New pollution tax as diesel and petrol cars face sales ban
As BMW becomes the latest car manufacturer to embrace the shift from petrol to electric with a new Mini, we look at the rise and rise of zero-emission cars
‘We will deliver a green revolution in transport’
DRIVERS of diesel cars could face new taxes under Government plans to cut deadly air pollution unveiled yesterday.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and Environment Secretary Michael Gove vowed to scrap petrol and diesel cars by 2040 in a push to promote the use of electric cars.
And under the plans councils could bring in charging zones for the most polluting vehicles.
But first they will have to try to hit air quality targets by ripping out speed bumps, improving public transport and changing road layouts.
The plan said: “If these measures are not sufficient to ensure legal compliance, local authorities may need to consider restrictions on polluting vehicles using affected roads.
“This could mean preventing polluting vehicles using roads at certain times of the day or introducing charging, as the Mayor of London has announced. The Government is clear – councils must exhaust other options before opt- ing to impose charging.”
The Government will also consult on a diesel scrappage scheme to encourage drivers to trade in polluting vehicles.
The situation has been complicated by the previous Labour government which encouraged drivers to buy diesel cars because they were not thought to cause climate change.
The current Government has been forced into action after being ordered to tackle air pollution by the courts.
Air pollution is linked to 40,000 premature deaths a year in the UK, and transport accounts for a quarter of UK greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Grayling said: “We are determined to deliver a green revolution in transport and reduce pollution in our towns and cities. We are taking bold action and want nearly every car and van on UK roads to be zero emission by 2050.”
But Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said: “To go to a ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2040 means you are betting on the technology being available, the infrastructure being in place and the consumer going with you.”
And Alex Buttle, director of car buying website Motorway. co.uk, warned that the used car market could crash.
He said: “The last thing British households need is the destruction of the value of their cars without any form of compensation. The plan to ban diesel and petrol cars by 2040 could spark a massive drop in new car sales. And levies on the most polluting vehicles could be the final nail in the coffin for second-hand diesel cars. Diesel used car prices had already started to fall – this news could trigger a fire sale.
“We had predicted up to 20 per cent before, but a 30 per cent drop in used diesel car prices over the next few years now feels likely.”
He added: “With modern day cars lasting 10 to 15 years, who will want to buy a new diesel or petrol car in ten years’ time?”
Jack Cousens of the AA said: “In driving motorists towards electric vehicles, questions will now focus on whether the National Grid could cope with a mass switch-on after the evening rush hour.
“There will also need to be a significant investment in charging points across the country.”
FOR more than a century the internal combustion engine has powered our lives. Ever since Henry Ford launched the first affordable mass-produced motor vehicle, the Model T in 1908, cars have not only shaped the modern world but have done so fuelled by petrol.
But now it seems the age of internal combustion is over. From 2040 all new petrol and diesel cars will be banned with drivers being allowed to buy only electrically powered cars.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove said: “We can’t carry on with diesel and petrol cars, not just because of the health problems that they cause but also because the emissions that they cause would mean that we would accelerate climate change, do damage to our planet and to the next generation.”
The announcement represents a new chapter in the rise of the electric car. If the idea of batterypowered vehicles was viewed as little more than the expensive indulgence of wealthy environmentalists just a decade or two ago it seems that increasingly the world’s biggest motor manufacturers are embracing them as the future of everyday transport.
This week Germany’s BMW announced that the next generation of its electric Mini will be assembled in Oxford with the first fully-electric Mini E set to roll off production lines in 2019.
The company added that it was committed to selling 100,000 electrified vehicles – hybrids or electric cars – this year, which is as many of this type of car as it has sold in total since production started four years ago. If there is enough demand then BMW plans to offer a fully electric version of any new model of BMW or Mini launched from 2020.
Chinese-owned Swedish car manufacturer Volvo has gone even further. It has pledged to become the first to go allelectric with every new car in its range to be partially or completely battery-powered from 2019. The company will also launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021.
“This is about the customer,” said Volvo chief executive Hakan Samuelsson. “People increasingly demand electrified cars and we want to respond to our customers’ needs. This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car.
“Volvo has said we plan to have sold a total of one million electrified cars by 2025. When we said it, we meant it.”
American carmaker Tesla, owned by entrepreneur inventor Elon Musk, has also announced production of a budget version of their Model 3 electric car – and priced from $35,000 (£27,000) it is aimed firmly at the mass market.
The company says it hopes to be selling 500,000 of them a year by 2020 and claims to have received 400,000 pre-orders. Earlier this year Tesla’s share price made it the most valuable carmaker in the US with a market capitalisation of about $53billion (£41billion), overtaking Ford and General Motors.
Meanwhile in Japan it has been reported that Toyota is developing an electric car powered by a new type of battery that not only increases driving range but promises to reduce charging time to just a few minutes – and that the company aims to start production of the new model within five years.
In China – the biggest car market in the world – the government has issued a mandate that from next year at least eight per cent of a carmaker’s sales in that country must be zero-emission vehicles.
The marriage of manufacturers eager to exploit new technology and governments keen to cut down on harmful emissions makes for an exciting prospect but some trade unionists are less enthusiastic about the Government’s 2040 deadline.
Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) chief executive Mike Hawes says: “Outright bans risk undermining the market for new cars and our sector, which supports more than 800,000 jobs, so the industry instead wants a positive approach.
“Much depends on how willing consumers are to adopt battery, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen cars. Demand for alternatively fuelled vehicles is growing but still at a very low level.”
There are two million electric cars on the roads globally with 750,000 new vehicles being sold last year – almost half of them in China alone. And although these figures represent a dramatic rise for every year since 2005 when there were just 1,000 electric cars on the road worldwide, at just two per cent of global vehicle sales it seems there is still much to be done to convince people to make the switch.
The UK is the EU’s biggest market for electric cars with 36,917 registered in 2016. And there are 83 different alternatively-fuelled cars and vans available in this country. But according to a YouGov poll commissioned by the SMMT, although 51 per cent of Britons are keen on the idea of buying an electric car only 13 per cent actually have one on their shopping list. A lack of charging points, limited battery range and high prices are the greatest perceived drawbacks.
In addition a rise in popularity of electric cars will also see a massive surge in demand for electricity to power them. The National Grid has estimated that by 2030 – 10 years before the Government’s deadline for banning new petrol and diesel cars – peak electricity could jump by more than the capacity of the as yet unbuilt Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.
By 2040 the extra electricity needed will be the equivalent of almost 10 times the output of Hinckley Point C, meaning either a huge investment in new sources of electricity or a huge increase in imported power.
THE GOVERNMENT will be hoping that as the industry continues to innovate the range and power of electric cars will also see them drop in price and increase in desirability. The Paris Motor Show last October saw Volkswagen launch an electric car with a range of at least 250 miles and Tesla’s Model 3 promises a range of up to 265 miles on a single charge.
For Nissan – Britain’s secondlargest carmaker behind Jaguar Land Rover – the future is electric. Prices for its best-selling electric car the Leaf start at about £20,000 and for that you get a range of 155 miles on a single full charge. “We welcome any plans that encourage people to switch to low or zero-emission vehicles,” said Nissan.
“This will have a fundamental impact on the shift from fossil fuels to renewables. The electric revolution is happening.”