back to article EU lawmakers vote to ban sales of combustion engine cars from 2035

The European Parliament this week voted to support what is effectively a ban on the sale of cars with combustion engines by 2035, and automakers are not happy. MEPs backed a plenary vote on Wednesday for "zero-emission road mobility by 2035" – essentially meaning no more diesel and gasoline-fueled vehicles on the road. The …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the UK ?

    We've already got the brexiteers wanking themselves silly over being able to "stick it to the EU" with their desire to allow Apple to continue with custom connectors.

    Now this measure too ?

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: And the UK ?

      Brexiteers don't need a reason to do that, it's their only release.

      The UK doesn't need to waste time on charger cables because any decision taken in isolation in UK will make zero difference. EU will drive the change for the region including non EU.

      Did you read to the end of the piece about the UK 2030 target?

      Anyway, I expect the spread of ULEZs to accelerate before 2030 and the price of fuel to stay high.

      Meanwhile, as the electric fleet increase and demand for petrol/diesel reduces many filling stations will close and become sparse like trying to find LPG.

      1. Peter2 Silver badge

        Re: And the UK ?

        And during the same time period, we're expecting to decommission gas heating, gas cooking as well as switching to electric vehicles.

        It's a good job that none of these things are going to consume any electricity. It's really fortunate, since as we aren't building enough generation capacity to replace the 1970's nuclear & coal plants being decommissioned over the next few years, if we did expect to transfer all of this to the national grid then demand would exceed supply hugely and this would cause prices to spike.

        Fortunately, that's not going to happen.

        :/

        1. Zolko Silver badge

          Re: And the UK ?

          Yes, fortunately the source of electricity is in the wall socket and doesn't pollute. Every politician knows that.

          But you're – I'm on mainland – still will have to deal with your UK-specific socket plug, while we are going to enjoy our Europlugs. But converters exist, so no big deal.

          1. Dan 55 Silver badge

            Re: And the UK ?

            Ireland, Cyprus, and Malta also use a Type G plug/socket.

            1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

              Re: And the UK ?

              Germany, France and Italy all use different mains sockets.

              1. Dan 55 Silver badge

                Re: And the UK ?

                Germany and France's sockets are compatible if you use any modern plug though.

                In Italy a new modern socket must be fitted which accepts Italian, French, and German plugs.

                Then there are also double-insulated Europlugs which are compatible with all three sockets.

              2. big_D Silver badge

                Re: And the UK ?

                They are different, but the same. When travelling to France or Italy, I've just taken my German bought devices with me and plugged them in. The plugs are compatible with all the sockets, even if the vary slightly (Germany uses earthing prongs on the side of the socket, France a blob at the bottom, the plugs have earthing on the side and bottom, the sockets themselves are the same size.

                1. Bbuckley

                  Re: And the UK ?

                  All you ever need is two round nails and a pair of crocodile clips.

              3. Piro Silver badge

                Re: And the UK ?

                But the CEE 7/7 combined plug works in Type E and F, covering Europe as a whole. Doesn't earth in Type G Danish sockets though, and two pin sockets (large round ones that accept normal plugs, not flat Europlugs, they're fine) without earth need to be removed from the earth asap.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: And the UK ?

              And some establishments use them for hooking gear up to the UPS main, to stop people plugging other stuff into it.

            3. 2Fat2Bald

              Re: And the UK ?

              As do the UAE, Hong Kong and a few others. It's more common than you're think & the 240v/13A wallop is really useful if you want to brew a cup of tea!

            4. Bbuckley

              Re: And the UK ?

              Yep and I can tell you we are not moving to a euro socket any time soon (at least not before eirexit).

          2. Bbuckley

            Re: And the UK ?

            Hope your arrogance won't be insulted when your wall socket is empty. Empty doesn't pollute either.

        2. martinusher Silver badge

          Re: And the UK ?

          I don't understand the sudden approbation of gas appliances. Yes, it makes sense to phase them out in new living spaces where the small amount of indoor pollution they cause is significant but this has morphed to it 'reducing carbon emissions'. That's nuts -- natural gas, being natural, is going to be generated whether we like it or not so we might has well get some benefit from it.

          1. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: And the UK ?

            Err. Was that meant to be just a joke (no icon)?

            The natural gas is stored deep below the surface till we bring it up and burn it. Ditto shale and petroleum oil.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: And the UK ?

              Perhaps he believes in clean coal too.

              1. Kane

                Re: And the UK ?

                "Perhaps he believes in clean coal too."

                Just give it a scrub with a bit of Windex, that'll do.

            2. Bbuckley

              Re: And the UK ?

              Except when it leaks out

            3. BitEagle

              Re: And the UK ?

              Don't go raining on the EU patient's parade - they've just designated gas as a clean fuel...

        3. conel
          Alert

          Re: And the UK ?

          The good news is the government is fully aware of this problem.

          The bad news is their solution is mandating smart meters to facilitate electricity rationing.

        4. codejunky Silver badge

          Re: And the UK ?

          @Peter2

          "It's really fortunate, since as we aren't building enough generation capacity to replace the 1970's nuclear & coal plants being decommissioned over the next few years"

          There is a minor glimmer of hope. Now Boris is barely clinging on he is apparently gonna back off his stupid net zero stupidity. Hopefully someone can slap the green madness out of him before he causes more damage.

          1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Re: And the UK ?

            remember that he became PM because he was the brightest guy the Tories had for the job...

            1. codejunky Silver badge
              Thumb Up

              Re: And the UK ?

              @Strahd Ivarius

              "remember that he became PM because he was the brightest guy the Tories had for the job..."

              He was the only one actually willing to brexit. Highly likely it was for popularity but after the previous two embarrassments he was the nearest thing to hope. Not a ringing endorsement really.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: And the UK ?

            "stupid net zero stupidity. Hopefully someone can slap the green madness out of him before he causes more damage."

            This message was brought to you in association with 55 Tufton Street.

          3. AlbertH

            Re: And the UK ?

            Sadly Boris is still in thrall to his latest wife, and she's persuaded him to indulge in this "green" nonsense. He (and the rest of the cabinet) still think that "wind energy" is "green" and "endless" - they STILL don't understand that the bird-mincers actually CONSUME more over their lifetime than they ever generate....

            Nobody in government will consider nuclear power - they're all scared of it.

            They still haven't realised the problems with lack of electrical infrastructure despite the exploding pavements in Islington when every "green" numpty plugs in his electric car.....

            There's little or no hope for most of the "civilised" world as long as this green stupidity continues.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And the UK ?

      As I understand it, the UK is already aiming to stop sales of non-hybrid cars by 2030, and cars with an internal combustion engine by 2035. It's not that surprising the EU is doing the same.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And the UK ?

      Boris already made an announcement on this essentially bringing us into line with the EU proposition.

    4. Trigun

      Re: And the UK ?

      You really need to get over Brexit. It's happened and denegrating those who voted for it is not very adult and all it does is keep fueling divisions.

      1. Tessier-Ashpool

        Re: And the UK ?

        Get over Brexit? Easier said than done when it’s doing so much harm to the UK economy. We probably need reminders on a daily basis so that such a terrible mistake is never repeated in future.

        1. Trigun

          Re: And the UK ?

          Beating people to death with angst about losing on a daily basis is not the correct approach. You'll pursuade no one that way and instead repel them with your resentment.

          Oh and for the record: I didn't vote for brexit either, but I do honour peoples' decision.

        2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: And the UK ?

          Get over Brexit? Easier said than done when it’s doing so much harm to the UK economy. We probably need reminders on a daily basis so that such a terrible mistake is never repeated in future.

          We get those. So from the article-

          Running an electric car is currently cheaper as inflation and the Russian energy crisis raises prices for petrol and diesel (this may not be the case in the long term).

          There is no 'Russian energy crisis'. The crisis is entirely of the EU (and UK's) making following regulatory capture by the 'renewables' lobby.

          So 'we' decide to ban gas central heating, cooking and ICEs. 'We' decide that the replacement energy source will come from pre-Industrial technology that we'd previously abandoned when something cheaper and more reliable came along. So EU decided to reap the wind, which isn't always blowing, so as 'renewables' increased, so did demand for gas.

          And then Ukraine. So a convenient scapegoat to blame Russia for policies imposed by the West. We're going to punish Russia by banning oil & gas imports! That'll teach them! Except there's around 130 countries that said 'Screw that', and carried on buying Russian product anyway. So Russia's had a big boost to their economy, while ours suffers.

          Politicians of course don't care. The policy meets the EU/UK 'decarbonisation' objectives by making fossil fuels look more expensive. That makes 'renewables' look slightly less expensive. Just don't look too deeply at the economic implications of 'decarbonisation', ie several trillion that 'needs' to be invested in electricity generation and distribution.

          Or how that will be funded. Little snag. EU/UK policies have created '80s style inflation. When money was free, people could waste it on useless ancient technology like windmills. With interest rates of 5-8%+ money for capital intensive projects is going to get a lot more expensive. Someone is going to have to pay for that, which means costs will increase, and so will inflation.

          The only way to bring down inflation is to reduce costs, not increase them. Energy is an input cost to everything, from production to transportation to recycling. So policy is intentionally or unintentionally inflationary. Epecially if you're a semi-brain dead politician trying to work out how to pay for stuff like 200,000 new charging points and the infrastructure to support them.

          Currently the UK plan is to simply load those costs onto electricity bills, regardless of whether you have an EV or not. If you're a recipient of that free money, this is good because you can make a lot of profit refuelling EVs. Assuming you can get electicity. So figure a 5MW windmill, which is 'enough to power X thousand homes!'. So typical capacity factor, ie what it generates vs it's name-plate capacity is around 10%. So that 5MW windmill becomes 500KW. So basically 1 very large, and very expensive windmill is enough to power only 5x100KWh EV batteries.

          Assuming the wind is actually blowing, of course.

          1. IWVC

            Re: And the UK ?

            @Jellied Eel

            Just to add to this, according to BEIS (Dept of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy?) the ANNUAL load factors for offshore wind turbines is about 45% of rated capacity and on shore 25%. This, of course is, the energy output for a full year and varies on a day-to-day basis as anywhere between 0% and 100% of demand. Many periods of high air pressure / low wind speeds occur during winter and summer seasons, meaning demand for heating or fans / air con for cooling cannot be met by wind generated resources because there isn't any. Furthermore, the first wind generation turbines are reaching the end of life and require decommissioning - and it is not easy to recycle composite fibre reinforced blades.

            Much of the EU is devoid of suitable offshore areas for turbines - and on shore are far less efficient. Rather than getting worked up about the design of plugs, it is worth asking whether the EU has plans for an EU Grid to distribute this "free low carbon energy" and include hydro schemes from Scandinavian sources.

            Finally, a legal point. I'm not sure if this European Parliament declaration is in response to an EU Commission proposal. If it isn't, it has no binding status. The EU can only legislate on the basis of a proposal from the Commission, and the Parliament has no power to tell the Commission to make any specific proposal. So if the Commission doesn't want to action something, it doesn't happen. If it is minded to "do something", its proposals can be radically different to what the Parliament wanted. It's called EU law making.

        3. codejunky Silver badge

          Re: And the UK ?

          @Tessier-Ashpool

          "Get over Brexit? Easier said than done when it’s doing so much harm to the UK economy."

          I can only assume you were absolutely against the lockdowns and restrictions which caused all the recent damage to the UK economy? Anyone making the argument against brexit on the basis of economy must be seriously against the overreaction over covid. That would definitely be a mistake we should never repeat.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: And the UK ?

            if the COVID had been left alone and allowed to run its natural course, there would be far less people left in the UK to complain about the current situation...

            1. AlbertH

              Re: And the UK ?

              if the COVID had been left alone and allowed to run its natural course, there would be far less people left in the UK to complain about the current situation...

              Err.... No. Actual "deaths from Covid" are about one tenth of the claimed figure. Sadly, the majority of "victims" would have died in that same period, anyway. (Excess Deaths were about the same as a bad flu / pneumonia year - check the figures for 2018 for example).

              The figures were inflated by lazy medics who just found it easiest (and still do) to tick the "Covid" box, rather than actually find out what's wrong with people. The UK NHS has virtually collapsed under the weight of the insanity foisted upon us.

      2. the spectacularly refined chap

        Re: And the UK ?

        You really need to get over Brexit. It's happened and denegrating those who voted for it is not very adult and all it does is keep fueling divisions.

        No, it's perfectly legitimate to continue to advocate one's position. If you voted Labour at the last election are you supposed to roll over and praise how great the Tories are simply because they won? Of course not. Why is Brexit any different?

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: And the UK ?

          Especially when it was a binary vote, with a tiny margin in favour of a major change, based on a campaign of lies and disinformation. An outcome that has already demonstrated significant harm as shown by the recent figures showing our economic performance to be second bottom, above only Russia.

          "Project Fear" has turned into Project lots to be frightened about.

          It's hard not to feel resentful about people who pulled you into a sewer then tell you you should be grateful for the shit.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: And the UK ?

            If you don't like a small number of people making big decisions for you, maybe next time you'll go vote instead of screwiing off elsewhere. Yes, only a small handful of people voted for it, but an even smaller handful voted against it. The great majority voted to go along with what everyone else decided by not bothering to vote at all. If you don't like what the decision was, next time show up and vote. Otherwise, quit bitching about it. If you did vote against it, you lost and there's no going back, get over it.

            1. Terry 6 Silver badge

              Re: And the UK ?

              The problem with that argument is that it's one of those superficially reasonable ones- that isn't.

              Because this was a vote for whether the population wanted a change. Those who didn't vote, I agree they should have, weren't supporting a change. Especially since it was meant to be consultative vote. (The court actually ruled that it couldn't be overturned for that reason, despite the proven malpractice.)

              In effect a relatively small group of motivated leavers who wanted this change prevailed over a significant majority who were part of either a slightly smaller group of motivated remainers or who just didn't particularly want a change, even if they didn't have a strong feeling either way, or didn't understand the argument (either way).

              It's the reason why nations with a written constitution require a margin of, usually, two thirds for constitutional changes.(Whether we should have joined in the first place is also subject to that argument).

              1. TheMeerkat

                Re: And the UK ?

                It seems that some people developed really wrapped view of how democracy work after their side of the referendum lost.

                You don’t have to like the result, but alternative is to not have democracy. So learn to live with it.

                I noticed another interesting point - after the referendum a lot of people who before were arguing that everything should be decided by a referendum suddenly stopped pushing this idea :)

                1. werdsmith Silver badge

                  Re: And the UK ?

                  You don’t have to like the result, but alternative is to not have democracy. So learn to live with it.

