New diesel and petrol vehicles to be banned from 2040 in UK

[brack]

I can retyre my Citroen c1 all round with pirelli or Dunlop tyres for less than my colleague pays for 1 of his. Of course if I was desperate I could just nick the wheels off a mobility scooter.

[Dunsignalling]

Way beyond my powers of endurance. I can only last 60-90 minutes at most behind the wheel before I have to have a break. Four hours at a stretch seems like suicide to me.

 

 

 

You've probably not had the dubious pleasure of a car dependent on metric-sized tyres. £250 a corner for nothing particularly special. There are many imperial-sized tyres that will outperform them for decidedly less money, but you do have to change the wheels to imperial too.

I'm OK for 2 hours or a bit more if driving conditions are fairly relaxed.

 

Thanks for the warning on metric tyres, I wasn't aware of the existence of wheel diameters defined in anything other than inches and will avoid buying anything fitted with them accordingly.

 

John

[Torper]

Yes I agree with your premise, but you misstate the 'experts' and their unanimity here in your example.  Based on the life forms that inhabit the black smoker hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean, water and heat are the primary requirements.  There are extensive hypotheses that such life may exist on Europa - (Jupiter / 6).

 

So basically you seem to be agreeing with me.  What you seem to be saying is that some experts have said that water and heat are primary requirements of life.  Other experts say there are more than two such requirements - 3, 6 or even 25.  It's also well known that there are various bodies - planets and moons, particularly Europa - in our solar system that may be capable of supporting life in some form because they may have these elements, or some of them.  Fine.  But that doesn't get away from the fact that most experts, certainly that I've heard, appear to maintain that if elements that give rise to life on earth (and these elements will almost certainly include water) don't exist on another planet, wherever that may be in the universe, then that planet is incapable of supporting life.  It seems to me that such a view is blinkered to the fact that there may well be alien forms of life, even intelligent life, that develop in environments utterly different from our own involving elements of which we may well have no knowledge whatever.

 

DT

[jjb1970]

There is also an assumption from many people that we are at the limit of how clean we can make the exhausts of petrol and diesel engines, personally I think that there is long way to go on that side of things which could make us reconsider the use of battery only technology. Look at the last couple of decades to see how far things have come and then consider that the engine manufacturers still feel that a lot more can be done...

 

Also better control of emissions on existing cars is needed, how many people, for instance, regularly service their car? From some cars, petrol and diesel, I've followed recently it would seem not that many... More roadside checks to get these polluters off the road would help a great deal...

 

The diesel engine (using that term in the generally used, generic sense) has probably been developed pretty much as far as it'll go. Full digital engine control with real time variable mapping, very high pressure charging etc have all been around for many years. There are improvements to be gained in combustion control but these are likely to deliver incremental gains, not make that much of a difference. Engine designers went past that point at which you need to invest $$$$$$$$$'s to achieve relatively modest performance gains a long time ago. Which isn't to say that there aren't still gains to be made, but I wouldn't expect dramatic improvements. You can always improve a technology to some extent, but it is also true that most technologies reach a point where they've been developed to almost their full potential and when investing in alternatives makes more sense. In that sense I'd consider the diesel engine to be at a point similar to the steam locomotive in the 1940's.

On emissions, it depends what emission you're talking about. Engine builders are already complaining about Euro 6 and equivalent standards. You can knock NOx right out with an SCR, but if you go that low you can end up with ammonia slip. And there are certain issues with SCR which leads to the problem of where does a defeat device end and an auxiliary control device begin? SOx you knock out with low sulphur fuel such as the 10ppm fuel we use here, although refining that fuel increases carbon footprint at the refineries. PM is problematic, ultra low sulphur diesel is associated with the smallest species of PM which are the most damaging and for which DPF technology struggle to remove. The problem is that none of those abatement devices do anything for CO2 and knocking CO2 out is orders of magnitude more difficult and expensive. At the moment the only viable way to reduce CO2 emissions from automotive engines is to either use less fuel or to use a low carbon fuel. What is a low carbon fuel? People are starting to wake up to the fact that many of the bio-fuels are nothing like as carbon neutral as suggested in their marketing spin. Natural gas is sometimes promoted as a low carbon fuel, OK compared to coal it is a big improvement but it is still a carbon fuel. If you're going to combust hydrogen or methanol then you might as well go for fuel cell technology.

