Netherlands Looks To Ban All Non-Electric Cars By 2025 (yahoo.com) 423
An anonymous reader writes: Politicians in the Netherlands have proposed a law which could put a ban on sales of diesel and petrol cars by 2025. A majority of the lower house in the Dutch parliament approved a motion where all fossil fuel powered cars -- including hybrids -- would be banned. Yahoo News further reports, 'While it's still unclear whether the proposal will pass and become law, the ambitious plan would involve car manufacturers getting on board to produce enough electric vehicles to meet demand. The latest electric cars have shorter charging times and longer ranges, benefits that emission-free car evangelists hope will help make them appeal to users of traditional petrol and diesel cars." More details on this here.
Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Something like this, I expect.
My uncle has a country place that no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm before the Motor Law
And on Sundays, I elude the eyes, hop the turbine freight
Too far outside the wire, where my white-haired uncle waits
Jump to the ground as the turbo slows to cross the borderline
Then run like the wind as excitement shivers up and down my spine
But down in his barn, my uncle preserved for me an old machine
For fifty odd years, to keep it as new has been his dearest dream
I strip away the old debris that hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta from a better vanished time
Ooh, fired up the willing engine, responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime
Wind in my hair
Shifting and drifting
Mechanical music
Adrenaline surge
Well-weathered leather, hot metal and oil
The scented country air
Sunlight on chrome, the blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware
Suddenly ahead of me across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air car shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires to run the deadly race
It goes screaming through the valley as another joins the chase
Drive like the wind, straining the limits of machine and man
Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I've got a desperate plan
At the one lane bridge, I leave the giants stranded at the riverside
Race back to the farm to dream with my uncle at the fireside
Written by Peart, of course.
Re: Wow (Score:2)
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Most of Peart's works are...
His skill with the word is only rivaled by his skill on a drum set...
Re: Wow (Score:2)
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I usually detest poetry but that was almost moving. :)
Well, vehicles are usually designed to move.
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Googled this one - a Canadian Prog-Rock band from the 70s? What the Fuck?
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The fact that you had to google that says more about you than it does lgw.
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Exactly!
If you don't at least know of Rush you can turn your nerd card in at the door...
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Amen to that.
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It's when you attack quickly, early in the game, usually with zerglings.
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Wait... you don't know who Rush are?
Were you born on Earth?
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
From the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000, and 2010's They just did what is probably their last tour and are considered to be some of the greatest musicians of our time.
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[citation needed]
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[citation needed]
Citation: https://rockhall.com/inductees... [rockhall.com]
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Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.
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Okay: http://www.avclub.com/article/... [avclub.com]
Re: Wow (Score:2)
...and are considered to be some of the greatest musicians of our time.
But usually only by musicians. Mind you, I'm not suggesting that that in any way invalidates those sentiments but rather that what sounds good to the ear of those who produce music doesn't necessarily sound good to those of us* who consumeit.
Disclaimer: I've known dozens of enthusiastic Rush fans, everyone a musician... I, on the other hand, don't particularly care for their music.
/Dives for cover (with prejudice!). ;)
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You may have a point. I don't know about musicians, but one of Niven's Laws is that "writers who write for other writers should write letters". And Louis B. Mayer (of MGM Studios) is said to have proclaimed "if you want to send a message, use Western Union."
I may not agree entirely with those sentiments, but it's a valid question: is someone writing (music, stories, screenplays, whatever) to entertain or to make an unpopular point? (It's easy to entertain if your message is one most will agree with --
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They have sold 25 million albums in the US alone.
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Googled this one - a Canadian Prog-Rock band from the 70s? What the Fuck?
In the 1980s they were a more conventional 1980s rock outfit. This was from 'Moving Pictures', 1981 and probably their most successful album ever.
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This was from 'Moving Pictures', 1981 and probably their most successful album ever.
And the first one I ever bought. Going to have to go home and listen to it all again. On YouTube, because I only own it on cassette.
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14 Platinum Albums. 25 million albums sold in the US alone. That's for a band that was never really a mainstream band. Their tours were amazing.
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Red Barchetta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I'm sure it absolutely won't end with a lot of car dealerships opening shop on the borders.
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Good luck taxing cars at the border in the EU, where there are no border checks.
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How's that different from any other country? You at least have legal pot to make the mess bearable.
