On Wednesday, Britain’s Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs released documents detailing the country’s plan to reduce air pollution over the next several years. Most notably, the United Kingdom will ban the sale of new petrol or diesel-powered cars and vans by 2040.

In addition to the ban on gas vehicles, the government reiterated its desire to fully implement its recently-announced £2.7 billion investments into low-emission taxis, car-rental programs, roads, and green bus retrofits.

In its plan, the government pledges to be the “the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it.”

Europe’s Green Trend

Britain’s announcement comes at a time when air quality levels are increasingly at the forefront of policies across Europe, as the continent tries to grapple with the increased effects of climate change.

“It’s important we all gear up for a significant change, which deals not just with the problems to health caused by emissions but the broader problems caused in terms of accelerating climate change,” Britain’s Environment Secretary Michael Gove said.

New diesel and petrol cars are to be banned from 2040 as part of a new strategy to tackle air pollution https://t.co/Bmj3JSq6BN pic.twitter.com/MEjFNoqO9R

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 26, 2017

Britain’s new policy mimics France’s ban on gas and diesel cars by 2040, which was announced last month after the country struggled with dense smog and pollution in its larger urban areas. It’s also inspiring some Irish politicians to advocate for a similar commitment.

“If Ireland doesn’t change it’s in the danger of becoming a dumping ground. We need to set a date and work from it, without targets we are rudderless,” said Ireland’s Green Party Councillor Ciaran Cuffe.

Too Little, Too Late?

Some politicians, including former Labour Leader Ed Miliband, are saying that this announcement is largely meant to act as a media charade, to distract from ongoing Brexit negotiations and the fact that the U.K. government has been slow to tackle the issue seriously.

Fear that new car petrol/diesel ban in 23 years time is smokescreen for weak measures to tackle 40,000 deaths a year from air pollution now.

— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) July 25, 2017

Criticism is also emerging from industry officials who condemn the government’s plan because of the negative ramifications it may have on car manufacturing jobs.

“Outright bans risk undermining the current market for new cars and our sector, which supports over 800,000 jobs across the U.K.,” said Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

Even among supporters of a gas car ban, some are critical of the timeline, which they consider to be too forgiving.

Areeba Hamid, a clean air campaigner at Greenpeace UK said: “We cannot wait nearly a quarter of a century for real action to tackle the public health emergency caused by air pollution.”

While 2040 was set as a benchmark by other countries, India has stated that every vehicle sold in the country should be powered by electricity by 2030.

Norway has adopted a similar rule, but has set its target to ban diesel-powered vehicles by 2025. Forty percent of all cars sold in Norway last year were electric or hybrid, making the country a leader in this area.

Maybe Not…

In comparison to some other countries, the U.K.’s goals seem far off. Yet, researchers are confident that the market might naturally transition to cleaner cars sooner than politicians expect.

The Dutch financial group ING released a report earlier this month predicting that the electric car market will see a major breakthrough between 2017 and 2024, and could supply 100 percent of Europe’s car demand by 2035.

Car manufacturers aren’t wasting any time either. Tesla made waves when it announced its mass market electric Model 3 car earlier this month.

Also this month, Volvo said that all of its cars would be be completely or partially electric by 2019. Volvo’s chief executive Håkan Samuelsson called for the “end of the solely combustion engine-powered car.” And BMW announced on Tuesday that it would start building an electric model of the Mini compact car in England through 2023.

Celia Heudebourg

Celia Heudebourg is an editorial intern for Law Street Media. She is from Paris, France and is entering her senior year at Macalester College in Minnesota where she studies international relations and political science. When she’s not reading or watching the news, she can be found planning a trip abroad or binge-watching a good Netflix show. Contact Celia at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Volvo has set itself apart from other mainstream automakers this month by announcing that all of its new models from 2019 onwards will be electric or hybrid. Five fully electric models and a range of hybrids will become available between 2019 and 2021. In a year in which Tesla has surpassed Ford Motors and GM in market value, the shift toward electric can only be seen as a smart move for Volvo. But, interestingly enough, it was not actually a choice made to corner the American market.

