Ovo: Petrol and diesel ban ‘should be more aggressive’

Plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles in 2030 should be “more aggressive”, an industry chief has said.

The government previously brought forward the ban by a decade as part of its decarbonisation of transport strategy.

However, during a recent interview with Utility Week, Ovo Drive managing director Chris Russell suggested the current proposals are not ambitious enough.

Speaking of the 2030 deadline, he said: “I’m clearly biased but I think that is already late, particularly when you think of the average lifetime of a vehicle.

“I think a really important element of that is what the runoff timeline is for those vehicles that are created in 2030. By that I mean, we don’t want to find ourselves in a situation where there’s still a huge chunk of diesel and petrol cars being driven in 30-40 years’ time because people haven’t been able to solve those problems with EVs.

“I think the government’s statement of intent is really important because to some extent, whilst its painful for car manufacturers, it’s given a very clear direction of travel.”

Russell said he understood the complexities for manufacturers of shifting production towards EVs and said an overnight ban was not the answer.

He said: “I’d like it to be a more aggressive date in lots of respects but I think in reality it has done what is intended, which is send a very strong signal to the sector that this is the direction of travel and we need to accelerate it.”

While he did not definitively outline a preferred specific date, he noted that most manufacturers will have stopped selling petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles by 2028.

Prior to the government’s 2030 deadline, the target was a 2040 ban which was outlined in the 2018 Road to Zero consultation paper.

You can read Utility Week’s full interview with Chris Russell here.