A while back I told my friends "in the next 5 years a major European city will ban non EV. And if it's a success, the flood gates will open and there will be no way back".
I'm surprised (and pleased) that this initiative is being implemented in Spain, since the infrastructure for supporting EVs there is less developed than other places (say, Germany). I sincerely wish it turns out to be a success, which would quickly accelerate similar initiatives in other places.
I agree with your assessment, but I don't agree that this ban is it. The headline really oversells it. The actual rule from the article's body is: "All petrol vehicles registered before 2000 and diesel ones registered before 2006 will be banned from the area, unless they are used by residents of the area or meet other exemptions."
They only plan to ban enough polluting vehicles to "cut nitrogen dioxide levels by 23% in 2020", so this is a very far cry from EV only. I think this is a step in the right direction, but it seems like a convoluted one that could be a whole lot more ambitious.
Worst than particle pollution on a day-to-day basis is the noise pollution. Big/Sport motor bikes and car horns should really be regulated inside cities, they make everything more stressful.
They installed a new sound on public buses, which sounds like a nice old bell and is less noisy than the usual car horn. It should exist on all cars.
Seriously, no one gives a f* than someone is stuck in traffic, and yet it alerts everyone on a 200 meters radius, which is many people in a city's density.
Those 2-strokes are a menace. That they didn’t ban those demonstrates that the Paris “ban” is just political posturing rather than a desire for actual improvements. Not only are 2-strokes heavy polluters, they are the noisiest vehicles on the street.
Well, you know, my vespa 50s from 1972 is still almost as good as new.
1990s 50cc japanese scooters are indestructible, esp. Hondas, as are later, early-2000s Yamaha/MBK 100cc models. They are not going anywhere until there appears a 80 kg, 12" wheel electric model that can go 100km on a single charge and carry two people at a cruise speed of 70-80 km/h. And charge from zero in at most 15 minutes.
I love the smell of burning 2T oil in the morning.
Yes, Amsterdam also has it. No diesels from before 2001 I think is the rule. It's going to be implemented in other cities in NL as well. My dad got kind of screwed because he converted an old van into a camper, for traveling around, and now he won't be able to use it to get into cities anymore.
Of course it is objectively a good thing, especially when they implement the export restrictions so they won't all simply be offloaded to Africa.
> Of course it is objectively a good thing, especially when they implement the export restrictions so they won't all simply be offloaded to Africa.
Why export restrictions (especially to Africa) is a good thing?
I think that it is quite opposite:
* from looking at basic car sales statistics EV are basically non-existent in Africa, there is no infrastructure etc. (apart from fact that almost nobody could afford them)
* 2000-ish cars are usually quite simple to repair, no advanced electronic etc.
* producing new car probably will waste more resources and emit more pollution than using and repairing old one
It's already implemented in at least on other city (Utrecht), but only for the city center. As a diesel owner, it's a minor inconvenience whenever I visit the town. Most people I know live outside the zone.
It's a baby step, but that was to be expected. You can't realistically expect everyone to switch to an EV overnight, but this kind of plans will accelerate adoption, which AFAIK isn't going so well in Spain.
If this experiment works, then new, more aggressive ones will be put in place elsewhere.
Just to be clear, anything that is not a hybrid or EV cannot drive through the centre unless going to a public parking garage. Licence plates are collected by the garages and cars entering the central area are monitored by cameras.
So, anything that is not hybrid/EV is actually effectively banned.
I don't know why you are being downvoted, but providing a source would be welcome, I guess.
Are you saying that it's OK for (certain) polluting vehicles to enter the zone to visit someone and park in a garage, but it's not OK for them to pass straight through the zone and out at the other end? That would be possible, but it sounds even more convoluted.
> Sí, se puede llegar al centro de la capital en vehículo privado. Los residentes tienen permiso para entrar y aparcar en su barrio. Los coches de los no residentes, siempre y cuando cuente con etiqueta ambiental, pueden entrar a Madrid Central. La clave es dónde aparca el vehículo: la medida prohíbe aparcar en superficie excepto a residentes o coches Eco o 0 emisiones. Los vehículos B y C podrán aparcar en cualquier parking de acceso público.
It doesn't imply that at all -- it appears to be a political choice. Many cities give free parking passes to residents of the city center to park in their local neighborhood, for example.
And guess what, one of the punishments for them regarding diesel (selling cars at discount to affected consumers), turned out to become yet another profit, because in the end they just sell more cars anyway.
Mercedes has ads across the country how they are just a nice company and want to help the planet by giving the opportunity to Euro 4/5 car owners to exchange their cars at affordable prices, while avoiding to mention why they are actually offering it.
It's a strange twist that the only country that punished VW/Audi group for dieselgate with sanctions that had any kind of teeth was the U.S. -- not exactly known for its environmentalist tendencies.
There VW was forced to pay for a huge EV charging infrastructure in addition to the vehicle buyback. In Canada, the gov't did basically nothing and it was only a class action lawsuit that accomplished much, and the deal we got was far less than what they got in the U.S.
Still, the money I got from dieselgate buyback paid for most of my Chevy Volt. So that's something.
Well that may prove it was a political motivated punishment (for the US at least) not related to the environment damage. VW got fined in Europe (i.e few billions) as well but not as much as in the US.
You mean, they didn’t like the “politics” of a company installing devices in their cars whose only purpose was to cheat emissions tests, and then afterward lying about it?
Yes, it’s not really so much about the “environment” per se, and more about the criminal cheating followed by criminal coverup.
I think the unsaid assumption, although it is near impossible to prove, is that this was motivated by desire to punish foreign conglomerates and provide a nice advantage to domestic producers. While I'm sure this is near impossible to prove I would be really surprised if lobbyists for the US auto industry weren't trying to get as many sanctions as possible for VW.
Yeah, the governments are either not thinking about the long-term survival of the population and the planet, or they would rather just placate their citizenry by making sure they have jobs. Because a jobless populace will vote you out of the office, so, fuck the environment?
Nitpick: Not Germany, but Lower Saxony (a German state). They own 20% of VW and have a special case in the law that gives them special veto rights on (some?) supervisory board decisions.
Yet German cities have serious problems staying within EU regulations for particulate matter, and with the health risks of suspended particulate matter becoming increasingly more evident those regulations won't go away.
Pushing non-EV vehicles out of cities isn't the only viable measure, but it is by far the easiest and quickest and has very positive side effects for quality of life in the city. And with VW getting more serious about EVs the lobbying may well reverse direction in a few years. After all once you sell an attractive EV lineup, getting every city dweller to replace their petrol car with an EV is great for your bottom line.
I'm not so surprised. Some mid-sized cities in Spain (e.g. Pontevedra, Oviedo) have banned all cars from most major streets since the mid 1990s. They are remarkably focused on pedestrians. You can walk anywhere.
Actually, I'd say the ban on those cities I mention is in some ways more restrictive than what was just implemented in Madrid. It's much simpler to accomplish due to their size, though.
I'd love for that to be true. But I've thought the same thing about other laws and the floodgates never opened. For example, in 2001 Portugal decriminalised all drugs. The obvious thing happened: the drug situation slightly improved. But more than 15 years later not one country has followed.
Still, I would like to share your optimism. Let's rid our cities of cars completely.
I'm surprised (and pleased) that this initiative is being implemented in Spain, since the infrastructure for supporting EVs there is less developed than other places (say, Germany). I sincerely wish it turns out to be a success, which would quickly accelerate similar initiatives in other places.