Why diesel faces an uphill struggle for respectability

"Our progress towards electrification - rightly desired by all..."

Proof, if it were needed that Cropley doesn't read back over his work with any sort of critical eye.

As to the subject matter, electric cars are useless and would solve nothing. If the majority of people did start using them (they won't), the government would simply transfer the tax on petrol (read and diesel throughout) over to electricity so that a charge cost the same as a tank of petrol. Governments don't give up that kind of money, so the idea of running electric cars virtually free as claimed by some deluded posters on here is a fallacy. Hence the cost would be the same for a vehicle with none of the freedom and convenience of petrol cars, which will run all day long with the odd couple of minutes to fill up, and can carry cans on board to fill up just as quickly and easily when miles from anywhere.

If electricity is so fantastic, why not convert the big polluters, ships and planes, to electric and leave cars alone? The simple answer is, it isn't fantastic at all for unfettered transportation, like a bicycle isn't great for going into space.

The argument against petrol is the damage it does to health in cities. Proponents of electricity say that pollution wil be transferred to rural areas where power stations are sited. How would that be just? Why should we have to suffer for the pollution created by others? If you lived down the road from a pub would you accept having smoking allowed inside the pub on condition that the fumes were piped into your house twenty-four hours a day? Of course not.

The answer is to encourage those in cities to drive smaller cars with smaller engines. Getting rid of the jeeps is a wiser move than changing the way they are powered. Congestion charges based on tailpipe emissions are silly, they don't ease congestion, because a sixteen-foot car emitting half the pollution of a twelve-foot car still causes more congestion and hence contributes to higher emissions, while also requiring more parking space. Keeping traffic moving is the better solution. Narrower cars would allow more lanes and faster movement, so make the tax concessions for small cars with small engines.

On the subject of the health risks, if it's so bad why are we constantly hearing about pension crises because we are all living longer? The truth is over time nature will evolve us to cope with the conditions. Rather like nature will evolve to cope with alleged man-made climate change, which was firstly an imminent ice-age, then global warming, now climate change because the scientists don't actually have a clue what's happening but recognize a nice little earner where research grants are concerned. Nature adjusts the temperature of the planet as nature sees fit and it is beyond our control. Likewise, smog isn't pleasant, but it isn't the long-term health hazard that is being claimed, for the same reason.

The real issues needing to be addressed are the congestion/movement issue which I described above, and the environmental issues as regards use of resources, which demands that we make better use of the cars (and everything else) we manufacture, by keeping them going for longer. A person should only be allowed to buy one brand new car in any ten year period, so that they will choose a car which is likely to last well. There has never been made, and never will be made, a car which merits scrapping an existing car with useful life remaining in order to make it. Longevity is everything in environmental terms, and the tax system should reflect that also.

So that's no tax for keeping old cars running, and low tax for the smallest new cars, and tax new jeeps out of existence.

One day something will probably be invented which will replace the internal combustion engine, and be better in all respects, but that day has not yet arrived so government should be encouraging the best use of petrol engines, putting them into smaller, longer-lasting cars, and stop wasting time and money on this stupid electric/autonomous fantasy. Electric cars are going nowhere.