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For ever. As the demand won't double or tripple because of a few EVs
In parallel the coast countries are installing more and more wind power.
So most of the time we will have power surplus, and EVs ready to charge are very welcome to balance the (smart) grid.
BTW: energy prices are dropping since a few years.
How will they then migrate to south in summer? (Score:5, Informative)
A well known event that happens every year in Europe is when people from Belgium and the Netherlands pack their stuff in their cars and migrate through Germany to southern Europe. This pisses of the Germans as their autobahns are stock full of cars. .. how will they continue to do this with cars that only move a few hundred km between recharges?
Re:How will they then migrate to south in summer? (Score:5, Funny)
A well known event that happens every year in Europe is when people from Belgium and the Netherlands pack their stuff in their cars and migrate through Germany to southern Europe. This pisses of the Germans as their autobahns are stock full of cars. .. how will they continue to do this with cars that only move a few hundred km between recharges?
Just buy a trailer and stick a gas generator on it.
Re: How will they then migrate to south in summer? (Score:2)
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Well shit, in Europe that means you're already 4 countries over. You need a better scare metric.
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Re: How will they then migrate to south in summer? (Score:2)
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1200 miles in 12 hours gives an average of 100 mph... are you sure this is right?
Re: How will they then migrate to south in summer? (Score:2)
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A well known event that happens every year in Europe is when people from Belgium and the Netherlands pack their stuff in their cars and migrate through Germany to southern Europe. This pisses of the Germans as their autobahns are stock full of cars. .. how will they continue to do this with cars that only move a few hundred km between recharges?
Depends on the car I guess, a Tesla with supercharging wouldn't be that bad. I just checked the distance Amsterdam - Lisboa, that's ~2250km southwest and and Athens is ~2850km southeast though realistically most will be going to place like Nice on the French riviera, ~1400km away. If you're a bit loony you can drive the US coast to coast in 59 hours [jalopnik.com], that's ~4500km or about 75 km/h average including charging. So 1400km @ 75 km/h would be 18-19 hours straight charging/driving, even if we generously assume 13
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Let me guess... they will stop and recharge?
http://insideevs.com/tesla-det... [insideevs.com]
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This sounds like a great deal for gas stations.
The vast majority make their money off of what people buy in the store not on the fuel itself.
If it's going to take a half hour to charge I bet a lot more people will be going inside and buying things.
Most of the gas stations here had their pumps made ridiculously slow after gas hit $4/gal and have since kept them that way. I can only assume so people will go inside because they don't want to stand around 20 minutes just to get 10 gallons of fuel.
Re: How will they then migrate to south in summer? (Score:2)
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Of course that could be because they keep making them thinner and thinner. If the manufacturers stopped trying to making a phone you could shave with maybe they could put a larger battery in.
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No. Most of Europe has 4-5 weeks annual leave. That doesn't mean that most people use them all in a single block.
I couldn't imagine having less. I feel sorry for Americans that don't.
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Go for it (Score:2)
Not a big deal (Score:2, Insightful)
Or you can bike. Or you can skate on a canal in the winter. Nobody in Holland needs cars.
Re:Not a big deal (Score:5, Funny)
If I lived in a country where the soccer national team needed to carry their passports with them until the EU was founded so they could legally get the balls back that went outside the playing field...
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Re:Not a big deal (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody in Holland needs cars.
Unless you are actually employed or work as freelance consultant and happen to live outside the center of Amsterdam or Utrecht... The attitude displayed is an annoying one, mostly entertained by pseudo-intellectual hipsters who are still studying. Anyone who works as a consultant needs a car or has to face hours to commute (try Eindhoven-Utrecht if you don't live in the center, or Utrecht-Rijswijk, or Groningen-The Hague, or Nijmegen-Amsterdam, as several of my colleagues have to do).
I tried using the train when I lived in Eindhoven and worked in Utrecht for a while, when I didn't have my drivers license yet (never needed one when I was in my pseudo-intellectual hipster phase). Two hours for a single trip due was the rule, not the exception. And I had only a single destination then, not three, as is sometimes the case nowadays.
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Because things are closer together and people live in each other laps?
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Because things are closer together and people live in each other laps?
We live in houses, you insensitive clod!
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I am talking about country size, not density.
Why would things be closer in a smaller country? The smaller the country, the higher the chances you'll need/want something from outside the country. I don't see why someone from the Netherlands would travel less distance than someone from say, Russia.
