This week, writing in the Daily Mail, Matt Ridley produced a devastating takedown of the government’s 2030 ban on the sale of new conventionally powered cars. He plans to pre-empt the ban himself by buying a brand-new petrol car in 2029.
Innovation happens gradually and delivers its benefits unevenly – therefore it is stupid to impose it on everyone all at once
I thought he was right about almost everything, except perhaps that final prediction. He’s right to be sceptical about the environmental benefits of electric cars – especially in countries such as China (and, to a lesser extent, Germany) where electricity is largely generated from the filthier forms of coal. Indeed Germans, if they truly want to benefit the environment, may be better off buying electric cars not for themselves but for random French people, since France invested sensibly in nuclear power.
Above all Matt is right to be highly sceptical about arbitrary simultaneous deadlines imposed by governments. We can tell these deadlines are arbitrary, because the years proposed for any ban are all suspiciously a multiple of five. The original date for the ban was to be 2040. That became 2035 and then 2030. The date for the deferred ban on sales of new hybrid cars will be, you’ve guessed it, 2035. As a friend remarked, if you want to maintain at least the pretence of rational calculation, it might have made sense to randomise these dates a bit.
In any case, I don’t see why you would ban plug-in hybrids. For people who mostly drive very short distances (which is most people in Britain), it may make no sense to cart around half a ton of battery on every school run, in case you want to take a driving holiday in France in 2032.
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