                  But democracy didn't end in 2016. The alternative is more democracy. Learn to live with that.

                  Because when the OAPs that shafted their grandkids are all gone, the population will have a different majority.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: And the UK ?

              It wasn't a binding vote...at least according to the politician in charge of the country at the time.

              That was why people didn't bother voting.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: And the UK ?

                Nope. Everyone had their chance to vote. When you don't vote, you agree to accept the outcome. You had your chance to consult, and chose to not have a say. The entire planet knew when this vote was happening, and even in the US it had near-Presidential election level media coverage. Face it, you blew it by not bothering to vote, and it's irreversible. Stop complaining about it, deal with the new world, and work to make Britain great again. If you don't want to do that, move your ass to the EU where unelected politicians make the decisions for you since thinking obviously doesn't matter to you.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: And the UK ?

                  Make Britain great again by turning us into a laughing stock?

                  We're rapidly becoming the terminally sick man of Europebecause of the monumentally stupid decision to leave and line the pockets of a few rich men.

                2. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: And the UK ?

                  Why is it irreversible? The UK can always apply to rejoin. Of course, we would lose the opt outs we had previously and probably have to join the Euro. Still preferred to clusterfuck we have now.

                  Pretty much everything predicted and dismissed as "project fear" has come to pass. The value from trade deals the UK has managed to strike is a rounding error compared to the extra costs on imports/exports with our biggest trading partner, not to mention the mess that is the NI border situation.

                  Why should we "get over" the biggest act of economic self harm ever inflicted on the nation and stop talking about it? The arguments for it were bogus from the beginning.

                  1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                    Re: And the UK ?

                    ...not to mention the mess that is the NI border situation.

                    Yep. The EU's been telling people that it's terribly naughty to interfere with other sovereign nations. Then there's this-

                    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61779169

                    The PM wants to change the Protocol section of the deal to make it easier for some goods to move between Britain and Northern Ireland.

                    But the EU is against the move, saying it would break international law.

                    Typically for the Bormann Broadcasting Corporation, it doesn't mention which law. The GFA doesn't mention hard or soft borders. There's a treaty between the UK and the EU that imposed an internal border inside a sovereign nation that punishes perfidious Albion, but if that policy isn't working, it's normal to re-negotiate. And of course this is the EU's problem.

                    But the Bbc has never been neutral, impartial or accurate when it comes to anything Brexit.

                    1. Anonymous Coward
                      Anonymous Coward

                      Re: And the UK ?

                      It would break the law established by the signing of a treaty between the UK and the EU.

                      The EU didn't impose the border. This was the UK Governments solution to the NI problem. Now they want to turn round and say "Sorry, that deal we brokered and signed is a bit shit actually. We want to unilaterally change it."

                      They probably knew it was unworkable, but just wanted to kick the can far enough down the road to get past the election with the "Oven ready deal", knowing that they could just blame the evil EU later on for any faults in the deal.

                      If the deal was so shit (and many people pointed out exactly the problems we are seeing now) then why did the UK sign it? It is either ineptitude or malfeasance.

                      As well as all this, it doesn't exactly inspire trust in any nation that the UK may want to tie up trade deals with if it looks like any deal signed by the UK is not worth the paper it is written on.

                      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

                        Re: And the UK ?

                        It would break the law established by the signing of a treaty between the UK and the EU.

                        So when the Bbc says..

                        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61790248

                        It wants to change the Northern Ireland Protocol to make it easier for some goods to flow from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

                        But the EU opposes the move, saying going back on the deal breaches international law.

                        .. what it really means is that two parties to a deal are in dispute over the terms of the agreement, and it breaches 'EU law' rather than any other international laws or treaties.

                        The EU didn't impose the border. This was the UK Governments solution to the NI problem.

                        The EU imposed many things, and tried to impose more. Like it's solution to it's border problem was to force an internal border restricting trade within the United Kingdom, a seperate, sovereign nation. During the negotiations, the UK proposed alternatve solutions, which the EU rejected.

                        So the issue is Brexit shifted the EU's borders from a EUnited Ireland to a divided island. The UK didn't see any need for a 'hard' border between sovereign nations of the UK&NI, and EU. The UK has plenty of previous experience of managing the Irish border and didn't see any need for a 'hard' border. After all, goods entering the UK would be screened & checked, as would anything entering from the EU/Ireland.

                        If the EU demanded more, then it's the EU's job to protect it's own borders, not the UK.

                        If the deal was so shit (and many people pointed out exactly the problems we are seeing now) then why did the UK sign it? It is either ineptitude or malfeasance.

                        Or it's a natural consequence of the EU not negotiating in good faith, and the issues of the EU's internal partitioning were pointed out at the time. And like any well negotiated treaty, it had provisions for dispute resolution, which the UK is now implementing. The EU won't negotiate, so terminating that deal seems eminently reasonable.

                        Of course the EU doesn't see things that way, but that's politics, and why the EU's on the brink of collapse. Sure, it could attempt to punish the UK, because as we know from our own experience, or the experiences of Hungary, Poland etc etc, the EU does not tolerate dissent.

                        So I guess it could lead to a bit of a trade war, which would be.. unfortunate, especially given current events. Germany's plan to dominate the EU's energy sector and gas market rather spectacularly crashed & burned. So no Russian gas imports. So it's depending on LNG imports. But the EU doesn't have enough LNG terminals, so EU gas is delivered to the UK and then exported.

                        Which if you're part of the former 'British Gas' monopoly has been great news given it's making record profits from the surging gas prices and it's stranglehold over the UK energy market. If we introduce a gas export tax to protect domestic supplies, we could subsidise UK energy costs, and as we head towards winter, perhaps focus the EU's mind that it's better to negotiate than whine like a petulant brat.

            3. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: And the UK ?

              My, look at all the downvotes! That Brexit vote made you realize just how important voting is, did it? Just think, had you just shown up to vote you'd still be answerable to unelected EU officials and wouldn't now be forced to think for yourselves.

              I think in a few years you'll be happy about being out of the EU, and more prosperous without a portion of your tax dollars going to other countries. Those who still find thinking for yourself hard to do can always emigrate.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: And the UK ?

                "I think in a few years you'll be happy about being out of the EU, and more prosperous without a portion of your tax dollars going to other countries. Those who still find thinking for yourself hard to do can always emigrate"

                I don't pay "tax dollars", I'm a UK citizen, we use pounds

                I would emigrate, it was actually a major part of my retirement plan, except that got blown up by the wankers who lied, connived and misled the hard of thinking to vote brexit and it's now pretty much impossible unless I suddenly come into several million *pounds*

          2. nobody who matters

            Re: And the UK ?

            "....."Project Fear" has turned into Project lots to be frightened about....."

            Perhaps if there had been more effort put into pushing the past, present and future benefits and successes for the UK gained from EU membership to the electorate, the end result would have been very different.

            Instead those leading the the Remain campaign chose a path which revolved around trying to frighten everyone into voting 'Remain' by effectively pretending that the entire UK economy would collapse overnight, the pound would crash and be worthless (and pretty much that the sky would fall in) if the nation even dared to vote 'Leave'.

            'Leave' didn't win; 'Remain' threw the vote away!

            Not that all this has any relevence to the EU proposing to (perhaps) do something that the UK had already made a firm commitment to do several years ago.

      3. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: And the UK ?

        Brexit. It's happened and denegrating those who voted for it is not very adult

        True.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And the UK ?

        Err no. Just because someone voted for something, doesn't mean I have to agree with them. I only drink kool aid I mixed myself. Any other kool aid I treat with a certain degree of caution.

    5. fredj

      Re: And the UK ?

      If we want cars to be totally green we are going to have to make them with green energy as well. After that we need green sales & service. Just driving a car is only ~half the problem

  2. theOtherJT Silver badge

    In other words...

    ...buy your used car now before you get totally priced out of the market.

    I'd love an EV. I really would. But until there's a really radical change in the economics I can't have one. My absolute outside hard-limit on spending on a car is a few thousand, but car ownership is really not optional. There is no public transport where I live at the moment. None. Nada. Zero. The nearest bus stop is a 2 mile walk away along a road with neither street-lights nor pavement. In the winter when it's dark that walk would be suicidal.

    I'm not sure anyone has really taken into account exactly how necessary cars are for people who don't live in cities, and consequently how much many of us rely on extremely cheap second hand vehicles. Unless they're planning on banning the sale of actual petrol and diesel, it seems far more likely to me that this is just going to create massive upward pressure on used ICE vehicles.

    1. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: In other words...

      "My absolute outside hard-limit on spending on a car is a few thousand"

      Have you looked at how much you're paying for that low up front cost?

      1. theOtherJT Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        Yes. I have.

        And as per usual I'm well aware that this is part of the poor trap. It's boots theory in action. If I could afford 25K for an EV I'd save money, obviously, but I can't and financing one would cost me more than just paying the petrol costs since I don't have to drive all that much these days what with home working and all - but when I do have to drive I really do have to.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: In other words...

          That's going to be the big difference with EVs that nobody is talking about.

          Right now 3 year old off-lease 30,000mi EV are widely available if a bit expensive, and have some life left.

          But in 20years there aren't going to be 500quid banger EVs with 9months tax+test from backstreet dealers.

          Firstly the battery is going to be toast long before the engine on a Toyota/Honda/VW wears out.

          Secondly the makers are going to tie you into some sort of subscription model, probably by limiting software licences.

          1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

            Re: In other words...

            When everyone and their dog will have an EV, you'll be queueing for days to charge it.

            People missing the point of alternative cost in that you'll be spending what, 20 minutes on charging alone every 100-200 miles, then if there is a queue multiply that by number of cars in the queue.

            All that time lost will be wasted productivity and a hit to the economy.

            But don't worry, there are ideas at very least how to mitigate the fact the grid will not be able to cope with demand anyway - personal carbon footprint allowance, digital meters, digital id and social credit score.

            For instance, you'll be allowed to run a telly for an hour, oven for 30 minutes, computer for 2 hours (+8 if you work) etc. that of course depending on your social credit score.

            Also if gates at your supermarket detect your BMI is over limit, you'll be blocked from charging your rented car and you'll get boris bike subscription.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: In other words...

              There’s always one… spreading FUD won’t change government policy, only scare citizens… EVs exist that can go significantly further than 100 miles on a charge…

              1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

                Re: In other words...

                NEW EVs yes, 10, 15, 20 year old EVs won't still be doing "hundreds" of miles on a charge. It is people like you failing to take into account that batteries degrade that are spreading the false narratives.

                As it happens, I was having a similar sort of conversation not long ago with some friends. One pointed out, quite correctly, that my problem isn't that I can't afford an EV - it's that I can't afford a car as new as a decent used EV is going to be. But by the time they are old enough and cheap enough for me to be able to afford, then the batteries sure as hell aren't going hold much charge.

                A colleague at work was telling me the other day that he went to look at a used EV at a dealer. He took along his OBD interface and software to interrogate the system - which showed the battery was already down to below 50% capacity. As it happens, a replacement battery was near enough exactly the same price as the dealer was asking for the car - and he told the dealer the car was effectively worthless. It would seem the dealer (of a well known "premium German make) was upset at this suggestion and "asked him to leave" the premises.

                But this brings up an issue. We already have problems with people buying cars which turn out to be lemons. I think we're going to see people buying used EVs and being more than a bit disappointed when they find out that the car they thought might handle their needs can hardly get between charge points.

                1. Stork Silver badge

                  Re: In other words...

                  I see a business opportunity certifying used EVs. Perhaps motoring associations do too.

                2. John Robson Silver badge

                  Re: In other words...

                  Ah the "oh but the battery won't last"

                  Really? Batteries in EVs last substantially longer than you might expect. Tesla batteries (the easiest to find figures for) can easily do 250 thousand miles, and then get reused in grid storage.

                  The real kicker... replacing a battery pack is fairly easy, or even just a dodgy battery module, so you get another 250k miles...

                  Yes, they degrade over time, guess what, so does an infernal combustion engine.

                  Jalopnik got hold of the service records for a 400k+ mile Tesla a couple of years ago, and it had racked up... $29k, that's 7 cents a mile.

                  I'll give you a hint, that's about half of the saving you make by driving on electrons.

                  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

                    Re: replacing a battery pack is fairly easy

                    Not if Emperor Elon (the last) gets his way. He wants batteries to be part of the structure of the vehicle. That makes replacing them an absolute nightmare. I don't think it will be too long before your lovely tesla is written off after a minor prang because the cost of repair is so prohibitive. Oh... and it can only be done at a Tesla service centre who love to take months to get even simple parts from the Elon Mothership.

                    Even skateboard chassis cars like the ID series need properly trained people to work on the main battery. 400V/800V/1000V and a lot of Amps are not to be sneezed at nor taken lightly.

                    As for the service costs of that Tesla. Perhaps that included a replacement Battery? Early Tesla's were like early Nissan Leaf's in that their battery degrades pretty quickly. Battery tech has moved on since those days (pre 2016/17)

                    Most Battery makers are now predicting 1,000,000 miles on a battery. That means you won't have to replace it in the lifetime of the car.

                    Makers like Kia/Hyundai have 7 year warranty on the whole car including the battery.

                    1. Persona Silver badge

                      Re: replacing a battery pack is fairly easy

                      Most Battery makers are now predicting 1,000,000 miles on a battery. That means you won't have to replace it in the lifetime of the car.

                      Regardless of the mileage you never have to replace the battery in the lifetime of the car. Once the battery is "done" the cost of replacement effectively puts the car at the end of its life. However if they can get a million miles or even > 300,000 out of a battery and it still being able to take 90% capacity that would be good enough, though I don't quite believe that goal is close.

                      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                        Re: replacing a battery pack is fairly easy

                        "Most Battery makers are now predicting 1,000,000 miles on a battery. "

                        Is that was the card said that came out of the Zoltan machine at the arcade? When the warranty extends to one million miles or 25 years, that would be the time to take that prediction seriously. For all practical purposes, 1,000,000 miles would infer a infinitely reversible chemical reaction. Not even a Juraptha would take that bet.

                    2. John Robson Silver badge

                      Re: replacing a battery pack is fairly easy

                      It did include a battery replacement at 250k miles.

                      Despite the structure of the battery case being part of the car structure the battery itself isn't.

                  2. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

                    Re: In other words...

                    Batteries in EVs last substantially longer than you might expect

                    Let me correct that for you. "Batteries in EVs might last substantially longer than you might expect if cared for well". As per my example above, this wasn't an old vehicle with 1/4 million miles on the clock, it was a run of the mill car with a run of the mill milage. Based on model, it can't have been more than around 8 years old, and at (say) 12k/year that would be under 100k miles - yet it had a battery that had degraded to the point where the car was realistically an economic write-off.

