Netherlands and India commit to 100% electric vehicles in groundbreaking announcements
In recent announcements in both India and the Netherlands, both countries said they would move entirely away from gas-powered vehicles.
In India, the government is planning to shift to 100 percent electric vehicles by 2030.
Piyush Goyal, the country’s power minister spoke at a youth conference, stating that a working group led by Nitin Gadkari, Road Transport and Highways minister, has already been chosen to determine whether such goal is possible. The group is expected to have its initial meeting sometime in the first week of April.
“Innovation is possible, it just needs an open mind,” said Goyal.
“We are looking at increasing consumption which we can blend with petrol. We are now moving to 5 per cent ethanol blending with petrol and at the next level this will have a transformational impact on farmers’ income,” he added.
In the Netherlands, in a majority vote, the lower house of Dutch parliament supported a motion to ban new sales of petrol or diesel cars, starting in 2025. The motion was brought by the PvdA, which would bring forward Netherland’s commitment to full electric transportation by decades.
The NL Times reports, “Coalition partner VVD finds the motion overambitious and unrealistic. VVD Minister Henk Kamp of Economic Affairs thinks that at most 15 percent of all sold cars can be completely electric in 2025. Party leader Halbe Zijlstra thinks the plan contradicts the Energy Agreement. “It seems crazy to get this plan to work. I think we’ll have to withdraw from the Energy Agreement”, he said.”
PvdA leader Diederik Samsom refuted this, NL Times continues, “He (Samsom) thinks the plan is completely feasible – technology in this area is advancing at a rapid pace and other countries are already ahead of the Netherlands. The plan also has nothing to do with the energy agreement, according to him. “That agreement runs until 2023, we are free in what we do after that. We are ambitious, perhaps other parties are less so”, he said, according to the broadcaster.”
