The banning of diesel (and potentially gasoline) cars in mainland Europe and the UK appears to be accelerating as a Denmark-led coalition of 11 countries proposed an EU-wide ban on the sale of diesel- and gasoline-powered cars by 2040.
This is not the first time Denmark has called for a ban on internal combustion engine sales. A year ago, it proposed an internal deadline of 2030, but EU rules prohibited unilateral action. Denmark scrapped the plan, but echoes of it remain in this year'r proposal.
Danish Climate and Energy Minister Dan Jorgensen told Reuters that if the EU would not adopt the plan union-wide, he'd like the regulations softened so that individual countries could set their own timetables. Jorgensen hopes that more members will follow those in Denmark's existing alliance, which includes Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and five others.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Brexit divide, the UK government is exploring plans to accelerate its own bans. A new timetable being floated is even more ambitious than Denmark's, calling for an end to new ICE sales by 2035, says Driving.
The original timeline, announced in 2017, largely mirrored Denmark's new proposal to the EU. The existing UK plan makes allowances for hybrid vehicles, so it would not be a blanket ban on anything with an internal combustion engine.
Similar notions have been floated stateside. In 2017, a California legislator introduced a bill proposing a 2040 deadline for the elimination of new gasoline and diesel vehicle sales. Recently, California's authority to set its own emissions standards has become the target of the Trump administration, which is attempting to revoke the state's autonomy in regulating vehicle emissions and has even threatened to withhold federal highway funding in an ongoing power struggle that is likely to make its way to the Supreme Court.