RE: Final EU vote on 2035 engine phaseout delayed

[DonkeyApple]

NGK210 said:

DonkeyApple said:

… There is no viable industrial source of carbon for FT other than fossil fuels, this 'sucking it from the air' is pure lies, it can't be done as there is barely any carbon in air.
…

https://climeworks.com

Carbon credit wheeze. You can look at Carbon Technologies from Canada as well. They've just got a grant out of the SNP so British tax payers are now keeping them afloat and paying 6 fat salaries in Canada.

400ppm. That's all there is of CO2 in the atmosphere. Do you know how much air you would need to suck in every hour to have enough CO2 being extracted to marry with the hydrogen? How do you then run that air through the catalysers at a much slower rate so that they can extract that CO2 from the air? Fist picture the largest fans that you can possibly imaging that are drawing in the volume of multiple football stadiums every minute (but also being endlessly clogged by birds, flies and dirt). Then imagine that to slow that air flow sufficiently to give time for the CO2 extraction you'd need a catalyst bed the size of a small country (any thoughts on the toxicity of the required catalysts?). And that's just to get some CO2. That then needs purifying. How many days do you suspect that then needs to run to produce the same amount of carbon that's in a lump of coal? And how much electricity do you think that will all use and at what cost? And how many miles could a million EVs have driven just using that electricity?

Now, back to the likes of climeworks. They speak of capturing CO2 from the atmosphere but that's not what they do or mean. 'Capture from the atmosphere' is the greenwashed, rebranding of 'not releasing into the atmosphere'.

Ie these industries are playing with words and blasting the media with these terms. What they mean is industrial CO2 pollution that would be released from the exhaust stack.

The way they work is usually to take a mineral such as olivine, crush it to massively increase its surface area, fill a stack which the factory or industrial process then forces their exhaust gasses and pollutants through. The olivine will take up a known number of CO2 molecules, the majority of CO2 will continue through the scrub and into the atmosphere but what is captured on its way through is a known amount that when that powder is then buried can be legitimately recorded and used to offset against carbon taxes. Also worth noting that this store cannot subsequently be used as an industrial source of CO2. Firstly as the tax then has to be paid but the cost of chemically extracting the CO2 back is it is insane.

They are not laying out beds of crushed olivine that cover the area of an entire continent and then buying it having removed some CO2 from the air. These are businesses that sell tax savings to dirty industries where the CO2 is insufficient to capture for use in other industries.

And one last little nugget to consider: If mankind could capture CO2 from the atmosphere at a rate greater than natural processes such as diatomic growth in the oceans (bearing in mind the bulk of the planet's surface co tact with the atmosphere is oceanic water!!) why do we have any kind of climate issue caused by CO2?

That's the killer isn't it. CO2 taxes are the basic proof to the layman that carbon capturing from the atmosphere does not exist. It is a PR deception for the purpose of greenwashing.

So where are VW getting their carbon from to use in Chile to create alcohol? Where does an FT plant get its carbon from?

HIF even lists its sources and you can calculate that only the third one 'industry' has sufficient volume to allow scaling production of alcohol.

But which industry? The whole problem that global industry has is that it cannot capture the CO2 it produces. How do we know that? Because they aren't doing it and are paying huge unavoidable taxes until they can work that out.

Germany always looks back to its industrial past when looking for solutions. In the 40s they ran FT on coal. The nations east of France still use a lot of coal so the question is whether what amounts of carbon can be captured from the waste. But I think I'd actually start by googling blue hydrogen or turquoise even and seeing if Germany is doing deals with any methane producers outside of the EU.

Blue hydrogen is a good source of CO2 captured from the atmosphere, sorry, captured before it is released into the atmosphere. It's a criminal waste of natural gas as the most energy rich element of the CH4 is the carbon atom but that's the bit you're binning instead of converting into energy and being left with 4 tiny H atoms that'll release some energy but whose real purpose is greenwashing and taxpayer money collection via grants and subsidies.

