All new cars sold in Europe must be emission-free from 2035
nltimes.nl
nltimes.nl
Start burning coal
Pretend that nuclear waste from coal released uncontrollably from chimneys and ash dumps does not exists.
I saw a video in YT where in a state like Utah in the US an ev becomes greener after the equivalent of few tens of gas tanks (don't remember the number). Will try to find out the sources.
> Switching to electric just because of that is worth in the long term
Is it, though?
Batteries are not exactly environment-friendly and hydrogen seems too often ignored.
I am not an expert so probably don't know many issues but on the face of it hydrogen seems much less disruptive than batteries.
Also, it is a bit easy to claim that we need to rush and have the luxury to make bad decisions. We have had decades and still have decades, and cannot change the whole infrastructure again in 10-20 years...
Batteries have downsides but apart from them, they do work.
Hydrogen can either be stored cryogenically (which is problematic in a car), or compressed. In the latter case, hydrogen leaks out through the metal (because its atoms are so small) and worse still, causes embrittlement of the metal.
So while we know how to build a battery car today, which is safe and stable, it's much less the case for hydrogen. It's not like you can take eg LNG car tech and just fill it with hydrogen.
The well-to-wheels analysis for an EV powered by a largely fossil-fuelled power grid is not good. Transmission and battery losses wipe out most of the (quite small) gains.
>a state like Utah in the US an ev becomes greener after the equivalent of few tens of gas tanks
Would love to see the source for that. Last time I checked, with a relatively "green" grid (something that almost everywhere in the US is a long way from achieving), the CO2 crossover point for an EV is at 20,000+ miles.
Batteries are expensive and motors are dirt cheap, so the only EVs with decent range are super high end, performance, luxury models.
Compared to a 500hp luxury SUV they're great.
Compared to an econobox they use about the same amount of energy per km.
They're up if you compare whole system emissions for the car vs. Emissions at a ff plant.
If you add in the fugitive methane or horror show that is coal mining and ash they're on par again.
The sleight of hand is in the definition of "emissions".
If you mean CO2 - then no, not really. If you are powering your EV with a fossil-fuel powered grid, then the transmission and battery losses make up for the small gain in power plant efficiency over an ICE (as I already said). The CO2 argument for an EV only works when the grid has a substantial "green generation" component.
If you mean "emissions that are immediately bad for people" - it depends who you are talking about. EVs replace tailpipe emissions at the point of use with centralised emissions, both at the point of manufacture, and at the point of charging power generation (which will most likely be in a Western country with well-controlled emissions). As a cyclist, I have to admit it's nice not to breathe in tailpipe fumes. I try not to worry too much about all the damage being done by EV manufacture far far away from me.
EVs waste a lot less power than ICEs after the motor. Much of it not for any reason that couldn't be true of an ICE as well except for design priorities.
200Wh/km of wall socket power is about 60MJ per 100km. If that came from coal in a modern-ish plant it's about 10-15kg of CO2. From gas it's around 5-8kg.
A highly efficient ICE produces 50gCO2e per km or 5kg for the same distance. This looks good until you consider that's not where the supply chain ends. Producing that petrol took another 3kg, or maybe 5kg if it was tar sands. A mostly-ff mix EV starts to look good here.
But it's also not end of the line for the gas plant. Fugitive methane will double its GHG output. Coal has NOx and some deleterious effects that aren't precisely GHG but are just as bad.
So the tesla produces more than the econobox. But an 'equivalent' once you game the metrics and compare against a Porsche Cayanne produces more than the tesla.
Really to reduce emissions quickly in urban or suburban areas we need more vehicles that look like a Zev, an Aptera, suzuki samba, a golf cart or a bicycle etc. and fewer that resemble a tesla or a monster truck (as well as more rail based vehicles).
I'm talking about electrical transmission losses. The worst-case is for high-current, domestic loads, where about 15% of the power from the electrical power generator is lost. Add in another approx. 15% for charging and discharging the EV battery, and it's not so good.
