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Comment by rakoo | Hacker News Reader

Another huge reason is that China outright banned the use of gasoline powered motorcycles in many big cities; since the majority of people just can't afford a car, the only replacement they could have is electric bikes.

Maybe one day we'll also see gasoline powered personal vehicles be banned in the West ? I kind of doubt it, seeing how important the car is in our society, even though there is some progress towards it (see for instance the car-free days in Paris (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36243119), and I'm sure in other places as well)

As always, more information on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_industry_in_C...)

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> Another huge reason is that China outright banned the use of gasoline powered motorcycles in many big cities; since the majority of people just can't afford a car, the only replacement they could have is electric bikes.

Imagine how polluted the air in major Chinese cities would be if they didn't do this. For a counter example visit Karachi or Lahore and observe the air, both huge population centres that are full of small 2-stroke engined motorcycles and motor-rickshaws emitting blue grey exhaust everywhere.

Bans have been proposed in Holland from 2025 (http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2016/03/only-electric-...) and Norway (http://electrek.co/2016/06/03/norway-gasoline-powered-car-ba...), but it's very early days -- these are only kite-flying exercises, not serious attempts at legislation.

We already have bans on certain cars in the Netherlands for example Utrecht does not allow diesel engines in the city center (Dutch source: https://www.utrecht.nl/milieu/luchtkwaliteit/milieuzone/).

Interesting -- we could do with that in London. Is it all diesel cars? The article seems to say something about Euro IV -compliant maybe being OK?

translated the two bullet points are (who is not allowed to enter the "enviromental zone"):

* Personal automobiles and delivery vans running on Diesel and which have received their license plate before the 1st of Jan. 2001.

* Trucks (of the profesional-logistics variety) which are not emmision standard IV compliant.

Note that this is not a country wide thing, but just the province of Utrecht[1]. There might be different restrictions for different cities, if any.

[1]: Utrecht is a city in the province Utrecht, like NYC, NY or Uppsala, Uppsala for the Swedes.

This kind of ban only makes sense with dense electrical and infrastructure penetration. Good luck convincing people in the country to give up four wheel drive and switch to a vehicle where fuel cannot be stashed.

... because people in the country don't have electricity?

...They have to drive farther.

...And that's why it was banned in big cities, which have famously bad air pollution problems. As opposed to the country.

So in many countries, there's this thing called "park and ride", which allows people to park on the edge of the city and catch a bus in instead of driving their vehicles into the city. That's a more than suitable solution to the problem of people outside the city needing gasoline-powered vehicles while the city bans them.

Paris and SF maybe, but a nation-wide ban is a long long way off. Until electrics have power enough to move something akin to a fully loaded pickup truck 300+km, there will be a place for petro. Just look at the Fort MacMurry evacuation. Not many electrics could have made that drive. I doubt Tesla will ever sell many units in the Canadian north.

Ask them how those batteries deal with -40c. It's a problem ignored by nearly everyone.

I bet we could make a decent impact by simply banning SUVs.

In Sydney so many people drive around these pristine 4WDs for their 3-4 person family or just for image.

The funniest thing I see around here (Norway) is people driving around in big SUVs (LandCruiser, Suburban, etc.) with just two seats installed, since then they can buy them much cheaper under the "workmans car" tax rules, which do not require that you're actually using your car for work.

Same thing in basically all of the USA. Even hybrid SUVs get worse mileage than more reasonably-sized cars.

And how many combustion engined cars crank at -40c without pre-heating? But indeed, there are a few places and uses where electrical cars are not the best solution. That does not mean, that in 90% of places and applications they are already a more environmental friendly alternative.

>> And how many combustion engined cars crank at -40c without pre-heating?

Plenty of them. In the last couple decades cold starts have really progressed. I think it's the developments in oil/lubricants that cling to metal surfaces. And the tighter tolerances that mean oils don't drain out of idle engines.

Plenty is not all - and interestingly, the nordic countries in Europe do have commonly electrical outlets at parking places. To preheat the engines. Luckily, this comes handy for the electrical cars too, as they can charge/preheat at those outlets.

We have those in parts of Canada as well, though I don't remember anyone using them. I think cars have prettymuch just started could since my childhood.

Not so common now that cars start so much more easily. Thirty years ago when I moved to Norway they were quite common but already underused at the factory where I worked in Drammen (National Industri). Now it is mostly just a few parking spaces in each car public car park that have 16A 230V sockets for charging electric cars.

Fuel injection helped a lot with this as well.

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