
Britain to ban sale of all diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040 - EwanToo
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/25/britain-to-ban-sale-of-all-diesel-and-petrol-cars-and-vans-from-2040
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jeffwass
2040\. Why so late?

This kind of law pisses me off. Not the intended result, but that it won't
take effect for 23 more years!

I live in London. I'm severely affected by all the diesel emissions. I've had
Bronchitis and other respiratory ailments several times over the past few
years. I notice this most when walking through the exhaust (trucks and buses
are by far the worst), the sharp NOx odors are unmistakeable, and a few hours
later I'll have a coughing attack.

It's been estimated 10k people in the UK die each year from diesel exhaust,
but NOTHING is being done to remedy this in the short term.

To put into perspective, that's like the number of people who died in the
Grenfell tower fire every three days. After the Grenfell fire, immediate
checks were done on all council block towers with efforts to change them to
avoid another similar tragedy.

Yet for Diesel engines, which affect far more people, nothing is being done
other than some vague laws to slightly increase taxes in 3-5 years for diesel.

I was looking to buy a used car and went to CarGiant the other day (like
CarFax in USA). 90% of the used cars were diesel. It's ridiculous.

Politicians are scared to make a laws, eg even slight financial disincentives
on diesel cars, despite 30 people per day dying because of those cars.

Pisses me off.

(Edit - the article talks about the proposed law to charge the 'worst' diesel
owners £10 for their daily central London congestion charge. This is useless,
it only affects cars before 2007 and also those that enter central London.
Heavily polluting diesel cars and buses from 2008+, or older ones that don't
go into central London, can keep on happily poisoning the air for the rest of
us without penalty. And btw, you can tell the year of a UK car by its license
plate. And many of the affected cars and buses are well newer than 2007.)

~~~
rleigh
Why so late? Because changes of this scale need phasing in over a long period.
You can't replace the billions of capital investment in vehicles, petrol
stations, fuel storage facilities and distribution networks overnight. Our
economy and basic life necessities like food distribution are critically
dependent upon it. A replacement network needs creating, from charging
stations to national grid upgrades and new power stations to power everything.
The power stations alone will be a decade+ away.

Setting this big milestone will cause effects in vehicle ownership well in
advance. Will your next car be all electric, or a hybrid? What about the one
after that? Most people will go through at least two or three from now to
2040, and with vehicle manufacturers already committing to electric, the
migration is already underway; just give it time.

That said, there's nothing preventing increasing the scope and value of
pollution charges independently.

~~~
jeffwass
You're greatly overestimating the difficulty of migration of diesel to petrol.

Also you say to "give it time". Why, that's 30 people a day, a Grenfell
disaster every 3 days. Will you personally apologise to the families of the 30
people every day that are dying from complications related to diesel exhaust,
and that giving it time while their loved ones die is the best solution?

I'm assuming you either drive a diesel vehicle and are against financial
burden to yourself, or you love away from an urban centre where you are
happily naive to the actual impact diesel exhaust causes to yourself. (or
maybe you're lucky that diesel fumes don't affect your lungs and heart the way
they do many others like myself).

A £500 pound annual fee for all diesel vehicles, to be upped to £1000 after
one year, will go far to motivate diesel owners to consider other options and
make "the right choice" on next vehicle and fleet.

This could also go straight towards the NHS to offset treatment for air
pollution health issues.

Did you see what I wrote about CarGiant? Diesel cars are _easier_ and
_cheaper_ to buy right now. You have to go out of your way to get petrol
instead of diesel.

This law is basically putting the status quo on hold for a decade or more,
because no politician wants to be the one putting his or her name on a bill to
cause financial burdens on diesel owners.

Yet they have no problem continuing to poison the rest of us.

~~~
rleigh
If you think I'm arguing in favour of the status quo, you're greatly mistaken.

------
throwawaymanbot
Is this an attempt to get ready for 2040's peak oil issue? Removing cars and
trucks, frees up oil to go elsewhere. And gives OPEC nations time to figure
out what to do.

