No problem for those of us with no carbon conscience, but a poser for the metropolitan virtue signallers. Those smug and pious Gretists who boasted that Eurostar and TGV was the only acceptable way to get to their Provence gîte are now faced with a dilemna. Load up the disco in the dark of night and go before the neighbours are awake and face the embarrassment three week later, or set off in a visible Uber and jump into a hired disco down the road?
No one trusts flying any more, despite the assurances about the number of air changes and the efficiency of the cabin air filtration system. Too many have come away from a short hop flight with a cold or flu, and the folk appreciation of the risk is widespread.
Comfort for the virtue-signallers is already here. The 'graph has a piece explaining that those driving to the Alps (presumably written in January and held over, as it's about skiing) can still claim to be green if you game the maths a bit -
According to research by Best Foot Forward, a car with four people in it going to Méribel in France’s giant Trois Vallées would generate two-thirds of the emissions than if you had flown to Geneva.I can suggest a further pabulum for the virtuous - "Jeremy's IBS puts him in the at-risk category, so using any form of public transport is just too risky .." or "we would go by easyjet but Mère Prépuce is 87, and she insists on cleaning the place each day and we can't risk her health". You can think of a thousand others, I expect.
And for carmakers who have almost run out of gadgets, gizmos and apps to attract buyers, here's one. A HEPA++ cabin air filtration system, with the effectiveness of an FFP2 facemask, i.e. filtering out a minimum of 94% of particles down to 0.3 microns. Your car then becomes an item of essential medical equipment .. "We would have bought an EV, but only the Vulva Sauvete P3 has the air filter we need for Tarquin .."
15 comments:
Here's an idea, Raedwald.
Write a piece about some people who actually exist.
You don't get out much, do you Anon?
He Raedwald, he doesn't, and guess what? I bought a car this month. I like the filter idea though: it would driving round in my respirator :-)
FFS, should read "NO Raedwald, he doesn't" and "it would BEAT driving round in my respirator".
The EU is hell bent on decarbonising as witness their green new deal demands of the farming industry let alone the EV debacle. Car manufacturers will struggle to rid themselves of the 100's thousands 'new' vehicles currently rusting away on numerous airfield car parks and no one can afford and EV anyway - even discounting the shortage of charging stations and lack of distributed energy to permit them.
Never mind any Green New Deal - business is going to face a new green REALITY shortly - one where actual demands are met rather than agendas fulfilled. The failure of Globalism plus financial and natural (nature) events will force planners into acceptance of facts rather than a reliance on fabrication.
Reality is a bitch.
The virtuous can, of course, buy electric cars. It's still a bit of a stretch to drive an electric to the Alps, but with fast charging (say an hour to fill up) long journeys aren't so ridiculous. I'm not sure what the lifetime cost of electric vs petrol is right now, but I'm fairly sure that most governments will be tipping the scales to get people to buy electric, whether they want to or not. After all, somebody has to soak up the nighttime electricity generated by all those wind farms and chinese nukes.
On safety: I like the idea of the HEPA filter. It was noted at the time that the Chinese lockdown ended how much faster car travel recovered compared to metro use. Air travel is going to be stuffed for a few years to come. (No Heathrow second runway).
Our experience of Covid-19 shows how exposed we are to repeats of this virus and indeed further novel viruses introduced either accidentally or even deliberately.
Air transport hubs, high population densities/movements and mass transport systems make the situation worse.
This Coronavirus outbreak should be the final nail in the coffin for HS2 as not only is it uneconomic but also a health risk.
As you quite correctly say individual/smaller vehicles will be the right way forward instead to protect us from further viral attacks.
The money for HS2 would be better spent on fibre optic cabling to every UK premise and the route turned into a new motorway for driverless EV vehicles with junctions so that everyone all along the route can benefit and not just those with easy access to each terminal.
Such a road would also be far more environmentally friendly than a train thundering along at 360Km/h (225m/h) consuming vast amounts of energy through high air resistance. And far cheaper to build and quieter in operation.
Without tax on petrol
Its still wildly in favour of petrol
But, 5% of uk taxes are motor vehicles, soooo, at some point, if we do away with petrol, thats got to come from somewhere
Battery costs still need to fall to 25% of current levels to make a £15,000 Dacia Sandero type car.
Amusingly, London councils are now pushing through extensive road closures in the name of social distancing. This is causing howls of outrage from the same twats that voted for them in the first place. It turns out that being a metropolitan socialist and driving your SUV 500 yards to drop the kids off at primary school (blocking bus lanes etc in the process) are entirely compatible ...
I don't think that the thick politicians we have in Yurrup have any idea what to do next about the Chinese No 19 ('pork with some savage, nasty-smelling gloop at our road-kill Oriental dump'), and seem to have forgotten citizens of the age of Scrobs and Her Fragrancy, the Senora O'Blene!
We have just carried on! We have a designated Carer if we need one (asked twice, gorgeous lady, firm breasts, winning smile, decent legs), but I visit Waitrose just the same as I always did, sometimes with Her Fragrancy, sometimes not, so that I can chat to the nubile ladies in the chemist next door on my own, without a snort of - 'Oh yeah' from said wife...'!
So if I'd voted differently, would I be an old fart, or just a normal Scrobs, eking out a decent pension, happily to suit the pair of us, or should I start greeetarising?
Naaaaah, the leftie mob are floundering so badly, it's a joy to see, especially on the BBC, which we haven't watched for ages now!
"Filtering out a minimum of 94% of particles down to 0.3 microns"
I wouldn't get your hopes up - quite apart from the 6% of "particles" that do get through, Covid virons are less than 1.4 microns across...
microdave - true dat, neither FFP2 or FFP3 (99%) masks will effectively filter airborne viruses, which are smaller than the rated capacity (I think you mean 0.14 for the SARS CoV 2 virus; Covid is the name of the illness, not the virus) but the SARS CoV 2 is not an airborve virus. It is carried in water droplets, which masks WILL filter.
And mask filtration is not like a flour sieve; 94% for the FFP2 is the minimum warranted barrier to 0.3 micron particles; this is just the size we use for comparison. In practice performance will be higher, and some lower percentage of 0.2 micron particles will also be blocked, and a lower still percentage of 0.1 micron particles.
Only problem with getting to Europe in your ‘hepa filtered’ car is the tunnel you have to have the windows down and the ferries you have to leave the car decks. The tunnel would of course be favourite with lower exposure both in viral load and duration, but maybe sitting outside on deck while the channel blows a hooley is an option. Is anywhere safe ?
I don’t think car sales will improve much in London.
Khan is busy driving the motorist out with ever higher emission standards
and reducing the numbers of roads available to drive on.
We’ll be forced onto public transport , cycling and walking.
Great if you have a non-job and don’t have to travel far or carry tools
and equipment.
I can’t afford electric and why would I buy a hybrid or currently
ULEZ compliant vehicle when I don’t know when the goalposts are going to be moved next?
Khan is a puppet of the green loons, pedestrianistas and cycle nazis .
Good realistic optimism.
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