So, I'd look to see if a country like Germany had done any blue hydrogen deals with any none EU nation. If I were to find such a thing I would then look to see which company had won the deal to pull the carbon from the methane and which company was 'taking it away'. I'd then want to investigate where that carbon was being taken away to.

Blindly believing in things like atmospheric carbon capture for industrial supply is just wishful thinking. It can't be done or we'd be doing it and all this climate change, CO2 stuff would have ended.

Wanting to believe that the hugely energy intensive process of not just FT but he raw materials production can compete against either fossil fuels or electricity is nice but we've known, understood and been running these processes for over 100 years and there are really simple and clear reasons, that can never change because of the laws of thermodynamics, as to why FT for transport fuel has only ever appeared in extreme situations such as oil starved Nazi Germany and oil blockaded apartheid South Africa.

Or if you want the really simple system for checking the viability of all of this just look at the corporate scumbags involved, the grants and subsidies and the salaries of the individual bandits and their 40+ year track records of professional asset stripping.

We've had eFuels for over 100 years. We're going to make some more now. FT is far too expensive which is why all the likes of VW are doing is knocking out a bit of simple alcohol and this is being poured into race cars in the hopes that the green washing is enough to keep motorsport alive. But just as has always been the case with industrial fuel, they remain for the wealthy. It doesn't matter how many efuel pumps the Bavarian government pay oil companies to display on their forecourts using EU taxpayer money, the fuel isn't for the peasantry.

Oh and one final thought: how come, if the future of ICE fuel is synthetic and eFuels, the incumbent manufacturers of liquid transport fuels, who control 100% of the market place and have the technology, resources and capital to deliver alternative fuels are somehow leaving that entire new market up to a handful of very dodgy old geezers, some dubious local politicians and a car company with a track record from inception of corporate dishonesty and deception?

[anonymous-user]

TLD(id )R() but just to reiterate, if it was practical to capture carbon from the atmosphere on a large scale (it isn’t), then the best thing to do with that captured carbon would be to bury it and continue to rely on renewables (wind, solar, nuclear etc) for our energy needs.

The second best thing to do would be to burn it on an industrial scale (where the generators are more efficient and you can also again employ carbon capture.)

The one thing you wouldn’t do with it is ship it all over the country to use in the most inefficient way possible in ICE vehicles.

[DonkeyApple]

Mr Tidy said:

When did the EU ever meet a deadline?

I can't remember the last time their accounts got signed off and they didn't exactly rush to buy CV19 vaccines.

But time will tell!

If they do set 2035 in legal stone then one this is for sure and that is that the U.K. would be monumentally foolish to follow.

To date we have been smart as to how we've used these deadlines to stimulate change but as the U.K. is a significant net importer of cars not a manufacturer and as we know the least wealthy workers must be kept mobile for the country to function and at the current rate of EV adoption, usability and cost there is a potential risk looming in 2035 (nothing like the economic risk to the European car manufacturers) and we need to retain flexibility to resolve.

Germany wanting eFuels permitted has nothing to do with keeping poorer workers mobile. Nothing at all. It's about trying to keep car manufacturers solvent. The U.K. has no such issue.

Frankly, what we want to be doing from now to 2035 is protecting the ICE fleet as used ICE can already be clearly seen as being the backbone to keeping the U.K. sufficiently mobile while the transition to pure EV continues.

The people who cannot afford to transition to EV from 2035 in the U.K. very obviously couldn't afford eFuels!!! That's just bloody stupid thinking. Those fuels are for those with deep pockets who want to have fun or need to greenwash an ICE related business.

You can already see the what the cars are that will be essential to keeping the U.K. mobile post 2035 during the final transition to EV. It's the most popular, affordable ICE cars sold each year. It's the small Fords, Toyotas, VWs, etc. Look at the top ten cars sold in the U.K. by price and volume and these are the used cars that will be critical post 2035 in supporting the ongoing transition to EV.

