Britain to ban sale of all new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040

I think we would though.

Look back 40 years and tell me how technology, as a whole has advanced. Take video games for example. We've come from a two white rectangles and a white ball (ping pong) to full HD augmented virtual reality.

So why has the standard car model not changed much? Granted, aesthetics, engines, efficiency has certainly been advanced but still using traditional combustion engines.

So what could we have done in 40 years of the electric car? I think we could charge an electric car in the same time it takes to fuel a hydrocarbon based car, I think electric cars would meet the amount of miles a hydrocarbon based car can do and I'm sure we would find a way to prevent energy use while stationary (we already have that in current fueled cars so why can't we do that in electric?).

all these problems can be solved by engineering but there's simply not enough interest and funding from the government in not only engineering but STEM as a whole, despite being a lead country in research.

They are hardly comparable, or they're very comparable, either way it shows the argument to be poor.

Let's start with the not comparable: fundamentally computers haven't really changed for half a century unless you want to say specialised hardware, such as the Advent of the GPU, are changes to the fundamentals (in some respects all a graphics card is is a specialised computer you put in your computer. You have a processor, some normally volatile memory to feed the processor the data it needs, and maybe non volatile memory for long term storage of data, the core components having used the same materials and processes to produce for a very long time. Batteries on the other hand have had to change how they're made and what they're made from several times.

On the other hand they're comparable in that, especially over the last couple of decades, there has been massive demand for making batteries and computers more efficient: computers so they can do more with the same power draw and heat output, batteries so battery powered devices can last longer, have greater power draws, be smaller, or a combination of the three.

Phones are smaller now not because the computing hardware is smaller but because the batteries are smaller. Batteries have gone from not "remembering" charge to "remembering" charge (i.e. draining a battery 10% and recharging to 100% 10 times over counts as 1 charge cycle when it used to be 10). To say major advances in battery technology haven't been happening and aren't happening is simply absurd.

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Another example of state interference. Let individuals make decision about the engines in there cars.

Definitely a step in the right direction.

Personally I believe it should also extend to HGVs as well as buses/coaches as those are by no means the cleanest of vehicles.

Now that the target has been set, there will need to be an energy policy that supports it too else there shall be rolling blackouts everyday.

I expect HGVs, etc will be ZEVs even sooner given that battery weight isn't an issue for them. And they will be self-driving too.

they won't be self driving I reckon, way too open to legal and ethical debate, as well as pure computing power.... What you will see is a surge in 'driver assistance tech' which will ultimately be like the vehicle driving itself, but requiring regular input from the driver so they are always legally in control... imo

Bet you my entire earnings in the 2040s

Not to write an essay, but there are 3 fundamental reason they will not happen on a large scale.

1. Algorithmic morality - your car is driving you down a country road, round a bend and there appears to be 10 people stood in the middle of the road. The car has a choice - either hit them and protect you from going off the road, or take you off the road, potentially killing you but saving them (kind of like the whole train points dilemma). Ultimately, the beauty of the human brain is the ability to react to the 'random', and is surprisingly efficient at making a split second choice. Unless it is AI (highly unlikely) the car will have to follow a decision tree to make the choice, and MB have already admitted that their programming would seek to avoid the collision. You can't ask a programmer to decide whether you live or die.... would you get in a car that could be programmed to kill you?

2. Physical constraints - already, BMW, Merc, tesla and a raft of others have developed autonomous tech, but only one (tesla) has actually decided you can use it without any safety precaution. Having driven through Germany and France last month in a brand new BMW 5 with thel latest tech, and in a benz in the uk with the same, 90% of the time they are great. However, using sensors to detect the lines, should the lines disappear (rain on camera/road, mud, sensor fail, line fade or slip road), the car literally says 'computer says no, and chucks control back at you immediately, not before veering dangerously in a direction. Seeing as there is no plan whatsoever to implement an autonomous infrastructure (guide lines etc), we'll still rely on the same tech in 2040, albeit better develop, but similarly flawed.

3. The legal issue - The manufacturers are inherently terrified of lawsuits from the good old US of A resulting in multi million dollar settlements for basic stupidity. Because the tech is not 100% effective, the manufacturers cannot allow you to say 'the car was driving', because in a fatal accident, the way the western legal system is based is that we have to have someone to blame. Unfortuneatly, this cannot be the car manufacturer. tesla are the only brand brave enough to do it, and witness the guy brave enough to try it got slammed into the side of a lorry, asleep. telemetry showed he hadn't touched the pedals or wheel for over 2 hours, which is how tesla escaped blame.

Ultimately, if it was all autonomous cars, I mean 100% entirely, it'd be fine. But the moment you include random human acts into a controlled environment, no amount of processing power in 20 years will be able to deal with that.

I concede that you'll see cars that can drive themselves, on motorways and in cities to relive congestion. On the M25 for example, you could have 2 lanes as like a road train, going at 100mph with cars 50cm from eachother - you could circle LDN in an hour lol

But no govt will ever legislate that you cannot drive a car that does not have this tech, forcing people to buy new cars. But as cool as it would be, I cannot see how you would ever see a car take you from A to B without any driving by you.

Again, sorry for the essay- it's something im hella passionate about, already written a mock dissertation about it

All fair comment, and yes I tend to agree that motorways can provide a controlled enough environment for it to happen.

PS. Please quote people when you reply so they know you've replied

ah thought I did sorry I'd love for it to happen... I'm facing a drive tomorrow from oxford to glasgow, and from glasgow back to london on saturday.... how I'd love to kick back and snooze for a bit of it

I didn't say there haven't been any advancements in batteries.

I was implying that the advancement of battery technology has inevitablely been hindered.

By there being literally billions of battery powered devices with the manufacturers wanting better batteries...

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you've got a point, but i think you're flawed on two counts


1. you assume that manufacturers will choose the right path and develop EV tech, instead of the easier and cheaper path, which is doing what they're already doing. We'll ignore the fact that despite it's huge successes, TESLA has reported over 16 straight quarter losses - losing 330mill in the first 3 months of the year. You already have combustion engine cars from BMW, VW that would comply after 2040.

2. I agree that tech normally produces the answer, but you cannot expect to chuck money at the problem and for it to produce results. You never know, we might actually see a resurgence in fuel cells or a completely new tech..

The development of electric cars was however indeed hindered for odd reasons. In 80 ties and 90ties, GM, NASA and Toyota were working on electric cars, and prototypes some of which were hired to regular custumers, proved very efficient, with perfectly usable range and sufficient top speed of over 100kph. All the projects were scrapped, only Toyota came up with a hybrid Prius a couple of years later. It indeed could have been because fully electric cars are much simplier, more reliable and require much less maintenance than internal combustion engine cars. The companies would earn much less money on selling spare parts and offering service for their cars. Traditional cars require service every 12-19k miles. Fully electric car would do perfectly well without any service, for about 90k miles, maybe exept changing brake pads and discs, which is cheap and very easy.