident, or worse still, stuck overnight as a result of a heavy snow or flooding, as has happened, and they all require recharging.
March 2, 2021
where can I recharge in 5 minutes within a few miles, like when I used petrol – that is the main drawback.
March 3, 2021
My car can recharge in my driveway while I am sleeping, at family when I am visiting or in the car park while I am shopping so I don’t have to waste 5 minutes of my life re-fuelling.
March 3, 2021
@ Fred H – your local Tesla station when it not flooded. By the time you have walked home and back it will be all charged and ready to go
March 3, 2021
An electric car wastes this as waste heat 1at the power station instead. The heat then cannot be even be used to warm the car!
March 3, 2021
For someone who claims to have a scientific background you use very imprecise language. If an EV is charged from the grid there will be wasted energy in generation and transmission, but not all EVs are always charged from the grid so that waste doesn’t occur.
How much electricity from the grid is used to process, store, transport, store and dispense petrol and diesel – this must also involve waste.
March 2, 2021
Ian
Your deluded, never work!
March 2, 2021
Our Business Secretary is aware is he that Vauxhall’s parent company Stellantis (if you want to comment on the finances of this company read the accounts and cite the figures ed)
March 2, 2021
What bothers me is the contrast between petrol car development and electric car development.
Petrol cars had no barriers built into their basic physics – electric cars do. All that was necessary for petrol cars was a few factories and some sales outlets.
Petrol cars had a supportive oil industry for fuel supply – electric cars have no support from the power industry. The oil industry had merely to bore wells to make money – the electric supply industry is stuck with looking Green and stuck with difficult supply choices. The electric supply industry can barely cope with the load it has let alone extra cars and extra domestic heating.
Cars were made of iron and other commonly available materials – electric cars need exotic materials for which there is a definite limit to supply. To recycle a traditional car – chop it up and chuck it in a furnace. There is as yet no easy way to recycle lithium batteries to the necessary purity. Finding a few tons of lithium in Cornwall does not count for much.
An electric car industry may look attractive to a government stuck for choices. But the road ahead has a great many potholes that will be expensive to fill in.
March 2, 2021
It aināt about techy things or choice or cars.
It is about getting you ( and the vast majority of us) OFF THE ROADS.
March 2, 2021
Indeed, they want us off the road so they can turn the motorways into Zil lanes for their Tesla cars. Most of the people berating us for our polluting ways are all people with Carbon footprints of small countries, Tech billionaires, Hollywood movie stars, Politicians , Media personalities, they are all at it, they all preach to us, but they don’t limit their own lifestyles that involve vast consumption.
The first thing we have to do to get some sanity into this is to make politicians live the lives they are seeking to legislate on us, and not done out of their expense accounts, out of their salaries. Let the politicians lead the way to this zero Carbon existence , then we will decide if we want to follow them.
March 2, 2021
Yes, Everhopeful I believe you.
Too many of our MPs live in the City or next to good transport links with very regular services day and night (within 10-15 minutes walk or free railway parking). They will expect the rest to rent a car for a journey but in the meantime whilst waiting for driverless cars they will force people out of jobs that they have to journey to and impoverish the overflow towns they built to get people out of the Cities without giving them sufficient local high-grade jobs and services.
I watched Billy Connolly the other day discussing the Glasgow overspill and how this put happy but poor people out of the well-connected Cities for transport, activities, cafe’s and entertainment and stuck the poorer people in the middle of nowhere with a cheap shop and nothing to do. This is replicated in lots of places in Staffordshire and areas of Cheshire, I know a guy that lives 9 miles from work in a car his journey would take between 15-20 minutes depending on traffic, on public transport he only has a twice per hour service available and it takes one hour.
March 3, 2021
+1
This is not just happening in northern counties but in the south as well – Wokingham has been building large dormitory areas for decades – Earley is the population size of Wokingham with no high street, nothing like the retail and commercial facilities while public transport to Wokingham is rubbish. And they continue to build eg Mill Farm, Grazely etc.
March 2, 2021
+1
March 2, 2021
+1
March 2, 2021
by hook or by crook.
March 2, 2021
And how will UK Green Party/environmentalists feel about lithium-mining in Cornwall? Cue more protests?
March 2, 2021
Oh yeah, what about potholes? Will electric cars be immune to their destructive properties as I don’t see them being attended to any time soon.
March 2, 2021
The fly of governments run by arts degree students.
Hydrogen is the way forward which is in abundance and isn’t imported.
When history is written, battery driven cars will be referred to as is the steam car of the past.
Watch Toyota for guidance.
March 2, 2021
Folly
March 2, 2021
Have a quick read of https://www.transportenvironment.org/press/e-fuels-too-inefficient-and-expensive-cars-and-trucks-may-be-part-aviations-climate-solution-%E2%80%93
March 2, 2021
Rather than put the investment into batteries, do more research into catalysts (as Oxford University are doing) that convert hydrogen and carbon dioxide into liquid fuels. Liquid fuels are much easier to store than gases in the confined space of a motor car.
The hydrogen can be produced at the generator and converted there, without needing to be stored or transported.
March 2, 2021
Definitely invest in a broad spectrum of energy processes, infrastructure and systems R&D. I agree synthetic HCs are important for long distance transport.
March 2, 2021
correct…the alternative is up and running, ready to go now – see https://www.efuel-alliance.eu/
March 2, 2021
Agreed.
Batteries are a temporary solution, we need to be “one step beyond”…
March 2, 2021
Madness indeed.
March 2, 2021
Perhaps only a Generation X would understand.
March 2, 2021
I agree Ian. The Japanese are going to power the Olympics using hydrogen. For all the people unable to charge their cars outside their own homes hydrogen will be a Godsend. But as already said on here the main objective of the exercise is to get drivers off the road and leave the roads nice and clear for the privileged wealthy who will carry on as normal with their high polluting lives. That’s fine if you are happy with a pat on the back for being a good boy.
March 2, 2021
Hydrogen is a very expensive solution. Especially if you want to make “green” hydrogen. Cost is about 10 times methane at wholesale, or 3 times electricity. It’s difficult and dangerous to handle. I really don’t see it being used outside of industrial processes where added safety can be imposed. Indeed, that’s where it is used at present – to make ammonia, and to desulphurise oil fuels.
March 2, 2021
Yes, hydrogen fuel cell cars are the only way forward, unless you want to spend your life waiting for a battery to charge up.
March 3, 2021
Believe it or not, the government is planning to produce the hydrogen from imported gas, splitting it by steam reformation, using lots of energy and then liquefying the carbon dioxide, using lots of energy and pumping it under the sea. This is because making hydrogen by splitting water using electrolysis is much more expensive because it uses lots of energy, which we don’t have enough of from windmills. Mad but true.
March 3, 2021
Why wait when you can eat, sleep, shop, work while it is charging?
March 2, 2021
For me it has all the ingredients for one big screwup.
We do not have the power generation capacity to provide for electric vehicles. I question whether we are just moving pollution from the road vehicle to battery manufacture and power generation.
I question whether, in this mad rush, we are putting too many eggs in one basket. Why are we not considering hydrogen as a source of power either via a cell to produce electricity or directly in an ICE. Apparently one bus manufacturer is, which opens the door for all large commercial vehicles.
That electric cars have ranges and refuelling times that are totally inadequate is not in dispute. They are the milk float solution. They only make sense if you only go shopping and can generate your own electricity.
