Just let people drive whatever the hell they want as long as they stay off the roads where traffic flows faster than X.
Moped? Chinese golf car larping as an EV? Construction equipment? Shouldn't matter what it is, it should be allowed. There's no reason all this stuff (and bikes and pedestrians) can't coexist in low speed areas. And there are tons of industrial facilities the world over where it does all coexist.
This will never happen though because a lot of the interest in cheap EVs comes from a subconscious desire to not have to share the roads with the poors in their '99 Taurus wagons with mismatched body panels and letting people drive whatever defeats the point of forcing them to drive something palatable to the people making the rules.
You might as well ban cars entirely at that point. The biggest criticism of EVs is that they are still cars. They are still the most resource and footprint intensive form of transportation out there.
The politics now are about banning ice. The electric cars being more expensive makes this discriminatory against low earners. I wonder if it would be far more effective to ban large suv's (uk). Of course e bikes and scooters are the way forward in cities.
The timelines for ICE bans within a decade are ridiculous from a technology and market standpoint and terrible for the environment.
The best car technology is the one you don't use much. And we already have decades of cars in good enough condition to be driven weekly rather than daily.
EVs will barely scratch the surface of environmental issues with transportation. And they will create a new range of supply problems while also not solving traffic congestion issues that plague our cities.
It would be far more preferable to encourage people to use the same car for longer and especially to leave it in the garage when they can use other modes of transportation. Or, use car sharing rather than a personal car.
I try and follow the market closely and the numbers don't seem to make sense yet. Furthermore evs will not solve urban transport problems unless they will be unviable to many. Now, taking pointless, huge and very polluting SUV status symbols of the road (that's where they are made to go after all...) will bring vast benefits to everybody involved and guess what? It doesn't have to be the poorer people who feel the pain. But e bikes? That's a great idea. A government program to trade a car for an e bike and merits would be amazing. E scooters likewise are officially illegal, but i think police here are very wise to turn a blind eye to them.
Then let‘s introduce a general speed limit only for cars with combustion engine. In no time the adoption rate of electric vehicles in Germany would skyrocket.
Btw, that's not me arguing against electric vehicles. They are absolutely fantastic. I think in the next ~10 years everyone who can aford one and has a place to charge one should get one. There will be a massive shift towards them. I just don't see a total ban in 2030 to be necessary -the market will shift towards electric anyway, but if you are in a situation where an electric car just doesn't work for you for whatever reason, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to buy an ICE car. Especially since I imagine they will start being in minority by then, so their impact will be smaller and smaller every year. With a total ban you aren't solving the situation for people who can't work around the limits of an EV - you're just making them pay higher and higer prices on the second hand market for existing ICE cars(as pre-2030 cars are meant to be allowed for as long as they work).
You can buy electric scooters nowadays that can drive a lot farther than any car with the same battery. If one was big on emission reduction, one would ban all cars and only allow scooters.
Let all vehicles be sold directly by the manufacturer, not just electric vehicles. I oppose privileging one kind of vehicle, as is done with ban of gasoline-powered cars in California by 2035. If gasoline-powered cars have externalities, tax them proportionally to those externalities, but do the same for electric vehicles.
I'm not opposed to limiting car space in favor of people space, but I also see EVs as a solution if the problem is emissions. No need to ban all cars, just gas-powered ones.
This should not be a blanket ban. Actually I don’t think they would even need to implement any policy at all. By 2030 I would expect electric cars to be so economical that it’s the only viable choice for the majority of people.
Not to mention that there will still be plenty of valid use cases for ICE cars in 2030. Need to go anywhere without the charging infrastructure? Need to travel a long distance? Need to travel in an emergency like a blackout?
The other part which is just kind of sad is that this is another nail in the coffin for the hobby of building and modding cars. Parts supplies will dry up and working on older cars will just become more and more prohibitively expensive. It’s already happening. To be honest when a car is just another computer it ceases to be interesting.
Obviously reducing private car usage is a priority. I don't have a car, never owned one, and I'm absolutely in favour of severe restrictions.
Now, you have to acknowledge the world we live in, a total ban won't be feasible in the time-frame that we have to combat climate change. (And neither will an electric grid sufficiently powerful to power millions of green hydrogen-powered vehicles or 5-ton SUVs for that matter).
Not all EVs weigh 5 tons. Promoting (smaller) EVs for people who need them is a good thing.
I am not going to refute those EV claims! To be clear, you are talking to a person who is in a brand new sector of the transportation industry. I have somewhat of an interest in seeing people not drive in major metropolitan areas anymore. I am coming from a biased position where I believe people should not be driving as a first choice, unless they live in an area where its not economically viable to provide large scale public transit or bike lanes, like rural & suburban areas.
You are saying, why not ban cars? But not all SUVs are created equal. They aren't all RAV4s or CRVs. If you look at the new land rover defender, its unclear how people can even see out of that monstrosity. Its enormous and has insanely bad visibility and is HEAVY. That thing would destroy other SUVs, let alone cars. A ford explorer from the early 2000s is flimsy compared to these new SUVs.
There is already legislation about acceleration, it falls under e.g. 'exhibition of speed' and everyone one of these modern EVs is able to violate it (and do regularly, afaict).
Moped? Chinese golf car larping as an EV? Construction equipment? Shouldn't matter what it is, it should be allowed. There's no reason all this stuff (and bikes and pedestrians) can't coexist in low speed areas. And there are tons of industrial facilities the world over where it does all coexist.
This will never happen though because a lot of the interest in cheap EVs comes from a subconscious desire to not have to share the roads with the poors in their '99 Taurus wagons with mismatched body panels and letting people drive whatever defeats the point of forcing them to drive something palatable to the people making the rules.
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