Banning Gasoline and Diesel Vehicle Sales by 2040, France and the UK Lead the Charge
Does car pollution get to you? People with asthma or other breathing difficulties can be greatly affected by the smog levels in a city. Regardless of breathing difficulties, smog and air pollution is bad for our health, and we would be well off without it. Cleaner air is on it's way as countries are starting to make plans to ban the sale of combustion engine vehicles within their borders.
After Volvo announced they were going to only make electric or hybrid cars by 2019, earlier in July France said it would end gasoline and diesel vehicle sales by 2040. If you're living in the UK, also expect the air pollution from cars to start going down by 2040 and eventually be a thing of the past. The UK is estimated to spend 2.7 billion pounds each year in lost productivity from air quality health issues, with about 40,000 air pollution related deaths each year.
The air pollution levels in many areas are unnecessary and avoidable since we can move towards cleaner technology. Diesel is a cleaner fuel than gasoline in terms of producing less CO2 (carbon dioxide), which made it preferable by some policy makers who created tax reductions for diesel. But this policy to subsidize diesel in many countries is under the knife as diesel produces more NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) -- a major cause of air pollution and smog in cities.
While lower CO2 might be the hype in terms of global warming or climate change, NO2 levels are still are a larger concern for air related health issues. NO2 levels from vehicle emissions will go down as we shift towards electric vehicles in society. Hybrid vehicles will not be exempt from the ban on new car sales. Despite being cleaner, hybrids still use gasoline or diesel.
The UK will be spending 3 billion pounds for this new air pollution plan, looking to retrofit and reduce emission, as well as green funds and cycling and walking development. 255 million in funding will go directly to local councils for them to tackle this environmental risk to public health and bring N02 levels down, like refitting buses to be electric only. Existing users of previously manufactured gasoline or diesel vehicles might see some fees or taxes leveed against them at some point. Cities might impose entry fees to get into a city or certain areas, but local councils want to avoid doing so as it comes off as punishing car drivers.
In Montreal the government is following the growing move towards being more "green", and they have already started to replace the public transportation buses with electric buses.
I suspect that after some years of a ban on gasoline and diesel vehicle sales, governments will move to ban or fine existing combustion engine owners. It takes time for people to accept such changes. First get people to stop buying new gas cars by banning their sale, then after that's been accepted ban the use of gas cars from being used. Or will they just let the old cars go out of use? A ban or fee on combustion engine use would probably have more public backlash than banning new sales. What do you think?
I guess rural areas will eventually feel the pressure as well, and gas or diesel engines may be a thing of the past. Is this what's going to happen? Is it for the better or worse?
How concerned are you about pollution?
Do you use a car often in the city?
Has your city started to roll-out the "greener" electric buses yet?
Do you agree with this ban?
Does there need to be a ban?
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/world/europe/uk-diesel-petrol-emissions.html
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/25/britain-to-ban-sale-of-all-diesel-and-petrol-cars-and-vans-from-2040
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/06/france-ban-gasoline-diesel-cars-2040-emmanuel-macron-volvo
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-uk-sale-gasoline-diesel-cars.html
http://globalnews.ca/news/3626019/britain-gas-diesel-ban/
If you appreciate and value the content, please consider:
Upvoting 
, Sharing 
or Reblogging 
below.
me for more content to come!
I am really hessitant to be in favor of government imposed bans.
And so many questions:
If a whole country goes to electric, how can their power grid meet that demand?
What fuel powers the power grid?
Is nuclear the answer?
.
I was going to say I don't support diesel being banned if their is an option to leave it...but then read about the NO2. That doesnt sound good.
.
And are electric buses efficient or economical? I didnt realize that our technology and engineering had succeeded in scaling to bus level.
.
I don't think existing combustion engine cars should ever be banned. They should all be allowed to be used for their full service life, including rebuilds. Those used cars are the cars the poor can afford. If you remove them from the market, the poor will be pushed into ever greater dependance upon the state for assistance and transportation.
PLUS, the production 'harm' has already been done for every car on the road. All of the energy consumption, polution produced as a byproduct of production, and all....has already been paid. I think it is better to let these cars run their full life before requiring another [energy and resource input, polution and toxic waste byproduct] formation per unit.
That's my thought anyway!!
✌Cents!
Peace!!
The further lack of transportation from a divide in in income is important to note as you point out. Incentives would be needed, but second hand electric cars would eventually come about as well. I don't know if electric is viable for large populations, but it seems governments are heading that way. I doubt this would play out as favorably in the USA as it is in Europe.
That is true(electric cars on secondary market)...and I also think USA won't enact this in next 10years...maybe never...or much later.
Thanks again for the article...it is good to be talking about these things!
Yeah I don't see this working in the USA, maybe Canada and Europe lol.
I'd love to have an affordable electric car. The engines are simpler, the power greater, the frames potentially lighter, maintenance needs much lower.
But all that energy has to be produced someplace. Will wind and solar be up to the demand? If not, the pollution from our power plants will just make things worse. And the increased efficiency of the vehicles are offset by the loss of transmitting power over long distances.
Then there's the ecological damage from the manufacture and disposal of all those massive batteries.
Ironically enough, we had electric cars going back to the beginning of the 20th century. If the "free market" really had it's way, they'd probably be in the majority by now. Unfortunately they were destroyed by the powerful interests of the oil industry. As recently as the mid 90s, General Motors produced the electric EV1 - then recalled them a couple of years later without explanation and had them ground up and disposed of in a landfill.
