UK and France will ban sale of all petrol cars from 2040

[zakzak]

To improve air quality, Britain and France will ban all new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040 amid fears that rising levels of nitrogen oxide pose a major risk to public health.

[SilverNodashi]

wish they would do it in South Africa. But I guess then we'll have a permanent taxi strike?

[___]

Some of the unique challenges of South Africa, and probably much of the rest of the continent, is the long distances between towns, and our strong second-hand market.

When someone from Europe drives from Cape Town to Beaufort West, for them it might be the longest distance they've done in a single day ever. For us... that's the breakfast stop.

Also, cars tend to be kept well beyond 20 years. They usually spend their first 3-5 years as a company car or in the hands of some high-earning professional, then they filter down to someone like me who drives them another 7 years or so, pushing them well into their mid-life. At this point the average European car ends up on the scrap heap, but not in Africa, over here I can still sell it for some good money, in fact second hand dealers are looking for this kind of thing. A few years down the line (another 5 or so) you start getting offers from random strangers when you stop to fill up. That car might live to be 30 if it's a good Jap model and nobody steals it or crashes it.

I expect the new-car market to get electric cars really soon, in fact I think it's already happening, the occasional Leaf/i3 pops up on autotrader, usually with very low miles, but the trouble is simply that it still costs too much. We're still starting no lower than 380k for a used leaf... that's Hilux territory.

[malek94]

we hope so

[Chris Hobson]

https://medium.com/thinkprogress/renewable-energy-is-unstoppable-declares-financial-times-40c222f439bb

 

[Riaanh]

SA Response

https://businesstech.co.za/news/motoring/195252/south-africas-answer-to-the-banning-of-petrol-cars-more-taxes/

[___]

Technically that would bring us in line with Europe and other places.

I'm still concerned with this thing where specific technologies get banned rather than the negative effects, for example, banning an incandescent lamp instead of banning lamps with a poor efficiency. Similarly, this bans vehicles based on a fuel type rather than environmental impact (consider Mazda's SkyActiv technology, if such a ban came earlier we'd never even have those efficient engines), and it also bans engines based on a fixed 400 000km range, which again might make sense for petrol vehicles but already makes no sense for Diesel vehicles or any new fuel tech that might still come (or even, improvements in petrol engined vehicles itself).

Of course I am also worried about how this government will even manage to do what needs to be done, which is basically annual tests like the British MOT. Given the poor track record (re speed at which things get done and corruption), this just seems like a bad idea already.

[Guest]

A major car manufacturer wanted to push electric cars in SA. They where prepared to put in the charging stations. Allegedly they stopped, not prepared to pay the bribes required to get all that is required passed.

I do not see electric cars working in Africa as per Plonkster. Nor do I see the 2nd hand market booming as the batts are a rather huge part and therefor cost of running the vehicle. Especially 2nd hand when the batts are end of life.

And even if it does work, in Africa we are clever, how is Sipho going to charge his car in his shack with no legit Eskom connection? Eskom is going to take an even deeper dive.

[___]

9 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

I do not see electric cars working in Africa as per Plonkster.

Oh make no mistake, in "Africa", as in those wide barren plains that I hail from myself, we'll be using ICE-driven cars for a long time to come. I cannot even imagine that those big rigs used in the Australian outback will go electric any time soon (though, did you guys see that Cummins made an electrical truck? I digress...). But in the cities. Seriously, all that is needed is for it to become cheap enough. Make it cheap enough and no amount of government red tape will stand in its way... well not forever at least. And it seems to me that it is rather inevitable that inside cities, where you do maybe 50km a day, this has to happen in the next ten years. Perhaps not in the townships, I agree: The cars that are popular in the townships now (you can tell my looking at which ones are stolen), is the late 90s early 00s Toyotas, so we can conservatively estimate that the informal car sector lags the formal one by about 15 years.

Here is another wild idea: Imagine your fictitious Sipho can charge his car at work and run his house from it at night? Now that's an idea... (we'd have to get rid of the current crop of politicians first though).