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You don't?
Have you been to ether place? How about the USA west of the Mississippi outside LA?
We are talking about Europe.
Re: Not a big deal (Score:2)
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Why would people in small countries travel less than those in larger countries? Especially with the European integration, moving from one country to the other is much like crossing a US state border.
You're right, except for one key difference. Crossing those state borders are many 10s of thousdands of passenger trains every hour that connect any number of cities. Also crossing those borders are a myriad of budget airliners.
As someone who's been in the Netherlands for only about a year the furthest I've driven with my car is Brussels (easily doable as a return trip with a Tesla without stopping to charge), and everywhere else I've trained or planed which has been far cheaper than driving.
Going to Austri
Re:Not a big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
And that explains the terrible public transport in US cities how, exactly? "Oh the nearest city is hundreds of miles away, so let's not bother funding our local buses or build tram infrastructure". Stop using that to excuse the pathetic state of public transport in the US. The problems will never be fixed if you just go "but we so biiiig!".
They'll need trucks... (Score:2)
Lots and lots of trucks.
Dire consequences (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like Dutch people will have to go to Germany just to buy a new car...
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Since the Dutch government can't legally prevent the sale of cars that have been approved for sale in Europe, I doubt it will come to that. This whole plan is complete and utter nonsense. The treaties currently in place don't allow it, the infrastructure isn't there and we all know the government would rather commit ritual suicide than actually invest in infrastructure, so it won't happen.
Heck, when the model 3 was doing fine with pre-orders, one of the opposition parties immediately demanded that the tax b
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They have hoarded incandescent bulbs (Score:2, Interesting)
When they have banned incandescent bulbs, people were hoarding them. Later regular, old fashion, tungsten bulbs reappeared but were no longer called light bulbs, but rather heating elements.
We have to assume they will hoard cars.
And those who want will find a way to circumvent every nonsensical law: there will be a lot of exceptions. Some already pointed out that if Dutch wants to travel to Spain or France, will they be required to rent a car? There is a reason free market works best.
Had we listened to the
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They would probably rent a generator pod (trailer) instead. Then again, this might just push companies to start developing of cars with an all-day driving range (say 800 miles per charge).
Of course, the misleading headline makes this story sound bigger than it is. The ban is exclusively on the sale of new cars, not on the sale of used cars, not on the use
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They would probably rent a generator pod (trailer) instead. Then again, this might just push companies to start developing of cars with an all-day driving range (say 800 miles per charge).
Would be nice, but's it's not all about price. The battery pack in a Tesla is already very heavy, there's a diminishing return as you're lugging around a bigger and bigger battery. I'd say superchargers, battery swaps and possibly long haul trains is the way to go, if you have electrified track it should be possible to both give you a high speed ride and charge the car back to full at the same time. Or just take the train/plane and get a rental or whatever. Swapping trailers is actually how I expect long ha
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300 mile batteries are a safety feature. After five hours non-stop on the road you need to pull over for 45 minutes to top up.
800 miles is 11 hours non-stop. I don't think that's even legal for commercial drivers in Europe.
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Nah, they will just relabel them "mobile noisemakers" and be done with it. It ain't a car, so it ain't banned.
Just like with the light bulbs.
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Free market doesn't always work the *best*; it supplies a specific set of advantages in each situation, some of which are *extremely* common. Much of the time, a regulated free market operates the best--in which case we can read "regulated" as "facilitated", a fact many lawmakers ignore. Radio spectrum bandwidth licenses are a strong example: without these, broadcast television and radio would be a chaos of noise and interference, and thus constantly exposed to expenses and risks, driving the price up o
What shortage? (Score:2)
Do they really think manufacturers will price their cars below market equilibrium? Is there a price ceiling on electric cars in the Netherlands?
The USA Loophole ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here, we used this when they slapped 'luxury taxes' and 'gas guzzler taxes' on full sized sedans and station wagons. Everyone jumped in pickup trucks and SUVs. Once Congress recognized the unintended consequences*, they cancelled the taxes. But nobody switched back.
*They briefly tried raising the GVW needed to qualify as a truck. Enter the Lincoln Navigator and H2 Hummer. 'We'll raise it even more'. Manufacturers built vehicles based on the Kodiak [f650pickups.com] chassis and similar. We can move up scale faster than Congress can write laws. Someone Photoshopped the next possible step [bikeforest.com] and cooler heads prevailed.
