There's a large petrol station near me that's diversified quite a bit with multiple cleaning bays, storage facilities, larger shop. I often wonder how much they make from the fuel sales. The interesting part is it's a BP station, so now has the BP.me system meaning you don't need to go and pay, so don't enter the shop and make impulse purchases, so they can't sell a discount car wash etc. If we were plugging in there instead, and had a bit of time to kill, sell me a nice coffee and a book.... It changes the model entirely from dash in and out. Those that decide to do this could do well.
Ban on new petrol and diesel cars from 2030
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What makes you think they won't just progressively replace petrol pumps with rapid chargers as demand shifts ? Many service stations already have Instavolt rapids tucked in the corner. 10 years from now it may be the reverse - rapid chargers centre court and a couple of petrol pumps in the corner for those still spitting out fumes..
Service stations these days are already food shops that just so happen to sell petrol as well, EV rapid charging actually helps this as dwell time will be longer. Service stations will do just fine I think, if they adapt to the change in demand over time.
My other half is managing one of the big ASDA's and we were just talking about this very subject a few weeks back. This is exactly what she said. The petrol station is running on almost 0% profit on the fuel, but overall the store is doing really, really well. They used to have "Home shopping" pickers working from 3am till 9am....now they are starting at 2am till 3pm and running two shifts. Picking up for home deliveries almost non stop. The home delivery side of the business went up almost 80%. She actually had to recruit 25 more people to meet the demand.
The last couple of comments fit with a thought I had while reading earlier comments on PHEV etc. I expect that as we approach 2030 the government (of whatever party) will feel under increased pressure to be environmentally clean - more pressure each year as 2030 approaches. So some options on the implementation of cleaner vehicles might include significantly increased tax on ICE (up to 2030) and PHEV (up to and after 2030) vehicle purchase and petrol and diesel. It might also include setting a minimum all electric range for a PHEV that is very high. This would make it less attractive to buy a PHEV and to run it on fossil fuel.
I think many towns will ban ICE vehicles too, as the years go by, making PHEVs unattractive for practical reasons. So there may be a PHEV purchase option available but it might be unattractive compared with EVs. I think that peoples' mindset will change as they see and hear an increasing number of EV users pleased with their experience. But the UK cannot cope with everyone switching to an EV all at the same time so I'm quite pleased that some will switch later than others.
I think the biggest challenge will for the 40% of the population that does not have off-street parking at home. With average mileage of 7,800 miles pa (per the AA), most EV users will only need to charge twice per week. But I think it will take a long time before new EV users don't want to plug in all night, every night 'just to be certain'. Twice per week for the 40% means sharing a charger at work, using a rapid whilst near to home and a mix of some local over night charging spots. I think we will see quite a few developments in this space and I expect to be surprised at how this ends up in 2030.
Overall, I think it will work. As a generalised comment, business will make the most of opportunities - but the target date needs to stay and not drift. If a subsequent government allowed a deferment it would reduce the incentive for businesses to make it work.
I think many towns will ban ICE vehicles too, as the years go by, making PHEVs unattractive for practical reasons. So there may be a PHEV purchase option available but it might be unattractive compared with EVs. I think that peoples' mindset will change as they see and hear an increasing number of EV users pleased with their experience. But the UK cannot cope with everyone switching to an EV all at the same time so I'm quite pleased that some will switch later than others.
I think the biggest challenge will for the 40% of the population that does not have off-street parking at home. With average mileage of 7,800 miles pa (per the AA), most EV users will only need to charge twice per week. But I think it will take a long time before new EV users don't want to plug in all night, every night 'just to be certain'. Twice per week for the 40% means sharing a charger at work, using a rapid whilst near to home and a mix of some local over night charging spots. I think we will see quite a few developments in this space and I expect to be surprised at how this ends up in 2030.
Overall, I think it will work. As a generalised comment, business will make the most of opportunities - but the target date needs to stay and not drift. If a subsequent government allowed a deferment it would reduce the incentive for businesses to make it work.
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Totally agree. One of my mates who only has on-street parking recently asked me if based on my experience of owning an EV whether I’d recommend he gets one. I said, unless he’s happy to make sacrifices for environmental reasons, my advice would be no. I simply don’t see how the economics of owning an EV stack up, bearing in mind their greater purchase price, unless you are able to charge it on cheap electricity overnight. Not to mention the hassle of having to pop to the rapid charger to ‘fill up’ for 45 minutes every week, instead of popping to the petrol station for a 5 minute fill up.
I have off-street parking, so it is very easy for me to switch to an EV which is why I did. Unless the government invests a fortune in fast charging posts in every residential street in the country (don’t see that happening!!), people who live in flats or houses without driveways are going to end up very unhappy about this ICE vehicle ban.
