Let’s make this absolutely clear. A subsidy of between £2k and £5k on electric cars, starting 2011, is “Good” protectionism. All the other forms of protectionism are bad, but if it’s the Green Industry? Well that’s totally different.
The Government has a problem – that problem is that people don’t want electric cars. They want us to want them, so they’re going to help us to want them by using £250,000,000 of taxpayer’s cash to reduce the sticker price of these awful things. Bribing us with our own money to create a whole new dependent industry: Rapture!
The scheme starts in 2011 – which gives the car companies plenty of time to begin designing, testing then mass producing what’s sure to be the hot sellers of that year. At least, that’s what Labour hopes, but I suspect the car manufacturers will wait until the next General Election before investing hard cash – assuming they have hard cash left by then.
Labour assure us that by 2011 they’ll have enough renewable energy sources feeding the National Grid to offset all the addition electricity required by these toy cars. Despite the obvious rationality and believability of this plan, I’m still left thinking, “clowns.” I wonder why?
Well, I’m thinking “clowns” because that’s exactly what they are. No offense to clowns, obviously.
But on the negative side for the LDs, Labour’s doing a grand old job of daring us to go further. I can see it now: Lib Dems screaming at Labour, “You’re not going far enough!” while the rest of the country backs away from us looking slightly embarrassed – and a bit scared. Except for the Greens, of course, who glower at us and call us traitors.
With Green stuff, you just can’t win. I still stand by my opinion that it’s electoral poison. The only reason this policy is even being considered is because it’s the only way the Government can dump money on the Car Industry without incuring the wrath of the EU.
The real pity is that the market will not be allowed to decide what comes after oil based engines – the politicians want to do that for us.
Imagine at the start of the Betamax/VHS war*, the British Government had decided to subsidise sales of Betamax players to encourage companies to build factories and so on. In the real world the market decided that VHS was the better technology (it had longer tapes to record onto… who knew?), and so it’s a very good thing we didn’t sink taxpayer’s money into the rival, but this is what we’re about to do to the car industry. We’re about to plough1 serious cash into the Betamax of Next Generation Personal Transportation.
At least, that’s what Labour will do to the car industry if they get a 4th term. I’m thinking… “Electric Leyland” I’m thinking… you know what? New Labour is very, very dead isn’t it?
*Let’s not have any boring Betamax Versus VHS arguments. This you can’t win, and it’ll just be humiliating for everyone involved.
1 – Thank you Blackacre, via Pedant’s Corner.
MatGB said...
17 Apr 09 at 12:58 am
They’re actually proposing grants for purchases.
FFS. Now, if it was a VAT reduction, or a tax break for the company making them, then perfectly valid pigouvian externality thingummy. Prod the market in the right direction, like they did with unleaded and then low-sulphur stuff.
But actual direct grants? Gah.
But yeah, Labour is dead in the water; you can tell this when Blairites like Alan Milburn and John Rentoul are trotting out crap on the whole smearemail thingy after the story should have died—they’re getting the blame in first. It’s all over bar the actual voting.
Unless Brown manages to pull a Major and run a blindingly good campaign across the country and…
Nah, even Brown couldn’t pull that off.
Charlotte Gore said...
17 Apr 09 at 1:07 am
You hope.
Julian H said...
17 Apr 09 at 9:21 am
Para three hints at one of many huge problems with government interfering with technology and innovation – namely that innovating companies put their plans on hold, as the impending regulation / subsidisation (etc.) could have a serious affect on said plans. Hence government, lo and behold, slows everything down.
AJS said...
17 Apr 09 at 1:23 pm
“Imagine at the start of the Betamax/VHS war, the British Government had decided to subsidise sales of Betamax players to encourage companies to build factories and so on” — Funny you should mention that. During the Bookbinder Years, Derbyshire County Council actually subsidised the purchase of (technologically superior, though unpopular with the public) Betamax recorders for schools.
Anyway, half the entries on Robot Wars were made with recycled C5 motors. Make of that what you will.
Things are all going to get very interesting when the oil does actually run out ….. for some value of “interesting”, anyway …..
Julian H said...
17 Apr 09 at 2:40 pm
By the time oil runs out, it’s extremely likely that we won’t need it anymore.
Scarcity = higher prices = high demand for alternatives = increased supply of alternatives.
AJS said...
17 Apr 09 at 5:14 pm
If the Government are really serious about wanting to increase the use of electric transport, they should invest in finishing electrifying the railways and building tram systems in urban areas. No worries about batteries, then, either.
Most diesel railway engines (except the small 2- and 3-car multiple units) consist of a diesel generator feeding a set of electric motors via some heavy-duty electronics; since it’s more efficient to run the engine at constant RPM, and easier to vary the speed from within the electrical domain than to use clutches and gearboxes with so much torque going through them. It would hardly be beyond the bounds of feasibility to modify existing stock to be able to run from overhead wires wherever available, and start the on-board generator in time to switch over where the wires run out (or in the former Southern Electric Railway area, where third-rail DC is still used). This would even provide full continuity of operation while the electrification work was being performed.
