California Considers Banning Internal Combustion Engines To Meet Emissions Goals (sacbee.com) 503
New submitter Rick Schumann writes about California considering a ban on internal combustion engines: The ban on internal-combustion engine automobiles would be at least 10 years away, and it's unclear at this early stage if it would ban only sales and use of new cars, or ban existing cars as well. There's also no mention of two (or three) wheeled vehicles at this stage. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is nevertheless considering this seriously, in order to meet its ambitious emissions reduction goals. According to state data, tailpipes generate more than one-third of all greenhouse gases, and so far only a small fraction of California's motorists drive electric vehicles. The announcement was made in an interview with Bloomberg news. "I've gotten messages from the governor asking, 'Why haven't we done something already?' The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California," Mary Nichols, the chairwoman of the CARB, told Bloomberg.
License them (Score:3, Insightful)
Banning is asking for trouble from the right.
Much smarter to simply put a 100% tax on them. You want to buy an internal combustion vehicle? If you want it badly enough PAY for it.
If you aren't willing to pay the money then buy electric.
Also, you don't have to deal with some agency deciding who is truly in need of an internal combustion error. People that use powered parachutes, or four wheel drive vehicles for people that live in the middle of a national forest with no electricity for miles.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Holy crap dude...We're talking California here the Utopia of 'leftist ideals' in the US...you want to see a war start, just trying banning ICE in California...Have you ever been in the Los Angeles or San Francisco area? Getting all Californian's to replace their ICE with Electric in 20 years isn't going to happen much less 10, the leftist may go along with a ban because you know...they're stupid...but when it comes time to giving their ICE car up they'll be protesting in the streets (the other thing the lef
Re: License them (Score:2)
A someone living in SoCal, but native to Detroit, you made me LULZ.
gurps_npc hates poor people. (Score:2)
If it can't cause pain for policymakers, then it's a non-starter.
Re: (Score:3)
I have a feeling that a 100% tax might anger the right as well... I'd also rather have a government agency deciding what is a reasonable requirement for a licence to pollute and damage health than simply making it a privilege of the rich.
The real goal of setting a ban date a decade or two in the future is to encourage manufacturers to switch faster. If they know that some big markets are going to lock them out unless they produce some good EVs they will make more effort to develop them.
Look at how many Euro
What about the working poor? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all well and good only if it's followed by worker protections. My question is, is this actual progressive policy or a bunch of rich people that just want clean air for themselves? For the truckers it was the latter.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish I had mod points because I was going to say exactly the same thing.
Also, with the California cost of living, the vast majority of people here are house poor, and having to buy any new vehicle at all, never mind a fancy high tech new vehicle, is a burden that would force them to choose between carlessness = joblessness = homelessness, or else not paying their rent = homelessness anyway.
Re:What about the working poor? (Score:4, Insightful)
Deploying a state-wide network of self-driving electric cars would be one thing. You wouldn't even need to ban ICEs; people would just stop using them if the new system was better, which it very well could be. But just banning ICEs outright, without yet implementing a replacement for the many people who rely on 20 year old old beater cars to get to the shit jobs to pay their exorbitant rents, just ruins a bunch of people's lives.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
people would just stop using them if the new system was better
Nope, people would make ridiculous justifications as to why they aren't better. Hell we see this on a daily basis as it is.
This is America. The large car is about as sacred as the gun, the flag, and Jesus. It will take a lot more than "better" to get people to change.
Re:What about the working poor? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then offer people a large electric car.
Re: (Score:3)
And yet the horse and buggy were never banned, they simply fell out of use because they weren't good enough. If this was about progress they would let technology drive the market. If this was about pollution they would out tariffs on vehicles and petrol so those who created the pollution would directly be responsible for paying to get it cleaned up.
But it isn't about either of those things. It's about tin pot dictators looming to China and wanting that level of control. If this goes ahead I hope the Califor
Re: (Score:2)
Um, places like Beijing have a pollution problem incomparibly worse than California.
CA will not actually ban ICEs because it is a dumb idea that will not bear scruiteny. Maybe a petrol tax though.
Re: (Score:2)
like it or not electrics are a lot more expensive up front.
Are they? I don't know, but what I do know is that all the costs for Electric are on the sticker price, whereas ICE vehicles get a free ride by externalising their dumping costs. ie how much would an ICE car cost if you had to collect all of your own exhaust and dump it somewhere safely?