Not to say it isn’t worth making people unhappy of course... the planet is important to save. But disproportionate burden for doing so will fall on the heads of people who don’t have driveways.
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Despite what's actually stated on the press release, a chunk of that will in fact end up being for electric bikes. There will be a trial next year of grants to assist with the purchase of e-bikes.
They have to boost the numbers cycling, in order to reduce the issues with congestion, obesity and general poor health.
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Understandable from a personal point of view, but bearing in mind the average car sits doing nothing for 95% of the time, a large proportion of people don't actually need a car most of the time. Let alone 2 or 3 sat outside. With the way things are going climate wise, plus increasing road congestion, the existence of personal vehicle ownership as an automatic right which has evolved in the last 50 years or so has to alter, so that there are far more shared ownership schemes, to cater for those who need a car for longer trips.
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Well, that might be fair eventually. You’re talking about the ‘car as a service‘ model, where you order the driverless car in an app, and one drives itself over to your house and you jump in, kinda thing?
I can see us getting to that eventually, but over the next decade? I don’t know.
Ultimately, it is going to come down to cost. A few years ago ‘car clubs’ like ZipCars were going to be all the rage, and I know some people do use them in London, but I would say they haven’t really taken off as a phenomenon as many predicted they would. I think because car ownership comes with a sense of security. You know that, whatever happens, with absolutely zero planning you can walk out of your front door, into your car, and go anywhere you like. That feeling is worth something to people. So even if the economics of using something like ZipCar works out cheaper than owning a car (and I don’t think it does for most people), it would have to be a lot cheaper for enough people to give up that feeling of car ownership ‘security’ to switch to it.
Now, as I say, once technology has advanced to the point where you can reliably press a button on your phone and you know that wherever you are in the country a driverless car will pull up outside your door in a few minutes for less cost than owning a car, even if you’re an every day user... then maybe. But I don’t see us getting to that point in a decade.
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On Autotrader, cheapest brand new automatic ICE ZS is £18k, and ZS EV is £19k.
The EV has marginally better spec and 5* NCAP vs 3* for ICE.
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What may happen is this.
About 3 years before the 'ban', ICE sales will shoot up and manufacturers will have to ramp up production volumes considerably, because people will think they need to replace their ICE cars with ICE before the 'ban'.
About 1 year before the 'ban', every manufacturer will launch a mass of new car models, all freshly homologated. Because no-one has yet realised that you can only 'ban' cars that are not already on sale (legacy terms apply to vehicles homologated for a given emissions requirement) there will then be another round of 'buying the newest ICE'.
It's quite usual for cars of two, or even three, emissions classes to cross over each other in sale. A vehicle already homolgated can continue for sale until the model stops being sold or until the final cutoff date for a given emissions class.
For example, Euro 4 was required from 2005. My diesel van is actually a 2007 model with Euro 3 because it was a run-on model and could still be legally sold.
To implement this ban they cannot do it on emissions legislation. They will have to introduce some new form of primary legislation to make this happen, it cannot simply be by emissions regulations. It will be interesting to see how they can make such definitions of an electric car without referring to its emissions!
(If they come to me and pay be £100,000 for 7 hours of work, I can given them some answers that will deal with that. .. Boris .. just drop me a PM, mate, OK?)
About 3 years before the 'ban', ICE sales will shoot up and manufacturers will have to ramp up production volumes considerably, because people will think they need to replace their ICE cars with ICE before the 'ban'.
About 1 year before the 'ban', every manufacturer will launch a mass of new car models, all freshly homologated. Because no-one has yet realised that you can only 'ban' cars that are not already on sale (legacy terms apply to vehicles homologated for a given emissions requirement) there will then be another round of 'buying the newest ICE'.
It's quite usual for cars of two, or even three, emissions classes to cross over each other in sale. A vehicle already homolgated can continue for sale until the model stops being sold or until the final cutoff date for a given emissions class.
For example, Euro 4 was required from 2005. My diesel van is actually a 2007 model with Euro 3 because it was a run-on model and could still be legally sold.
To implement this ban they cannot do it on emissions legislation. They will have to introduce some new form of primary legislation to make this happen, it cannot simply be by emissions regulations. It will be interesting to see how they can make such definitions of an electric car without referring to its emissions!
(If they come to me and pay be £100,000 for 7 hours of work, I can given them some answers that will deal with that. .. Boris .. just drop me a PM, mate, OK?)
Don't share your pricing on here.
I've just sent him a note saying I'll do it in 6.5 hours for £99,999.
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I guess it depends on what buyers think the likely resale value of ICE cars bought right before a ban would be. Plus, most people lease or PCP new cars now anyway, so maybe you'll see a glut of people getting ICE cars on finance right before the ban, then all those cars hitting the used market 2-4 years later.
