Coming unplugged - Brexit failings may kill the UK vehicle industry thanks to EU regulations we should no longer be complying with

 

EU regulations might help to kill off the UK motor industry

if the Electric Vehicle folly is not reigned in, in favour of alternative Synthetic Fuels

EU Red tape and interference we should ignore if we are going to have a British motor industry. Plans to 'fine' by adding cost penalties to non-EU components of vehicles is a money grabbing exercise in the questionably unviable Electric Vehicle sector. 

Britain has no sizeable EV Vehicle Battery manufacturer for a number of reasons - the EV technologies are in their infancy, the market is uncertain, the cost of Electricity has risen greatly, the costs and short operational lives of the EV batteries and with second hand EV's being dumped and people are going back to Petrol and Diesel cars, that's just for starters why this sector is doomed to fail.

The costly "Net Zero" farce is going to achieve nothing for Britain - Britain is a less than 1% contributor and has already cut emissions 40% on 1990's levels. 

It is hobbling itself just to 'look good' when China and others continue to do little or nothing in that respect. 

Britain like others pursuing this Net Zero mantra are just looking like fools tying their shoelaces together before a 100m race, whilst the others laugh at how stupid they are, before running off unimpeded by Net Zero 'hobbling'.

If we stop using oil derived Petrol and Diesel in the UK, China likely won't nor will Russia or India. 

We should continue doing so until viable alternative fuels in quantity are available. Not destroy our economy by prostrating ourselves before some woke altar of green atonement. 

People are not stupid and can see through all this crap, that's one reason the Conservatives lost a lot of votes in May - people are fed up being taken for fools by Net Zero evangelising proponents and this drive towards Transport Apartheid.

The UK motor industry needs to break free from any directives or pressures to move solely to Electric Vehicle production and to embrace synthetic fuels without delay. 

If BMW, a successful and already profitable car maker has to be 'given grants' to build the electric version of the Mini in Britain, a car which there seems no viable market demand for from the UK car buying public for, extrapolated out this shows the EV project overall has no real viability. My own recent survey showed a ratio of 1 EV to 62 petrol or diesel vehicles on the road in a 20 mile journey. So much for parity of EV's by 2030.

The EV industry is based on supplies of finite materials that will not satisfy the demand for them globally, supply of which is largely controlled by China and mined sometimes involving slave labour and with egregious health costs to people and the environment otherwise. In any other situation this industry with this sort of record would be banned or shunned.

With 'fines' to come for UK manufacturers not selling a higher proportion of EV's over Petrol and Diesel vehicles apparently being implemented prior to the 2030 outright ban, this is nothing short of officially sponsored market manipulation. 

This is the start of a wide reaching policy of Transport Apartheid, along with ULEZ and 15 minute cities. Your freedom of movement curtailment starts here.

The problem is that when the wheel finally does come off the EV folly, those who made the decisions will likely just walk away without penalty, they seem rarely held to account. 

We should not be in a mad rush to embark on throwing our lot in with a 'primitive' battery vehicle solution - McLaren's boss says they will defray any move to a pure electric sports car for at least 10 years whilst that technology is developed.Sensibly. 

If demand is not there and the EV project fails, McLaren for one won't have their fingers burned. In the early 1900's there was an EV industry, that failed too. Largely for the same reasons it will fail now. Remember the Sinclair C5 of the 80's? Nice idea. But the battery technology wasn't there.

Hydrogen vehicles are a pipe dream, the simple and cheap Net Zero solution that trumps even the battery vehicle are Synthetic Fuels - that can run in the engines of new and older cars. Mazda are wisely bring forward new ICE engined vehicles that cab use fossil and synthetic fuels. Sensible. This is the future!

The haulage, farming industries and the armed forces cannot rely on batteries - how do you charge a Tank in a war zone where electricity is cut off? A Tank sitting there charging batteries for 2 hours is a dead tank and will be if it gets hit. Anyone thought of this? Can you afford 2 hour down time harvesting when your Combine Harvester is out of power? anyone thought of this? Thought not.

