How unoriginal Jake. Just how will you provide clean, low or zero (! ..what about manufacturing?) emission alternatives to combustion engines on the road. Electric vehicles ? Neither do they offer the range or the power to replace the combustion engines in private cars let alone vans or lorries. And nor will they, before our our imminent energy crunch makes the electricity they gladly guzzle so ineffeciently, too finite and expensive. Hydrogen cells ? What ? The production of hydrogen is notoriously expensive and carbon rich. Yes science will break new ground, but todays run-around-electric vehicles were patented over 25 years ago by the oil companies, so what chance the next 25 ?

The fact is the cars golden years are numbered for a number of reasons. Firstly, public mobility and the transport of goods is increasing to the extent that road space is saturated on many trunk routes at peak times. Reliable arrival times are becoming all the more impossible to predict. And people do need to arrive on time or thereabouts as they become increasingly time poor. Then consider the political unattractiveness of new roads and the lack of suitable space to park all these vehicles in urban centres. Every major city in the world would come to a standstill if it relied on your ‘green’ car travel.

Then combine this with the impact of the digital age and that we are increasingly time poor and you begin to realise why more people are choosing public transport – they simply need to make their time count. Next timelook at how everyone is on their iphones and blackberry’s on the train. TDoing the same is both illegal, dangerous and woefully inefficient if you were to foolishly try it driving a car (once you got a signal).

Thirdly many commentators have been fearful for some time that we are about to hit the peak oil phenomenon, where global demand for oil exceeds the global supply of oil. This will impact all of our lives in many ways, not least of which by directly inflating the price of petrol, diesel and kerosene making its use preserve of the rich. Don’t believe me ? Check your last bill from the forecourt compared to a year ago. The onward rise is inevitable and such is the global economy’s dependence on oil, the laws of supply and demand dictate that it will happen quickly.

Then consider that every industrialised economy around the globe has built or is building high speed rail. Yes that bastion of the private car, the USA is building it as is our own, Mongolia & Morocco ! This is mainly to add capacity, but also to replace short haul air travel to avoid the pain inflicted on economies by unaffordable kerosene. High Speed rail will slash journey times, grab market share as it has done everywhere and reinforce the points above.

Whilst you acknowledge the green argument, your ‘limited shelf life’ comment makes it sound as if this global warming thing is just a fashionable fad. Wrong. If only it were a fad. Just because the gulfstream has been diverted from the UK this winter, giving us lower temperatures doesn’t mean it isn’t still happening. Every recognised scientist will tell you the world is progressively getting warmer, the ice caps are melting – and virtally all of them will tell you man’s carbon emissions – of which the car exhaust is a key driver – are behind it. No matter if you replace the combustion engine with an electric one it still needs manufacturing and powering which emits all too much carbon.
You can choose to ignore all of this, but what will you tell your grandchildren when you finally realise you are wrong ?

Report abuse

Second best to a through service???. Try that short walk to Moor Street in a wheelchair or in the rain or late at night. I am sure most single women and wheel chair users would agree a short walk in a city late at night is far superior to a through service, not!!

Report abuse