Paris To Test Banning SUVs In the City 509
thecarchik writes "Paris may be the first city to experiment with such a policy. Next year, it will begin to test restrictions on vehicles that emit more than a certain amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilometer — the measure of a car's contribution to greenhouse gases. An official within the Parisian mayor's office, Denis Baupin, identified older diesel-engined cars and sport-utility vehicles as specific targets of the emissions limit. Residents and travelers have responded by buying thousands of electric cars, including the low-speed fiberglass G-Wiz — despite major safety concerns with the vehicle."
Re:Weather Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
electric allows for energy source flexibility
with a gas fueled car, when the saudis decide you are paying $5/ gallon so they can send more money to islamic militant causes, you have no choice. with electric, you can get your electricity from coal plants belching acid rain and CO2, yes, but at least you are only funding mining barons in west virginia. but your electricity can also be from nuclear, or solar, or hydroelectric, or geothermal, or tidal, or wind... or whatever. the whole point being, you can still drive the same car, you have energy independence, as an individual, and as a society. you don't have to worry what gas prices will be in 2011 as demand rises and supplies get deeper and deeper. you don't have to worry about soccer moms in SUVs, when they fill their fuel tanks, funding al qaeda or hugo chavez or russian neoimperialism or.. shiver... canada (relax canucks, its just a dumb joke)
electric cars are just being smart and planning for the future. not that planning for the future is a concept many people are very familiar with. change makes people uncomfortable. well, brazil, and india and china are not shrinking economies, and the global economy is recovering. remember fuel prices before the economic collapse in 2008? if you don't you'll soon get a nasty reminder. buy an electric car now. you've been amply warned, don't be dumb
Clean air?? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How much carbon ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Over the lifetime of the car, not much.
We're not talking about people scrapping their fifteen year old SUV and buying a crappy 'city car', but having to buy a second car to drive in the city if they're not allowed to drive their SUV there.
What class of SUV? (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course, in Europe, few people will have full size Ford Excursions going down cobblestone [1] streets. However, what size SUV are they not wanting in Paris? There are pretty tiny SUVs, like the Honda CR-V which have better MPG than most cars. Would delivery vehicles be affected such as vans? Would they ban hybrid SUVs? There are full size SUVs like the Tahoe that come to mind. Would they ban everything but a "car-shaped" vehicle? If so, this would earn them a marksmanship award in footshooting.
IMHO, this is more of a PR stunt against American culture such as "yank tanks" than anything else. Who would drive a full size SUV like a Suburban around Paris? A smaller SUV such as a ford Kuga or a pickup like a Ranger would be actually drivable there. Are those the target of what gets tossed out of Paris?
[1]: Technically setts, but people call it cobblestone anyway.
Re:How much carbon ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you live in Paris, you don't *need* a car, not now, not *ever*.
Bad Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
CO2 per kilometer is a horrible metric. No biodiesel for them, then. It sounds like the point of this is to limit greenhouse gas emissions, but all it will really do is reduce fuel consumption and move the CO2 emission to other areas. That's what would happen in the US at least. We don't have as much nuclear power, and tend to consume more oil-based plastic goods than Europeans. Regardless, it's easy for well-intentioned regulations to have counterproductive effects.
Take this as an example. I have a 2.5 ton diesel truck that is over 40 years old. It gets pretty terrible gas mileage. But it's entirely possible that it will last another 40 years. I use it once every six months or so on average. I could buy a new truck. Buying a new truck would mean thirty thousand dollars worth of CO2-intensive manufacturing, steel parts and such. The new truck wouldn't last as long, and would need to be replaced probably within the next 20 years.
I could rent a truck instead. On average, that would cost about the same as the truck I already have, possibly more. Instead of driving directly to where I want to go, I would have to drive to the truck rental store, drive to where I want to go, drive home, drive back to the truck rental store, and then drive back home. And if I rent a truck, the proceeds would likely go to some employees and shareholders who use the money to increase their consumption of goods, food, gasoline and electricity all produced by emitting CO2 as well. So the net result is similar if not more CO2 usage.
Central economic planning is harder than it might seem.