Let's say we hit 500k new EVs sold in the U.K. this year. We buy 2m new cars a year on average so let's guesstimate that by 2030 we're buying 1m new EVs a year. This would imply that by 2030 of the 35m cars on the road somewhere between 5-10m at best will be EVs. As we approach 2035 that figure needs to hit 2m/year but will probably miss as people start to hoard their ICE but unlike Germany or France that doesn't really matter to the U.K. economically as we import these cars and U.K. consumers will find another way to spend money and pay VAT etc. So if we assume from 2030 to 2035 sales of 1.5m new EVs that's only adding another 5-10m EVs. So by 2035 the number of EVs is going to be between 10-20m of a fleet of 35m.

That's absolutely fine. That's a good result. Another ten years of only EV sales will see pretty much all of that 35m fleet switched over to EV.

The key though is that during the transition phase of 15 years between 2030 and 2045 the U.K. economy will be relying on a very significant but aging fleet of ICE cars all built in the 2020s.

So in the U.K. we categorically know that the poorest drivers will still need to switch to EV post 2035 so be reliant on ICE. We know that due to the economic status of this group those ICE won't be Bentleys and Ferraris but Yaris, Quashkai, Adams or whatever modest and affordable small ICE they are using today.

These cheap, practical, well built and frugal ICE cars that the lower income workers buy through this decade are absolutely essential to keeping the U.K. mobile through the 2030s and even into the 2040s.

So what must we start doing now to these cars when they're new in order to for them to safely last the length of time that we will need them to and in sufficient numbers to remain affordable?

It's mildly interesting to consider the huge importance the role of ICE must play in the transition to EV and that we can see all of this today. Economic security dictates we need to start looking after our sttiest lease wagons today as they're going to be critical post 2035.

[GT9]

rampangle said:

Archie2050 said:

The cost of such an inefficient process is always going to be prohibitive. If you want to export solar energy from Africa it would be far more efficient to export hydrogen and then use that to generate electricity in a fuel cell. The combustion process is just too wasteful.

Added to which, as anti EV sceptics are eager to point out, even renewables have some CO2 impact, mainly in the production of the panels, turbines etc which themselves have a finite lifespan.

In the case of utility scale Solar it’s around 40g/ kWh, slightly higher for domestic around 48g. That’s low if you then use the electricity efficiently. If you waste more than 80% in a synthetic fuel cycle though the it becomes as a problem. And that’s without including transport costs.

Synthetic fuels produced using low carbon rather than extremely low carbon sources are not environmentally viable because if the limitation.

It's a complex debate, but I think hydrogen would work out worse overall.

For the synthetic fuels, the infrastructure exists and so does the installed base of cars. For hydrogen you need all new infrastructure and a whole new fleet of cars. That's a painful carbon footprint.

Also think the CO2 impact of the solar plant is probably much overstated. You probably wouldn't be using panels at scale, but some kind of reflector array etc and over the very long haul you'd be maintaining the plant not just rebuilding over and over.

Ultimately, it's hard to be certain, but I think once renewables are the norm for electricity production, your CO2 impact numbers for the plant become much overstated and the efficient of synthetic fuels stops mattering. And once again it all comes down to cost. And given infrastructure and installed base of cars etc, I think synthetic fuels win there.

Complex it is.

The carbon footprint for the production and installation of the new infrastructure for the low efficiency pathways cannot be ignored. For the passenger car sector, the energy flows are simply enormous. The magnitude of investment becomes astronomical when you are throwing away 80-90% of the input energy. When you do a quantitive analysis, one's enthusiasm for a renewably-powered combustion or fuel cell-based solution will soon wane.

The problem is one of not only cost, but also timeline. The point that real decarbonisation actually starts is pushed many decades to the right, and the new plateau you reach is most likely noticeably higher than the electrification pathway.