Ultimately I think the engine builders have shot themselves in the foot. They campaigned for years and years against changing the engine test and certification scheme. Everybody involved in engine certification (including politicians and civil servants) knew that the emissions test regime was a bit like the official fuel consumption test, a bit of an abstraction that wasn't representative of real world emissions. And in the case of NOx there are perfectly good reasons why a controlled standardised test was necessary because of the way NOx is formed and its sensitivity to ambient air conditions. While nobody noticed everybody was happy but following the VW scandal it has become increasingly difficult to defend the existing test regime yet manufacturers are still fighting efforts to change things. I think there has been a collapse in confidence and the internal combustion engine is now encumbered with a toxic image that I'm not sure it can (or even if it should) shake off.

I'm an engine anorak but I really think its time to move on.

[antrobuscp]

Way beyond my powers of endurance. I can only last 60-90 minutes at most behind the wheel before I have to have a break. Four hours at a stretch seems like suicide to me.

 

I would take a break or stop completely if I felt it was necessary, but I've been used to the trip to Cornwall(from Liverpool) for 40 years. I'm beginning to find it slightly harder now, but I think we will be stopping twice rather than once in future. I find, personally, that lack of concentration caused by a boring road and lack of traffic is likely more of a risk than tiredness or stiffness on its own. The flat stretch West of Bristol to around Taunton is the worst for that(for me).

 

I must admit that my current car, a 10 year old SAAB that I've had from new, is by far the most comfortable car I've had for the journey. I previously had Vauxhalls, and often had to stop due to a pain behind the knee joint in my right leg. Something in the set up of the driving position that I could never eradicate.

 

Colin

Edited July 28, 2017 by antrobuscp

[Ozexpatriate]

I think that's right.  For example, whenever I hear experts talking about life elsewhere in the universe they all seem unanimous that certain elements are necessary for life to exist, eg water, oxygen, temperate climate.  I always think "Yes, but that's only for life as we know it".

Yes I agree with your premise, but you misstate the 'experts' and their unanimity here in your example.

 

Based on the life forms that inhabit the black smoker hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean, water and heat are the primary requirements.  There are extensive hypotheses that such life may exist on Europa - (Jupiter / 6).

So basically you seem to be agreeing with me.  What you seem to be saying is that some experts have said that water and heat are primary requirements of life.  Other experts say there are more than two such requirements - 3, 6 or even 25.  It's also well known that there are various bodies - planets and moons, particularly Europa - in our solar system that may be capable of supporting life in some form because they may have these elements, or some of them.  Fine.

Relative to the EV discussion, yes, we do agree relative to your point regarding the rate of change of technology.

 

But that doesn't get away from the fact that most experts, certainly that I've heard, appear to maintain that if elements that give rise to life on earth (and these elements will almost certainly include water) don't exist on another planet, wherever that may be in the universe, then that planet is incapable of supporting life.

Where we differed was your use of the statement: "they all seem unanimous that certain elements are necessary for life to exist, eg water, oxygen, temperate climate"

 

Which is overstated to the point of being inaccurate, since it clearly isn't even close to unanimous, to which you concede above.

 

You are trying to stretch the point with: " But that doesn't get away from the fact that most experts, certainly that I've heard, appear to maintain that if elements that give rise to life on earth (and these elements will almost certainly include water) don't exist on another planet, wherever that may be in the universe, then that planet is incapable of supporting life."

 

It remains similarly inaccurate. Restated in the positive is what "most experts" agree on. "Most experts agree that if elements that give rise to life on earth (and these elements will almost certainly include water) exist on another planet, wherever that may be in the universe, then that planet is capable of supporting life.

 

Not the other way around.

It seems to me that such a view is blinkered to the fact that there may well be alien forms of life, even intelligent life, that develop in environments utterly different from our own involving elements of which we may well have no knowledge whatever.

Of course it would be.   Science is dependent on measurable phenomena. The existence of organisms that reproduce absent water and temperature (unlike those we are familiar with) is not precluded.  I can't imagine who your "experts" would be, since it is not the sort of thing a scientist would say.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[PatB]

At risk of dragging things off-topic, the water argument for the support of life stems, I think, from the fact that it's difficult to conceive of the early stages of life of any kind succeeding without some sort of fluid to act as a carrier medium. Liquid water is just the most obvious and the one which we already know to work.

