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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday September 30 2017, @12:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the ban-gas-instead-of-passing-it dept.

France and the United Kingdom are doing it. So is India. And now one lawmaker would like California to follow their lead in phasing out gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles.

When the Legislature returns in January, Assemblyman Phil Ting plans to introduce a bill that would ban the sale of new cars fueled by internal-combustion engines after 2040. The San Francisco Democrat said it's essential to get California drivers into an electric fleet if the state is going to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets, since the transportation sector accounts for more than a third of all emissions.

"The market is moving this way. The entire world is moving this way," Ting said. "At some point you need to set a goal and put a line in the sand."

California already committed five years ago to putting 1.5 million "zero-emission vehicles," such as electric cars and plug-in hybrids, on the road by 2025. By that time, the state wants these cleaner models to account for 15 percent of all new car sales.

Could the hills surrounding Los Angeles one day become visible?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 01 2017, @10:04AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 01 2017, @10:04AM (#575513)

    I know there are a bunch of you who want to hyperventilate over this imagined "tyranny" but the reality is that by 2040 you won't even notice the ban finally being enacted. By that time there will hardly be anyone left alive that won't think of using a fossil fuel vehicle for personal transportation as morally repugnant.

    Because scientists and futurists have been so successful in the past at predicting the course of technology, why not double down! Make laws based on it! After all, it is inevitable that these predictions will be correct!

    It's nice that your crystal ball is so perfectly accurate that you are happy to pass laws based on it. Others might think that is hubris.

    If this reality is so inevitable why does there even need to be a ban?

  • (Score: 2) by RedBear on Sunday October 01 2017, @09:05PM

    by RedBear (1734) on Sunday October 01 2017, @09:05PM (#575677)

    Because scientists and futurists have been so successful in the past at predicting the course of technology, why not double down! Make laws based on it! After all, it is inevitable that these predictions will be correct!
    It's nice that your crystal ball is so perfectly accurate that you are happy to pass laws based on it. Others might think that is hubris.
    If this reality is so inevitable why does there even need to be a ban?

    Score: 5, Missing the Point

    What you seem to be severely misunderstanding is that these global bans on the sale of fossil fuel vehicles are not about promoting one specific technology over another for no particular reason. They are about limiting particulate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

    Any type of zero-emission vehicle such as hydrogen fuel-cell cars and plug-in hybrids (with a minimum amount of electric-only range) are also accepted in most countries as part of the quota of non-ICE vehicles that must be sold. If you were to invent (in the next few years) a transportation technology that was cheaper and easier to manufacture while still being as clean as battery-powered electric vehicles, the world would go with that instead. It's mere chance that BEVs are the most practical choice we have available to help save our environment.

    The hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle is finally being recognized as impractical by most of the world because nobody is going to spend the trillions of dollars it would take to build the extensive hydrogen refueling station network that would be necessary for it to be practical to use for personal transportation. Plus there's the fact that most hydrogen still comes from "cracking" fossil fuels like natural gas, so it really does nothing to reduce CO2 emissions. And then there's the fact that every HFCV is actually a BEV anyway. They have to have a fairly large battery in order to store energy for acceptably quick acceleration and regenerative braking. So you might as well just throw out the big 10,000 PSI hydrogen tanks and the absurdly expensive fuel-cell and just put in more batteries to make it a BEV.

    The switch to BEVs is inevitable because the people of the world are demanding that their governments crack down on pollution and do something to reduce the threat of global warming. The inevitable consequence of that is that we will move to any functional zero-emission transportation and energy generation options that are available to us. That means battery-powered electric vehicles and zero-emission energy options like wind and solar, hydro and geothermal. Most people on this planet actually want all this to happen. The regulations are just helping it happen faster so that we can minimize the damage to the environment. Which, again, is what most of the population of the planet actually wants.

    Why else would the ban be necessary? I'm sure it's not because the traditional car manufacturers are wrapped around the little fingers of the fossil fuel industry and have been resisting the change to low-emission and zero-emission technologies for decades. No, I'm sure that has nothing to do with why the bans are needed to kick the auto industry in the ass and get them to start making the zero-emission cars people actually want.

    --
    ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
    ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