Re:Not new. (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be easy enough to do; require everyone who drives a vehicle over a certain size to hold a CDL, just like semi drivers do. A CDL isn't all that expensive to get in most places, but it takes a fair amount of skill -- you have to really prove that you can handle a vehicle that size. People who need a large vehicle for their work would get it, and there would be a few egotistical dickheads who would go to the trouble because they really, really want to drive a giant deathtank back and forth the work and the grocery store, but I guarantee you that the number of these monsters clogging up city streets would go way down.
Politically infeasible, of course, but I can dream.
Re:What class of SUV? (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, everything is not about America. As shoking as it may be to you, most of the time, America is not even thought about when making a decision.
Re:Weather Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realise that America gets twice as much oil from Canada as from Saudi, right?
Since oil is pretty much fungible, it really doesn't matter where "we" get it from, we still are contributing to the world-wide demand for oil which keeps the money flowing to the middle-east. In other words, if the US didn't get oil from Canada, current direct buyers of Saudi oil would be able to buy from Canada instead.
Re:Safety (Score:5, Insightful)
That can be considered as case for banning SUVs, right?
If not for the SUV, the other car occupants would not have died, maybe.
Re:How much carbon ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Does your definition of "you" include plumbers, gardeners, families with more than one small child per adult, handicapped, people with regular commute outside main train/bus routes?
Re:Safety (Score:2, Insightful)
That is some people's view. I don't agree.
People should be able to choose the vehicle they want to keep their family safe.
While it is unavoidable that the larger, more powerful SUVs will be too expensive for some people, what I condemn is any move by the _state_ to price people out of the SUV market based on relatively trivial matters such as CO2 emissions.
Rich people will still be able to buy, tax and insure their SUVs, while poorer people will be more likely to be limited to smaller, weaker cars that will come off worse in a crash.
Re:Weather Alert (Score:4, Insightful)
75% is enough to justify the use of the word 'most'. Dude, you really need to get your facts straight.
Re:Weather Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
You are missing something.
G-Wiz officially is not a car - it is a quadricycle. There is a number of local manufacturers besides G-wiz and at least one of them electric IIRC. Offficially, quadricycle is limited to 40mph, is under some weight limit (different for electric and petrol), etc. It also does not have to pass most of EU car safety tests.
There is a reason why France is the only country in Europe where the so called quadricicles still sell and which continues writing them into the EU rulebook. It is called Paris (not that other french major cities are much better) traffic. You are not accelerating to Jeremy Clarkson (or 70-es Alain Delon film) speeds any time soon. Similarly, if you are hit you are not spilling out anything on the road anytime soon (especially if you got one of the french ones that actually pass car safety tests) because you are most likely to be hit at sub-10mph speeds.
So besides everything else this is also a subsidy to local manufacturers as most people will not go for G-wiz but for one of the local ones.
Re:Safety (Score:5, Insightful)
That is some people's view. I don't agree.
People should be able to choose the vehicle they want to keep their family safe.
While it is unavoidable that the larger, more powerful SUVs will be too expensive for some people, what I condemn is any move by the _state_ to price people out of the SUV market based on relatively trivial matters such as CO2 emissions.
Rich people will still be able to buy, tax and insure their SUVs, while poorer people will be more likely to be limited to smaller, weaker cars that will come off worse in a crash.
Then I want to be able to put a turret with a couple of machine guns, connected to a sensor that detects when a SUV approachs with its owner more concerned about cellphone/makeup/kids/whatever that about traffic (because if he gets in a crash, I will get the worse part of it).
After all, I should be able to chose the vehicle I want to keep my family (and myself, don't forget about myself) safe.
Re:What class of SUV? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Wikipedia, the CR-V uses about 11 L/100 km. How is that better than most cars? I'm not sure I want to what kind of monster you're driving around in if you consider that good...
Re:Weather Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
I've sussed it. That chart lists the OPEC countries separately to make them look smaller. If you add up the OPEC countries it comes to way more than Canada and Mexico combined (about 33% more).
Re:Safety (Score:5, Insightful)
People should be able to choose the vehicle they want to keep their family safe.