 

Back on topic, jjb's point about carbon emissions above is a fundamental one. IC technology extracts energy from a fuel by sticking a given number of oxygen atoms to a given number of carbon atoms per unit of energy. The chemistry alone places a rigid limit on what can be achieved within the engine. So, as noted you need a fuel that doesn't put "new" carbon into the system. Hydrogen produced by electrolysis from wind or solar power meets that requirement nicely but once you've got your hydrogen there are better ways of using it than burning it in a variant of current IC engines.

[Torper]

Where we differed was your use of the statement: "they all seem unanimous that certain elements are necessary for life to exist, eg water, oxygen, temperate climate".....and so on

 

I had been considering a nice long response to your arguments, with which I don't happen to agree. But I've got enough hassle anyway at the moment with a problematic turnout that i'm building and it also struck me that a lengthy argument about what is little more than pedantics is not only OT but also rather tedious.  So you know what?  I really can't be bothered....

 

DT

[Arthur]

Blimey, he's been abducted by evil aliens.

[Horsetan]

Blimey, he's been abducted by evil aliens.

They'll soon realise what a terrible mistake they've made

[Broadway Clive]

Maybe the fear of pollution from diesel is over hyped. It is number 7 in the top mortality risks, behind high salt, and just ahead of kidney impairment, not eating enough whole grains, not eating enough fruit.

 

It won’t kill you but it could cut months off your life by aggravating other things.

 

The UK Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) estimates that PM2.5 from industrial sources, released at 2008 levels, would shorten the average person’s lifespan by six months. By adding this lost life together, the committee worked out that outdoor air pollution would cause the equivalent of almost 29,000 deaths.

 

However, high blood pressure is the number one mortality risk, being four times more dangerous, so if the change to electric vehicles gives us all more stress could it cause more deaths than it saves?

 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2129576-cutting-through-the-smog-how-air-pollution-shortens-your-life/

[298]

However, high blood pressure is the number one mortality risk, being four times more dangerous, so if the change to electric vehicles gives us all more stress could it cause more deaths than it saves?

 

Eh...?

 

Is that in the same way that switching from 3 to 2 rail caused stress, or or from b&w to colour TV? I only ever waft along in effortless silence (except for the sound of the pedestrian alarm from 4 to 18mph) with a big silly grin on my face when in the EV.

[APOLLO]

Gordon Bennett - I should have died years ago !!!.

 

In my yoof I spent hours head out of the first carriage window whiffing the fumes from countless Peaks, Brush 4's, EE type 4's and throbbing Sulzers. Deltics also till the speed got near 100mph and the wind nearly took my head off !!. Deltics especially had a bad oily exhaust smell due to their twin two stroke multi cylinder engines spewing out gigantic plumes of the stuff. 

 

As to alien life - they have lived here in Wigan for years !!

 

 

Brit15

[Horsetan]

*starts thinking about electric CXs*

 

Will be sending an enquiry to Electric Classic Cars about the potential cost of converting a Series 1 Citroen CX to electric power. If they can retain the original automatic gearbox and stay within a gnat's crotchet of the original power output (138bhp), they'll be doing well. Given Citroen's integrated oleopneumatic suspension, brakes and DIRAVI, not sure how they'd incorporate regen-braking without harming that little lot.

 

I don't reckon on seeing any change out of about fifteen grand (not including the car) at current rates.

[peach james]

That assumes only one driver.

 

We drove to Slovakia (about 1350 miles) a couple of years ago in two days with only an overnight stop and quick refreshment stops, regularly swopping drivers. I hate to think how long it would have taken in an electric car.

I did 926 km, 1395 km, and 853 km over three days on my own last year...mind, the middle day left me quite knackered.  With 2 of us, we covered 4450 km in 3.5 days on the way there... its like being a Australian, distances here are huge compared with the UK. (& not the same route, going we went through the US, coming back I came via Canada, since I had to stop in Thunder Bay)   I've done the 3 day drive several times, it can't be done in 2 days by me, mostly because of the ferry timing at this end, and the mountains.  ( 0, 1244, (605), 1444 (345) 1627 (1045) m's for elevation- 3 ranges to cross).  