Unlike Covid19, where government realised they knew nothing about vaccine creation and production , so left it to the pharmaceutical industry to produce solutions. Government think they know about personal transport based on the fact they have some for free and can boil a kettle, when in fact they know nothing. They should leave it to the vehicle producing industry, given targets and a timetable, to come up with solutions and the market to buy into those solutions. That way you arrive where you wish to be, and most people are happy. I begin to buy into one of our contributors thesis that government are creating a Marxist state, but this time round, as some newspapers would have it,run by a girlfriend and a dog.
March 2, 2021
Of course the notion of “totally inadequate” ranges and charge times are in dispute. Plucking extreme examples out of the air doesn’t change the needs of the majority of car users.
I’ll not dispute the notion that the government has made woefully inadequate plans and investment.
PS According to VW you will likely need even more electricity to produce the hydrogen than you’d need to charge the batteries for the same delivered power – the H2 “well” to wheel process is half the efficiency of the BEV based process. (See “What is more efficient: E-battery or hydrogen? – Volkswagen AG”, 12 March 2020)
March 3, 2021
Other engineers have done the sums and this is well known. Hydrogen wastes twice as much energy as a battery. And that’s without accounting for the energy wasted taking the carbon dioxide out and burying it.
March 3, 2021
A strategy based on burying CO2 from active processes rather than using it as a feedstock, perhaps for hydrocarbons, has to be the dumbest idea ever. The human race is doomed.
March 2, 2021
+1 while JR and chums watch idly on.
March 2, 2021
+1
March 2, 2021
I don’t agree with the narrative that Boris is dictated to by ‘a girl and a dog’ or that Harry is dictated to by Megan.
The real question is why does Boris and the Conservative party allow this myth to perpetuate, does it excuse their own lack of organised pressure to change things for the better. It doesn’t wash. John has more power than Carrie whatever the newspapers say, it’s just how many people in the party actually support the same changes that he would like and they should reveal themselves in the next couple of years and what they actually stand for on issues that affect us like Northern Ireland and the protocol that stops British overseas trade with our own Country on items that are being delivered to remain in Northern Ireland.
March 2, 2021
Will we have electricity generating capacity for all the new electric cars by 2030? Thought not.
March 2, 2021
No off course not.
March 2, 2021
Don’t be silly Peter . That’s far too complicated to think through.
March 2, 2021
Yesterday when demand was at maxing was supplying 5.4%. We were Importing 10% and running the last coal fired station.
The dirty STOR emergency generators were on line cancelling out any CO2 saved from renewable energy.
We are governed by idiots of the first order.
March 2, 2021
With coal imported from Russia! Allow Russia to poison people on our soil and still give them trade in coal where we have hundreds years of supply!
March 2, 2021
When owners plug in to recharge they will get used to the message ‘Not available at present – try again later’.
March 2, 2021
Nobody ever raises the extreme vulnerability of the elderly in electric car fires. Watch Youtube for ‘electric car fires’. And don’t park one near another vehicle. Sobering…
March 2, 2021
And if a EV breaks down (or runs out of electricity) you canāt tow it, it requires a diesel low-loader to lift to transport at 10x the costā¦..just imagine all the blocked motorways awaiting low-loaders
March 2, 2021
Get ready for a new form of car/vehicle/road tax when electric cars become more common place.
Somehow the government will find a way of making up for the inevitable lost VED and fuel tax.
Whilst there may be a tax when purchasing electricity from commercial sites, charging from home will escape such taxes, unless the Smart meters can differentiate between normal electricity use, and charging up a battery.
Will we see road, toll charging, will VED still be applicable, if so based on what ?
Government going far too fast on this massive change of technology in my opinion.
March 2, 2021
It will go to road use charging with electronic monitoring of every journey.
March 2, 2021
Alan Jutson
Government going far too fast on this massive change of technology in my opinion.
Absolutely correct Alan. Definitely a case of pissing before they have got their flies open.
March 2, 2021
āācharging from homeāā
Half the nation live in a flat or terrace house ā canāt charge an EV
I’ll say it again 50% of people can’t charge from their home ???
March 2, 2021
Fully aware of that Glen, hence the problem of moving too fast too soon, as I outlined.
Our local Morrison’s now got 2 charging spaces in their car park, on top of the 36 disabled and parent spaces.
Guess they are trailing how successful/popular it may be with their customers..
March 2, 2021
There were be online meters fitted to domestic chargers.
March 2, 2021
Its illegal to obstruct the public walkway/pavement including an electric cable running from your home to your car !!!
March 2, 2021
Glen
We may well have have some bright sparks illegally hooking up to street lamp posts, apparently people by passing the meter at home is more common than we are led to believe.
March 2, 2021
You might be right
March 2, 2021
Reading responses in a variety of outlets including here, the majority of people are not happy with switching to electric cars.
How dare the government ban the use of petrol and diesel vehicles, because they have decided they want people to switch! This makes me so angry!
March 2, 2021
Sharon
Absolutely correct. You are definitely not on your own with this one
March 2, 2021
Market forces should prevail ā not subsidy
March 2, 2021
Glen Cullen
Brilliant observation. They dont give a ***** it’s not their money paying for it.
March 2, 2021
I would vote for a party that promised to abandon these follies.
March 2, 2021
Did anyone ask the business secretary to talk through the data on reduced traffic over the past year? Had perceived climate change been halted in anyway by this reduction?
Could the business secretary comment on the carbon effect of shutting down manufacturing plants and building new ones?
Could the business secretary provide reassurance that the carbon foot print for an electric vehicle over its lifetime was sufficiently less than the equivalent foot print for an internal combustion engine?
Could the business secretary confirm that there is sufficient lithium and capacity to charge batteries to provide electric vehicles at the scale required?
Did the business secretary comment on how our phasing out of internal combustion engines will mitigate the 2.5 billion drivers using outdated and polluting cars in India and China? Did he think that Indians and the Chinese should be more free to travel by car than the British post 2030?
March 2, 2021
It isnāt about carbon reduction.
It is about transferring wealth. From us to them!
Follow the money.
March 2, 2021
Not one of your sensible questions where asked in yesterdays HoCs dedate
Your first question about the past year reduction in traffic against carbon output needs immediate investigation ā it might suggest that cars have nothing to do with carbon levels ?
March 2, 2021
Most young people with families cannot afford electric vehicles so how will they get to work or drop the children to their schools? As their local school is full due to Government mass immigration policy. The weekly shop? Get to work as outside London we don’t have adequate public transport? Shop for DIY equipment, hospital/Doctor appointments? Adequate on street and off street charging facilities, charging capacity when the wind doesn’t blow or the EU threaten supply in future negotiations re the interconnectors. etc etc . Total and absolute folly. Who’s going to vote for this nonsense?
I’ve yet to see any study on lockdown that has measured our drop in CO2 over the last year and it’s impact on climate, because it hasn’t nor will it ever. 0.04% of the atmosphere. The big yellow round thing is what influences the climate and many other factors over the millennia.
March 2, 2021
I think the lock down was to test some of these issues. Children could be taught on line etc.
I fail to see why the govt acted against its own plan published in 2020 to deal with pandemics and that of the WHO, published in 2019, to follow communist China to wreak havoc on our society and way of life. Their own reports makes clear lockdowns do not work!
