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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.

9 of 417 comments (clear)

  1. Probably moot by that point... by taiwanjohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some analysts are already predicting that the car market will be 50% EV by the mid-2020s, and will "tip" rapidly thereafter. This trend is mostly driven by the cost of Li-ion batteries, which has been falling at about 15%/yr for the last couple of decades. When it becomes possible to buy an entry-level EV for $20k or less, why would you even want an ICE vehicle?

    The "fuel" price for EVs is a fraction of that for ICE, as is the maintenance cost. EVs only have a couple-dozen moving parts, compared to thousands in an ICE car. Of course, there will still be "gas car" enthusiasts in 2040, just as there are hobbyists who still maintain antique steam-powered farm equipment. But even by 2030, there will no longer be a need for this law, because the market will already have flipped.

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    1. Re:Probably moot by that point... by Frederic54 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > Because they have limited range, take too long to charge

      Mostly this, right, trying to do a 1600km (1000 miles) trip in an ICE vehicle? I can do it with just 2 tanks of gas in 16h. However with an AV? This would need a station where you can swap your depleted batteries for full charged ones. Maybe one day this will exist at enough places?

      --
      "Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
    2. Re:Probably moot by that point... by voislav98 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      These analysts are typically guys who are not automotive analysts, but technology analysts. They have large misconceptions about the automotive industry and how quickly can the technology change. The transition from ICE to electric engines is a huge one with a number of technology and production issues to still be resolved. Reasonable analyses I've seen from automotive industry guys have hybrids jumping to 25-35% of vehicle sales by 2030, with full electrics staying below 5%. 50% by mid-2020's or even 2030's is a pipe dream.

      To put it simply, Tesla's Gigafactory will take 5 years to build (2015 - 2020 for full capacity) at a cost of $5 billion and will supply batteries for 1.5 million cars. European vehicle sales (passenger cars and light commerial vehicles, which includes SUV's) are in the 10 - 15 million per year range, US are 15 - 20 million per year range. So to supply this volume of vehicles (50% of 25 - 35 million per year), you would need 10 Gigafactories, with building to start by early 2020's. I haven't seen any plans for this to happen, so the battery supply will not be there to build these vehicles. Infrastructure is the second issue. It takes time to build out the network of charging stations and there are no widespread plans to do this either.

      So, all these plans and commitments are meaningless unless they are accompanied by major investments into battery and electric component production and infrastructure investment. When that happens, I'll believe that electric cars will have meaningful sales.

  2. Re:Citation needed by jeff4747 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It will then be replenished by the same processes that produce the oil we use today

    Actually, it won't. Because we have oxygen in our atmosphere now.

    Oil was produced by vast piles of organic matter being covered by sediments and baked for hundreds of millions of years. Once our atmosphere got a significant concentration of oxygen, those vast piles of organic matter no longer formed in the same way. The organic matter oxidizes too much before it can be buried. Instead much smaller molecules (aka natural gas) are created instead.

    And before the post above asks, the problem with just relying on natural gas is it tends to not stay in the ground on its own. You need particular geology to hold it in place. So there's way less natural gas forming than the way oil formed 250M years ago.

  3. Re:Short-sighted view by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Not it does not. From your own link

    The Green River Formation contains the largest oil shale deposit in the world. It has been estimated that the oil shale reserves could be equal up to 3 trillion barrels (480 billion cubic metres) of shale oil, up to half of which may be recoverable by shale oil extraction technologies (pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution of kerogen in oil shale). However, the estimates of recoverable oil has been questioned by geophysicist Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, who argues that the technology for recovering oil from the Green River oil shale deposit has not been developed and has not been profitably implemented at any significant scale.

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  4. Re:Short-sighted view by mspohr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fuel cost alone is EV=0.03 cents per mile and ICE = 0.20 cents per mile. (YMMV)
    Also, EVs have low maintenance cost. Tires are about the only cost. Brakes last forever; no oil changes; drive train has a few thousand fewer parts to wear and break.
    The more you drive, the more you save.

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  5. Re:Hold on a second! by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's not a "better world". It's all about ridiculous exaggeration and globalization and creating the structures necessary to confiscate money from nations that create wealth and move it to others that only consume, and once and for all get rid of that poverty eliminator, capitalism. It's a precursor to world government and the end of democracy. But don't listen to me, let's hear their own words:

    (OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War... First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

    Christiana Figueres, leader of the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change: "This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history."

    Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO), then representing the Clinton-Gore administration as U.S undersecretary of state for global issues, addressing the same Rio Climate Summit audience, agreed: "We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

    Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister: "No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

    Daphne Muller, green-progressive-liberal writer for Salon: "This moment requires we the people to rethink democracy as a global mechanism for enacting policy for and by the planet."

    Peter Berle, President of the National Audubon Society: "We reject the idea of private property."

    David Brower, a founder of the Sierra Club: "The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature's proper steward and society's only hope."

    Mikhail Gorbachev, communist and former leader of U.S.S.R.: "The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government."

    Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth: "A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources."

    Monika Kopacz, atmospheric scientist: "It is no secret that a lot of climate-change research is subject to opinion, that climate models sometimes disagree even on the signs of the future changes (e.g. drier vs. wetter future climate). The problem is, only sensational exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians' - and readers' - attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in today's world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty."

    Researcher Robert Phalen's 2010 testimony to the California Air Resources Board: "It benefits us personally to have the public be afraid, even if these risks are trivial."

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  6. Re:Stupid by fluffernutter · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I just can't understand buying a car only to be an errand car. I understand that some people don't go on long trips, but you need to consider all uses for a vehicle, not the minimum use case.

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  7. Re:Short-sighted view by hipp5 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm buying a new car, and just ran the numbers for a volt versus a normal gas engine. In my commute? I save an amazing $321 a year. That's less than $1 a day. in a car which is $3K MORE than the gas car, even after $9K in gov't /state bonuses. You wannna push electric vehicles? Lower the cost of Electricity.

    Don't forget to factor in maintenance costs. EVs are much simpler with fewer moving parts. No oil changes, no muffler replacements, etc.

    But yeah, I'm not surprised the math doesn't pencil out yet. Modern EVs are still relatively new in the grand scheme of things, and there's a lot of optimizing still to be done. But the math will work out sooner or later. In the meantime the people buying them are doing so for reasons other than hard dollars and cents (i.e. the same reason anyone buys a $30k car in a world where $15k cars exist).