Bring on the end of the ICE-age – and long live the Reliant Robin!

Even if sales of all ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles ceased today, there will still be a ‘long-tail’ of the existing fleet of them running through their normal life-cycle before being replaced.

As mentioned in my recent article on Norway’s recent vehicle sales numbers: whilst 93% of all new car sales there are PEV, 70% of the stock of registered vehicles on Norwegian roads are still ICE driven. With the average life of a car in Norway being 10.7 years, this means that without any policy changes it is likely that half of them (35%) will be still be on the road by 2034.

Given Australia seems in no hurry to set a date to either end ICE vehicle sales or, at the very least, set standards for cleaner, more efficient ones that use less polluting fuels, this means that ICE cars are likely to be around in numbers here for a very long time indeed.

If not addressed soon, this is going to provide a severe headache to subsequent Australian governments on how to meet what will by then be increasingly urgent (and immediate) greenhouse gas reduction targets.

So how can a country avoid the ‘setting in stone’ of this CO2-e emissions source well into the tail end of emissions reductions periods? Norway has set an example there by setting an early date for ceasing ICE sales, meaning the ‘half-life’ date for the ICE fleet will naturally happen sooner.

For countries that come later to the party of 100% PEV sales, another option to move the dial on ICE removals is to introduce some form of scrappage scheme – sometimes referred to as ‘cash for clunkers’.

These have been tried many times over the years for a variety of reasons – including economic in order to boost consumer spending in times of economic downturn.

If coupled with the purchase of Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) and properly targeted towards people with lower incomes and older, highly polluting vehicles – such a scheme would potentially provide one way of drawing down the long-tail of Australia’s average 10.6 year old passenger vehicle fleet.

Another option is the application of a Roads Used Charge to ALL vehicles (with exemptions for EVs in the early part of the RUC implementation). This option has been used in New Zealand, where their EV uptake reached 34% of all new car sales in September*.

Another is to increase registration fees on ICE vehicles. This by the way would effectively the other side of the coin to the ‘carrots’ offered to EV purchasers in some states.

Yet another would be to increase the fuel excise. Increasing the fuel excise slowly could also be used to make up the currently small (but inevitably growing) loss in this revenue stream as EV increasingly take over the new car sales charts.

Were it not for the climate emergency, there could quite possibly be no need for scrappage schemes, registration increases, tax hikes or in fact any ‘carrots’ or ‘sticks’. There will simply be a point where a fuel price/availability death spiral sets in to end the ICE age.

By this I mean petrol stations will start to become unviable and close as fuel volumes decrease, along with spiralling fuel prices due to the costs of production, refining, distribution and dispensing being spread across a diminishing customer base.

At that point, even the most recalcitrant of the technology adoption  ‘laggards’ will move to EV simply because it too hard/costly to stick with ICE. (The same probably happened when it came to hotels with stables and hay merchants on ‘every corner’. Nothing is ever really new 😉

There is a caveat I do want to add at this point: ICE vehicles in some form will always be with us. Classic cars from the dawn of the automotive are still with us and are much sought after – going by the prices some can achieve at auction. Many also appear at classic car events, race meets etcetera, along with the crowds that collect and enjoy inspecting and watching them.

There are also the collectors and restorers of the weird and wonderful examples of automotive quirkiness from all eras – and more power to them!

The end of the ICE era should in no way affect these. Such vehicles rarely travel more than a few thousands of kilometres a year – and for the small amount of residual liquid fuel this niche area needs, biofuel equivalents would not be placing an onerous demand on food cropping land.

(Unlike trying to replace current-day petrol/diesel supplies with crop based replacements).

So bring on the end of the ICE-age – and long live the Reliant Robin!

* Note:

This spike in NZ sales from around 24% previously may also be a reflection of the NZ public expecting EV support to be negatively affected by a likely forming of a right-wing government following their recent election.