I see Sir Richard Branson has joined the fray in calling for the UK to bring forward the banning of new petrol & diesel vehicles in the UK from 2040 to 2025. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-44246154
Perhaps a little premature. But I could see California moving that was for the urban areas. Bob Wilson
More than a little premature. It reminds me of California's circa 1999 CARB mandate. Governments, or at least certain politicians*, keep getting excited about their "green" agenda and trying to mandate the advance of technology. Well, that doesn't happen. Governments can try to stimulate advancements in certain techs with incentives, but economics and the market is going to determine when BEV cars and trucks are ready to replace ICEVs. I of course want to see that happen ASAP, but it's not realistic to think we're gonna see the end of sales of all ICEV cars and trucks within just 7 years. They say that New York City went from being almost entirely served by horse-drawn vehicles, to almost entirely served by motor vehicles, in the space of 13 years. As has been pointed out, there are much greater advantages of motor vehicles over horse-drawn vehicles than there are with BEVs over ICEVs. So I think we should be happy if the EV revolution is as short as the motorcar revolution was. We might aim for 13-15 years, but only after we have the BEV equivalent of the Model T Ford... and we don't have that yet. We don't yet have an "Everyman" BEV car, let alone a commercially proven BEV heavy freight truck. *And billionaires like Sir Richard Branson
Boats? I presume he was talking only about road vehicles. Practical BEV boats should come along as soon as we get an "Everyman" BEV passenger car, which is still a few years away. I would think BEV ships should arrive about the same time as commercially viable heavy freight trucks, altho perhaps only ships that do fairly short voyages. (There are already BEV car ferries sailing very short distances.) Looking back at how long it took to get steamships that could actually cross oceans without having to stop at one or more coaling stations, even after Watt developed the practical commercial steam engine, it may be some decades before we get BEV ships which can sail the longer ocean routes. Airplanes will be much more difficult to convert to electric drive, since prop-driven planes are significantly slower than jet planes, so can't compete except on short "puddle jumper" flights. An "electric jet" is theoretically possible, but requires tech which is currently science fiction. Can't mandate that tech advance, either!