                    When batteries can do 1/4 million miles, regardless of how the driver(s) treated it, and/or it's actually economic to replace it - then get back to me. Because at the moment battery life genuinely IS a serious issue.

                    And when I say "regardless of how it's been treated", there's a whole raft of advice for battery longevity : "don't go below 20%", "don't go above 80%", "don't fast charge". Deep discharge kills them, fast charging kills them, apparently fully charging kills them.

                  3. MachDiamond Silver badge

                    Re: In other words...

                    "and then get reused in grid storage."

                    I don't see them getting used for grid storage, but the Model S packs are in demand by conversion shops as the modules in the pack are highly configurable. The current Model 3 battery doesn't look near as good with the cells being glued together with a silicone type material.

                    The battery in an EV should last 10 years by many estimates and be useful for another 10 as a home backup battery or similar application. Use in a car is fairly demanding. If a pack has lost 33% of its capacity, gone from 60kWh to 40kWh, it can still hold a substantial amount of power.

                3. Randy Hudson

                  Re: In other words...

                  What dealer was selling an EV with 600k miles on it?!

                4. MachDiamond Silver badge

                  Re: In other words...

                  "which showed the battery was already down to below 50% capacity."

                  That's extremely doubtful. EV's haven't been on the market long enough and 50% is far below the capacity that would trigger a warranty replacement. If the previous owner of the car did see excessive degradation and never bothered to put in a claim, that car might be better off being broken down for parts.

                  Replacement battery prices are rather high. It's pointless to look at prices for a replacement battery for a car that has just been released. Of course it will be very expensive, buying from the dealer is about the most expensive way to get replacement parts and you'd have to have done something really stupid to need a new pack right away when it should still be warrantied. Most battery warranties are between 8-10 years. The Tesla Model S packs are something of a special case. They are nice and modular so people are buying those up from crashed vehicles for use in all sorts of other products so there isn't a supply on the used market. To a certain extent, that goes for any model of EV battery. They aren't going to landfill and sell for a very pretty penny if they haven't been on fire. Another limitation right now is the usual third party auto parts makers aren't yet offering replacement packs. There are a few firms that salvage packs from wrecks. There isn't much in the way of refurbished packs since, again, most EV models are new enough that they would be covered by a warranty. Companies such as Dorman do offer replacement batteries for the Prius. There's many of them on the road and they are old enough that plenty of them could do with a new pack. The old packs often get refurbished by replacing failed cells. I've never been able to find one at a price I could afford. I'd like one as a battery backup in my garage to run the chest freezer and the lighting while being recharged from a couple of solar panels.

              2. YetAnotherXyzzy

                Re: In other words...

                True but largely irrelevant. I don't let my car's fuel tank get below 1/2 full, I keep it topped up. I want that safety margin for an emergency. Indeed, emergency preparedness is a big part of why I own a car even though I prefer to walk and cycle and take public transit when I can. If I had an EV, I would want to keep it topped up just the same.

            2. brainwrong
              Joke

              Re: In other words...

              "People missing the point of alternative cost in that you'll be spending what, 20 minutes on charging alone every 100-200 miles, then if there is a queue multiply that by number of cars in the queue."

              Just as there's currently a small industry reverse engineering ECU's to re-map them for punters, I'm sure people will figure out how to connect a petrol-powered generator in the boot to charge the battery while the car is running...

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: In other words...

                You mean some kind of "hybrid" solution? Good idea. I'm surprised no one has thought of it!

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: In other words...

                  Well done, that is the exact reason why I have no option but to go for a mild or plug in hybrid at best (it also saves quite a bit of fuel).

                  I do a mixture of short and long distance driving (partly because it lessens travel by plane), and the current full EV offerings are unsustainable for my use, and the waiting times for recharge are also very much not acceptable. It's one of the reasons I won't touch a Tesla with a barge pole: their idea of exclusing people from fast charging as soon as they dare finding repair alternatives to what they laughingly refer to as "service" in Europe has pretty much excluded them from any sensible purchasing decision. Newer vehicles which have survive in a more competitive, less fanbase based market have innovated past supercharger speeds already. Heck, where I live I have already seen cars like the Kia EV6 used as taxi.

                  I'd like to have journalists assurance that everyone who voted for this idea to the exclusion of other solutions currently under development (e-fules, hydrogen et al) is driving EV now, and not using any MEP perk to still cart around with ICEs á la Ken Livingstone who never used the public transport himself while he was messing up London's traffic.

              2. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: In other words...

                "I'm sure people will figure out how to connect a petrol-powered generator in the boot to charge the battery while the car is running..."

                Generating electricity using petrol is very expensive. That sort of set up might find an application where the generator is mounted in a trailer and used as a range extender when towing. It's a bad idea for a passenger car.

            3. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: In other words...

              When everyone and their dog will have an EV, you'll be queueing for days to charge it.

              Queuing on my own driveway? I don't think so.

              But when filling stations start to close, then there will be queues for petrol and diesel.

              1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: In other words...

                "When everyone and their dog will have an EV, you'll be queueing for days to charge it."

                This is a false argument. It assumes that the only way to charge an EV is to bring it to a specialized facility for recharging. A big benefit with an EV is being able to charge it at home or work (or a train station, airport, shopping center) while doing other things. I agree with others that if meddling governments start banning new ICE sales, forecourts will start closing and it will be petroleum fueled vehicles that will be queuing up. I can see that not everybody has off street parking, but that's slowly being addressed and at the moment an EV might not be a good option for those people. If you are a light sleeper, living in a flat with neighbors on every side might also be a bad idea so you'd look for a place to live that isn't like that.

          2. cornetman Silver badge

            Re: In other words...

            In 20 years, battery tech is going to be in a completely different universe compared to now.

            I expect batteries to be cheap, have largely solved the deterioration problem, and porting new batteries to old vehicles is going to be big, independent business.

            Honestly, I don't understand why commenters think that the tech and industry are going to stand still. 20 years is a *long, long* time. It's difficult enough to make predictions in 5 years, never mind 20.

            1. vtcodger Silver badge

              Re: In other words...

              Battery tech isn't standing still. But it's also not advancing especially quickly. LOTS of money has been is and will continue to be spent on battery R&D. Will batteries be better in two decades? Yes. Are your expectations realistic? Probably not very.

              Recommended reading: Tom Murphy's articles at https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/ Murphy is a physicist at UC San Diego who for many years has driven electric vehicles and run his household largely on solar power. But he does that largely by living in a very mild climate where heating and cooling needs are minimal and by consuming far less energy than most of us in other areas as well. His opinions are worth taking into account. He is not all that optimistic about the non-fossil fuel future.

            2. Zolko Silver badge
              Alien

              Re: In other words...

              In 20 years, battery tech is going to be in a completely different universe compared to now.

              are we going to have flying cars at last ?

              What you don't seem to get is that batteries are not source of energy, they're vectors – or storage – of energy. And not a very good one at that. But energy still needs to be produced by some means ... so what will that be in 20 years ? (and please don't answer "fusion " because fusion will be 20 years away in 20 years)

              1. vtcodger Silver badge

                Re: In other words...

                "are we going to have flying cars at last ?"

                Probably. A few. At least there will likely be some vehicles you can drive to an airport, fly to some other airport, then drive into town for lunch. They'll probably be mediocre aircraft and worse cars. And they'll be expensive. And most likely, you'll need a pilot's license of some sort to fly one.

                And they probably won't be battery powered. Fossil fuels have significantly higher energy densities than any battery we can currently conceive and for early personal flying machines, weight is surely going to be critical.

                So yes, there will be flying cars, but no you and I won't have one in the driveway.

                Which is OK by me. People mismanaging massive vehicles in two dimensions is scary enough. No need to add another dimension to the mix.

                1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                  Re: In other words...

                  FWIW, the flying cars you describe have been built already. Primarily as one-offs, of course, but road legal cars which can convert to flight more have been around sine the 1950's or 1960's. As you say, crappy cars and mediocre aircraft :-)

              2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
                Joke

                Re: In other words...

                "so what will that be in 20 years ?"

                Petrol and diesel powered power stations, obviously. What else will we do with it?

              3. LybsterRoy Silver badge

                Re: In other words...

                -- are we going to have flying cars at last ? --

                Maybe not but we have flying motorcycles .....

            3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: In other words...

              "In 20 years, battery tech is going to be in a completely different universe compared to now."

              So what happens in the intervening 7 years after new ICE car sales are banned and before the new "super batteries" come along? Not to mention that if there is going to be a hard 2035 ban on new ICE car sales, they will be gone long before then. No one inside the EU or UK is going to have a production facility still running even a year before the cut-off date and there's no sign of any revolutionary "super batteries" coming along. The Reg has been regaled with stories of new high capacity, low cost, new tech batteries for years. What we actually get is small incremental improvements. The hard switch to EVs in a relatively short times is predicated on improvements we hope will come, not on improvements we know are coming.

              1. DJO Silver badge

                Re: In other words...

                The lag between a laboratory demonstration of revolutionary "super batteries" and the first one to roll out of a factory is at least 10 years and that's only if the revolutionary "super battery" can be scaled up for production and has the hoped for longevity, reduced dendrite production or whatever.

                They could be working on it for 3 or 4 years after the lab demo just to see if it's worth continuing.

                In reality the biggest driver (pun intended) of EVs is massive advances in the efficiency of motors most noticeably because of the absurdly powerful neodymium permanent magnets.

              2. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: In other words...

                "No one inside the EU or UK is going to have a production facility still running even a year before the cut-off date and there's no sign of any revolutionary "super batteries" coming along."

                This is akin to what's going on in the US with power generation. New regulations are coming along to force coal power plants to meet new emissions standards being set. With many of these plants already approaching their end of life, operators are choosing to close them down when they hit a heavy maintenance interval. Doing the heavy maintenance wouldn't pay back before the new regs went into effect and upgrading a decades old plant has no ROI either. One plant was built in the US with carbon capture mechanisms and it was very expensive to operate. I believe it has been shut. All of this is leaving politicians scrambling as their high minded policies are creating power shortages in places and that's not good for getting votes at the next election. The timing is particularly bad with major elections coming up and both parties jockeying for dominance.

            4. Terry 6 Silver badge

              Re: In other words...

              And that date is only for the sale of new cars. Petrol ( not f'ing gasolene btw) will still be with us after that for another decade or so beyond. They will be more expensive, perhaps. But then the cost of second hand cars is stupid now.

              (Daughter's car was hit while parked outside our house a couple of months ago. Written off as uneconomical to repair. The insurance valuation was more than we paid for it about four years before).

            5. nijam Silver badge

              Re: In other words...

              > battery tech is going to be in a completely different universe compared to now

              Primieses, promises.

              1. Aitor 1

                Re: In other words...

                Today lfp batteries have more capacity per kg than ternary batteries from 5 years ago at a tenth of the cost.

                But we can't get enough of them!

            6. Ghostman

              Re: In other words...

              My flying car and jet pack will be delivered next week? I've been waiting on those for close to 70 years.

            7. LybsterRoy Silver badge

              Re: In other words...

              One word - fusion

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: In other words...

                "One word - fusion"

                Two words - Porcine Aeronautics !!!

                :)

              2. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: In other words...

                "One word - fusion"

                Won't that be great? Power so cheap they won't even meter it! /s

                That nut still hasn't been cracked. Even if They figured it out next week, it would still be years and years to refine it, add a power conversion unit and battle through all fo the inevitable lawsuits when proposals are put forward to site these plants. I should live so long.

            8. YetAnotherXyzzy

              Re: In other words...

              Honestly, I don't understand why *politicians* think that the tech and industry are *ripe for such facile and heavy handed regulation*. 20 years is a long, long time. It's difficult enough *regulate without causing unintended consequences over* 5 years, never mind 20.

          3. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: In other words...

            Secondly the makers are going to tie you into some sort of subscription model, probably by limiting software licences.

            That's not dependent on the car being an EV.

        2. LittleBobTable

          Re: In other words...

          We have a 2nd hand Renault Zoe. 2014 plate, brought for about £4.5K before the electric car stuff became 'big'. It's cheap as the battery is on a lease, as when they came out with the cars they didn't know how long the battery would last, so allowed the owners to lease it. So we pay £40 a month to rent the battery. If it gets below 85% initial charge: we get a new one. Cool, plus it looks like we'd get a 24kW to 40kW upgrade.

          In some ways this is great as the battery is not an issue (until they end the lease).

          Managed to get a grant for the charger as well, so that was ace. Sometimes it is good to get on the band wagon early (but not too early). Some might argue that 70 miles isn't enough, but round town it does just fine. Cheap to service as well and although it has been through quite a few tyres...

        3. Kane
          Thumb Up

          Re: In other words...

          Upvote for the Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness reference.

          Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

          Although, how you're going to fuel the flamethrower is anyone's guess...

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: In other words...

            "Upvote for the Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness reference."

            If Sir Terry wasn't a fantasy writer, he'd be known a a modern day philosopher. The Boots Theory is spot on. I used to by cheap shoes and they'd last for a bit, but when I bought a really good (and expensive) pair of shoes, they'd fit better and last much longer. The same goes for the difference between buying something at Ikea and a proper furniture maker. I've done both, needs must, and the veneer is coming off of the Ikea stuff and the good furniture just needs a good wax every couple of years (no veneer). If I ever move again, I'm not sure the Ikea furniture will stand up to another disassembly/reassembly cycle.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: In other words...

        "Have you looked at how much you're paying..."

        Have you looked at how much "E-Waste" is associated with an electric vehicle? At least with petroleum 1 barrel refiners to many types of fuels and resources. With electric batteries lipo is so crazy nasty that it's nearly infeasible not to recycle, yet plenty still don't recycle.

        After the last several years of reading about the waste of electric vehicles I can see the upsides of them but, there's a whole lot of downsides. EV seems a little better by itself, but considering petrol will still be processed for all things larger than a SUV, it seems like adding yet another type to the list of dominate wastes.

        Gas or batteries..... is there a 3rd option?

        1. NoneSuch Silver badge

          Re: In other words...

          "Gas or batteries..... is there a 3rd option?"

          Hydrogen. Very much like Fusion as far as a technology reach goes. There are lots of hurdles to cross to get up to speed with full commercial production.

          1. Richard 12 Silver badge
            Flame

            Re: In other words...

            Hydrogen emits far more CO2 (and some other pollutants) than petrol/diesel/LPG, because the vast majority of it is made by partially-burning LPG.

