The EV plan and why government needs to cease the ‘blame game’
Faced with a legal battle to clean-up the environment, highlights Iain Robertson, the motorist is a surprisingly easy target but governments need to consider more carefully how they treat taxpayers, as the act of finger-pointing can easily reverse.
Ever since the dawn of motorised transport, legislation has been drawn up frequently in opposition to it. Road tax was introduced in 1909 and (initially) ring-fenced to ensure that motorists would pay for the road repairs that were incurred. However, Winston Churchill, as Chancellor of The Exchequer in 1926, considered the levy to be an affront that would lead to its abolishment.
During the formative growth period for the motor vehicle (1896-1936), the UK’s roads network grew by only 4%, which suggests that a trend for government to lag seriously behind market changes was already inherent. While road tax was removed in 1937, being reintroduced speciously by George Osborne in 2014, when displaying a ‘tax disc’ as proof of payment also became unnecessary, it is common knowledge that any duties levied on vehicles went into the government’s consolidated taxation pot.
Of course, government’s stance is understandable. Most road improvements and developments have been funded from local authority budgets and the road tax income was never more than a contribution to the high costs incurred. Yet, a dangerous precedent had been established that made motorists the denizens of the highways; the roads belonged, by right, by payments, to them! In many ways, this is little different to the market introducing in-car communications, to which government applies taxes and fresh legislation eventually, after the precedent of using the devices has become common practice.
Environmental protection has been central to national concerns ever since the US dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan towards the end of WW2. Starting with anti-nuclear movements, the Green Party became politically active in Germany in 1980. Fledgling ecological bodies were born in other countries, when it was realised that they too might have political validity. Of course, the fast-track growth of social movements and related activism was elemental to societal change in the late-20th Century.
Although electrified transport has its roots in the birth of motorisation, technological development of wound wire electric motors and lead-acid batteries was overtaken by both petrol and diesel engineering. Although class differences exist, fossil-fuelled vehicles have always been significantly lighter than their equivalent EVs. While many carmakers have fought tirelessly to reduce vehicular bulk, which happens to be on many of their current agendas, even the most compact battery-powered car tips the scales at considerably more than 1.5-tonnes, or twice the weight of a piston-driven equivalent.
Just as heavy goods vehicles are responsible for damaging road surfaces, a growing number of heavyweight EVs will add to the toll, as very few of them weigh less than two tonnes and the costlier they are, the heavier they are too. Road tax (free to EV owners/operators) loses its relevance. However, tyre replacements are more frequent; brake system problems occur, when transmission retarders take over the role of vehicle stopping; major repairs are problematic; and the act of moving the refuelling structure away from fuel stations to coal/gas-fired power stations is not a valid response, as emissions remain extant.
While environmental issues are important to all of us, after all, we do not want to return to the smogs and fogs of sixty years ago, the modern piston engine is not as polluting as most antagonists would have it. ‘Stop:start’ technology, while not a panacea, does help. Battery-based hybrid developments that allow urban travel on battery power but revert to petrol/diesel power on the open road are a practical solution. Even the use of non-oil-based fabrics within cabins helps to reduce a dependency on fossil fuels, which we all recognise are not readily renewed. Yet, both water and air engine technology has been developmentally slow and problematic.
Pure EVs may appear to offer the ideal response but astronomically high prices (predominantly lease rates) make many of them unattainable to a large slice of the population, of both private and business types. Hydrogen does offer immense potential and several carmakers are well advanced in their largely clean H2 programmes but the nuclear connotations, let alone storage issues, add a stench that many observers worry about.
Research carried out by the nationwide Kwik-Fit operation has revealed that, despite government’s insistence that no new fossil-fuelled car will be registered after 2030, with a five years’ grace period being given to plug-in hybrids (to 2035), the UK market is not exactly in agreement with the plans. The results make interesting reading:
Reasons drivers are not considering buying an electric car for their next vehicle:
| Reason | % of car users not considering the acquisition of an electric car |
| The lack of fast charging points in the areas I commonly drive | 37% |
| The restrictions on present range/inability to travel long distance on a single charge | 35% |
| The increased HP cost over an equivalent sized petrol, diesel or hybrid car | 33% |
| I would be unable to charge it at home | 30% |
| I am worried that the batteries won’t last very long and need replacing | 26% |
| I prefer traditional petrol or diesel engines | 18% |
| I want to know more people who have one before I commit | 17% |
| I don’t like the style of electric cars available | 11% |
| I don’t believe that they are more environmentally friendly than existing cars | 10% |
| There isn’t an electric car that provides the power I need | 9% |
Overall, fewer than one-in-twelve clearly confused respondents might contemplate running an EV, which is not the response that government wants to hear. However, government has become exceptionally proficient at blaming the population for its inability to address major issues. Remember: WE are to blame for the ‘north-south divide’; WE are to blame for acquisitive greed; WE are to blame for banking problems; WE are to blame for pollution; WE are to blame for the pandemic and lockdown restrictions. Little wonder we have a generation of snowflakes.
To address properly the demands on the nation, the government needs to assume the responsibility and just pointing accusatory fingers and levying more taxes, more fines and more penalties are not the answers. Seeking and investing in alternative fuels that have no reliance on a fossilised base would be a positive stance to adopt, not least as it would give an easier ride to car manufacturers that also employ thousands of voters.