March 2, 2021
I agree Hope, perhaps if the highest quality lessons are taught online children could work through at their own pace without distraction of other children, with an assistant in the classroom to keep order and be the childcarer then they can push more children into their closest, within walking distance, school they seem to do this already in Scotland by not having so much choice of school. Something needs to happen to improve schools in Liverpool and Stoke and areas like that, the children are falling too far behind and they canāt pay every pupil the sort of premiums that they put into London school children even though they told us that is what the 9% graduate tax was to pay for in England!
March 2, 2021
”The big yellow round thing is what influences the climate and many other factors over the millennia”
CORRECT
March 2, 2021
and the Earth core cooling, and sometimes farting, while land and sea play games re-who is boss.
March 2, 2021
+1
March 2, 2021
No mention of the substantial overall loss of jobs in the industry to come and across current supply chains. The East dominates battery component extraction and production and that is set to continue. A gradual future reduction in car purchase due to capital and charging costs of electric cars also means net job losses. Who would have thought a Tory government would unleash this insanity which will of course, with net zero, make no difference to the climate whatsoever.
March 2, 2021
There is no doubt in my mind that, as usual, this government will seek foreign money to buy the developments they are forcing through. The Tories in partnership with their City spiv friends and partners who have no care for our sovereignty or independence will sell our future as fast as they can.
We need an immediate reversal of the ‘Open for Business’ policy which in practice meant ‘everything we have is for sale’. We have had enough of our leaders prostituting the nation, and it’s time we had policies to reward and develop self reliance and the protection of our assets.
March 2, 2021
Prangwizard,
Agreed. Although we do not have much that has not already been sold.
With existing forms of motorised transport politicians were merely observers, while businesses got on with producing the vehicles by themselves. I am not sure politicians add anything. The best they can do is not get in the way.
March 2, 2021
Then let us make sure our new industries remain in British ownership.
March 2, 2021
The Business Secretary is talking as if car making is a nationalised industy – *he* wants to specify where cars are produced and where batteries are produced. Did anyone tell him he has no control at all over those decisions and the market will decide ? Also if he *does* attempt to influence those decisions via subsidy and state aid won’t the EU (rightly) complain under the LPF conditions and impose punitive tariffs on UK car exports ?
Did anyone ask him about building lots of new power station by 2030 to meet the increased electricity demand ? Or whether he thinks you can even build a new power station in this country in only 9 years ?
Still no new charging stations in my street, 6 to serve about 500 cars.
This 2030 date it totally absurd and will have to be dropped, it will be interesting to which politician has to make that announcement in due course.
March 2, 2021
Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth recently did a Spectator Podcast special: can Britain really become āthe Saudi Arabia of wind powerā?
In this propaganda edition he clear demonstrates very clearly that he has little or no understanding of energy engineering, transport, battery technology or the realities of the laws of physics. And he is one of the better MPs tory MP. The Transport Sec. is even worse, he even thinks electric cars are āzero emissionā so deluded is he.
March 2, 2021
Roy, we have no streets in my area with charging stations. The major town near us has 2 charging stations on one of the car parks which in the winter is often closed due to flooding. One supermarket has 2 stations and that’s it. God knows how the people living above the high street shops and on the main roads are going to cope. Still, our politicians don’t have that worry so that’s ok.
March 2, 2021
Roy Grainger
This 2030 date it totally absurd and will have to be dropped, it will be interesting to which politician has to make that announcement in due course.
Methinks that the money will not be on our PM or Mr Gove for that announcement.
March 2, 2021
Jaguar Land Rover date 2025 !
March 2, 2021
Led by scienceā¦..NOT
Rather led by the green party, girl friends, funded science and the social left wing media
Vehicle manufactures will follow the subsidy, which is the new profit, e.g Ford Valencia Spain, Toyota Walbrzych Poland, Ford Otosan Turkey
This isnāt led by the people, customer demand, OEM car manufacturesā¦.its led by government and supported by tax-payer subsidy
March 2, 2021
Govt and MPs need to study the curious case of the Hillman Imp motor car from the 1960s, and why government meddling (at LA building planning stage and govt job creation schemes) ended up costing the Roots group dear. The only exception I can see for not having these battery manufacturing plants close to, even adjoining, an existing or new Car Assembly Building (CAB) is were raw materials exist away from the CAB and the cost of transporting finished or sub assemblies is no higher than moving the raw materials. So yes if lithium is needed and lithium can be mined in Cornwall there might be a case for government direction towards that goal – but let real world economics be the final judge, unlike when Roots were arm-twisted by the then central govts regional employment creation policies, which lead to investment going to what was always going to be high cost, operationally difficult and ultimately unprofitable new factory at Linwood, rather than the profitable alternative investment in the Coventry area.
āskateboardā?! I think you mean the floor-pan (chassis), and even then the battery packs in EVs are a readily removable, if major, sub-assembly of that. So no, floor-pan sub assemblies that comprise of the battery, the wheels, axles and the electric motor are unlikely to be moves about the country, to do so would be as expensive as moving finished vehicles, on the other hand a finished battery sub-assembly, like current IC engines are, or even finished bodyshells, can be loaded onto just about any standard lorry or railway wagon.
The UK of the 2020s needs to be more like the “we can make/sell it” UK of the 1950s &’60s, but at the same time we need to learn the lessons from those past decades too, not repeat the same mistakes.
March 2, 2021
Have the electorate (remember them?) ever supported such policies at a General Election? Never been a vote winner for the yoghurt-knitting Greens, has it? What was it last time; a whopping 2%?
Me thinks Mr Johnson’s government has completely lost the plot and needs the cut and thrust of a fully functioning Parliament to temper its excesses.
March 2, 2021
Yes the electorate has. A carbon net zero target was on the first page of the Tory manifesto in 2019. The one you all claimed gave you a mandate to get Brexit done – despite only 42% of voters voting for it. Those 42% – probably including you – also gave the mandate for carbon net zero. This is why some of us read manifestos.
March 2, 2021
The only alternative was even worse socialism.
We are going to need inns for this sort of transport (charging times lasting hours and hours with queues.)
Boris certainly didn’t mention destroying the British pub but he’s done it anyway.
March 2, 2021
so Andy – how did you vote, pray tell us!
March 2, 2021
Either a majority back the manifesto or only a minority back the manifesto.
Which are you trying to claim it is Andy?
March 2, 2021
+1
March 2, 2021
There are two greens in parliament, one elected and one unelected – but the unelected one appears to have more sway than the 650 MPs
March 2, 2021
All this impending chaos because Governments listened to the ramblings of a (at the time) 15 year old girl. Unbelievable !!!
March 2, 2021
Old Albion. Yes abd the BBC still worship her and no the climate hasn’t got better since lockdown.
March 2, 2021
They usually listen to the ramblings of elderly men. At least the teenage girl is right.
March 2, 2021
Andy, I used to think you were reasonably intelligent but that remark about a silly child proves otherwise
March 2, 2021
This is nothing to do with Greta, this is much higher pressure. She is just a useful figurehead to be used as some sort of Joan of Arc.
March 2, 2021
The government, in setting out the ‘road-map’ out of this Covid-19 pandemic, have stressed it is driven by DATA and not by dates, quite rightly so. However at the same time it is setting DATES for when electric vehicles will replace the internal combustion engine without a realistic plan as to how their batteries will be recharged. It is nothing short of complete lunacy.
1. We need to sort out how we plan to provide sufficient electricity without any supply from any outside country and in all weathers and at all times of the year.