[jjb1970]

This article is a bit of an "advertorial" type plant you get in many journals but it is nevertheless worth a read:

 

http://www.mpropulsion.com/news/view,battery-technologies-define-the-future-of-hybrid_48562.htm

 

Things are already going beyond hybrids as even in shipping work is happening on pure battery power and hydrogen fuel.

[Hobby]

Maybe the fear of pollution from diesel is over hyped. It is number 7 in the top mortality risks, behind high salt, and just ahead of kidney impairment, not eating enough whole grains, not eating enough fruit.

 

 

 

Although diesel gets the headlines petrol engines produce more of the really small particulates which are now recognised as causing the most issues as they can get right inside the lungs... They are both as bad as each other!

 

Although the press are gunning for diesels it's interesting to note that the Gov line bans both engines...

 

It was another smokey night in the centre of Brum last night, the place was full of taxis, black cab and uber, all stationary with engines running... The private motorist with the single journey is the wrong target...

Edited July 30, 2017 by Hobby

[SM42]

As with all green issues it seems to me that announcements such as these are just an excuse to justify future tax rises or charging regimes on  people for going about their everyday business. 

 

Come 2040 there will probably be a 60% tax on automotive  batteries because of the environmental concerns over production and disposal, 

 

In the meantime expect to be hit by road charging everywhere whilst there is no viable alternative (unless you live in London) to avoid it

 

When it comes down to it, paying more because of the pollution you cause doesn't stop pollution. It may reduce it but only if the amounts are eye watering. 

 

Since I started driving, traffic levels have ballooned (certainly in the last 10 years) and the price of fuel has gone up by around 200%. So that hasn't put people off to any great extent then . Any individual reduction in use has been surpassed by increased numbers. Perhaps £5 / litre might but there may be civil unrest if that happened. Look what happened when it hit £1 / litre

 

At present there are limits to the practicality of a purely electric vehicle over the conventional petrol and diesel. 8.5 minutes to get you 30 miles or 2-3 minutes to get you 400 miles, not to mention the sheer amount of space you'd need to charge up the average throughput of a petrol station if everyone was there for at least 8-10  minutes but probably longer. 

 

The technology is out there but as I understand it is not practical for road use as the batteries are the size of a house. Could this be solved in 22 years? Maybe,  if there was some sense of central government support for the R&D (this is after all a significant shift in transport policy)  but I don't get the impression that that will be forthcoming and private enterprise and ultimately the consumer will be expected to pick up the bill. 

 

Still in the meantime, based on a dodgy piece of statistical jiggery-pokery from 30 year old US research,  we can all try and force people to switch to petrol, double CO2 output and kill the whole planet quicker , totally ignoring the particulates, benzene content other nasties from petrol and of course the non combustion sources of road pollution.

 

Once that is done we can use the petrol pollutants argument to add £2 per litre tax on the stuff and sit back and watch the money roll in whilst we force people to go electric and dream up some wheeze to tax that. Oh and bicycles will have a 300% sales tax on them too.

 

Cynical?

Me ? 

Never.

 

Andy

[Mark Saunders]

Hopeully the same technology can be applied to heavy duty lawn mowers that currently rely on petrol!

 

MarK Saunders

[Ron Ron Ron]

I'm looking forward to the future of greener, less polluting cars....

 

 

     

Edited July 30, 2017 by Ron Ron Ron

[Sheffield]

It was some surprise to me that so much notice has been taken of this announcement. Does this government really think what they say will be taken into account by a government in place in twenty years time? The last government told us that in future the law would require that there would be five years between general elections. Look how long that idea lasted. The next lot just ignored it..

[Andy Hayter]

That assumes only one driver.

 

We drove to Slovakia (about 1350 miles) a couple of years ago in two days with only an overnight stop and quick refreshment stops, regularly swopping drivers. I hate to think how long it would have taken in an electric car.

 

Multiple drivers is an interesting point.  The main question is how much rest does a non-driving driver get when in a moving vehicle?

 

For HGVs the answer is none (legal definition) and the co-driver is judged to be at his place of work, so swapping drivers is not allowed if they are travelling together.

