Fossil fuel car sales ban should be brought forward to 2030 says Shell

Oil major Shell says that it wants the UK government to make a bold move to ban petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, accelerating an existing plan by five years even though it seems to undermine one of Big Oil’s key business planks.

The UK government already has a policy in place to ban the sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035, and has been mulling over whether to move that target forward to 2032.

Royal Dutch Shell, which has seen significant falls in revenue over the past decade, and fresh from a $US22 billion writedown in the second quarter of 2020 due to global Coronavirus lockdowns, is urging the ban to be brought in even earlier.

“Shell applauds this but believes it could be brought forward to 2030 to make sure the UK meets the 2050 #netzero target,” the company said in a post via Twitter as part of a short thread.

The steps that must be taken were outlined in an article on LinkedIn by Shell’s UK county chair Sinead Lynch, who said “the right policy and incentives could allow the UK to achieve this as soon as 2030, to ensure the UK meets the 2050 net zero target”.

This is an extract from The Driven – 20 July 2020

A comment to the article points out that:

Well before 2030 in my view, EVs will have an overwhelming advantage over ICE vehicles with ranges typically over 300 miles and cost to purchase similar to ICE vehicles possibly by 2025 or maybe a year or two earlier. Given that running costs are a fraction of ICE vehicles, once the cost of the vehicle is similar, and assuming access to sufficient charging infrastructure, why would anyone buy an ICE vehicle?

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