This comes as a real surprise to us all, right?
End sale of petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles by 2030, Labour urges government
Well, we can all have our views on that of course and I’m agin’ it. But then so what? I think the addition of hybrids is particularly silly too as over the likely travel lifetime of a car they might well be less emittive. Don’t forget that VW says their electric Polo only has lover lifetime emissions than the diesel when it does more than 120,000 km. I have no idea at all of the corret answer here but it wouldn’t surprise to find that hybrids have lower than either emissions over real life usage.
But that’s a difference of opinion, not a proof that Labour is being stupid. This is that proof:
Ahead of a final decision, Labour has called for the Government to be “ambitious” by ending the sale of new petrol, diesel, and hybrid cars and vans by 2030, to create jobs, cut carbon emissions and reduce air pollution.
Jobs are a cost of doing something, not a benefit. We’ve got to drag human labour away from something else – tattooing nipples or whatever it is the cool kids do these days – in order to employ it making these electric cars. We are made poorer by the absence of coloured nipples – a poverty surely intense and dark.
Thus Labour is announcing that their plan is really nice and expensive because look at all the jobs it will create so we must do it. Which is, when you think about it, being a damned idiot, isn’t it?
Must admit I thought they wanted the labour to pull the rickshaws.
Even sillier, the boss of BP said much the same thing recently.
I think I read it from Shell, but it may well be a co-ordinated announcement. Still bonkers, whoever’s saying it.
Another thing about Labour’s plans to force all to drive electric cars. It will hurt the poorest in society; more than that it will make driving a car a rich man’s game. Currently you can buy a car for about £500 – it will be a getting on for 20 years old and may be a bit of a clunker but it will get you to work or to the supermarket. A thousand pounds will get you something pretty reliable. Right now the cheapest secondhand electric cars start at about £6000. And yes, by 2030 they will be cheaper, but… Read more »
It’s not just the cost- it’s the practicality. If your car sits in your garden overnight, no problem charging it. If you live in a terraced house and it sits on the road, then you’ll get idiots claiming the cable is a trip hazard. If you live in a flat above the ground floor, what do you do? And what happens when certain people realise that charging cables are an easy, and ever-renewing, source of nickable copper? I’ve long advocated that it should be illegal for an MP to travel in a petrol-powered or diesel-powered car, and I’ve mulled over… Read more »
It’s not just idiots claiming the power cable is a trip hazard, the *law* /states/ it is a dangerous obstruction (Highways Act 1980), and electrical regulations make it a non-compliant installation, which invalidates any insurance and makes you liable for prosecution (IEE Regs), and breaking into the public highway is an offense.
I agree about the lack of practicality of course, not that that has stopped governments implementing nonsensical policies before – the groundnut scheme for instance, a long time ago but a fantastic example of wishful thinking.
The proposed ban would only be on *new* cars, so the long tail of the second hand market would continue for ~20 years or so. There may come a point before that where it becomes to source fuel which accelerates the shift to electric, or it could go the Cuba way and people make the old models last much longer. Either way a very silly idea, but then we all knew this was coming right…
That’s a good point, however I don’t trust the government to not legislate in some way against petrol and diesel cars to ‘encourage’ their ill thought out switch to electric. Could be be punitively high road tax, carbon tax, you name it. Governments have a well established process for these things: encourage – incentivise- force.
So, start stockpiling cars now.
Good job we’ve got this ‘renewable energy’ thing sorted out, otherwise there wouldn’t be enough electricity to go round…..https://www.timworstall.com/2020/09/one-of-those-proposals-for-consultation-that-will-definitely-happen/
Not only are Labour embracing a one-size-fits-all decision that may be the wrong decision and may well be the wrong decision in 2030, they wish to prove their “ambition” by making the decision before all the facts are in.
Jobs are indeed a cost. Some gov’t decisions may induce the creation of jobs that actually produce things people want. But when we create new victimless crimes, the “jobs created” adapting to them, evading them, and documenting compliance with them, are a measure of their negative effect.
I think they just are idiots, rather than having decided to be so.
No they are not deciding to be idiots: they are exploiting those who are *already* idiots. At current grid demand levels we rarely use coal-fired power stations – if we doubled electric/hybrid care use we should use them almost all the time so we should replace diesels with a >25% efficiency with coal-fired power stations with a <25% efficiency before we adjust for transmission losses.
Making more people poor increases support for Labour so they support policies that make more people poor – that does NOT make them idiots although it should make then damned.
Tattooing nipples really is a thing. I have been doing some work at a “medical practice” and one of the services they offer is tattooing nipples. This is for women who have had reconstructive surgery following breast cancer, so is far from being frivolous. I’m less sure of the chemical peels and lip fillers.
I suspect, and will bow to superior knowledge, that that’s about tattooing nipples onto where there, sadly, aren’t any any more. There is also the other type, of actually tattooing nipples, which I’ve, erm, heard about from someone on the internet…..
Ha ha, I couldn’t comment on that. And sorry yes it’s about giving a bump a more natural look. They even have silicone rubber boobs showing the various “styles” of nipple they can do.
This kind of stupidity is going to end the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems……
All for the best really.