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stinkers are doomed...
Britain to ban sale of all diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040 Plans follow French commitment to take polluting vehicles off the road owing to effect of poor air quality on people’s health As part of a government strategy to improve air quality, Britain is to ban all new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040 amid fears that rising levels of nitrogen oxide pose a major risk to public health. The commitment, which follows a similar pledge in France, is part of the government’s much-anticipated clean air plan, which has been at the heart of a protracted high court legal battle. The government warned that the move, which will also take in hybrid vehicles, was needed because of the unnecessary and avoidable impact that poor air quality was having on people’s health. Ministers believe it poses the largest environment risk to public health in the UK, costing up to £2.7bn in lost productivity in one recent year. Ministers have been urged to introduce charges for vehicles to enter a series of “clean air zones” (CAZ). However, the government only wants taxes to be considered as a final resort amid a backlash against any move that punishes motorists. “Poor air quality is the biggest environmental risk to public health in the UK and this government is determined to take strong action in the shortest time possible,” a government spokesman said. read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/25/britain-to-ban-sale-of-...
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meanwhile in syderney...
WestConnex – the general arguments against
The State Government has committed to a massive road proposal from Infrastructure NSW. It involves building 33 km of road, extending and widening both the M5 and the M4 and providing a link between them, via a long tunnel under the inner west of Sydney. Costs are expected to be $16.8 billion over at least a decade. A business case justifying the proposal was due in June, 2013. For such detail as there is and the Government’s positive take on the proposal (before the case is developed) go to http://engage.haveyoursay.nsw.gov.au/westconnexand take a look at the promotional video released by Infrastructure NSW at video-summary-of-westconnex. For a lighter moment, have a look at the WasteConnex video.
Why does WCPS oppose WestConnex?
The Society has two major sets of concerns about the Westconnex proposal
Will WestConnex solve traffic congestion?
Congestion and resulting economic inefficiency is the Govt’s key rationale for building the WestConnex project, but what if new roads won’t solve congestion and there are other, more cost-effective, ways of tackling that issue?
Consider two prospective scenarios:
On this scenario, congestion would be back in the medium term, but the money for public transport alternatives would have been spent.
The NSW Government paper makes no mention of any of these points. We believe that under this scenario the medium-term outcome will be that traffic drops and WestConnex becomes a very expensive white elephant.
read more:
http://www.wollicreek.org.au/wolli_valley/issues/more-on-westconnex-the-...
May be the tunnels could be used as under-water canals for gondolas...
as cars go electric, no need for westCONnex exhaust towers
Japan’s Mazda Motors is planning to make all its car models electric-based, including petrol hybrids, by the early 2030s, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency.
It is reportedly aimed at catching up with the other producers who have already switched to new strategies to retain sales in the key markets as emission regulations tighten globally.
read more:
https://www.rt.com/business/403439-mazda-join-electric-strategy/
killer cars...
Less than a decade ago, four separate carmakers were employing tens of thousands of Australians to build cars. Now there are none.
Australia no longer makes cars because it couldn’t sell them. Foreign trade barriers and a chronically overpriced Australian dollar killed exports, while at home a rising abundance of imported brands, many backed by their own governments, steadily swamped the local offering.
The death blow was the Abbott government’s 2014 decision to terminate public subsidies. With the last vestige of government protection gone, market obstacles became insurmountable.
Manufacturing – making things – is an important marker of success for every country, every society. So should we have kept some sort of car-making industry going here? I think so, but certainly not in the form we got used to.
Petrol and diesel motor vehicles have dominated the lives of everyone born in the 20th century. Now we are having to face consequences. Hobart-based economist Rana Roy has been looking at these consequences, and has found a steadily mounting global crisis in the making.
A public policy economist, born in India and educated in Australia and the UK, Roy is a champion of civil society everywhere. He is a generalist in an increasingly specialised world, a builder of bridges between silos of learning and government and business.
In recent years, supported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Health Organisation, he has been examining the causes and economic cost of air pollution, and with Norwegian Nils Axel Braathen has recently completed a report for the OECD.
Roy and Braathen have found strong evidence that road transport is now the leading cause of deaths related to air pollution in both Europe and the US, and heading in the same direction in emerging economies in Asia, Africa and South America.
read more:
http://southwind.com.au/2017/10/24/we-have-to-talk-about-road-transport/
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chinese electric…..
Chinese auto producer BYD sold more than 641,000 electric vehicles in the first six months of the year, making the company the world’s top EV maker in terms of sales, Chinese media reports, citing industry data.
The results are better than Elon Musk’s Tesla, which delivered 564,000 electric cars during the same period. The figure marks a 315% year-on-year increase in sales for the Chinese EV maker.
Last month, BYD announced plans to supply batteries to Tesla “very soon.” According to the company’s latest annual report, rechargeable batteries and photovoltaic cells made up 7.29% of BYD’s revenue pool in 2021, dwarfed by the more than 50% share taken up by auto and related products.
BYD was a battery manufacturer first, now BYD is in Cuba with electric buses........ amd other chinese electric vehicle companies are in Africa and Russia.
READ MORE:
https://www.rt.com/business/558369-chinese-ev-outsells-tesla/
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another aussie invention: less tax….
Australia's electric vehicle (EV) uptake is lagging, but tax experts say they have a "silver bullet solution" that would both drive sales and help increase the supply of cheaper second-hand EVs.
Key points:The Commonwealth-funded, climate-focused research centre RACE for 2030 has released a report recommending tax reforms similar to those in Europe to encourage fleet managers to buy EVs, rather than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs).
Prepared by tax experts from Monash and Griffith universities, the report describes a woeful situation: business fleets (which include both government and company vehicles) account for 40 per cent of light vehicle sales, but almost none of these are EVs.
Of the more than 600,000 passenger vehicles and light SUVs sold to business fleets in 2020, only 488 were EVs.
A major reason for this was federal taxation laws, said Anna Mortimer, a tax expert at Griffith University and co-author of the report.
But this failure was also an opportunity, she added.
Fleet managers are responsible for huge numbers of vehicle purchases. Providing tax incentives to buy EVs would rapidly drive up the total EV uptake.
"Business fleets are the silver bullet solution to EV uptake."
Can tax reform make EVs as cheap as ICEVs?Last week, the federal government made EVs (priced below a luxury car threshold) exempt from fringe benefits tax (FBT) and import tariffs.
These reforms were welcome, but not enough, Dr Mortimer said.
To illustrate the price gap between EVs and the equivalent ICEVs, the report uses the example of a Hyundai Kona EV, which was $28,900 more expensive than the ICEV version.
READ MORE:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-07-06/electric-vehicle-uptake-tax-reform-race-for-2030-report/101210180
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