Is it time to resurrect this thread?
I don't know what the rhetoric is in the UK, but over here our Taoiseach/Prime Minister
has said the sale of petrols & diesels will be banned by 2030, with his first move to discourage people away from them and into EV's being
a charge on new and imported diesels and petrols in the latest budget. Those still in existence by then will likely be taxed off the road through punitive charges similar to what
@John L is experiencing in Norway, except much worse. As it is I pay over €400 a year in tax to keep my A2 on the road, as the Irish government in their wisdom/greed tax the engine size, not the emissions, as they quite sensibly do in the UK. We have 'The Green Party' to thank for that one, who had a brief stint in government a few years ago, introducing all sorts of ridiculous climate-sympathetic taxes such as this in the process.
The fact that Ireland generates a sizeable amount of the electricity required to power EV's from (high carbon emitting) coal and peat-burning power stations is ignored by those clambering to support such a move. Or that we import a sizeable amount of nuclear-generated power from the UK, which appears in the vague category of 'Net Import'
in this.
I'm sure most of you at this stage are aware of how harmful the mining practices for the components of lithium batteries are, which coupled with the
carbon footprint required to produce EVs being double that of a combustion engined car it all starts to seem totally daft, until you accept that this is just another global shakedown to relieve us of our hard-earned cash for something we're being convinced we need, and being forced to change to whether we like it or not, despite the hard data that supports the case for maintaining and improving upon existing combustion-engine technology.
As for Hydrogen-powered cars - I
t was trialled here and then mothballed after only a few articles covering it appeared in the national newspapers, where they basically said 'nice idea, but infrastructure would cost too much'.
What's going on in the UK around all of this? I know congestion charges are being rolled out apace, but are the government also pushing the EV-agenda as vehemently as they are here, or is there little else left for them to discuss other than Brexit?