Yeah, good luck with that.

I think the car industry might have something to say about that, given the amount of money spent on developing Diesel engines.

Oh, it won't be a ban - they'll soon realise they can't stock the shelves without HGVs bringing in the goods, so they'll plump for just levying a cynical tax on diesel cars.

This is hardly a shock and it's not like they're saying the ban is 2017. Plus, engine manufacturers, can hardly claim to be blameless in this. They've flat out lied about the environmental credentials of their Diesel engines for years and it's catching up with them.

Legislation (and fuel costs) have been driving engine development for years, this is no different. Diesel has had a good run but there are some major environmental issues with it. Whether those issues are soluble in a reasonable timeframe and at reasonable cost is an engineering challenge. There's now a harder deadline to the timeframe part.

Germany is looking to ban diesels completely by 2030, I assume, at the moment, that HGVs might be an exception, unless electric goods vehicles are coming online by then.

They can ban diesel cars and Vans and make all buses hybrid

The number of HGV’s is smaller and you can always limit them to night hours when there are less cars and so less pollution

Given businesses use diesel vans, it's never going to happen.

My current car is petrol, but it's so old I bought it before the tax perks for diesel cars were brought in. If I'd bough a few years later I might have gone for diesel. As it is now, I'm looking at one of the newer turbocharged petrol engines for my next car. Better economy than current petrol engines, but not as good as diesel. But I don't want the noise of diesel.

*Shrug* we've just switched all our vans that ship 'too big for people to carry' stuff round the various campuses to electric and apparently it's saving the uni a ruddy fortune. Admittedly a several ton articulated is a different kettle of fish, but I imagine the majority of those don't want to be driving round a lot of cities in the UK anyway. I for one would be perfectly happy with diesel lorries doing 'bulk distribution' to warehouses and for electric/hybrid vehicles being used for the 'final hop' of delivery of stock to actual retailers in city centres. You could easily make the vast majority of transit vans hybrid I reckon...


well, you're free to drive whatever you want. But equally people are free to say what sort of vehicles they do or do not want in their neighbourhood. TBH the way technology is going I reckon by 2025 having a pure petrol/diesel rather than a hybrid/electric car is going to be the much more expensive choice.

I was thinking more of shops being restocked rather than personal deliveries. But even then I doubt a battery powered van would have the range for an eight hour shift of stop start traffic delivering packages to people's homes.

Only people aren't saying. A few beurocrats are saying.

TBH petrol engines have improved quite markedly IMO. For various reasons, I have a new Polo as a hire car. Non-hybrid AFAIK but getting 45mpg driving around town. I couldn't even get 40mpg in the Golf unless I drove at 60mph from start to end.

The new injection technologies used in petrol engines are now causing the same particulates problem that diesels suffer from.

The ADAC tested the new Hyundai hybrid and found out it expels more particulate matter than many normal petrol engines of the previous generation. I think the problem has something to do with the fuel not being mixed with air until it is in the combustion chamber and also some new engines use water injection (ADI).