2. Batteries with longer life and far quicker to recharge have yet to be invented, not to mention how to recharge them without our towns and cities being festooned with cables hanging out of windows and across pavements
3. Instead of jumping off a cliff and committing commercial suicide shouting to the world ‘that we are setting an example!!!!!!!!” we need to develop a realistic plan that the countries in far east (China, India and the rest) can understand and follow.
For heaven sake let’s have a sensible plan based on realistic solutions and inventions and not just a series of date plucked off the wall
March 2, 2021
No doubt you backed Brexit – without a plan. And are surprised we canāt export fish.
March 2, 2021
Andy,
Do you know precisely why we can’t export fish to the EU? Is there a case for the World Trade Organisation to investigate?
Why can’t we export fish to the rest of the world?
Did you read that Morrisons has become the first supermarket to own its own fishing boat after it acquired Falfish?
In Cornwall, Falcatch has had its depuration tanks approved for cleaning scallops and oysters. It is exporting again to pre-Brexit levels source cornwalllive.com
March 2, 2021
A case of political dogma intruding on the natural evolution of an industry — there will yet be tears.
Is there much difference in taking lithium out of the ground, to oil?
New designs and techniques will be required for the new electric vehicles, but who will compensate the wasted efforts that have gone into modern diesel and petrol cars? Ahh, the taxpayer, NATURALLY.
As if we don’t have enough burdens with our government spending vast fortunes on things we do not need like HS2 and vaccines. It seems all too clear that this government has forgotten the basic lessons Thatcher laid down about making every penny of taxation work to the utmost, within a proper scheduled budget.
March 2, 2021
The Chinese Hong Guang Mini EV, being built as part of a joint venture with US car giant General Motors, is retailing for $4700. Roughly Ā£3150. This little car is designed as a city run-around, has a top speed of 62mph, can seat four people and has a 13.8kWh battery capable of a NEDC range of 110 miles. It can be fully charged in 70 minutes and at today’s electricity prices a full charge would cost about Ā£4.
Where are the UK entrepreneurs who could take on Vauxhall’s Ellesmere plant and build motors like this?
March 2, 2021
Sakara, just factor in the future price of electricity which is bound to go sky high and thd road toll charges that will come with this madness and I’m sure running costs won’t be that cheap.
March 2, 2021
Such a vehicle would meet 90% of my driving requirements. When can I buy one?
When such cars become available, you can forget any idea of producing them at Ellesmere Port or anywhere else in this country.
Car worker in Ellesmere Port – Ā£40k a year
Car worker in China – Ā£4K a year
No import duties on cars from China. Aināt globalisation great.
However, former car workers can use their redundancy payment to buy a franchise to keep peopleās lawns green or, for the more entrepreneurial, open a nail bar. Who wants to work on a car assembly line anyway?
March 2, 2021
Which gets to the heart of what this is really about.
Keeping our people in the lifestyle that they are accustomed while better qualified and skilled people work for a tenth of their wages is unsustainable economically.
Greenism is an attempt to make us accept the poverty that is coming our way as though it was our own idea – for our own good. Also mass immigration, that was to debase the national workforce too.
The problem has been Royals and celebrities. Their hypocrisy and patronising has let the cat out of the bag and annoyed people. Etc ed
March 2, 2021
SG: let’s say I’m an ordinary stay at home mum, living in a typical terraced house with no private driveway, let alone a garage, so no private charging facility. I need to do shopping, take at least one child to an after-school activity (sports, arts) and then pick her up afterwards; I also need to run errands for a sick parent or relative and spend some time with them. I need to be at home for when someone comes to repair a faulty water pipe or telephone connection. Maybe I have other necessary commitments, and I certainly need to do the usual housework and have supper ready for the family.
However, with the transport model you suggest, instead of finding 7 minutes to fill up my ordinary little secondhand runabout with normal fuel, I need to find a MINIMUM of 70 minutes (plus queuing, plus paying), while doing nothing else, to charge the damn thing. Sorry, it wouldn’t float my boat.
March 2, 2021
Valid point – I wonder why our MPs aren’t fighting the good fight for the commoner
March 2, 2021
the average MP hasn’t the faintest idea of life for the ordinary Joe or Josephine. Never have, never will – they are motivated by other factors.
March 2, 2021
Certainly not on this blog.
March 2, 2021
Sakara why don’t our Unions invest their pension funds and investments into this sort of city run-around enterprise?
March 2, 2021
Youāre looking for solutions to problems that donāt exist
March 2, 2021
Real life driving with a 13.5kw battery will probably be about 25 miles. You can’t alter physics no matter how you try.
March 2, 2021
real life city driving would likely get much better than 25 miles with the high proportion of recuperative braking, it’s motorway driving with a heavy foot that is more demanding.
March 2, 2021
so what automated driving trip-rented car is going to be heavy-footed?
March 2, 2021
I still canāt believe our emergency services are going EV
Just imagine a criminal in a stolen BMW 3lt M3 being chased by an EV police car that has only 20% energy left ā ridicules just thinking about it
March 2, 2021
Will it tow my 1.75 tonne caravan ? No! I thought not, Itās no use to me.
March 2, 2021
Sir John – it is well know that batteries unless a new un-known method of storage and charging methods are invented are nothing more than a stop gap for transport.
A Tesla takes 6 hours to charge at a super fast public charging point or around 27 hours from a dedicated home style charger.
March 2, 2021
You are looking at an AC charging, a Tesla would charge from 20 to 80% in 20 to 60 minutes on a Tesla DC supercharger. BTW You don’t run the battery empty before charging, just like you don’t run your petrol/diesel tank empty before refuelling.
March 2, 2021
Say 30 minutes to ‘refuel’ – and the queuing on top of that.
That’s a lot to add on a long journey.
March 2, 2021
tesla.com – full supercharger Ā£122….. on 500 sites throughout the UK
WOW
March 3, 2021
I don’t drive a Tesla so I looked at the same site.
You neglected to point out this was the estimated cost for a Model S to do 1500 miles compared to Ā£195 fuel cost for an equivalent ICE.
A Model 3 would be more my choice and it’s supercharging cost for 1500 miles would be Ā£105 versus the Ā£186 for an ICE equivalent.
March 3, 2021
Yeah but the message about EVs to joe public is that it almost free energy and zero carbon – IT ISN’T
March 2, 2021
I see Hyundai is having to make a massive world wide electric vehicle recall as the batteries tend to er catch fire.
March 2, 2021
Our Fire Service response to an EV fire is to let it burn…..ya can’t put it out with water – and than the road will need a repair ???
March 2, 2021
and which Fire service is going to attend an electric car fire which will be a complete noxious burnout inside 1 minute?
March 2, 2021
Assuming that there was enough generation capacity in the national grid (there isn’t) and assuming electric cars were long ranged enough for real use (they aren’t) and that their use was even a quarter as green as the people making money from them say (no chance) there is one further problem. A lot of rare minerals and metals do not exist in sufficient quantity to supply all the solar panels and cars for the USA alone. If the whole world goes down this path we will see an absolute disaster. Not surprising because all grandiose government policies are a disaster, virtually all the small ones too. Best thing to do is get out of the UK before these clowns do even more damage than they have already and head for a small out of the way place whilst this circus plays itself out.