Volvo is owned by Geely Motors, a little known Chinese company that purchased the Swedish brand from Ford in 2010 for a fraction of the cost that Ford had originally paid. The purchase could have driven Volvo into the ground but instead has given it new life in the Chinese market, where government regulations favor electric and hybrid vehicles in large cities. Geely has built a name for itself with its reinvigoration of Volvo and has now moved on to purchasing the makers of London’s ubiquitous black cabs, the racing brand Lotus, and the flying car start-up Terrafugia. Volvo is not the only brand under the Geely umbrella to go green–Geely opened a solar powered factory near Coventry, England this year which has created all-electric cabs for London Taxi Co. The UK government has been preparing plans to give taxi drivers grants for switching to these low emission cabs.

Geely stock price has been climbing ever upward over the past several years, tripling over the course of 2016-2017. The Chinese juggernaut may not be a household name in the U.S. at the moment, but it is expanding across Europe and into the Southeast Asian market, where American automakers have historically struggled to gain a foothold. If the company continues to commit to low emissions vehicles and transforming iconic brands into electric powerhouses its success may spread to the American market. Although the company will probably never have the immense production facilities of its direct competitors, with Ford and GM sales taking a downward turn, Geely may have found its moment to begin edging into the North American market.

The shift to electric has been underway for several years and Volvo is truly just a high profile manifestation of a larger trend–however every effort to drive consumers toward electric energy should be applauded. From the Nissan Leaf to Tesla’s more affordable Model S to the ever popular Prius, electric and hybrid vehicles are now settling into a price range that first time buyers are more comfortable with–but what about drivers with loyalty to a certain brand? In those instances, a massive transformation like the one Volvo is undergoing captures a section of consumers that may never have planned to buy electric–but could change their minds when the vehicle comes from a name they trust. Whether or not the Volvo transition is just a drop in the bucket on the path to a fully electric future, Geely clearly has a vision and commitment to electric energy that makes it unique in the conventional automotive market.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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France’s new environment minister just announced the Macron Administration’s first series of new environmental measures, which aim to make the country carbon-neutral by 2050. These measures were also created with the intention of maintaining the country’s leadership in fulfilling the commitments created by the Paris Agreement.

One of the more ambitious portions of this plan was the announcement that France plans to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040. This would inevitably force the country’s car owners to switch to electric and hybrid cars–which Volvo announced Wednesday it would start exclusively producing in 2019. Part of the plan includes providing lower income households with aid so they can swap their polluting vehicles for cleaner alternatives.

Ecology Minister Nicolas Hulot called the move a “veritable revolution” and “a way to fight against air pollution” as a question of public health policy. He added that while it might seem like a difficult objective for France’s car manufacturers to accomplish, they have the resources and plans in place to do so successfully. Automotive experts have agreed with Hulot’s statements.

“The timescale involved here is sufficiently long term to be taken seriously,” said Professor David Bailey, an automotive industry expert at Aston University. “If enacted it would send a very clear signal to manufacturers and consumers of the direction of travel and may accelerate a transition to electric cars.”

With these new measures, France has joined the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, and India as countries that plan on eliminating internal combustion engine-powered cars to some degree before 2030. It also coincides with a Bloomberg News Energy Finance report that predicts electric cars will make up 54 percent of all light-duty vehicles by 2040, up 19 percent from what was previously thought.

Other French environmental plans include eventually ending the importation of products that contribute to deforestation around the world–particularly in the Amazon rainforest, Congo, and South-East Asia–such as palm oil and unsustainably grown soya. Hulot stated that deforestation represents 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and added that it would be “schizophrenic” to encourage the continued production of these items. France has also pledged to reduce nuclear energy from 75 per cent to 50 per cent of the country’s energy mix by 2025.