            Some of it is "blue", meaning they burn the LPG and claim to capture and store the CO2. How long that "captured" CO2 actually stays stored is unknown.

            "Green" Hydrogen is energy storage, far less efficient than batteries or pumped-storage hydro. Hardly any exists. If we're going to make it viable then we need to build a lot of nuclear power plants - it's only feasible if it uses up "spare" generation.

            1. DJO Silver badge

              Re: In other words...

              Also much higher pressures are needed for hydrogen. Although hydrogen has a lot of energy per kilo it does not have much per mole.

              A given volume of methane has 2.4 times as much combustion energy as the same volume of hydrogen so to get the same amount of energy down the same size pipes you need to increase the pressure by 2.4.

              High pressure hydrogen is not fun to work with and nobody touting hydrogen as a fuel ever factors in the energy required to compress it which is far from insignificant.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Don't forget the H2 tendency to leak

                With Hydrogen being the smallest molecule known to man, it has this awkward tendency to find even the smallest leak. That means...

                - leave your H2 fuelled car for three weeks holiday and you may well return to find it out of fuel due to leakage.

                Some EV's have renowned 'phantom drain' when parked. (Tesla... I'm looking at you here). Other makes don't have this problem. Lord Elon in his infinite wisdom likes it that way.

                Either way, H2 fuelled vehicles are not the answer. The amount of energy needed to produce H2, even green H2 is huge.

                1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                  Re: Don't forget the H2 tendency to leak

                  "Anonymous Coward

                  Don't forget the H2 tendency to leak

                  With Hydrogen being the smallest molecule known to man, it has this awkward tendency to find even the smallest leak. "

                  Actually, He is worse for leaks. H likes to exist as a diatomic molecule and He as a single making the Helium smaller in real world terms.

                  1. DJO Silver badge

                    Re: Don't forget the H2 tendency to leak

                    I checked that and technically an atom of helium is not a molecule.

                    a group of atoms bonded together

                    Also hydrogen is very reactive while helium is as close to inert as you can get. So as well as leaking hydrogen will degrade most metals.

                    1. DJO Silver badge

                      Re: Don't forget the H2 tendency to leak

                      What fun, the sizes are more complicated.

                      A single helium atom has a Van der Waals radius of 140pm while a molecule of hydrogen has a Van der Waals radius of 120pm.

                      This is because the shared electrons in the hydrogen molecule pulls the two atoms into close proximity, in helium there are no similar forces so the electrons can spread out a bit. (undoubtedly it is far more complicated than that but it'll do as an explanation).

                      So in conclusion, hydrogen molecules are smaller than helium atoms, who'd have thought it?

                      Edit: Actually as helium has an atomic weight of 4 against 1 for hydrogen, perhaps it's no surprise that H₂ is smaller than the twice as heavy He

            2. TheMeerkat

              Re: In other words...

              You can produce “green hydrogen” by electrolyses, which would make sense if we had plenty of nuclear power stations a very expensive fossil fuels.

              1. Hairy Spod

                Re: In other words...

                ..or you could use 30-50% less electricity to charge a battery and go further

              2. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: In other words...

                "You can produce “green hydrogen” by electrolyses, which would make sense if we had plenty of nuclear power stations a very expensive fossil fuels."

                Electrolysis is horribly inefficient. It's far better to use the electricity to charge a battery.

      3. Stork Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        I am not so sure, I did some calculations recently.

        A new Leaf around here is about €35k, if we depreciate over 12 years that’s close to 3k/y. Add to that service, insurance and a bit of electricity. And either financing or what you could get from investing the 30k.

        We have a 19 year old Clio, would perhaps be 1500 to buy as it sailed through inspection and has no obvious problems. Petrol with 16kkm/y is under 2000, insurance is cheap as it’s 3rd party only. Service last year was 400 due to stupid problems caused by roadside assistance.

        Petrol is too cheap!

        1. theOtherJT Silver badge

          Re: In other words...

          No, petrol is too expensive. The problem is that EVs are much too expensive.

          1. Piro Silver badge

            Re: In other words...

            Yes. And the battery chemistry is largely not really good enough. We're having to mine too many resources to make giant, heavy batteries.

      4. Piro Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        Most people can only pony up a few grand for a car. It's really normal. Most people don't buy new cars.

    2. Peter2 Silver badge

      Re: In other words...

      Unless they're planning on banning the sale of actual petrol and diesel, it seems far more likely to me that this is just going to create massive upward pressure on used ICE vehicles.

      Which use the same batteries as used in most IT equipment, which after a thousand full charge/discharge cycles lose the substantial majority of their capacity. And strangely, the price of a second hand battery replacement is £6k - £7.5k on ebay at the moment which would appear to make a second hand EV needing a battery replacement a liability rather than an asset; You can get very nice used cars for ~£2k needing nothing but fuel.

      Looking for the prices of EV batteries on eBay is perhaps a bit unscientific, but it's more accurate than any figures that will be provided by the manufacturers, and I have no faith that 20 years down the line the manufacturer will be making and selling the spare parts for their EV's at anything like a sensible price. (if at all)

      1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        Let's not think what happens to all those used batteries...

        1. Randy Hudson

          Re: In other words...

          The same thing that happens to lead acid batteries. 99% are recycled.

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: In other words...

          "Let's not think what happens to all those used batteries..."

          Just try to find a used/salvaged EV battery for sale. They get snapped up as soon as they are listed for sale.

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        "I have no faith that 20 years down the line the manufacturer will be making and selling the spare parts for their EV's"

        I'll agree with that bit. Many of the new crop of auto makers aren't likely to be around in 20 years either. IT's the third party parts makers that usually wind up supporting the older cars. The manufacturers carry parts for as long as they're required by law to do so and then start discontinuing anything that isn't selling in sufficient numbers. With an EV that should be able to go much further and for more years, long term support is a big deal.

        Finding prices for batteries on the used market is very proper. Dealers gouge like mad, but the open market has to trade according to what people will pay and what sellers find profitable to sell.

        1. nobody who matters

          Re: In other words...

          ".....With an EV that should be able to go much further and for more years....."

          There are three principal reasons why ICE cars reach 'end-of-life':

          They get crashed and scrapped as being beyond safe/economical repair

          They get scrapped because their bodywork and/or running gear has become too deteriorated to pass a safety test (MOT Test in the UK), and probably the cost of rectification is too expensive to justify against the cost of replacing it with another not quite as old model

          They get scrapped because they have become so old that hardly anyone wants it, and there is more money to be made from breaking them or selling for scrap than they are worth as a complete vehicle.

          Fairly rare for failure of the internal combustion engine to be the reason for end-of-life. Most petrol engines manufactured in the last 20 years will be well capable of reaching 200 to 300 thousand miles with proper maintenance and use (with possibly a head gasket replacement somewhere along the line, which is not as major a repair as many people will try to make out - garages in particular). Diesels will be capable of much more, possibly even 500+ thousand miles. It is always the bodyshell, suspension and running gear that fail long before that, and mainly the bodyshell.

          I don't really see how EVs are going to alter the average lifespan significantly?

    3. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: In other words...

      You are a perfect client of Great Reset "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy".

      Which means your only option will be to rent a car (of course while monthly fee will be reasonable, it will be many folds more expensive in the long run than ownership).

      Corporations are poised to make enormous profits on this EV thing.

      1. vtcodger Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        "Corporations are poised to make enormous profits on this EV thing."

        Of course they are. That's what corporations do. But I suspect (and hope) their visions of vast fields of low-hanging profits waiting to be plucked are delusional.

        I direct your attention to the Wuling Hong Guang MINI EV. It's the best selling EV in China at the moment. Roughly 50,000 units in March 2022. It seats 4, goes 60 mph (flat out) and is a bit less than 3m long. (Sticker) range 75-110mi depending on the battery selected. It sells for between $4000 and $6000 depending on the configuration. That, my friends, is likely the future of EVs -- electric VW bug equivalents, not electric Roll-Royce equivalents.

        Of course the US/British/EU version will cost much more. It will need to actually meet safety standards and it needs a quick charge capability. And probably a few other things. But the car companies probably are not going to end up rolling in vast wealth from profits on the sale of $12K-16K cars.

        1. stiine Silver badge

          Re: In other words...

          So, its the 'Smart' electric car of cars? It's still cost $25k+ at a minimum.

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: In other words...

          "It will need to actually meet safety standards and it needs a quick charge capability. "

          Safety? Yes, no way around that. Quick charge? Not necessarily. A basic car that cheap can make sense as something to commute to work and back in or back and forth to the train station. Charging on a standard plug would cover needs for something like that. It could be a good car for somebody headed off to Uni that just needs a car to get around and will flog it off to somebody when they graduate (or drop out).

          The Ora R1 in China has better specs and is priced around $10,000. I have never seen one for sale outside of China and it may not meet European or US safety requirements. It does show that a reasonably priced EV is possible. The only feature the car has is a back up camera. Everything else is very manual. It does have a DC charging capability and will go fast enough to use on the motorway.

      2. Persona Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        Corporations are poised to make enormous profits on this EV thing

        Perhaps in the short term. As time goes on competition forces down the price and the firms who are making the big profits either cut prices, become more efficient or go bust. Eventually it matures into a cutthroat market with only efficient corporations taking small margins.

        1. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: In other words...

          "Perhaps in the short term. As time goes on competition forces down the price and the firms who are making the big profits either cut prices, become more efficient or go bust. "

          Or they start a subscription model for things like AC. Very cheap in the winter and very dear in the summer. More telematics with a possibility to opt out for more money than they might make selling your information. Ads on the display(s) that you can pay to delete. Heated seats and steering wheel charged by the hour and delta T. Charging on public fast chargers restricted to only those brands that pay the maker a kickback. But, you can use any AC charger you like. It's still "your" car, though.

    4. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: In other words...

      this is just going to create massive upward pressure on used ICE vehicles.

      I expect it to create a whole new industry for refurbishing used ICE vehicles to bring them back to as-new status, while still being considered "used" and therefore sellable. There's very little in a modern car which can't be refurbished and restored, since bodywork doesn't rust away as quickly as it did in the 70s and 80s.

    5. AdamWill

      Re: In other words...

      The way you achieve a radical change in the economics is to do exactly this.

      Car makers will bitch and moan about this for a couple of years, and then - as long as the governments don't give in - will give up and get used to it. 2035 is 13 years away. That's 13 years for them to deal with the supply chain issues. Which is enough time. When they realize their choices are a) figure out a way to build enough EVs or b) don't sell any Vs, they will get a) done.

      They will also figure out the economics, because if they can't sell you (someone with a hard price ceiling) a V, they will figure out a way to sell you an EV. The economics of scale will also kick in very fast when everyone involved in the manufacturing knows they have no choice but to figure it out.

      The best way to keep EVs rare and expensive is *not* to have rules like this. The longer you say "well, it's fine to make dinosaur burners if you really must", the less incentive the industry has to put their big boy pants on and figure out how to scale EV production.

      1. Alumoi Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        That's 13 years for them to deal with the supply chain issues. Which is enough time. When they realize their choices are a) figure out a way to build enough EVs or b) don't sell any Vs, they will get c) bribe enough politicians to change the law..

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        California passed a law that would have required all makers to sell a certain number of zero emission cars to be allowed to sell any cars in the state some years ago. This is why there was the EV-1 by GM. It was a compliance car and a hedge against the law not getting repealed. But, in time the right bribe price was negotiated and those politicians repealed the law. It wasn't time to "railroad" and still might not be. California politicians have once again enacted the same sort of law that will take effect in some years. It's great for grandstanding so they're seen "doing something". Either more bribes will have to be paid like last time or they might have to repeal the law again if it still isn't time for everybody to have an EV. The outcome might otherwise be being voted out of office and they can't risk that. With government solid gold health care at private clinics, those politicians will live a long time and will want to continue feeding at the public trough.

        Watch "Who Killed the Electric Car". Biased, I'll grant you, but still telling.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In other words...

      >>My absolute outside hard-limit on spending on a car is a few thousand

      Work harder! Get another job! Only feed yourself with 30p/meal.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: In other words...

        "Only feed yourself with 30p/meal."

        30p would be difficult, but I can do a nice steak and potato dinner plus veg for 2 quid if there are nice offers and I don't pick too expensive a cut. I just picked up a nice flat of strawberries and made a dozen jars of preserves. Those won't last long as they are so good but it is cheaper than store bought. Cooking at home and learning how to can/preserve saves heaps of money. I didn't have a lot of time for a garden this year, but I did plant a bunch of herbs. Since they are weeds, they grow as such and far less expensive than buying them at the store. I think I'll wind up canning a bunch of pesto with how well the basil is doing.

  3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    The charger numbers seem a bit low.

    This article says the following

    https://cleantechnica.com/2022/06/09/workplace-charging-network-doubles-availability-of-uk-public-charge-points/

    That’s according to a recent report on workplace chargers, which found there are 33,000 charge points at work vs 31,500 at public sites. Mobility group Transport & Environment, which commissioned the study,

    Add the two together and you get 64,500 chargers.

    Do we still need more? Yes. There are areas where DC charging of any level is simply does not exist.

    Here... (40 miles SW of London) there are now 15 50kW DC chargers within 8 miles of my home including two at my local McD's not that you will catch me going there any time this side of the apocalypse.

    1. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

      Remember that DC charging should be the exception - it's not the way the vast majority of electrons are loaded for driving.

      Even those without off street parking should be looking at AC charging, whether that's kerbside or whilst shopping etc.

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge

        Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

        No, DC charging is how you get from place to place. People can't diddle around for 3 or 4 hours to get any sort of charge from AC.

        AC is what you use at home (or at a hotel) overnight.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          In the UK? Isn't your longest possible road trip only 874 miles?

          DC fast charging is for road trips. AC charging is for everything else. Most cars spend the vast majority of their time in a parking space, whether that be at home or at work. That's where the AC chargers need to go.

          I guess your cars are likely to be lower range than US cars, but 250-300 miles is pretty typical here. That'll get me around for a few weeks pretty easily unless I'm off to visit a friend in Chicago or something.

          1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            It is impossible to build a charging point at every parking spot.

            1. John Robson Silver badge

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              It's really not... but it's also not required... the average uk car does 20 miles a day, that's ~5kWh a day... it's only 600W for 8 hours - or a "standard" AC charge (7kW for 43 minutes). So most vehicles won't be charging their whole lives, they'll spend substantially less than hour a day *on average* slurping electrons.

              According to the RAC in England in 2020:

              - 12 per cent of household vehicles were parked in a garage overnight

              - 61 per cent were parked on private property (but not garaged)

              - 24 per cent were parked on the street

              - 3 per cent were parked in other places.

              i.e. 73% have easy access to home charging, and only need occasional use DC at service stations etc.

