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... And improvements to public transit also increased for long term security? Right?
I can't speak for other EU member states but Austria has been investing a lot in public transport, for a while already.
Speaking for others, my city opened a tram line in 2021 and has been constantly expanding it since. More buses have become electric, and some electric bendy buses are coming too.
Woohoo! One of the great secrets for public transit is to keep building. If you stop, you lose the people and skills to do a good job building. When a city just keeps going, it builds internal skills and knowledge on running the projects so they get cheaper, faster, and hit fewer problems.
The Wien public transit network is stellar. I don't know much about the rest of the country, other than รBB is inexpensive, on time, and clean (DB needs to take notes). Oh, and Salzburg needs some transit build out. The busses won't scale forever there.
Salzburg is probably the worst city in terms of transit and is still perfectly serciceable. It's keadership is still pretty car focused though - and it shows. There is talk about some rail option rosskng the centre bit nothing is ever really getting built because ... think about car traffic which must not loose any capacity ...
Investments in public transport are happening all the time. My city is building metro right now, they will be improving local train connections next year, they bought hybrid and electric buses recently.
That's great to hear! Congratulations on having a city leading to a better future. Those investments take time and political willpower, but they're very worth it.
Scotland just handed out a whole bunch of grants for electric buses
Nice. Hasn't Edinburgh been building trams? There's one to the airport now, isn't there? They need to get up to digging and make a local Tube network. The city has plenty of rock to bore through.
It has! The core bulk of the system has been up and running since 2014. The construction was a bit of a disaster, but now that it's actually going it seems to be a success. An estimated 12 million passenger journeys last year
Nice! The last time I was there was 2016 (I think)? I remember seeing just a bit of the tram on Princes, but had to bus out to the airport still.
Huh, the line should have been open to the airport by then, it started operating in 2014 too. That said, if you were flying l;ate at night or very early in the morning then it might not have been an option, as there are no services between midnight and 6am or something like that. Also, I hope you enjoyed your time in Scotland!
Weird. I guess I might have not noticed the possible route. I do heavily favor taking railed transit, so normally I would have found the tram if it was available.
It's even worse than I thought. I was there in 2017 and the tram was definitely open to the airport May 31, 2014! What was I not seeing?!?
I guess I'll have to come back and visit again to make up for it. I've been to Scotland & Edinburgh a few times and it's always worth the visit. I live in Germany now, so I should be hopping over at some point for a quick trip when I can find the time.
I would like to also see multiple train lines so that there is an extra track just for transporting goods or so public transport does not have to be stopped just because one track has to be repaired or other maintenance. Some dedicated special high speed tracks would also be very cool and if i could dream, have more night trains that can make vacations in Europe cheaper.
France has created a social leasing scheme for households with income of less than โฌ16,300 a person who have to commute at least 15km (9.3 miles) to work, making the switch attractive in rural areas.
Well done! And much better than subsidizing cars in general.
Okay but it doesn't really matter how much EV sales are up. Tell me how much fossil fuel car sales are down.
Most West European countries have been at around 25-30% EV sales with remainder hybrids or ICE.
So up 50% implies up 12.5-15% of share of total volume (500k), so ICE is down by the same share. So about 60-75K fewer ICE out of the total 500k vehicles
Norway was already about 90% EV so the switching line is misleading there. EV / ICE shares were roughly static over last couple of years last I looked. Anyone in Norway still buying ICE must have a good reason given the incentives.
Edit just reread. 500k is total EVs sold for first quarter, so adjust above accordingly. So if 330k ish is normal pre Iran, then a million a quarter is total, etc etc
Every time someone buys an BEV, that's taken away from ICE cars.
as someone that could probably never use an EV for various reason and also hate them for various reasons, also tell me how down ICE car sales are down.
because I luv my ICE car, but boi do I hate the people that made it
What various reasons?
I cant use them because there's 0 infrastructure here for them (eastern eu), I live in a flat so no garage with charger
And I hate them in general because they're mostly tech with a giant cost instead of an affordable car. The ones that are affordable also usually come with terrible battery life or other super degraded basic features.... At least from my knowledge so far
They're also built very unethically in one way or another just like ICE cars...
All in all I'd rather buy a second hand car and line the pockets of a random dude than contribute to the car giants...
I see charging stations all over the map in Romania? But yeah, that's understandable. Just unfortunate that it's one of those supply/demand problem... no one would see the benefit of building a public charging station near their business if there's not many people who'd use it.
If you're looking at used cars, that can also contribute. There's basically no service needed, so there's not as many people like who try to time selling their ICE car before they might need to do some more expensive servicing. And those who are selling for affordable prices are often much older models -> worst technology.
But that's all good points. Hopefully in 10 years the used electric market can become somewhat sustainable...
Without doxxing myself, the nearest charging station to my previous workplace is like 500 metrrs away. It's only got 2 outlets too... Mostly used all the time with no gaps. It's also dead in the middle of the busiest area.
The other one is about 1km away.
With charging it would double my time getting to work probably. I don't think I can leave the car plugged in for 8 hours either... I'd have to get out of work, take my car off the charger then go back.
If I charge it at home instead of at work I'd need to drive a very very short distance but again, I'd need to come back and get my car later after it's charged.
I really don't have time in my day to keep juggling this charging routine. I can barely keep up with just regular car maintenance which I don't often do...
If I could charge at home it would be a whole different story, but most people here live in flats with 0 access to large parking garages let alone charging stations.
And yea agreed on the used market.
I kinda wish I had the means to buy one sometimes, but so many things would need to be right before that can happen that I don't think it will happen in my lifetime :-)) :-/
Edit: oh and in rural areas just forget it lol, though I guess in that case I could install a charger at home which would solve A LOT of my gripes