Sale of petrol and diesel cars to be banned by 2040

Soldato
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You realise it's just the sale of NEW cars right? ICE cars won't just disappear for a very long time.

I wouldn't be surprised if the tax on fuel goes up though as an incentive to change over, plus I doubt whatever system they bring in to replace the VED bands when too many cars are exempt from the current emissions based pricing will be all that friendly on combustion engines.

Still it took 12 years or so for leaded petrol to be banned so hopefully petrol cars will hang around for a while to come.
 
Caporegime
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I wouldn't be surprised if the tax on fuel goes up though as an incentive to change over, plus I doubt whatever system they bring in to replace the VED bands when too many cars are exempt from the current emissions based pricing will be all that friendly on combustion engines.

Still it took 12 years or so for leaded petrol to be banned so hopefully petrol cars will hang around for a while to come.

Especially as most European countries are decades behind the UK. When i travel the continent you still see Mk2 Golfs and Mk3 Astras as everyday cars in countries like Poland and Lithuania.

Also what happens to all the petrol and diesel as pretty much everything we touch comes from oil in some way or another! Will consumer products become more expensive as it is not being subsidized by fuel?
 
Associate
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You realise it's just the sale of NEW cars right? ICE cars won't just disappear for a very long time.

Yes I understand that and we'll have ICE cars for a long while, but I'm thinking about new cars, HGVs motorhomes etc.

Also the is ban is for new cars in the UK but no mention of buying overseas and bringing them over?
 
Soldato
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Yes I understand that and we'll have ICE cars for a long while, but I'm thinking about new cars, HGVs motorhomes etc.

Also the is ban is for new cars in the UK but no mention of buying overseas and bringing them over?

No mention of making your own either. Kit cars and low volume production cars already have exceptions for things.

There will probably end up being loads of loopholes. Usually is with this kind of thing.
 
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Associate
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No mention of making your own either. Kit cars and low volume production cars already have exceptions for things.

There will probably end up being loads of loopholes. Usually is with this kind of thing.

Exactly, and what would constitute as 'building' your own car etc. Good luck to whoever has the job for getting this all sorted, 14 years 9 months to go!
 
Soldato
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Exactly, and what would constitute as 'building' your own car etc. Good luck to whoever has the job for getting this all sorted, 14 years 9 months to go!

Buy old EV, strip out batteries and motors, whack a V8 in it and re-register it for a Q plate as a "heavily modified" car.

The ban is for selling new petrol/diesel cars, which is mostly going to apply to main dealers. It's doesn't say anything about actually making or registering them.
 
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Soldato
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I can imagine the opinion towards ICE cars turning quite hostile though.

Once the mob has been satisfied no one will care and they'll move on to something else. Just as they don't for the people still running classic cars with lead additives and no cat.

If the ban even happens, it will probably get delayed at least once. Or someone will find a clean burning alternative to petrol.
 
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Soldato
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I can’t imagine there will be many ICE cars being made by that point, let alone that anyone would want one? How many people want VHS players or ‘dumb’ mobile phones nowadays?
 
Soldato
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I can’t imagine there will be many ICE cars being made by that point, let alone that anyone would want one? How many people want VHS players or ‘dumb’ mobile phones nowadays?

For the same reason people still want classic cars (and their values have been going up faster since EVs arrived). There is something about the old styling and direct, analogue control is still the best way to drive a car. We've gone backwards in that regard.

Since people clocked on to all the spyware on "smart" phones, I think the number of people wanting dumb phones did rise :p
 
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Associate
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I can’t imagine there will be many ICE cars being made by that point, let alone that anyone would want one? How many people want VHS players or ‘dumb’ mobile phones nowadays?

That's a bad comparison. ICEs are fun and sound good. VHS and old mobiles don't do anything that modern tech doesn't do significantly better.

For anyone who enjoys driving for the sake of it, older cars have a lot of appeal. I think the sweet spot was probably around 10-15 years ago, before manual gearboxes and NA engines became a rarity (although there have been some great turbo cars over the years, of course).
 
Soldato
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As others have pointed out most people are unlikely to want to buy an ICE in 10 years anyway. The manufacturing cost of an EV is estimated to reach price parity with ICE in around 2025. Given the running costs of an EV it would basically be a no brainier at that point for the majority of the market.

People keep banging on about the infrastructure when in reality it’s way ahead of the number of EVs on the road at the moment. It just needs to keep pace but at the moment there is a bit of an arms race to get a big presence in the sector and with firms trying to catch Tesla.