I do agree that hydrogen is a red herring for cars. No net carbon footprint benefit for a very long time, some serious technical challenges around vehicle packaging, the massive safety burden, and plenty of supply chain headaches with no obvious short to medium term solution. I've raised the point several times that each fuel car requires up to 100 kg of high grade carbon fibre composite material solely for the fuel tanks. When I point out that this will very quickly consume the world's entire supply of high-grade fibres, everyone seems to glaze over as if it's a non-issue. Fibres that are sourced from fossil fuels.... Fibres that are extremely difficult to recycle....

These low efficiency pathways need to be kept on the bench as far as cars are concerned, so that they can be put to valuable use in other transportation sectors where batteries are not viable. Sectors where the raw energy flows are an order of magnitude smaller than the passenger car sector. Using up every last drop of hydrogen or synthetic fuel in such a large sector, that can actually be electrified, not only causes you to fail at decarbonising that sector, but also causes you to fail in every other sector where it could've been used, but where batteries can't. It becomes a fail on every front, in which case let's just keep burning fossil fuels, put our faith in the lap of the gods climate-wise and enjoy the ride. Caveat: keep killing the diesel cars though and return to petrol only for cars to address urban air quality issues.

Generally speaking, most people have no idea how much energy their car consumes in a year, and where this sits in the scheme of things in terms of total society-wide energy consumption. We have so many cars compared to other forms of transport, so unless you actually start to include some maths in these discussions, hopes and dreams for a future based on burning non-harmful stuff remain just that, hopes and dreams.

We either electrify the vast majority of cars or don't bother doing anything in my opinion.

[Fastlane]

What VW et al really need to do is invest in the EV infrastructure, like Tesla have done, rather than pissing around trying to extend the life of the ICE.

The level of straw-clutching on here is truly remarkable.

Cars are primarily a form of transport, not a lifestyle choice...

[DonkeyApple]

Archie2050 said:

TLD(id )R() but just to reiterate, if it was practical to capture carbon from the atmosphere on a large scale (it isn’t), then the best thing to do with that captured carbon would be to bury it and continue to rely on renewables (wind, solar, nuclear etc) for our energy needs.

The second best thing to do would be to burn it on an industrial scale (where the generators are more efficient and you can also again employ carbon capture.)

The one thing you wouldn’t do with it is ship it all over the country to use in the most inefficient way possible in ICE vehicles.

That's the criminal insanity of blue hydrogen. It's more efficient and environmental to pipe the CH4 to a power station where it is efficiently converted to electricity and distributed efficiently and pay to capture the CO2 from the exhaust as opposed to steaming the CH4 using vast amounts of electricity that could have powered cars, binning the carbon which contains the bulk of the atomic energy, which could have been used to power cars, creating a whole new gas shipping infrastructure for a gas that has never been viable to transport or store when the network for distributing electricity already exists and then using a hugely expensive, corrosive and dangerous gas to power a Bavarian EV bus when batteries from China are better.

But it becomes even more insane when you realise that after burning the CH4 efficiently in a power station and capturing the CO2 that CO2 can be simply reacted with green hydrogen that was made locally from renewables to create a molecule called CH4, methane. The exact fuel your power station burns!!!

So hang on, you could create green hydrogen locally from local renewables, not have to transport it or store it and instead instantly react it with your CO2 pollutant to reform your initial fuel again? So if you can capture the initial carbon you can easily just endlessly recycle that carbon through your gas fired generator?

Or, you could sail thousands of miles to Chile, build a massive industrial plant that needs to to then endlessly ship huge volumes of industrial CO2 to it and then use vast amounts of energy converting it to alcohol which you then have to ship back thousands of miles to be used, releasing that industrial carbon into the atmosphere, thus negating any environmental gain!!

That's very clearly moronic. No one would ever be that stupid. Unless it's all a tax wheeze with vast sums of carbon credit issuing and trading potential and all you have to do is sneak in a delusion about atmospheric CO2 and pay for some legal caveats in the markets you want to trade your credits in.

