Great opportunity for bright sparks

TECHNOLOGICAL revolutions often take longer than expected, but their impact may be huge nonetheless. The end of the petrol and diesel motor age is not imminent but is now clearly visible on the horizon and it will bring huge, unforeseeable effects.

Consider the internet. It was in the early 1990s that I first met business folk who would rave about how this technology was set to turn the world upside down. In the end it has been only in the past ten years that most people have really felt the effects, but that change has been dramatic. CITY EDITOR

So the ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars in 2040 may seem a distant prospect, but that should not blind us to the fact that, as it gets closer, it will amount to a revolution, with some predictable effects, but doubtless some unexpected ones.

A surge in electricity demand is one obvious effect that has been widely covered in the past week.

A transformation of petrol stations and perhaps many closures is another prospect, as we report this week, along with the likely rise of new commodity barons to replace Opec and global oil corporations. But there will be countless other transformations that we cannot foresee. For a start, the Treasury raises billions of pounds a year by taxing fuel. Will a future government try to recoup that with some other tax?

Will the cost of electricity at certain public charging points become a new sore point among consumers so that prices need to be regulated? What will happen to the many firms supplying components to fossil fuel engines from spark plugs to carburettors? Some will reinvent themselves. Those that don’t will die out.

It is possible that a sharp drop in pollution rates and traffic noise could change the property price map. Houses on noisy main roads are less valuable than those on quiet streets. But in 30 years, main roads will be filled with clean air and almost silent traffic.

These speculations may prove wildly wrong. But the end of the mass-use internal combustion engine is set to arrive within the lifetime of most people of working age. The changes it will bring are sure to be dramatic in ways that most of us cannot foresee, just as the internet revolution ravaged traditional retailers, caused a boom in delivery firms and created new problems such as delivery logjams, new types of fraud, and policy rows about equal access to broadband.

I will not pretend to be able to anticipate even a fraction of the likely effects of the end of the private petrol and diesel car.

For those who can spot the unexpected changes and take a long view, it will doubtless create some remarkable opportunities.