{"id":8420,"date":"2018-04-27T09:06:16","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T23:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/?p=8420"},"modified":"2020-06-20T00:28:43","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T14:28:43","slug":"the-race-to-zero-emissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/environment\/the-race-to-zero-emissions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Race To Zero Emissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Once upon a time, we were all whispering about a possible conspiracy that someone had invented a car that ran on something that wasn\u2019t fossil fuel but the Big Oil companies resorted to various forms of skulduggery ranging from buying out the patents or technology through to murder to ensure that petrol and diesel continued to reign supreme in the motoring world.\u00a0 Fast forward to nearly 2020 (i.e. today) and there\u2019s a new rumour on the block: the rumour that petrol and diesel powered cars are going to be phased out.<\/p>\n

In fact, this is more than just a rumour.\u00a0 They\u2019re starting to do it already in the UK.\u00a0 The famous university city of Oxford is going to ban fossil fuel powered cars from the city centre by 2020, meaning that only electric vehicles (and probably hydrogen powered vehicles) will be allowed to buzz around in the heart of the city.\u00a0 Looks like the complaint made by JRR Tolkien back in the day about \u201cthe roar of self-obstructive mechanical traffic\u201d in the streets of inner Oxford is going to be dealt with\u2026 well, at least the roaring bit.\u00a0 The idea is to make the city centre the world\u2019s first Zero Emissions Zone.\u00a0 (OK, to be picky, it will be Zero Emissions as far as car exhausts go \u2013 there will still be carbon dioxide and methane emissions as long as human beings breathe, burp and fart.)<\/p>\n

This move to ban petrol-based cars is not unique to places as notoriously academic and ivory-towerish as Oxford.\u00a0 In fact, the Government of Scotland has announced that it will phase out petrol and diesel vehicles by 2023.\u00a0 Ms Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, has acknowledged in her statement <\/a>(which covers other topics \u2013 the bit in question is about one-third of a way down if you want to find it) that it\u2019s an ambitious project and is going to need a lot of infrastructure established.<\/p>\n

This move by Scotland to be the first to phase out new petrol and diesel cars is ambitious, but it looks as though it\u2019s part of a race between the old rivals England and Scotland to be the greenest.\u00a0 Apparently, the UK government has announced <\/a>\u00a0that it wants all new vans and cars on the roads to be zero emission vehicles (which is not a bad term for lumping electric, hydrogen and ethanol vehicles together \u2013 although it probably doesn\u2019t include biodiesel vehicles). Because the UK has rules about the age of cars that they allow on the roads, this means that all their vehicles are slated to be zero-emissions vehicles by 2050.<\/p>\n

What this means for the owners of vintage and classic vehicles, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I guess they\u2019ll have some sort of exemption or they\u2019ll only be allowed out on special occasions.\u00a0 Or maybe they\u2019ll have to be retrofitted to take biodiesel or ethanol.\u00a0 I suspect that even the royal Rolls-Royces and Daimlers aren\u2019t going to be exempt.<\/p>\n

Naturally, if there\u2019s rivalry between England and Scotland to do something first, you can bet like anything that the other ancient rivalry will flame up and indeed it has: France has also announced that it won\u2019t be selling any new petrol or diesel cars after 2040.\u00a0 Happily, the French government has also said that it will provide some sort of subsidy for poorer households so they can get an upgrade.\u00a0 And yes, this puts the pressure on all those French marques like Citro\u00ebn <\/a>, Renault <\/a>and Peugeot\u00a0<\/a> to up their game and make sure that they\u2019re only making hydrogen and electric vehicles by this stage.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Scandinavia is already in on the game (and, incidentally, they\u2019re old rivals of Scotland\u2019s as well \u2013 which is why the north of Scotland likes to keeps up a few Viking traditions).\u00a0 Norway is already smugly announcing that half of its new vehicle registrations are electric or at least hybrid, and it says the Norwegian target is to end sales of fossil-fuel-only cars by 2025.\u00a0 Norway has been handing out tax breaks and concession for electrics and hybrids for ages, and it\u2019s got the geography and rainfall needed to sustain the hydroelectric plants that are necessary to charge all those batteries.\u00a0 The Netherlands and Germany are also in on the act. This means, of course, that all the German and Swedish car marques we love are going to concentrate on electrics and hybrids.\u00a0 My beloved Volvo announced <\/a>\u00a0that every new Volvo car and SUV from 2019 onwards will be electric in some way: full-time electric, plug-in hybrid or at least a little bit hybrid.<\/p>\n

However, if governments can live up to their promises (IF!!!), then it looks as though Scotland wants to win the zero-emissions race.\u00a0 I feel a song coming on, to be sung to the tune of Loch Lomond<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Oh ye\u2019ll take the low road, and I\u2019ll take the high road<\/em><\/p>\n

And I\u2019ll phase out petrol cars before ye<\/em><\/p>\n

And me and my diesel will never drive again<\/em><\/p>\n

On the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond. <\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, it seems as though Australia is a little bit behind here, as we\u2019ve been slower to embrace electrics, although they are becoming more and more common.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen a few new charging points popping up near where I live, so people are starting to get on board.\u00a0 The Green Party has asked the Australian government to jump on board, but the Powers That Be are hesitant.<\/p>\n

And I think they\u2019re right to be hesitant.\u00a0 I\u2019ve still got a ton of questions about the whole thing, though, as I guess many of us do.\u00a0 What happens to old classics and collectors\u2019 items?\u00a0 Do electric vehicles and hybrids have the range to tackle our long Outback roads without stranding people in the middle of nowhere?\u00a0 What if we can\u2019t afford a new car?\u00a0 How are we going to charge all those vehicles \u2013 are we going to just burn petrol and diesel in electric power plants instead of car engines (which seems pretty pointless)?\u00a0 Where do ethanol (which we\u2019re already using in Australia) and biodiesel fit into this picture? \u00a0Do we have enough charging points and can our electricity system handle all the new demand?\u00a0 What will happen to all those old vehicles internal combustion engines?\u00a0 Do they go to the landfill?\u00a0 Is there a way to recycle the metal and plastics used to make them?\u00a0 And what if we LIKE the cars we\u2019ve got and what they can do??? Does the average Aussie driver get a say in all this?<\/p>\n

However, we can certainly expect to be including a lot more electric vehicles in our car reviews, and it\u2019s certainly an exciting time of change for the motoring industry, so we\u2019ll do our best to keep you updated. http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/offers-zaim\/mgnovennye-zaimy-na-kartu-bez-otkazov-kredito24.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, we were all whispering about a possible conspiracy that someone had invented a car that ran on something that wasn\u2019t fossil fuel but the Big Oil companies resorted to various forms of skulduggery ranging from buying out the patents or technology through to murder to ensure that petrol and diesel continued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4471],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11244,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8420\/revisions\/11244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}