The United Kingdom will ban all sales of new gas- and diesel-powered vehicles beginning in 2040, the British environment secretary, Michael Gove, announced Wednesday. "We can't carry on with diesel and petrol cars," Gove said in a BBC interview. "There is no alternative to embracing new technology."
While demand for low-emission electric and hybrid vehicles is rapidly rising in Britain, they accounted for less than 3 percent of new car sales in the country in 2015. Still, the "timescale involved here is sufficiently long-term to be taken seriously," said David Bailey, an automotive industry expert at the U.K.'s Aston University. Gove's plan includes nearly $2 billion in government spending to incentivize the change.
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