>200Wh/km of wall socket power is about 60MJ per 100km
You forgot the above losses.
>A mostly-ff mix EV starts to look good here.
Not at all. By your (very optimistic) calculations, they are about the same. You'll never pay off the CO2 debt of manufacturing the EV battery, let alone start averting the climate catastrophe!
>Really to reduce emissions quickly in urban or suburban areas we need more vehicles that look like a Zev, an Aptera, suzuki samba, a golf cart or a bicycle etc. and fewer that resemble a tesla or a monster truck (as well as more rail based vehicles).
Very true. Weird that all of the currently-pushed solutions involve large and expensive EVs that barely do any good.
200Wh is about a 20% estimation-factor on top of the commonly claimed 160Wh/km for a tesla. This accounts for any losses from charger to battery. Losses past that point are irrelevant because the point of measurement is battery drain per km. Differences between the test protocol and real world should be mirrored in the econobox stats. Emissions figures were commonly quoted per kWh at the wall socket.
> Not at all. By your (very optimistic) calculations, they are about the same. You'll never pay off the CO2 debt of manufacturing the EV battery, let alone start averting the climate catastrophe!
Precisely my point? I'm asserting that a city-car econobox has better marginal per km emissions than a luxury sports EV. A cayanne will have about 4-6x the emissions as the econobox and that comparison will favour the tesla. Also please do point out where they were optimistic -- there are very few ICEs that get 50g/km?
EV makers play sleight of hand by eliminating the segment of small light cars that can get you two cities over, then claiming their replacement in the form of a luxury performance car is 'better' by comparing it to luxury performance SUVs.
> Not at all. By your (very optimistic) calculations, they are about the same. You'll never pay off the CO2 debt of manufacturing the EV battery, let alone start averting the climate catastrophe!
This isn't as much as you think, most of the industry isn't using NMC anymore and there's less of the expensive materials per cell even compared to earlier LFP variants. If you're not insisting on obscene power densities and range you'll never use then 30kWh of LFP batteries has GHG impact commensurable with a few thousand km of usage of either the econobox or the coal powered luxury EV -- it doesn't take much to tip the balance. Similarly you can use motors without scarce metals.
> Very true. Weird that all of the currently-pushed solutions involve large and expensive EVs that barely do any good.
Because EVs are here to save the car industry not the planet. Although they do have one positive externality: a bunch of people willing to pay $500-1000/kWh allowed for the development of the battery industry where doing it to reduce emissions would have never happened.
Yep, agree with all of that.
>Because EVs are here to save the car industry not the planet.
Especially this.
I've already made the point that EVs are almost like Rai Stones - an immobile indicator of wealth.
That's probably a bit too far. The range issues are very much overblown edge cases. If you're going to make a new personal vehicle it should probably run primarily on a small LFP battery -- whether pure plug in or hybrid.
Modern cars in general are ridiculous, anti-practical conspicuous-consumption symbols of just how much power the owner has to ruin the lives of those around them. EVs are not much different in that regard.
So like a Rai Stone?
>it should probably run primarily on a small LFP battery -- whether pure plug in or hybrid.
If you go down that route, you'll probably work out that people should be riding e-cargo bikes everywhere (I've been tempted myself)
> If you go down that route, you'll probably work out that people should be riding e-cargo bikes everywhere (I've been tempted myself)
They're great. Mine has a solar panel over the cargo bed and never needs charging (literally do not own an AC charger for it). You need some minimal level of concession from driving culture and infrastructure to make them survivable though. They also don't cover all use cases (but carrying the *%#$ full sheet of plywood that is always brought up as somehow being an essential daily staple is quite possible with a variety of designs or trailers).
Interesting - what's your average daily mileage? I'm relatively familiar with the power requirements of EVs, and large-scale solar installations. I have no idea what kind of average charging power a small solar panel provides!