March 2, 2021
bigger problem than the generating capacity is the transmission capacity, the national grid is massively under specified for supporting everyone wanting to charge at home. Carrie and Boris really do need some basic back of the fag packet scientific realities explaining to them.
March 2, 2021
Why does John present his articles, which by the way I believe to be sincere, in a manner than suggests all is normal, balanced and reasonable when we are living through a politically contrived cultural, social and economic revolution designed to strip us of our identity, our freedoms and eventually our private financial and personal economic assets
This embrace of Marxist ideologically infused political action cannot be simply dismissed as though it’s a mere blip and for Mr Redwood’s utterly disingenuous and deceitful party to which he belongs to pretend otherwise a gross act of appalling treachery
Why do decent, moral, libertarian Tory MPs tolerate this barbaric attack on our entire being (mind, body and soul)??
I want to know why Mr Redwood and his colleagues support such destruction?
Stop taking the piss out of the British people and confront the poison of the fascist left that has infected our nation, our institutions and our culture
March 2, 2021
+1. They could get rid of Johnson if they disagreed.
March 2, 2021
DOM – obviously Mr Redwood has no answer or comeback on that – he must agree with you.
March 2, 2021
yes indeed.
we dont even have two parities to choose from at election time, both the main parties are the same post modern liberal lefty wishy washy woke nonsense…
March 2, 2021
No meat, no cars, no heat, no fashion, no freedom…
Bicycles, rice, boiler suits and “show me your papers”
Dom, you’re bang on the money.
March 2, 2021
While jobs are extremely important everywhere in the UK not just Ellesmere Port, the government should be reminded that Vauxhall is an French/Italian owned company and is the norm will take the UK taxpayers money as a short term measure and effectively use it to fund their home markets. Then once the funding is in place and has feathered their nest they will just walk. It is what in other areas in life is called ‘blackmail’.
When facilitating what is always taxpayers money, whether it is basic infrastructure, grants etc were some one else has to pay more for it to happen the Government should at the very least receive shares/ownership in the venture. It should always be an investment with a long term return that creates the pot for further investments.
We have become a throw away society and Government joins in by throwing everyone’s hard earned pounds at anything without the guarantee of a return to ensure future growth. Government has access to our wallets to create our long term wealth, not short term look at me projects for todays headlines.
Like everyone you see ‘smart motorways’ (meaning cheap short term dangerous), then HS2 (Old technology that isn’t up to the mark), battery car production (it is part of the look at me culture and doesn’t answer the real question), the Brexit Fisherman’s Deal(Totally and completely sold down the river, why would the EU import something the EU has been given the right to just take), Brexit Trade Deal( The government has only agreed that what the EU sells us can continue free and un-interrupted, but the UK’s trade with the EU, banking and finance etc is not included)
As with Vauxhall and everything else in this Governments portfolio its about tying the UK to the EU and the UK taxpayer taking the punishment for wanting a democratic self reliant country. You can see why the Scots have a point
March 2, 2021
With the change to electric cars, could we could ever be making more than 12% of the new cars sold here?
In 2018:
https://www.smmt.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/SMMT-Motor-Industry-Facts-May-2019-V2.pdf
Cars built in UK 1,519,440
Cars exported from UK 1,237,608
Suggesting
Cars built and sold in UK 281,832
Divided by
New cars registered in UK 2,367,147
Gives 12% as the approximate fraction of the home market supplied by home producers.
No wonder that the EU Commission reckons that Boris Johnson’s much-vaunted “Canada style” free trade deal is actually worth nearly twice as much to the continuing EU as it is worth to us.
March 2, 2021
From the MsM today
Plug-in hybrid cars cost motorists nearly Ā£500 more a year in fuel costs than manufacturers claim, according to new research.
Highlights the bogus official claims made by Governments and Industry. There is a need to grow up and talk real World and not hypotheticals.
March 2, 2021
Surely current hybrid technology, with a small, very efficient petrol engine and a battery/ motor, which means cars can do 70 mpg (or more) is enough for now.
This headlong race to go electric without the generating capacity or charging infrastructure is so beyond stupid that this government must be judged insane.
March 2, 2021
Dear Nigel Farage,
Time for you to begin communicating your understandable brand of common sense, because there is a widening democratic deficit in the way government is being conducted in the UK.
First government have undoubtedly screwed up over NI and fishing arrangements during the last stages of Brexit, and I suspect it runs deeper.
Then we have the current government imposition of electric vehicles which you might gather from this site is less than popular for a whole string of reasons.
We have had a lesson in what works under pressure. The private enterprise pharmaceutical industy and the medical branch of the NHS. Where government thinks it knows what it is doing they invariably screw up. Who would facilitate the opening of Nightingale hospitals without the staff to run them, a return of Dome syndrome. What do politicians and their gophers the civil service have that causes much of what they do to be a miserable financial failure.
Baring further catastrophy we have three more years of imposition. Please consider a return to get us back on a sane path. There is a growing vacuum which requires filling.
March 2, 2021
Why can no-one ever get the Prime Minister or the Business Secretary to actually answer the points raised about generating capacity, charging capacity and raw material supply.
We are in a headlong rush to insanity and no-one ever seems to be able to hold anyone in government to account.
March 2, 2021
It really does not matter what the British government says or does. Most motor manufacturers consider us a part of the European arm of their business – and European countries are soon banning petrol cars, so we effectively have no choice as petrol cars wonāt be available here anyway. Few manufacturers will make some just for us – a small and pretty insignificant market.
However it is quite amusing how concerned you all are about this. Electric cars are light years ahead of their petrol counterparts in so many ways. For the vast majority of people the vast majority of the time they are a perfectly sensible option. Yes, you have to think a bit more carefully about recharging if you are making a super long journey – the sort most of us make once in a blue moon – but that is all. Electric vehicles are better. Full stop.
Over their lifetimes they are cheaper to own than petrol cars too – but the cost is front loaded, making them more expensive to buy – although much cheaper to run. This is where government is needed to help people do the right thing.
Some of you also seem worried that we wonāt have enough electricity for all this. If we plan we will. The Sun and the wind and the tides and the waves are all we need – aside from some good electricity storage solutions. You all think about massive power plants and wonder how we replicate those. The answer is we mostly donāt. Sure we have plenty of offshore windfarms, solar farms and the like – but we also have lots of micro-generation. A home powering itself and its car with a handful of solar panels and some batteries. A small village powered by a wind turbine. A factory powered by hydro electric.
We are using more electronics than ever but less electricity. We wonāt suddenly be all electric car in 2030. Just all the new ones. As petrol cars then slowly reach the end of their lives they will be scrapped. Your grandchildren will make this change whether you like it or not. So you better all get on board and stop whinging about it. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
Oh – and the ādiscussionsā the Brexiteer government is having with Vauxhall is about how much of our taxes to hand them to stay. Simple as that. Iād call that a bribe.
March 2, 2021
It does seem that the not so hidden agenda is to restrict freedom, both of choice and of movement. All the Government needs to do at the moment is to require the motor industry to work first to achieve “minimal carbon” from ICE vehicles, which would give time to develop other technologies, such as hydrogen power, and then to develop genuinely carbon free methods of transport and re-fuelling infrastructure. To insist on “zero carbon” transport by 2030 is lunacy, we should aim for 2050 which is much more realistic. Also “zero carbon” is touted as the way to reduce pollution, but CO2 is not a pollutant. It must also be constantly put to ministers that, since the UK accounts for only 1% of global CO” output, it is unnecessary for the people of this country to put on the “economic hair shirt” to satisfy starry-eyed environmentalists who have no idea of the scientific and tecnological realities.
