UK Government Extends Petrol and Diesel Car Sales Until 2035 | Hacker News Reader

UK Government Extends Petrol and Diesel Car Sales Until 2035

motaclarity.co.uk

36 pointsteleforce80 comments

Has the UK been doing the huge infrastructure investments needed to support charging of all of these cars? I'm curious how major urban places like London will handle this. Every person living in a skyscraper won't have a port to charge in unless the landlords make major investments. I lived in a new-ish building in Toronto and the underground parking only had 5 ports for >100 cars. Can't imagine poor people living in older buildings will ever get that, so they'll be waiting in long lines for chargers I guess (or have to buy ICE cars which I imagine will increase in cost).

Gas stations would also need to do major investments at a pace that keeps up with the rapid shift or go out of business.

I saw the small electricity pole type stations when I was in London on the regular narrow side streets, which is one solution, but it was also a nice neighbourhood I was staying in. I'm curious how wide that's deployed.

Yes.

Most petrol stations have chargers. Every motorway service station has chargers. Lots of supermarkets have EV chargers. Some councils have lamp post charging. About 70% of UK homes have off street parking. Smart meters allow for time of day pricing for EVs. Lots of solar on domestic properties which can be diverted. Grid is increasingly able to support feed in. V2G being actively explored. Most commercial EV chargers report their status in real time. There's a proposed government standard for locating those chargers and seeing their status.

You can look at https://www.zap-map.com/live/ to see what's going on.

(Source - was an EV owner, worked on the standard, keep an eye on developments.)

The 30% that don’t have off street parking are mainly in cities though where electric will have the most impact on air quality and that’s a problem.

Most people in London don't have cars. Especially those living in flats and blocks.

Yeah in central that’s true. The currently ULEZ expansion controversy (at least the bits of it that aren’t shady Twitter / Facebook bot farms trying to engineer a Tory mayor) does indicate that a lot of folks in outer boroughs rely on their cars.

And those in the outer boroughs will either have room for a charging system or can drive a hybrid.

Or just keep driving the diesel/petrol car they already have - no one is banning the use of existing cars after they ban the sale of /new/ cars.

It's a lot easier to live in London without a car than outside it. As far as I know most new flats in London don't allow car parking anyway.

(I am a non driving Londoner and it's pretty good. I don't think I'd feel the same way in many other places)

Most people in most other cities do have cars.

I don't think that tells the full picture.

Take a look at https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/housing/number...

In Birmingham, about a 3rd of people have no car. But if you zoom in to central, it's about 2/3rds of people have no vehicle.

What you highlight is nothing compared to what's needed, from chargers, to grid upgrades, to actual electricity production.

> There is definitely enough energy and the grid can cope easily.

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero-sto...

You can see the grid investment at https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/our-network/investing-in-our-...

Chargers are a non-issue. Every EV can charge from a standard 13 amp socket. Plug it in overnight and you'll be full the next morning. Or, upgrade to a 7kW charger - which usually come as part of a new car purchase.

Right now in some areas there are restrictions on new housing because the grid is saturated, charging stations are delayed because the grid cannot cope, and renewable production projects are also delayed because the grid cannot take it.

So, clearly the grid cannot cope.

Then, is electricity production growing 2 digits a year? Nope.

Yes, an EV can charge from a 13A socket, for people who have off-road parking... and anyway what happens when everyone plug their cars in the evening on a socket, or worse 7kW charger? The substation blows up... charging is a big issue, it is actually the issue.

Charging stations delays because of grid: https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/07/24/uk-faces-ev-charge...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/09/electric-car...

Restrictions in West London because of grid: https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/better-infra...

Renewable projects delayed because of grid: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65500339

Don't substations there already deal with everyone plugging in a 13A load at the same time because of this [1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup

The joy of 240V single phase.

> Can't imagine poor people living in older buildings will ever get that

Less of a problem than you think. Car ownership is much higher in middle and upper classes, than working class. It's also less common in the densest populated areas, because residential off street parking is barely a thing in the UK.

I imagine there'll be a mixture of solutions: possibly-robotic services to shunt parked cars around (for the few charging spots), car clubs, battery swaps, fast/high wattage charging, converting substantially more street parking to low wattage charges...

The law only banned the sale of pure-ICE vehicles. Hybrids were never to be banned, and you don't have to plug in a hybrid.

You've claimed this a lot, but the article says the opposite, and you've not addressed that.

