A loony Green idea? No. So-called Conservative PM Boris Johnson. Not only not only no Petrol, but a tax on every mile of driving.

Not quite. Though new straight petrol cars will be banned there after 2030, hybrids will still be allowed.

The UK parliament joint committee on transport & global warming, [an all party committee] had a clause in it's final statement "The ownership of vehicles by the general public for personal transportation is incompatible with with decarbonisation of the environment".

It is obvious that electric cars can not be powered by renewables, only a total fool can believe that, & with nuclear a dirty word, this whole scam is not to cut CO2 emissions, but to take cars off the general public.

The elites want us peasants back on the feudal manor, & all these scares & cuts are merely steps in the process of getting us there.

Has anybody considered promoting - the "Flinstone"
cars? They need no petrol or batteries. Just good
human energy. The cars are made for your legs to
stick out the bottom enabling the driver to run.
Good for the environment, good exercise, a win-win
all round.

Get in training Foxy, because that is where they want you.

Hasbeen,
What is the source for your quote?

Dear Hassie,

I'm too old for training if that kind.

I have a problem with mobility which is
getting worse.

Not quite, Mr. Smarty pants Aidan. If Johnson survives UK voters, hybrid cars will be gone as well by 2035.

I think that I'll build a steam car powered by renewable fuel.

You wanna know the worst thing about being considered a 'conspiracy theorist'?

- It's that I told you all what was going to happen years ago, but you all just ignored me like I was the nut job.

Well I told you what was going to happen.
It doesn't take a genius to stand back and see where it's all going.
It's you lot that ignored me like I was the idiot.
- But you lot were the idiots.

What do you want me to say?
How am I supposed to respond?

I told you all the business elite have an agenda and were not part of it.
I told you all democracy is a load of crap.

They will push their agendas and make us love it no matter what we say.
When are you all going to wake up?

What do you want me to say?
What do you want me to do?

Throw a tanty?

"Throw a tanty?"

Whatever turns you on.

Me too Foxy. I have ordered a big mobility scooter, almost a battery quad bike, so I can stop using the ride on mower to tow the wheely bins out to the front gate, take a slice of hay down to the daughters horse, or start the dam pump to get garden water up to the house. Short runs aren't good for petrol engines.

Is Mise, I have a number of plans for WW11 gas generators, which would drive a petrol pump, or get a car to town to do the shopping, if there is anything in shops. Let me know if you want them when/if the time comes, & petrol & diesel aren't readily available. Unless we have gone nuclear, there won't electricity from these windmills for very long, & certainly not enough to go round.

We have experimented with Stirling engines to drive pumps too. Our river is 70Ft below the black soil flood plane, so it would have to be a big powerful Stirling to pump up from there. We have scavenged a couple of large air compressor cast iron pressure tanks which should do the job.

I have also experimented with ram pumps. Our topography is not great for them, but sharing with neighbors we could get them going. Each of 10 of us have a few acres of good black soil along the river, so could feed big numbers if we can water it from the river, dams are only really for stock drinking again due to topography.

Hasbeen,

Interesting that you are considering Stirling engines, they are renowned for their inefficiency on a work performed to weight/size ratio but when designed for a specific job they are very efficient.

I had the pleasure of restoring a two-cylinder one that is near 8 feet high and weighs about a ton.
It had been pumping water from about 20 feet in a well, the submerged pump had a 1 and a 1/2 inch bore and approx 6-inch stroke, very small in comparison to the engine.
After over 70 years of operation, it was replaced by an electric motor and became derelict.
It was given to the then Karingal Village Museum (on Conrod Straight) where I got it working again and pumping water.

Conrod Straight, my old stamping ground. It sounds like that pump would be from a small windmill.

I have also bought a windmill from another neighbor. It is a bit rough & they lost the pump off the bottom of the pipe & pump section down the bore. Cost them a fortune to have a specialist spend 2 days trying to recover it unsuccessfully from 180 Ft down. I have a bore hole down by the river, but it only produced 120 gallons an hour continually at 200 ft, not enough to supply a windmill reliably, but could be made to work in an emergency. It would be enough to do an acre or so of market type garden.

I am no prepper, but with the stupidity we see in governments around the world, the possibility we may have to look after ourselves is increasing daily. The surest way to not have it not happen is to have all the things necessary to survive gathered.

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Hmmm.
Hasbeen, having driven a couple of electric cars I am impressed with them.
I would buy one if the price was reasonable.
There is a Chinese MG on the market now $10k cheaper than the cheapest
otherwise. However I won't spend that sort of money on Chinese anything.
Word is prices will be matched by 2025, they hope.