Gabe Fernandez

Gabe is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a Peruvian-American Senior at the University of Maryland pursuing a double degree in Multiplatform Journalism and Marketing. In his free time, he can be found photographing concerts, running around the city, and supporting Manchester United. Contact Gabe at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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This week Tesla announced that production would commence for its new midsize Model 3, a fully electric midsize sedan that can seat five and travel up to 215 miles per charge. Its advertised price is $35,000, but new fees for electric cars may have you forking over more green to go green.

Over the last year five states have introduced legislation that added fees to the purchase of an electric or hybrid vehicle. In West Virginia, a bill that was passed in June requires a $200 fee every year for an electric vehicle and a $100 yearly fee for every hybrid. Similar legislation has been enacted in 10 states since 2011, with most governors and state legislatures justifying the added fees due to backlogs in road repairs and the need to make up for money that would have otherwise come from gas taxes.

Even California, which is home to Tesla and the Zero Emission program, approved of a $100 yearly fee for electric car owners. Governor Jerry Brown cited a need for “safe and smooth roads” to support the fee.

Granted, for someone who is willing to pay $35,000 for a car, an additional $100 service fee seems like a small increase. But supporters of electric (and other environmentally friendly) vehicles believe that the fees and lack of tax incentives can stall the sales growth of eco-friendly cars in the automotive market.

Large auto companies such as Ford, Nissan, and Volvo currently have electric models and are expanding their electric programs, but electric cars only make .6 percent of the auto market and sales growth has dramatically decreased from 227 percent to five percent last year.

For example, in 2015 when Georgia ended the $5,000 tax credit for electric and hybrid vehicles and instead put a $200 fee on them, the sales of electric cars dropped by 93 percent.

But what could really damage electric vehicles’ ability to break into the mainstream market is the potential that Congress will not extend the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit (for the first 200,000 vehicles produced) in the new budget.

The tax credit is important because currently the technology to produce electric cars hasn’t caught up–essentially Tesla can’t make an affordable mass produced electric car that will cost the same as a regular car because the technology hasn’t gotten there yet. The tax credit allows for producers such as Tesla to still be competitive in the automobile market and to turn a profit. By doing this the government is hoping for more innovation and expansion of the electric car market. Experts believe that if this credit is removed, then the projections for electric cars by 2025 will decrease by 250,000 vehicles. As the U.S. struggles to deal with its carbon footprint, electric cars could be a valuable tool, and priorities need to be seriously considered.

James Levinson

James Levinson is an Editorial intern at Law Street Media and a native of the greater New York City Region. He is currently a rising junior at George Washington University where he is pursuing a B.A in Political Communications and Economics. Contact James at staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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In a world where the price of gas is costly for both our wallets and the environment, environmentally friendly cars are becoming increasingly popular. In fact, the United States government is encouraging the purchase and use of environmentally friendly cars by offering tax credits. Read on to learn about the environmental car trend, tax credits offered, and their effects.

 What are environmentally friendly cars?

Environmentally friendly cars, sometimes referred to as “green” cars, are essentially cars that minimize their harmful effects on the environment. They can include, but are not limited to:

• Hybrid cars: While these cars can take many forms, this category of eco-friendly cars include any type of car that uses multiple energy sources to power a vehicle. The most common type is a hybrid-electric vehicle.
• Bio-diesel cars: These cars are powered by diesel, or a mix of diesel and vegetable oil.
• Ethanol-powered cars: This category of eco-friendly cars use ethanol created from a material such as corn, barley, or wheat.
• Electric cars: These cars run on electricity and are plugged in to gain enough charge to function.
• Hydrogen-powered cars: These vehicles use hydrogen for power, in the form of fuel cells. Many versions of hydrogen cars are still in the development processes.

Eco-friendly vehicles make up a relatively small number of the vehicles sold in the United States, but the market is growing. JD Power and Associates has estimated that by 2015 eco-friendly cars that contain some sort of hybrid component could make up as much as 10 percent of the vehicle market share.

