Jeremy Clarkson: Just been for a walk round the farm and I’m a bit alarmed by how few butterflies there are.
Something is afoot.
Danny Wallace: Diesel-smelling Top Gear host who threatened climate protestors misses butterflies.
He’s not using all 10 at the same time every day for a multi-hours commute. In a way he’s right. In his country, that means not cancelling HS2. It’s not his personal fault. And him changing a car to EV won’t change much, aside from putting one more car on the market.
Again, my point is, it’s not science that is pushing EVs, it’s capitalism. Buy an EV!1!!! Buy buy buy!11! ThEy ArE GoNnA SaVe ThE PlAnEt!
No need for policy changes. All we need to do collectively is ban plastic straws, drive EVs, recycle, and those that are not doing this will be blamed!
https://www.cargurus.co.uk/Cars/articles/whats-greener-used-car-or-new-ev
https://mycarheaven.com/2023/07/keeping-your-old-petrol-car-may-be-better-than-buying-an-ev/
Myth. https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/mythbusting-world-evs-better-buy-new-or-keep-your-old-car
But what if your existing petrol or diesel car is perfectly satisfactory? Obviously if you cause one less vehicle – of any kind – to be manufactured, you’re saving CO2 in the short term. But if you drive a lot of miles or your car is thirsty, then sell it to someone who drives less. Getting an EV would after a very few years move you into credit. If it’s efficient and you drive little, probably hold on to it for a while.
In most areas of life, the greenest thing is simply to buy less stuff and keep it for longer. But with ICE cars, because they emit so much CO2 in use, it’s not always so simple.
HS2 wasn’t going to fix much. Shave 20 minutes off a multi-hour journey. There’s already fast, frequent rail between London and the other major cities in HS2. It’s just very expensive and HS2 wasn’t going to fix that either. What would help is good rail between the North West and Yorkshire, where it’s absurdly bad and has been for a long time.
Now if you could get rail or light rail out to my town or up the bus frequency and speed to match light rail, I’d gladly give up running my (second hand) electric car, but I need it to be so much cheaper, because the electric car costs me £4 a week to run if I don’t use the light railway (plus £3 a day parking), and light rail costs me £6 a day if I park and ride. (I don’t miss my petrol car at all. It cost me £20 a week to run, plus the parking, and it really was no fun to drive at all.)