The "Big Reset" is where a lot of these dopey ideas are being generated.
The covid19 seems to given them big ideas above their station.
Our biggest problem is that the kids leaving school are brainwashed
and will vote that way until their I-Phone won't work.
There is a lot of waffle about electric cars, and most charge them at home.
Commuters of course charge perhaps once or twice a week at night and
if it is a still night the powers (pun intended) that be think the
big batteries will do the job. I think they are stark raving mad.
They never consider that the batteries need to be recharged.
Where will that power come from on that scale, if the sun does not
come out from behind the clouds the next morning ?
Re oil and gas, I think the oil industry has told someone that times up !
So get rid of cars and industry will be fine.
The oil industry knows it is a declining business but they can stretch
it out if car numbers decline. The motor industry sees electric as
their only hope.
Lots of machinations in all that lot that "The Big Reset" will take advantage.

A "No new petrol cars by 2030" policy is a least-effort-required target. Market forces will cause people by preference to choose electric cars by 2030 without the government having to do anything at all.

A few years ago I investigated the economic case for electric cars for my own circumstances. At that time they cost considerably more over the life of the car when accounting for the average yearly distances that I drive. But it was clearly evident that within a decade (from back then) that they would be the rational choice (ie: cheapest option) for the general public as the technology improves and prices come down.

In fact the market place of EV's is changing so fast that if you were to by a new car in just a couple of years and you drive further than the average commuter then an EV might make sense. This is because although the there will still be a sizeable difference in the upfront purchase price (currently typically some 10's of thousand of dollars difference in price but that is coming down every year) the per-kilometer costs of running an EV car are notably cheaper than petrol powered cars.

Already in situations where a vehicle does many kms per day every day, such as taxis and light deliveries, full electric or plug-in hybrids should be considered. Indeed, as an example, the fleet of iconic London black taxicabs from The London Taxi Corporation are transitioning to electric vehicles combined with range-extender generators.

thinkabit the elephant in the woodpile is that if the closure of coal fired power plants goes ahead as planned, there is no way we will have enough power from windmills to supply our existing needs. Without coal fired, or nuclear power, we will be living in the dark.

There is no chance we could supply the extra requirement of charging electric cars. Buy one if you like, but by 2030 it will be a useless ornament in your garage, in the way of the push bike you ride to do the shopping, & to work if we have many jobs in our collapsed economy.

Hasbeen your "Buy one if you like, but by 2030 it will be a useless ornament in your garage" comment wouldn't apply in my particular case because I have solar power. And since my car spends most of its time during the day (ie: daylight hours) in my garage at home the excess solar power I produce during the middle of the day would be sufficient to recharge it. Currently, it would cost me $0.07/kWh for the energy used to run an electric car since that is opportunity cost of charging a car instead of selling excess power that I generate at that flat rate to the grid like I currently do.

Indeed, the combination of the mass adoption of electric cars, domestic solar, bidirectional chargers (ie: electric car changing units that can supply power to the grid from the car's battery as well as draw power for recharging), internet controlled switching of the chargers and fine grained interval pricing of the buying/selling of power at the domestic production level gives rise to very interesting possibilities. With such technologies, which already exist, it would be possible to use a country's stock of electric vehicles as a gigantic battery for storing solar power to use at night or to boost supply during peak demand.

At least they have stopped using the 'peak oil' lie that they've been using for decades. They are still lying about everything else, though.

thinkabit I can see you've been well brainwashed by some ratbag greenie mates.

I own solar panels too, the fool government effectively paid me to own some, others drive my river pump & keep my tractor battery charged. However I am not silly enough to believe any of them will be still working by 2030, or that replacements are likely to be economically available by them.

China has stopped buying our coal. If they stop buying our iron ore, likely, there will be no foreign exchange to pay for solar panels, or cars, electric or ICE. You won't need power anyway, there will be no TVs computers, mobile phones or a lot of other stuff we now import.

ttbn: You come across as someone who seems to think that EV's are a fantasy or myth- something that's promised but not likely to ever eventuate. Well, since the your original post was about the UK here is a link listing the EV's (both pure electric and plug-in hybrids) that are available for order TODAY in 2020. http://wattev2buy.com/uk-ev-market-price-list-electric-cars-uk. And Yes! That's 2020; not 2030, not 2025, not 2022, not 2021, but right now. As you can see there are plenty of them! Every major car manufacturer is in this list.

So EV's are reality! People can and do buy electric cars and manage to do all their driving with them. But the real important question about them is: Are they a good value proposition compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) cars or do people just buy them because it gives them some sort of eco-green warm and fuzzy feeling?

