The present day Scottish Government has planned to ban standalone petrol and diesel cars by 2032. This will be eight years ahead of schedule for the timeline that was initially proposed by the rest of the UK. Scotland, by 2032 will sell diesel and petrol hybrids but no cars will be standalone with gasoline or diesel engines. The SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon affirmed that the transition from standalone gasoline and diesel engines to a more hybrid systems are getting some momentum.
Sturgeon also noted that this is rather an ambitious target but something that will benefit the new Climate Change Plan eight years ahead of the target set by the UK Government, he added. To accommodate for this, Sturgeon added that there will be a significant bump in the number of electrical charging stations that are housed throughout Scotland. This will help the hybrid cars and the pure EVs get their charging in place when the time arrives. This is an ambitious goal for Scotland and a bold step that is not as easy to implement as it sounds.
Undoubtedly, Scotland deserves lauding as moving from standalone gasoline engines to hybrid engines initiative by the Government is a huge step and is a challenging affair and it is nice to see that the Government is directly involved in it. There are serious issues with this change. The parliament has not fully understood vehicle standards yet. They also have not had a firm grip on taxation of these vehicles and the cuts that will come with hybrid systems. Therefore, these challenges need to be addressed before Scotland could efficiently implement hybrid and fully EV technology on to the road. It is a tougher task for the Government but if they succeed, Scotland would be a lot greener than any other country in the world!