Somewhere, perhaps cruising Mars in a hydrogen sedan, Elon Musk is smiling.
No, not because Tesla’s Model 3 orders recently surpassed 400,000. Rather, because a motion that just passed in the Dutch parliament could push those orders into the millions in the near future.
The Netherlands’ Dutch Labor Party recently introduced legislation that would ban the sale of gas and diesel cars after the year 2025, giving citizens just under a decade to soak up the country’s Hummer supply. The motion requires that all cars sold by then will need to be fuelled by electricity in some way, rather than solely by gasoline or diesel.
Yes, that means you can still buy your hybrid Prius.
If approved by the country’s senate, The Netherlands will become the second country after Norway to enact such a measure by the proposed deadline. The Dutch are already well on their way to achieving their goal to put 200,000 electric cars on Dutch roads by 2020, an effort accelerated by the country’s short travel distances and high gas prices.
If the motion does pass, it could face a major legal hurdle given that European states can’t unilaterally pass laws that conflict with EU members’ laws. Since cars that meet current EU emissions standards must be legal in all member nations, it’s legally questionable if The Netherlands can ban cars that are allowed in other states.
While many European countries and cities are pursuing green transit initiatives – like Hamburg planning to take all cars off its roads in the next 20 years – convincing Germany’s entire auto industry to shift to hybrid engines, at the very least, is doubtful.
A more realistic, and legal, approach might be to more aggressively swing taxes for consumers of both electric vehicles and those with internal combustion engines. The Dutch government currently supports electric cars with incentives like tax breaks, and European governments already impose significant fuel taxes on gasoline.
Extending those measures in each direction even further could coerce people into accepting that the future does indeed run on electricity without an all-out ban being necessary.
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