Ireland Moves to Electric and Britain Breaks Records
The main news is that the Irish government plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030. That’s ahead of the UK target at 2040 and the aim is to ensure that all new cars and vans on Irish roads in 11 years' time are electric vehicles. In order to avert the alleged “climate apocalypse”, the Irish government plans to force people “out of private cars because they are the biggest offenders for emissions”, according to transport minister Shane Ross whose proposals include banning fossil fuel vehicles from towns and cities nationwide.
This proposed legislation was among 180 measures in their Climate Action Plan. So should we be concerned? Well, Ireland is a tiny country of less than 5 million, yet these draconian measures cannot be undone once implemented and it is only a matter of time before similar policies make the hop over the Irish Sea. For instance, the government said it would stop granting National Car Test (NCT) certificates to fossil fuel vehicles by 2045. Still a long way off, but that is the equivalent of making your petrol or diesel illegal. You won’t even get a choice to keep on using your 15-year-old car, which is surely the environmentally sane thing to do.
Talking of petrol heads, let's celebrate the fact that JCB has set a new British speed record for tractors with a specially developed Fastrac tractor.
The tractor reached 103.6mph at Elvington Airfield, near York, with TV presenter and engineering guru Guy Martin behind the wheel.
Guy said: “It had been a great day with the JCB at Elvington, proper job with some right proper engineers. She felt rock steady on the runway, job’s a peach.”
A team of JCB engineers have been working on the secret project to develop the tractor over some time. The Fastrac tractor is powered by JCB’s 7.2 litre, 6-cylinder DieselMax engine produced at its factory in Derbyshire and had its aerodynamics enhanced with the help of Williams Advanced Engineering. You can watch it all on Channel 4 very soon.