It's a nominal 200W panel (older fairly inefficient monocrystalline, big enough for a small sunshade which is its main function) and will fill the 1.1kWh battery in about a day (in a near-optimal climate), or two if the weather is meh. Before I mounted it on the trike I could get ~100-150km before plugging it into the panel on flatter ground or about 20-30km on a route with several big hills (12% grade) and a heavy (50kg bike + 50-100kg cargo + 75kg rider) load.
The trike is pretty speed limited by handling though (20-25km/h) and it takes very little effort on the flat to keep it above the 25km/h speed limiter. On flat ground or shallow hills (1-2%) during the sunny part of the day (9-3) I can't use more power than the panel provides without going up hills because of the speed restriction.
I'd imagine on a bakfiets in an area where 32km/h limiters were allowed you'd get about 30-50km depending on the terrain.
Some back of the envelope:
Consider this: https://www.bakfiets.com/elektrische-bakfiets/cargobike-clas...
A less ghetto lid than my arrangement would be 0.63m^2
This would fit okay as a lid: https://www.solar4rvs.com.au/sunman-earc-100w-flexible-solar...
a little narrow and would hang over the edge a little.
Assume it's about 45 degrees from optimal (70%) and that you're getting the average irradiance from somewhere like denmark (1000kWh/yr). You'll get about 71kWh/yr. Cut off 7kWh for charging loss so 62kWh.
A typical bike battery is 500Wh, so 120 charges or 1 full charge every 3 days.
A charge might get you 20km or it might get you 90km, but for a typical rider with moderate hills who puts in a 40-60W contribution (same effort as walking) and doesn't want to risk grinding home the last 10km on a cloudy day, a reasonable ballpark is 50km/day. So you're looking at ~15-20km (but you'll need to charge it in winter), or maybe up to 5x that (and decent range even in winter) if you think very carefully about parking, live in a better climate for solar, and do 25 rather than 32.
It's a nominal 200W panel (older fairly inefficient by new standards monocrystalline, big enough for a small sunshade which is its main function) and will fill the 1.1kWh battery in about a day (in a good climate of 1800kWh/yr), or two if the weather is meh. Before I mounted it on the trike I could get ~100-150km before plugging it into the panel on flatter ground or about 20-30km on a route with several big hills (12% grade) and a heavy (50kg bike + 50-100kg cargo + 75kg rider) load.
The trike is pretty speed limited by handling though (20-25km/h) and it takes very little effort on the flat to keep it above the 25km/h speed limiter. On flat ground or shallow hills (1-2%) during the sunny part of the day (9-3) I can't use more power than the panel provides without going up hills because of the speed restriction (ie. It gains charge).
I'd imagine on a bakfiets in an area where 32km/h limiters were allowed you'd get about 30-50km depending on the terrain.
Some back of the envelope:
Consider this: https://www.bakfiets.com/elektrische-bakfiets/cargobike-clas...
A less ghetto lid than my arrangement would be 0.63m^2 or up to 150W nominal if it was a perfect fit and a high end panel.
This would fit okay as a lid: https://www.solar4rvs.com.au/sunman-earc-100w-flexible-solar...
a little narrow and would hang over the edge a little, not far offour benchmark.
Assume it's about 45 degrees from optimal (70%) and that you're getting the average irradiance from somewhere like denmark on a meh week (1000kWh/yr) where you only think carefully about your parking spot at home. You'll get about 71kWh/yr. Cut off 7kWh for charging loss so 62kWh.
A typical bike battery is 500Wh, so 120 charges or 1 full charge every 3 days.
A charge might get you 20km or it might get you 90km, but for a typical rider with moderate hills who puts in a 40-60W contribution (same effort as walking) and doesn't want to risk grinding home the last 10km on a cloudy day, a reasonable ballpark is 50km/charge. So you're looking at ~15-20km/day (but you'll need to charge it in winter every week or so), or maybe up to 5x that (and decent range even in winter) if you think very carefully about parking, live in a better climate for solar, and do 25 rather than 32.