Current death rates due to air pollution (caused mostly by burning fossil fuels) is around 7 million lives per year, almost WW2-like numbers How much would that add to the sticker price of each vehicle if it had to be incl
Re:What about the working poor? (Score:5, Interesting)
We already do. Depending on local emissions standards, electricity companies have fairly strong pollution controls on their exhaust. And of course this is reflected in the cost of electricity.
And of course I'm not even talking about what method of generation you use. Some of them are even emissionless.
In short: fuck off with your false equivalency.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm going to guess the working poor are not in the market for a new car.
There's this thing called attrition. It's a great way of changing things without affecting the working poor, and that's how pretty much all these laws being proposed work.
Except in the Netherlands, we actively ban piece of shit in the cities.
Re: (Score:3)
The electronics are much cheaper than a combustion engine. Aside from not needing a complex combustion system with emission controls, there is also no gearbox or exhaust etc.
The only reason they are more expensive is the battery pack. As production ramps up costs will fall. They are already falling incredibly fast. In the space of about 6 years we have doubled range for the same price, and we are only really at the start of the big increases in production capacity and demand.
Can China do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
quote: "The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California."
So far the Chinese have shown that they can *talk* about banning combustion cars, not that they can actually make it work.
Re:Can China do this? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
But hey, if Hef can get to 91, who's to say Brown isn't the goddamn Terminator?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe Moonbeam's next suggested ban will be on couples having more than one child? China did it, why can't California?
Re:Can China do this? (Score:4, Insightful)
So far the Chinese have shown that they can *talk* about banning combustion cars, not that they can actually make it work.
When we talk about China we always talk about the next thing China is talking about, without looking at what they have achieved in the past.
While we claim they are all talk, they are the biggest electric car market in the world and the rate of increase in the market has in the past 2 years surpassed the entire rest of the world. The USA talks about things and then generally plods slowly in that direction, spending more energy bickering about it in the government than actually instigating change. China on the other hand has a steady record of making a decision (often a questionable decision) and then plowing full steam ahead to achieve it.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, China has massively developed its EV infrastructure and sales. Over 80% of new busses in China are electric now, with it expected to hit nearly 100% by 2020, for example. They have built the world's largest network of chargers too.
Just limiting your comparison to when they plan to ban ICE is cherry-picking. Bans are not the only effort being made, or even the most effective, or necessarily suited to a country like China.
Re: (Score:2)
How this will realistically go (Score:4, Insightful)
First thing to bear in mind, banning all combustion-engine-powered cars would be an absolute nonstarter. There are a number of groups that would absolutely band-together to lobby against it, even if those groups that may not normally have a lot to do with each other (enthusiasts for horseless-carriage-era cars and modern auto manufacturers for example) would immediately find common ground to coordinate efforts.
Second, there are classes of vehicles and types of use that do not readily lend themselves to electric use. In particular vehicles designed for heavy offroad use would not make for good electrics when they go places that the electric grid doesn't service, and the mass-penalty in carrying batteries would be a problem for offroad performance. Additionally many commercial-service vehicles would make poor electrics if their daily range far exceeds what a charge can provide, as commercial vehicles might not even have opportunity to charge at their destinations.
Realistically, passenger cars that are not primarily geared toward commercial use would be the best application for electric adoption. Roads are built close to infrastructure and are themselves infrastructure, so recharging cars is practical or can be made practical. Additionally, when the entry-level electric car has a range equivalent to half a tank of gas, which is usually 100-150 miles, suddenly it becomes practical for most commuters for their daily use. Sure, some people do drive more than that in a given day, but most do not, so most people could make that kind of range work for them.
In addition to passenger cars, many 2wd commercial chassis would be designed with an electric option. While a lot of commercial vehicles would not be suitable as electrics, plenty more would be. It is not unrealistic that delivery vans could be made electric if their routes are sufficiently short, and personal-use "lifestyle" 2wd pickups could also make for good electrics when they're used similarly to passenger cars for things like commuting.
I expect that small and mid-sized sedans would be all-electric first. Small cars are usually least likely to be used for passenger livery, and mid-size sedans are extremely popular and the number of sales would make quite a dent in gasoline power. Large sedans would probably follow last since they're often used for police and passenger livery, and they may well always have a gasoline variant. Once these prove popular and successful then we might see coupes and sports cars work as popular electrics, and eventually trucks, vans, and other chassis.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:How this will realistically go (Score:4, Informative)
Plus of course you are not poisoning people with toxic exhaust fumes.
