Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions • Hacker News Board

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#131

Post by crispyporkbites » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

barnacled wrote: post #68

This is utterly ridiculous. I live in the UK and have been renting for many years, I've lived at 15+ addresses and not at a single one could I have powered the car from home. Not one. The UK is small, cars are squeezed onto tiny roads and most people do on-street parking, i.e. you park where you can. When I last had a car I could only park around the corner from my flat (which was set far back from the road). Having…

> I personally think the appropriate compromise is to move forward with very efficient hybrid vehicles.

which is exactly what this legislation allows for

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#132

Post by ehnto » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

physicsguy wrote: post #31

Many, many houses do not have anything other than on-street parking here. Since 2012 I've lived in 5 houses, and three of them had no driveway. I'm currently buying a house which has no drive way, with no way of fitting one. Apparently 1/3 houses have only on street parking. Unless they also provide huge, huge grants to rapidly implement dense onstreet charging, and fast, this is a pipedream and will end up getting p…

Some places here you get no street parking, and if you're building you need a minimum amount of spots for cars in the plans.

In some parts of Japan, when you buy a new car the dealership has to get confirmation from police that you have a designated parking spot. They come around and measure it, then get back to the dealership who then gets to sell you the car. I'm sure now they sometimes have records and stuff they can go off but the gist is the city won't be providing space for your car, it's up to you.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#133

Post by mindracer » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #119

Where is the climate emergency? Can someone show me something I can see? Sea levels haven't risen. There are more small birds around where I live than when I was younger. Things seem to be doing ok. I am a skeptic and I'm very far from trusting experts. I don't want to be in a state of belief, I want to know. But I am put in a position that I must take it on trust that it is real. Is carbon dioxide bad? Surely, it wo…

Sea levels have risen and will continue to rise because of climate change - https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#134

Post by barnacled » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

djmobley wrote: post #54

physicsguy wrote: post #31

Many, many houses do not have anything other than on-street parking here. Since 2012 I've lived in 5 houses, and three of them had no driveway. I'm currently buying a house which has no drive way, with no way of fitting one. Apparently 1/3 houses have only on street parking. Unless they also provide huge, huge grants to rapidly implement dense onstreet charging, and fast, this is a pipedream and will end up getting p…

This is where autonomous vehicles come in. Why pay to own and store your own vehicle, which you might use 5% of the time, when you could hail an autonomous vehicle on demand, for less than the cost of current ride-hailing services? Owning your own vehicle will become an unnecessary luxury, reserved for the kind of people who have the space to store them.

Except that autonomous cars vastly far away despite all the hype by silicon valley. They still cannot deal with edge case scenarios at all well and are far from being proven to be safe. Relying on this being in place by 2030 + lifetime of 2nd hand cars is a huge gamble.

See https://blog.piekniewski.info/2020/03/01/av-safety-myths-and... and his blog in general for a more in-depth analysis of the situation. It's likely we need new AI techniques to have fully autonomous vehicles that function correctly.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#135

Post by ako » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:32 AM UTC

barnacled wrote: post #125

ako wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not dealing with global warming will also lead to "the kind of economic impact such drastic action would entail would likely run into millions of deaths, many of them far away in poorer nations"

Did I suggest not addressing it? It's entirely this dismissive attitude that harms the cause. This 'all or nothing' attitude that reminds me of the gun control issue in the US. Since you've ignored most of what I said there, let me reduce the surface area of the discussion and ask 1 thing: Let's assume the UK does everything the climate 'activists' request of them, and this results in an economic depression and unpre…

I'm not convinced it's bad for economy. It'll just inspire innovation: new electric cars, alternative transportation modes, new ways of charging electric cars, better isolation for building, etc, etc.

