Good day my good friend.
No messing about today. Lets get on with it.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
James
The end of vehicle subsidy
And so, the plug-in car grant was no more. The Department for Transport has now closed this grant that was offered to purchasers of new electric vehicles, and which in turn has helped to sell nearly half a million of them. Well…its not quite the end. Its still on offer for the uptake of electric vans, and businesses can benefit from a big tax break for electric company cars.
What is interesting is the evaluation report published alongside it. While I’m not shocked that the industry thinks that electric vehicle grants have been good for it, what I am really interested in are the findings on market impact. Notably how the grants have caused market distortions (i.e. favoured wealthy early adopters), and how the grants are likely to be directly responsible for selling 90,000 vehicles. Its worth a read.
Car tyres are much worse than we thought
You may have seen this already as it was published while I was away, but a new study has concluded that car tyres are much worse for particulate emissions in cities than car exhausts are – to the tune of 300000 tonnes of emissions in the UK and US. Clearly that’s bad. While Nitrogen Dioxide is not exactly pleasant (putting it mildly), Particulate Matter is a nasty concoction of pollutants that are extremely damaging to health.
The reasons for this? The study doesn’t really point to any particular reason, and only really concludes that tyres are worse than we thought they were. But possible reasons include cars getting heavier (with the exception of electric vehicles), and possibly emissions of regulated particulate matter from tailpipes going down. But put this down as another reason to help reduce the amount of cars in cities.
Random things
These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.
Why sounds and smells are as vital to cities as the sights (MIT Technology Review)
How Our Brains Help Misinformation Go Viral (Greater Good Magazine)
Our Creativity Has Increased as a Result of the COVID-19 Lockdown (SciTechDaily)
Something interesting
We often forget about coaches. And as this video shows, they can often be an excellent way to get around. Maybe we should make more use of them?
If you do nothing else today, then do this
You know, it would be really great to see you all at Mobility Camp in September in Bristol. Not that I’m hinting or anything. 🙂
Mobility Matters 