 

This does not seem to apply to coaches, where there have unfortunately been a number of high profile accidents where the alertness of a driver has been called into question after he has had his 8 hour minimum rest period sat in a coach seat.  These accidents all to frequently involve children and young people.  

[jjb1970]

It was some surprise to me that so much notice has been taken of this announcement. Does this government really think what they say will be taken into account by a government in place in twenty years time? The last government told us that in future the law would require that there would be five years between general elections. Look how long that idea lasted. The next lot just ignored it..

 

I think this will be both political low risk and require no political involvement as all it does is recognise what is already happening as a result of market trends.

[jjb1970]

This whole debate seems to be following the classic trajectory of technological discontinuities:

• The established technology benefits from an existing infrastructure and service provision built up over time and which requires major investment to re-configure
• Suppliers have developed a very high degree of technical expertise and manufacturing efficiencies built around existing technology
• Corporate and even societal cultures are conditioned to consider products and services within the context of existing solutions
• The existing technology continues to evolve but reaches a point where any further improvements will be modest and which in retrospect can be seen as it achieving pretty much the limit of its potential, reaching the end of that particular road
• Something new is proposed which offers a lot of potential
• The new idea attracts some early believers but is dismissed by many based on it being judged in terms of the existing technology
• New suppliers or existing suppliers with vision realise that the new technology needs a change in corporate culture, new business models and new manufacturing and marketing models and that society or commerce will adapt to the new technology if it can deliver its potential
• Those older suppliers or parts of the customer base and society who cannot adapt continue to make entirely sensible and logical decisions which ignore the threat and continue to deny that the new technology will amount to that much. Unfortunately these sensible and logical decisions are only sensible and logical because they’re framed in terms of existing, known technologies and solutions which fatally underestimate the capabilities of the new idea, particularly the speed of transition
• The early iterations of the new technology are less than impressive, derided and seen as vindicating the superiority of the old.
• Early adopters however realise that actually the new technology is superior and start adjusting their operations to it as they have confidence that the technology will rapidly mature and achieve its potential
• The new technology finds increasing acceptance and at a certain point which may only be apparent in hindsight passes a tipping point towards achieving a dominant position as the old technology is consigned to history
• Society suddenly realises that a transition which was in the future, would take many years and require $$$$$$$$$$$$$$’s has already happened and great companies that were admired for their brilliance with the old technology are going down the drain because they failed to adapt

OK, all the above is very generalised and as with any generalisation it’s all a bit glib. However, to borrow an oft used analogy, if you throw yourself off a cliff or do a parachute jump the ground is a long way away until you are just about to impact it. Electricity generation and system management are already changing, and the change is accelerating. The transition to EVs is already underway.

We look back at the statements from the great steam locomotive builders in the 1930’s that steam continued to be a modern technology and would compete with diesel engines for many years thanks to great advances like roller bearings and better super heaters and ask ourselves what pot were those guys smoking, but they were extremely competent engineers who knew their subject. The problem wasn’t that they were dim or incompetent (far from it), the problem was they couldn’t really envisage a post steam world because all of their training and experience had conditioned them to believe in steam technology. When many resisted the transition from coal to oil fuel before WW1 for the RN it wasn’t because the advocates of coal were thick or backwards, in many ways they had a lot of good arguments on their side. They failed to appreciate that if the advantages of a new idea are compelling then organisations will adjust their operations and activities to embrace it. Resistance to change is often dismissed as conservatism yet that is too simplistic. The executives and engineers at companies like Alco and Baldwin genuinely did foresee great advances in steam technology and were committed to developing the technology, what they failed to appreciate was the transformational potential of diesel.

 

And of course, there is the whole issue of autonomy to consider too, which is another major transition which is upon us.

[Sheffield]

Unlike previous changes in technologies I suggest this is the first major change where change is being forced on users. When the motor car appeared, there was no pressure on those who used horses to change. Almost all did so because of the advantages of the new technology, but any who wished could have continued to use a horse, for example. However many cities are planning to ban, or have already banned, older diesels, and will in future ban all ic vehicles and these bans will spread out of the cities. In not many years one will not be allowed to continue with the older technology..

It may improve the air quality in the cities, but will do little for overall pollution. And if pollution is such a problem when will the world leaders stop fighting their various wars? they must cause a good deal of global warming.