General Motors has had a tough time cracking the code to success in Europe for a long time. In fact, Opel, which will soon be owned by France’ PSA Groupe, hasn’t turned a profit in 17 years.
Maybe GM isn’t too worried as France now aims to ban gasoline and diesel-powered cars by the year 2040, which may have been another challenge for the Opel brand to overcome.
France is already putting an aggressive timetable in place, according to Independent. The country plans to offer tax incentives for old gas and diesel-powered cars with hybrids and electric cars. Additionally, France aims to phase out gas exploration in the country and put an end to coal-powered electricity plants by the year 2022.
Now ex Opel CEO, Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann, reportedly had big plans to turn Opel into an electric car brand for the masses. Diesel and gasoline-powered vehicles would have been phased out by 2030, but ultimately, nothing came of the move. GM’s board supposedly voted on the matter this past May. Since then, Neumann has stepped down at Opel.
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France should consider a similar ban on both civilian and military aircraft also as aircraft like the Airbus A380 generates billions of tons of greenhouse gas like CO2.
Silly, autos and planes are very different technologies.
GM will deal with similar rules here unless the GOP gets a 25 year lock on power. The next Democratic president will issue a similar goal. Also, many automakers are pleased with electrification as they can simplify design.
Only Exxon Mobil cares!
Its this kind of forward thinking that will have France surpass the US under Trump’s, “What, me Worry?” attitude towards green house gasses. There’s a whole new future ahead for the country that embraces clean energy and develops systems, infrastructure and transportation technologies, ahead of the naysayers and procrastinators, and can market those to the world.
European politicians are very good at proclaiming targets which will only materialize after their mandate is long gone… In other words: lots of wind. The only thing that matters to them is to have excuses to raise taxes, e.g. on gasoline or car registrations. The green excuse is the perfect way to do so: those who are opposed to more taxation are depicted as anti-environment, anti-planet, almost as non-human… It’s taxation nobody dares to oppose to avoid being seen as “the enemy”. Thank God the USA under Mr Trump does not play that same game.
Mike Belgium – your taxes are paying BMW South Carolina, Mercedes Alabama, Toyota Texas, Honda Ohio, Nissan Tennessee, and none of those have headquarters in the good old USA, eh?
Us greenies also don’t want to pay tax, look it up….
Y’know Mike Belgium, just because you think it up doesn’t make it automatically true, unless of course you support Christine O’Donnell, Republican of Delaware, who famously said she was not a witch because she hadn’t yet joined a Coven.
Dear Old Trombone, I’m afraid I don’t see the connection between my taxes and these US plants. I live – as my name suggests – In Belgium, a small country north of France (Brussels is our capital city, you must have heard of it). Our government has traditionally been very aligned with the French government: leftist-socialistic topped with some christian-democratic sauce.
Let me sum up the taxes I pay for using my CTS: first, when the car is registered we have a one-off registration tax to pay, which varies between 0 (for electric cars) and 5000 USD (for luxury cars). Then we have the yearly road tax. This can vary between 0 (for electric cars) and +/- 10000 USD/yr (for cars with lots of CO2 emissions – NOx is not considered harmful, only the perfectly natural CO2 is measured). Then we have taxes on our gasoline / diesel: a liter of gasoline here costs 1.45 euro. That is 6.37 USD for a gallon. The price difference compared to the states is all taxes. And finally there’s the monthly CO2 tax which for my CTS accounts to around 650 USD/month (to be honest, this amount is added to my yearly income and then taxed, so it’s about 55% of that amount). So in all, I easily pay around 20000 USD of taxes a year (!!) just to drive my car. That’s the reality in Europe. And there’s no way to oppose this without being demonized. That’s what I want to point out – a debate is impossible, and that’s not normal.
Whenever politicians in Europe talk about “getting greener” it ALWAYS translates into more taxes. It’s been like that for the last 30 years and there’s no reason why it would be different now. And once all people shift to electric cars, they’ll introduce a “battery recycling” tax or whatever new tax to keep the money flowing towards governments. Truth is, our European governments have always had budget deficits and being green is just another way for them to raise more money through taxes. If they would really care about being green, they would ban diesel and tax NOx, but they don’t because taxing CO2 brings in more money…
It’s really not something “made up”, it’s daily reality for us here in Europe.
And I also didn’t make up the taxes paid by average-joe’s to OEM corporations in the USA. The difference is, in Europe, you get told specifically where the tax is applied. In America, we pay tax, and nobody knows where it goes (unless we look it up). You don’t have to look yours up, they push it in your face. In the end, when medical expenses are included, we pay about the same amount of tax.
It wasn’t that long ago that Paris, London and Beijing restricted car use due to poor air quality caused by automobiles, if you think this is all about taxes, then you’re a fool ! Its not the feared tax grab I’m talking about here, its the opportunity the future holds for any country to lead the world in “Green” technologies. Trump and his supporters just want to turn a blind eye to that opportunity. Much like the US did when Japanese auto makers started importing smaller, more fuel efficient cars. They were scoffed at and derided as inferior to the large American makes. What a difference the OPEC embargo of the ’70’s made! Since then the Japanese brands built a loyal following that NA auto manufacturers have tried to overcome for over 40 years! So, whether we like it or not, change is coming and the US under Trump is in danger of falling into the same trap all over again by going backwards instead of looking forwards. Most of the gains in electric and hybrid/ alt fuels technologies by NA auto manufacturers were made during the Obama years.