              I can only assume that the 3% are in public car parks somewhere?

              Let's say about 25% are parked without "obvious" access to home charging.

              Kerbside charging is absolutely possible, even on terraces - one of the best I've seen is using slot based drainage channels to simply put the cable out of the way under the pavement. Yes you need to be able to park near your house once a week or so.

              So at most ~8m cars need to spend on average 45 minutes a day at an equipped parking space that isn't their house.

              We need more opportunities at work places and public car parks where people might spend a all day, or several hours a couple of times a week. Then there are supermarkets, cinemas, restaurants, shopping centres, gyms, swimming pools, libraries.... anywhere you might be going anyway.

              So in the next 20 years we need to scale up from 60k public/workplace chargers to 300k (assuming optimal distribution, which won't happen).

              That feels eminently achievable, we might even see a rise in drive/charger sharing - because there is no reason that private homes can't contribute to those 300k.

              1. Richard 12 Silver badge

                Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

                Beware of averages!

                The problem with EVs is the peaks. Peak load on the grid as everyone arrives at work and plugs in, or when everyone gets home etc.

                And of course peak usage when people want to do longer journeys. Motorway chargers are already a problem, we'd need orders of magnitude more of them.

                Or RO-RO trains for longer trips. I expect those will happen in mainland EU, but not the UK. The current UK Government just cancelled nearly all train improvements outside of London to Birmingham.

                Home-based chargers aren't going to get shared significantly, because it's either so tiny that the bill payer doesn't mind giving it away for free, or they need to figure out some way of charging visitors for those electrons.

              2. heyrick Silver badge

                Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

                "the average uk car does 20 miles a day"

                So, would that be 28 miles Mon-Fri? Or maybe closer to 50 miles a day because you're also counting the neighbour's car and he only goes shopping once a week...?

                That's the problem with averages.

              3. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

                "Kerbside charging is absolutely possible, even on terraces - one of the best I've seen is using slot based drainage channels to simply put the cable out of the way under the pavement. "

                I saw the same thing and it's brilliant. We need more of that sort of thinking.

          2. Cederic Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            250 miles is a single day in the office for me. Although I'd need to charge at the office to get home, as it's 260 in total.

            The place I'm going to tomorrow is 140 miles each way.

            A road trip? I've done 1500-2500 mile drives on four continents. Something tells me I'm going to struggle charging a car at my overnight stop in Australia where, the next morning, I drove for four hours to reach the nearest village and someone asked me (using her name) how my hostess for that night was.

            Electric cars are even less practical now than they were pre-pandemic, because so many fewer people are making all the short commutes. I'd be better off buying a truck than an electric car, even in the UK!

            Our only hope is hydrogen fuel cells. Or a significant change in Government. We can hope.

            1. John Robson Silver badge

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              250 miles a day is a fucking stupid commute... I have done 140 and that was soul destroying.

              Australia wasn't, last time i checked, in Europe.

              We have a well developed electrical grid which reaches most of the continent - Fuel cells would make an excellent "jerry can" option if you're going somewhere completely ridiculous.

              1. werdsmith Silver badge

                Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

                Australia wasn't, last time i checked, in Europe

                Last time I watched Eurovision it was.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            I guess your cars are likely to be lower range than US cars, but 250-300 miles is pretty typical here.

            The opposite actually; fuel is more expensive on our side of the pond (~$8.61 per US gallon) so we value fuel efficiency to a degree that doesn't appear to be the case in the US. I have a ~20 year old auto, which does 500 miles to a tank on mixed town and cruising, or something over 600 miles per tank if cruising on a motorway.

            I've also used over two thirds of the tank over a weekend doing things like reenactment where you get about a bit, and spend the weekend in locations (random fields and historic properties etc) that shall never have sufficent numbers of chargers to deal with hundreds of us camping the weekend.

          4. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            "Most cars spend the vast majority of their time in a parking space, whether that be at home or at work. That's where the AC chargers need to go."

            They don't even need to be particularly high power AC chargers. Someplace such as a train station with lots of low power charge points where cars can be left plugged in all day is great. If you are going on a short trip by air, plugging in at the airport can be convenient. I can envision a system that sequences when the plug is powered based on when the owner expects to return. That way, many more cars can be plugged in and eventually charged than the electric service might be able to support in one go.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

      we need millions of chargers, not tens of thousands...

      Being realistic, to maintain the current way people live and travel in the UK, we need to cater for on-street charging for the millions of households who don't have a parking space on their own land, and *at least* half the parking spaces at every motorway services needs to have a charger.

      That also implies we need a massive amount of grid storage and wind farm generation capacity, unless we build a lot more nuclear fission (or fusion (ho ho)) capacity. Solar is not the answer, we can't afford to carry on letting farmers turn arable land into power plants, the world population is growing and needs to be fed.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

        That's why we're never going to be able to switch from horses to these new fangled combustion engines.

        Imagine all the infrastructure needed to get oil out of rock miles below the north sea, get it to shore, refine it, distribute a toxic explosive liquid around the country to enough cars that every household can use one.

        Not to mention the disruption to the 30% of agriculture devoted to growing horse feed.

        Still it will be nice to have environmental and health benefits not to have a million tons of manure on the city streets.

        1. Snow Hill Island

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          The trouble is, the process of building the charging infrastructure for 2035 needs to be started *right now*, and it's not happening.

          1. John Robson Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            It really is happening... And ICE cars won't disappear overnight, there will be about a ten year switchover from whatever proportion we end up with in 2030.

          2. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            "The trouble is, the process of building the charging infrastructure for 2035 needs to be started *right now*, and it's not happening."

            The trouble is politicians that have trained as attorneys creating silly policies. EV's are already well on their way. Forcing the change instead of allowing it to naturally become the dominate method of personal transport is wasteful. Private companies are building out public charging at a very good pace right now to get in front of demand, but those companies have to show some return on their investment so they can't be too far out in front. The electrical grid has to adapt as well. They could sell bonds and borrow billions of dollars/Pounds/Euros and pay loads of interest on that money to go faster, but there's no point. If the infrastructure was built out so 60% of cars could be electric in 3-4 years, most of that would sit idle until there was enough uptake of EV's. That's not going to happen until people's current cars are too worn out to fix, the prices come down and there is a robust used market.

            There's nothing like a politician when it comes to screwing things up.

        2. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          Imagine all the infrastructure needed to get oil out of rock miles below the north sea, get it to shore, refine it, distribute a toxic explosive liquid around the country to enough cars that every household can use one.

          Do recall that in the early days of automobiles, there was no infrastructure as such - petrol was sold at chemists in the same way you'd buy lamp oil. Over time, as owning a car started filtering down from a rich mans play thing to a tool for the masses, then the infrastructure started appearing. But the important thing - the infrastructure didn't need to be there from the outset as petrol was just a different form of oil that was already widely distributed.

          Also, to build a petrol station is basically very simple. You find a site with road access, put some tanks in, add the pumps, and you have a petrol station that can service however many cars can come through at something like 5-10 minutes each. To build that petrol station doesn't need access to a fuel pipeline - it comes by tanker.

          Charging is a different matter. Yes, at the moment people are putting in chargers that just need to tap into the local distribution network that's already there. But there's a finite amount of spare capacity in those networks, and pressure on that will come from other demands as well. Upgrading that, as will be needed if we go all electric as fast as is being suggested is going to be very expensive and very destructive.

          I'm lucky - I have my own off street parking and overnight charging would be a doddle. Looking down the street, I'd say only about 1/3 of us have that, and most don't have enough spaces as they have cars. Most people can't even guarantee to park outside their own house. And that's typical of this part of town.

          1. John Robson Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            73% have off street private parking. (RAC)

            And the grid can cope. Do you see National Grid wailing and gnashing their teeth? No, they point out that the grid is actually in lower demand now than it was in previous decades, by 10s of GW.... and EVs need an average of about 200W - triple it (to take it down to 8 hours) and multiply by 33M vehicles and we have 20GW peak load (assuming that all EVs are only charged in those same 8 hours - which they won't be, some will be charged at work or the shops).

            1. Duncan Macdonald
              FAIL

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              National Grid is responsible for transmitting electricity over the existing lines and upgrading them when their customers (the generating companies and the local electricity companies) pay for the upgrades. They have warned repeatedly that the current infrastructure (both generation and transmission) is insufficient for mass movement from ICE vehicles to EVs and from gas heating to electric heating (heat pumps). However the government is currently lead by an idiot with a "green" idiot for a wife so messages that are against the "green" agenda are ignored by the government (and by its lapdog the BBC),

              If (when?) people find that they cannot charge their cars or heat their homes because of insufficient electrical capacity they might finally realize that a lot of the "green" ideas are impractical verging on complete stupidity.

              Icon for the "green" ideas of no ICE vehicles and no home gas heating ====>

              1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

                "(and by its lapdog the BBC),"

                Oh dear. Did you accuse the BBC of the same thing during 13 years of Labour government? Don't worry about it if you didn't, plenty of Tories did. The BBC seem to have the balance just about right when both sides accuse them of being Tory/Labour "lapdogs".

                1. Duncan Macdonald

                  Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

                  They are a lapdog of whatever the current government is and support whatever its policies are, The bosses of the BBC depend on the current government to be kept in charge and they also depend on the government to approve increases in the license fee.

              2. nobody who matters

                Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

                "....They have warned repeatedly that the current infrastructure (both generation and transmission) is insufficient ....."

                I have been told a similar story via people doing the maintenance on the main pylons and transmission lines - the infrastructure is in a woeful state; a significant proportion hasn't been properly upgraded for decades. Some of it struggles to cope with current demands, and certainly won't carry the same load that it would have been capable of when it was new.

              3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

                Re: Grid capacity

                The Head of National Grid begs to differ. He gave an interview to Fully Charged

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaCu8lWuOPQ

                It is a very interesting interview.

                1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                  Re: Grid capacity

                  "The Head of National Grid begs to differ. He gave an interview to Fully Charged"

                  There's an older interview as well. Thank you for the link.

                2. MachDiamond Silver badge

                  Re: Grid capacity

                  "The Head of National Grid begs to differ. He gave an interview to Fully Charged

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaCu8lWuOPQ

                  It is a very interesting interview."

                  The link goes to a show interviewing a bunch of kids. Not particularly useful.

                  Try this:

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX0G9F42puY

                  It's from 10 years ago, but still a good watch.

            2. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
              Unhappy

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              The wailing isn't reported. Just look at gridwatch over winter, when there's no wind (again). Every interconnector, every coal station, even the open-cycle gas turbines, are all running full blast. It gets seriously squeaky on many evenings. Add EVs to the mix, lose the remaining coal stations, a nuclear station stops (which we're due for) and there are going to be power cuts - sorry "demand management".

            3. This post has been deleted by its author

            4. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              73% have off street private parking

              Ah, a meaningless stat that gives a meaningless suggestion.

              "Has off-street parking" is not the same thing as "has off-street parking for all their vehicles". A number of houses round here have off-street parking for (e.g.) one vehicles, but not for all of them.

              And then a heck of a lot of "private off street parking" is not suitable for having a charge point installed. Take the rental properties we have. Of 9 properties, only 2 of them have direct access to their private off-street parking space - the rest have the car park between them and their parking space. So to run a cable means getting permission to take a very long cable around the perimeter (crossing other properties) or they have to dig the tarmac up. If they come along and ask to run a cable across my property I'll "not be enthusiastic", and if they want to dig up the tarmac I'd be even less so as that would introduce a patched areas with joints liable to premature failure and hence future maintenance costs.

              Or look at blocks of flats (or apartments). You live on (say) the 10th floor, and your parking space is in the basement - good luck everyone running cables from their apartment to their parking space. Of course, the answer there is for the building management to install chargers off a common supply - but then you have the issue of charging (money) for the lecky without it suddenly becoming very expensive (someone did the sums and worked out that in the USA, it could cost more to run a Tesla using their public chargers than it costs to run a similar spec petrol car).

              So "73% have off street private parking" is very very much not the same thing as "73% of vehicles can be charged at home".

            5. MachDiamond Silver badge

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              "Do you see National Grid wailing and gnashing their teeth?"

              Robert Llewellyn did an interview at the national grid control office and they are very much looking forward to more EV's. All they have to do is offer a reduced tariff for charging in the wee hours and they can better use all of the capacity they have sitting idle at night that isn't making money. The interviewee also stated that many times they have to turn wind turbines off due to over supply at night. With more turbines being installed, that's only going to get worse. What if they could transmit pricing down the lines and EV owners could take advantage of extra special low prices to absorb power that would otherwise not be generated? Instead of charging during the day, many EV owners would set their cars to take advantage of those specials. If it's a calm week, they might have to take the usual reduced rate overnight, but that's ok too.

          2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            Please go look at what Gridserve is doing.

            They are building the EV equivalent of a petrol station. 24 high-power chargers (> 150kW) and services. They also put in local storage (aka Batteries) that allows them to manage the grid load.

            They also have their own Solar Farm.

            Their sites at Braintree and Norwich are already operating. Gatwick and Uckfield are under construction. More than 50 more sites are planned.

        3. J.G.Harston Silver badge

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          Yes, the way to do it is to ban horses.

        4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          "That's why we're never going to be able to switch from horses to these new fangled combustion engines."

          Exactly which year was the legally mandated cut off point for the sale of "new horses" to force a switch to those newfangled vehicles?

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            "Exactly which year was the legally mandated cut off point for the sale of "new horses" to force a switch to those newfangled vehicles?"

            Precisely, there wasn't one and you could still opt to ride your horse in many places today if you like. Downtown London isn't a good option, but in the country it might be faster to take the horse directly than to drive all the way around to a destination. There are places in the US with sects that eschew motor cars and travel in horse-drawn carriages on public streets. Automobiles were adopted over time as they became affordable and infrastructure was in place to support them until we are where we are today. EV's are more likely to be adopted even faster unless the governments meddle too much and put a spanner in the works.

      2. nobody who matters

        Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

        "....to maintain the current way people live and travel in the UK......"

        That I think, is the principal part of the problem.

        The way people live and travel in the UK needs to change!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          Exactly.

          Why should the plebs be allowed warm houses, hot meals and transport to reasonable paying jobs not in their local area as well as time off work for holidays?

          If we just switch these to electric heating, electric cooking and electric transport and don't then build the generating capacity for this, then the prices will rise so much that the plebs will be forced to go without, and we can roll back the conditions of living in the UK to a Dikensian dystopia that the Victorians thought were outrageous and launched a moral crusade to improve. It's a wonderful idea and all for the plebs benefit of course. I mean, of course we wouldn't live like that, just everybody else.