Yep the result of which is why I hate some Americans. The idea of I will buy the biggest bloody tank I can find and fuck anything on the road that gets in my way is disgusting. Here's a neat idea, if everyone has the fear of death behind the wheel maybe there would be less drunk drivers doing 100 in a 50 zone while talking on the mobile phone. Have you ever seen a bicycle enthusiast in a car pass a cyclist without leaving 1m gap? Or a recent example of mine, when it's pissing down so much that you can't see 10m ahead of you and half the traffic is driving with it's hazards on some impatient dick with a SUV and the worlds biggest bullbar on the front decides to overtake without having a lane to do so. I've seen that and I would have been pissed if I was the first firstaider on the scene in that weather. I would have probably just got out and punched the SUV driver.
If you take away people's safety blanket they may actually put a bit of thought into their fucking driving.
Parent is right. No one is forcing you to buy the G-Whiz, they are saying that the new rules will ban a lot of SUVs in the city, a very good thing for pedestrians and other motorists. Small also doesn't mean unsafe. I've seen an A class merc get hit by an SUV and roll. The driver got out on foot after the car came to a halt with all limbs intact, slightly shaken.
You may sense the attitude here. Well as someone who was hit by a reversing SUV because soccer mommy bought a car that she couldn't see out of just to keep her little shitty kid safe, let me tell you the sooner we can take the keys away from people who buy SUVs for anything other than "sports" or "utility" the fucking better.
Re:Weather Alert (Score:5, Insightful)
Because
1) America basically gets all of our oil because they are a major consumer which is geographically very close. So that figure represents close to 100% of our production.
2) Saudi on the hand is half way round the world and america *still* gets a lot of oil from them. There total production is sent to europe, china, india and the rest of the world.
3) The oil sands are very costly to extract from compared to Saudi oil fields.
Also it doesn't really matter where America technically gets it's oil from. Oil is a global commodity traded on a vast scale and even if America imports zero barrels of oil from the Saudi's they will still be able to set the price. For example if the Saudi's cut their exports to China and Europe what will happen? Those consumers will start buying Canadian oil and the price goes up and Saudi makes more money for militants. America needs to use less oil.
Re:How much carbon ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Does your definition of "you" include plumbers, gardeners, families with more than one small child per adult, handicapped, people with regular commute outside main train/bus routes?
Sorry, but there are lots of good station wagons/estate cars that the handicapped and big families use. They don't drive SUVs. They never needed and paid the money for that pile of metal with storage capacity equalling the former mentioned cars. Gardeners and plumbers drive small vans or station wagons, both yield a better price/milage for the storage they can hold.
People who already need a car and own one usually live outside town and park and switch to the metro before they get sucked in the traffic jam (You don't want to appear at random times for work, do you?). They usually own a small car or, if they have the money, a sports car. There is no room in the city you can't reach by public transport.
For handicapped (they have a permit anyway) the renault kangoo with built in lift is one of the cars of choice. But in the end I think that the navigation systems need to be fixed. The short route isn't always the best one. I know smaller towns with a motorway around, but the main street is still considered the best way for transit (same speed limits). They just have to deal with less lanes, traffic lights and streetcars (Not to mention second line parking and so on) in town. Somebody should tune the little gadgets to stay out of the city if the target isn't in it.
Require Truck Licenses (Score:5, Insightful)
SUVs are trucks. They get truck tax breaks, truck emissions loopholes, and they're the big, powerful cars we call trucks. But somehow they do not require the truck license to drive them, which requires taking a different test for handling bigger, more powerful cars in some trickier maneuvers.
If all those soccer moms, yuppies and other people driving a car too big for them had to get a truck license instead of the drivers license they already got in high school, most of them would not. And there would be a whole lot less SUVs driving around. And most of their drivers, when they cut us off, would at least have the skills to do so more safely.
Such a simple change: require the truck license to drive the truck. Saving lives and sanity, not to mention fuel supplies.
Re:Weather Alert (Score:4, Insightful)
Statistically, every single IC-powered car is guaranteed to emit CO2, NOx, SOx, and some amount of other pollutants including unburned hydrocarbons and metals every single time it goes anyplace.
Statistically, a tiny subset of battery-powered EV cars will experience a collision on any given trip, and a tiny subsubset of those vehicles will experience a leak from the battery as a result of that collision.
So if we want to look at environmental damage, you don't compare a single worst-case-scenario EV trip with a single best-case-scenario IC trip ... unless you are Glenn Beck.