The law as it stands does not ban hybrid sales after 2030. The new law bans nothing after 2030, and will apparently ban hybrids after 2035. If this modification passes, which I understand it currently has not, I would hope that 12 years is plenty of time to prepare.

> Car ownership is much higher in middle and upper classes, than working class.

True, isn’t gas very expensive in the UK too? I guess even less of them will own cars now.

Half of all Londoners don't own a car (they rarely need one).

I live in Sheffield which is over half a million people, much more if you includie the greater area. According to a quick google we have 157 charging points (across less locations). I have no idea if that's good or not, I don't drive electric yet.

I live in an arguably affluent area. Maybe 1 in 20 cars nearby are electric. It's all terraced housing with on-road parking, none of which is ever in front of your house. There's no charging stations nearby that I know of. Half of the housing stick in Sheffield is like this (no designated parking). It does make the prospect of having an electric car less appealing if I can't take advantage of home charging.

The previous law still allowed for hybrids to be sold beyond 2030, and hybrids don't need to be plugged in.

Hybrids that are never plugged in are just slightly more efficient ICE cars.

But in fairness they do have the option of plugging in, which is massively more efficient than gas-only.

I know not everyone will do that, but lots of people will.

Hybrids can have batteries that are simply not worth charging. I think my 2005 hybrid has a 50Wh battery and certainly no way to externally charge it.

From article:

  The government also confirmed that under the revised plan all [sales of new] hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars would also be banned from 2035

Some can plug in. I'm not sure how many, though. I thought plug-in hybrids were new in the last few years, and I thought many hybrids are still being sold that cannot plug in.

I think owning a personal vehicle will definitely get more complicated and less convenient with the transition to electric (at least for a period of time); but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Folks will have to lean more on public transit, bike lanes, etc; which will change how public funds are allocated over time. It could be a virtuous cycle.

I’m not familiar with other UK cities but London planning policy in dense areas for some time now has leaned very heavily towards car-light, preferably car-free developments. I don’t have the stats to hand right now, but where tower blocks are being built, a large minority if not majority of households don’t even have a car.

> Has the UK been doing the huge infrastructure investments needed to support charging of all of these cars?

Have they? Everything in the uk is regressing. The government will likely extend it in 2035 as well. Things are really really bad, but the aligned media does a good job at hiding it.

We haven’t even been maintaining stuff we’ve already got (see the concrete crisis) let alone putting in the infrastructure for this.

The expectations that it is a requirement for apartments and office buildings to have chargers on-premise in order to make EVs viable is ridiculous. We don’t have gas/petrol stations now in those places.

The solution is to require all gas/petrol stations to install EV chargers. The network already exists.

I disagree. I think electric cars are fundamentally different. If 50 people want to fill up a petrol car, they go to a petrol station with 10 pumps and they're all out in 15m because filling doesn't take long at all.

You can probably get more chargers in the same area as pumps, however it takes so much longer to charge a car that those 50 people would be there for hours.

I think the solution to electric cars is everyone charges their car when they're not using it, so lots of on street chargers and charging at home for people with a driveway.

No. The grid is not keeping up, charging stations are not keeping up, electricity production is not keeping up, etc.

Many people had been warning that 2030 was not realistic in that not tenable.

That date was picked in jest by Boris Johnson to one up the EU, which picked 2035, anyway...

> The grid is not keeping up

You've mentioned this a few times in the thread but the national grid say there is already enough capacity plus more investment happening. Where do you get this from?

Don't read BS PR, look for actual related news.

Charging stations delays because of grid: https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/07/24/uk-faces-ev-charge...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/09/electric-car...

Restrictions in West London because of grid: https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/better-infra...

Renewable projects delayed because of grid: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65500339

And of course electricity production has to go up a lot to accommodate the new demand... probably the equivalent of several nuclear power plants.

Quote from your first link

> In order to complete the works a number of consents are required and we are working with the relevant statutory authorities and other parties to ensure the works are completed as soon as possible and certainly before the end of the year

At a country grid level, we already generate enough electricity with plenty to spare. Usage has dropped from it's previous peak years ago. There's always going be areas that are harder to hook up with extra high powered lines quickly. This has nothing to do with whether the grid can cope or not.

You seem to have an agenda.

Ah, as soon as someone states facts instead of political spin he "has an agenda"... well yes I have an agenda: reality. That's the only way to solve problems.

Clearly, reading your comment this is an uphill battle.

Have a nice weekend.

