Our electrified future

AS you will no doubt have heard, the UK government has announced that sales of new petrol and diesel-powered cars and vans will now be banned from 2030. Three years ago, when Michael Gove plucked a date out of thin air for the ban, he settled on 2040. Last year it was brought forward to 2035, and now they’ve shaved another five years off it. Sales of hybrids or plug-ins that can make part of a journey with zero emissions will be allowed until 2035, at which point they will also be banned. In parallel, the government also announced funding of £1.8bn for more charging points. All of this is part of the government’s wider objective to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

I have no desire to get into politics on this page, but I think the announcement raises an important point, which is this. Is it enough for a politician to announce an objective that is seemingly devoid of any underlying analysis, and throw in a ludicrously small amount of cash to sweeten the pill, or should our leaders be engaging on the key questions around how we actually achieve these ambitious objectives?

It seems to me to be pretty easy to stand up and announce a policy objective. I imagine it must be quite satisfying as a politician to wave your magic wand and announce something like this. It’s an easy win. Talk costs nothing. But it is rather more difficult to address the many challenges and practical issues involved in achieving it. Mind you, the chances are that none of the ministers involved in the wand-waving today will actually be in power in 2030, so it won’t be their problem anyway!

For example, I’ve never seen anything in print that refutes the analysis made a while back that the country would need many new power stations to generate the additional electricity needed. I’ve also seen nothing that counters the case put forward last year by eight of the UK’S leading geologists, geoscientists and mineralogists in a letter that was delivered to the UK’S Committee on Climate Change. According to these experts, to meet the targets set by the government for the UK we would "need to produce just under two times the current total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters of the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production" in order to build the necessary batteries. And that is just to meet the UK’S needs, never mind the rest of the world. They also argued that "a 20 per cent increase in Uk-generated electricity would be required to charge the current 252.5 billion miles to be driven by UK cars"’. Maybe someone has come up with an alternative analysis that shows this is all bunkum but if they have, I haven’t seen it.

What the government is in effect doing is setting a deadline and relying on the innovation and commercial imperatives of the vehicle manufacturers, the infrastructure providers and everyone else in the chain to come up with the answers. Innovate or die seems to be the underlying message.

Some of the UK’S vehicle manufacturers are so unimpressed that the government is playing fast and loose with their industry that they commissioned a report entitled ‘Decarbonising Road Transport: There Is No Silver Bullet’, which suggests that the issue is far more complicated than simply banning petrol and diesel vehicles. The report, commissioned by companies including Honda, Aston Martin (although after publication Aston’s chairman rather bizarrely disowned the report), Bosch and Mclaren, with contributions by bus company Optare and others, argued that greener fuels for internal combustion engines would offer huge benefits, not least in reducing the emissions from the so-called ‘legacy fleet’ of petrol and diesel vehicles that will remain on the roads for years after the ban of new vehicles sales.

The report also argues that the government should focus on the wider aspect of ‘well to wheel’ in order to deliver a zero-carbon transport network, and states that recent research shows that the process of manufacturing electric cars produces 63 per cent more CO2 emissions than a petrol or diesel equivalent. These seem to be compelling arguments. Should the government issue objectives around these issues as well as deadlines for banning new car sales?

JLR wasn’t among the companies that commissioned the report and, surprisingly, told me they “aren’t commenting on its recommendations”. The company says they “have already embraced the direction of the government’s announcement, investing heavily in fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles for a zero emissions future. Our award-winning Jaguar I-PACE was the first premium all-electric SUV launched to global critical acclaim”.

JLR believes it is on course to achieve its target of an all-electric fleet by 2030, either with pure EVS or various forms of hybrid. The partnership with BMW for the development of next-generation electric powertrains seems to be bearing fruit, with production due to start in the near future in Wolverhampton, while the battery assembly plant at Hams Hall is also due to come on stream in late 2020.

And with a rumoured six new plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and nine new mild hybrid electric vehicles anticipated in 2021, JLR may well be on course to achieve the 2030 target. When I see a full-fat electric Range Rover with a meaningful range, I will be convinced.

“The government is relying on the innovation and commercial imperatives of everyone in the chain to come up with the answers"