Britain’s electric car roll-out is going to be a disaster for the average motorist. We knew this already but it has just been confirmed by none other than Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s own climate spokeswoman. Her name is Allegra Stratton and she has admitted in an interview that she’ll be sticking to her trusty diesel VW Golf, thank you very much, rather than experimenting with electric.
Stratton’s excuse for this is that she doesn’t want to stop her car for recharging when she has to drive to visit elderly relatives “200, 250 miles away.” She has family all around the United Kingdom including Scotland, northern Wales, the Lake District, and Gloucester, and says: “They’re all journeys that I think would be at least one quite long stop to charge.”
Yes, indeed. That is one of the main drawbacks of electric cars. And it’s a big one.
What Stratton doesn’t seem to understand — none of the Westminster class does — is that what is a problem for her is also a problem for everyone else. Nobody, anywhere, listening to her complaint on Times Radio (if anyone does listen to Times Radio, that is) will have gone: “Oh well. If she’s got family in Scotland, north Wales, the Lake District, and Gloucester, she deserves a special exemption from ever having to go electric.”
That’s because everyone, one way or another, is in the same boat. There’s not one of us who fancies being forced to interrupt a long journey to sit around at a charging station forever so that our car can top up with enough juice to get us to our destination.
So many of the problems with our current failed democracy could be remedied if our politicians and their political advisers were subject to the same rules they invent for the rest of us: if, say, Michael Gove had been forced to self-isolate after his trip to Portugal just like any normal person would have had to do; or if Dominic Cummings had been fined for his lockdown-breaking drive from London to Barnard Castle.
Still, though Stratton’s comments on electric cars betray the remoteness and arrogance of Boris Johnson’s corrupt and dishonest administration, they do at least show a candour extremely rare among the Westminster elite.
The Johnson government is committed as part of its green agenda to driving petrol and diesel cars off the road. From 2030, it will be illegal for dealers to sell new petrol and diesel models, no matter how much punters might prefer them to electric ones.
What Stratton has helpfully done is to admit a truth which the government’s powerful propaganda machine has sought desperately to obfuscate: this obsession with going electric is shared by no one outside the Westminster bubble except a handful of unwashed eco-loons with plaited armpit hair and blue dreadlocks, most of whom can’t even drive. Real people hate electric cars. They are just a virtue-signalling device for rich poseurs and a wealth transferral device from the ordinary consumer to the subsidised elite.
Bjorn Lomborg makes several killer points on this in an op-ed for the Daily Telegraph. Bottom line: no one wants electric:
As technology makes batteries cheaper, electric cars will become more economical, but the concerns over range and the slowness of recharging will be hard to rectify. That is why most scientific prognoses show that electric cars are not anywhere close to taking over the world. One study has suggested that, even by 2050, they will make up just 20 per cent of global car travel.
Oh, and they ain’t going to save the planet, either:
But, surely, electric cars will save the world? Well, no. The IEA estimates that even if the whole world achieved all of its ambitious electric vehicle targets, the annual CO2 emission reduction will be an additional 53 million tons, reducing global emissions by about 0.1 per cent. According to the UN Climate Panel’s models, if this reduction is continued throughout the rest of the century, it will reduce global temperatures by 0.002°C by 2100.
As a footnote, it’s worth noting how badly the general public is being betrayed by a corrupt system in which even the institutions which are supposed to defend it are actually working for the Enemy.
Step forward the noisome Edmund King. This jumped-up nobody has for many years been president of the Automobile Association (AA) which was founded in 1905 initially to help motorists avoid police speed traps.
In its modern incarnation, under the stewardship of keen cyclist King, it would probably be more likely to work with the police on building more speed traps than helping motorists avoid them. Certainly, King is no friend to the ordinary driver. Rather, he is another Establishment toady who can never see a politically correct bandwagon without leaping upon it.
His response to Stratton’s remarks is a case in point. Instead of going (as any motorists’ champion would have done) “This electric car nonsense is a farce. Ordinary folk can’t afford electric cars. There aren’t enough charging stations. It’s going to cause chaos and deprive people of one of their most cherished freedoms”, King instead decided to furnish the electric car industry with a mimsy apologia.
Here’s what this creepy government shill told the Guardian:
Edmund King, president of the AA, said drivers ought to take a break after 200 miles driving, in any case. “Drivers covering long distances should take regular breaks to maintain safety, so this is the ideal time to charge the car. Range anxiety will continue to decrease with more chargers and improved range on new models.”
With critics like these, is it any wonder the Big Government machine gets away with murder?
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