Lord Frost has written a terrific column in today’s Telegraph in defence of drivers – a group so unfashionable it has almost no defenders. He sees in the desire by central planners to phase out the internal combustion engine the same folly that has driven draconian socialist policies down the ages. Here’s how it begins:
One of the pleasures of the vinyl record era was getting the new album by your favourite band on release day and rushing home to listen to it. I did just that on Feb 12 1981 when I bought Moving Pictures by the great Canadian band Rush. My favourite track – still well worth a listen – was Red Barchetta. It describes a world in which, with private cars banned, the narrator has to sneak off every Sunday for an illegal drive in his secretly held eponymous Italian sports car.
Great track, but not plausible, I thought. Who can imagine a world in which private cars are banned? Even in the Soviet Union, if you can get one, they don’t stop you driving it around. No government is going to take people’s cars away from them.
Well, Western governments haven’t quite done that, it is true. But there are advocates for car bans in some large cities, and one day some feeble Red-Green mayor somewhere in Europe will surely give in to it. Meanwhile, our leaders are doing everything short of it.
For a start, the best currently viable technology for cars – the internal combustion engine plus battery – is being withdrawn from the market in just eight years. We are told that by then electric cars will be better and cheaper. It is hard to be confident of that, or that we will have the electricity to power them.
The comedy road trip of Jack Rear (in the Daily Telegraph of July 25th) shows that going any distance in an electric car is more like a coach journey in Jane Austen’s England than anything we are used to. Just as you had to work out where you could change horses and where you had to stay overnight, so now you must establish where the chargers are, whether your car will make it to them, and what you do while waiting. And at least Jane could sustain herself in a coaching inn rather than having to sit in a Tesco car park.
No one had to mandate the replacement of horses by cars. The technology was self-evidently superior. If the same is true of electric cars, then people will choose them anyway. If it isn’t, then the ban will be deeply regressive and hugely unpopular.
Worth reading in full.
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Some UK cities now have public electric scooter schemes which are a taste of things to come. It’s illegal to ride a scooter like that if you own it yourself, but the public schemes are legal. There are geofences that reduce the maximum speed in certain areas, and shut off the motor completely in others.
Sounds like hell, indeed.
And most potholes are bigger than the scooters’ wheels – instant faceplant. Seen it a couple of times.
And there would be potholes, because the idiotic planners would think they are justified not going to the expense of making roads durable enough for heavy motor vehicles – which will obviously need to drive there (especially if they are very heavy electric vehicles!) making even more potholes than normal.
It would be a modern version of a return to the 16th Century, as when people had to tie blocks of wood to their shoes, to raise themselves above the quagmire.
The funny thing is that how many electric scooters are in fact owned illegally and driven on public roads, without the beneift of insurance. The Police are apparently more preoccupied with dealing with ‘hurty feelings’ complaints on social medial than actually doing somethng that might actually make the roads a tad safer for all – pedestrians and motorists.
The ‘perfect’ car is a plug-in hybrid with a range of about 30 miles on battery. This would cover the majority of days for the average person but would also allow longer journeys.
But we don’t like hybrids, mainly because when they arrived they were bought mainly as company cars because there was a massive tax advantage — the owners didn’t bother using the battery as they didn’t really want the hybrid side of things in the first place (just the tax benefit).
Instead we’re only supporting electric-only cars — but these only make economic sense for those driving a long commute every day. These individuals should be discouraged from commuting such long distances but instead we’re giving them subsidies.
Some people buy electric-only cars but only use them for short distances on most days — these cars have a huge embodied environmental impact (‘carbon emissions’ in making hte battery and other negative environmental impacts) that isn’t offset by miles driven; ‘the environment’ would have been better off if they’d have got a plug-in hybrid.
To add — what actually makes sense is electric for ‘final mile’ local delivery. This is typically still done by diesel, because this is what makes financial sense. The government could help by increasing subsidies for this type of use — instead they’re happier to support people buying electric cars for a long commute where the benefit is mainly in their not paying so much tax (fuel duty etc).
The problem with larger hybrids is that you are essentially lugging the extra deadweight around when it’s not being used, when driving beyond the 15-20 miles of the battery the real-world mpg is terrible.
For city driving a small three cylinder engine with 48v mild hybrid system to smooth out the lower gear low speed bits are the best choice. They can also do the longer motorway stints as many of us will do occasionally. For people who travel longer motorway distances regularly, a Euro 6 Diesel is still far and away the best choice.
Keeping and maintaining properly an “old” diesel made after 2000 is even better than that.
The other snag with plug-in hybrids is the relatively short life cycle of E10 petrol – only about 90 days or so. So it’s possible that the those who run such cars can end up with old petrol in the tank, with the problems that can cause. They don’t advertise the fact that once you’ve bought the fuel, you have to burn it quickly enough before it goes off (with the ethanol and petrol separating, water being in the wrong place etc).
Got fined the other day for going 56 in a 50 “pollution speed control zone” or whatever they’re called.
Funny thing is, I was in an EV. Can I get a refund because I don’t “pollute” in the sense they mean? Can I f*ck.
Before you say it, I know sources of lithium batteries are not environmentally friendly, but I didn’t exactly get an EV for that anyway.
Instant continuous torque is great fun, I’ll grant you. At least you’re honest!
Exactly! “Vroom!” Or rather ” “
And I admit to being a bit of a tech-head. Cannot compare the interiors of these cars really!
Aside from the points on electric v petrol which others will deal with better than I, the key thing that strikes me about private car ownership is really the freedom and relatively unregulated (because it’s difficult to regulate) nature of it. I know it’s a lot more regulated than it was and will continue to be so, but we have a vast road network, millions of cars and millions of people used to being able to use them when and where they want. That will be hard to shift, I hope. Hard to stop people using their cars unless they have a vaxx passport, hard to go on strike and stop them travelling (glad I am not beholden to the rail unions).
The assankt on private car ownership is just another example of the harnessing of collective good will by a few to control everyone and destroy individual freedom.
First they get you to agree that pollution is bad and that you’re to blame.
Then they tell you what to do, initially, something reasonable like some additional tax or levy.
But once the principle is established that you are the cause and they dictate the solution, we’re sold.
It has struck me (many times) that those that are keenest for us to rid ourselves of our cars usually live within the M25, so cannot see any hardship in not having a vehicle. They have excellent public transport to rely on, plus, parking being what it is in all cities, they see a vehicle as a positive inconvenience. I don’t live in a particularly remote place compared to many, but it is rural – for example, our local surgery dispenses all medication because we are some miles from a chemist, and, more importantly, we have no bus service to get there either. I have family living in London who don’t need a car, and the added bonus is (so they tell me) that all TFL transport is free if you are over 60. I mean, what a luxury! If you don’t drive here, you are stuffed (although I would live nowhere else).
If they made a small, cheap electric car, say the size of a smart car and around 12k to 15k, I would have one as a runaround. But 40k upwards? I could never afford it.
The government ministers and royal family all agree