The U.K. is currently being pilloried by its inhabitants yet again from not being awesomely German but what Germany is doing in the 2020s is incredibly desperate and we should have no pet in their lunacy. If only because we are not reliant on Russia for our energy, we have not spent 30 years thinking our base 20th century industry can compete against the might of the US and China and we lack the natural resources to be renewable energy self sufficient so are having to build wind farms thousands of miles away and come up with ways to then import those end products and create markets for them.

Focussing on future wonder weapons to fix issues today has always been folly and a farce that the U.K. has normally declined to waste money and effort on.

We simply don't need any of that rubbish.

[anonymous-user]

Yes but ‘brm, brm, parp’ to consider.

[DonkeyApple]

Fastlane said:

What VW et al really need to do is invest in the EV infrastructure, like Tesla have done, rather than pissing around trying to extend the life of the ICE.

The level of straw-clutching on here is truly remarkable.

Cars are primarily a form of transport, not a lifestyle choice...

Charging infrastructure is hugely important in terms of transitioning the last 30% of the U.K. car user. Arguably, it becomes most recent post 2035 obviously.

However, what the U.K. absolutely does not want is car companies having any kind of involvement in this infrastructure!! We should tax them on every Forbes EV sale so as to raise the money to build that infrastructure but the likes of VW etc should not be allowed anywhere near the U.K. car charging infrastructure itself.

[DonkeyApple]

Archie2050 said:

Yes but ‘brm, brm, parp’ to consider.

Petrol is the solution. It's bloody brilliant. Smells great, works really well, is readily available and affordable and makes the best brm, brm, parp.

What's also great about petrol is that it is a waste product from domestic oil refining for industry so it will always be around so long as industry exists.

Why not go the whole hog and buy some carbon offsetting for your petrol?

I just can't help thinking that petrol is the best petrol to tide us over the slow steady switch to EVs. It's weird that. Who would have thought that petrol would work so well as a petrol.

[Wab1974uk]

Fastlane said:

What VW et al really need to do is invest in the EV infrastructure, like Tesla have done, rather than pissing around trying to extend the life of the ICE.

The level of straw-clutching on here is truly remarkable.

Cars are primarily a form of transport, not a lifestyle choice...

Or maybe the manufacturers know better than the Politician and most of us, and don't think EV's are the sole answer.

I've read manufacturers are now voicing concerns (probably what has triggered the EU to delay the deadline beyond 2035) to governments regarding building and supplying EV cars.

EV's are expensive to manufacturer and therefore expensive to sell. The market is narrowing as cheap affordable cars become a thing of the past. Only the well off will be able to afford an EV.

Car manufacturers rely on mass production. Limit the market, and the business becomes unviable.

[Baldchap]

I'm a petrolhead. I love cars. I love going Brum. I love going zoom.

But... it doesn't take a genius to see with our own eyes that we are absolutely fking (or have absolutely already fked) the planet. Climate change deniers are quite clearly a special kind of stupid to anyone with eyes or nerve endings.

We need to stop setting fire to stuff to propel ourselves. COVID seemed like a good global pause and reset, and it felt like we had a chance for a moment, but we're back at it like it never happened.

Cost is irrelevant, inconvenience is irrelevant, preference is irrelevant. We need to change as a species before it's too late, if it isn't already.

The truth is, synthetic fuels aren't the answer. Batteries probably aren't the answer. Changing our mobility habits is the answer. Walking/running/cycling is the answer. Unfortunately the situation will get a lot worse - possibly irreversibly worse - before we change our behaviours.

Anyway, can't stop and chat. Taking the dog to the woods in my 4.4 twin turbo v8.

[GT9]

Said many times before, but anyway, here goes.

We have one of the best opportunities to electrify cars anywhere in the world.

