Paul Jolly: The dear old motor car is still our passport to freedom

The typical 1970’s family of four, Mum, Dad, two teenagers had one family car, the Morris 1100 for example that Dad would take to work. Mum walked to the shops and kids took buses and trains. Today, all four will expect to run a car each, all from one household in the same street.

There is no law preventing multiple car ownership, just finance. Finance permits multiple car ownership in today’s world which was impossible in 1970. Today it can all be put on a card or bought with zero deposit/zero interest at the ultimate cost to the purchaser in exaggerated depreciation. There is a ‘want it now’ culture today.

Set against this explosion in numbers, modern cars are however incredibly fuel efficient. A VW Beetle in 1970 averaged 26 mpg and just 35mpg for a Morris 1100, the UK’s best selling car of the time. In 2023, a diesel Fiesta will achieve 85mpg thus travelling over three times the distance for one gallon of fossil fuel over the older VW.

The internal combustion powered motor car is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. It has given work opportunity, independence and mobility to men, women, younger persons of all race religion, creed and disposition globally, in a way no other facet of life could have. Governments of the day however, reaped buckets of revenue along the way.

UK contribution to global C02 emissions is around one per cent. Other countries therefore contribute over 98 per cent. (Our World in Data is a free and accessible site for current statistics.)

Of our one per cent just 25 per cent is attributable to the private motorcar. The rest is industry, energy production, steel, concrete and agricultural food production.

So, if at a stroke, every single hydrocarbon based fuel car was swept away into the bottom of the North Sea, our emissions reduction would be less than half of one percent globally. Ridiculous analogy but a stark statistic to demonstrate the facts.

What price this mobility freedom?