Electric vehicles: the truth
This paper presents evidence to dispel many of the myths about electric vehicles and explains why they are key to reducing CO2 emissions from personal mobility.
This paper presents evidence to dispel many of the myths about electric vehicles and explains why they are key to reducing CO2 emissions from personal mobility.
The average car sits unused for more than 90% of the time, carries on average just one and a half people and costs, on average, €6,500 a year to own and run. Each car occupies 150m2 of urban land and still this is not the full bill – congestion costs the EU economy €100 billion annually. The convenience that made the car a 20th century icon has been eroded by its popularity.
The Board of sustainable transport group Transport & Environment (T&E) has today announced William Todts as its new Executive Director. He succeeds Jos Dings, who this week leaves the position after 13 years.
The announcement of a further 263 new zero-emission buses orders, which will nearly double the number on the UK’s roads from the 329 currently in use, has been welcomed by sustainable transport group Transport & Environment. 19 bus operators will shift to using electric buses with the largest roll-outs set for London (63), Cardiff (36), and Manchester (32).
European transport is costing society over €1 trillion a year through air pollution, carbon emissions, congestion, accidents and other ‘external costs’, a major new study by the European Commission has found. And citizens rather than transport users are paying most of these costs – in violation of the ‘polluter pays’ principle. Green transport group Transport & Environment said that governments can fix this by shifting taxes away from citizens’ incomes and instead taxing the sources of pollution and congestion.
Transport and energy ministers today backed plans to spend €7 billion of the EU’s transport infrastructure budget on more sustainable projects like electric vehicle re-charging points and upgrades to rail signalling. Sustainable transport group Transport & Environment (T&E) welcomed the ministers’ earmarking of part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for the period 2021-2027.
MEPs of the industry and transport committees voted this morning to reject plans to guarantee 40% of the EU’s transport infrastructure budget (some €12 billion) be spent on more sustainable projects like smart grids and charging stations. European NGO federation, Transport & Environment (T&E) is disappointed with this vote because it locks in considerable funds into fossil fuel powered transport. Thus T&E calls on all MEPs to reject this in December’s plenary vote.