What tax credits can you obtain for using an environmentally friendly car?

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 established a series of tax incentives, namely credits, for individuals purchasing or leasing eco-friendly vehicles such as electric cars, hybrids, and alternative-fuel vehicles. This bill was expanded upon by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Because of the added cost of their fuel-efficient technologies as well as their lack of presence in the current auto market, eco-friendly cars are significantly more expensive than similar cars with engines run on gasoline. These federal tax incentives were aimed at increasing the sales of these “green” cars to make them a larger part of the transportation vehicle market and thus reduce harmful carbon emissions in the United States into the environment.

Currently, individuals purchasing electric cars and plug-in hybrids can qualify for a tax credit of up to $7,500 dollars, which in some cases can significantly reduce the cost of these cars. These incentives are designed to gradually phase out for a given manufacturer after that company has sold more than 60,000 electric cars. Individual states also have their own incentives for purchasing “green” cars. Since their introduction into the car market, there has been debate as to whether these incentives are effective reaching their goals or whether they should even be offered in the first place.

What is the argument for creating these tax credits?

Supporters of these incentives argue that tax credits will increase sales of this type of car and help establish eco-friendly car brands such as Tesla or the Nissan Leaf as economically viable options for consumers. When the federal and state tax incentives are combined with the increased fuel economy, they often become just as cheap, if not cheaper, than standard gasoline-combustion cars. Leases are popular for these relatively-new cars, and in many states such as Washington and Georgia, where state tax incentives for eco-friendly cars are high, individuals are able to lease these cars nearly for free.

Supporters assert that these tax incentives allow fledgling hybrid manufacturers to gain an economic foothold and to become serious competitors in the auto market. Through increased sales due to federal tax incentives, Nissan was able to open lithium ion battery factories in Tennessee to cut down on cars being shipped from Japan, allowing them to drop the price of the Nissan Leaf by $6,400. Price reductions such as this will lead to increased sales and company growth, allowing hybrid manufacturers to gain a larger share of the profit from auto sales. Altogether, as hybrid manufacturers grow and as more people purchase and lease hybrid and electric cars, US emissions will be dramatically reduced.

What is the argument against creating the tax credits?

Opponents of these tax incentives argue that the tax credits do not make these environmentally-friendly cars more cost effective; they do not help reduce emissions; and they only make “green” cars more affordable to already-wealthy individuals while requiring taxpayers and the federal government to foot the bill.

The federal government imposes standards on the average fuel economy of all vehicles each company sells, and mandates that a company cannot exceed this limit. By selling more hybrid cars, car companies are in fact able to sell more low-fuel economy cars while still adhering to these federal standards, thus negating the tax incentives’ effect on improving the environment. And while tax incentives in some states may make eco-friendly cars cheaper to lease, some studies indicate that even with the tax incentives cars such as the Chevy Volt could still take up to 27 years to pay off.

The Congressional Budget Office stated in a 2012 report that it would require tax incentives of about $12,000 — $4,500 higher than current incentives — to have a serious impact upon the price of hybrid and electric cars. According to these reports, hybrid and electric cars still are not affordable to the average consumer. Opponents then argue that the tax incentives only serve to make these eco-friendly cars more affordable for affluent families who can already afford them. Meanwhile, the federal government and taxpayers are forced to cover the money lost by these incentives. The Congressional Budget Office report estimated these incentives would cost the federal government roughly $7.5 billion through 2019.

There’s also some concern about whether or not hybrids are actually good for the environment, as depicted in the infographic below.

Conclusion

Environmentally friendly cars are certainly here to stay, and while their market share increases the government has been happy to encourage it. However, as they become more prevalent among the average driver, the government may not have the resources to continue with the tax credits. For now, it’s a innovative program that could be a good choice for those in the market for a new car.

