Automologist MAC dons his hemp trousers to tell us what really needs to be done to save the planet.
The view from my window 2050.
So, we all know we need to use less fossil fuel else our grandchildren will either live in a barren desert or will have migrated to Mars, which is currently a barren desert. Yet, with all of this said and done, there is an ever-greater presence of gas-guzzling emission-spewing planet-warming SUVs on the streets where you live and EVs still account for less than 2% of all road vehicles globally. It is as if we all have our heads firmly in the sand like an ostrich, or are happily playing our fiddle Nero-style as the world burns.
A report by Bloomberg is predicting that in the next twenty years, even without any new initiatives, zero-emission vehicles will account for 70% of new car sales. It is worth noting that even after that, there will be a lot of ICE fossil-fuelled cars on the roads and thus it may be another decade after that before EVs actually become the predominant road vehicle. Therefore, even if the upswing in zero-emission cars continues, this may still not be enough to achieve the zero-emission policy of so many governments around the world by their target date of 2050, that is unless they give even more incentives for us to save ourselves.
There may be as many as three million EV cars sold in 2020 and Bloomberg believes that this will rise to 14 million by 2025 and 90% of all cars sold by 2040. But to achieve the zero-emission target by 2050 in places like Canada, UK, the EU and Americaland, there is a need to look past passenger cars and at the commercial truck fleet. So far, most of the restrictions on emissions have been focussed on the private passenger car segment of the market. Legislation for trucks has been slower and far more lenient and the creation of a zero-emission truck fleet could prove to be a lot more difficult than creating EV cars.
Even though the likes of Daimler and Volvo and even Tesla are all working on creating what is known as Class 8 heavy-duty trucks, as of yet most are only good for the short route – local deliveries, if you like – and really do not suit the long-distance trucking that is especially prevalent in Americaland. Visit Thailand and you will notice that a lot of the long haul trucks are fuelled by gas in the form of propane but this is still a fossil fuel and although cleaner is still responsible for emissions.
Assuming that we can find all of the raw materials to make the batteries and there is a charging infrastructure that will support the trucks, we may well see heavy-duty trucks towing a battery pack. Or how about creating an electrified system similar to the old tram system of old whereby trucks can hook onto overhead cables that would provide juice for them whilst they drive and in doing so reduce the need for massive batteries. Of course, Uncle Joe Biden is currently trying to get funding for a massive increase in the charging infrastructure in the US of A and European governments believe that they have it beaten with ever-increasing emission controls and pledges to ban cars from the cities, but…
I really doubt that it will work unless we can create a global quantum shift in the desire of individuals to own their own private vehicle. When you consider the amount of time the average vehicle is on the road being driven, which apparently is about 4%, we should all seriously reconsider the need for private ownership. I truly believe that in the future, ride-sharing schemes like Uber or Grab will be the way most of us get around for short trips and on trains/planes/boats/blimps for longer trips. For my money to get ahead of the curve, governments should pile money into creating semi and fully autonomous ride-sharing schemes and potentially gradually tax private vehicles out of existence. Okay, I will take my hemp trousers off now.
Will this be our grandchildren’s future?