Riiiight. Because the 53% of locally-generated electrical power and the 42.88% of all consumed electrical power in California that came from burning coal, gas, oil, and biomass in 2016 was all using the secret California technique that doesn't involve emissions.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Riiiiight, because people have figured out how to make 20,000,000 teeny little poorly maintained engined with their own exhaust etc as clean as one giant power station where you can fit as many filters and scrubbers as you like on the exhaust.
Not all emissions are CO2, and most of those are much worse.
Re: (Score:3)
If California hadn't driven out all their nuclear power then perhaps they wouldn't have to rely on coal and natural gas so much.
Sure, using electric cars and coal fired electricity will quite likely reduce CO2 and other emissions considerably. Using electric cars and nuclear power would reduce the emissions problem even more.
I halfway agree with you here, this is a bad idea so long as their electricity comes primarily from fossil fuels. Shifting to nuclear power would solve that problem but the limitation
Re:How this will realistically go (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is these are not the vehicles producing the emissions. The whole thing stems from MPG being the inverse of fuel consumption. People see the big MPG number from a fuel-efficient vehicle and think they're making a big difference in fuel consumption. It's actually the opposite - the bigger the MPG of a vehicle, the smaller the impact it has on overall consumption and emissions. Switching from a 25 MPG sedan to a 50 MPG Prius results in less fuel savings (and thus less emissions reduction) than someone switching from a 15 MPG full-size SUV to a 25 MPG large sedan. Yes, that 10 MPG improvement results in more fuel savings and more emissions reduction than the Prius' 25 MPG improvement.
15 MPG = 6.67 gallons to drive 100 miles
25 MPG = 4 gallons to drive 100 miles, a 2.67 gallon improvement
50 MPG = 2 gallons to drive 100 miles, only a 2 gallon improvement
Because MPG is the inverse of fuel consumption, it's 1/MPG which is the important value. And the bigger MPG values mean less incremental fuel savings. The rest of the world uses liters per 100 km to avoid this problem. For some reason it's backwards in the U.S., and marketing has abused it to make people feel good about buying a Prius when it's about the smallest difference you can make in terms of driving.
You know how environmentalists scoffed at hybrid SUVs? That was actually the best place to put a hybrid engine. The 6 MPG improvement the Highlander Hybrid [fueleconomy.gov] gets from 22 to 28 MPG results in a fuel savings of nearly 1 gallon per 100 miles. That's about the same savings as switching from a 33 MPG econobox to a 50 MPG Prius. If you can improve a tractor trailer's 6 MPG to just 6,4 MPG, that also saves about the same amount of fuel per mile. It's the big vehicles which consume a lot of fuel whose efficiency you want to improve first in order to produce the biggest reduction in fuel consumption and emissions. The Priuses, econoboxes, and small sedans are roundoff error.
Give Musk credit. He actually understands this, which is why his next project is an electric tractor trailer.
Re: (Score:2)
The switch to electric might make the most impact per-unit on large, inefficient vehicles, but again, for an actual four wheeler it is a nonstarter. Look at the Tesla Model X, it's not a four wheeler. It's the exact same floorpan, drivetrain, and nearly the same suspension as the Model S, it's simply taller. It's crossover, not an SUV.
The one place I could see electrics being popular are minivans, but only if the electrification of the drivetrain doesn't impinge on features that are popular. Looking a C
Re: (Score:2)
That applies if you have 1 car and 1 SUV. In general in most places this isn't the case. 10 cars and 1 SUV means the smaller incremental improvements in cars are actually significant, especially if you can eliminate the emissions from the city street completely as in the case of all-electric.
Re: (Score:3)
In particular vehicles designed for heavy offroad use
EVs are ideal for off-road use. Massive amounts of torque at low speeds, but no gearbox so driving them is easier. Few things to go wrong too, so more reliable. Current range would be around 250-300 miles per charge, way more than almost anyone will do off-road, and of course that will increase with time. Plus you can charge from solar/wind in remote areas, where as if you run out of fuel you are in trouble.
Additionally many commercial-service vehicles would make poor electrics if their daily range far exceeds what a charge can provide
Commercial long distance vehicles will soon be electric and driverless. It rarely matters if they nee
LOL. (Score:3, Insightful)
What sensationalist tripe.