Charge at the office, charge at the supermarket, wherever you go. I don’t drive much but having a 22kw AC charging car I can get charged for the week in 45 minutes of swimming. Having a charger at home is convenient, but not really necessary.

What fraction of cars are BEVs where you live? Will you still be able to charge at the supermarket when every other car is fighting for the same chargers, do you think?

Reliability hasn't been an outstanding feature of chargers to date.

I think so yes. They make money on those chargers so I imagine they will keep putting them up as demand grows.

You don’t really need a car in central London. With the transit, on street rental bikes, Uber / Bolt and Zipcar you’ll get around just fine.

I use to naively believe stuff like this too when I was a single bachelor living downtown in my 20s.

Try it sometime. It works for me and I’m not a single bachelor or in my 20s.

But I’m in Toronto next week, without a car so I guess I’ll see how I go there.

Nope.

I'll make a top-level comment because an awful lot of commenters don't understand the law in question:

The law only banned the sale of pure-ICE vehicles. It's not an "only EVs" law. Hybrids were never to be banned.

Edit: The law as it stands does not ban hybrid sales after 2030. The new law bans nothing after 2030, and will apparently ban hybrids after 2035. If this modification passes, which I understand it currently has not, I would hope that 12 years is plenty of time to prepare.

It also only banned the sale of new ICE cars. The second hand market would still operate.

Also the law has not been changed, and it might have difficulty getting through Parliament, especially as it goes against a manifesto commitment.

What a silly mistake for short term domestic gain.

The ruling party (the Torys) in England are haemorrhaging support and seats because they've overseen a disastrous decade of mismanagement. It's well understood in the UK that this is a last ditch attempt to try and shore up political support ahead of a wipeout in elections next year.

However, in doing so they will set back the UK renewables industry 5 years, undermine our green credibility, and continue to negatively disrupt the market with constant u-turns on policy leading to lack of confidence and ability to forward plan for government set timelines.

And this isn't just a political thing: the public will suffer as the drop in electric car sales will lead to hesitancy on rolling our more charging infrastructure, meaning that electric vehicles are less viable. At the same time, our air remains more polluted for longer, and prices for petrol and electric charging remain higher.

All to try and reduce pain to the political class.

The way I'm reading this is that petrol and diesel vehicles are remarkably popular, so I'm left wondering what is wrong with actually being a representative government.

It is better understood as a desperate attempt to win some support from a very unpopular government, who have all but abandoned hope of staying in power, or likely even their individual seats. The accompanying statements about imaginary meat taxes etc underscored this.

The UK version of appealing to coal country in the US.

I’m all for electrical vehicles, but in case you haven’t noticed,there’s no way it’s gonna be ready by 2030.

I'm sorry to repeatedly post this comment but almost no-one understands the law in question.

The law only banned the sale of pure-ICE vehicles. Hybrids were never to be banned, and you don't have to plug in a hybrid.

By 2035, I would hope EVs are ready for everyone.

China is pushing EVs, and they are the largest car market. Hopefully, they get us past the tipping point on improved and affordable EV’s.

Yah, that's not true. From the article:

"The government also confirmed that under the revised plan all hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars would also be banned from 2035"

Whats the definition of a hybrid, because if I run out of fuel but put my car in 1st gear and turn the engine over with the key, it will move forward, albeit very slowly and not very far, so technically manual ICE cars already are a hybrid!?!

Hence the question. :)

Actually I think this is simply realism.

My perception is that the 2030 date was picked in jest by Boris Johnson because the EU was about to pick 2035 and the UK was of course going to do better thanks to Brexit...

Since then very little has been done. The grid is having big problems keeping up and investments are lagging across the board. Even supply of affordable EVs is not a given.

Many people had been saying that the shit would hit the fan as 2030 approached.

So yes this is a shit show, not because sales of new ICE cars is extended but because they have to extend it as this point.

Now, if they were sensible this would go together with, finally, a comprehensive plan to invest massively in all needed domains, but alas we're still waiting.

"The government also confirmed that under the revised plan all hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars would also be banned from 2035"

I really do not agree with this. If I buy an electric car (and I want to) it's going to be a hybrid.

Either that, or find me a car that can travel at least 600 miles on a single charge.

I'm 100% unwilling to wait more than 20 minutes total to recharge on this 600 mile trip. So I need 600 miles with 20 minutes of charging.

I do not believe this is currently possible, so I would want a hybrid.