Roger Thornhill said...
17 Apr 09 at 11:24 pm
Many electric cars are “awful things”, as are some hybrids, the Pious included, but it is irrational to say they all are and will be so.
These will get better. The next generation does not “need’ the infrastructure, for they are Series plug-in hybrids, so can recharge at home for the short work journeys but rely on an on-board generator for longer trips. 800+ mile ranges giving 80-100mpg efficiency and 100mph top speeds.
Subsidies smell of lobbying, directly or indirectly from those most to gain.
We are about to be ripped off.
If you want to be really green, just convert an old V12 5.3litre Jag to electric traction.
Alan said...
31 Jul 09 at 7:56 pm
I’m afraid you don’t really know what you’re talking about. Do you actually know what cars will be available in 2011 and what capabilities they will have? Do you know what cars will be available in 2012, 2013 etc? Did you know that no-one is going to be FORCED to buy an electric car? Did you also know that typically it will cost you around only about £50 to travel 10,000 miles at todays electricity prices? No, that is not a typo, in cost terms even at todays prices that’s over 800mpg equivalent.
Alan said...
31 Jul 09 at 8:09 pm
With that 800mpg cost equivalent I wasn’t quite comparing apples with apples because I was comparing costs with my current car which gets only around 35mpg. Even if I replace my car with an internal combustion engine one that gets 70mpg (which would probably have not much better perf than an EV, except range) I’d still be looking at 400mpg in cost terms for an EV.
I’m up for saving over £1000 a year at todays petrol prices (which for the economic climate are worringly high). I’ve done some basic calculations and I figure that even if petrol doesn’t increase AT ALL in real terms over the next ten years I’m likely to break even. Electricity prices may also increase in real terms over that time but you also have to take into account the lower maintenance costs of an EV, lower tax (for now) and the fact that it’s around 3x more efficient than an internal combustion engine, well to wheel, and that’s even if the electricity comes from the least advanced coal power stations.
The future of personal transportation is almost certainly electric, and when they get to the cost/capabilities state that they make internal cars look crap you’ll be all over them, probably the same way you have a flat panel TV now but couldn’t beleive the ridiculous cost when they first came out. Everything has to start some where, or don’t you understand basic economics?
Charlotte Gore said...
31 Jul 09 at 8:16 pm
If and when electric cars are better than internal combustion engine cars then yes, I think most people will be all over them.
The Government throwing money at them won’t make that so though. It’ll just create crap electric cars, just like throwing money at the British car industry created crap British cars, and make it harder for non-subsidised projects to get to market.
I’m not against alternatives to the fossil fuel based cars. I just insist that they’re actually better, which isn’t the case yet.
Alan said...
31 Jul 09 at 10:08 pm
The whole betamax analogy is wrong too, that was two new technologies competing. HD-DVD vs BluRay was like VHS vs Betamax, this is different because internal combustions engines have been the norm for transportation for ~100 years. Electric transportation has existed for about the same time but hasn’t been mainstream.
The problem with adopting a new technology for transportation is that cars are such big ticket items, there’s an economic intertia that has created a mild chicken-egg scenario in terms of people not being able to commit to the EV ‘risk’ especially with the high price, and the high price being hard to reduce without the demand for EVs. This is nowhere near as bad as the hydrogen infrastructure chicken-egg situation though!
We need some early adopters to wean ourselves off the internal combustion engine and these subsidies seem like a fairly cheap way of helping with this, the actual cost to the taxpayer will be miniscule compared to recent govt spending, at at least it’s for a demonstrably good cause! If the electric cars turn out to be up to the job, which I think they probably will be (as a second car in a two car family) then that will encourage a perception change.
Yes 2011 electric vehicles will be ‘worse’ than existing cars in many ways, but in terms of energy efficiency and running costs they will be much much better, so with Mitsubishi and Nissan both being in the market in 2011 they shouldn’t be ‘crap’ as in your definition, just different. Please get with the programme, we can wait for another 2008 type oil shock, but it would be better if we’ve at least started the transition to EVs ASAP.
http://www.mitsubishi-cars.co.uk/imiev/
http://www.nissan.co.uk/GB/en/inside-nissan/innovation-and-technology/ev.html
Two mainstream manufacturers actively publishing their EVs on their UK websites, still not convinced I suppose?
Julian H said...
1 Aug 09 at 7:15 am
Alan, you don’t need to declare an interest do you? This is all coming across a tad sales-pitch-y.
Alan said...
1 Aug 09 at 6:56 pm
Sorry – no outside interest – just getting frustrated with people blogging about things they seem to have done very little research into.
MatGB said...
1 Aug 09 at 10:27 pm
Um, Alan? A blog post giving an opinion with an open comments box is research.
But for those wishing to offer critique, actually engaging rather than hectoring always comes across better–my eyes glossed over your comments due purely to the way you wrote them, even though I suspect I’m closer to your position than Charlotte’s on this specific case. tl;dr