For people buying outright, I guess more thought than usual will be given to which of those cars may become 'collectables' or 'future classics' and retain value that way for enthusiasts to buy. I could see the last round of ICE cars from the likes of Citroen or Hyundai plummeting in value as EVs become the default option for people, whereas the last ever petrol VW Golf, or BMW M-series? Maybe there would be an enthusiasts market for those.
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In amongst and alongside all this is the need (we only have the one planet so far) to move away from gas for heating. Already set for new builds.
The typical ASHP retrofit takes about 8kW and the technology really needs to run most of the time so going green this way and wanting a car charge point (or 2) and cooking with electricity equals some issues with DNO notification and upgrades (currently the qualified installer has to run a diversity calculation and if the result exceeds a certain level prior permission must be sought rather than post install notification).
Lots of new build getting 3 phase service heads for this very reason. Easier to balance across 3 than plan to beat up one.
In a similar issue to off street parking massive numbers of terraced properties are on looped singe phase too (2-4 properties on a loop). Lots of digging coming.
Diluting natural gas with hydrogen may help but lots of issues there too.
Aesthetically ASHP falls into ‘pig ugly’ too and they are not silent either.
One answer to both is community provision (district heating, neighbourhood chargers) but one thing we seem to have largely lost is community.
interesting times and a proper challenge for our here today, on the speaking circuit tomorrow government model.
The typical ASHP retrofit takes about 8kW and the technology really needs to run most of the time so going green this way and wanting a car charge point (or 2) and cooking with electricity equals some issues with DNO notification and upgrades (currently the qualified installer has to run a diversity calculation and if the result exceeds a certain level prior permission must be sought rather than post install notification).
Lots of new build getting 3 phase service heads for this very reason. Easier to balance across 3 than plan to beat up one.
In a similar issue to off street parking massive numbers of terraced properties are on looped singe phase too (2-4 properties on a loop). Lots of digging coming.
Diluting natural gas with hydrogen may help but lots of issues there too.
Aesthetically ASHP falls into ‘pig ugly’ too and they are not silent either.
One answer to both is community provision (district heating, neighbourhood chargers) but one thing we seem to have largely lost is community.
interesting times and a proper challenge for our here today, on the speaking circuit tomorrow government model.
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So thats a heavily discounted EV, against a non-discounted ICE - good argument. It nicely points out that actually, EVs aren't selling like hot cakes !!
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"40% of the population" is a meaningless figure. What you should be looking at is what proportion of the car driving population has access to off street parking, that is what really matters, and that figure is quite a bit higher.
If someone in London in a terraced house with no access to off street parking (or quite possibly no access to nearby parking at all) can't install a home charger that's irrelevant if they don't have a car in the first place or don't even have a drivers license. There are many places in the country where it's not feasible to own or drive a car, and there are also a lot of people who don't have a license and can't drive or don't even want to drive. These people are not suddenly going to go out and get a drivers license to drive an EV when they never could or wanted to drive before.
My mother in law lives in a terraced house without off street parking (although if push came to shove she could convert her front garden as a few of her neighbours have) but she doesn't own a car, doesn't drive, has never had a license in her life and has no intention of changing that. There are a lot of people like that.
Just count the people who do have cars and drive and the situation is a lot better than it seems from a simplistic population figure.
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Or it shows that being in the carbon pool with VAG is driving some behind the scenes money to get stuff delivered before the end of December. (As with the ID3 models sold with shonky software). Goads work.
I think the often quoted stat was 60% of households have off street parking. Which I take it includes apartment car park or a parking spot that is opposite the road. None of those example is allowed to install EV charging points by the home owner.
People also often ask, how can multi-car household charge their EV with only one driveway spot. My road for example, out of 9 houses, 4 only have a single parking spot and 3 of those household have 2-3 cars.
I think the ban can't come soon enough from our environmental footprint point of view. But at the same time, the infrastructure is so far from ready it's not even funny. Just yesterday, I discovered the new BP petrol station 150kW chargers don't accept contactless payments. It sometimes feels like the infrastructure is actually going backwards!
Have you seen the contempt with which some people hold their cars?
I've known people whose cars made me crawl when they gave me a lift. Imagine how these types are going to treat a car that doesn't actually belong to them. Some come to mind now. I know of one instance where someone I now hired a car to take stuff to the tip. I don't know why he bothered going to the tip, he could have just loaded his rubbish into the back and taken it back to the car rental company (I exaggerate, but you get my drift).
We were in Paris a few years ago where there was some sort of pay & drive system. Some of the cars were disgusting.
No, on purely health grounds I would be very wary of anything like this.
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