Tag Archives: Gasoline Ban

Automakers Badger China for Extra Year of Non-Compliance

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China Gives Automakers More Time in World’s Biggest EV Plan
Bloomberg News

Signage for a parking space for an electric automobile is displayed at a charging station operated by Tellus Power Inc. at an underground parking lot in Beijing. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

China unveiled a comprehensive set of emission rules and delayed a credit-score program tied to the production of electric cars, giving automakers more time to prepare for the phasing out of fossil-fuel powered vehicles in the world’s largest auto market.

Under the so-called cap-and-trade policy, automakers must obtain a new-energy vehicle score — which is linked to the production of various types of zero- and low-emission vehicles — of at least 10 percent starting in 2019, rising to 12 percent in 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on its website. The rule applies to car makers that manufacture or import more than 30,000 traditional vehicles annually, and those who fail to comply must buy credits or face fines.

Originally, China required 8% of cars sold in 2018 to be Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs), but US automakers whined and whined until China relented. Hey, what’s a few thousand more air pollution deaths in the free market?

Harsh you say? Sure, unless you are one of those people slowly suffocating.

California next to ban new gasoline cars sales?

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California Considers Following China With Combustion-Engine Car Ban
Bloomberg News

The internal combustion engine’s days may be numbered in California, where officials are mulling whether a ban on sales of polluting autos is needed to achieve long-term targets for cleaner air.

Governor Jerry Brown has expressed an interest in barring the sale of vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, said in an interview Friday at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. Brown, one of the most outspoken elected official in the U.S. about the need for policies to combat climate change, would be replicating similar moves by China, France and the U.K.

“I’ve gotten messages from the governor asking, ‘Why haven’t we done something already?’” Nichols said, referring to China’s planned phase-out of fossil-fuel vehicle sales. “The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California.”

Embracing such a policy would send shockwaves through the global car industry due to the heft of California’s auto market. More than 2 million new passenger vehicles were registered in the state last year, topping France, Italy or Spain. If a ban were implemented, automakers from General Motors Co. to Toyota Motor Corp. would be under new pressure to make electric vehicles the standard for personal transportation in the most populous U.S. state, casting fresh doubts on the future of gasoline- and diesel-powered autos elsewhere.

“Shockwaves” is an understatement. Certain pumpkin-hued individual’s head will explode all over the golf course when they read this. If California follows through, expect a major counter-offensive from the oil and auto industry.