The sooner countries start to embrace it, the more they'll be able to economically benefit from the required changes that we're all facing.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#136

Post by physicsguy » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:33 AM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #104

physicsguy wrote: post #31

Many, many houses do not have anything other than on-street parking here. Since 2012 I've lived in 5 houses, and three of them had no driveway. I'm currently buying a house which has no drive way, with no way of fitting one. Apparently 1/3 houses have only on street parking. Unless they also provide huge, huge grants to rapidly implement dense onstreet charging, and fast, this is a pipedream and will end up getting p…

Perhaps we should stop letting individuals appropriate public space for storage of their private property, and charge market rate for the land used by parking, thereby encouraging people who are not car dependent to buy houses such as yours instead of demanding a public handout for vehicle storage? (The High Cost Of Free Parking explores this issue in depth)

I mean, I agree to some extent, but there's also no public transport service to the place I'm buying a house other than a single bus that runs twice a day for taking kids to school.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#137

Post by fogihujy » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:33 AM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #55

mister_hn wrote: post #32

I hope that with these bans, actually the government will take action on the high prices of electric vehicles and on the charging infrastructure. A middle-size car can't cost € 40.000 (without batteries!), a lot of people can't afford them.

> the government will take action on the high prices of electric vehicles and on the charging infrastructure Why spend money on access to more vehicles instead of improving public transport. If we are serious about the environment and the whole 3x R's, we should treat vehicles as the luxury that they are. If you have to commute between your remote farm and your nearest city sure maybe there should be a government inc…

When it comes to rural populations in places like Europe, I can see bio-fuel and things like e-diesel being a decent alternative for the country-side in the short term. It would cover most of the use-cases that are commonly used as "what if" counter-arguments, and it doesn't stop the urban populace from using electric/public transport.

Besides, it's not like the entire farming industry is going to switch to electric just like that; where I live, it's not uncommon to see 40+ year-old farming machinery in active use. In other words, it's going to take a long time before we get rid of diesel engines.

The major challenge, as far as I see it, will be to implement different rules for different people, and getting the populace to go along with it. People generally dislike being told what to do, and any exceptions that can be considered unfair for anyone will be used as an argument against new legislation.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#138

Post by jw1224 » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:33 AM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #119

Where is the climate emergency? Can someone show me something I can see? Sea levels haven't risen. There are more small birds around where I live than when I was younger. Things seem to be doing ok. I am a skeptic and I'm very far from trusting experts. I don't want to be in a state of belief, I want to know. But I am put in a position that I must take it on trust that it is real. Is carbon dioxide bad? Surely, it wo…

Sea levels absolutely have risen. Here’s the data from NASA: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#139

Post by ehnto » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:33 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #53

physicsguy wrote: post #31

Many, many houses do not have anything other than on-street parking here. Since 2012 I've lived in 5 houses, and three of them had no driveway. I'm currently buying a house which has no drive way, with no way of fitting one. Apparently 1/3 houses have only on street parking. Unless they also provide huge, huge grants to rapidly implement dense onstreet charging, and fast, this is a pipedream and will end up getting p…

It's not that hard to build curbside chargers. You don't need high current chargers when most parking spots have a charger. A kilowatt or two will be plenty. Cars spend 23h a day parked. EVs use 15-25kWh/100km. Most people drive less than 50km a day. Sprinkle some fast charging along highways for longer road trips and charging is no longer an issue.

You might be ignoring some big issues, such as grid availability on highways, and the capacity of the grid in those areas.

Re: Britain to ban new petrol cars and vans by 2030 on road to net zero emissions

#140

Post by jonplackett » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 9:34 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #63

djmobley wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’ve completely missed the point of what is a very reasonable and forward-thinking signalling exercise. You cannot have sudden cliff-edges in policies (like banning the sale of new ICE vehicles) that would put thousands, if not millions of people out of jobs. You need to send signals like this to the market well in advance so they can invest and plan ahead.

The signals that the ban is coming have been there for decades. Professor David King, former chief scientific advisor to the UK government, suggested a ban on petrol cars in 2002 ( http://www.evuk.co.uk/hotwires/rawstuff/art33.html ). That would have been a bit early for a ban in my opinion, but had the government heeded his advice and put in a legally binding ban to come in from, say, 2015, then the UK would be well…

Companies don’t seem to respond to threats of threats. Only direct threats to their existence. I know it’s late and may get changed, but any car company now has to take it seriously or risk going out of business pretty soon