(17 Mar 2021, 10:21 am)tvd wrote There's an assumption that prices for electric cars will come down, and they may do, but will have to come down a lot to be affordable to lower paid workers.  And then presumably there'll need to be huge infrastructure investment in charging points - are they going to put them outside every home?  Maybe I'm sceptical but time will tell I guess.

Means testing ENCTS is one idea, as always pros and cons; the cons being the administrative costs of running a means tested systems, and for those that come fractionally above the limit will not get a free pass, but someone else whose income is a few quid a year less, get unlimited free travel potential worth thousands of pounds.

I cant see anything being changed about the free passes, just that in my opinion no one should complain if a small amount per journey was charged, especially if the proceeds of which went back into subsidising lesser used buses / evening or sunday buses in their local area.

Yeah, the biggest issue with going full EV is the charging infrastructure, I'm lucky enough to have a house with off road parking (if I could be arsed to knock the wall down), but my mother doesn't because of the slope of the garden. She'd love to go EV, she nearly bought one but she just doesn't have anywhere to home charge.

As for the means tested ENCTS, I don't think it would be particularly 'hard' to do, it could be linked up with Universal Credit, so the more you earn, the less free travel you get, or maybe it could go from free travel to half price travel. It's just an idea.

(17 Mar 2021, 10:31 am)ASX_Terranova wrote Could operators be forced to go fully electric, gas or both in the future.

I think 'banning' diesel is the wrong way to go about things. 
Electric buses are nearly there, if the government want to make operators switch over to Zero Emissions vehicles, then they need to work with manufacturers to make the products viable. Making one thing illegal doesn't magically make the other thing better.

For me, Battery Electric Vehicles are only really suitable for city routes, for the longer journeys either Diesel/Electric hybrid (with Diesel only being used as a generator to power the electric motors, as that is more efficient, with a smaller battery to allow full EV in urban areas), or Hydrogen Electric Vehicles as they allow for much longer ranges