An extremely long coastline that allows us to relatively easily harvest energy recently arrived from the sun in the form of offshore wind power.

A relatively high population density with short distances between population centres that plays to the strength of the technology.

Sufficient wealth to acquire the (admittedly large) amount of battery material required, spread over a period of a few decades.

Materials that never get consumed and retain their intrinsic value forever, since they can be recycled forever.

It's very easy to ignore that fossil fuel not only comes at significant expense, but as soon as you use it, the one and only time you can use it, it becomes a liability in the form of CO2.

Battery electric cars are annoyingly good at addressing this fundamental problem with our beloved ICEs.

Electric cars are a gift from heaven to improve long-term wealth and energy security in our country.

They represent a massive opportunity, so why is that all we want to see is a threat?

Are we, once again, going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

[anonymous-user]

GT9 said:

Said many times before, but anyway, here goes.

We have one of the best opportunities to electrify cars anywhere in the world.

An extremely long coastline that allows us to relatively easily harvest energy recently arrived from the sun in the form of offshore wind power.

A relatively high population density with short distances between population centres that plays to the strength of the technology.

Sufficient wealth to acquire the (admittedly large) amount of battery material required, spread over a period of a few decades.

Materials that never get consumed and retain their intrinsic value forever, since they can be recycled forever.

It's very easy to ignore that fossil fuel not only comes at significant expense, but as soon as you use it, the one and only time you can use it, it becomes a liability in the form of CO2.

Battery electric cars are annoyingly good at addressing this fundamental problem with our beloved ICEs.

Electric cars are a gift from heaven to improve long-term wealth and energy security in our country.

They represent a massive opportunity, so why is that all we want to see is a threat?

Are we, once again, going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

this says it all

[Klippie]

You would think the big oil companies would be putting up a massive fight against the so called phasing out of oil based fuels, its been proven time and time again lots of money gives you a big political lever to enforce your will.

They hold all the cards...some day soon they will play their hand.

[Baldchap]

Klippie said:

You would think the big oil companies would be putting up a massive fight against the so called phasing out of oil based fuels, its been proven time and time again lots of money gives you a big political lever to enforce your will.

They hold all the cards...some day soon they will play their hand.

Where do you think all the anti-EV sentiment comes from? It certainly isn't people who own or have owned EVs (like me).

[Klippie]

GT9 said:

We have one of the best opportunities to electrify cars anywhere in the world.

Ok how does Mr avarage on £25k with a family afford to buy a £40k EV, Mr average probably runs a ten year old Focus costing a few grand...the low earning UK population will never be able to buy or run an EV...its fantasy land.

[anonymous-user]

Klippie said:

GT9 said:

We have one of the best opportunities to electrify cars anywhere in the world.

Ok how does Mr avarage on £25k with a family afford to buy a £40k EV, Mr average probably runs a ten year old Focus costing a few grand...the low earning UK population will never be able to buy or run an EV...its fantasy land.

How much do you think a 10 year old (£40k new) EV will cost?

It’s also like to be in much better mechanical shape than an ICE car provided the battery doesn’t self destruct the days after its manufacturer’s warranty expires.

That’s why the rate of adoption of EVs now matters so much in order to pump prime the whole second and third user ecosystem and IMO it’s a mistake to withdraw tax breaks too early. Introducing road tax on EVs in 2025 will not hurt new owners (who won’t care) aa much as used buyers (who may) for example, and VAT on public charging is regressive penalising those without a private drive to charge at home.

[Klippie]

Baldchap said:

Where do you think all the anti-EV sentiment comes from? It certainly isn't people who own or have owned EVs (like me).

This push towards EV needs to stop...all this green nonsense is destroying the economy and peoples livelihood's, Covid was bad enough but this on another level of a massive transfer of peoples wealth to those who already have enough...its not about saving the planet that's the cover story...good old fashioned greed is cause of all the issues we now have.