In the meantime renewables, especially wind have been growing rapidly and have accounted for more than 50% of all electricity generation in 2020. In 2021 Wind alone was nearly a quarter of the whole electricity production.
There are plenty other methods to store energy but most involve gravity. Batteries can be used for small scale rapid reactions to changes in demand or production. Actually fully switching to EVs as a side effect can create a distributed system of energy storage.
"Legacy auto will be caught short by the EV revolution!"
B*llox. EVs will be mandated, we will like them, and some will profit hugely.
https://www.renaultgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/daci...
I suppose the part I'm missing is that for now, all of the EVs we see are trying to be futuristic, once it's the norm, we should see more "normal" vehicles.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some old-git who's anti-change, I'm a millenial, and a tech-nerd, but I also like to keep my eyes on the road when I'm driving.
- traffic jam ADAS where with a command my car follow the car in front of it or run at a steady speed alone without me keep driving;
- auto-hold that allow to simply ignore current road steepness
Instead as an IT guy I HATE the pile of crapware outside my control that "my" connected cars have. And that's a far bigger issue than a crappy or not UI and big or not touch panel aside...
https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/cs_cz/topi...
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s...
As such, EVs are very successful. They part people with large sums of money to keep economies moving, and limit how far they can travel, reducing CO2 emissions in the process.
In a way, they are like Rai Stones - expensive, immobile tokens of wealth.
Really? I look forward to heating my home with electricity this winter. All of those headlines of European countries facing blackouts, and record-high electricity prices, must be misinformation.
Now Europe has been shaken and will hopefully learn the lesson and become completely independent in terms of energy in the next decade or two.
By buying a load more solar panels from China? :D
Maybe of the same public who already owns an EV. Electricity prices are rising.
What would that number look like, if there were no EV mandate? After all, the first link you presented shows that the second-highest reason to buy an EV, at 34%, is "Rising penalty on ICE".
>dead set against them at any cost is dropping.
I'm dead set against owning one, but my choices will become ever-narrower (and, in time, practically zero).
Let's not pretend this is a free choice.
And (nitpick) this doesn’t require all cars sold to be electric. They have to be emission free.
This hasn't been a big problem. Even German diesel train are going with green current. /s
Regulations mandate features that would otherwise not necessarily be desirable, or purely economical. Let's not pretend otherwise, including EVs.
In my opinion, it works horribly bad for long-term effects, so we need government regulation to prevent/soften the effects of the tragedy of the commons.
I was recently in the market for a mini-camper, DIY or ready-made. What became clear early in my search, was that I would be buying what they call a "classic", or "old-timer" diesel.
These things spew more pollution than newer vans, but are the most practical option for people who aren't rich. Their baffling classification entitles them to go to more places (many cities are "green zones" in Europe, where I live) than less polluting newer cars, and they cost less to run. Once you take the reliability and serviceability of these simpler vans into account, it becomes an obvious choice.
I'm for clean air, so I hope that along with mandating emission-free cars, they also:
1. Ensure electric charging is as widespread as fuelling up
2. Make EVs as reliable and serviceable as normal cars
3. (This one's just wishful thinking) Pass some kind of law banning all-singing-dancing-touchscreen interfaces
Otherwise it's the same as taking away something without providing a proper alternative. People will at best maliciously comply, but more likely just find ways around your laws. Laws don't solve issues by themselves.
- EV batteries, so EVs, are damn expensive and degrade around 3% per year for LiFeP witch are far more robust than ncd, I can't estimate how likely a battery total fault is but it's still a damn big issue. BEVs by themselves nowadays being far more efficient than ICEs are almost on-par in opex terms, at least in EU where the charging infra is not optimal but already spread enough they are just a bit sub-par in CASUAL long-range usage as long as we can charge at home at night or are secondary vehicles and/or we do not live too much at north. So IF they'll reach a price parity with actual ICEs they might be ok for most but still not all private car's usages.
