Carlos Tavares the boss of PSA, Peugeot Citroen and Vauxhall, has cautioned Governments during a speech at the Frankfurt motor show saying a total ban of internal combustion engines and an enforced introduction of electric cars could put the entire motor car industry at risk. He warned that any government that tries to dictate technology will be putting creativity, finances and jobs at risk. Not only this but Carlos Tavares also warned that future health and safety issues could be the government’s responsibility “we are moving from a technology neutral era into an instruction to go electric. From now on, the scientific responsibility is in the hands of governments. So, if in 20 or 30 years, there are health or safety issues [with electric vehicles], they will be in the hands of governments.”

Tavares also believes the current, highly subsidised electric car market is a poor basis for enforcing their adoption and worries it may not be profitable in future which would cause problems such as declining investment and fewer people being able to afford a car. Tavares instead thinks that highly efficient internal combustion engines such as his own Hybrid Air system, a low cost, compressed air boost, as an example of possible alternatives to a complete ban on combustion engines.

Enforcing electric cars could certainly have severe impacts on the cost, especially for younger drivers trying to buy their first car however, that is only if the cost of construction doesn’t come down by 2040 which seems highly unlikely. Already Tesla are building the biggest lithium Ion battery factory in the world which will help reduce the cost of the most expensive single part in an electric car, the batteries themselves.

It has come to light that in only 9 months some diesel cars have lost as much as a quarter of their price due to the government closing in on polluting cars. On average the value of the most popular diesel models have fallen 5.7% from £4,581 to £4,381.

The car worst hit by this fall was the Vauxhall Corsa which saw its value decline by 26.3% to £1,592. Even the Audi A3 which usually holds its value very well has seen a decrease of 11.3%.

To combat this most car manufactures have offered car scrappage schemes to ditch old diesel models in favour of newer ones which don’t release as much Nitrogen Dioxide. This has seen a lot of interest with one manufacture having valued over 24,000 used cars already. To accommodate the fall in diesels, used petrol cars have actually seen a 5% increase in price.

Diesel cars are starting to look a lot like white elephants with many forward-thinking motorists choosing to buy petrol, electric or hybrid cars instead. This has grown fears that thousands of diesel owners could find themselves locked into finance deals they now can’t afford due to their cars depreciation which could mean drivers who need to hand back their cars early as they cannot afford repayments will be unable to do so without paying huge fines if they depreciate in value faster than expected.

Whether this is going to benefit the consumer is very difficult to know but what we can say for sure is that it’s very unlikely that this sudden decline is going to reverse itself as more and more anti-pollution measurers such as in the 2040 plans for even petrol cars to be totally banned and replaced with hybrids and electrics.