This is just another windbag proposal that may never come to fruition.
Just another windbag without a comment and only fruityness
Until there is a non fossil fueled vehicle that can go 500+ miles per day, with only two 15 minute refuelings, sometimes for four days in a row, they are pretty much useless to me. Where I live, we regularly have to travel 500 miles ONE WAY, just for specialised medical services, others in the outlying areas travel even farther.
but they do exist! you just have to pay 100k for a smartcar size machine and your all set! to afford such a vehicle you’ll have to live in a trailer park! This would crash the french economy. they wont do something like this, their in the tank and waiting for massive tax reforms and regulation cuts as it is. If they continue on their current path of wacko regulation they will see such a poor economy as to expect another revolution by the year 2030
Headline: “FRANCE wants to ban fossil-fueled cars”
Dave: “France is gonna make me die of medical access problems in Montana”
Wonder why folks get tarred with the “stupid” brush?
Your turn is coming, don’t think that there are no politicians and influential groups in the good ol’ US of A that also want fossil fuels banned. At one time Ontario was proposing banning natural gas building heating, forcing everyone to heat with electricity only, which would needed about $200 BILLION to upgrade electricity production and distribution to replace natural gas heating, a dollar amount that is no problem for the politicians, it isn’t their money. Careful you don’t get too much “stupid” on yourself there Old Trombone.
My turn is already here. I have an electric bicycle that is always ready because it is always charged at home. Range anxiety? Ha! It’s always full! And I can take an uber to the hospital, which is better because I’ll probably be too sick to drive.
If that works for you, great, but for possibly millions of people, highly impractical. Nice if your world revolves around a few small square miles with constant good weather with everything available locally. The electric bike won’t work for me getting around at -35 or with 6″ of fresh snow on the roads. Besides, bikes and walking are banned from the road into work in the winter for safety reasons, never mind warm weather issues. Uber isn’t taking anyone to the previously mentioned specialist hospital 500 miles away. Around here, there are thousands of people in the outlying areas that have to drive over an hour each way just to buy basic necessities, not even the option of public transit. Kind of hard to drive several hours each way to buy two weeks of ALL your needs (groceries, toilet paper, EVERYTHING) and load it on a bicycle, or low range electric vehicle 26 times a year.
Zut alors! That’s out there!
A nice sentiment for the Green vote and a farsical “sound bite” for the media, but highly impractical, even 22 years from now.
If you gave me 100% of my money back through a rebate, I might consider an electric car tomorrow. EVs don’t impress me much – at least the ones I can afford – which is exactly zero.
Better make a cheap hydrogen fuel cell vehicle with 500 miles range and 250bhp+ Hurry up.
As per usual, government is behind the market. By 2040, there’ll be diddly squat for the French government (or any other government) to ban. The market will be predominantly electric cars anyhow.
Living in the UK and driving a Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer Diesel, the total cost of ownership for a Hyundai Ioniq Electric was less than £5 per month more than the Astra. The only things that tipped the balance in favour of the Vauxhall was the fact that its British made and also the 6 month wait for the Ioniq Electric as every single Ioniq is sold well before its made.
Fast forward a few years and apply Moores Law and electric cars will have reached their tipping point. It’ll have nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with economics.
There’s a lot of market inertia to overcome – just look at some of the comments on this thread. But you’re right about the technology and economic side of things.
Your established car markers have to invest heavily in new tech and marketing just to get any EV car on the road (Tesla for eg.) but electric motors are way cheaper and less complicated to manufacture than combustion engines. Once your infrastructure is established though, advances come incrementally.
Once EVs are more firmly established in the public psyche and the economics (ie. profits) are working that tipping point in favour of EVs will come. But I can still see a need for fossil fuel type vehicles living on with the generations that drove them (until they die out) or govts legislate against them.
Certainly no change to regulations forcing the hand of car makers in the US of A while the Short sighted, Small-handed, Orange One has the reins. In today’s markets China is more progressive in this respect as they see the future business opportunity.
Speaking as someone who lives in the UK, I think one of the big differences between the USA and other markets, is the cost of fuel. At present, a gallon of petrol in the UK costs around £5.20 / US$6.30. And two thirds of what I pay for fuel goes straight back to HM Government in tax 🙁
And if anyone thinks that’s expensive, it’s less than you’d pay in some EU countries where the level of taxation is greater still. Hence the growing demand in the UK and EU for electric vehicles and that’s before even considering air quality issues plaguing some larger cities e.g. Belfast, Birmingham, Glasgow, London and Manchester.
By contrast, the tax rate on electricity is 5%. So it doesn’t take very long for the additional purchase cost of an EV to be recouped through lower running costs. Which incidentally is why Karl Thomas Neumann just might have been on to something very lucrative for GM, with his strategy to reposition Opel Group as a leader in mass market EVs.