All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE?

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 12:53
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - sammy1

The Gov have announced a pilot scheme to start in Coventry to scrap older petrol 2006 and later diesels in exchange for up to £3k in vouchers for public travel bus train scooters etc. This scheme is all about pollution and emissions in an effort to clean up city air. It is voluntary at the moment but who knows what may happen in the future. Tax payers money is being used as a subsidy much the same as the effort to persuade the public into EVs. Quite how practical this will be for most remains to be seen as public transport is hopeless for many.

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 12:56
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - movilogo

Or offer free bus service to all and see people voluntary reduce car usage.

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 13:19
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - Middleman

Or offer free bus service to all and see people voluntary reduce car usage.

That will only work if the free bus service is sufficient. I'm lucky. Where I live I have good, reliable and frequent public transport. Where my sister lives she has one bus service which runs (roughly) "this morning, this afternoon and tomorrow" (unless tomorrow is Sunday, when she has to wait until Monday). That service could be provided free of charge and it would be absolutely no use whatsoever in getting people out of their cars. In fact my sister has a free bus pass but does not use it because she has no buses to use.

I agree that it is not practical to provide frequent bus services across the entire country. But when considering schemes to get people to stop burning petrol or diesel in order to get about, politicians must remember that not everybody lives in Islington.

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 14:37
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - Andrew-T

Or offer free bus service to all and see people voluntarily reduce car usage.

The trouble with simplistic solutions is/are [1] many people want to get to places the buses don't reach, [2] buses are not very convenient when fetching a weekly (or even daily) shop, and [3] it's unpleasant waiting in the rain (or snow) for a bus that may be 10 minutes late.

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 13:34
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - Manatee

The trouble with the green incentives is that the big ones seem to be a method of transferring money from poorer people to richer people.

Those who had £10,000 to put solar panels on their roofs are being paid 40p+ per unit, the cost of which is added to everybody's electricity bills. The huge financial incentives to choose BEVs and PHEV's have benefitted new car buyers and company-car user-choosers, while the poor folk continue to drive the least efficient older cars and pay more fuel duty. It's frankly appalling and fiscally regressive.

Scrappage schemes weren't much better.

Offering public transport vouchers in return for scrapping dirty cars at least benefits the less well off and if it leads to better public transport can only be a good thing. I agree that public transport generally is pretty poor for working people. It's not very joined up for the most part and in the south east in particular where millions normally commute by rail there is often no reliable or frequent public transport between where people live and the railways stations they us, so they need a car anyway to use the train.

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 14:44
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - Andrew-T

Those who had £10,000 to put solar panels on their roofs are being paid 40p+ per unit, the cost of which is added to everybody's electricity bills.

We decided to do as described, almost 10 years ago, so we are lucky enough to enjoy the 40p/unit you decry. However you should remember that what we have done in effect is to pay for ten years electricity up-front, so we are only beginning to reap any financial benefit. The high subsidy then was mainly to kick-start the solar-panel industry, which it did.

You might argue that the high tariff should be reduced rather than protected, which I accept.

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 14:59
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - Manatee

I don't say you shouldn't have done it Andrew. I would have done it myself had I had a suitable area of roof. But it was unfortunate that the subsidies worked in the way they did.

The PHEV subsidies were worse. I doubt whether the majority of company ones have been plugged in more than a couple of times.

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 15:09
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - Terry W

An innovative scheme but I wonder whether it will have the effect intended. Public transport generally struggles to compete with cars on journey times, and is expensive when compared with fuel costs - if you have a car this is the only major variable cost.

How does the scheme cope with (say) a multi car household where one member already commutes on public transport - a £3k contributon to a newer car in a few months time.

Will the scheme on provide vouchers for Coventry public transport. Will the voucher work on a trip to London.

Is the voucher limited to one named individual - or could it be traded for cash to someone who actually needs the ticket.

Are tickets issued with names and/or photos. What about e-tickets on a phone.

How do they stop people simply buying another car.

More questions than answers, however well intentioned the proposal is!

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 17:37
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - Sparrow

There is very little public transport near where I live. Given that this is in South East England and 4 milrs from a town of 100 thousand people, frankly it is atrocious. A family from Ireland rented a house up the road ( before Covid) and couldn't believe there are no busses. They had no car and we found them trying to walk the 4 miles into town. They said that everywhere in Ireland where people live is connected with a regular bus service to the nearest town and it hadn't even entered their heads that it wouldn't be the same here. If the powers that be want to shift behaviour than they are going to have to make proper investment in viable alternatives. You can't live round here without a car. God knows what older people do when they can no longer drive. Primitive is the best word to describe the public transport situation.

Edited by Sparrow on 21/02/2021 at 17:39

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Sun 21 Feb 2021 18:33
All - Is it the beginning of the end for ICE? - Andrew-T

You can't live round here without a car. God knows what older people do when they can no longer drive. Primitive is the best word to describe the public transport situation.

It's a vicious circle, isn't it ? When nearly everyone has a car there is no profit in running a bus, especially if many potential passengers have bus-passes. After WW2, most people travelled by train on railways which were pretty knackered. Better times came, car ownership grew, rail travel shrank and many stations closed. Something similar has happened to many bus routes.

People simply find car ownership much more convenient if they can afford it. Some without cars find taxis a possible solution for intermittent use. Charitable bus services for the rest will require a tax hike, which some will be reluctant to accept.

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