          Of course, this has absolutely no chance of inspiring something like 96% of the population to hang the other 4% at all. No siree, that has never, ever happened before in history. Not ever, not once.

          </sarcasm>

          Or you could just take the existing £8.7 billion yearly bill for renewables and buy a 3.2GW nuclear plant every couple of years instead. Just ten of those plans would completely replace all of our existing electricity generation infrastructure while delivering electricity prices about one tenth of the current levels and we'd have completely eliminated CO2 emissions from power generation while skipping all of the social unrest the existing policy appears specifically designed to create.

          1. ravenviz Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            The government is missing a trick, the future is geothermal.

            1. NoneSuch Silver badge
              Facepalm

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              "The government is missing a trick, the future is geothermal."

              Yes, because of global warming we have a lack of heat above ground at the moment and need to pump even more up from the Earth's core.

              This is like the American solution of solving gun violence by adding more people with guns.

              1. ravenviz Silver badge

                Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

                Very short sighted response. The problem is not heat. The problem is insulating molecules emitted from polluting energy production!

            2. Peter2 Silver badge

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              There are a handful of sites that are worthwhile in the UK, all of which ended up having baths built on them, such as um, Bath. That site is a world heritiage site, and grade "totally untouchable" listed, as are every single other sensible option in the UK.

              Which matters very little, since you might get a few dozen megawatts out of all of them if you were lucky, and we need around a thousand times that.

              1. ravenviz Silver badge

                Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

                Viable geothermal energy capture is not about using surface sites, instead using oilfield technology to deep drill directional wells which take cold water in and hot water out, which we can then use as we see fit, maybe even to generate the electricity needed for the EV revolution. Once in place, the carbon footprint is very low.

          2. NoneSuch Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            "Why should the plebs be allowed warm houses, hot meals and transport to reasonable paying jobs not in their local area as well as time off work for holidays?"

            Thanks to BREXIT, none of those are available any more. Problem solved. (Yes, joke.)

          3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            "buy a 3.2GW nuclear plant every couple of years"

            While logical and sensible, it'll never happen because "big bucks" and no private investment. Renewables, especially solar, can be "sold" easily because it can be very cheap per individual installation and is easy for almost any commercial operation to invest in (especially with all the subsidies) so it looks like "something is being done" on a large scale for little upfront cost and at a short time scale.

            Any party in power starting nuclear projects is unlikely to still be in power when the first sod is cut, never mind on first power generation day, so can't claim credit. Even if the same colour is in power, it'll be different people in charge, so only "second hand" credit.

            Sadly, few politicians have real, true vision of how the future might be, even after they are gone. It's all about what colour the bike shed should be this week.

            1. MachDiamond Silver badge

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              "Renewables, especially solar, can be "sold" easily because it can be very cheap per individual installation and is easy for almost any commercial operation to invest in"

              They are easier to install because it doesn't take a herd of lawyers to delay and defend those installations. Nobody seems to bark when a nice natural field of wildflowers is cut back and covered over with solar panels. At least not to the tune of billions of Pounds in attorney's wrangling with each other over a nuclear power plant or tens of millions for a wind farm. Part of that might be that it makes little sense for either side to conclude matters quickly. They will milk each project for as many billable hours as they can get away with.

          4. nobody who matters

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            "....Why should the plebs be allowed warm houses, hot meals and transport...."

            Whooooosh...............

            The point being missed in spectacular fashion.

        2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          The WEF is working on it. By 2030 you will own nothing (including no car) and you'll be happy.

        3. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. simonlb Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

        and *at least* half the parking spaces at every motorway services needs to have a charger

        Unless the manufacturers sort out a basic EV range of 500 miles and a 50%-75% recharge done in less than a couple of hours they'll also have to build some pretty fucking big hotels at those services for all the people having to stay overnight every day.

        If I'm being forced to change from using IC to EV in my car then what replaces it must at least be as good as what it's replacing so it if can't even get from say, London to Edinburgh, 400-odd miles which the vast majority of IC cars can do on one tank of juice in one go then I personally do not consider it fit for purpose. Hopefully these issues will be addressed before we get to these cut-off dates, but I'm not holding my breath.

        1. Duncan Macdonald

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          Ultra fast chargers reduce the battery lifespan. Ideally the charging rate should be less than half the maximum discharge rate thereby making the discharge part of the cycle the life limiting phase.

          Instead there are chargers that charge at up to 250kW which puts a lot of stress on the battery.

          Overnight home charging with a 7kW (or lower) charge rate is far less stressful for an EV battery than a 250kW fast charge.

        2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          > can't even get from say, London to Edinburgh,

          Perhaps a car isn't the optimal way to go fom London to Edinburgh?

          Personally I'm not switching until the car can do London-Seattle, I need my flying car!

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            "Perhaps a car isn't the optimal way to go fom London to Edinburgh?"

            Unless you book well in advance and are travelling alone, plane or train is more expensive than car for most trips like that. Not to mention the travel costs to get to and from the airport or station at each end. It might also depend on how you value your time eg is it a work or pleasure trip. Is time a factor? How much time waiting in airports or spent travelling at each end? Not to mention the possibility of missing connections.

            I recently was offered the chance to fly down to London for a meeting at HQ. A 30 mile drive to the nearest airport, needing to check-in at least an hour before flight time, then another 30 or so miles from the destination airport to the office, it was just as quick to drive and, from my point of view, less stressful as a regular long distance driver and very rare flyer.

            1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              Apropos of public transport charges, though: in Germany, for this month and the next two, a ticket to travel on any public transport (with the exception of intercity express trains) cost nine Euros. Per month.

              For some reason, the trains between here and Berlin are much busier than normal... I can't say whether the roads are quieter as I'm mostly on the train.

              That said - tomorrow I shall take a train to my paragliding site. That's normally an hour and a half, driving, but will take two hours on a mix of buses and trains, and (damn!) a ten minute walk at the far end. Let's see if it works as a way to avoid burning oil.

              On the other hand: I do agree with John Brown that for the majority of my traveling within the UK, the hassles of flying did not overcome the convenience of driving, even if the destination was within the same city as the airport nominally was. Mass air travel works intercontinentally but I'm less convinced of anything closer - say, under five hundred or a thousand kilometers.

        3. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          You do realise that a 200 mile charge takes less than 15 minutes with modern cars?

          This petrol engine will never take off, it can't walk home from the pub and run on oats.

          1. Duncan Macdonald

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            Charging fast enough to do 200 miles from a 15 minute charge puts a lot of stress on the battery shortening its lifespan. If the charge rate is limited to half or less of the maximum discharge rate then the lifespan will be much longer than if it is charged at a very high rate.

            If you have to have an EV then follow the rules below for maximum battery life when possible

            1) Use a low rate overnight charge (7kW or below) rather than fast chargers

            2) Do not discharge the battery below 20% (lithium ion batteries last much longer when they are not fully discharged)

            3) If possible terminate the charge below 95% capacity (again this is much kinder to lithium ion batteries)

            I know that the above rules are not always practical but when they are the battery lifespan will be much longer.

        4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          "Unless the manufacturers sort out a basic EV"

          That's something I really hope the manufactures are working on now. It takes a few years to get from design to road legal sales. Every EV or hybrid I've seen seem to be "top of the range" as far as accessories go. We need someone to come along with the EV or hybrid equivalent of the original Mini or Morris 1000 (Moggie) (but with something other than Lucas electrics!!)

          1. heyrick Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            Citroën Ami.

            It doesn't get more basic than that.

            1. Richard 12 Silver badge

              It's not a car

              The Ami and Twizy are electric quadbikes, to avoid having to comply with the car safety regulations.

              Just something to bear in mind.

              1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                Re: It's not a car

                OMG, you're right! I just had a look at an image search! Neither are a match for an original Mini or a Moggie. At least they could seat 4-5 people (with a bit of a squeeze!) I don't think I'd feel safe in one of those anywhere other than 30mph speed limit town driving!

          2. graeme leggett Silver badge

            Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

            Renault Twizy?

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

              Thanks both you and Heyrick. To be fair, I've not looked that hard yet. I'll be retiring a couple of years before the new ICE sales ban comes in so probably won't really be looking for an EV until then. I'm currently doing frequent 300+ mile round trips at least 3 days per week so there's nothing useful out there for me yet that's even close to being affordable. Hybrids are shit for long trips because most of the time you are hauling batteries and electric motors that are rarely used. The petrol fuel consumption is worse than my diesel gets, from a one week experience with a hybrid hire car (and yes, I do drive sensibly and efficiently and very quickly learned the "tricks" for the hybrid). Once I'm retired, my daily usage will be almost exclusively "local", ie well within the range of the cheapest EV and time will not be an important factor if I need a longer journey requiring charging breaks.

        5. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: The charger numbers seem a bit low.

          "London to Edinburgh, 400-odd miles which the vast majority of IC cars can do on one tank of juice in one go then I personally do not consider it fit for purpose."

          When you get a bit older you will find that going from London to Edinburgh in one go is no longer possible and it's not due to "range" anxiety, it's bladder anxiety. Personally, I'd take the train, but if I were to drive, I'd be stopping one or twice. One of those stops would be for a meal and that's at least 45 minutes going by my past long trip history. A basic stop without a meal is generally around 20 minutes. Many new EV's can charge from 10-80% in less than 20 minutes on a suitably fast charger. Of course, choosing an EV might not be a problem if you only make really long trips like this every year or so.

          I would rather have an overnight train that took 8-9 hours with a small sleeping compartment. Fresh coffee and danish would be nice when I wake up. Travel time = almost zero. I find air travel at least a full day regardless of how short the distance and only viable when crossing oceans. HSR can be as bad. Too long for a quick long distance trip and too short for a hearty nap. Maybe if the trip was coast to coast non-stop in the US it would be ok. That could be 10-12 hours or one travel day which is what traveling by air works out to be with security and having to arrive early, etc. So much time wasted to not be making any progress.

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Marty McFly Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Coppertop syndrome

    If the market doesn't demand your product, legislate it!

  6. Martin Howe
    FAIL

    I hardly need to drive; but when I need to, I need it *bad*. If it wasn't for astronomy club, nature reserves and a couple of other things, I would ditch the car entirely; however, these are too far to cycle or walk, and most cannot be reached by public transport *at all*. Period. Full stop. End of story.

    The few that can are prohibitively expensive to reach, or do not run at the times needed to leave and get back home, or have long waits for connections. Even the few that can be cycled to from a train involve expensive equipment than can't fit on a bike or is too fragile to risk taking by bike. Until the government mandates buses to places like this, ditching the car is nonsense.

    EVs at £1000 or so for reasonable second-hand price? Like my petrol car? That needs to become common. Even then, I am one of millions with no off-street parking. The government needs to *flood* the country with charging points before even thinking of banning petrol and/or sales of second hand petrol cars.

    1. ravenviz Silver badge

      Hardly needing to drive is a good place to be.

      There are many who do drive who also hardly need to drive, but continue to do so.

      % car journeys x miles or less that could be walked or cycled.

      Usual naysayers are those that actually need to drive while the masses keep schtum.

    2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      The goal is to deprive people of those things. You won't go to astronomy club anymore, but you'll get plenty of anti-depressants to choose from.

      1. ravenviz Silver badge

        The goal is carbon neutral.

        What you are talking about are outcomes.

        There will be change no doubt.

        Choose your own conspiracy theory but in the end it's not about you.

        Give our children a life.

        1. heyrick Silver badge

          Downvote because one pretty much cannot exist and be "carbon neutral".

          Do you like eating meat? If a veggie, you eat wheat products? Even organic has its impact.

          I suppose you might just scrape by as sort of neutral if you live completely off grid in a little log cabin you made yourself (and replanted trees to offset) eating only that which you grow yourself.

          But you're here, writing this. Which implies electricity, computers, plastics, probably a home with all the usual modern comforts. And now, with electric vehicles, sure there will be less impact of fuel extraction, plus the added bonus of not throwing obscene amounts of money at some seriously dodgy people.

          But in, say, twenty or thirty years after we're all pushed to EVs, the mountain of batteries and old circuit boards and all the weird stuff they contain will become it's own ecological nightmare. Plus lithium is a finite resource and its extraction uses vast amounts of water. We're basically swapping one environmental cockup for another.

          The proper answer is to outlaw cars, period. ICE or EV, they're all ecologically disastrous. Yet, oddly enough, I can't imagine a plan like that getting any traction given that so much of our lives and economy depend upon social mobility.

    3. John Robson Silver badge

      "EVs at £1000 or so for reasonable second-hand price? Like my petrol car? That needs to become common. Even then, I am one of millions with no off-street parking. The government needs to *flood* the country with charging points before even thinking of banning petrol and/or sales of second hand petrol cars."

      Two points - the second hand market is still maturing, and if you add up the cost of running an ICE and compare it with the cost of running an EV... then you might be willing to spend a little more up front (vimes boots, I know) and make savings all the way.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        "Two points - the second hand market is still maturing, and if you add up the cost of running an ICE and compare it with the cost of running an EV... then you might be willing to spend a little more up front (vimes boots, I know) and make savings all the way."

        The problem though, as has been mentioned further up, there are many who would have to walk bare-foor for a year or two to save up for those "Vimes boots". And then hope other important things don't eat into the savings for the next pair of "Vimes Boots", like a broken heating system.

        1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

          Exactly. I had to get a loan to buy my £1000 second-hand car to get to work. It was either that or starve.

      2. KBeee

        When government income is hit by the loss of fuel duty and fuel VAT, how long do you think it'll be before the electricity you use for your EV from a charger gets very expensive? Electricity base cost + equivalent to fuel duty + 20% VAT.

        1. batfink

          And you can bet your hairy arse that those nice subsidies for buying an EV and installing a charger are going to disappear PDQ, further tilting the economics.

          1. KBeee

            ...and Congestion Charge exemptions, Vehical Excise Duty exemptions

          2. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge

            Prescient, much?

            >>And you can bet your hairy arse that those nice subsidies for buying an EV and installing a charger are going to disappear PDQ

            As indeed they have... Govt has discontinued the £1500 grant towards the cost of a new EV with immediate effect...

            linky

            1. MachDiamond Silver badge

              Re: Prescient, much?

              "And you can bet your hairy arse that those nice subsidies for buying an EV and installing a charger are going to disappear PDQ

              "

              Those subsidies need to expire as initially planned. The purpose was to kick start the change, not to perpetuate it. If it's rationally determined that it's still necessary, a new program should be developed, not an extension of the old one forever and ever.

