Paris Wants To Rid Itself Of Conventional Cars By 2030

Paris is known for taking progressive measures to fight climate change. In December of 2015, delegates from every nation gathered in the City of Light to create the historic COP21 climate accords. But in March of this year, the city suffered through a period of intense smog, during which the air over the city was dirtier than the air over Beijing and blotted out the view of the Eiffel Tower. Much of that smog was attributable to the exhaust emissions from conventional cars.

Photo Credit: The Guardian

In response, the city of Paris put aggressive new procedures in place to limit the number of cars powered by internal combustion engines on its streets. It has banned cars more than 20 years old, which have rudimentary pollution controls, from entering the city and instituted a plan that prohibited cars with license plates ending in even or odd numbers on alternating days. It also converted streets that used to run along the banks of the Seine into pedestrian walkways and bike paths.

October 1 was proclaimed “a day without cars,” a move designed to make Paris “less polluted, more pleasant and more peaceful.” Nitrogen dioxide levels dropped 25 percent, and noise levels dropped an average of 20 percent. On the Champs-Élysées — one of the world’s busiest thoroughfares — noise levels dropped by 54 percent.

“Sensitizing residents to the need to modify their behavior towards the car was part of the objectives of this day,” the mayor’s office said in a statement, adding that it was also meant to be a symbol “that cities can and must invent concrete solutions to fight air pollution caused by traffic.”

Now the mayor of Paris has announced a plan that seeks to remove all gasoline and diesel powered vehicles from its streets by 2030. The plan is not a ban. Instead it involves a series of investments and incentives designed to encourage citizens to leave their old fossil fuel burning vehicles behind and switch to walking, bicycling, and using electric cars. The objective is to make Paris a carbon neutral city by 2050.

“We are seeing a revolution in terms of mobility and on the issue of climate,” Christophe Nadjovski, Paris deputy mayor in charge of transport and public space, told France Info Radio on Tuesday. “We can’t wait. This is about planning for the long term with a strategy that will reduce greenhouse gases. Transport is one of the main greenhouse gas producers…so we are planning an exit from combustion engine vehicles, or fossil-energy vehicles, by 2030.

The mayor’s office released a statement after initial reports incorrectly labeled the new plan as a ban on conventional cars. “No measure of prohibition or sanction is included,” it said. “In order to achieve the goal of an end to the thermal engines in 2030, the City has decided to invest in the development of alternatives and in the reinforcement of financial aids that allow individuals and professionals to buy clean vehicles.” The proposed climate plan will be submitted to the Council of Paris for approval next month.

Most Paris residents do not own private automobiles. Instead, the rely on a comprehensive system of public transportation, bike sharing programs, car sharing and taxis. The city’s plan is focused on convincing residents to rethink their commitment to getting around the city by car and adopt a lifestyle that contributes much less atmospheric pollution to their daily lives.

Source: NPR/KHSU

Netherlands Wants To Ban All Conventional Cars By 2025

The Netherlands plans to join Norway in an outright ban on new cars fueled by gasoline or diesel fuel. Pursuant to pending legislation, only zero emissions cars powered by batteries or hydrogen fuel cells will be permitted after 2025. Germany is not far behind. It proposes to ban conventional cars by 2030.

Heralded as a move “to save the Earth,” the ban is being promoted by the Dutch Labour Party, which currently governs the country as part of a coalition with the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy. The idea first surfaced in the lower house of the Dutch parliament, which approved it in March. Now sources say it may soon be approved by the upper chamber and will “likely become law.”

Labour Party member Jan Vos is the driving force behind the project. He argues, “We need to phase out CO2 emissions and we need to change our pattern of using fossil fuels if we want to save the Earth,” according to the Yale Climate Connection.

Making the change will take more than a stroke of a legislative pen, however.  “Transportation with your own car shouldn’t be something that only rich people can afford,” Vos says. In order for zero emissions transportation to be affordable to everyone, the price of alternative energy cars will have to come down considerably from where it is today.

