UK Cars all Zero emission by 2050

[Blaster72]

Did I miss a thread on this one?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-p...

http://zevalliance.org/content/cop21-2050-announce...

I'm looking forward to having a self driving pod when I'm a pensioner and my eyes, ears and reactions have all dimmed to the point of no being able to drive any more.

[Trif]

Have they committed to having enough electricity generation by then for all the cars on the road?

Personally I am looking forward to decent electric cars for the people (Tesla?). I look forward to having a house in a few years time that will be suitable for a decent solar panel grid, wind turbine and ground source heat pump. Once installed, near enough free electricity, heating and commuting? Yes please.

[anonymous-user]

I assume they mean zero TAILPIPE emissions........

[DickP]

I take it with a view that it could be treated much like the Zero Carbon Homes, which we should have "of a sorts" by next year. (i.e. title does not correlate to real meaning)

[DickP]

Aside from this, there have been some significant development in battery technology which whilst aren't applicable to cars are having potential interesting applications in other areas such as property and manufacturing.

[Truckosaurus]

Don't care, will be long gone by then.

[Blaster72]

Truck, unless you're in your 90s now don't bet on it

[Catatafish]

We'll probably still be burning fossil fuels and splitting atoms for our electricity, not much different.

Still, 35 years is plenty of time for something left field to pop up, like a synthetic photosynthesising substance that converts to fuel in sunlight and can be burnt in an ICE.

[kambites]

Max_Torque said:

I assume they mean zero TAILPIPE emissions........

Yes. They mean the car will be zero-emission - as in the car wont emit anything.

[k-ink]

Of course the next step is to generate clean electricity in the first place. All that needs to be done is capture 1/1000th of the sunlight which falls on Earth. This will power all of mankind for nothing, according to a paper I read years ago. So where to put this solar array? I vote for the Aussie outback. Then run an extension cable over here. Job jobbed

[kambites]

k-ink said:

Of course the next step is to generate clean electricity in the first place. All that needs to be done is capture 1/1000th of the sunlight which falls on Earth. This will power all of mankind for nothing, according to a paper I read years ago. So where to put this solar array? I vote for the Aussie outback. Then run an extension cable over here. Job jobbed

I think the Sahara might be a bit more practical for Europe.

[k-ink]

Nah, our Queenie already owns the Aussie land mass.

[anonymous-user]

kambites said:

Max_Torque said:

I assume they mean zero TAILPIPE emissions........

Yes. They mean the car will be zero-emission - as in the car wont emit anything.

We have some words to describe exactly that, they are "Zero Tailpipe Emissions"........ Unfortunately, lazy, clueless Journalists and Politicians leave out the vital "Tailpipe" word in order to make a better sound bite. And in doing so, they say something that is both blatantly untrue, but worse, tends to dupe the average (wo)man into the street into thinking their car is cleaner than it actually is!

[kambites]

Max_Torque said:

We have some words to describe exactly that, they are "Zero Tailpipe Emissions"........ Unfortunately, lazy, clueless Journalists and Politicians leave out the vital "Tailpipe" word in order to make a better sound bite. And in doing so, they say something that is both blatantly untrue, but worse, tends to dupe the average (wo)man into the street into thinking their car is cleaner than it actually is!

I think "zero emission" when talking about vehicles has a very well defined meaning. I agree it may be misleading to the layman, though.

[mcflurry]

and why not?
The petrol engine is only about 140 years old. Surely with modern tech they can find a cleaner / better way to propel a car within another 35, that doesn't involve burning dinosaurs?

[loose cannon]

The west only survives on petrodollar, we will be living back in caves long before the switch to non fossil fuels happen completely, see all recent wars funded by the west also see Syria, and how the German minister was quickly silenced by merkel et all yesterday when he had the gall to tell Saudi Arabia to stop funding terrorism around the world with its oil wealth

[M3DGE]

The Tesla shows you can build a proper car with a practical range today. Yes, it's pricey, but the cost of the technology and it's performance will reduce with increased volumes - which in a low oil price environment will need government support and/or sticks like higher taxes on petrol and diesel cars. The post says 2050 - I actually think that is pretty conservative, could be ten or even 15 years earlier.

[k-ink]

I think everyone gets the tailpipe reference. However we do have a solution. It could start to be implemented overnight - see my post above.

Of course this will never happen whilst oil is still available to be sold at billions of pounds profit. Once every drop of profit has been squeezed out we'll move onto the next profitable source. Common sense and being green will be at the bottom of the list. All the car makers can do is THEIR PART. It is up to politics to sort out the rest of the power supply chain.

[grumpyscot]

Max_Torque said:

We have some words to describe exactly that, they are "Zero Tailpipe Emissions"........

Since I'll be 100 by the time it all happens (and probably dead!), I reckon I'd have gone through the stage of where tail-pipe emissions were related to what I'd eaten the day before and couldn't care less about the planet by then! I'd probably be in zog-land dreaming about my new Austin A30..................

[Blanchimont]

The first link says "almost all cars and vans to be ZE by 2050"

That'll probably translate into "We'll tax ICE cars to the point where it's idiotic to own one, but we know people will still do it which will pay for our holidays in Mauritius*"

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