However, politicians and the woke campaigners rarely have the technical 'nous' to understand the realities of their situation - they just decide something 'is a good idea' and as long as there are plenty of sycophantic, nodding arse-lickers telling the decision makers this is 'the way forward' and similarly vacuous sentiments, they clap each other on the back and congratulate themselves on being so clever. 

Usually whilst sitting around drinking coffee and telling each other how good they are.

A transport minister who shall remain nameless apparently said in the 1980's 'Those (Black cab) Taxi drivers should treat themselves to a new set of spark plugs' - seemingly ignorant that 'those' Diesel Black cabTaxis do not use spark plugs, they rely on compression ignition to make the Diesel engine work by igniting the fuel not by an electronic spark. 

See where I am coming from? A Transport Minister who has not the technical knowledge to know why they are talking about, this is not good government. 

This is why we need people with real professional experience in decision making positions, not hapless amateurs who hop off to the next unrelated civil service portfolio without knowing what they are doing, being say a health secretary one month and armed forces minister the next, apparently without any experience or more worryingly, accountability?

Having idiots in charge who say 'we shall ban sales of new fossil fuel vehicles by 2050' and then decide  'we will bring forward this ban forward to 2030' as examples - when there is no actual existing viable and practical solutions in place to do so, merely belief, is sheer stupidity. 

Especially when there are alternative fuels in place that negate these policy decisions on electric vehicles yet are being ignored by the apparently "I can't hear you" EV brigade acolytes.

Having left the EU we should not be involved with EU laws and should have torn up the raft of 'gold plated' legislation and 'job creation schemes' of coming up with ridiculous existing impediments to free trade and free movement of goods and not create new ones.

The EU is an insult to ordinary european citizens in that it presumes that its member states are unable to decide their own taxes or laws and then charges them hideously for the privilege, when did we last see audited accounts of all this money leeched off the ordinary European to run this organisation? How was it spent? We have a right to know.

The reasons that there has been so little investment in battery plants in Britain is obvious by the above, and why the EV 'solution' is doomed to fail. 

For starters here are some pointers:

• Firstly there is no certain future in the EV market, 

• Alternative fuels to Petrol and Diesel are being made, 

• The costs of charging and electricity are rising, 

• The products to make the batteries are finite and will not supply the global demand.

• No one unified the EV charging plug at the outset, stupidly

• The chargers are not unified meaning you need a variety of different ones

• Often chargers are broken, or taken and free ones are being removed due to cost

• Oil is still need to make tyres and tarmac and other products such as paints

• As a refining by-product of Oil, Petrol and Diesel are made and must be consumed

• Some existing EV owners are dumping their cars and going back to Petrol and Diesel

Legacy older vehicles on the roads are a direct result of the failure of the 'Net Zero' electric vehicle agenda being pushed by people without a clue.

 

The legacy of older vehicles on the road -

as people are turning away from electric vehicles back to ICE vehicles

Manufacturer 'funk' is now showing, as vehicle makers sit on the fence waiting for clear demand indicators before totally ditching the internal combustion engine (ICE) and going fully electric.

The sensible players like Mazda, are seeing the EV trend as a phase and likely as a failing one, as they produce new ICE powered vehicles for production and sale. 

Companies like Mazda will soon be seen to have taken the right direction. 

EV production is not globally viable, being based on a finite supply of materials largely controlled by China and Chinese interests in Africa and other countries.

We are now entering a 'transport apartheid era thanks to the Green lobby and the dangerous opinions, agendas of pressure groups and woke individuals from largely unaccountable and unelected interests. The realities of these 'green' utopias are now showing as they are unaffordable and unobtainable 'wank fantasies'. 

No one voted for Net Zero as a standalone policy, yet it is being foisted on the population, who are now being inconvenienced and taxed for the privilege of often essential travel - where there is viable alternative, the obvious solutions in Synthetic Fuels for example, are being largely ignored. 

Except apparently for airlines and air travel use, much of which is unnecessary.

However, there is no ban on buying abroad and importing an ICE vehicle after 2030. Yet.

But also little to no support for synthetic fuels by those in power. Why not? Read on...

