[Flying Dodo]

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?)

Back in 2017 when the Government first stated they would ban the sale of new petrol & diesel only cars from 2040, they didn't state they would allow existing models to carry on being sold. It would be very simple to introduce primary legislation to stop all sales, in the exactly the same way they banned the sale of firearms for example. You could argue it's amazing cars haven't been banned before, seeing as they kill far more people than guns ever did!

 

[donald]

I don't think you understand government procurement.

They'll happily save £5 on the contract value, to go with the guy that has less experience and doesn't really understand the question that's been asked.

You're right. I just got a message from Bo telling me to f-off with my suggestion that @cah197 is not up to the same consulting standard that I am. He doesn't understand at all how superior I am.

His exact text was 'F-off donald, you want to run the contract? You can't'.

I have edited that last word because it was missing an apostrophe. There was a mis-spell in the vowel too ....

 

[donald]

Back in 2017 when the Government first stated they would ban the sale of new petrol & diesel only cars from 2040, they didn't state they would allow existing models to carry on being sold. It would be very simple to introduce primary legislation to stop all sales, in the exactly the same way they banned the sale of firearms for example. You could argue it's amazing cars haven't been banned before, seeing as they kill far more people than guns ever did!

Should ban 'food' too, it makes people fat and aggravates the leading cause of death; heart attacks.

... maybe we could keep 'food' if it has other useful side effects, like cars do? .....

 

[DBMandrake]

I spent a year and a half in Singapore (2007-08), with no car. That worked quite well for me, although I had no kid either, which probably helps.

No kid helps a lot...

We had no car for 3 years after I moved to the UK (after being a car driver all my life up until that point) and we got by - getting to work was easy enough, although grocery shopping was a chore as we tended to haul it back on the bus rather than get a taxi...

However now we have a car (two actually) and a kid I couldn't imagine going back to no car at all - it just wouldn't work in our current circumstances as public transport simply can't get us all where we need to be at the times we need to be there. (For example local buses stop running for the night before the final leg of the homeward journey which would mean a daily taxi ride or a 30 minute walk on a winter night with a toddler)

 

[Zomb]

Taxi rides are cheap though, compared to owning a car, let alone a car per adult in the house. When without a car, I used to do the heavy grocery once a fortnight and take a taxi back home, and then just get fresh produce top-ups between the trips, which I just carried back home by public transport + walking.

But yeah, I completely get that people with kids would feel a lot better owning a car. If we just count city dwellers who don't have kids and have a steady, easy enough to reach job, that could already be plenty of money saved and plenty less cars around.

I don't think there is a need for a single solution to fit everyone. But for some people, I feel that the obvious need for a car is a bit like the obvious need for a car that refills very fast for others: just a comfort zone partly based on not understanding well how they could cope with other options, and what benefits they have.

 

[Neilew]

But for some people, I feel that the obvious need for a car

Live near Stoke on Trent and just been out to visit a couple of shops. Travelled 13 miles in total. No chance of doing that with public transport, unless I allocate all day to the trip.

 

[First Draft]

I think I can spot a flaw in your long-term plan ... you think you'll actually get to keep that £21m after the divorce from your bitter marriage?

I like being an unintentional victim.

 

[EdH]

@Big277wave - who wrote

"I think that petrol stations will be interesting to watch. As ICE fuel sales fall, no doubt there will be quite a lot of closures. My guess would be that those doing the highest millage and using the most fuel will go electric fist accelerating the demise. I wonder when we will see the first petrol station ripping out all of it's pumps and replacing them with chargers in an attempt to survive or if we'll see mass closures with the land being put to other uses. "

Oh no - don't put the land to other uses. The important fact here is that, generally, existing petrol stations are pretty much where we need more charging facilities. I expect Shell, BBP etc have got it all worked out. They can see the volume of EV sales and have pretty good knowledge of the busiest traffic routes.

And Apologies to all who made this point already - just got a bit out of sync.