Thursday, December 16, 2021
Government no longer friends with electric
Gary Numnan may have asked in 1979 'Are friends electric?' but his sentiment appears to have fallen on deaf ears with the current government. Back in November 2020 Ministers announced that they were going to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 and promote electric and hybrid vehicles through subsidy and an investment in appropriate infrastructure instead.
Personally, I still have doubts about both electric and hybrid vehicles. In my view there are questions about the technology, in particular the size, life-cycle and weight of batteries, which means that when driving a hybrid in conventional mode it actually uses more petrol than a standard vehicle. And of course there are still questions about the longevity of charge on purely electric vehicles.
What distance can you cover before an electric vehicle needs recharging? Will appropriate chargong facilities be available? And what do you do about charging your vehicle if you live in a terraced property, with no drive? You can of course take your car to a nearby charging point, but it takes five minutes to fill up with petrol, much longer to recharge a battery. The cost of batteries and the need to replace them after so many years are also a factor.
I may well buy an electric vehicle in the future but not until some of these questions have been addressed. And I don't thisk I am alone in this, which is why continuing government support, subisdy and encouragement is necessary. Perhaps somebody might like to mention this to ministers, because it appears their enthusiasm is waning.
The Guardian reports that the UK government has cut grants for electric vehicles for the second time in a year, provoking the anger of the car industry and prompting a call for car tax to be redesigned.
The paper says that the grant available for electric cars will fall from £2,500 to £1,500 – half the sum available to buyers at the start of the year. The upper price limit for eligible car models will fall from £35,000 to £32,000, down from £50,000 in March. They add that the government is also cutting the grant on large and small vans from £6,000 to £5,000 and £3,000 to £2,500 respectively:
The government is helping with a mixture of stick – including large fines for carmakers who make too many polluting cars – and carrots like the plug-in car grant and some tax exemptions.
However, the rising take-up of electric cars has presented a problem to the Treasury, which has been alarmed by the increasing cost of subsidies, many of which are enjoyed by wealthier buyers who can afford a new electric car, as well as the impact on fuel duty.
Some experts argue that government funding would be better aimed at problems such as still-patchy charging infrastructure. At the same time, the government has allocated as much as £50bn in implicit subsidies to petrol and diesel consumption by freezing fuel duty for a decade.
The best way to inprove this technology is by increasing demand for it, making it worthwhile for producers to invest in research and development. The not-sp-green UK government however, is choosing a contrary path.
Personally, I still have doubts about both electric and hybrid vehicles. In my view there are questions about the technology, in particular the size, life-cycle and weight of batteries, which means that when driving a hybrid in conventional mode it actually uses more petrol than a standard vehicle. And of course there are still questions about the longevity of charge on purely electric vehicles.
What distance can you cover before an electric vehicle needs recharging? Will appropriate chargong facilities be available? And what do you do about charging your vehicle if you live in a terraced property, with no drive? You can of course take your car to a nearby charging point, but it takes five minutes to fill up with petrol, much longer to recharge a battery. The cost of batteries and the need to replace them after so many years are also a factor.
I may well buy an electric vehicle in the future but not until some of these questions have been addressed. And I don't thisk I am alone in this, which is why continuing government support, subisdy and encouragement is necessary. Perhaps somebody might like to mention this to ministers, because it appears their enthusiasm is waning.
The Guardian reports that the UK government has cut grants for electric vehicles for the second time in a year, provoking the anger of the car industry and prompting a call for car tax to be redesigned.
The paper says that the grant available for electric cars will fall from £2,500 to £1,500 – half the sum available to buyers at the start of the year. The upper price limit for eligible car models will fall from £35,000 to £32,000, down from £50,000 in March. They add that the government is also cutting the grant on large and small vans from £6,000 to £5,000 and £3,000 to £2,500 respectively:
The government is helping with a mixture of stick – including large fines for carmakers who make too many polluting cars – and carrots like the plug-in car grant and some tax exemptions.
However, the rising take-up of electric cars has presented a problem to the Treasury, which has been alarmed by the increasing cost of subsidies, many of which are enjoyed by wealthier buyers who can afford a new electric car, as well as the impact on fuel duty.
Some experts argue that government funding would be better aimed at problems such as still-patchy charging infrastructure. At the same time, the government has allocated as much as £50bn in implicit subsidies to petrol and diesel consumption by freezing fuel duty for a decade.
The best way to inprove this technology is by increasing demand for it, making it worthwhile for producers to invest in research and development. The not-sp-green UK government however, is choosing a contrary path.