My recent poll on the journey to work noted a ratio of 1 electric vehicle to 62 Petrol or Diesel vehicles on the road in a 20 mile journey, in a semi-rural area of the Midlands. 

Extrapolated out, this data shows the EV dream of 2030 complete replacement falls far short. 

Even some scientists and academics to their credit, believe that the arbitrary dates of 2030, 2050 are unworkable if no established alternative technology exists. 

ICE power plants are at their most efficient and clean ever, EV technology is in its relative infancy, by pushing the EV agenda on by contrast in the current 'primitive' development stage is an obvious recipe for failure, when it cannot assume the mantle of the ICE power plant's advantages yet and the obvious deficiencies in charging etc prevail.

With six and a bit years until the '2030 ban' on ICE vehicle sales, the uptake of electric is hardly looking like it is being lovingly embraced or sufficient to do the replacing. 

The EV project is doomed to fail, it was tried in America in the early 1900's and the practicalities were then as now. They were impractical. They gave way to the ICE vehicle. The same practicalities and impracticalities remain. The only place EV's score and are viable is in short, urban journeys, reliant on whether you can find a charger and it is actually working.

The CO2 arguments used to 'promote' the EV and Net Zero lobbies are a farce -  the actual CO2 content of our atmosphere after 250 years of industry, 2 world wars, 70 plus years of consumerism and air travel is that CO2 constitutes a mere 1/2 of 1% of the total of atmospheric gases. 

There was far more CO2 in the time of the Dinosaurs as the fossil plant records bear out and the planet was much warmer, allowing cold-blooded Diplodocus et al to survive, which no one in the activist lobby seems to acknowledge. 

This CO2/Net Zero agenda is about one thing - control. Alternative energy has been around since 1954 but America as the key world power and a major oil concern doesn't want that to be known. Oil and money makes the world go round and makes America rich.

If you refine oil for plastics, you get fuel and lube oils as by-products. If we do not use them, other countries less squeamish about CO2 or who laugh at our EV folly, continue to buy and use them.

Scaremongering about 'rising CO2 levels  is just that. Skewed 'science' is being used to drive this lobby forwards down a road to which they have no road map and on which unforeseen factors are emerging. Talk of 'rising levels of CO2' is never borne out by any data. Just scaremongering. The real population is the rising population in some countries.

People are holding onto older 2000's era vehicles because they see no future in electric or want the costs or the attached inconvenience. Synthetic fuel alternatives are available but can they be taxed as they are 'Net Zero' and produce no CO2? Not logically.

For electric vehicles only

Here's why the CO2/Net Zero agenda fails

Firstly, no one decided at the outset of the EV folly to unify the plug layout or size, now we are stuck with multiple chargers rather than one unified system. A schoolboy error.

The pavement mounted EV chargers cannot deliver superfast charging - and never will.

Apparently booming second hand EV sales are because people are dumping EV's and going back to ICE vehicles before they cannot get a decent return on them.

Many used car dealers do not want to take an EV in a part exchange.

Heavy EV's wear out tyres quickly, tyres made largely from Oil.

EV battery performance life peaks at around 5 years and declines rapidly thereafter.

EV range is affected by cold, hills, drain on the system for battery maintenance etc.

Some EVs as the battery level declines slow down to 40mph max speed hardly what you want on a motorway. 'Non-essential' items self shut down on some cars - like the suspension.

As your range declines on a journey, you have to decide what to shut off i.e. heater, radio etc.

If the battery fails can you get out of the car? Ask Radio 2 DJ Scot Mills, he found this out. If the rear tailgate of his EV had not been completely closed he would have been trapped in there.

The ticket cost price of the first generation EV's has dived, with used values diving further and many people grossly out of pocket as almost the same cars are available new, at a third off in many cases.

Original EV cost is much more than for a Petrol or Diesel car and with rising electricity costs for charging and short battery life, the likelihood of recouping the difference is about nil or worse, a deficit.

The reality of distance driving is obvious in an EV - it isn't a viable option if you want a hassle free journey where you don't get 'range anxiety' and hope that the next charger is working or there is actually going to be one in that area, ICE is and always was the only conveniently viable alternative to the EV.

