“Developing countries” is a broad category, but it’s certainly not the case that they’re free of vehicles except for rich people driving around in expensive cars.
Here is another article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-04-20/hyperd..., quote:
> The second reason is that two-wheelers are going electric faster than any other segment of road transport. BNEF’s latest estimates put 2020 electric two-wheeler sales at over 25 million. That’s about 35% of sales globally, far ahead of passenger cars where EVs are still only around 5% of sales.
Although the issue with that statistic is probably because China has banned gas powered scooters (other developing countries are still catching up).
I predict that Electric scooters will long replace gas powered ones in developing countries before EV cars replace ICE cars. It’s kind of an economic no brainer given how cheap they are.
And I bet that the countries with cheap, polluting vehicles are those with lower life expectancy.
EDIT: It makes me think why there is not much push for electric motorcycles. Whenever EV is mentioned, it's always been a car.
> It makes me think why there is not much push for electric motorcycles. Whenever EV is mentioned, it's always been a car.
That simply isn’t accurate. Chinese electric scooters were common even back in 2008, they are pretty ubiquitous by now. Electric motorcycles aren’t common, but neither are gas powered motorcycles in that country. These aren’t the fancy “for play” motorcycles replacements or electric bikes that the west want, but are definitely work horses in developing countries.
A lot of off the grid solutions for electricity, getting regular gasoline shipments to those locations is much more of a challenge.
The EVs will be small motorcycles, e-bikes, scooters, etc. You get the EV with a 100 mile range, you already have a (used) panel. The small EVs can be quickly recharged because they are small (or battery swaps, which are far more feasible on e-bike/e-scooters).
Starlink or cell towers provide the internet.
As stated in the article, air quality will increase substantially.
Unfortunately global warming will disrupt everyone's fundamentals: water and food.
I see this thinking as a main problem. Cities are being built around cars, workplaces are being built around cars and etc. Banning ICE vehicles could be a step into transforming cities to be more people friendly, more kid friendly, more community friendly.
There are places in the world were cities were not built around cars. You take a train (or any other kind of public transport) to go to work, or you take a bike. Or you walk.
I'm all for aggressive policies to encourage the change, but like you, I don't think outright bans are going to be doable in the short term.
More to the point, people in rural areas pollute far more per person than people living in cities. We need to end rural subsidies to stop encouraging people to live in rural areas.
You’d probably have much faster results mandating them and retrofitting cars.
Changeover to EV will take decades.
Public transport, dedicated cycling infrastructure, and planning policies aiming for the "15 minute neighbourhood" are what you're looking for.
Even many neighborhoods designed to be 100% walkable and pedestrian-first make affordances for delivery vehicles and similar. Those vehicles can and should be electric, but cycling and transit still aren't at all complete substitutes.
Commutes can also be faster by public transit than by car, especially if start and destination are in the same city.
Delivery vehicles and trucks are probably the most difficult, but they're also major contributors to the noise and stink.
Billions of people seem to have worked out how to do this on bicycles and public transport.
By comparison, my residential building here in Berlin has a restaurant and a café on the ground floor, a business office on the first floor, and the rest is residential, and even the parts of the city with houses rather than apartment blocks do similar things horizontally rather than vertically: house, house, kebabs, five houses, small supermarket, three houses, office.
Similarly in the UK, you’ll have domestic resistances above or next to shops and pubs and offices. Or next to (I’ve never seen them above) industrial buildings: workshops, factories, etc.
In the US, we are so far away from "forcing" people to get rid of ICE cars that the very concept is ludicrous. What we instead force is ownership of ICE cars, and it's nearly impossible to live without one because we have banned, via law, the land use that would allow a person even the option of living without a car.
As somebody who advocates for the mere legalization of car-free land use, I am frequently accused of forcing others to get rid of their car, or of being exclusionary, for merely proposing the possibility.
People in the US are somewhat sick in the head when it comes to cars, and need to at least let the huge population of people who don't want to be subjected to the violence and pollution from cars to live that way. The contrast between Paris, which great expanded non-car options during the pandemic, and a car-addicted city like San Francisco which can't even convert a lightly used beach highway into a bike and walkway, is massive.
The US must change drastically, but the drastic change is to allow people to ditch their cars, not force them.
I could certainly see cities like London banning ICE cars within their centres within 5 years, without much impact on poorer individuals. It’s already financially prohibitive to drive into the centre due to the congestion charge, and most people would consider it insane to drive due to traffic, and the fact that public transport is about twice a quick.
Banning sales of internal combustion engine vehicles and products on a short timeline might be reasonable, but banning the operation of ICE vehicles is financially a very regressive policy.
Buying a new electric car to get to work might not seem like a big deal to professionals in six-figure jobs, but it would be a crushing blow to someone making $15/hr who plans to drive their Honda Civic until the wheels fall off.
Any actual policy decisions will need to focus on new car sales while also incentivizing people to upgrade to EVs. Maybe a cash-for-clunkers style program that takes ICE vehicles off the road and subsidizes the purchase of a new EV.
Outright banning ICE transportation is a no-go unless we have a plan to alleviate the financial burden a sudden change puts on the lower class vehicle owners. It can be done, but it would be expensive.