{"id":265259,"date":"2023-07-03T21:25:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T19:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=265259"},"modified":"2023-07-03T21:25:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T19:25:55","slug":"is-britains-electric-car-revolution-a-race-against-time-or-a-costly-gamble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=265259","title":{"rendered":"Is Britain\u2019s Electric Car Revolution a Race Against Time or a Costly Gamble?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Money to burn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Daily Sceptic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0RICHARD ELDRED<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Boris Johnson\u2019s ambitious plan to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 is floundering as the scale of the undertaking becomes clear. The affordability of electric cars, the need for extensive charging infrastructure, and the risk to industry jobs are just some of the hurdles that are derailing the country\u2019s green industrial revolution. Will the U.K. be ready, asks Matt Oliver in the Telegraph<\/a><\/em>, or is \u2018carmageddon\u2019 inevitable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

With a year to go before Britain hosted the Cop26 climate conference, Boris Johnson was preparing to make an eye-catching announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The then-prime minister was poised to set out his 10-point plan to spark a green industrial revolution \u2013 and the centrepiece was a vow to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A highly ambitious target, this was five years sooner than the deadline he had set just nine months earlier, which car industry bosses dismissed as \u201ca date without a plan\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was also a decade before the target outlined by his predecessor, Theresa May, only two years beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur green industrial revolution will be powered by the wind turbines of Scotland and the northeast, propelled by the electric vehicles made in the Midlands and advanced by the latest technologies developed in Wales, so we can look ahead to a more prosperous, greener future,\u201d Mr. Johnson said in November 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His speech, the Government said, would put the U.K. on course to be the fastest G7 nation to decarbonise road transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the new sales ban \u2013 described by the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders as \u201cimmensely challenging\u201d \u2013 represented a huge gamble, with the potential to either turbocharge or tank Britain\u2019s domestic car industry.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And astonishingly, for such a consequential policy, no detailed proposals to achieve it had actually been drawn up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Johnson and other ministers hoped the stretching target would cement demand for electric vehicles, galvanising businesses to manufacture supplies and build the legions of chargers that would be required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like the classic example of putting a man on the moon,\u201d one former minister involved in the policy says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen Kennedy said \u2018We\u2019re going to put a man on the moon\u2019, he did not know how they were going to get there. He just said this is the target \u2013 and they got there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to today, however, and the scale of the undertaking has become clear.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electric cars still remain unaffordable for most households, while a huge upgrade of the power grid will be needed in order to boost the number of vehicle chargers in Britain from 42,000 at present to the more than 300,000 being sought by ministers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, to serve demand for vehicles domestically, around five battery \u2018gigafactories\u2019 are needed in the U.K. \u2013 with hundreds of thousands of industry jobs at risk if they are not secured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts say we are now at a crossroads. A report published this week by the Climate Change Committee, the statutory Net Zero watchdog, said that rising electric car sales were promising but work to build chargers \u201cnow needs to scale up more quickly\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Separately, industry leaders say time is running out for Britain to secure the gigafactories<\/a> that will be the bedrock of its future car manufacturing base. A failure to do so, while sticking with the 2030 ban on new petrol car sales, threatens a jobs bloodbath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the clock ticks down, alarm is growing that Britain will simply not be ready for 2030 \u2013 and a delay is increasingly likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.K.\u2019s commitment to reach Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050 will require emissions from vehicles to be almost eradicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surface transport, including cars, accounts for the biggest chunk of Britain\u2019s annual carbon emissions, representing 23% last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was about 105 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, the Climate Change Committee\u2019s latest report says, which was 3% up from 2021 but 8% below pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reduction was mostly down to increased working from home, rising fuel prices and so-called low-traffic neighbourhoods, with a small contribution from rising electric vehicle sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a crunch point is fast approaching at which sales of electric cars<\/a> \u2013 which have much lower lifetime emissions than petrol ones \u2013 will need to do more of the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Worth reading in full<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will the U.K. be ready, asks Matt Oliver in the\u00a0Telegraph, or is \u2018carmageddon\u2019 inevitable?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":265263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691820689,691818081,691819262,691818154],"class_list":{"0":"post-265259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-boris-johnson","9":"tag-electric-cars","10":"tag-green-agenda","11":"tag-net-zero","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0-burning-money-743.jpeg?fit=2000%2C1000&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-170n","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":225386,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=225386","url_meta":{"origin":265259,"position":0},"title":"100% Wind Power","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"23\/10\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Two years ago, Boris Johnson said the UK would eliminate fossil fuels for electrical generation by the year 2035.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-1116.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-1116.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-1116.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-1116.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":216023,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=216023","url_meta":{"origin":265259,"position":1},"title":"Wind Producing 2% Of UK Electricity","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"28\/08\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Wind is producing 2% of UK electricity. 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