What are they going to do, strand millions of lower-income people who can't afford to replace their $2000 clunker with a $30,000 new car?
Re: (Score:2)
The share of people who can't go out and buy a new EV on demand is probably more like 95%.
Re: (Score:2)
The share of people who can't go out and buy a new EV on demand is probably more like 95%.
Is that more or less than the share of people who can't buy a new ICE car on demand?
I mean you do know there is a second hand market for EVs too right?
Re: (Score:2)
What are they going to do, strand millions of lower-income people who can't afford to replace their $2000 clunker with a $30,000 new car?
Lower income people don't buy brand new cars now, why would they suddenly have to in 10 years time?
What sensationalist tripe.
Yes, yes indeed..
Re: (Score:2)
The poor do not matter. Let them ride bicycles...
Unless...
Those Mexicans can no longer come and do all the menial work. So maybe we do need to give them transport.
Re: (Score:3)
What are they going to do, strand millions of lower-income people who can't afford to replace their $2000 clunker with a $30,000 new car?
No, because they are clearly talking in the context of the similar policies in EU and China which are only on new cars. The article doesn't spell this out, but it does make the link.
Re: (Score:2)
It will be interesting to see how EVs impact the used car market. They last much longer than ICE cars and require much less maintenance. An EV with 100k miles on it is not like an ICE with 100k miles, with the latter being in imminent need of expensive maintenance and with significantly reduced performance.
Maybe they could start (Score:5, Insightful)
Will all state and local government vehicles and see how it goes for them.
And the answer is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California,"
Because one of the two is is a totalitarian communist regime and the other is....
Wait, I take that back.
Before you start waving your pitchforks (Score:2)
This is more like a ban on sales of new ICE powered cars.
All they can really do about existing cars is to tighten the emissions regulations, which require EPA approval.
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely Go Jerry Brown Do This NOW!! (Score:5, Funny)
We have to preserve our air, and there is no reason whatsover the good people of SoCal should suffer the health risks associated with internal combustion engines, not to mention that gasoline is a hazardous substance and known carcinogen.
Get this legislation to the governor's desk and signed ASAP.
Ban their economy (Score:2)
I read the article before I submitted it.. (Score:5, Informative)
* This is just CARB 'talking' about this. It's not legislation, no one has introduced a bill. It's really just a 'what if' they're discussing.
* I hardly think they'd suddenly ban all IC engine vehicles. That would be a disaster, so don't even think about it.
* Furthermore it'd likely be a gradual shift away from IC engines to electric.
* Furthermore, I don't think things like motorcycles would be included in the ban, nor fleets of trucks, emergency vehicles, etc.
* Furthermore, I don't think it'd include existing vehicles, just new vehicles. Otherwise it would be an impossible financial burden on everyone. * Again: It's just above the level of coffee-table conversation the CARB is having about this. It would be at least TEN YEARS before they'd do anything.
* Furthermore, it'd likely have to be legislation. We all know how long that'd take, right?
Basically: No need to get all flustered about it -- YET. But it was worthy of being posted, so you all know what's going on. Also, not like you didn't all think something like this would come up eventually, anyway, we've been slowly moving towards this for a while now.
Re: (Score:2)
Basically: No need to get all flustered about it
But, but... I want to react to a headline, then go off all half-baked about how angry I am without actually reading any of the detail. I mean, that is how the President does it right?
Punting till retired (Score:2)
We've been here before (Score:2)
The history of CARB has been to set unrealistic goals because they can than quietly retrench.
What's changed, at least from the point of view of the irresponsible people who run CARB is that now there are real electric cars on the roads.
Never mind they require huge subsidies to eke out a microscopic slice of the market, they're real so CARB can once again flex its muscles and hope not to end up with egg on its face.
The irony is CARB may actually get what it wants although not via a mighty mandate. Technology
ban ban ban? (Score:2)
Leave it to CA to jump on the banning bandwagon. How about we just let things continue to get better by themselves?
1) Is the motivation reduction of pollution or just "feel good" political nonsense? If the latter, then let people feel good by opening their OWN pocketbooks to buy infant technology freely.
2) Cars are cleaner than ever. Again, is this about pollution or feel-good, drop-in-the-bucket, "save the earth NOW" CO2?
