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                                           Banning sale of new diesel, petrol, and hybrid cars.

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A statement put out by the Alliance of British Drivers

 


 

The Government plans to ban sales of new hybrid cars from 2035 along with all petrol and diesel cars. That has been brought forward from the previously planned date of 2040 and will now include hybrid vehicles.

 

The Alliance of British Drivers (ABD) deplores this over-reaction to the views of the extreme end of the environmental movement.  This change in the regulations ignores the whole-life cost in terms of carbon emissions of building, operating and scrapping vehicles. Premature changes will mean more emissions of CO2 not less.

 

There is also no certainty that by 2035 there will be vehicles available that provide sufficient range, or an adequate network of electric charging points that drivers can rely upon. It will also require a major expansion of the electricity grid and generating capacity to cope with the increased demand. All these changes will impose enormous costs on drivers and the economy, and threaten the very existence of the motor manufacturing industry.

 

Hybrid vehicles are a good compromise solution to meet the concerns of drivers and ensure that they transition to lower emission vehicles in due course, but this change might actually deter people from buying them. Bringing in tougher regulations might simply ensure that vehicle owners keep their old petrol/diesel vehicles for longer rather than replacing them with new ones, with the unintended consequence that emissions will not fall.

 

These proposals are part of the Government's plans to achieve a net-zero carbon target by 2050 which will impose enormous costs on the economy and have no impact on the worldwide emissions. The UK is already a very small part of worldwide emissions and unless major nations such as China and the USA cease using coal in power stations, when they are currently building more of them, there will be negligible impact.

 

This latest announcement is just another example of "gesture politics" that may kowtow to the whims of environmental enthusiasts in the UK but will in reality have negligible impact apart from inconveniencing the general public and costing everyone a great deal of money.

     

The Alliance of British Drivers was formed in October 2012 by the merger of the Association of British Drivers and the Drivers' Alliance Press Enquiries:

pressrelease@abd.org.uk

0870 4442535

General enquiries and membership:

membership@abd.org.uk