Most of the things that the last few people have been posting are pretty niche and only enthusiasts care about them (noise, engagement, classics etc.). A few manufacturers humour the enthusiast market but in reality it represents a fraction of a % of the market and actually they really don’t care about it enough to compromise their volume sales for it. They’ll go where the money is at the end of the day.

HGVs are a different kettle of fish and nothing remotely suitable is on the market yet but give it time. The biggest issue here is not building the tractor units, the density is about there. It’s the power needed to rapid charge them at truck stops, that’s some serious grid upgrades that needs doing closer to the time.

Motor homes and mopeds/motorbikes are interesting ones though. Mopeds are easy to electrify and don’t really travel so far, in reality they could be banned in a few years. There are loads of electric models on the market. Bikes, less so, getting the range out of them is tricky but I doubt many people ever ride them far so a lot of the market is probably just fine.

I’d imagine motor homes will go when the base vehicles go electric. You can get a big battery in something the size of a motor home and it has other advantages like being able to run said motor home from it! Again the ban only effects cars and not LGVs, but as above, give it time. There is a lot of focus on cars at the moment but LGVs are a much better sector to target.
 
Soldato
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That's a bad comparison. ICEs are fun and sound good. VHS and old mobiles don't do anything that modern tech doesn't do significantly better.

For anyone who enjoys driving for the sake of it, older cars have a lot of appeal. I think the sweet spot was probably around 10-15 years ago, before manual gearboxes and NA engines became a rarity (although there have been some great turbo cars over the years, of course).

Yep, EVs are soulless mobile phones on wheels and there isnt much thats appealing about them to car enthusiasts. They are disposable things.

The best petrol cars will only go up in value now as we will never see their like again.
 
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Soldato
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That’s always been the case, future classics have always hit a base value and then started going up as the number of good examples dwindles. But you talk like this is a huge market, it really isn’t, it’s a few thousand people in a county that has 26 million cars on the road. No one is going to miss their BMW 1/2/316d msport or their 1L Corsa/Fiesta/206 (or the cross over equivalents) when EVs take over. Those sorts of mundane vehicles make up the overwhelming majority of the market, it’s not surprising that’s what most EVs (but not all) replicate because that’s the market they are targeting.

Why would car manufacturers target people like you when they know petrol is so engrained in your philosophy it doesn’t matter what they build you wouldn’t buy it anyway until the regulators force you to kicking and screaming.
 
Soldato
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One of the problems here is that everybody seems to be thinking in terms of people who are wanting (Able) to buy new cars.

There are very large numbers of people who spend their whole lives buying 15 year old cars for £500 and running them for another couple of years.

ICE cars are fine for this sort of thing. I doubt if EV's will be.

Most people do not buy new, Most people do not even buy "Second Hand"

How is the EV revolution going to provide for them?
 
Soldato
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One of the problems here is that everybody seems to be thinking in terms of people who are wanting (Able) to buy new cars.

There are very large numbers of people who spend their whole lives buying 15 year old cars for £500 and running them for another couple of years.

ICE cars are fine for this sort of thing. I doubt if EV's will be.

Most people do not buy new, Most people do not even buy "Second Hand"

How is the EV revolution going to provide for them?

I wouldn't say there are "very large" numbers of people buying £500 cars. EVs are already down to £5k on the used market, and that's with a very limited supply of new cars produced, very early in the days of the technology. They will eventually get down to the sub £2k/£1k level.

Obviously the combustion engine is going to be on the roads for a long time, but it will get gradually supplanted even on the used market as the years go by.
 
Soldato
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The ban is on the sale of new vehicles, you'll still be able to use an ice vehicle in 2035. You may not want to though as petrol costs will sky rocket and you'll likely encounter a fairly high number of locations you cannot go without paying extortionate fee's.

If you base your opinion on the change as it is today without even considering how technology will change in 15 years then yes it probably does look like a kick in the balls, chances are autonomous transport will be a thing and there won't be much need at all to own a car outright.
 
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Soldato
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I wouldn't say there are "very large" numbers of people buying £500 cars. EVs are already down to £5k on the used market, and that's with a very limited supply of new cars produced, very early in the days of the technology. They will eventually get down to the sub £2k/£1k level.

Obviously the combustion engine is going to be on the roads for a long time, but it will get gradually supplanted even on the used market as the years go by.


The problem is that a 15 year old ICE with 150,000 miles on it will have the same performance and range as it had when it was new. (Or very close to it)

Even if it was cheap, I doubt if a 15 year old EV with 150,000 miles on it will do so.
 
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