Paris anti car nonsense.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-autos-ban-idUSKCN0ZH4V8

The Norwegians plan to go even further. I wonder if the Norwegians plan to stop selling oil at the same time?

In reply to nutherjrfan:

Smog is a very real problem there so it makes sense that they want to push along some rules to help alleviate the problem. A part of the issue is of their own making (ie: backing diesel engines rather than gasoline ones) and a part of the issue is the location of Paris in a basin. Coupled together you get Los Angeles circa 1980s smog problems.

The real downside here is the impact it is going to have on the populace who cannot afford to upgrade or who rely on cheap transportation. Unless the government is going to subsidize public transportation for those individuals, or electric cars get very cheap very quickly, the measure is going to have an outsized impact on the population who cannot afford it.

Hmmmm. Companies need to sell cars to make profit. Companies "influence" government and get government to pass a law that requires people to buy a new car. It's brilliant, really.

If one had been to any big EU city, you could see this coming from miles away.

The tax advantage that diesel fuel got brought out all of the old POS diesels ever made. Not the intention of the rules, for sure. But an obvious result in hindsight.

The rules need to be more fuel neutral. Like in the US.

1988RedT2 wrote: Hmmmm. Companies need to sell cars to make profit. Companies "influence" government and get government to pass a law that requires people to buy a new car. It's brilliant, really.

IIRC, the laws already incentivize buying new cars/doing away with old.

France gets most of its electricity from nukes. They would seem to be a prime candidate to go to electric. They just need the cars.

Los Angeles seems to be trying encourage bikes in the downtown area. How exactly they expect people to GET to the downtown area without a car I have no idea! (the public transportation is not exactly robust!).

There was also development of a pneumatic car in France, which I personally would love to try for a while.

The smog in Paris i've been told by a friend of mine whose been to both cities was "Beijing levels" when he went there lol. I'm sure it's an exaggeration but it still is a very serious problem.

If I lived in Paris & owned a car, it would be in a garage as far out of the city on the metro network as I could get it. In case the blindingly obvious needs to be said, Paris isn't laid out like your typical American city with big multi-lane boulevards and parking everywhere. They could probably ban cars in the center altogether and the city would be fine.

"Forced fleet renewal" raises my hackles up and essentially moves pollution from use areas to production centers without dealing with the real problem. There's too much potential for manufacturer lobby money to influence that kind of thinking.

(Berlin banned pre-Euro 1 emissions cars while I was living there and it is far more car friendly than Paris. Didn't seem to affect the city much.)

kanaric wrote: The smog in Paris i've been told by a friend of mine whose been to both cities was "Beijing levels" when he went there lol. I'm sure it's an exaggeration but it still is a very serious problem.

It is a serious issue in the center, especially on hot summer days. I've been there a few times during the week for work (ie, more traffic) and both pollution and traffic are seriously problematic.

In reply to Jay:

TBH if you live anywhere near the center it makes close to zero sense to keep a nice-ish car or any car near where you live. Parking is an utter nightmare and/or expensive, people tend to park by ear (first lesson, never ever put your car in gear or put on the handbrake unless you're parked on an incline) and thanks to a ton of traffic you pretty much can't get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.

Scooter or motorcycle is much better suited to the town and yeah, given the quality of public transport I'd just keep the car outside Paris, somewhere in walking distance from a train or metro station.

The real downside here is the impact it is going to have on the populace who cannot afford to upgrade or who rely on cheap transportation. Unless the government is going to subsidize public transportation for those individuals, or electric cars get very cheap very quickly, the measure is going to have an outsized impact on the population who cannot afford it.

Let them drive cake.

With how cheap a used Nissan Leaf is over here, I wonder if there would be a good market to import used electric cars there. Low mile examples have been fetching south of $8,000 lately.