At $35,000, the Tesla Model 3 will list for half the cost of the least expensive Model S, but that may still be beyond the reach of many new car shoppers. The theory, if you listen to Elon Musk, is that building more cars will drive the price down just as the price of personal computers tumbled 30 years ago. Another good example is high definition televisions, which today sell for 20% or less of what they cost a decade ago. Not everyone believes those analogies will apply to alternative energy automobiles.

Norway is doing the best of all European countries at getting electric cars on its roads. Today, 24% of all cars in Norway are zero emissions. But the national government provides generous incentives to promote its goal. Neighboring Sweden has few incentives and has few zero emissions cars on its roads as a result.

Germany has an ambitious goal to reduce carbon emissions by up to 95% by 2030 but has only recently begun offering financial incentives to buyers of low or zero emissions cars. In total, there are about 130,000 hybrid and 25,000 electric cars in Germany, compared to a total of 30 million gasoline powered cars and 14.5 diesels. In the US, plug-ins and electric cars still represent less than 1% of the cars on American roads.

Goals are laudable, but there is a lot of hard work remaining to be done to turn them into reality.

Source: International Business Times

By 2017, Less Than Half Of New Cars Will Use “Simple” Gas Engines

Navigant Research predicts the majority of new cars sold by 2017 will be powered by something other that a conventional, non-turbocharged gasoline engine.

Now, hang on, all you EV advocates. This does not mean there will be an explosion of electric vehicles by then. What it does mean, according to Navigant, is that more cars will have turbocharged, supercharged, or compound turbocharged engines and more will be hybrids that use an electric motor and an internal combustion engine  in combination. The cause of the shift away from simple gas engines is the need to meet increasingly strict fuel economy and emissions standards in all global markets.

“There is no single technology that will dominate fuel efficiency improvements over the forecast period through 2025,” says David Alexander, senior research analyst with Navigant Research. “The focus, instead, will be on incremental improvements in engines and transmissions, along with weight reduction in as many places as possible.” Alternative fuels like compressed natural gas (CNG) and propane will also play a bigger role in tomorrow’s cars.

Navigant expects that more manufacturers will employ stop-start technology to improve fuel economy and lower emissions. These systems shut the engine off when the car is at rest instead of allowing it to idle. When the driver transfers from the brake to the accelerator, the engine is restarted and the car drives like normal. Navigant says a form of energy regeneration will be incorporated into these stop-start systems, which will permit future cars to be mild hybrids without the need of large, heavy and expensive batteries.

In other words, within the next few years, conventional cars like that 1966 Dodge Dart with the Slant 6 gasoline engine you have been storing in your garage all these years will officially be a relic of the past.

Source: Gas2

EZ EV will be a DIY electric vehicle you can build in a week

Anyone thinking that the era of converting gas-engined cars to electric power is over should pay attention. Gary Krysztopik has been working on converting ICEs to EVs for years recently told Plug In Cars that, when people ask about conversions now, "I tell people to go out and buy a Leaf."

But Krysztopik, an electrical engineer, has not given up on putting EV power into people's hands. Instead of starting with a donor vehicle, the man behind EZ EV is getting ready to put a full set of DIY details for an EV kit car online. Once the parts are collected, the vehicle should be buildable in just seven days (assuming you know what you're doing), because Krysztopik believes time is of the essence. "The main goal is to get EV's on the road so the typical multi-year build time for kit cars will not do," he wrote on his website. "This must be simple enough so that a complete kit can be assembled and ready to charge and register in one week."

Obviously, this means the car will be a simple affair, but Krysztopik is already thinking about how to upgrade it (with extraneous things like body panels) at some point in the future. First, though, Krysztopik and his wife are getting ready to cross the US in an RV and spread the EV message. It is on this trip that he will hammer out the details of the EV, but he already knows that it will use different size motors and batteries (depending on your budget), off-the-shelf components and both plastic and fiberglass frame parts.


News Source: EZ-EV via Plug In Cars