European Commission plans to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2050

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By Brett Davis | March 29th, 2011

The European Commission has announced a new proposal which could see petrol and diesel cars banned in dense city areas in the EU by 2050. The plan hopes to cut overall carbon emissions by as much as 60 percent through implementing a number of shifts in transport patterns.

As a side benefit, the plan also hopes to reduce road-related deaths by as much as 50 percent by 2020 and hopes to “move close” to eliminating road deaths completely by 2050. EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas, is also hoping to shift up to 50 percent of “middle distance” road users onto trains. This would apply for commuters and freight travelling distances over 300km.

UK Transport Minister Norman Baker has since rejected the plans for UK roads though, and summed up what he thought of them in a pretty frank sentence, saying,

“We will not be banning cars from city centres anymore than we will be having rectangular bananas.”

We’re not quite sure what Mr Baker means there but the plans do seem a bit optimistic. Eliminating road-related deaths completely is a far-fetched achievement to begin with, and then trying to funnel up to 50 percent of road users onto trains and buses just makes the entire idea a bit out of reach. Such movement would put huge stress on rail transport systems, even after a complete revamp of the infrastructure, which would obviously be needed.

Hugh Bladon, a British Drivers Association spokesman was equally as dismissive as Mr Baker about the plans, saying in a recent report,

“I suggest that he [Kallas] goes and finds himself a space in the local mental asylum. If he wants to bring everywhere to a grinding halt and to plunge us into a new dark age, he is on the right track. We have to keep things moving. The man is off his rocker.”

Meanwhile, commissioner Kallas says these moves don’t necessarily have to inconvenience people, saying,

“Freedom to travel is a basic right for our citizens. Curbing mobility is not an option. Nor is business as usual. The widely-held belief that you need to cut mobility to fight climate change is simply not true.”

Kallas says, “We can break the transport system’s dependence on oil without sacrificing its efficiency and compromising mobility”.

If the electric car industry takes off, the plan could be achievable, but if further EV development hits a dead end, it could become difficult. What do you think though, would this be a feasible action plan or is it just an overly optimistic dream?

F1MotoGP

I am sure by 2050 electric cars will be much better than today and petrol could cost min $12.5 per liter. (avg increase 5.6% pa since 1980) so maybe wont be any petrol or diesel cars.

Richard

If petrol price was an issue then how come the number of cars on the road and overall car ownership has dramatically increased in the last 30yrs. It’s because wages have increased faster, on average, than petrol prices.

Anyway, never believe a government organisation that spins its idiot ideology 40yrs into the future.

matt

” It’s because wages have increased faster, on average, than petrol prices.” hahahahaha, i think you have been living under a rock for the past 5 years.

Andrew M

Maybe petrol wil reach $12.50 a litre, based on an increase of 5.6%, but electricity is increasing at a far greater rate. At the moment we are talking 100% over 5 years, and thats without demand of an EV network.

I honestly think a motoring network of EV’s will eventually prove to be as expensive to fuel as the equivalent combustion engined vehicle.
Just because people dont drive past a dozen signs each day telling the electricity price, they forget its going through the roof

http://www.caradvice.com.au Goose

Rectangular bananas? Thats a new one. Norman Baker has gone bananas.
Jimmy

The combination of peak oil, population growth in cities, and climate change policies – this policy is not such an absurd idea.

With the benefit of hindsight, this should actually be happening in cities today. The current model is beyond inefficient. Single occupant vehicles are clogging city roads, the price of petrol continues to rise, and public transport is bursting at the seams with demand and lack of infrastructure investment.

Still, in places like Brisbane, the local council continues to invest heavily in making it an even more car-dominated city.

The sort of thinking demonstrated by the European Commission should be embraced.
wagon

European roads are garbage.. Go to Tokyo and look at how good the roads are there.

Leyianart

Do you even know how old and historic majority of the roads in Europe are?

Ignorance is a sad thing…

bangel

Probably inevitable cities will be electric only, within 20 years , country small turbo petrol , LPG and diesel.

Big motors will die in the next 10 years .

Glen

They said that 20 years ago. Plus they should be looking at other ways to reduce pollution rather than focussing on cars. Cars are an easy target.

Jacob Martyn

This is disgusting!

Hopefully these fools dont ban Ethanol cars…which are, in fact, carbon-neutral.

Jacob Martyn

Did they ban steam engines?

Didn’t think so…
Devil’s Advocate

Jacob, how do they plant and harvest the crops that are used to make the ethanol? What farm “implements” are used and what is the “fuel of choice” for said “implements”? Also what supplies the extremely large quantities of electricity etc required to make ethanol? Then there is the enormous amounts of water used during growing and “distilling” of the ethanol as well as the methods used to get said crop to the refinery as well as the ethanol to the servo at the end of the process… Yep, ethanol production is very friendly to the environment!

Shak

Why was my other comment censored, i didn’t say anything wrong? Anyway.

What i was trying to say is that the EU’s idea seems to have merit, but if they introduce an all out blanket ban, they risk angering a lot of people. Why not start out by converting all City transport vehicles such as buses and taxis to CNG, LPG or other low pollution fuels. Then move onto introducing a London styled congestion tax that makes it more expensive for high pollution private vehicles to enter city limits (i.e trucks, heavy polluting 4WD’s etc). The idea of trying to make Cities EV friendly is good and all, but if they rush into it, then too many people will be caught off guard and get even more angry with their government than they already are.

F1MotoGP

It will start in 2050 nearly another 40 years!! It is not rushing at all. Most European cities already got excellent public transport. I lived there and I go every year and I love it. If you want to got less than 1000km within big cities you take the high speed train. Between Frankfurt and Paris is faster than taking plane. Many cities got very good underground rail system In Hungary it goes every 3 minutes!! Try to cross the city by car in peak hour and of course there is good bicycle lanes.

Shak

Oops, read that as 2015 I agree with you though. They still need to get fossil fuel vehicles out of cities, but they should first try other means, like more public transport, better road infrastructure etc.
bangel

So right F1 , train is quicker intercity and cheaper .

The one thing the communists did right in budapest is the excellent metro , the roads are a horrendous in the city with way too many cars , quicker to walk .

Public transport is not cheap enough in australia , my partener was paying $30 a week to travel a 10k a day round trip to the city , its less if she drives and risks a parking ticket .

Andrew M

I agree that places like the UK do a better and cheaper public transport system, But im not buying that owning a car would be cheaper than that using Australian public transport.
Just over $4 per day is pretty good value I reckon, certainly would be cheaper than running a vehicle

Ox

I’m all for it, make all major capital cities a car/bus free zone and develop a decent public transport systems. Can you imagine Sydney with no cars and buses, would be awsome. All it needs is a light rail loop going around Elizabeth and George st, everything else is within walking distance.