We normally talk about the past on ViaRETRO but today I need to talk to you about the future. I don’t like it and I doubt you will either. The war on internal combustion has escalated quite alarmingly in the past few months and it could soon have a serious impact on our hobby.
If you accept that climate change is based on legitimate science and that it pays to tread lightly on the earth, you could say that petrol-electric hybrid cars are an acceptable compromise for everyday driving. Nobody with petrol in their veins really wants a hybrid but I suppose I could live with one for commuting if I was forced to. We were told that hybrid technology was key to tackling climate change and that advice was reasonably credible until most hybrids turned out to be SUVs which some studies claim pollute more, gram for gram, than smaller conventional petrol cars. Still, if you’re going drive an SUV, it’s better if it’s a hybrid, or so the argument went. At odds with the advice to trade in your old fossil car for a hybrid one is the feeling that maybe making new stuff all the time is part of the problem. Perhaps drivers of older cars could at least feel satisfied that their vehicle’s lifetime carbon footprint was pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things by virtue of having lasted so long already. We could fill up at the petrol stations next to the hybrids, which of course still need regular injections of fossil fuels, and it felt like an uneasy truce. However, the war has recently entered a new and concerning phase.
It pays to recap on recent developments here in the UK. Rewind a few months and there was a general consensus that 2040 would be the cut-off date for sales of new vehicles purely powered by petrol or diesel engines, and this would help the country achieve overall carbon neutral status by 2050. The motor industry was already moving towards hybrid technology and a soft transition looked set to happen naturally. Overall C02 emissions would greatly reduce but there would still be a baseline demand for fossil fuels for the foreseeable future; good news for classic car owners who would still need to buy petrol. However, during December 2019 we had a General Election which resulted in the same government being returned to office, but during the campaign all parties were keen to shout about how they were best qualified to tackle the “Climate Emergency”. Shortly after the election the Committee on Climate Change advised the government to tighten their transport emissions targets and hybrids were suddenly excluded from the 2040 cut off. The government had effectively announced the end of the fossil fuel age and served notice on driving as we know it. However, it was about to get even worse. A few days later the government decided that 2040 wasn’t ambitious enough and they now preferred the sound of 2035 instead. The Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT), the body that represents the new car industry, accused the government of moving the goalposts and complained that there were some very real technical barriers to achieving the new date. The response from Parliament was to propose 2032 instead, or maybe 2030. To the casual observer it may have seemed like they were making it up as they went along.
As unrealistic as 2030 may seem, it’s actually broadly in line with what’s happening in various European countries. Norway’s assault commences in 2025 whilst Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Ireland and the Netherlands are aiming to ban sales of new fossil fuel cars by 2030. Even developing countries such as Sri Lanka and France are citing 2040. All human activity has some impact on the earth but whilst cars are an easy target, many other polluters are quietly being given a free pass. Some estimates put the carbon footprint of a single Google search to be 7 grams of C02 based upon the power required to run a device and facilitate the servers. Apparently, that’s the same amount of carbon generated by boiling a pot of tea or driving 52 feet. Assuming you’re not reading this whilst driving you’ve caused considerably more real time damage to the climate by scanning through this article than your car has caused, parked dormant and stationary outside. I hope you feel bad about that.
The mantra of electric vehicles somehow being a major step towards solving our ecological woes is a flawed proposition anyway. The mining of lithium for battery production is a filthy business, the C02 impact of shipping heavy batteries around the world is significant and recycling them at end of life is far from straightforward. But hey, out of sight, out mind. I have to wonder if the 2030 target will be met anyway. A greater choice of pure electric cars will become available but getting the charging infrastructure in place is another problem entirely. All the animated presentations I have seen assume we live in an idealised world of neatness and order, a computer generated utopia of carefully managed urban calm. In truth our cities have evolved over hundreds of years and are full of terraced houses and blocks of flats never designed for car parking, never mind electric car charging points. The animations always seem to leave the roaming gangs of feral youths and people on hair triggers ready to fight over scarce infrastructure too. It’s worth nothing the rural population never features, but many don’t even have the option of a decent internet connection yet, never mind a sustainable transport strategy. Counter-proposals to solve the charging conundrum such as conductive loops laid into the road surfaces are pie in the sky. It’s all rather vague. Given the generation capacity deficit in the UK, we’ll struggle to keep the lights on anyway if everyone goes electric by 2030, despite being bolstered by microgeneration, smart grids or whatever. Remember, it’s not just fossil fuel vehicles that are being phased out, housing and industry are under pressure to go all-electric too. It is this constraint that might force the government to allow legacy internal combustion cars to roam the streets for a little longer.
To be honest although most of us want to do what we can to contribute, it all feels a bit futile when you look beyond national borders. In 1974 there were 4 billion people in the world, there are now 7.8 billion and by 2040 there will be 9.2 billion. Although the exponential growth is slowing, the demands on the planet are made worse by the projection that 64% of 2040 folk will be urban dwellers, up from 56% today. With urbanisation and the trappings of relative wealth comes demand for consumer products and a commensurate increase in energy consumption. China still plan to build hundreds of new coal fired power stations at the rate of one every two weeks, and they’re buying their way into Africa too. It makes Norway’s efforts to restrict fossil cars from 2025 completely irrelevant and even rolling up all the motor legislation across Europe it’s easy to wonder what’s the bloody point.
So where does this leave our ViaRETRO readers, and the other classic car enthusiasts who have to make do with lesser websites and publications? Is our hobby doomed sooner than we thought? Quite possibly, but I suppose it depends on how long you expected we had left anyway. In the end it’ll probably be a change in social attitudes that will shut us down. Unfortunately, I fear all the economic arguments about the contribution of the classic car business to jobs and tax revenue will be drowned out by the shrill voices of those who claim to know what’s good for us. We’re a drop in the ocean of global emissions but reasoned argument is in short supply these days. I think you can probably forget any arguments about personal freedoms too. It’s all for the greater good you know. If you’re an optimist you may think we have 20 years left but it’s going to get harder, and soon. EV conversions rip the heart and soul out of old cars so I don’t want to go there. Perhaps I’m being pessimistic and a truly sustainable liquid fuel will be developed so our old engines can combust with a clear conscience. Perhaps an early Honda Insight might be one way to get our retro electric kicks, but only with a hybrid waiver of course. Perhaps it’ll all get pushed back beyond our lifetimes. It’s all a bit up in the air at the moment, and we’ll need to be mobilised and call on friends in high places if the classic car movement will exist longer term. With so much uncertainty, perhaps all you can do at the moment is go and burn some dinosaurs while you still can.
