General Chat

Brian - LPG is extremely dangerous if the tank is ruptured - it sits there, in liquid form, under the vehicle and bursts into flame/explodes..
Compressed Natural gas, on the other hand, if the tank was ruptured, would float up and disperse, therefore being less likely to catch fire.

Both are pollutants - but then so is the process of making electricity :-S

If they want clean air does that mean that any lorries
delivering out with our country will not be permitted to
enter if they still use petrol/diesel and will we have electric
planes/ helicopters/tractors etc....laughable

Perhaps all the parents who drive their kids to school could be encouraged to damn well walk the relatively short distances. I am referring to townies BTW.

Although having said that we used to walk ours to school and it would take up to 30 minutes each way, that included time to nose around into the fields too.

We have a new diesel car every three years (cripmobile) and there are very good innovations included in the new models.

I absolutely agree that providing charging stations would be an urban nightmare and in rural areas too.

However, how many times have you sat in a traffic queue behind a vehicle that was spewing out noxious smoke? Start with getting those off the roads.

Our new to us 3 year old car has an eco function. Basically it means that if you've been stationary for a couple of minutes, the engine cuts out. It restarts when you engage a gear or press the accelerator.

Something similar fitted to all new vehicles would help to lessen emissions in jams.

IMHO plug-in electric cars are a dead end and once again the Government is backing the wrong horse.
As DetEcTive says, hydrogen looks to be a more flexible long-term solution, either in a combustion engine or a fuel cell.
And as an interim, what happened to LPG which still produces CO2 but I presume not NO2, although Rollo will undoubtedly be able to advise in that one?
In the short term, better traffic management to enable vehicles to keep moving in cities at an efficient speed rather than sitting in traffic producing fumes would at least reduce the problem.
If flexible solar panels are produced it may be that electric cars are covered in them so as to recharge or top up batteries on the move or when parked or in jams during daytime.

Toyota, Honda & Hyundai have all produced hydrogen fuelled cars. By then perhaps they will be a credible & cheaper alternative to all-electric powered cars?

Will we still need private cars? If you live in a city & town and only want to travel where public transport takes you, possibly not. As it stands, I'd much rather jump in a car & take 15 to 20 mins to travel to our nearest town, than have to time my journey to fit around the hourly bus which takes twice as long. By the way, there's a 2 1/2 hour service gap in the afternoon as the busses juggle timetables for the school out-chuck service.

I don't think many of us need bother about it. I, for one, would be nearly 100 and even if still here will certainly not be bothering about driving. :-D :-D

Certainly brings your age home to you when they start talking about 30/40 years time.

Would we need cars?.......food delivered to your home.....work from home.....etc etc....then the delivery trucks would just plug in at their depot

Gove proves once more that he is incapable of connected thought or understanding law. He is of course in kindrid company. Meanwhile the nox disaster which has led to the Supreme Court ruling rolls on without any meaningful resolution. Indeed electric trains for the Gwr and the North are to be replaced by diesel.

Starting from now there is no way that the UK can install sufficient extra electrical power by 2040. Then there is the small issue of fuel tax.

Government by gimmick , not that Labour offer any improvement.

Another case of someone not thinking fully about it before stating their intentions.

My OH got all worked up about it Brian
when he saw it on the news, told him to
calm down by the time it comes into force
he will be 98 that's if he lives that long.

The proposed ban on fossil fuel car sales from 2040 has the potential to outlaw car ownership for the poor. Many on the lower end of the income scale live in properties that do not have a garage of private parking area and leave their cars on the road.

For example several people who live on the main road near us have no garage but have yellow lines outside their house so park in our road a hundred meters or more away.

How are they expected to recharge an electric car without running a cable across a pavement or even to the other side of the road, always assuming that there is a socket available to plug it into?