March 2, 2021
George Brooks I agree with you. Everything you say makes sense, but the date has not been just plucked of the wall. It’s the UN’s 20/30 Agenda. This Govenment is fully signed up to it so there are going to be a lot more foolish decisions made in the near future. Let’s not talk about the Great Reset.
March 2, 2021
The Business Secretary ‘wants Vauxhall to remain at Ellesmere Port’. Here we go again. Not only are we going to subsidise the well off in buying electric cars by offering discounts the poor cant get when buying the cheapest second hand car they can just to get to work, we are now going to subsidise wealthy (foreign) manufacturers to produce the things. Yet another transfer of wealth from the ordinary person to the already wealthy, just like the renewable wind turbines and solar farms, paying big landowners just to have the monstrosities on their land. In the end it won’t even register on the world scales of emissions and it has been established by two manufacturers that electric cars do not match ICE cars in ‘greenness’ before about 80,000 miles are done by which time they will be worthless junk. . It is pure madness. Why are they doing it? Who gets what out of it?
March 2, 2021
The UK’s first gigafactory is the Britishvolt facility in Northumberland but that won’t complete till 2027 which is far too late and quite laughable compared to speed of rollouts elsewhere. So is the government looking to clear the administrative, planning and financial way to speed things up or for a second factory in Liverpool any sooner? Or perhaps junk HS2 in favour of northern rail routes interconnecting manufacturing areas?
March 2, 2021
The Britishvolt start-up is looking to build a 30 GW battery manufacturing plant in Blyth (enough for circa 600,000 EVs), on the old power station site, along with a 200 MW solar park. It is suggesting it will import Norwegian hydro’s green electric to power the plant, over the NSL 1,400 MW interconector with Norway, when it arrives.
The huge amounts of Quantitative Easing liquidity (turning government securities back into cash) is desperate to find anything that might turn a coin eventually. Particularly any investment that has a wad of government subsidy behind it. Guess what; Boris announced last month as part of plans to ban the sale of new cars and vans that run solely on petrol and diesel, a fund to promote EV battery making start-ups.
March 2, 2021
more subsidy more jam tomorrow
March 2, 2021
Not too sure how many of the current intake in Westminster have worked and survived in industrial situations.
The hardest part about any change program is to ensure alongside the proposed changes “business as usual” is operating to keep the workforce, customers, and finances coming in. This massive change being forced upon us due to what many people believe is dodgy computer interpretations of what is happening in our world. This head-down lemming-like charge to EVs is by any stretch of the imagination is frightening heading towards being suicidal as it is all so it would seem being done on the back of an envelope and companies are just panicking into taking measures just to try and keep up with each other. No costings into how much the infrastructure is going to cost to manufacture them and for the motorist to use them. Hopefully, the Olympics will go ahead this year and it has been announced that it will be powered in many areas by hydrogen. The last time the Olympics were in Japan the bullet train came into existence. There is a lot to be learnt from history.
For me, business as usual for the motor manufacturing industry in the UK is for the government to reduce the taxes on the products coming out of the showroom enabling our car industry to manufacture and sell more vehicles as it could be argued that the new generation of ICE has never been cleaner. Cheaper new UK manufactured or assembled cars will generate growth, get older vehicles off of the road allowing the government to reclaim their lost revenues on the profits from the companies building and selling more vehicles, and the extra employees needed to meet the demand. A large amount of JLR production is for export and cheaper prices would help that area of their business. The influx of new vehicles will keep all the current areas of manufacture and logistics in place. There seems to be a lack of understanding in government how long in reality it will take to change over to EVs with enough distribution infrastructure and disposal facilities for the batteries and other components. The continuations of ICE vehicles buy time for the government and the manufacturers to explore new avenues of research and their feasibility at the same time as keeping their finances ticking over.
To do this there has to be an understanding there is no point in the UK throwing itself on the ” saving the world sword” China, India and the far East will carry on with their high polluting coal-driven power generation programs which will continue for years after we have allowed our politicians to drive this country into the ground.
March 2, 2021
āāGovernments have to accept that because they are leading these changesāā
Option A
Electric Vehicles ā Carbon neutral – but requires completely new factories lines, staff, materials, supply chain and infrastructure in 4 years
Huge ongoing tax-payer subsidy
Option B
E-Fuel https://www.efuel-alliance.eu/ – Carbon neutral ā requires no change
No tax-payer subsidy
Somebody somewhere has been given a huge bung to push EV
March 3, 2021
The Fischer-Tropsch process used for synthetic fuel and oil by Germany during WW2. Needs lots of energy and would benefit from catalyst R&D but could conceivably operate as a CDU process to extract “excess” CO/CO2 from the environment or industrial/power generation process.
You definitely need something like this for long-haul transport but it will likely be a very expensive fuel needing significant uplift in power generation so won’t suite the “conservatives” on this blog one bit.
As it can exploit the existing liquid fuel infrastructure and business models you have to wonder why the oil companies haven’t leapt on it before now.
March 3, 2021
buy its not pie in the sky, it ready now and the cost and manufacture of efuel is sustainable….without changing an engine nor a factory – thats got to be green enough for the green MP
March 2, 2021
Good morning Sir John and all .
As I have written many times before when this topic has raised its head, unless you have an infer structure in place to support the charging of millions of electric cars the whole thing becomes pie in the sky .
Plus on a day like today with no wind , windies are a pointless waste of space so where on earth would the extra electricity required, be coming from?
If the Government want to pursue this electric car dream ,you need the infer structure in place first , without it, it becomes pure folly .
The whole topic needs a rethink by grown ups .
March 2, 2021
You might expect a balanced 7 * 24 balanced use of charging supply, wouldn’t you?
Well the owners will be looking at weather forecasts, so that when little wind or indeed excessive wind is forecast, they will all suddenly decide to top up, just-in-case.
March 2, 2021
Can anyone give me one reason why petrol and diesel engines are now to be banned? It can’t be for environmental reasons because EVs are just about the most damaging to the environment for reasons of battery production, disposal and issues relating to the production of electricity. I am assuming this is part of The Great Reset and control of movement of the population. Already residents of one London are having to pay Ā£500 to park their vehicles in the street, another one is offering residents Ā£3000 in exchange for their car and there is no way EVs can be charged on a typical London road. No car, no freedom of movement. Klaus Schwab has already commented so enthusiastically of how wonderfully unpolluted the cities are now that circulation of vehicles has been substantially reduced. All part of the plan. He must be rubbing his hands with glee.
One thing I do know is that, if the CP manifesto had at its centre this ‘green agenda’, it would not be in Government now. We can only hope that by 2024 we can vote in a Government that puts the needs of its citizens first and does not follow the globalist agenda.
March 2, 2021
Other Christine. Which government would that be then? All 3 main parties have signed up to this trash and I only see a few people on this site in favour of Farage (I’m one of them) whose policies and ideas are alot more sane than this lot.
March 2, 2021
I also declare that I will support Farage or indeed any political party that is anti green and stop this madness
March 2, 2021
Good question, Fedupsoutherner. I am already a paid up member of Reform UK. Hopefully that party will gain some traction before 2024. And like you glen cullen, I will be supporting any party that ends this zero carbon, green garbage.
