[mytailorisrich]

People who do not need cars or who have access to an alternative to ICE don't have a problem. Obviously.

The issue is the large number of people who rely on cars for work, and especially who rely on vans for work. There must be viable alternative to ICE vehicles for these people, otherwise hitting diesel (or petrol) vehicles can have the consequences seen for instance in France with the "Yellow vests".

[ericmay]

> The issue is the large number of people who rely on cars for work

Sooo sure. But the only reason most people need cars for work is because we just build car-friendly infrastructure and then all of a sudden we need cars.

Imagine if we just built mixed-use walkable neighborhoods and towns of medium density. Why would we need cars? Or at least why would we need so many?

It’s different in Europe to some extent, at least, since many Europeans have access to alternatives.

I read lots of comments like this that think the problem is centered around the cars. But the cars are the problem that need to be optimized away. We need subtractive thinking, not more more more. “How will they use their cars?” Should be more like “why would they need cars?”

[mytailorisrich]

> It’s different in Europe to some extent, at least, since many Europeans have access to alternatives.

There's a romantic idea that Europeans do not need cars but the reality is quite different.

It's true that people who live in central Paris, central London, or other large cities may not need cars but the majority of people outside these large cities do rely on cars. This is true in France, in the UK, and I suspect other countries as well. And, again, many professional and tradespeople need cars/vans.

This cannot change overnight. Realistically this probably won't change at all even if we do reduce the need for cars around town centres.

All I'm saying is that getting rid of ICE vehicles has to go hand in hand with availability of affordable EV (including vans, lorries, and utility vehicles). We can't just say "ICE are bad so let's just ban them".

[ericmay]

I don't disagree with you - and I've traveled Europe and agree there is a lot of car use. My challenge is "replace ICE with EV" doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that we have to rely on cars at all, fuel source doesn't matter.

And we continue to perpetuate that reliance by continuing to build in car-first ways. You're definitely right, nothing will change overnight, but I don't think anything will change at all even with EVs.

When Elon Musk talks about self-driving taxis. I lose sleep. It's a nightmare scenario where everybody just lives in a box, gets an automatic box on wheels to come pick them up and then take them to other boxes and then all they do is interact on the Internet. Oh, and we still have to maintain all of these vehicles, the road infrastructure, etc. and we continue to destroy natural habitats so we can spread out instead of just living a little bit closer (you can still have a yard) and designing for people instead of cars.

[EdwinLarkin]

Car == freedom. I can literally get up in the middle of the night and be at my parents house in 30 minutes.

With public transport I could barely make it in 3 hours.

[ericmay]

Unfortunately I just can't get empathize much with this viewpoint. I mean it's fine if you want to own a car, but to the extent it means that we have to suck the planet dry of resources and live increasingly isolated lives to support car infrastructure - I just can't get on board with that. My tax dollars are being wasted over it.

[EdwinLarkin]

Your viewpoint is ideological.If you believe in preserving planet earth then what you want is rationing resources.

And that inevitably leads to communism.

I believe saving the earth is impossible with that kind of strategy.There's 3BN of people that will want the same kind of living standards like the rich west and you dont have any right nor influence on what they will do.

It's very similar to what we have done during this pandemic with lockdowns.It just did not work and prolonged the inevitable.

[tom_mellior]

I can literally call a cab in the middle of the night and be at your parents' house in 30 minutes. That doesn't mean the average person needs to (or should) own a car.

[nvarsj]

Surely there is some compromise.

Diesel is far worse than petrol for local pollution for example. So let's ban diesel in the city, then as electric becomes more viable, we can finally ban petrol as well.

We shouldn't have sympathy for things that actively harm people's health. Society shouldn't favor an individual over the harm they do to many more people. A white diesel van driving around all day, idling in front of schools and parks, has significant negative impact on others.

It's similar to how coal fueled power plants used to exist in the middle of dense cities. Coal worker unions objected to them being closed down, but the health interests of millions of residents fortunately prevailed in most cases.

[mytailorisrich]

> We shouldn't have sympathy for things that actively harm people's health.

This is besides the point and no-one has suggested that.

Politically, economically, and socially, we cannot take livelihoods away from people. If ICE vehicles are no longer acceptable then there has to be a viable alternative for everyone, not only for city-dwellers or people who don't need cars/vans.

I mentioned the yellow vests in France because the protests were triggered by exactly this lack of consideration for people who live outside of central Paris: The government wanted to slap extra taxes on petrol and diesel (which are already heavily taxed) without any way around them for people who currently have no choice.

Some countries, e.g. the UK, have already said they'll ban new ICE vehicles from 2030, so we're hopefully going to see a drastic change in manufacturers' offering but governments have also to plan and ensure that affordable alternatives hit the market by then in order to avoid both economic disruption and social unrest (which both come with a significant political price).

That's indeed the compromise I suggested in my previous comment.

[de_keyboard]

What else can be done?

In order to reach climate change targets we must reduce car dependency. How can we do this without nudging people away from cars? And how can we nudge them without taxes?

[mytailorisrich]

When people live miles from supermarkets and offices and public transport is not a viable option, which is actually the case for most people outside large cities (and even for some large cities), we are not going to be able to nudge people away from cars, this is simply not realistic. It's not realistic either to suggest that we can just rebuild everything so that cars aren't needed. We can try to build so that car are less needed but that's a very slow process.

The only realistic option is to have affordable EVs ASAP that fit all needs because people aren't giving up cars. With the current policy schedule we have about 10 years for this to happen.

Of course, EVs have their own issues, both environmentally and in term of impact on electricity grids, so this is not that simple, either.

[de_keyboard]

How do you think we got to this state? It didn't happen overnight. Society used to be orientated around walkable neighbours. Sprawl is a relatively recent development and a product of auto-mobilism. I don't think it would be impossible to walk things back.

[mytailorisrich]

This started during the industrial revolution when factories started to need a large workforce and then it continued with offices that also require a large workforce.

When people could not really commute you had company towns so that people could live right next to work, and also be controlled by their employer.

I don't think people want to live in company housing, surrounded by company employees, they also tend to change jobs more often, with both spouses working (so likely 2 different employers).

"Auto-mobilism" is not going anywhere as long as this is the case and I don't see any indication that it is changing. Remote work can help reduce the need for commuting but it won't make it disappear.

[cameldrv]

> Diesel is far worse than petrol for local pollution for example. So let's ban diesel in the city, then as electric becomes more viable, we can finally ban petrol as well.

This is less true than it used to be unfortunately. Most manufacturers have moved to Gasoline Direct Injection engines for efficiency reasons, but GDI engines produce a lot more particulates than regular gasoline engines, although not quite as many as diesel.

[dukeyukey]

Title is a bit misleading:

"Almost two-thirds of Europe’s city dwellers support a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars after 2030, according to a new YouGov poll."

I imagine electric vehicles are better suited to European cities than most places thanks to higher population density, so electric vans and the like will be just fine in the vast majority of cases.

[mytailorisrich]

That's because they have access to alternatives, which are currently best suited for towns only, or don't need cars. The title is not misleading. Still, I am not aware of any viable electric van on the market at the moment (I think Ford is releasing a hybrid Transit but that's as good as it currently gets as far as I know). People who rely on cars and vans may want to see affordable alternatives on the market before supporting an outright ban on ICE.

[DoingIsLearning]

From a quick search the 2018 Nissan e-NV200 has a range of 174 miles which I would hazard guess is more than enough range for most tradesmen daily runs (for European Geography, the range is probably not distance friendly for US/Canada sort of scenario).