3) Target gross polluters, one "bad" ICE can spit out many, many times as much poll
Burn Ethanol (Score:2)
Most modern electronic fuel-injected gasoline engines can burn combination of gasoline and ethanol up to 100% pure ethanol if a software change is applied to the timing. Heck, many vehicles are already FLEX-fuel and the owners dont even realize it or what it means.
Burning ethanol produces half of the CO2 of burning gasoline, but with a range penalty. You need 125% as much ethanol as gasoline to travel the same distance.
Still, 125% of half the emissions is 62.5% of gas emissions for the same distance. Thats
Re: (Score:2)
>"Burning ethanol produces half of the CO2 of burning gasoline, but with a range penalty. You need 125% as much ethanol as gasoline to travel the same distance."
The problem is that ethanol doesn't just appear. It is made from crops. And, up to now in the US, that crop is corn. And that corn is fertilized with petroleum products. And then there is all the transport, conversion, etc. And most existing engines can't just use it without significant alterations. Ultimately it is far less attractive than
Show me an electric ambulance... (Score:2)
... that has the range, power, and payload of a standard TurboDiesel ambulance.
If California wants to ban internal combustion engines, OK, then let the Great State of California, and LA County LEAD the way, by junking every gasoline-burning police car and ambulance and fire truck they have, and replacing them ALL with electric vehicles.
I'll wait.
Re: (Score:2)
Innovation at it's finest (Score:2)
We shall replace all internal combustion engines with external combustion engines!
Long awaited, the time for turbo rocket space car is here!
So glad I was born in the 70â(TM)s (Score:2)
... and get to be possibly the last generation to be able to own a car with a V8 roar and manual transmission.
By the time my kids get to the point of responsibly buying anything more than a simple commuter car everything will be electric.
Which isnâ(TM)t bad. Just different. But I really enjoy a big combustion engine. Too much Dukes of Hazard as a kid?
FIrst show me a full replacement car (Score:2, Insightful)
For this to happen, the electric car must be roughly equivalent to the combustion engine powered car. It must be able to provide at least 600km autonomy in a less then 10 minutes charge. An electric car with a 200km autonomy and 4 hours recharge is fine if you have a garage to store and charge it, most people just don't have that possibility. Combustion engines are so successful because you can charge them to 1000km autonomy in less than 5 minutes.
I don't say that this wouldn't exist in 10 years, but until
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
For this to happen, the electric car must be roughly equivalent to the combustion engine powered car.
For the car to replace the horse, the car must be roughly equivalent.
It must be largely capable of steering itself and avoiding obstacles with only minimal input from the driver. It also must be powered by grass and be able to cross narrow trails and rough steep terrain. Finally, if you put two of the right type of cars together in a paddock, they need to be able to produce more cars for free.
I don't say th
Re:FIrst show me a full replacement car (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps,
No, not "perhaps".
http://www.statisticbrain.com/... [statisticbrain.com]
Statistically the majority of trips are well within the range of electric cars.
if you can charge them in between (within a 10 min timeframe) or at the end of the trips
Huh? No that has no effect. The average two way commute is much less than the average electric car journey. Charge it when you get home. Problem solved.
Also, the car had many advantages over the horse, while the electric car has almost none over a combustion engine one.
Apart from the massive lack of nasty emissions in precisely the places where people want to breathe and fuel economy?
Re: (Score:3)
For this to happen, the electric car must be roughly equivalent to the combustion engine powered car.
No it doesn't. For this to happen the electric car must meet people's use cases. Very few people have a use case for being able to drive 600km twice with only a 10minute break in between. Those few that do find themselves in a head-on collision with a tree after falling asleep at the wheel.
An electric car with a 200km autonomy and 4 hours recharge is fine if you have a garage to store and charge it, most people just don't have that possibility.
No one in my street has a garage. There are however 6 owners of fully electric cars. Public infrastructure is a thing.
Combustion engines are so successful because you can charge them to 1000km autonomy in less than 5 minutes.
No. Combustion engines are successful because they were the best thing we had to replace the horse. At
new cars only (Score:2)
Within 10 years it will be the ban of selling new ICE cars, and maybe ICE's that are 30+ years old (and don't pass a certain emission standard).
It'll take a few decades before the whole fleet of ICE cars have been replaced, you just cannot ban cars as a lot of people still depend on them and do not have the money to buy new ones. Also at this time the technology for batteries isn't commercially viable/good enough for replacing the ICE for long range/offroad situations. But in 10 years that will have changed
Good news for stirling engines (Score:2)
I think banning internal combustion engines is a good idea. I would love to see external combustion engines catch up.
