Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Government may want LEVs to Substitute for Conventional Vehicles but don’t be Surprised if they act as Compliments.


Over the past 60 years in the UK we have witness a dramatic increase in the vehicle miles driven of passenger vehicles by around 20 times. This has been due to a combination of an increasing national vehicle fleet with these vehicles being driven much further distances. 60 years ago it was uncommon for a household to have a single car whereas now multi car households are the norm. These trends are set to continue in the future with both the quantity of vehicles on the roads, the number of multi car households and the distances driven by these vehicles set to increase towards 2025.

If the UK Government desires to be able to meet the commitments it set out in the Climate Change Bill (cutting CO2 equivalent by 80% by 2050 with 4 year Climate Budgets) it must decouple this estimated growth from CO2 emissions. Not only that, it must also reverse this relationship so that CO2 reduces even whilst we are buying more cars and driving them further.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The Search for Stability


It wasn’t too long ago that Gordon Brown, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, claimed to have banished boom and bust economic business cycles leading to an environment of stable financial prosperity. What a difference a few years can make, now instead of enjoying unrivalled stability we are have to cope with a much more uncertain world where, if short term prospects seem shaky, medium and long term predictions are almost worthless. This world of uncertainty goes all the way up from the micro household level, where individuals are worried about their jobs and mortgage payments, to the macro government and international levels where fiscal restructuring and sovereign debt are major topics of debate.

Uncertainty and instability are not always bad things. Many financiers have made large profits from being able to accurately plot the fall of companies, betting on stock price decreases. It also generates a need for more advanced prediction and estimation techniques stimulating academic and professional innovation. Some companies specialize in “bad times” services such as insolvency firms, debt restructuring agencies and bankruptcy accountants. Unfortunately, for the vehicle market and most notably LEVs, uncertainty is not desired and can lead to a great deal of distress.