These aren’t the dying days of the car, but the start of a driving renaissance

Politicians need to get aboard the imminent driverless vehicle revolution

Cheer up, motorists: we are on the cusp of a new, glorious age of the motorcar, an era of safe, clean personal mobility that will rekindle our love affair with the automobile. We will soon be building new roads and motorways again, and marvelling at the liberating potential of the self-driving, electric car, just as we once did with its petrol forerunner.

It doesn’t feel that way now, of course: our car-centric society is still deemed by most “experts” to be a problem to be resolved, preferably by wasting tens of billions of pounds on 20th-century technologies such as HS2, and the war on diesel drivers has just intensified. Life for motorists will continue to get tougher for the next few years, especially for those who live near big cities or have to use over-crowded motorways. Deluded mayors and civic leaders will continue to cling to the already obsolete zeitgeist, and seek to cram ever more people on to ever more expensive, highly subsidised public transport.

For while Google, Volvo and Tesla are pioneering their world-changing inventions, Britain still lives in the shadow of Swampy, the stunningly successful activist who became a household name when he fought the Newbury bypass in 1996. This was a seminal moment: it signalled not just the dying days of the Tory government but also the end of the post-war cult of the car. Road-building became politically impossible, and governments of all hues turned to public transport instead.

The anti-car backlash had many causes: the extreme, brutal Sixties and Seventies policy of building motorway ringroads through the heart of every big city was a case of absurd over-reach by trumped-up central planners; the rise of middle-class environmentalism meant that cars started to be seen as a problem; the decline in crime in inner cities halted suburbanisation and encouraged denser living; and the great success that was rail privatisation and bus deregulation helped create alternatives.

Today, car ownership continues to fall in inner London, and many new flats don’t come with a parking space; Tube and rail use is surging; while cycling is booming, aided by a huge reallocation of road space. To many, it seems as if the private car, if not the Uber minicab, is dying.

But that would be a hugely short-sighted assessment: the phasing out of the combustion engine – in 2040, if Michael Gove gets his way – combined with driverless technologies and other advances will eliminate most of the car’s genuine disadvantages while massively increasing its advantages. The cost-benefit calculus will shift drastically, and with it, once again, the politics. Sensible politicians should start to adjust now to this new world order, rather than seeking to refight the last war.

The electric, driverless vehicles that will become the norm in just a few years’ time will eliminate much of the noise, smell and toxic pollution that currently blight urban areas. Accidents will be slashed by 90 per cent, the proportion caused by human error, and the use of new materials will further enhance safety. Vehicles will be able to drive at much faster speeds, drastically cutting journey time while improving the capacity of existing roads. Drivers will no longer be propping up despotic regimes in the Middle East, further easing our consciences.

Most powerfully of all, we will all become passengers: it will be possible to eat, work, sleep or play while being driven. The commute will no longer be wasted, freeing up billions of hours of time. It will become feasible to live further away from work, loosening the constraints of geography and tackling elements of the housing crisis. Homes located near busy roads will be less unpleasant; it will be possible to park vehicles away from residences and workplaces, using efficient storage units, and many will simply call up cars from rental fleets.

For the consumer the offer will be irresistible, the improvement to quality of life immense. Long-distance train journeys will become a thing of the past, and there will be a massive increase in car use everywhere apart from in the most congested of city centres. Political opposition to motoring will be swept away: the demand for pro-car policies will be overwhelming. Driving, or rather being driven, will once again be trendy, even among the coolest hipster equivalent of the 2020s and 2030s.

It will be crucial, when handling this historic transition, to make sure that we don’t repeat past blunders. We will need to drastically increase electricity generating capacity, but over-reliance on expensive, super-subsidised Hinkley Point style schemes would be a disaster – as, of course, would be doing nothing, and allowing red tape to prevent any new power stations. We should encourage a genuine free market provision of energy. The private sector – including the car manufacturers – will also need to be tapped to provide a new charging infrastructure across the country: it would be madness for the taxpayer to shoulder the burden.

Even though existing roads will be able to cope with far more traffic, new motorways will be required. These will have to be located sensibly; in some cases, placed in tunnels under our great cities, as proposed by Boris Johnson shortly before he stepped down as mayor of London. Far more people will want to live in the countryside, or in far-flung suburbs: it would be madness to refuse to accommodate this, but it will need to be handled sensibly.

Up until the Thirties, our great railways were built and financed by the private sector. The same must happen with the next generation of motorways, and for that we will need a national road-pricing scheme, where motorists pay a modest fee to drive by the mile, with costs varying depending on location and time. It will have to be very different to the London congestion charge, which is designed to penalise car drivers: the UK’S new pricing system will need not merely to smooth existing demand but also to encourage the provision of extra capacity, like in any other market.

For the state, driverless cars will pose two final challenges. Tax revenues in the form of fuel duty will collapse, and only some of that will be made up by road pricing. Cyberterrorism will become an even more pressing threat: driverless cars will be an obvious target for hackers.

But the opportunities are immense for countries that are willing and able to embrace the new age of individualised mobility. The car is about to make a comeback, and post-brexit Britain needs to make the most of it.