March 2, 2021
High initial purchase prices, grossly inadequate charging facilities and short range will not be overcome to any large extent by 2030.
There is inevitably going to be a marked reluctance amongst customers to switch to full battery electric cars from 2030 which will be disastrous for manufactures. To make matters worse, the green lobby is now setting its sights against all kinds of hybrid vehicles in an attempt to get those banned before 2035.
The inevitable outcome would seem to be an increase in road tax on IC-engined cars and/or fuel to force the change on a reluctant public. As Tony Blair found out over speed cameras, and John Major on fuel pricing, there is a limit to the voter’s tolerance of such meddling.
I wonder how this will pan out ?
March 2, 2021
Only about 10% of the weight of a battery is lithium. Experts are more worried about where the cobalt and graphite are coming from.
The energy density of these batteries is in any case not good enough for vehicles. We are going to be stuck with an old technology if we invest too heavily in this area.
The 2030 target will have to be quietly dropped after this Glasgow COP shindig. Give the market more time to develop better alternatives like the hydrogen cycle. Hydrogen can be produced from water using nuclear reactor heat alone (not electricity) in a catalytic cycle.
March 2, 2021
What about diesel lorries? Will they be banned? Who will/can make electric lorries?
March 2, 2021
Genuine question – how far could a battery-powered lorry go laden with, say, a complete household’s furniture and goods?
March 2, 2021
Mercedes 26-tonne 120 miles range, BMW 40-tonne 62 miles range eTrucks are being tested right now.
March 2, 2021
Hefner that’s hilarious. I think you’ll find most lorry drivers drive a bit further than that.
March 2, 2021
FUS, Whatever you might think there are distribution needs from, as an example, the Waitrose Thames Valley warehouse in Bracknell to a non-negligible number of Waitrose stores within a 50 miles radius.
Plus as I had pointed out the other day the 5-mn charge battery developed by StoreDot, an Israeli company. So despite the recurrent humbugs on this blog there might be EV solutions within a not so distant future.
That might be hilarious for you, but who knows? What about ā(S)He who laughs last laughs longestā. And unfortunately what is already clear is that some German companies are working on such things. Please tell me of the equivalent British ones.
March 2, 2021
”EV solutions within a not so distant future”
more jam tomorrow
March 2, 2021
So drive for 2 or 3 hours then stop for 2 or 3
March 2, 2021
Peter exactly. It’s alright for Hefner to go on about lorries but will it all come in time because if not then I hope there are still enough petrol stations open to meet demand.
March 3, 2021
Glen āmore jam tomorrowā? Well please tell me, is that so different from the portion of it you are getting from Sir John on this blog every day?
March 4, 2021
All deliveries I’ve had have been via transit type van or smaller.
Ford is launching an electric Transit August 2022 next year with a 1600 Kg payload inc passengers and a 217 mile range. The Nissan e-NV200 van has been available for some time and it offers 187 miles (city cycle) with a 630+ Kg payload.
Long haul freight needs a different solution, maybe rail will become popular but I wonder just how much heavy lorry traffic is from Ireland using the UK as a land bridge.
March 2, 2021
Totally off topic. A week before Valentines day I sent MOH – who lives about 15 miles away, several cards. All posted at the same time. She got one of them today. Apparently still another one is somewhere in the system. So much for 1st class post.
March 2, 2021
And of course, the material to make batteries grows on trees, and electricity to make them and charge them comes out of the wall.
And if CO2 emissions are cut to zero, plant life will begin to suffer. Good thinking, eh?
March 2, 2021
Battery material doesn’t grow on trees? Except, graphene is projected to be a major component in battery evolution and you can use what grows on trees to produce it – a experiment in 2020 converted banana skin to flash graphene.
Materials research is a hot R&D area and we might well have sodium based batteries in the future – stuff out of the sea.
March 2, 2021
Jam tomorrow
March 2, 2021
There is a difference between ‘zero’ (absolutely impossible) and ‘net zero’.
March 2, 2021
William Hague is wrong yet again in the Telegraph today:-
“Time to cast aside the dangerous illusion that tax increases can wait. Just like Pitt in 1797, the Government needs to raise taxes to prove that its debt burden is sustainable”
We have the highest taxes for about 70 years, we also have very high levels of government waste and very poor public services in many areas. The NHS has about the higher death rate per Covid infection at 3% in the world.
From the current position (and especially at this time) tax increase would be a total disaster, killing the recovery, damaging growth, exporting jobs and not even raising more taxes.
Like Milton Friedman āI am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.ā
Cut the climate alarmist crap, the expensive energy agenda, cut government waste, cut HS2, cut the endless government waste and cut taxes. That is the only sensible way to go William (but then you did read PPE so perhaps you have an excuse for being so deluded).
March 2, 2021
Why does the eternal eegit Hague get publicity for his inane utterings. I couldn’t understand what he said when he was in politics and, now, his written views are still incomprehensible.
March 2, 2021
The arbitrary date put on removing petrol and diesel vehicles is madness and yet more green nonsense from a government who seem hell bent on destroying our industries. These decisions have consequences for all of us so here’s a few questions Sir John.
1. Existing manufacturers of engines are leaving already (Honda) so what we we doing now to replace these ?
2. EV’s are still in their infancy with many technological obstacles and flaws to be overcome, so why not put a longer deadline on phasing out ?
3. Where is the charging infrastructure and when will the mass investment required be forthcoming ?
4.Why are we being forced to go electric when electricity prices have risen massively and continue to rise ?
5.Bearing in mind the rare metals needed for battery production mainly come from China how will any plant be guaranteed the product for manufacture ?
I could go on, but this ill conceived policy will be a noose around our neck for years to come.
March 2, 2021
This government really has lost the plot
March 2, 2021
Not only can they wait but with sensible cuts in government and the resultant growth in the productive sector that results they should not even ever be needed. They would clearly do far more harm than good they always do. 20% of GDP for the state sector is plenty.
March 2, 2021
At the time the government made this rash commitment it presumably did not know the UK would be recovering from the worst recession in 300 years. Even more reason to abandon an impractical and damaging policy decision, which had never been a manifesto promise.
March 2, 2021
Please get more Engineers in Parliament instead of Politicians.
Hydrogen is a much better fuel for vehicles than batteries which are a source of pollution in themselves.
We have to charge battery’s from the National Grid. Will we have the capacity in 3 years time ?
Virtue signaling and green madness by politicians who think this bandwagon will win them votes and keep their jobs.
The story of going diesel all over again. Not to mention it’s all down to the Green House effect which can’t actually to proved to the person in the street by Government.
But we might need more coal fired power stations to run the green battery cars š
March 2, 2021
ENGINEERS.
We are now in need of an Engineering Advisory Group for Emergencies
to provide advice to support government decision makers.
Same as SAGE for the pandemic .
March 2, 2021
“…..madness by politicians who think this bandwagon will win them votes and keep their jobs.”
Well they’re in for a shock.
March 2, 2021
Slightly off-topic but relevant regarding the obscene costs involved for the consumer regarding the renewable route we are being forced on for EVs.
A press release on the 5th of February from the GWPF highlights the real cost implications on our energy bills.
The cost of renewable energy levies is expected by the OBR to rise from Ā£9.6 billion in 20/21 to Ā£10.2 billion in 2022/23, not including the FiT costs. Together they account for about 40% of the bill
.
