Britain will ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from
2040 in an attempt to reduce air pollution that could herald the end of over a
century of reliance on the internal combustion engine and the start of the era for
electric/solar-powered vehicles.
The decision was announced this week by the UK’s environment
minister, Michael Gove, and it follows a similar action by the government of
France and other European countries.
The mayors of Paris, Madrid, Mexico City and Athens have said
they plan to ban diesel vehicles from city centers by 2025, while the French
government also aims to end the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles by
2040.
The British government has been under pressure to take steps
to reduce air pollution after losing legal cases brought by campaign groups.
Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservatives had pledged to make "almost
every car and van" zero-emission by 2050.
The future of auto-mobiles
This major
decision will be a hurdle to car manufacturing companies however some have
already adapted and began construction of manufacturing facilities to boost the
production of electric cars.
German car manufacturer,
BMW, has stated that their British manufacturing facility will be producing an electric
mini as early as 2019. Additionally, Volvo will discontinue the production of
petrol and diesel vehicles and release solely hybrid and electric cars from
2019. The Renault-Nissan alliance in 2009, announced plans to spend 4 billion
euros on electric car development.
Toyota, which pioneered hybrids
but long resisted battery-only cars, changed tack last year and has since
unveiled plans for a new range of pure-electric models.
The future legislation governing transportation vehicles for European
countries will encourage the use of the new Eco-friendly cars, with consumers
benefiting from subsidies, tax breaks and other perks, while consumers using combustion
engines face mounting penalties including driving and parking restrictions.
It will be interesting to see how this will impact the use
and sales of auto-mobiles in Trinidad & Tobago.
Very visionary thinking! Volkswagen also has Strategy 2025 to have all their production vehicles electric or eco-friendly by 2025. I just hope our government can take pattern from these countries and create policy and legislation to protect citizens and the environment and really move our country to the new age.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting! We might all end up with electric cars sooner than later.
ReplyDeleteWhen the future calls, we must answer....change is inevitable
ReplyDeleteHmm hopefully they don't send the refuse car to the Third World countries, and instead we jump on the bandwagon.
ReplyDeletei wonder how this will affect us
ReplyDeleteIt would affect us if we don't move away from our unrenewable resources. We should have already been moving into harvesting energy from our renewable resources and be focusing more on sustainable development...
DeleteThinking about it our country gets its revenue from oil and gas. Having electric cars will be good 4 the environment but might hurt the revenue in this country unless we look for other ways to bring in the money intead of oil and gas
ReplyDelete