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Actually they voted for tripling the cost of heavy vehicles. The size is not even mentioned. It's a shortsighted move, since it incentives using gasoline cars in cities and disincentivies Hybrid and even EVs due to their weight. There is nothing in the rules specific to SUVs.
Tyre dust, break dust, there are other forms of pollution we need to eradicate / reduce.
Should not occur in EVs because braking is not necessary.
> Tyre dust
Fine. In cities this is one of the easiest problems to solve, since most of it is washed out into drainage pipes and the waste water can be effectively filtered (although this is not done in most places yet).
Fortunately I don't live in a city anymore so I don't have to put up with these rules.
It makes sense that road and parking pricing should be proportional to the size and impact of your car. Hopefully this will encourage manufacturers to produce more smaller cars - it's getting somewhat hard to buy a small car these days. I'd love to have a Japanese-style Kei car.
Agreed -- the popularity of giant vehicles is basically a tragedy-of-the-commons situation, and probably regulation is the only way to fix it at this point.
https://www.capitalone.com/cars/learn/finding-the-right-car/...
Hopefully new regulation will fix it rather than make it worse
Earlier quoted context omitted.
EVs in Europe and the US are on the downward trend at the moment. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe they are still too expensive.
For the downvoters, look it up - this is objectively true and has been well reported. And I’m not saying don’t buy an electric car, just that EV sales have decreased.
As a person with SUV and big family in Paris, I suggest we do the same with obese people and public transport - now that my kids will need to use it more frequently while paying more for sq ft.
I'd agree that families have the best reason for larger vehicles given how public transport can be difficult for buggies ect. An interesting intersection of gov trying to encourage families could be used here to offer a tax-relief on people that carpool (which'd by default therefore include families)?
At the end we got rid of our car and not planning to buy another one. For those occasions that happens 1-2 times a year, we just use a car sharing app. It's also a lot cheaper than maintaining a car.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tyre dust, break dust, there are other forms of pollution we need to eradicate / reduce.
This is true. But I fear that this talking point will be used by lobbyists and pro-ICE fanatics to justify more climate damage than necessary.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tyre dust, break dust, there are other forms of pollution we need to eradicate / reduce.
EVs produce almost no brake dust. Someone needs to develop tyres that are made of healthier materials.
Good point. We certainly have the technology. Currently tyres are half natural rubber and half plastic. They could be made 100% rubber, perhaps with some drawbacks. Maybe an engineer can comment on that, I would be very interested to know why exactly the non natural rubber is needed.
I know that Continental has a research project to make the natural rubber out of dandelion. But even those tyres still have 50% plastic rubber.
There are small SUVs and they are great. They are popular for a reason: they have Utility, and you can use them slightly offroad. OTOH an X3 or other luxury suv is basically stupid concept other than a display of wealth.
The reality is that people like their SUVs. It doesn’t matter where in the world, SUVs are popular and growing in market share. Here’s the International Energy Agency on SUVs. https://www.iea.org/commentaries/as-their-sales-continue-to-...
The popularity of SUVs is driven by a whole variety of factors. Eventually some of those factors will start to weaken. One of the factors is that many of the costs of SUVs are externalised.