The promised fast charge rates are not attainable on current street or domestic power supplies, only in factory testing where large capacity supply is available.

Having to waste hours charging up is not really progress when refuelling an ICE vehicle is 5 minutes or less. Not 2 plus hours. Up to a day and a half at home for some cars.

EV battery minerals are finite and will not service the expected global demand.

Minor damage to battery packs is an MOT failure and negates any savings when the battery is required to be replaced at a cost of £10,000 plus. This is an obvious gold mine for the unscrupulous.

An ICE vehicle can last 20 plus years - EV's to equal that lifespan, require 3 x replacements this is hardly green, let alone the costs involved.

ICE fuels do not involve human slavery or the damage to the environment that EV battery minerals prospecting and extraction does. 

ICE oil extraction is highly regulated, with a health and safety system in place, this cannot be said for EV minerals where child and slave labour is often used and health and safety seem absent.

That's why ICE vehicles are being kept going, hopefully we can get someone in authority who has the ability to see through the hype of the EV and not wish to hobble our people with expensive and unworkable transport solutions based on hype.

Electric Vehicles, ULEZ and 15 minute cities - is this the start of 'Transport Apartheid'???

 

Does Transport Apartheid - start here?

With vehicles cleaner than ever, is justification for the Congestion Charge or ULEZ zones valid?

Heathrow Expansion - ULEZ for vehicles nothing for the Jets

When the Heathrow expansion was mooted the announcement was it 'would be good for business' but not for the local residents with increased air pollution from airlines or local drivers. Why?

Because the wisdom was to make an ULEZ area around the new Heathrow expansion, but not to penalise the airlines creating the real extra pollution.

Jets taking off and pushing out same emissions of the average of 10 years of average car driving use - equalling 75,000 miles in total in just a few minutes from one airliner.

The joke of it is or isn't, is that vehicle drivers around this new Heathrow zone are being penalised with an extra charge on top of the 80% duty included in the cost of fuel, whilst the airlines pay nothing to pollute?

Or perhaps this ULEZ launch is something to divert attention away from dealing with the real issues Londoners want resolved such as the explosion in knife crime? Any answers?

The Electric Vehicle bubble might be soon bursting

The EU 2030 Ban on Petrol and Diesel vehicles is running into trouble, from German car makers and also manufacturers in Italy. People are slowly waking up to the fact that these EV cars are not viable, are expensive to charge and to buy and are being dumped by many owners back onto the used car market, although car dealers don't want them, before the batteries are only useful for a 20 mile round trip.

Only being able to buy EV's after 2030 is a form of transport apartheid and will mean that those unable to pay for these expensive 'hobby horses' may become unable to travel, or is that parts of some agenda?

Mazda for one company has recently introduced a new Diesel car, it can obviously see the future and it is not volts, but Diesel.

15 Minutes of fame or infamy?

The deal is you walk 15 minutes to do all your business and shopping. So what does this achieve? Not much. 

All these policies will achieve is to restrict people's freedoms of movement, this has been known for some years and now we are seeing the reality of what was only being hinted at by people often referred to by some sections of the media as 'conspiracy theorists' - in other words a cheap and throwaway 'catch-all' slur on people who might have a different and correct point of view, as we may be seeing here and now..

Net Zero is not achievable - humans exhale CO2 for one thing so they can never be truly Net Zero, unless China makes great changes and we become less of a consumer society, all this Net Zero baloney is just window dressing and used to justify policies to restrict the freedom we fought two world wars to enjoy and make us much poorer.

No one voted for Net Zero and the media says nothing about why as a less than 1% emissions contributor that has already cut CO2 output by 40% of 1990's levels, why the UK has to be hobbled by these policies whilst others just do nothing?

On the face of it then, there must be some other agenda for hobbling and taxing the ordinary person whilst at the same time not making other major polluters like China and India do more?

This London Sightseeing EV Bus cost around £450,000 -

It is said to be around two years old and is now in a Barnsley Scrapyard.

Tells you all you need to know about this electric vehicle vanity project.

And you thought that Apartheid was only something that happened in Africa?