Banning non-Electric Vehicles
By: Electric Motoring W Dave Clark
Tags: Global Warming, Electric Vehicles, Tesla, Environment, Electric Car

Recently, more and more cities and countries around the world have been talking about their environmental concerns for dealing with their air pollution. In many cases, the primary target is the automobile. Or more specifically, the internal combustion engine vehicle.

It’s no secret that cars are a contributing factor to air quality throughout the world. However, we also know they are not the only factor, but in this article, we are going to focus on the automobile.

According to the EPA, motor vehicles collectively, which includes cars, trucks, tractors, bulldozers, boats, trains, etc, cause 75 percent of carbon monoxide pollution, which accounts for about one-third of the air pollution that produces smog throughout the world. Transportation overall causes 27 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

But there is evidence that suggests banning motor vehicles will improve the air quality of our cities and major metropolitan areas. In February 2020, during the outbreak of the Coronavirus in China, several major cities were put into home quarantine where citizens were not allowed to drive or go to work. This prevented the vast majority of cars from being used, and factories shut down. As a result, their air quality improved dramatically over the course of a few weeks.

Recently, several nations or cities have announced that they plan on banning all non-electric vehicles in the future.

In May of 2019, Amsterdam committed to banning all motor vehicles by 2030. They are taking a four-phased approach whereby 2020, diesel cars more than 15 years old will be banned from the city within the ring road surrounding the capital. By 2022, phase 2 will have public buses and coaches that emit exhaust will be banned from the city center. By 2025, phase 3 will have exhaust-emitting boats, mopeds, and light mopeds that will also be banned. And finally phase 4, by 2030, all vehicles must be emission-free, meaning all-electric.

London has also been trying many different things as it relates to traffic congestion and environmental threats caused by car emissions. In October 2018, the City introduced a proposal that would reduce the number of cars allowed in its financial district, the area known as Square Mile. The proposal would ban cars on half of all roads in the city center. Unfortunately, the proposal was met with resistance and has yet to be fully implemented. However, the London City government has not given up. They are now planning on banning non-zero emission vehicles on Beech Street, which runs through the heart of the cities financial district. This is expected to begin in the Spring of 2020, as an 18-month trial that will be used to gauge the impact of nitrogen dioxide levels in the area, as well as the impact on traffic congestion. The data gathered will be used to help make future decisions on banning non-electric vehicles from London.

And they are not alone, many cities have made similar commitments to remove non-electric motor vehicles from their city streets by 2030. Many more are proposing similar bans in the near future. But, in some cases, these are declarations and not necessarily laws. So there is likely to be resistance toward being able to fully implement this ban by the time 2030 arrives.

Countries such as France, Norway, India, Taiwan, and Japan as well as others, are all working toward phasing out diesel-powered vehicles over the next 10–20 years. In most cases, it is not removing existing vehicles, but banning the sale of new ones.

In the United States, these types of discussions have been limited. There are no current states or cities that have any active plans to ban fossil fuel vehicles. California, which has typically been very active as it relates to clean emissions is the only state that has had any serious discussions about the need to transition to a non-polluting sustainable energy solution for vehicles as the Governor has indicated an interest in this topic, but there are currently no plans, policies or laws in place.

There are challenges toward making a transition like this and that has to do with gauging the impact on low-income citizens. The cost of an internal combustion engine vehicle is still substantially cheaper and is one of the driving factors from not doing an all-out ban, so instead, governments are looking at a transition over many years, if not decades. Approximately 40 million people in the United States are considered low-income today.

But, individual states are limited in what they can do based on the Clean Air Act of 1963 and 1970, which prevents states from setting standards that are more strict than the federal standards. But, it does provide a special exemption for California due to its past issues with smog pollution in many metropolitan areas of the state. In practice, when California’s environmental agencies decide on new vehicle emission requirements, they are required to submit a request to the EPA for approval under this waiver, with the most recent approval in 2009.

The California standard has been adopted by 12 other states. This has forced auto manufacturers to subsequently accept these new guidelines as the de facto standard for building their vehicles so to avoid having to develop different emission systems for different states.

As a result of this, in September 2019, President Trump revoked this waiver arguing stricter emissions have made cars too expensive. Soon after, 23 states, the District of Columbia, and the cities of New York and Los Angeles joined a lawsuit challenging the administration’s ruling. To date, that lawsuit is still pending action by the courts. Clearly, a final decision on this will impact all future laws related to the emission standards for internal combustion engine vehicles in the United States.

Today, we are in the beginning stages of a global transition toward sustainable energy transportation and there will be many challenges along the way. The interest in electric vehicles is growing every year and as the costs continue to decrease and begin to come into line with their internal combustion engine competition, the power of consumer purchases will ultimately dictate what the future of vehicles will look like.

This article is also a YouTube video: https://youtu.be/N4z0wzLsTFc