Obviously diesel still exists, but less people are buying vehicles powered by it.
However, our cartoon dog, Diesel, a cynical scrapyard hound is dead, as far as the mag is concerned anyway. We were going to put him in it, but abandoned that brilliant idea and left him in his kennel. Now it seems appropriate to bring his cynical genius into our lives to reflect on silly things like this..
SMMT new car registrations for 2017 show a drop of 5.6% overall and a 17% fall in new diesel cars compared to 2016.
An AA Populus poll of almost 20,000 drivers last month showed that the cost of living was the main reason for declining sales.
The AA asked: New car sales have fallen for eight months in a row, and fell more than 11% in November. Which if any of the following do you think is the main reason why new car sales have been in decline?
They also seem to have come up with lots of nonsense reasons about why diesel no longer exists…
31% rising living costs
13% mixed messages from government over fuel type to buy
12% seven years of austerity
10% government policy on diesels
8% higher fuel and insurance costs
6% uncertainty over Brexit
Trouble is that’s all virtue signalling nonsense. The simple fact is that the British car public were lied to by the last Labour Government and bullied by environmentalists who incorrectly identified a naturally occurring gas, C02, as pollution. There were other, cleverer ways of dealing with C02. Now targeting old diesels and beginning to tax them off the road is a wrong headed policy which will destroy perfectly reasonable, useful and economical vehicles. Diesel the Dog could have handled it all much better. The car tax system by the Conservatives is now something of a confusing mess. If the intention was to make us stay at home and just watch Netflix, it has been pretty effective.
The AA President said a lot more nonsense on this: “The new car market is down 5.6% but diesel sales have plummeted by 17%. Overall one third of drivers put the decline down to rising living costs but almost one quarter also blame mixed messages from government on fuel types or diesel policy. Amongst the oldest drivers almost one third blame the fuel and diesel confusion. Some 6% quote uncertainty over Brexit.”
That last line discredits their survey, coming from such an old organisation that should be sticking up for the hard working drivers of this country. In many ways this is a situation undoable without a massive amount of money that no one seems to have. We say, keep your old diesels and carry on, the big problem is with public diesel transport and container ships, not the average, hard pressed motorist who just wants to get to work and back.
If you would like Diesel to come back regularly let us know.
If you would like to read a brief history of diesel, then take a look at this useful infographic at Select Car Leasing