Re:ha (Score:4, Insightful)
> Not everyone can walk out and afford a 40K brand new electric car.
Well, everyone that counts can. If you can't, you don't count.
Re: (Score:2)
You're assuming that people will have no choice but to get expensive high-tech electric vehicles.
However, even under an ICE ban, people will still be able to use simpler tried-and-true transportation like this [wikimedia.org], or even this [wikimedia.org], which also has the advantage of dovetailing with the new policies of the current presidential administration.
Re: (Score:2)
Not everyone can walk out and afford a 40K brand new electric car.
So don't buy a car then. There's a lot of people that don't own cars, and for those of us that live in large cities we shouldn't need to. Any decent town planning would create an environment where you can get where you need to via public trains and buses (electric of course), or bikes or walking.
Problem/solution. If the last 50 years has shown us, personal car ownership in any level of density urban area doesn't work.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So don't buy a car then. There's a lot of people that don't own cars, and for those of us that live in large cities we shouldn't need to.
Is this an implicit claim that within 10 years the entire state of California will be one, huge, densely populated large city environment? That's what it would take to convert the huge amounts of California that aren't currently viable for public buses and trains into the kind of place where "bike" and "walk" are sufficient for everyone.
If the last 50 years has shown us, personal car ownership in any level of density urban area doesn't work.
And it has shown us that personal car ownership in any other environment is almost a requirement.
Face it, Governor Moonbeam has wangled himself a fuzzy feel-good regulation
Re: ha (Score:2)
Any decent town planning...
That's right up there with "intelligent bureaucrat."
Re:Because (Score:5, Funny)
>why China can do this and not California
Because they're a dictatorship who can proclaim broad life-changing decrees and their citizens have no way to vote them out.
China or California?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The proposal is for new cars. Nobody's going to mess with your '83 Citation.
Re: (Score:2)
The proposal is for new cars. Nobody's going to mess with your '83 Citation.
There is no proposal. There have been zero details given yet. It's nothing but a news bite at this point.
I agree it's highly *likely* that this is how it would play out (aside from being even more likely that nothing comes of this at all), but that doesn't make it a fact.
Re:CARB can't even keep my hotrod off the roads. (Score:5, Informative)
There are proposals. The media here in California actually talks about them a lot. None of them involve anything but new cars.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe you should remember the past.
Prior to the Clean Air Act there were days you could not see LA City Hall when you were only two blocks away. Your eyes would burn and some people walked around with surgical masks. It wasn't only downtown, the smog was everywhere, from beaches to the hills. Studios would cancel filing on their back lots. When you see pictures of greyed out Chinese cities like Beijing, that is what Southern California used to be like.
You are an ignorant and selfish cunt.
Re: (Score:2)
Come visit California sometime. Then you might understand what I said.
Re: CARB can't even keep my hotrod off the roads. (Score:3)
You know a Southwest ticket costs about the same as all of the gas you'll need to buy and will bring you to your destination much faster, right?
Then you just walk from the airport to your hotel, and then walk to your business meetings because you have no need for a car once you get to your destination, right?
Wake up to real reality (Score:2, Insightful)
Los Angeles is one the leading smog capitals of the world.
Yes, and?
If people didn't like that, wouldn't they move? But LA population is rising.
Meanwhile LA roads also keep expanding. Pretty obviously as the original post stated, Californians love cars, and LA residents plainly do not care about smog. Therefore he is right and the stick up your ass serves no purpose other than to give someone a handle to easily control your responses with.
It is a merry tune you dance to, green puppet, but you are not play
Re:Wake up to real reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile LA roads also keep expanding. Pretty obviously as the original post stated, Californians love cars, and LA residents plainly do not care about smog.
Or they do, but they care more about other things like jobs or not leaving their friends/family/support network more.
Your argument is a form of "people put up with it therefore they don't care so we shouldn't fix it". It's facile.
Re: (Score:3)
Wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't try to fix it. I'm saying that California residents care about it little enough they will not put up with any large inconvenience (like elimination of precious automobiles) to address it. So elimination of cars from CA is a non-starter.
Re:Wake up to real reality (Score:4, Informative)
I'm saying that California residents care about it little enough they will not put up with any large inconvenience
Californians have paid thousands of dollars more for their cars, because they cared enough about it to force carmakers to produce cars with the "California emissions" package.