Well let's do some numbers to give an indication. I will be using Australian car prices from the internet and my own personal situation regarding kms driven/year and cost of power since I have these at hand. Our test case will be the base model Hyundai Kona Elite because this a small SUV suitable as a nice run-around which could appeal to a broad middle Australia demographic but most importantly it is available in both EV and ICE forms with hardly any difference between the two in terms of size, features and looks (except of course one has a electric motor while the other is petrol, consequently the weight and power outputs are a bit different and the ranges are quite differnt).
-> Kona 2 wheel drive petrol version: http://www.hyundai.com/au/en/cars/suvs/kona - power 110kW, torque 180Nm, energy consumption (in terms of petrol) is 7.2L/100km for the ADR81/02 combined average city/highway cycle test and the range I calculate to be about 700km since has a 50L tank.
--continued below --

--from above --

-> Kona electric version: http://www.hyundai.com/au/en/cars/suvs/kona/kona-electric - has more power and torque with 150kW/395Nm however it weighs 400kg more, energy consumption is 131Wh/km - 153Wh/km (test standard dependent) with a corresponding range of 557km - 449kms. I will use 140Wh/km for the energy rate.

Now for the important prices and costs-

Up front cost:
- EV = $65887
- ICE = $34323
So the EV is about $30,000 more expensive up front.

Energy price:
- EV = let's say about $0.10/kWh if use own solar ($0.07/kWh opportunity cost plus I added $0.03 to cover the occasional use of grid power). But $0.24/kWh if I use grid power exclusively.
- ICE = let's say about $1.50/L for petrol

Annual Running Cost of Energy Consumed- assuming my normal average of about 15,000km per year (which I understand is above the Australian average of about 12,500km/year or about 35km/day):
- EV (if I use solar) = 15,000[km] * 140[Wh/km] / 1000[Wh/kWh] * 0.10[$/kWh] = $210/yr
- EV (if I use grid) = 15,000[km] * 140[Wh/km] / 1000[Wh/kWh] * 0.24[$/kWh] = $504/yr
- ICE = 15,000[km] * 7.2[L/100km] / 100[km/100km] * 1.5[$/L] = $1620/yr
So the EV costs me about $1400/yr less if I use solar and $1100 if I use grid when compared to the ICE version.

So assuming I owned the car for let's say 12 years then it would save about $15000 (roughly) in energy costs but when you add in the difference in the initial purchase price the ICE would be cheaper overall by $15,000 dollars due to the high initial cost. Or in other words, in this case, it would require the EV price to drop by about 1/4 of their current price before they make economic sense.
For electric cars in general, this is almost certainly going to happen over the next decade due to increased volume of production of the cars but also the increase in demand for batteries will lead to improvements in battery science/production.

-- continue below --

--continued from above --
Just like all other new technologies they will become rapidly cheaper over time in real terms while they become widely adopted- eg: ICE cars, electricity, phones, computers, microwave cookers, etc. have all followed the same initial rapid drop in price.

In addition to my current personal use case above, it is interesting to ask how far per year do I have to drive for the EV to be cheaper than the ICE version over a projected 12 year life of the car? For the Kona above the answer is: 30,000km or about 82km/day.
A similar calculation for other vehicle models and circumstances is why taxis and light local delivery vehicles are now starting to be replaced by EV's since they are driven far enough per year to make them cheaper.

So hopefully you can now understand why what I said in my previous postings was quite correct.

As a final note: Of course the above was just a quick summary, in truth you have there are other issues that should be considered for a more thorough analysis-
- the cost of extra taxes/tax breaks (EV are expensive so maybe trigger the luxury car tax but maybe they're exempt or maybe the government even offers incentives- I dont' know.),
- any upfront cost that is recoverable by the eventual sale/trade-in of the car on disposal (I have no idea how much EV's depreciate- I suspect that it is highly dependent on the condition of the battery when you go to sell it),
- the change in energy prices over time (especially petrol for the ICE)
- service/maintenance expenses (the mechanical side of EV's are vastly simpler than ICE vehicles so maybe they are cheaper to maintain?)
- differences in insurance* (EV's are more expensive so they probably cost more to insure)

Hasbeen: "thinkabit I can see you've been well brainwashed by some ratbag greenie mates."

I've no idea why you would say this. When it comes to CO2, global warming and impending doom I'm definitely not in the "green" camp. Here's a comment that I made back in 2016 that details my stance on GW: https://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7427#229198

Indeed, in general I'm one of the most anti-green people you could meet. Because for me the environment is just whatever exists on the surface of the planet at any given time. For example, whether part of the surface is rain-forests or mining sites, its all just part of the natural environment.
Almost everyone I know (even extreme-greenies) say the termites and a mounds they build across the country are part of the natural environment, so is a beaver and its dam in a picturesque stream in Canada and a cute wombat and its burrow in the forests down south.
But it always fascinates me why people don't just draw the logical obvious conclusion from this, like I do, and say that since these are "natural" things then so must be any city that we make, a damn that we build or a mine that we dig. For some illogical reason that I really cannot fathom most seem to think that we are somehow separate-from/not-part-of nature and thus anything that we do that has an impact on the environment isn't natural.