So looking to more government regulation to solve a problem caused by corrupt government lobbying seems a little disingenuous.
Yeah, the free market only works out well when good actors are in the majority. Otherwise, it's a "things work themselves out" and "autocorrect" in ... years and years later from failing and maybe eventually learning from mistakes ... rather than correcting sooner from the will do change. Seeing ahead and not making a bad choice is better than letting a bad choice play ahead. But we get stuck in the rut of the current condition and are slow to change, and that's without the corrupt pressure from the elite agendas to keep us in certain way of living.
I hope free energy is real someday :P Clean up the polluting human path we are on lol.
Free energy and free health care should be the basic human rights we're fighting for!
You can't really have a free market if entrepreneurs are afraid to leave their established jobs because working for someone else is the only way they can afford basic health care. And free energy would unleash a willingness to experiment and innovate that we've never seen before.
It is not about global warming or a carbon foot print. It is however about being plugged in and giving up control. It is about a global tax in the name of environmental responsibility to help spring board a global government. Bitcoin and its contemporaries are test runs for the eventual world currency. A people can be more easily controlled when corralled and plugged in. Gas and diesel become obsolete and discouraged. They can bring out driverless cars and then jock up your insurance if you chose to drive your own car. They can use money as a control mechanism to manipulate the masses. Thanks for sharing. - Troy
Good one. I see that as possible for sure.
I can't really think of any time when a government bannned something and it didn't produce some sort of unintended consequence(s).
Will the trade off of reduced smog be worth the issues with pollution in the mining operations and production of batteries? Coming from the UK amd France I can hardly see this as anything more than a push for centralization and control in the guise of environmentalism.
We certainly need to be good stewards of this planet it is the only one we have last time I looked.
I just don't see bans as being a positve especially the extremely poor countries that rely on inexpensive transportation such as in Asia and Africa.
I agree :\
We need to want to learn and educate ourselves to understand the better path forward, then be our own stewards.
Ban things to coerce external control, all because we lack the self-control change for the better or not do wrong or exploitative things.
Thanks for the feedback.
ye its good idea, i was in Asia and there pollution is in another level you cant even breath normally there, you need to wear mask, so i hope process evolve faster.
When people don't want to self-control, people demand external control to force change through government authority. Or the government just does shit, right or wrong, lol.
This will be a difficult one to do however very good if successful because of the environmental gains we will achieve, especially reduction in airpollution and exploitation of our environment. I wonder why United States is not in the frontline of this innovation..does POTUS and his team see it as too expensive and a failed strategy? Thanks for this, upped.
I mentioned you on my latest blog post :Why Steem debit card will be great for all , pls see it and join the debate
Very
I try to avoid large metropolitan areas, i think that confining large numbers of people in small areas is unhealthy in itself.
No, and I'm undecided on whether or not they're "greener" due to the heavy metals used in the batteries.
I've recently read some of Bastiat's work and I think banning something has a tendency to cause unintended consequences somewhere else.
I think the biggest problem is the fact that the people who push these agendas very often have a vested interest in the "solutions" they offer. And that other ideas are too easily discarded in order to fill someone's pockets.
Also, I think NO2 is Nitrogen Dioxide, not oxide.
Thank you for the correction. I don't go for bans much, but I understand why they get enacted and why governmental rule exists. It's up to everyone to get over the appeal to authority and learn to change for the better through learning why something should or should not be done. But until we evolve, people will want a governing body to have power to change things because we haven't developed the network to do it ourselves. Thanks for the feedback.
I'm not exactly a conspiracy theorist but I worked inside the US auto industry for 20+ years and from my experience I am convinced there are ways to improve the efficiency if of internal combustion engines that are not being utilized.
The amount of ineptitude, waste, political infighting and the sheer lack of common sense is staggering.
I believe this is incredibly short sighted and dumb.
Yes, the concerns are real, but the proposed solutions are not feasible.
If you have a long commute, most houses do not have enough power to the meter to charge the car. So, along with this, you have to double up the powergrid everywhere.
Electricity is not pollution free. You are just moving pollution from one place to another. Further C02 IS NOT pollution. It has nothing to do with global warming.
In town commutes, electric cars do very well. They are the most efficient in stopped and slow traffic.
In the country, internal combustion engines are more efficient while driving at highway speeds.
And none of this talks about the most important thing that is missing. The herd of elephants in the room. That of charge times. Who cares if the electric car can go 100 miles or 600 miles on a charge. If you have to go 50 miles every day, you have to put 50 miles of energy into it. If your house mains can only provide 30 miles of energy per night of charge, then it is a no go. Period.
Yup, good points. CO2 is a smokesreen for greater control, and the problems with electric car usage and over use of electricity are something people should be aware of. Thanks.
global warming affect all life on earth ...We must work hard to develop technologies to transmit electricity wirelessly cheap and make all people abandon fossil fuel (with hight taxe and ban new fosil car production )
I'm all for the ban of cars powered by fossil fuel. However, the one that really determines my consumption patterns and habits is economic. So far, the overall cost and convenience of adopting electric car just simply doesn't make sense. The government definitely needs to play more of the stick-and-carrot game if they truly want to push their policies ahead.
Stick and carrot,a s in incentive purchases? If so, I agree.