I hope I will still be able to drive my Coupe until I can no longer drive.

BBCNews

The only thing to do after an announcement like that is to listen to "Red Barchetta", at least once...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uukZgfHZIoc

I am looking forward to being in that queue for the single petrol pump in BP's future fuel station.

Well that was a first! Quite enjoyed it, at first having an apparent early hint of Metallica but with a healthy dose of Queen

Good driving song

At least we have 23 years of enjoyment still to come.

Personally by that point I may not want to drive, even if I'm still here.

I don't know who came up with the timescale, but it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't set in stone.
It may even be retracted completely when manufacturers start sending nasty emails to the government!

That would be quite an achievement when it was released in 1981, before Metallica existed.



Yeah, the whole album is one of my favourites to play in the coupe.

Yes, badly put by me, I meant a sort of forerunner of the fabled M...

In the future if it's possible to have an electric car that looks nice, with brilliant performance, that charges quickly, lasts a very long time on each charge, has amazing technology that is safe and secure, plus it's got internal and external speakers which play a highly realistic exhaust sound and is affordable, isn't everything ok?

But really why would we want a recording of an exhaust sound! That's just us not letting go. If the Sony Walkman had been around when the first motorised vehicles came out do you think customers would have been lobbying for a recorded sound of clippety clop hoof noises

No, but when CDs came along I did miss the crackles and pops from vinyl, but most of all the 1.8 second preview of the music in the next groove (on Genesis albums, where they squeezed as much play time as possible onto each side).

(With apologies to those of a younger generation who have no idea what I'm talking about)

hmm this might have gone off topic a bit but guess what? I just pre ordered Arcade Fires new CD and they do a couple of limited edition sets (which I passed on) They include
1) The CD
2) A limited edition coloured Vinyl LP
3) A cassette.

Yes a cassette how retro is that

I'm sure there'll be some kind of replacement that makes a good noise if it is desired. Modern engines don't have to make good noises - they're tweaked to do so because we want them too.

What, no 8-track?

It seems this ban will not include hybrid cars so there will likely still be petrol engines with electric motors, like the latest supercars of today.

I may still have one of those together with cartridges up in the loft. I remember seeing them about 10 years ago.

Much better sound quality than those new-fangled cassettes in the 70's.

Had a ride in the future this evening a Tesla Model X, which is being thoroughly accessed by a UK manufacturer.
Slightly surreal passenger experience with tremendous acceleration without any gear changes or engine noise!
The gull wing rear doors gave you a sense of being in the USS Enterprise (especially in polar white)!

A huge centre screen and absence of switches on the dashboard, plus a windscreen which extended to half way along the roof, where all standout features.

Apparently, Chinese copies already come with an internal engine noise sound track of your choice!

No, but they would have been lobbying for cassette players to be installed in their vehicles free of charge.

I never knew electric cars were so advanced that you could time travel in them!

The Honda electric cars are so ugly. I want a car that brrrms, not one that whirrs.

Maybe classic cars will still be allowed to have an internal combustion engine. They allow leaded petrol in old cars, even if you have to add the lead yourself. I travelled behind a very old landrover today and the fumy smell was terrible.

That was probably the very old land rover driver

+1 brrrms are so important

I checked your location then in case it was me in my coop slightly ahead of it

What makes me wonder is where does the Government think it is going to get it's several billion pounds worth of fuel tax from motorists each year?

I suspect this will result in very expensive electric cars (with a big proportion of VAT on it), road duty will increase as another source of revenue, and the price of Electricity will surely increase.

In addition, as some people will genuinely not be able to afford all of the above and therefore not run a car, the government will have to increase public transport efficieny, so prices will rise on that as well - but in Italy, no one grows up wanting to be a train driver...

Personally, i think this is just another "threat" from the government without actually thinking about what they are saying, "we've saved the world's emmision issues...but there is no money for roads, NHS, Schools - just another 10% pay rise for MP's".

just my 2p's worth...

Electricity price increase is not something to look forward to for sure - but if we are not going to burn fossil fuels to push our cars around we will probably burn them elsewhere to make the battery's, extra support in the chassis' and generating the electricity.

One point is that an electric car is an *ideal* way to soak up excess kWH, f'rexample when the wind is blowing hard or it's particularly sunny. Or indeed, in the middle of the night when the factories - well, some of them - close.

Nobody has made the connection yet between the Government's announcement yesterday re electric cars and earlier this week regarding "home generation and storage" of electricity

Its all very well having loads of solar panels on millions of domestic roofs, but currently, there is nowhere to store this extra electricity.

Imagine how much easier this would be if a large number of households conveniently has a thumping great battery parked outside AND those batteries had been funded by the people doing the generating (and consuming)

All fits together quite nicely....

I bet Elon Musk is a happy chappy this week

It would fit together if we all had an electric car sat at home most of the week because we are all working from home during the day, and using the electric car in the evenings and at weekends. But if we are using the car to commute to work every day, there's only so much solar generated power that we can use in our washing machines...

But if we take the country as a whole, perhaps we should be charged less for electricity that is being used to charge batteries (including 4 wheeled varieties) as opposed to powering lighting and appliances?

Since my livelihood depends to a large extent on oil companies wishing to add refining capacity to produce transportation fuels, it will be interesting to see when they start to consider other options, but it would be a shame to see crude oil being simply burnt to generate electrical power, although that is indeed carried out today in some places...