UK On the Fence Over E-Fuels, Naively Listening To The Sound Bites Of Science And Not Learning From The COVID Fiasco

When the EU announced that it will allow the sale of combustion engined vehicles designed to run on e-fuels, despite the 2035 ban on petrol and diesel vehicles, I saw this as a common-sense policy. Perhaps naively, I assumed the UK government would follow suit. I was wrong. 

 

Instead, the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, said “we are not in Europe, we don’t have to do what Europe does”. Not only is this a worryingly myopic approach to the road towards net zero, it is atrociously bad policy-making for our domestic auto industry.