- EV charging infra economics, at least the one in EU, must be annihilated. We have tons of different chargers and we do not pay them directly, instead we need some third party service, often just a website who sell rfid cars/badges, with obscure tariffs that vary MUCH for a single unique station from ZERO to $many€. Such kind of "free market" must be erased.
- EV AND modern ICE crapware is so DANGEROUS for all that we must banish by laws any black-box. We must mandate open hardware and free software punishing so hard any anti-user feature that no OEM would be so suicidal to try. We must NOT allow connected cars who are de-facto in the hand of their OEM, instead of those of their formal owner. We must forbid tie cars to mobile crap devices through any NON-local network except for single users PERSONAL VPNs/services hosted individually. A day with such modern cars, for instance because of a annoyed lamer or a political move or something else all cars of a certain set of OEMs will go to some important road interception and remain bricked there paralyzing even an entire nation or start to suck power straining the grid etc. Such kind of attacks are already described, far from being theory and so dangerous that the tech allowing them must not be allowed to exists on sale.
Beside that. WFH and having a p.v. system in a sunny-enough place, I feel a bit of economy even if not enough to pay back the car price before it will go to the trash. I see NO other real ecological reason behind them. It's just a needed evolution because we can't improve ICEs anymore and so it's time to change the tech. In pollution terms shifting it to exotic places is not being eco-friendly.
Or stop driving cars altogether? (I like this plan most)
Stopping individual traffic is a pipe dream. Climate change is happening, and we don't have a choice, nor will we be able to stop it - so we do what has always been the major advantage of our species: quick and rapid adaption. Accept that some land is lost, and move to places that are more habitable. Install air conditioning / heating where necessary. Change agriculture to focus on new produce that is more adapted to the climatical circumstances. And start working on a Plan(et) B, because we have only a few more hundred years.
Wow that seems like a generous figure. I’d guess fifty at best.
And of course all the points you are listing as weaknesses completely ignore the existing negative externalities (such as health impacts from emissions, tire wear and noise, economic dependence, and of course the long-term impact on the environment). So even if your pessimistic takes are correct, we need to compare them to the alternatives to get a sober judgement.
Unless you're out of fuel because the invader destroyed the infrastructure and has control over supplies?
(Here insert a joke about carrying Internet in buckets).
My major gripe is that a lot of people will be without a job once we fully transition to EV. They have few moving parts and so production lines requires way fewer people. The same goes for maintenance in the long run. In countries like Germany where a huge percent of the population works in the automotive industry directly or indirectly it will be a big deal IMHO. But as always with politicians they won't act until the problems hit their potential voters.
I for one am sure politicians have got a great handle on all of this.
In EU only every car will be a tractor. Here we go.
The place I just moved to is already pedestrian-hostile, who needs it getting worse because we shoehorned electricity into our transport?
Don't get my wrong, I'm a big nerd, I want an electric car, but the way we're doing it doesn't seem right.
I really want an electric vehicle, it ticks lots of boxes for me, but unlike an ICE vehicle that I can top up in seconds, and which are usually engineered with a decent amount of longevity, the battery in an electric vehicle is likely to be next to useless within 5 or so years of buying it; even if it's good enough for me, who would want to buy it when the advertised second-hand range is down to 50 miles per charge?
They seems like an utterly terrible investment to me, and at £50k+ (luxury car price bracket according to UK gov), it is an investment to me if I'm spending that much.
People didn't just throw up hands and sit in a corner when petrol stations weren't every 15km of their road and when there was no electric rail anywhere.
The only reasonable way I see, without affecting productivity of the nation as a whole, is to charge while we sleep, as we do with our phones usually.
When I pull in to Shell now to stick Diesel in my car, I see someone sat in their EV playing on their phone while they wait for their vehicle to charge; presumably for an hour plus? this isn't what I want for our futures.
I want to go all-electric, but I cant get on board with the glaring issues that are battery-tech and all-touch interior-controls; Gone are the days where you can buy a car and it'll last 20+ years with maintenance, you buy an electric, at a premium, get a crap interior and a battery that won't hold charge within 5 years, so you can't drive it, and you can't sell it.