You are a very rare customer. Most people take a break after driving for a few hours. Might as well charge the car. A fast charge speed that lets you drive a few hours on 30mins of charging and you don’t really need more battery capacity than that. Which is pretty much what new EVs already offer. It’s more likely that the cars will start getting lighter as the battery tech improves, a 600mile battery capacity really wouldn’t make a lot of sense for most customers.

> You are a very rare customer.

Not in my circles he's not. Most of the people I know say pretty much the same thing, myself included.

I'd be willing to put up with the inconvenience of this "fast charge" that gets me a few hours for 30 minutes of charging, but that presumes every where I stop has it. Which they absolutely would not, especially given the nature of the trips that take me that far.

I see lots of people making this argument. They would rather be able to complete rare long-range drives without stopping for 20 mins every 2 hours. Meanwhile during their normal use patterns they will be spending 5-10 mins a week at a petrol station paying 5x more for all their fuel when EVs charge cheaply at night.

Seems like a false economy?

Those rare long-range drives are not an exception you can ignore. Part of the reason I have a car in the first place is to have the freedom to go to random places.

It's a bit like saying most of my work happens in the GUI, so I shouldn't expect to be able to use a terminal.

Nobody is saying ignore them, and your analogy doesn’t really work since you can still do them.

In fact, since you’re encouraged to take regular breaks on a long trip anyway the only edge cases not catered for is when you have multiple drivers and you MUST keep driving for some reason.

When was the last time you drove 600 miles in one stretch?

In fact, when was the last time you drive 200 miles without taking a break?

Guess what! You rock up to a motorway service station, plug in your CCS connector, have a slash, stretch your legs, maybe buy a shitty coffee or a meal deal, and in that time you've got another 200 miles in your battery.

Honestly, if you're not taking regular breaks while driving, you're probably not driving safely.

The thing with a 600 mile trip is any breaks are very costly. You stop around every 200 miles for a 5 to 10 minutes bathroom break and gas, and that's it. I eat in the car, I don't waste time getting food. (We split up so one person is fueling and the other going to the bathroom, then switch - but I do all the driving.)

If you stop for any longer than that and you start exceeding the maximum you can drive in one day.

> In fact, when was the last time you drive 200 miles without taking a break?

I do that multiple times a year. I drive around 400 to 500 miles, stopping just once (so at 250 miles usually). 600 miles is more rare, but I do that occasionally as well (and I would stop twice in such a trip).

I'm fine with topping up the electricity on such a stop, but ideally 5 minutes, 10 minutes max.

A bit harsh trying to shame him for not taking breaks, when ars wrote 600 miles in one charge. You are the one making it into a 600 mile drive without breaks.

Why wouldn't you charge when you take a break? That's what I'm saying. You take a break, plug in, leave the car while you stretch your legs, done.

The UK isn't the USA. 600 miles gets you most of the way from Land's End to John o'Groats.

If you're regularly making that trip then, yes, I'll concede you need a massive battery. You probably also want to reconsider your life choices.

Because you are in a scenic rural area, enjoying the rural view of rural scenery without wires in it.

I get that this is the UK, but 600 miles being something people don't drive is sorta hilarious to me as an American.

Unless you go on 600 mile trips exceptionally often, e.g., every week or two, won't the extra time you spend charging on them be massively outweighed by the time you save by not going to gas stations the rest of the time?

Not all time is equal. On a 600 mile long time breaks are extremely costly. The trip is already 9 hours long, which is close to the max you can safely drive in a day.

So you want to stop around every 200 miles, for as short a time as you can, to avoid making the trip longer.

On the other hard when I go to the gas station I don't have that time constraint.

Yes, and it’s 5x cheaper per mile to fuel an EV here too.

Good news. They're not banning hybrids.

TFA says they’re banned in 2035 though.

So if sales of ICEVs and hybrids stops in '35, then the stock of cars on the road should switch to being >50% electric in the mid to late 2040s.

It was never a realistic target, there isnt the infrastructure in the UK to support it, and its not being built. I think that this deadline is going to be extended again in a few years time to 2040.

People could still buy and run older cars - so this wouldn't have been a single event when everyone suddenly moved to electric.

I suppose that applies to importing them from foreign climates as well?

Yes as far as I understand it, you can still import a car - this only applies to new vehicles.

Shocking! _Shocking_, I say!

It's almost as if it's a well established political tactic to give an unrealistic early deadline in order to light a fire under people's bottoms, only to extend it as the date edges closer. Almost as if this is what governments do as standard operating procedure, in order to get the ball moving.

I for one, am surprised.

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