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          "When government income is hit by the loss of fuel duty and fuel VAT, how long do you think it'll be before the electricity you use for your EV from a charger gets very expensive?"

          Some states in the US are already charging a registration fee premium as a replacement for fuel taxes. They are also charging more money than the tax one might pay with an efficient ICE vehicle driven an average number of miles per year. Don't worry about The Man being cheated of their take. Ain't gonna happen.

      3. MachDiamond Silver badge

        "add up the cost of running an ICE and compare it with the cost of running an EV"

        True, true. Now look up the cost to repair many new EV's. For giggles, look up what an OEM replacement headlight costs from Tesla for a Model 3. Compare that to your basic low cost econobox. Look up what a new display will run should something happen to damage your one. Since the car isn't fit to operate without that display, you can't put off the repair. The one in the Model S sells for more money than what I paid for my car. You don't get to just replace the screen unless you can find an independent shop that will do the work. Tesla requires the replacement of the whole module if you take it to them.

        For a real dose of fun, calculate the increased interest on a loan for an EV, more money for insurance and, in some cases, a higher registration cost. If those added expenses are wholly offset by the lower operating costs, you are laughing. It will depend a lot on your usage. Your expensive boots need to have an advantage over the cheaper alternative over time. If needing to replace one broken headlight tips the balance, you may want to reconsider.

    4. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "The government needs to *flood* the country with charging points before even thinking of banning petrol and/or sales of second hand petrol cars."

      Why do you feel it's the government's responsibility to install charging stations? Do you really want "the government" operating these stations or contracting their operation to unaccountable companies that aren't worried about "profits" and efficiency? Expect that power will be £5/kWh and 60% of chargers will be out of order.

  7. autopoiesis

    Planned car ownership decline

    Current infrastructure cannot support 100% electric cars.

    Realistic infrastructure extension will not be able to either.

    Seems the only variable that can change is the number of car owners.

    Downwards, drastically, and permanently.

    1. Duncan Macdonald
      Mushroom

      Re: Planned car ownership decline

      What do you think the government plan is ? It seems obvious that only the rich and powerful are going to be permitted to drive.

      Remember governments take the 1984 novel by George Orwell as an instruction manual.

      I expect that 2028 and 2029 will be bumper years for new car sales as people finally realize the coming problem.

      Icon for what should happen to the "green" idiots in government =====>

      1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: Planned car ownership decline

        Driving is the main PITA of the rich. They absolutely hate being stuck in traffic because each 5 minutes lost costs them millions.

        The goal is to take the pleb off the roads, put them on bikes and have all the roads (paid for by the pleb) for sole use of the rich.

        1. nobody who matters

          Re: Planned car ownership decline

          Except that putting all the plebs on bicycles will clog the roads up even more, and slower moving clogs too.

          1. Richard 12 Silver badge

            Re: Planned car ownership decline

            A problem easily solved by simply driving over the plebs.

            May require a "bicycle plough" on the front to sweep the bodies to the side, and armoured windows to intercept the pitchforks, but I'm sure the Rees-Moggs of the world will be quite happy with that situation.

            1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
              Facepalm

              Re: A problem easily solved by simply driving over the plebs

              Move to Florida. Death Santis passed a law that allows car drivers to do just that to pedestrians.

            2. alisonken1
              Joke

              Re: Planned car ownership decline

              Nah - they'll just get the Crowd Control Truck to help clear the roads.

          2. ravenviz Silver badge

            Re: Planned car ownership decline

            Every additional bicycle is one fewer car.

            People moan about the 20 seconds waiting to pass a cyclist who may be actually travelling at half the speed limit but are quite content to sit stationary in traffic jams for way longer!

            As stated in the forum, the average daily car mileage in the UK is 20 miles, which can easily be cycled by many who choose to drive instead. Sure sometimes it’s raining or cold, but often times the opportunity is more than available.

            Maybe it’s to justify the hundreds of £’s per month cost of a car, so it must be used. Or maybe there are other reasons people concoct to conceal their bone ass laziness to make any changes for the benefit of themselves, others, and the planet.

            1. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

              Re: Planned car ownership decline

              Only the very fit can maintain 15mph on the flat for any distance. Normally its 10-12mph, less up hills. Out of town the queue gets quite long now.

            2. nobody who matters

              Re: Planned car ownership decline

              ".....the average daily car mileage in the UK is 20 miles, which can easily be cycled by many who choose to drive instead....."

              Regarding my busiest season of the year (UK Harvest; July to October/November); If you wish to get up early enough to cycle 10 miles to arrive by 7am, and then set off back for home at 10pm or later, and do this for 6 to 7 days a week for nearly four consecutive months, you are very welcome.

              I would rather not have to try thank you very much.

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Planned car ownership decline

          "Driving is the main PITA of the rich. They absolutely hate being stuck in traffic because each 5 minutes lost costs them millions."

          A person I know put himself through uni by driving an attorney to and from the office M-F. The attorney fitted out a van as a mobile office so he could work 1.5-2 hours that the commute time took each way. This was back when cell phones were the size and weight of a brick and got 20 mins of talk time with the extended battery. These days it makes even more sense. An attorney billing $500/hour might generate another couple of grand with a chauffeur and that driver will only cost a couple of hundred per day. This acquaintance went to a uni not far from the law office so he could maximize the courses he could get to each day. The job paid for his degree.

  8. cornetman Silver badge

    I don't think that 2035 is at all ambitious. Considering that we just went through 2 years of pandemic madness, the transformation of the world in Ukraine has created enormous social interest in moving to EVs. The problem is supply of vehicles and again that situation is changing rapidly. Stocks are still low but models are coming out left, right and centre. The pace of change is quite frankly staggering.

    Honestly, I give it 5 or 6 years and it will be all over.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Russia will probably sell more fossil fuel at a discount to make up for the loss of revenue, thereby increasing global CO2.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And there is no reason that the petrol fleet can't be kept running for 25 years by, y'know, maintenance.

      As they go out of service, there will be a steady supply of motors and other parts from the wreckers. And it keeps the mechanics in jobs until they retire too.

      There's really no reason at all today to be selling anything new that is not at least hybrid, or really a phev. They should just stop. Now. We have plenty of petrol cars to keep us going.

  9. DS999 Silver badge

    Before people panic

    Stuff like this sets a goal, to get industry to work towards delivering it. It can always be pushed back if problems arise like the naysayers who don't even want to try will claim like "not enough lithium in the world" (not true, and who says we'll be using lithium in car batteries by 2035?) and "not enough electrical grid capacity" (this is probably the biggest potential roadblock, particularly with Putin's war and Europe's dependence on Russian gas)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Before people panic

      That's the point - it can't be pushed back, the train has already left the station.

      This should all have happened 20+ years ago for it to make a difference.

    2. I am the liquor

      Re: Before people panic

      And crucially, it sets a goal that the people setting it will never have to deliver on. The failure to meet it will be someone else's fault.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not enough charging points.

    Sub-stations can't handle the increase in electricity anyway. Especially when you factor in everything else moving to electric.

    Power stations can't handle the increase and certainly won't be able to in a few years.

    The cost for infrastructure is going to be huge and as we live in a capitalist society and there isn't much profit to be made it's not going to happen unless we the tax payer stump up the money as usual for someone else to make a profit down the line.

    Cars will eventually go but there won't be any replacement for the majority of people and that's the plan.

    1. ravenviz Silver badge

      The biggest portion of tax goes to health and welfare, a lot of it related to unhealthy lifestyles, one of the many elephants in the room being unnecessary car use.

  11. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    You shall not have personal mobility and you shall like it.

    Where am I going to get a 15-year-old secondhand leccy car for 500 quid?

    1. John Robson Silver badge

      Maybe you should wait until the second hand market matures.

      Where can I get my second hand iPhone 14 max or Galaxy Z Fold 3 for £300?

      They'll never catch on.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        You can already get a decent and serviceable second hand phone for well under £300. I get your point, but it was a shit analogy. You should stick with the traditional El Reg Comentards car analogies...oh...wait :-)

    2. nobody who matters

      ".....Where am I going to get a 15-year-old secondhand leccy car for 500 quid?..."

      At just about any second hand car dealer, but probably not until about 15 years time (whether it will be worthwhile to buy, or even a runner remains to be seen).

      1. ravenviz Silver badge

        Second / 10+ year old Nissan Leafs are going for £5k on Auto Trader, a lot of money for 30 mile range but could suit some.

        1. stiine Silver badge

          Plus $4500 for a new battery..

  12. IGotOut Silver badge

    Sooo...

    Where do I charge mine?

    I park, sometimes in a small car park, sometimes in one of two laybys and often out side other people's houses.

    So in our village, given 70% of the residents are in the same position... How do we charge?

    For starters the grid tends to fail least 5 times a year (yes that reliable).

    Street lights? 50% of the roads only have them on junctions.

    Rip up every road for kerbside? We only just got fibre 3 months ago.

    So maybe on the industrial estate I work?

    The one were 25% of cars park in random unallocated spaces?

    Ahhh but its OK everyone works from home....

    Well except us, we're busy making engines.... Oh and battery housings, electric motor housings and regenerative braking components.

    Nothing important.

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

      Re: Sooo...

      I'm in the same boat(well driveway)

      1. its all terraced housing around here .. with luck you may get a parking spot within 10 doors of your front door but more than likely not.... so there goes your 'power lead' to your car

      2. ahh but you can couple them to the lamp post... ok thats 10 lamp posts in my road to service 122 cars 300 watts per car= 3.2 Kw of power from each post(plus cables trailing everywhere.. although that could be fixed with a standard plug and the car carries the cable on a reel), I've no idea how much the supply cabling to each post can carry but I'd be very surprised if its more than 1Kw.

      3. as people have pointed out.. power generation... dark windless winters night... oops there goes the grid unless we start building nuclear now... as for using fossil fuels to generate power for your EV car... kinda makes it pointless doesn't it.

      4. walk/bicycle to work... yeah... 17 miles thats a 5 hr walk to work for me (and yes its uphill both ways ;) ) and bicycle only if you're unhappy with the world and want to end it all(even that takes over an hour & 1/2)

      5. But then I could quit my job, find something closer (bloody unlikely) , but then who'll make all those marvellous medical bits I make that keep people alive (current job: designing a build to make ventilator valve bodies)

      In short , the ideas are full of laudable intentions that play well with the 'green' lobby and the general public, unluckily for us though, the people making the decisions will be long gone with their money before we pull back the curtain to reveal a cloud of hollow promises

      1. ravenviz Silver badge

        Re: Sooo...

        Clearly not working for you, but we never hear from the 2-bed semi with a drive, fuel optimist, live within 5 miles of work brigade.

      2. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: Sooo...

        1 - And when everyone wants to park outside their house at least once a week I'll bet you get an evening vehicle shuffle. You might even meet a neighbour.

        Or maybe you could hook up to each other's EVSE and have a cross charging arrangement (plenty of companies will help with that).

        2 - 122 cars and 10 lamposts.. That's a trivial 12 day rotation - but I don't think most lampposts are sufficiently equipped at the moment. Not too hard to pull an extra cable to charge two off each post - that's now a 6 day rotation (and assumes that none of them can charge during the day or anywhere else)

        3 - If the bloody national grid don't see an issue then why does everyone else. We could literally burn the petrol in a power station and get more vehicle miles out of it that ICE vehicles do.

        4 - 17 miles - that's only a fraction further than my cycle commute, which was under 40 minutes on a good day, and 45 on a bad day. If you start cycling then you get fit, it's not the other way round (though 17 miles is a fairly steep starting curve. I'd strongly suggest e-assist for a beginner though.

        5 - Or you could move house, or (more realistically) you could stop making excuses and start trying to find solutions. You're as bad as the bloody "it''ll never work, it doesn't run on oats" brigade.

        Again - it's not the cycling that's the problem, but the attitude.

    2. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: Sooo...

      "So maybe on the industrial estate I work?

      The one were 25% of cars park in random unallocated spaces?"

      And - who cares what space you park at... have chargers at even 30% of them and a tag/app/anpr/... to start the charge.

  13. spireite Silver badge

    Charrging port.... ?

    Presumably, all to be USB-C too!

  14. brainwrong

    2000 chips

    "The average electric vehicle has 2,000 chips in one car"

    I'm sure the semiconductor industry's trend of integrating more functions into chips will continue, helped by the market maturing and volumes increasing which will make specialist chips for EV's worth making. That ought to reduce the chip count in time, but to what I don't know.

    If I buy an EV (I have nowhere to charge one) then maybe I could keep some salt and vinegar in the car and eat some when I'm hungry :)

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: 2000 chips

      ""The average electric vehicle has 2,000 chips in one car""

      I'm going to go with "feature" bloat being the biggest driver of that number. How many fewer would it take if most of the gadgets were stripped out and the car wasn't phoning home to collect "data". Just a, gasp, straight swap of power plants rather than a whole new bundle of things that are going to break and be expensive to repair (or impossible in 10 years) is more what I'd like. Companies are doing conversions on classics that skip all of those bells and whistles. I'd love an e-E-Type Jag. It's also not going to have a bunch of useless modern crap hung on it and won't be ratting me out to the home office and the filth.

  15. Totally not a Cylon
    Alien

    Mars is looking very attractive....

    as per title.

    Elon's Mars colony is looking even more attractive right now.....

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Mars is looking very attractive....

      "Elon's Mars colony is looking even more attractive right now....."

      As that's only ever going to exist in Elon's head, it might be a bit cramped to move in.

  16. Filippo Silver badge

    Let's not forget that this is a vote by the EU Parliament. It's not actually law. It still has to get through Commission, and then through each national government. The EU Parliament can start stuff, but, by design, it can't actually get it done.

    I wouldn't be surprised if, by the time this proposal gets fully processed, the actual date becomes 2040 or more, or the proposal dies outright.

    Even if it gets through, if it turns out that it can't be done without social upheaval, then it won't get done. Current governments are actually very weak and can't do anything that really pisses off the people; the gilet jaunes forced Macron to backtrack on a simple fuel price rise, and he actually was comparatively strong. Here in Italy, when the fuel price started to rise on its own, we got subsidies before there were even any protests, because everyone knew that no government would survive a large price hike. Whether this is a good thing because democracy, or a bad thing because short-term thinking, it's up to you, but rest assured that nobody is going to take our cars any time soon.

  17. heyrick Silver badge

    Useful for city dwellers, I guess...

    I have no doubts that electric cars may be great in towns and cities where distances are fairly small and charging points are common.