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International _shipped_ a personal big rig cab. The 'CSX'.
I'd still prefer a Unimog. But only if I don't have to pay for repairs.
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So, what happens if CA decides to block such vehicles?
You starve, waiting for your food co-op to restock from Prius hatchbacks.
The real reason nobody will need non-electric cars (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Although the beetle does definitely float, it will not float indefinitely". God, I love those things. Those indestructible air-cooled boxer engines, supposedly swappable with certain models made for Porsche.
But they are death-traps. That plate on the bottom at the beginning of the video, that forms the floor of the car, gives the car its stiffness and durability... unless an impact causes it to crack. Once it buckles, the cabin collapses and anything or anyone in the car gets squashed. Drive carefully,
Misleading Headline (Score:2)
This is not a "ban on all non-electric vehicles". According to TFA, it is a ban on the sale of gasoline and diesel powered vehicles, with currently-owned vehicles grandfathered. Perhaps a market will emerge for coal-burning steam-engined cars.
TFA did not mention whether the ban will include the purchase and importation of gas/diesel vehicles from outside the Netherlands. Seems obvious that the only way to get all gas/diesel vehicles off the road and keep them off is to prohibit the sale of the fuel that kee
In the Year 2025... (Score:2)
electric car he must drive...
It SO isn't. (Score:5, Informative)
PLEASE!!!! ENOUGH ALREADY with headlines that make factually inaccurate over-dramatized claims.
RTFA.
They're actually NOT banning all non-electric cars in 2025, they're just stopping the sale of any new gas/diesel cars.
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but the headline definitely isn't, which was my actual point.
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are you suggesting the poor should have an unlimited inalienable right to pollute?
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You didn't get the memo, did you?
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Do what you are saying is that if it's not perfect it's not worth doing. I don't think we'll get very far with that attitude.
As it happens the Dutch are leading the way with renewables.
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The OP's argument is basically, "They're making cars not pollute by getting energy from another polluting source, moving the can up the road," which is dumb because it assumes all sources of energy are equal. Large engines are more efficient that small ones: if your transmission loss doesn't exceed your efficiency gain by using a central power plant, electric cars pollute less. The problem of battery manufacture adds onto that, creating more complexity in determining which model is more polluting per mi
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Electric cars are one half of the solution, and since not all power is generated by coal/oil, an improvement.
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The Netherlands has few options for renewable energy.
That is nonsense, look at this: https://www.google.de/maps/pla... [google.de]
Need hints how to interpret it?
They'll need to invest in nuclear No, why should they?
or import more power from other countries. What would be wrong if they would?
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your argument is stupid and lazy.
No actually it's not, well at least not entirely. The answer is zero emission vehicles (electric cars) are best suited to the west whereas gas powered cars are more suited to the east. This is due (see the article) by more states in the east relying on coal fired electric plants:
http://www.motherjones.com/env... [motherjones.com]
The data is 2014 so it's not that stale. I think the takeaway is that just because it's a zero emission vehicle is does not follow that it'll have a better impact on the environment. But you can
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Given the development in batteries in only the past few years, I'd guess it's likely that by 2025 we'll have some new way of storing energy where lithium has been replaced with something else again.
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Current gen battery technology was developed for laptop computers and has been going strong for decades.
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Yeah... No.
Lithium Ion batteries have been in production for 25 years and under development for 35 years. The progress has not been all that fast. If you compare it to the jet engine, space flight, or microprocessors it has been a very slow improvement from prototype to where we are now.
Re:Lithium demand (Score:5, Informative)
Not fast you say, I think you are looking at it wrong:
http://rameznaam.com/2013/09/2... [rameznaam.com]
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Look at those awful diagrams. If Tufte were dead, he'd roll in his grave!
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Maybe, but battery development is not one of the most dynamic fields out there. Most of the low hanging fruits aren't just there for the taking if you spend enough time on it. There's only so much you can do with the battery tech we have now, and new battery tech research is not really showing anything particularly revolutionary.
So, yeah, I believe they could make *enough* batteries by 2025 for general adoption. I just don't think those batteries will necessarily be able to support 400-800 miles. So you
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Dilithium, duh.
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A company called "Zero" is building quite interesting electric motor bikes.