[anonymous-user]

Klippie said:

Baldchap said:

Where do you think all the anti-EV sentiment comes from? It certainly isn't people who own or have owned EVs (like me).

This push towards EV needs to stop...all this green nonsense is destroying the economy and peoples livelihood's, Covid was bad enough but this on another level of a massive transfer of peoples wealth to those who already have enough...its not about saving the planet that's the cover story...good old fashioned greed is cause of all the issues we now have.

And Oil companies are run as cooperatives?

Can I just ask, Shell, Esso or Exxon?

[DonkeyApple]

Wab1974uk said:

Or maybe the manufacturers know better than the Politician and most of us, and don't think EV's are the sole answer.

I've read manufacturers are now voicing concerns (probably what has triggered the EU to delay the deadline beyond 2035) to governments regarding building and supplying EV cars.

EV's are expensive to manufacturer and therefore expensive to sell. The market is narrowing as cheap affordable cars become a thing of the past. Only the well off will be able to afford an EV.

Car manufacturers rely on mass production. Limit the market, and the business becomes unviable.

It's the cliff edge from 2030 that is the issue.

European manufacturers know that their balance sheets can't survive the short to medium term demand drop that will manifest from 2030 as the domestic market it relies on slows down its purchase of new cars.

The industry is built on a global renewal rate in primary markets of 5%.

What we knew would happen is that from 2030 the poorer car user throughout Europe would begin to slow their purchasing rate and begin a temporary hoarding of used ICE. 2 years ago the predictions on that number were manageable. For the European manufacturers the EU was expanding further and further East swallowing up more and more new forces consumers, energy was cheap and plentiful, money was cheap and quite simply, France and Germany could beat any vassal state of the EU that dared not to force its inhabitants not to buy a new car. The sales hurdle was set to be manageable and relatively brief.

Fast forward to today and that landscape has long gone. Crushing energy insecurity and consumer costs has increased the number of consumers unable as well as unwilling to switch. France and Germany aren't now looking at forcing a few regional poor people into a transport mess but millions across the whole of Europe. Can't be done. You can't bully and oppress that many people into buying goods they can't afford. The post 2030 predicted sales drop is now far too big for the manufacturers to survive.

It's because of that we will see caveats appear. It's no bad thing. Plans must change as the landscape changes and the landscape last year changed forever on the European mainland. Their expansion to the East hasn't just halted but looks like it risks even reversing, it has lost its energy security and its legacy industry can't compete against the US or China. Lots of birds coming home to roost all in just 12 months.

In the U.K. as we import our cars, have electricity ubiquity across a very small land mass and a clear path to excess renewable we have a different path. We don't need to subsidise car manufacturing that isn't done within our shores for starters. We don't have huge swathes of land where there is no electricity, we have 7 local fuel refineries and bar a short historical blip have favoured petrol over diesel so have less import risk etc.

But most importantly we are rich. Seriously rich. A small island that ranks as the 7th most wealthy nation in the planet yet we import almost all of our cars. So if one country's cars start to look too expensive we just buy from another. It's that simple.

China is the largest EV manufacturer and market in the planet. Their products are the cheapest. If the German or French manufacturers can't supply the U.K. with goods at a low enough price then we simply go to China.

The U.K. always goes to cheaper markets when costs become too high. Never more so in the automotive industry. We went to Japan for cheap cars in the 70s. In the 80s we even went to Russia for knock off Fiats to keep folks moving. In the 90s we went to South Korea for the cheap stuff. In the 2020s there is only one market to go to for cheap EVs and while the EU works night and day to lock China's automotive industry out and to stop their domestic industry being decimated, the U.K. has absolutely no incentives not to go where the price is best. And as despite the mess of Ukraine the U.K. still needs to do a critical trade deal with China what do we suspect China wants the quickest access to in the U.K. (other than all our intellectual property and freedoms;)) and what does the U.K. have a long track record of granting access to during times of economic tardiness?