Full-electric goods vehicle manufacturer and services startup Volta Trucks has responded to the UK government’s announcement that it will ban all new cars powered wholly by petrol and diesel by 2030.
Rob Fowler, CEO of Volta Trucks, said, “At Volta Trucks, we welcome today’s announcement by the UK government to ban the sale of internal combustion engine cars and vans by 2030, and the ambitious plan to implement the world’s second most stringent timeline, after Norway. However, we are disappointed that there is no mention in the proposals for the ban to extend to large commercial vehicles.
“Legacy internal combustion engine trucks are a disproportionately large contributor to greenhouse gasses and air pollution that’s proven to be a significant contributor to many thousands of premature deaths every year in our major towns and cities, where air quality is at its worst.”
The ban, announced by Prime Minster Boris Johnson in a column published in the Financial Times on November 17 , is part of the government’s £4bn (US$5.3bn), 10-point plan to tackle climate change and make the UK carbon neutral by 2050. Some hybrid cars will still be eligible for sale in the UK under the proposal.
In his column, Johnson stated, “This 10-point plan will turn the UK into the world’s number one centre for green technology and finance, creating the foundations for decades of economic growth.”
According to Johnson, the UK government will invest more than £2.8bn (US$3.7bn) in electric vehicles, “lacing the land with charging points and creating long-lasting batteries in UK gigafactories”.
But Fowler believes this doesn’t go far enough. “Governments and legislators need to take a holistic approach to the climate change emergency we face and remove all polluting vehicles from our roads,” he said.
“Commercial vehicles form the lifeblood of city center commerce, so society needs goods vehicles, but it also needs good vehicles: vehicles that are zero emissions. I therefore call on the UK government to apply the same levels of decarbonization ambition for commercial vehicles as has been announced today with passenger cars and vans.
“As a company that is founded on the principle of accelerating change, the transition away from fossil fuels cannot come soon enough, to improve the air quality and environment for all of us.”