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Power Transportation

Israel Aims To Ban Gasoline, Diesel Vehicles By 2030 (cleantechnica.com) 330

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CleanTechnica: 2030 seems like a long way off, but it's really just around the corner. And when the bell tolls at midnight on December 31, 2030, you may not be able to buy a gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicle in Israel. After that date, all passenger cars will be electric and all trucks will be powered by electricity or compressed natural gas, if a proposal currently under consideration gets approved by the government. A final decision is expected by the end of this year. Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz [told Reuters last month] the biggest challenge will be creating a "critical mass" of electric and CNG powered vehicles before the deadline arrives. "We are already encouraging [the transition] by funding ... more than 2,000 new charging stations around the country," he says. The plan was set in motion one day after the United Nations issued its latest climate assessment that finds nations must do far more than they are currently doing in order to stave off warmer global average temperatures that will put the environment at risk. In order to reach the goal, the Israeli government will "reduce taxation on electric cars to almost zero, so they are going to be much cheaper," Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said. He expects there will be about 177,000 electric cars on Israeli roads around 2025. By 2030, the expectation is that there will be nearly 1.5 million EVs in the country. The country has a ways to go though, as there are less than 100 electric cars on the roads today.
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Israel Aims To Ban Gasoline, Diesel Vehicles By 2030

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  • Real Reason (Score:5, Funny)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Monday November 12, 2018 @10:47PM (#57635072)

    Fossil fuels were put in the ground by Satan to confuse innocent God-fearing creationists. Emissions such as sulfur dioxide are harmful to humans because they originate from Hell. Global warming is actually a plot by Satan to terraform Earth to more resemble his domain. /s

  • Go Israel! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Monday November 12, 2018 @10:53PM (#57635094)
    Way to stick it to the Saudis and Iranians. Be on the forefront of making their primary product worthless while helping your own environment...
  • Ban the SALE (Score:4, Informative)

    by Drishmung ( 458368 ) on Monday November 12, 2018 @11:08PM (#57635156)
    Band the sale only. So, no new non-electric (or CNG) vehicles, but there will be existing vehicles. I assume that there will continue to be a large (if diminishing over time) number of 'legacy' vehicles for some considerable time. In fact, unless really draconian regulations are introduced, there will be vintage and speciality vehicles indefinitely. Not to mention military (battery powered tanks?), aircraft, ships, farming and such like.

    The interesting point will be when the filling stations are mostly all electric charging stations, and driving your vintage car across the country gets to be pretty challenging.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Petrol stations won't become charging stations, they will just go out of business.

      Most charging will be done at home or at work or at destinations like shops and restaurants. For long distances there will be rapid chargers at service areas on major roads.

      The days of going out of your way just to fill up are coming to a close. 99% of the infrastructure is already there, it just needs the last few metres sorting out with sockets on lamp posts and in car parks etc.

  • This is about autarky, but autarky is a dirty word when spoken by non-Israelis ... so lets say climate instead.

  • Makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Monday November 12, 2018 @11:52PM (#57635266)

    Israel is small enough that current EVs should be able to go border-to-border on a single charge. Given that range anxiety is one of the major reasons why people don't want EVs, it seems a small country can convert much more easily.

    • Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mal-2 ( 675116 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @12:30AM (#57635336) Homepage Journal

      It also pins their hopes on a proven but not entirely mature technology, and it just happens they've got a pretty big investment in battery chemistry research. Maybe they know something the public doesn't, or maybe they just like the idea of selling more domestically made vehicles and shutting down the purchase of vehicles from neighboring countries -- unless those countries are also going electric. They have enough financial pull in the region that others might lean the same direction for purely pragmatic reasons. Even if nearby nations don't, individual businesses will, if they can sell across the border.

      Twenty years ago it was stupid to drive an EV unless you were out to prove something, or you lived in Avalon. Now it's viable, but not ideal for everyone. By the end of the 32-bit Unix time epoch, 20 years hence, internal combustion vehicles will be like CD players or chrome tapes. We'll remember what they're for, and be glad we no longer require them, even though they were nice at the time.

      • by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

        I haven't yet seen a domestically-manufactured car in Israel, and I've been living here for 6 years now, as of today.

        • by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

          You will probably see domestically assembled cars once the market turns electric though. The batteries could be produced locally while the rest of the car comes from China or whatever, because they are heavy, and critical to performance, and the first place an unscrupulous Chinese company will cut corners, knowing it may be years before people notice.

        • by mishehu ( 712452 )

          I used to see a susita [wikipedia.org] over by the qiriyah... That was a couple decades ago so no idea if it's still there. But no, there's currently no domestic vehicle industry to speak of.

    • Israel is small enough that current EVs should be able to go border-to-border on a single charge. Given that range anxiety is one of the major reasons why people don't want EVs, it seems a small country... surrounded by enemies... can convert much more easily.

      There, fixed that for you... Somehow I think that the family vacation to the outback of Iraq is not a frequent event.

    • by mishehu ( 712452 )

      Much of Israel is mountainous, so I'm not sure if that affects range in any very meaningful ways (but I suspect it does). But yeah, if you drive from Katsrin in the Golan to Eilat, it's under 500 km.

      • Mountainous terrain will hurt distance, but with regenerative breaking, it hurts an EV's mileage significantly less than a gas powered car.

      • by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        Google maps tells me 540km from Eilat to Mount Hermon. But it's over six hours so a comfort break and a supercharger will see you through no problem.

  • It always seems to be 12 years off ...

    Well, hopefully all the pieces will be there and it will be affordable for most by then. We're getting there.

    I've dreamed of electric vehicles since I was a kid; nothing against them. I do have something against commissars ordering me into one though.

    Looks like they'll in reality eventually become pervasive by actually being better, not truly by fiat, which is good. 12 years from now they'll either be actually affordable and have all the pieces in place, or else the

  • Israel has a good case for eliminating readily used and transported flammable fuels - her neighbors. Not about sticking it to the oil-rich, but denying* those who would make firebombs a common fuel for such things. It won't solve everything, but it makes sense to take away what can be taken away. And auto/truck bombs don't work so well if the answer to them is to cut power so EVs cannot be (re)charged in lawless areas.

    * or at least making acquisition more difficult for...

Perfection is acheived only on the point of collapse. - C. N. Parkinson

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