Slashdot Mirror
New Diesel and Petrol Vehicles To Be Banned From 2040 In UK (bbc.com)
New submitter puenktli writes: The UK is joining the list of the countries which are making a commitment towards diesel and petrol free vehicles. Other countries might be more progressive with such a ban (e.g. the Netherlands: by 2025), but at least it's a step in the right direction. However, if new bans are put forward at such a high rate as now, in 2040, the UK might be the only western country where petrol-fuelled cars are still on the road. Tesla at least will be happy about this ban, especially now with their Model 3. But these bans will inspire other car makers as well to invest more in EV. Maybe not such a bad idea after all: oil will run out one day, but the sun will always shine.
oil will run out one day, but the sun will always shine
Maybe another 4 billion years but hardly always.
2040 is far enough off that the current politicians can make all the promises they want and not suffer any repercussions from failing to meet that goal nor any backlash from folks who object.
2040 is also far enough off that we might reasonably make the transition from fossil fuels by then as that is a long time in technological terms.
On the other hand, I have 1968, 1986, 1996 and 2004 delivery vans and there is not a whole lot of difference between them. They all get about the same gas mileage. In fact, they get about the same mileage full or empty. The biggest thing you can do when driving a larger vehicle is make sure you're always carrying at capacity for this reason. It's called backhauling. When we make deliveries we also pickup up spent barley and such for our pastured pig farm to optimize our time and vehicle usage. That makes more difference than doubling the gas mileage.
In Vermont, where we're located, they aren't quite as optimistic as the UK politicians so they set the deadline for this sort of thing to be 2050 to give another decade of slack.