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As both a petrolhead and a UK resident, I do think this is moving in the right direction. The internal-combustion engine has had its day. Electric and alternati

As both a petrolhead and a UK resident, I do think this is moving in the right direction. The internal-combustion engine has had its day. Electric and alternative-fuel vehicles are rising in efficiency and range, and it's becoming much more practical to ditch fossil fuels. The number of scandals that have come to light over increasingly tight emissions regulations shows that there is no future in burning fuel. Hopefully the price of electric cars will continue to fall as battery technology improves, although we do still need to address the problem of emissions from manufacturing the batteries in the first place and emissions from generating electricity to charge them. Also, hopefully 2040 is a hard deadline, and car makers will retire the ICE before that point. That said, I hope the use of older cars won't be outright banned. Even though electric cars are becoming much better performers with improving technology, you cannot beat the roar and power curve of a combustion engine around a track or twisty road. Hopefully they'll go like horses - electric cars will take over point to point transport, while ICE-powered vehicles will be for recreation. Elsewhere, while this is a good start, I think we seriously need to rein in the emissions of EVERYTHING that burns fossil fuels. Power plants are already under scrutiny, but shipping is not - it's becoming increasingly clearer that container ships, which burn low-quality heavy oil in international waters, contribute vastly more to air pollution than a large number of cars.

pistonhead 9y ago
> you cannot beat the roar and power curve of a combustion engine around a track or twisty road. Hopefully they'll go like horses - electric cars will take over point to point transport, while ICE-powered vehicles will be for recreation This this this. I think electric cars are great and should replace all non-recreational modes of transport. However, they simply do not compare to the joy and involvement you get from ICE cars. The sound and torque curve is critical for the experience, as is the involvement from a manual transmission and three pedals. I hope that petrol cars will live on.
- Jonnax 9y ago
  This is 23 years into the future. If autonomous cars take off in that time, the future may be that you won't be able to drive a non-autonomous car on the roads. If that were to happen, it would be the motorways first. I would guess. But it would mean that deaths would be significantly reduced. Found this info from 2015: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-main-results-2015 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... Road deaths:1,732 Seriously injured:22,137 Total: 186,209 casualties of all severities I predict attitudes are going to change where people driving on the roads especially when talking high speed will be banned. If people aren't using petrol cars anymore then you won't have petrol stations every few miles, a full tank will become quite expensive as well due to lack of demand. But hey, it's still a ways away. In my town there's an old sign at the entrance to the square saying that traction engines are forbidden. Today, cars drive through it. What's normal today will change. Who knows how exactly, so enjoy it whilst it lasts!
  - guicho271828 9y ago
    I hope driving on the road will not be banned, but instead hope for the more strict law for a driver's license. Too many people pay not enough attention to driving, some may check emails, some may lack ethics, some may roadrage with ridiculous reasons, and so on. We are lucky that those people do not love driving and therefore are likely to welcome the introduction of autonomous cars. There would be an autonomous-only license in the future, bad drivers eliminated first (and shifted to autonomous cars). I also believe realistically an abrupt change as a total ban on driving would not happen, and instead there will be a more gradual shift to the driverless society, which would only materialize at the time I become too old to drive. I am completely fine with it, by that time I would have enjoyed plenty of driving.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  I was in rural France a couple of weeks back. Idyllic, apart from motorbikes deciding to rev round those twisty bends every now and then. Everyone who lives near those twisty roads hate you. All of them mentioned the motorbikes. I live in the middle of a city, the noise is high, but the really bad noise? Guys on motorbikes and ferraris and all the other petrol head vehicles. Revving up streets, powering from 0-30 as quick as they can, dangerous and noisy. The noise echos up the buildings and affects everyone in those buildings. Hundreds of people annoyed for one person's little thrill. Personally I'm all for the complete banning of all these vehicles, right now, they are a horrid detriment to everyone in ear-shot of them, for the pleasure of one. If you want speed, go to a race track.
  - IshKebab 9y ago
    I agree. I think recreational use of ICE vehicles is fine from an emission point of view, if not many people do it. But this noise is another matter. Those petrolheads are going to be exactly the ones with deliberately and obnoxiously loud cars and bikes.
LoSboccacc 9y ago
don't think they gonna solve the range and recharge time issue by then. as someone that moved countries multiple times, that concerns me. battery swap has it's set of problems (either accepting a leasing model or dealing with storage issues at home)
- gargravarr 9y ago
  Range is increasing steadily, as companies figure out how to cram more lithium into the battery. Teslas can manage a healthy 200 miles per charge. City cars like the Nissan Leaf can stretch 155 miles. Recharge times are actually restricted more by how much power you can pull from the grid at once - lithium batteries allow many kilowatts at a time to be pumped into them, provided they're cooled correctly, but this puts an obvious strain on the local grid. In theory, having a large feed direct from a power station at a petrol station would allow you to charge an electric car in a comparable time to tanking up with petrol. Battery swap is indeed an issue, but (again, in theory) batteries can be recycled, so the owner could sell the expired pack to a recycler to reclaim the lithium. Most current cars have the battery underneath the chassis, and there are demos of dropping a Tesla's pack in 90 seconds. Some proposals have been made for mechanically switching the pack at a charging station with a full one, then the pack is recharged separately for someone else to use. This fits nicely with the leasing model, but obviously needs a lot of investment. Leasing is also a good option because replacing the battery at the end of its life is then the duty of the manufacturer, although lithium batteries are pretty good even at five years old - I can get many years of life out of a good-quality laptop battery, so I wouldn't hesitate with an electric car.
TheGrumpyBrit 9y ago
If it goes as planned (which I doubt) then this would destroy basically every outdoor hobby I have. I like to ride vintage motorcycles, and have got my eye on a 30 year old camper van. Most of my weekends are spent camping in some field or other making new friends and socialising with like minded people. Sure, petrol might still be legal, but with no demand from new vehicles, how long will it continue to be available. It certainly won't be affordable - as soon as a decent proportion of voters are no longer affected by petrol prices, duty will skyrocket. My personal feeling is that if this is the direction we're going in, we might as well just go the whole hog and outlaw human drivers too. At least that way you get the safety and traffic flow benefits that come with every vehicle on the road knowing what every other vehicle is doing. Whatever they do, they'll take my bike when they prise it from my cold dead fingers.