    Out in the rural wasteland, it's a different story. I have seen some charging points, but they never seem to be in use. Perhaps because a 60km commute isn't particulary unusual. My nearest big town is 47km away. And just a couple of weeks ago I went to pick up a parcel from my nearest UPS access point (they won't leave it in the letterbox like everybody else). 73km round trip.

    And I'm noting that a dinky little EV that I could buy (if I won the lottery and had that kind of money) claims 70-100km between charges, and that's a NEW battery.

    I, for one, find the idea to ban the internal combustion engine to be utterly ridiculous. Exactly how does one expect farmers to plough their fields? What about long haul (trucks etc)? Or the taxi industry? Or emergency vehicles? Sorry, your house will just have to burn down, all our appliances are on charge? Will this nonsense mean the end of daily postal delivery? No more courier deliveries. And, of course, you can forget about fresh vegetables from, say, Spain. Or even the other end of the country. And, of course, you can forget about driving to the Med (or to Cornwall) for your holiday. That'll be a logistical nightmare of how and where and when to charge.

    Until EVs can even attempt to match what ICEs can do, one should be cautious about outright banning them.

    Can't help but think a much greater impact could be made by simply banning all domestic vehicles from large towns and cities, especially if the transportation infrastructure is good (like in Nantes, for example).

    1. Alumoi Silver badge

      Re: Useful for city dwellers, I guess...

      The ban is for private citizens, a.k.a. the great unwashed. You know, the ones without any kind of say in running the country.

    2. ravenviz Silver badge

      Re: Useful for city dwellers, I guess...

      The ban is only for cars:

      https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-takes-historic-step-towards-net-zero-with-end-of-sale-of-new-petrol-and-diesel-cars-by-2030

    3. graeme leggett Silver badge

      Re: Useful for city dwellers, I guess...

      1) I haven't seen any mention that the ban includes agricultural vehicles

      2) The idea is to phase out diesel haulage, but again, is that in the same time frame as cars

      3) A lot of the taxis I see are hybrids

      The rest of your post is further mix of strawman and Nirvana fallacy.

    4. John Robson Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Useful for city dwellers, I guess...

      What EV are you looking at with a 50 mile range?

      The Smart EQ is bascially the only vehicle currently around with that low a range.

      Even the eUp is 125 miles

      "Until EVs can even attempt to match what ICEs can do, one should be cautious about outright banning them."

      Newsflash - they already can... even on extremely long journeys they are already capable of making less difference to journey time than the normal variation of traffic.

      Until your car can get up steps as well as my horse I won't even consider what I might be missing.

      1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

        Re: Useful for city dwellers, I guess...

        When I was a student, a few decades ago, I was able to buy an old car to carry me occasionnaly from / to "home" (aka the old folks). It cost me the equivalent of 150 € (200 USD, 100 pounds). In today's money that would be about 5 times that, but still I had to team up with my sister to gather the funds. The vehicle was able to cover the 450+ kilometers (one way) on a single tank. Its dry weight was about 450 kg. It had very litterally zero electronics, I routinely fixed it with a basic set of tools (think of the set of tools available to a student 30 years ago). It was over 15 years old and over 250 000 km when I got it, we brought it well over 350 000 km and was over 25 years old when mutual relocation forced us to part with it and in the meantime it cost us exactly zilch to maintain. I was doing the maintenance. It was still running according to spec when we were forced to part with it.

        Newsflash : a lot of students and low-pay workers are in the same situation as I was in 1998, if not worse.

        Now name an EV that is even remotely close to that kind of affordability / durability. EVs are OK for rich people who don't really need a car, but that's pretty much it.

        Of course now that I am considerably better off, I understand your argument, but the 1998 me seriously winces and thinks "this guy has clearly much more money than sense"

        1. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: Useful for city dwellers, I guess...

          Now name a car that will do the same for those who can't do their own maintenance.

          What you actually need for that scenario is either a sane vehicle rental scheme, or preferably decent public transport.

          Of course you could also ask to name an ev that is twenty years old that's from a cheap model in the first place...

          The EV second hand market isn't yet mature... but that's ok. the ICE second hand market won't disappear the instant the new cars stop being sold.

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Useful for city dwellers, I guess...

          "Now name an EV that is even remotely close to that kind of affordability / durability. EVs are OK for rich people who don't really need a car, but that's pretty much it."

          Another poor argument. The same sort of blather is being argued in the US where there are insufficient numbers of chargers in poor neighborhoods and "people of color" can't afford an EV. Yeah, well, I can't afford one either and I own my own home. I think that charger companies don't want to put charging stations in the ghettos due to a complete lack of business and a very high possibility of regular stripping of the units for copper and aluminum.

          Many people can't afford holidays in other countries with their whole family due to the cost, that doesn't mean every holiday booking company needs to close up or offer a certain number of below cost budget packages. We shouldn't expect that we are going to get everything we desire and it's up to the government to make it happen by passing a law the same way that Bill in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls thought should happen.

          If I want something, I have to work to be able to afford it. I can hope somebody will give me one for free or at a very low cost, but I can't pin my hopes on that.

  18. mark l 2 Silver badge

    I like EV's and can see that they are part of the future of personal transport but their green credentials need to vastly improve by 2035 if we are going to say they are the best environmental solution to replace ICE vehicles. As although EVs don't omit any pollutants from an exhaust pipe (most modern ICE vehicles are pretty clean now anyway) the mining of the rare earth elements to make the batteries is not environmentally friendly with huge areas getting stripped of natural habitat for mining plus their is the issue of using child labour in the DRC.

    So we really need to be recycling every used battery to get back the resources before we dig up more minerals out of the ground, even if that means legislation needs to be written to put the onus onto the battery manufactures to do so. Its no good saying we have cut down on pollution in the EU if we have chopped down millions of trees in the Congo to do it.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Translation: the industry is concerned about the impact to their bottom line, not "battery availability."

    Lets stay on track: all they care about is PROFITS, and they only do what they do for the environment because it will be PROFITABLE.

  20. TimMaher Silver badge
    Go

    Lightyear

    I’ve been following them with interest since inception.

    They just posted their first test car on a YouTube broadcast.

    It was interesting.

    They may well become part of the solution.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    EVs are like BMWs

    If you can't afford a new one, you certainly won't be able to afford a second hand one.

  22. Lost in Cyberspace

    Queuing is the least of our worries.

    Petrol stations won't be the destination for recharging... car parks will. Supermarkets, public car parks, workplaces and so on will be all have chargers on nearly every space (or a lot of spaces, anyway).

    Still concerned about battery lifetimes, about how we get the raw materials, how we get so much electricity on to the grid, into homes and so on.

    And those that aren't rich enough to charge their cars in a driveway will end up paying a premium to recharge via a third party service...

    1. batfink

      Re: Queuing is the least of our worries.

      So you expect the supermarkets, workplaces etc to just swallow the cost of all and sundry charging on their properties?

      1. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge

        Re: Queuing is the least of our worries.

        >>So you expect the supermarkets, workplaces etc to just swallow the cost of all and sundry charging on their properties?

        Lidl already has two chargers in our Valley. The gear was installed when the store had a re-fit. Given their reputation as a business, I doubt they are "swallowing the cost". They can be used by anyone; indeed the local DPD man who has an electric transit uses them, as do various other commercial, and privately owned EVs.

        If a small supermarket in a small valley in South Wales can run a couple of charging poitns at a profit., I guess larger supermarkets can do so as well. It is, after all, not rocket science.

      2. Filippo Silver badge

        Re: Queuing is the least of our worries.

        Power at charging points is insanely costly. It's something like three to four times what I pay at home. I think that a charging point that gets a significant utilization rate should make a tidy profit.

        1. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Queuing is the least of our worries.

          "Power at charging points is insanely costly. "

          It depends a lot on the rate of charging. Fast chargers cost more as the electric company has to provision a large amount of power to the location. A 2kW AC charger isn't a big deal. Most kettles draw more than that. While 30 minutes on a 2kW feed doesn't add a ton of range, if you are plugged in much of the time, it works. ABC, Always Be Charging. If I have an EV and there is a choice of stores, one with and one without charging, I'll go to the one with charging. Even if that store charges a bit more because I'm getting "free" charging. Ok, I'm more analytical than that, but most people aren't. They'll happily pay more at a store where they can use their rewards card rather than one that doesn't have a card and charges less. But but but, they're getting 10% off their Eccles cakes (and paying far more for chops).

      3. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Queuing is the least of our worries.

        "So you expect the supermarkets, workplaces etc to just swallow the cost of all and sundry charging on their properties?"

        Yes. In the case of shopping centers they will see it as a way to attract shoppers by offering inexpensive or free basic AC charging with a paid DCFC option. Some places will amortize their costs for EV charging by increasing what they charge for their products. At the cinema, that might be 50p more for a ticket. Workplaces might offer charging as a bonus. The costs might also be tax deductible with grants being available to put the chargers in. They won't be high power but enough to supply a fair charge from a whole day being plugged in. Some workplaces might charge a fee but the employee would also benefit from a parking space that's closer to the front where it would be easiest to run the power.

  23. Ashto5

    Yawn Fantasy

    Expect this to be sidelined

    EU & UK do not have the capacity to build the electricity generation in that time scale

    So now we have to turn coal back on or buy Russian gas

    The rare earth ores required mean digging up half of Australia that’s going to go down really well.

    You will be forced on to public transport and cycling to get anywhere

    As for electric prices they will be through the roof

    So no saving on fuel

    Hybrid is the only way froward at the moment

    But hey let’s close the door on that muppets

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    EU lawmakers vote to ban sales of combustion engine cars from 2035

    WE are no longer in the EU. So this will have no impact on England The UK whatsoever! That's one in the eye to those unelected bureaucrats!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nope. Everyone had their chance to vote. When you don't vote, you agree to accept the outcome. You had your chance to consult, and chose to not have a say. The entire planet knew when this vote was happening, and even in the US it had Presidential election level media coverage. Face it, you blew it by not bothering to vote, and it's irreversible. Stop complaining about it, deal with the new world, and work to make Britain great again. If you don't want to do that, move your ass to the EU where unelected politicians make the decisions for you since voting obviously doesn't matter to you.

    1. batfink

      Really? Who are you accusing of not voting?

      And "unelected politicians" - who are these exactly? Politicians in the EU are elected by definition. Try having an actual look at how the EU operates and stop with the tired "unelected" trope. Only your fellow Daily Mail readers fall for it.

    2. Filippo Silver badge

      I'm not quite sure who's "you" in your post, or what vote you're talking about. However, I'd like to point out that the vote that's the subject of the article is a vote by the European Parliament.

      Now, every EU institution has a democratic mandate of some sort; some of them are rather indirect, but the European Parliament is directly elected by European citizens.

      EU parliament elections tend to offer a fairly wide choice of parties, and the last time we've even had a pretty decent turnout. Describing it as "unelected politicians" is just about as wrong as you can get.

      1. nobody who matters

        Yes, the European Parliament is an elected body, but the Commission and President are not.

        Ultimately, it is the Commission which determines which new laws and regulations the Parliament get to vote about.

  26. Neoc

    I'm curious on how non-EU vehicles will now traverse the EU. Will there still be petrol stations along the highways, or will they all have converted to 100% electric?

    1. Filippo Silver badge

      I assume that will be handled by market forces. But cars are objects that get replaced very slowly. Even assuming that this proposal actually happens, it will take decades before ICEs are actually no longer in widespread usage, causing petrol stations to be no longer viable.

  27. Winkypop Silver badge
    Windows

    Car ownership circa 2035+

    Like Singapore.

    Private EV cars in the EU will be ridiculously expensive and only for the truly wealthy.

    Everyone else will be catching the Prolebus.

  28. batfink

    Nice conflation of different measures

    In this article I see figures on the numbers of petrol vs diesel cars currently on the road beside percentage figures for new registrations. This smells of press release fudging.

    If you're going to provide figures, please be consistent. What is the breakdown, by percentage, of petrol vs diesel vs EV? This will be a much more useful figure than past figures vs new registrations.

    I also notice repeated inferences that there will be no further ICE vehicle sales past 2035, including one direct quote to this effect. This is just plain false - as we know, the ban will be on new vehicles. Unfortunately I see this same falsehood regularly in the UK national papers.

    A bit more attention to detail please El Reg!

    </rant>

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nice conflation of different measures

      It's called propaganda.

      If you want the truth, avoid the British media.

      Subjective "news" isn't news, it's just opinion, hidden agendas, PR, spin doctoring and in some cases, out and out lies.

      Unfortunately, organisations offering objective news are few and far between and (almost by definition) foreign, which "plucky Brits" therefore immediately assume are biased even when they are the most unbiased source on the planet.

  29. fredj

    Don't forget 50/60Hz and how 'strong' the local supply networks are. Any handy person can swap a line socket. I've heard of people simply hooking their cable over a local supply cable. That works.

  30. 2Fat2Bald

    One of two things are going to happen;

    1/ We'll discover a way of producing lots of cheap electricity and install a massive charging infrastructure for all those people who don't have a parking space right outside their house. We'll also discover massive deposits of lithium needed to make the batteries for these electric cars. The actual cars don't need much improvement for mass adoption - current electric cars are actually "good enough" - it's just that Teslas are ruinously expensive for most people and I've read that the raw materials (lithium, particularly) are hard to come by - no idea how true/persistent that is.

    or

    2/ Cars will become - once again - the preserve of the rich. The less well off will walk, use public transport and just have to live and shop near to where they work. Like things were until about 70 years ago. Streets will go back to pedestrian/cyclist zones with the occasional electric car humming past. It might be nice to have less traffic noise, congestion and for kids to play in the street again. Local shops will make a comeback once we're no longer driving to edge-of-town big-box stores to shop. People will WFH much more as commuting becomes more expensive and time consuming.

    I know one thing. Fuel is reaching £2.00 a Litre (or £9.00 a Gallon if you prefer) and the roads are still packed with cars - mostly bigger and less fuel efficient than needed. That tells me that mere financial pressure won't stop people from being in love with their cars, so this process is going to be painful.

  31. Ahab Returns

    Diesel and Petrol products are still going to be available after 2035 and even when they are finally pensioned off my Series 3 will merrily glug down veggie oil (currently £1.30 a litre round these country parts). In fact I'll be long dead by the time the dino juice goes bye-bye.

  32. A_Melbourne

    "Dumb and Dumber"

    I am glad to be out of Europe. In a country that is not taking part in this mass extinction event that is called "sanctions".

    85% of the world's population is out of the information bubble of the UK, Europe, the USA and Australia.

    I wish you all good luck this coming winter. 2035 is a long way away. Will you survive long enough to "own nothing and be happy"

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