Today's EV batteries will last for 15-20 years, which is the approximate lifetime of most combustion cars today in the UK. Some emerging battery chemistries, like the LFP cells used in some Teslas, may last considerably longer.
I wonder how this will affect resale value compared to odometer values on ICE vehicles now.
- 0: EV or hydrogen (a.k.a Zero Emission Vehicle)
- 1: plug-in hybrid, LP gaz, EURO-5 or EURO-6 petrol (2011 onwards)
- 2: EURO-4 petrol or hybrid (2006-2010), EURO-5 or EURO-6 diesel (2011 onwards)
- 3: EURO-2 or EURO-3 petrol or hybrid (1997-2005), EURO-4 diesel (2006-2010)
- 4: EURO-3 diesel (2001-2005)
- 5: EURO-2 diesel (1997-2004)
- unranked: anything older
There are two cases where it can apply, on specific geographic Low Emission Zones:
- 24/7/365 rules
- air quality degradation peaks with more stringent rules for the duration of the event (depends on event magnitude, usually it's capoed at 2)
My local LEZ has the following timetable:
- 2020: unranked soft-forbidden (warned, not enforced)
- 2022: unranked forbidden (enforced), 5 soft forbidden
- 2023: 5 forbidden, 4 soft forbidden
- 2024: 4+ forbidden, 3 soft forbidden
- 2025: 3+ forbidden, 2 soft forbidden
- 2028: 2+ forbidden
Which leaves us on the road (not sales!) with a soft ban on diesel in 2024, enforced in 2025, and modern petrol+ZEVs in 2028, with full ZEV looming over for 2030.
This in turn has effects on sales way before each ban because no one in their right mind would buy a car (new or second hand) that can't be used a couple of years down the road (nor resold, because no one would buy it)
I mean, if one buys a diesel today it's going to be soft banned in a little over a year and fined to death (through automated license plate reading) in two years, so essentially some indirect sale ban is already in effect. Apply that reasoning in the 2025-2028 period and it would probably not be a good idea to buy a petrol car either, leaving only ZEVs (i.e EVs since there's no hydrogen powered car on the market yet)
Also note that this is not about residency, merely passing through the LEZ makes one eligible for a fine, so this has rippling effects outside the LEZ.
That said, the EV infrastructure is heavily underdeveloped, and I have a hard time seeing that change enough in the next 5 years. I mean, it's possible but to scale in time with demand it needs to start happening now... which it doesn't.
I mean the proper use of EV is to charge at rest (e.g parking lots), not at gas^Wpower stations. So in the next years there's going to be tension between getting a throwaway hybrid/petrol car or go EV but suffer from contention on charging spots.
Now, personally I'm a bit annoyed because my corner case of a car is peculiar: we own two, one rank 1 low emission daily driver and one seldom driven EURO-4 petrol sports car (so, rank 2) that'll be banned in 2028 but wanted to keep as a collector, which happens at 30y, and it'll be "only" 20 by then.
To boot there's no exception (yet?) for such (or any actually) collector vehicles, which means they're being made illegal, and should theoretically go to the grinder, or forever be relegated to barns or museums, which is a real shame.
Nope, this is an anti-EV myth. Car batteries are not like your phone battery: in most cases they will probably outlast the vehicle itself. Most car manufacturers guarantee the battery for at least 8 years, and in reality they should last a lot longer than that.
I need to do some more reading; one of the biggest things that have put me off are people (claiming) to have lost 30%+ capacity in 3-5 years.
> Luxury cars are never a good investment, EV or otherwise. That's not why people buy them.
This was not my point, my point was that a "decent" EV in the UK runs you the price of a luxury-car (according to UK gov brackets for what is considered a "luxury car"). A Polestar 2 for example is £50k which puts you in luxury car tax bracket, and also you lose any government incentives for buying an EV because it's a luxury EV. But is a PS2 any more luxury, other than being electric, than a specced Mondeo, Vectra, or Passat?