Transmission and Distribution charges (and losses) are also heavily affected by climate policy and account for about 20% of the bill.
āSystem balancingā costs alone were Ā£2 billion last year, up from Ā£1.5 billion in the previous year, with much of that increase due to the presence of inflexible and uncontrollable renewables. The bulk of that additional Ā£500 million has been deferred to this coming year and accounting for a substantial part of the increase that Mr Brearley (CEO) is blaming on āwholesaleā costs.
The whole process is nothing but smoke and mirrors by ministers with no grasp of reality.
March 2, 2021
A rather nasty stat I read was that the manufacturing process to make a car battery emits as much CO2 as dies running an internal combustion motor for seven years. And then the battery life of a car is around ten years. As a result, currently, EV’s ain’t going to solve da ‘climate emergency.’
Read this: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/20/tesla-car-battery-production-releases-as-much-co2-as-8-years-of-gasoline-driving/
March 2, 2021
I gather it was calculated that takes nine years for an electric car to out do the CO2 footprint of a modern diesel, long before then it would have needed a new battery pack, so it never out does the CO2 footprint .
PS I also doubt the ‘recycling ‘ of the lithium batters was included in the calculations, the recycling I understand is to burn them to recover the metals, that’s really green.
March 2, 2021
Iain Moore
“….the recycling I understand is to burn them to recover the metals, thatās really green.”
It’s also extremely bloody stupid. Still I guess they don’t mind another Bhopal or two. Or maybe they’ll just create mountains of heavy metals to poison the soil and water supplies in somewhere like Bangladesh, or bung the Indonesians a few quid to dump it in the sea when no one’s watching
Not so green after all, are they ?
EV’s should be banned right now before the damage is done.
March 2, 2021
Dear John,
This is utter madness.
Any responsible government, with any intention of delivering on their promises would have published the following :
Publish the quantity of diesel and petrol used in the UK in one day. Multiply that by the specific energy of petrol and diesel respectively and you will know how much power is required to run the country.
Now – let’s think how the UK will produce that much electrical power in just one decade. Remember that in the middle of winter, when solar energy is at it’s lowest, and the High Pressure over Europe inhibits any substantial wind, that the net power produced by ‘eco’ sources will be close to zero.
The results will be obvious to all – which I cynically suspect is probably why the calculations have not been done, and why the target will never, ever be met.
March 2, 2021
Its not about reality, its about appealing to the Guardian Reader – the WOKE brigade if you like. The cost in lost jobs the ever increasing debt laid onto the taxpayer are for another day.
March 2, 2021
The massive sleight of hand and it is ‘massive’ – is the carbon footprint required to produce this pipe dream. The manufacture of these battery vehicles along with their delivery to the UK has a larger carbon footprint than is produced in the lifetime of the average ICU car.
You could easily say the imperative is to ensure the manufacture and delivery is to the same standard of the in use car. For that matter just ban imports – the carbon footprint instantly drops.
The VW Group like our Government likes to be seen on message – yet they own their own coal fired power stations.
March 2, 2021
While it may be OK to ban the production of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, there is no rush to remove petrol and diesel cars manufactured before that date. They should be allowed to endure for their economic life.
To protect our car industry, we may need to adopt a protectionist position with regard to the production of batteries and the installation of rapid charging points in the field.
We should give an incentive to our electric car industry by setting aside parking areas in our cities, especially London, for electric cars only. That would give an incentive to the production of electric cars.
Two things must be done in parallel:
(1) Ensure that power generation is also ‘green’ not only here but in competitor countries. Diplomatic action will be necessary to force countries such as China to follow suit. We should propose to the WTO that exports from countries running ‘dirty economies’ may have tariffs imposed on them.
(2) We mustn’t let public transport off the hook. Pace PC opinion, empty trains and buses are not environmentally friendly. And as I recall, London buses emit twice the volume of NOx that London cars do.
(Note to self: research this)
March 2, 2021
Your statement reads like the opening passage of the utopia Stalinist transport directive of the great red revolution
March 2, 2021
I cannot remember reading comments that are so unanimous, and repeat so often the word “madness”. Something is very seriously amiss.
Do something, Sir John. This is really suicidal.
March 2, 2021
China’s 5 year plan for 2021-5 is to achieve an average 5% growth whilst giving science, technology and innovation an absolute priority.
Back here in the little old UK, we are striving to ‘save the planet’ irrespective of the economic cost to our country or people or the disruption to their lives. It is very easy for Arts graduates who form our government to believe anything about science they are told because they have no intellectual filter to spot a science-based scam. The perpetrators have declared that they will use the powers of banksterism and private equity to interfere in the running of companies not for economic reasons but as part of their conspiracy to destroy Western Civilisation under the guise of their global warming hoax designed to transfer our wealth to the Orient.
March 2, 2021
concur with your comments, this government will sacrifice every commoners freedom and taxation to achieve its green dream
March 3, 2021
forthurst – “we are striving to save the planet”. The “we” refers to Boris and Carrie and the Green idiots. The planet will look after itself as it has done for millioms of years.
March 2, 2021
Anything and everything we do seems almost pointless as China’s and India’s populations will be driving ICE vehicles for decades – in ever greater numbers.
March 2, 2021
My ford focus costs just Ā£360 to insure, and out of interest Iāve tonight got an online quote for an EV Tesla model 3, and it was Ā£2,330 ā unbelievable
March 2, 2021
JR
A scathing attack on Johnson’s electric vehicle lunacy would have been better.
March 2, 2021
I note that the government has cynically decided to proceed with the rollout of E10 fuel. That will increase bills for motorists because it is more expensive to produce, and it offers a worse fuel consumption – for some cars as much as 10% worse – increasing the yield of fuel duty. On top of that, the fuel gradually attacks the seals and valves, leading to higher maintenance bills and early scrappage of the vehicle. They aim to force you out of your petrol car by ensuring it breaks down. It isn’t even green when you analyse the combined effects of producing the fuel and its poorer performance, let alone the implications of early scrappage and extra maintenance.
March 3, 2021
Nothing will replace the internal combustion engine. Electric cars – pie in the sky. As I have said here before we have not got a basic energy policy just to “keep the lights operational”. No one in Government understands energy. We need another Lord Marshall. Forget the windmills, p—ing in the wind. Paris Climate accord – where does the money go? How much are we indebted to China fiscally for Hinkley Point and how much influence are they going to have in its operation. We are being fooled ALL the time. Wake up people. The government do NOT have YOUR interests at heart.
March 3, 2021
Well thatās what was said about horse-drawn carts at the beginning of the 20th c, wasnāt it?
Fortunately there are young(ish) people looking over the wall of old (wo)menās preconceptions …
March 3, 2021
The transformation from horse to ICE car was by choice and consumer demand
This transformation from ICE to EV is mandatory
Do you not see the difference ???
March 3, 2021
At this time can you honestly envisage an electric bulldozer, massive quarry truck etc.
Where is the power supply for charging the batteries that may power this type of machine? As I said we do not have a sensible Energy policy to keep the lights on at present. I will stay with the IC engine. So much Green BS at present.
March 3, 2021
The amusing bit is that your ‘Home Charger’ as in the dedicated type is fed through your ‘smart meter’. The power company is asking that they can then when short of power elsewhere can turn that bit off at will. Not forgetting that when parked-up your battery car is using power – it has to maintain a constant temperature within the battery at all times – so heating and cooling the battery is constant operation.