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> this limit is raised for heavy cars Yeah, what's that all about? Surely the entire point is to incentivise people to _not_ buy heavy cars, since the lowest e

> this limit is raised for heavy cars Yeah, what's that all about? Surely the entire point is to incentivise people to _not_ buy heavy cars, since the lowest emission models (aside from electric cars) are smaller?

baud147258 7y ago
Except that the EU is an union of unequal countries, so if Germany (which is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful country in EU) want to keep an industrial edge via a special case in law, they're going to get it.
- maelito 7y ago
  It's also that Germany has a reputation for being the eco-friendly country, while in fact not really caring about its climate impact from some very important domains : high-carbon electricity, heavy polluting industry.
  - pgeorgi 7y ago
    > high-carbon electricity https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energie/Erzeugung/Tabellen/bruttostromerzeugung.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energ... Renewables up 6% in two years, more than compensating for the shut down nuclear power sources. Fossils are shifting to natural gas which (so I've heard) is supposed to be the least bad of them (and fossils' grand total is also going down). It's not all roses, given our inept politicians, but it's far from horrible.
    - bdauvergne 7y ago
      Compared to France low carbon electricity, the numbers are not good. Germany will never reach french level without nuclear energy.
      - pgeorgi 7y ago
        Right now the numbers disagree with your assertion about future development: energy creation is shifting away from _both_ fossil sources and nuclear.
- emj 7y ago
  There are several countries in the EU that likes and produces big an heavy cars, Germany is not alone, my guess from this post is that France primarily produce smaller cars. To make any difference we should make it easy and cheap to buy fast electric bicycles since they have a lifecycle emission that is about one tenth of cars (Blondel, Mispelon, and Ferguson 2011). At the moment customs for chinese electric bicycles are really high in EU.
  - baud147258 7y ago
    I don't think the market is the same between cars and electric bikes. But helping producing affordable electric bike in the EU could be a good idea.
    - emj 7y ago
      I think the markets intersects a lot, at least if you are to trust what the polls made on people who just bought e-bikes, a lot of them used them to replace cars mainly for everyday work and shopping which is HUGE. Research show that more than half of the car users here live 50 min from their work by bike. If we spent money on infrastructure for bikes my travel time by bike could be 10 minutes shorter, that would the 50 min area above even bigger.

baud147258 7y ago

Except that the EU is an union of unequal countries, so if Germany (which is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful country in EU) want to keep an industrial edge via a special case in law, they're going to get it.

maelito 7y ago
It's also that Germany has a reputation for being the eco-friendly country, while in fact not really caring about its climate impact from some very important domains : high-carbon electricity, heavy polluting industry.
- pgeorgi 7y ago
  > high-carbon electricity https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energie/Erzeugung/Tabellen/bruttostromerzeugung.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energ... Renewables up 6% in two years, more than compensating for the shut down nuclear power sources. Fossils are shifting to natural gas which (so I've heard) is supposed to be the least bad of them (and fossils' grand total is also going down). It's not all roses, given our inept politicians, but it's far from horrible.
  - bdauvergne 7y ago
    Compared to France low carbon electricity, the numbers are not good. Germany will never reach french level without nuclear energy.
    - pgeorgi 7y ago
      Right now the numbers disagree with your assertion about future development: energy creation is shifting away from _both_ fossil sources and nuclear.
emj 7y ago
There are several countries in the EU that likes and produces big an heavy cars, Germany is not alone, my guess from this post is that France primarily produce smaller cars. To make any difference we should make it easy and cheap to buy fast electric bicycles since they have a lifecycle emission that is about one tenth of cars (Blondel, Mispelon, and Ferguson 2011). At the moment customs for chinese electric bicycles are really high in EU.
- baud147258 7y ago
  I don't think the market is the same between cars and electric bikes. But helping producing affordable electric bike in the EU could be a good idea.
  - emj 7y ago
    I think the markets intersects a lot, at least if you are to trust what the polls made on people who just bought e-bikes, a lot of them used them to replace cars mainly for everyday work and shopping which is HUGE. Research show that more than half of the car users here live 50 min from their work by bike. If we spent money on infrastructure for bikes my travel time by bike could be 10 minutes shorter, that would the 50 min area above even bigger.