Resources

Primary

State of Utah: Clean Fuel Vehicle Tax Credit

U.S. Congress: Energy Policy Act of 2005

Additional

Wall Street Journal: To Spark Buyers for Electric Cars, Drop the Price to Nearly $0

Street: Why Electric Cars Are Selling in California: They’re Free

Palisades Hudson Financial Group: Atlanta Turns Over a New Leaf

Seattle Times: Seen a Tesla Today? Electric Cars Turn Up Fastest in Washington State

The New York Times: Payoff For Efficient Cars Takes Years

Fortune: Electric Vehicles Still Struggling to be Cost-Competitive

American Enterprise Institute: Subsidy-Powered Vehicles

Forbes: If Tesla Would Stop Selling Cars, We’d All Save Some Money

Congressional Budget Office: Effects of Federal Tax Credits for the Purchase of Electric Vehicles

Bankrate.com: Tax Breaks For Gas Savers

Green Car Reports: Will Georgia Kill Its $5,000 Tax Credit For Electric-Car Purchases

San Francisco Gate: Car Fuel Efficiency Tax Breaks

Internal Revenue Service: Going Green May Reduce Your Taxes

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The name “Tesla” can provoke various thoughts: the character played by David Bowie in The Prestige; Tesla Motors; “tesla coil” and, of course, its inventor Mr. Nikola Tesla himself. Aside from providing the car company with a catchy name, the famous inventor’s original 1882 design of an AC motor is the predecessor to the one currently used by Tesla Motors.

On June 12, 2014 the Tesla Motors company made headlines by announcing that it would make its patents publicly available. As of the end of last year, Tesla had been issued 203 patents and had more than 280 applications pending with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

According to Tesla’s official blog, “Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.”

Why did the company release this information, allowing others to access its secrets? What does the wide availability of these patents mean for the future of Tesla Motors and the entire the auto industry?

To answer the question of why Tesla Motors made its patents publicly available, one need not search any further than the company’s website, where Musk explains the company’s hope that the wide availability will lead to rapid-evolution of the electric car industry.

Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis…We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.

-Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motor Company

Why release their patents now, though? Initially employees of Tesla Motors worried that if the technology were made public, large auto companies would copy the information and leave Tesla Motors entirely unable to compete; however, as Musk states in the blog, they quickly realized that this was not the case.

Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.

-Elon Musk

Will It Catch On?

Tesla expects this release to encourage other auto companies to build on the information, leading to the mass production of electric cars; however, despite the appeal of electric cars, they still have numerous drawbacks limiting marketability to the average consumer. For example, the vehicles typically only have a range of about 100 miles and take hours to recharge, whereas cars run by gasoline have a 300-plus mile range and only require a quick stop at a gas station to refuel. On the plus side, however, electric cars cost only 2 cents per mile to run. For electronic vehicle sales to really take off, the upfront costs will need to be substantially more affordable. Unfortunately, reducing carbon emissions alone is not motivation enough for the majority of car buyers to go electric.

Despite the fact that the number of electric vehicles sold each year does not even approach that of gasoline-powered vehicles, the number is increasing. In 2013, approximately 96,000 electronic vehicles were sold, almost doubling the number sold in 2012.

Time will tell if Tesla Motors’ release of its patents will provide sufficient motivation for other auto companies to beef up the production of electric vehicles and lead to the reduction in the impact of drivers on the environment. If this technology is embraced by other car manufacturers, the automaker community could work together to improve the way electric cars are made and marketed. Doing so would have a tremendous impact on the environment. According to research compiled by Sherry Boschert, author of the book, Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that Will Recharge America, use of electronic vehicles would reduce the amount of pollution released by cars between 32 and 99 percent. Though there is discrepancy between the exact amount of reduction the switch to electric cars would cause, there is a general consensus that it would be beneficial. Although no one can be sure exactly what will happen now that Tesla Motors has made their patents public, it seems to be a step in the right direction of sharing potentially valuable information throughout the industry.

—

Marisa Mostek (@MarisaJ44) loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [randychiu via Flickr]

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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