Californians pay more for their gasoline because of the emissions and vapor capture requirements for gas stations.
Californians indeed care about this. Californians have also looked at their metropolises, figured out that public transportation, bikes and similar car alternatives can not work due to development decisions made in the 1930s. So they forced cars to be better and paid a lot of money for it.
If you think not having a car in Los Angeles is just an "inconvenience", it's abundantly obvious you have never attempted to live there.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: CARB can't even keep my hotrod off the roads. (Score:2)
loud =/= polluting more
So you'renot a physics major.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Weird, =/=
Never saw that ideogram in 45 years of coding and design. Used to program in algol and looked hard at smalltalk,, Nope.....
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps a âoegreater thanâ and âoeless thanâ pair would be filtered out by /. HTML parser?
Yeah, they are. You have to use > followed by a semicolon for > and < followed by a semicolon for <
God only knows what /. did to your post though (unless you meant to type repeated "a-circumflexes" that is)...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Los Angeles is one the leading smog capitals of the world.
Umm... no.
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/a... [lbl.gov]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If people leave California, they're going to take their ignorant politics with them and pollute the rest of the country.
Thereby diluting that power bloc significantly. I don't see a problem there, especially if they get to experience what other people's environment is like.
Re: (Score:2)
> dorky vehicles really is a terrible price to pay to not warm our planet past a civilization bearing threshold.
They just don't look bad. They handle poorly and are dangerous to drive. Merging with and avoiding commercial vehicles will still be a problem even if you neuter all of the consumer vehicles.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I suspect the headline is wildly sensationalist (as is tradition, I did not RTFA). It's designed to manufacture outrage.
There's no way they could outright ban existing vehicles, in California or anywhere else. Hell, even California basically lets old vehicles get away with much looser emissions standards, I guess to help out poor people who can't afford newer cars. There's no way they'd tell everyone in 10 years you can't drive the car you currently own.
Even a strict 10-year cutoff is ludicrous. I'm sure if
Re: (Score:3)
It might be more practical to require all vehicles to be plug-in hybrids, that way more parking lots can build up more charging stations, while gas stations can be gradually phased out.
I'm not entirely sure I like the verbiage though...ALL internal combustion engines? Including hydrogen, whose only emission is water?...Unless they're being cognizant of the fact that water is a MUCH stronger greenhouse gas than CO2? Still doesn't make any sense. And what about large vehicles that rely on CNG, which has less
Re: If they ban existing vehicles I will sue (Score:3)
I'm not entirely sure I like the verbiage though...ALL internal combustion engines?
You realize that includes leaf blowers and lawnmowers, right? And what about recreational and commercial boating - all currently rely on internal combustion engines...
Re: If they ban existing vehicles I will sue (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
you can use hydrogen in a combustion engine.
it just happens to be stupid so nobody does it.
I got a laugh out of "if china can do this" though. hahaha. a big laugh.
LOOK, if you cut everybodys income to 1/10th of what it is now in california and give them practically free electricity then sure, people will buy electric scooters to replace their cars.
also, anyone in china who can afford it buys a car, duh.
never mind that the typical daily commutes are way shorter in china, due to various reasons(mainly
Re: If they ban existing vehicles I will sue (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm poor. Are you going to pay the cost to replace all my equipment that I bought with my own very hard earned money?? No, you'll just sit in your rich white ivory tower and declare this and that are banned and charge fines and penalties which go back to people like you from people like me.
Thanks.
--poor people
Re: (Score:3)
This is a good point, but why stop there? Norway has the highest amount of electric vehicles on the planet per capita even though they're a major oil producer because they pay no taxes on EVs [ft.com], meaning no VAT and no additional vehicle taxes that normal cars are subject to. Additionally, electric vehicles are not subject to road tolls. AT the same time, gas costs 2 dollars a litre [globalpetrolprices.com], meaning 7,5 dollars a gallon, and that's cheap fo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are some pretty compelling reasons to have ICE powered vehicles in mountains.
1. Refueling infrastructure is rarer in the mountains, and trips are longer. Electric energy storage capacity isn't anywhere near that of fossil fuel.
2. It's a lot easier to power a small aerodynamic vehicle on level ground than it is to power a truck over hilly terrain. Regenerative breaking helps some, but it isn't a panacea.
3. Waste heat is less of an issue, and is actually a boon in colder areas.
Are the insurmountable pro