This was true for some early model EVs, like the early-2010s Nissan LEAFs. But they used different battery technology (chemistry) to todays EVs, and the battery packs lacked thermal management, leading to rapid degradation.
> "But is a PS2 any more luxury, other than being electric, than a specced Mondeo, Vectra, or Passat?"
I know which I'd rather have. If you were going to spend £50k on a new car today, you'd be mad if it wasn't electric.
Well that's my point; why would I spend £50k on a car ;because it's electric; when I could spend say, £35k on a very nice, probably more specced one that isn't?
2. You'll save a lot on running costs (even at current inflated electricity prices, it works out much cheaper than fueling up with petrol in the UK).
3. You'll also save a lot on tax. £0 annual car tax even on cars over £40k. That's more than £2500 savings over the first 5 years on a £40k car, and potentially a lot more if it qualifies for benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax or you drive in a congestion/low-emission zone.
4. It's likely the residuals will be better as an EV bought today will probably depreciate less than a similar diesel or petrol, given the high demand for EVs.
5. Feel-good factor about being able to drive around with less harm to the climate and local air quality!
If you're just driving around in a city for relatively short distances every day, EVs can go weeks without charging.
Actually, I don't quite understand why so many people in big cities have a car. I live in Poland, have lived in two very large cities (Poznań and Warsaw) in their various regions, with my primary mode of transportation being either tram, metro or train depending on where exactly I have lived. I had used public transport to ride to school, university and work every day for many years. I have a driving license. I can afford a car. I just never felt an actual need to own it.
I would certainly get one if I lived in a remote village and had to go to the nearest town anytime I wanted to do some bigger shopping, or even reach the train station. That I can fully understand. But in a city with properly functioning public transport? Many of my friends with lifestyle similar to mine own cars, and unless they have a dedicated garage their primary purpose appears to be spending time on trying to find a parking spot.
Is this a consequence of cars being seen as a proxy of social status? I don't get it.
I am using taxis at times, but rarely and I usually go out of my way to not use them at traffic hours, because then it's often much slower than going by train or tram (not even speaking about metro [Warsaw] or fast tram lines [Poznań], which are hard to beat even outside of traffic hours). Also, when I'm sitting in a public transport, I'm free to spend my time somewhat productively or even just relax by, say, playing a game on a console - while driving a car is tiring, stressful and you can't really do anything else at the same time, so it seems to me that it actually wastes much more time. And what you sometimes gain by traveling faster, you often lose searching for a parking spot anyway.
It's also why this scheme will fail and the next conservative wave will overturn this ruling.
Yes, that's true and openly communicated.
> or preferably stay at home
Where did you get that?
All autocratic regimes - and make no mistake: ecologist politicians ultimately must be, for the common citizenry will always work towards their own goals, which are incompatible with ecological goals - want to limit mobility and thus the right of assembly for their subjects. Subjects with limited mobility can't cause trouble. Ecologist politicians will sell it to the general public as not travelling being eco-friendly, and thus mandatory.
See: GDR's de-facto crippling of individual car ownership, Chinese Hukou system, the Soviet Passport Statute.
Half the time they don't work, mostly it seems because the credit card reader doesn't seem to work or the pole isn't able to process payment for some other reason. The kicker is that you still have to pay for parking, and should the pole not be working you can't use the spot anyway lest you get fined for parking and not charging. In a city where parking spots are generally few and far between this is supremely annoying.
Another thing that's supremely annoying is that cars have their charge inlets placed in different spots, meaning people will park in whatever way is convenient for them to charge, no matter if that now means two other spots are blocked. Tesla owners seem to be the worst offenders in this regard, in my experience, presumably because their charging ports being placed in the back right (like on an ICE car) just makes it really awkward to use these poles that generally seem placed to optimize for plugging in to the front of the car.
Teething issues aside, I'm glad to see these things popping up.