Did you hear about the man who ran over his neighbour with an electric car? He was convicted of assault with battery. Expect to hear more terrible jokes like this, as the UK Government yesterday pledged to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040. The UK joins the French Government, who have the same deadline to bring an end to cars powered by the venerable suck-squeeze-bang-blow . This pledge is nothing new: it just builds on a similar plan outlined in 2011 , with the language firmed up from an ‘ambition to end the sale’ to ‘will end the sale’. The big question has to be whether this policy is realistic. Luckily for us 2017 has seen quite a few opinions on this subject. In the furthest reaches of blue corner sits Stanford University economist Tony Seba , who thinks that all cars sold by 2025 will be self-driving electric Uber pods. On similar (but less extreme) lines sits the car manufacture Volvo, who say that all of their cars will be electric by 2019 (although this inc...
Squawking, flapping and pecking around environmental policy since 2011.