China Joins the Growing Movement To Ban Gasoline, Diesel Cars (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: China has become the latest country to publicly discuss plans to ban the production and sale of gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles. In July, both France and the UK published plans to phase out sales of conventionally powered vehicles by 2040. China will now add another nail to the coffin of the internal combustion engine. However, unlike the French or British plans, in this case there's no target date -- yet. The news comes from an automotive policy forum in Tianjin. China's vice minister of industry and information technology, Xin Guobin, said that his ministry has begun work on a timetable to phase out fossil fueled vehicles. The Xinhua news agency also reports that Xin told automakers they need to begin to "readjust their strategies" accordingly. For foreign car companies hoping to sell EVs in China, that will mean investing in the country, as imported vehicles come with stiff import duties attached.

Comments

Re:In retaliation ...

[HornWumpus]

Yep. Also note if the trends don't bear out, they will extend the life of IC engines as long as they need to.

Meaningless propaganda.

Re:In retaliation ...

[blindseer]

What if they get it wrong? I mean if electric vehicles are the future then just let it happen, no need to force it along with bans and subsidies.

We saw this with the CFL bulb subsidies. The government would give large rebates for people to buy CFL lighting but the bulbs are crap. They take 20 minutes to "warm up", interfere with IR remotes (that nearly drove me batty until I figured out that the lamp was what kept the TV remote from working), can't handle the heat of being in a closed fixture (who lights their house entirely with floor lamps and chandeliers?), and contain toxic mercury (broken bulbs happen, and in places like where our children sleep and where we prepare their food). Not long after LED lights came out and they are awesome. They light up immediately, don't interfere with remote controls, and don't burn themselves out if in a common light fixture. They aren't perfect, for example they still have a "funny" color to them, but they are getting better. Does anyone even buy CFLs anymore now that LEDs are just as cheap?

If not electric vehicles then what? I don't know, but as I recall few people saw LEDs coming to market as quickly as they did. What if the claims of algae based diesel fuel becomes a reality? Are we still going to ban internal combustion engines? Maybe ethanol gets real cheap because we found a new way to make it. Maybe we get synthesized hydrocarbons from wind and wave powered factories.

As inefficient as an internal combustion engine might be that inefficiency becomes largely irrelevant if the means to produce, store, and transport the fuels becomes "green", cheap, and plentiful. If algal fuels become viable then we aren't using electricity to produce it, it comes from the sun. If we can convert sun power to motive power by algae more efficiently than through photovoltaic panels and batteries then banning internal combustion engines is a problem.

Let's not repeat past mistakes.

Re:In retaliation ...

[blindseer]

I remember seeing some CFL bulbs on the shelf that advertise "reduced mercury content". Hmm, so you're saying they still contain mercury? Isn't mercury bad for you? Even in "reduced" amounts? No thanks.

I'll use the CFL bulbs I have until they burn out because that's a sunk cost but I won't buy more. This is especially true now that I've seen the real life lifespan of these bulbs, I have incandescent bulbs that lasted many times longer.

Also, wouldn't be just as "green" if we used LED (or even incandescent) lights powered from wind or solar?

Dear Senator,
Fix the problem at the source, don't mandate that I buy a lower quality bulb. Let people build some nuclear power plants already. Don't mandate nuclear power. Don't subsidize it. Just let people do it.