pistonhead 9y ago

> you cannot beat the roar and power curve of a combustion engine around a track or twisty road. Hopefully they'll go like horses - electric cars will take over point to point transport, while ICE-powered vehicles will be for recreation This this this. I think electric cars are great and should replace all non-recreational modes of transport. However, they simply do not compare to the joy and involvement you get from ICE cars. The sound and torque curve is critical for the experience, as is the involvement from a manual transmission and three pedals. I hope that petrol cars will live on.

Jonnax 9y ago
This is 23 years into the future. If autonomous cars take off in that time, the future may be that you won't be able to drive a non-autonomous car on the roads. If that were to happen, it would be the motorways first. I would guess. But it would mean that deaths would be significantly reduced. Found this info from 2015: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-main-results-2015 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... Road deaths:1,732 Seriously injured:22,137 Total: 186,209 casualties of all severities I predict attitudes are going to change where people driving on the roads especially when talking high speed will be banned. If people aren't using petrol cars anymore then you won't have petrol stations every few miles, a full tank will become quite expensive as well due to lack of demand. But hey, it's still a ways away. In my town there's an old sign at the entrance to the square saying that traction engines are forbidden. Today, cars drive through it. What's normal today will change. Who knows how exactly, so enjoy it whilst it lasts!
- guicho271828 9y ago
  I hope driving on the road will not be banned, but instead hope for the more strict law for a driver's license. Too many people pay not enough attention to driving, some may check emails, some may lack ethics, some may roadrage with ridiculous reasons, and so on. We are lucky that those people do not love driving and therefore are likely to welcome the introduction of autonomous cars. There would be an autonomous-only license in the future, bad drivers eliminated first (and shifted to autonomous cars). I also believe realistically an abrupt change as a total ban on driving would not happen, and instead there will be a more gradual shift to the driverless society, which would only materialize at the time I become too old to drive. I am completely fine with it, by that time I would have enjoyed plenty of driving.
mattmanser 9y ago
I was in rural France a couple of weeks back. Idyllic, apart from motorbikes deciding to rev round those twisty bends every now and then. Everyone who lives near those twisty roads hate you. All of them mentioned the motorbikes. I live in the middle of a city, the noise is high, but the really bad noise? Guys on motorbikes and ferraris and all the other petrol head vehicles. Revving up streets, powering from 0-30 as quick as they can, dangerous and noisy. The noise echos up the buildings and affects everyone in those buildings. Hundreds of people annoyed for one person's little thrill. Personally I'm all for the complete banning of all these vehicles, right now, they are a horrid detriment to everyone in ear-shot of them, for the pleasure of one. If you want speed, go to a race track.
- IshKebab 9y ago
  I agree. I think recreational use of ICE vehicles is fine from an emission point of view, if not many people do it. But this noise is another matter. Those petrolheads are going to be exactly the ones with deliberately and obnoxiously loud cars and bikes.

LoSboccacc 9y ago

don't think they gonna solve the range and recharge time issue by then. as someone that moved countries multiple times, that concerns me. battery swap has it's set of problems (either accepting a leasing model or dealing with storage issues at home)

gargravarr 9y ago
Range is increasing steadily, as companies figure out how to cram more lithium into the battery. Teslas can manage a healthy 200 miles per charge. City cars like the Nissan Leaf can stretch 155 miles. Recharge times are actually restricted more by how much power you can pull from the grid at once - lithium batteries allow many kilowatts at a time to be pumped into them, provided they're cooled correctly, but this puts an obvious strain on the local grid. In theory, having a large feed direct from a power station at a petrol station would allow you to charge an electric car in a comparable time to tanking up with petrol. Battery swap is indeed an issue, but (again, in theory) batteries can be recycled, so the owner could sell the expired pack to a recycler to reclaim the lithium. Most current cars have the battery underneath the chassis, and there are demos of dropping a Tesla's pack in 90 seconds. Some proposals have been made for mechanically switching the pack at a charging station with a full one, then the pack is recharged separately for someone else to use. This fits nicely with the leasing model, but obviously needs a lot of investment. Leasing is also a good option because replacing the battery at the end of its life is then the duty of the manufacturer, although lithium batteries are pretty good even at five years old - I can get many years of life out of a good-quality laptop battery, so I wouldn't hesitate with an electric car.

TheGrumpyBrit 9y ago

If it goes as planned (which I doubt) then this would destroy basically every outdoor hobby I have. I like to ride vintage motorcycles, and have got my eye on a 30 year old camper van. Most of my weekends are spent camping in some field or other making new friends and socialising with like minded people. Sure, petrol might still be legal, but with no demand from new vehicles, how long will it continue to be available. It certainly won't be affordable - as soon as a decent proportion of voters are no longer affected by petrol prices, duty will skyrocket. My personal feeling is that if this is the direction we're going in, we might as well just go the whole hog and outlaw human drivers too. At least that way you get the safety and traffic flow benefits that come with every vehicle on the road knowing what every other vehicle is doing. Whatever they do, they'll take my bike when they prise it from my cold dead fingers.