Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms E5 Petrol petition

Depressing to see the wrong use of apostrophe on a government website......

I admire the optimism around here, but it may be misplaced I'm sure I've read an article that the Government proposes to kill off petrol by 2040, ten years after the ban of petrol car sales.

I predict that lower sales volumes of petrol will impact production economies of scale, add in the cost of decommissioning redundant oil fields plus potential changes in taxation plus most likely reducing allowable emissions levels at MOT time and of course the resultant prices at the pump will quickly see most ICE vehicles off the road. The pace of change will be quite dramatic once it starts snowballing.

Already it appears that houses that offer EV recharging or the potential for EV charging are already attracting a premium with a increasingly faster growing demand curve.

Why am I not so positive about the future of the petrol and the ICE, is basically we are already dragging our feet on climate change, as we approach key dates like 2030, 2040 and 2050 we will see an increasingly greater need to accelerate the rate of change to reverse the impact .We are already seeing Corporations like BHP dumping their petroleum portfolio, reducing number of new new oil field exploration licences being issued. Banks and Financial Institutions and Investors will increasingly follow a 'green portfolio' and not lend or invest in Carbon Industries. Throw in the change in public opinion as the school children of today become the voting classes of tomorrow and influence green policy more for any prospective Government.

John,
two thoughts.
1. there are a lot of ICE cars out there & the cost to change will keep a secondhand market going
2. the refineries not only make petrol & the other by products are still needed. Indeed hopefully hydrogen demand will grow.

So I suspect petrol will exist but availability will decline & the price increase. If hydrogen becomes a viable fuel then I also wonder if ICEs can be converted . I appreciate there is also the fuel cell option for hydrogen.

The other thing which is a pertinent fact - unless America, China,India and Brazil make significant changes, no effort by smaller countries like the UK and Ireland will make any difference to the world climate. Thus it is imbecilic to cause hardship by increased taxes, changes for transport and other items here in the absence of moves by the big polluters.

We should demand that these big polluters take action as a precursor to action by smaller countries and postpone changes here until they do. Yes , get rid of single use plastics and gradually increase the use of renewables But let’s not rush headless when these efforts will not “save the planet”

Absolutely fair comments John and Robbie, However I think the proposed EU carbon levy on imports (similar schemes being considered across the world) which will impose levies on how carbon clean the production of a product is will start to bite once introduced.

Most of the western world has been exporting its dirty carbon consumerism and goods production processes to places like China for decades and then importing those ' carbon dirty' products' Already Australia is kicking off with the WTO that the proposed carbon levies is a form of domestic market protectionism...but it is one way of bringing a carbon clean up agenda for major exporters like China, India , Australia etc.

The signs are there, change is coming, apparently the lowest level of investment in North Sea oil exploration in 50 years

Agree with most of the recent posts ..... possibly there will be some carefully worded rowing back on changes to transport when the practical difficulties of those changes start to bite ... but big changes are coming .... can't see the WTO coming out on the side of polluters long-term .... too much public opinion against it (though how EU citizens might respond to going hungry because the countries they get a large chunk of their food from in the winter can't, or won't, meet EU carbon rules will be interesting.... I smell fudge in the air over that one!!)

From our tiny and partisan perspective I can see fuel getting harder to source at street level long term (well 'long term' in the scale of the 20 years or so most of us have left on the planet, certainly as active drivers🙂) .... short term I can see plenty of sales for fuel additives to blunt the teeth of E10..... in very long term I can see synthetic fuels filling the need for local vintage jaunts, with maybe a network of app-located sources (as LPG was in the early days but with added app and satnav) to allow the adventuresome to journey further .... every Morgan run even more of an adventure 😁

K

So a serious question for the doom laden, is there a future for Classic car races at all or do we confine these illustrious machines to the recycle bin ? o.k. a museum or two ?

As a regular attendee to Revival it will be a really sad day for me when and if they are forced to pull the plug, pun not intended.
It is a joyful event that you can't fail to make new friends at and meet up with old one's.

Well I mean are we suggesting that all the old warbirds are also grounded, or maybe you can foresee a battery powered Spitfire God forbid, my late Father would turn in his grave at the very idea…..

BBMF etc...

I think they may well be the rare exception but certainly not the norm as today. I'd hazard a guess classic cars will be restricted on days they can be used eg not on high smog count. Even possibly permission having to be sought to use at all, there are already as I understand it some restrictions on use in Germany and France. Before too long restrictions on entering towns and cities .....

All rather sad for those of us that grew up with these delights...but increasingly we will become the smaller older minority who will have less and less say on future policy direction, as the young will determine the new acceptable norms of behaviour.

John .... smog has been a very minor issue in the UK .... more a US (and LA) thing .... there were awful sooty fogs in the 40s and 50s, but those are long gone due to the clean air acts (and weren't significantly vehicle-related anyway).... with the increasing removal or restriction on solid fuel domestic heating and the increase in EV use, what we think of as 'air quality' will be less of a political issue going forward (and tbh is really only a problem nowadays in the direct vicinity of a restricted number of busy urban streets with poor self-cleansing geography) .... the general move to public transport in cities will mop those up. Provided facts rule rather than some obsessive dogma devoted to fighting smaller and smaller dragons, the outstanding issue for the use of the tiny rump of 'classic' cars will be CO2 .... and my guess is that eco-friendly carbon neutral fuels will make continued use possible, if more costly than at present.

The problem will be if urban obsessives run the narrative and drive an illogically hard line view.

K

Thanks John for your thoughts, that would seem to be a good compromise and it keeps the rolling history intact and operational.
Certainly an annual mileage restriction would be a workable option, probably many Morganista have one in place already for insurance policies, I do.
I think I recall Bath, which had a major quality of air crisis back in the 1990's when our No1 Daughter was there studying , being in a bowl it is in a difficult situation topographically. Anyway I'm sure I read an ICE and diesel ban is on the way for the town.

As you say we have been most fortunate in witnessing and driving these delights, I guess the takeaway is enjoy them to the full now before it's gone and feel lucky.