Cars over 20 years old banned in Europe?

[Chryco Psycho]

The reality of zero pollution electric cars is ludicrus ,
Where & how is electricity produced when we already do not have enough ? Coal & Nuke pollute , solar panels require tellurium which has to be mined & is rare to begin with.
Battery production pollutes as does the mining to get lithium etc
Battery disposal also pollutes
With a car like Tesla how do you change the battery , in Panama the best battery lasts 24 months max , so in 24 months you throw out your tesla or send it back to the factory to somehow replace the battery packs ??

[Topcat]

The reality of zero pollution electric cars is ludicrus ,
Where & how is electricity produced when we already do not have enough ? Coal & Nuke pollute , solar panels require tellurium which has to be mined & is rare to begin with.
Battery production pollutes as does the mining to get lithium etc
Battery disposal also pollutes
With a car like Tesla how do you change the battery , in Panama the best battery lasts 24 months max , so in 24 months you throw out your tesla or send it back to the factory to somehow replace the battery packs ??

Regardless of what type of battery chemistry; it all comes down to how many cycles of discharge to charge a battery does.
Heat is definitely a battery killer regardless of what chemistry it is. Wet cell batteries have a slight advantage since wet acid helps cooling.

The batteries in Tesla cars are being cooled by a wavy ribbon tube that surrounds the battery packs.
This helps transfer the heat which increases the lifespan of the Lithium batteries. R-134 refrigerant is pumped thru these tubes to cool the battery packs. Then the whole battery pack which is connected, is impacted in a flame proof gel for safety precaution inside of a box.

The Lithium batteries used in the Tesla's are known as a Lithium 18650 cell.
Initially they were proprietary from Panasonic with an exclusive amp hour range that exceeded the standard 18650 available.
Their milli-amp hour range exceeds what you and I can buy for things like vaporizers.

It's because of these Panasonic batteries is why Tesla cars have a range of 200 miles or more without a re charge.
Life Span is dramatically improved due to the cooling system they built for their battery system.

https://engineering.tamu.edu/media/4247819/ds-battery-panasonic-18650ncr.pdf

I now have been informed that Tesla has began to create their own Lithium battery packs in Sparks, NV.
California declined to take on the extra jobs and was more concerned with environment and legislation B.S.
I am curious are they able to meet what Panasonic offered and are they still working with them.

As  far as mining for  Lithium: I have no idea what is the reserves on Lithium mining is on our planet.
No doubt clawing away to get at the natural resources, tears up and leaves it uninhabitable for nature to re establish itself.
China is the main Lithium raw material provider on the Earth.

The Hydrogen cell fuel car is going to be the only way to be the way that we as caretakers of the Earth, can reduce mining and pollution.

In the  meantime: I'm gonna drive my Cuda like a Bat outta of Freakin Hell before they can pry my cold dead hands off the shifter!

[7212Mopar]

Many people don't realize the inefficiency in electricity generation and transmission over long distances. Hydrogen by far will have much less losses in transmission. Only if we can figure out the cheap and efficient way to generate hydrogen. I can convert my engine to run on hydrogen but will take a hit in HP, about a 60% lost.

[TelisSE440]

Just to clarify, on the first post, Greece has made a «law» (more like a Ministry decision active on Oct 17) forbidding all old cars with historical plates to be driven in the Country and in order to move them you must use trailers 

Historical plates are one of the only means for us to drive all pre 30 year old cars. The plates are issued by three private clubs with some minimum compensation and very cheap insurance with the commitment to drive them only to club events/shows, some racing events, car workshops and maintenance driving.

Nevertheless some "people" were using their cars with historical plates, as daily drivers, under he pretext of «maintenance driving» (maintenance driving in our law is free to interpret, there wasn't any mileage restriction at all!!), by not paying the normal registration and insurance fees.

To combat this, the Government issued the aforementioned order. So my Challenger, along with a lot of other significant historical mobiles in Greece, will have to stay in the garage...

[HP2]

Well, I'd say  make sure you differentiate between simply older cars and vintage or collector cars.  At 40 years plus, many of our  vehicles are of extremely limited use and already subject to special license and registration status in  many European countries.

The issue with 15-25 year old cars being used for daily duty is that they tend to be the mainstay of lower income families and in many cases, tend to be poorly maintained, thus are gross emitters. With proper maintenance and retrofitted equipment, old cars can be almost as efficient as newer cars, but it is much easier to wholesale eliminate them than deal with actual inspections and testing.

[GrandpaKevin]

Just to clarify, on the first post, Greece has made a «law» (more like a Ministry decision active on Oct 17) forbidding all old cars with historical plates to be driven in the Country and in order to move them you must use trailers 

Historical plates are one of the only means for us to drive all pre 30 year old cars. The plates are issued by three private clubs with some minimum compensation and very cheap insurance with the commitment to drive them only to club events/shows, some racing events, car workshops and maintenance driving.

Nevertheless some "people" were using their cars with historical plates, as daily drivers, under he pretext of «maintenance driving» (maintenance driving in our law is free to interpret, there wasn't any mileage restriction at all!!), by not paying the normal registration and insurance fees.

To combat this, the Government issued the aforementioned order. So my Challenger, along with a lot of other significant historical mobiles in Greece, will have to stay in the garage...

Sounds like the law was a result of people abusing the use of historical plates more than an emissions issues?
So you are able to buy regular plates and put them on your classic cars but these plates are very $$$$$?
I see people daily driving older $500 clunker cars with historical plates in my area.
It's obvious they are just using the historical plates as a way to avoid paying for a yearly vehicle registration.
Our local police are pretty good at getting these abusers off the street.

[Marc70challenger]

I can see an issue with people abusing and outright breaking the law concerning vintage cars. 

But what % of the cars on the road are these in Greece and Europe?  What mathematical impact is their " polluting" really contributing?  What is the true agenda? Some grandstanding PC bullshit to appease the average imbecile and play on the sobbing heart strings of morons ?

I see very little - if any, " legislation" or "movements" today that has anything to do with reasonable, logical motivation to address real issues.  People are just played ... grinning the whole way like fools and court jesters

[TelisSE440]

All your points hit bullseye Kevin. Exactly that, people abuse this right in order to drive their 500$ clunker car  without paying the state.

As for daily driving a vintage car, a man could buy a 60s/70s Mopar in U.S.A. but in order to bring it in Greece and register it as a daily driver, he has to pay a 384% fee calculated on the objective value of the car plus shipping. Example 70 Challenger MSRP (1970): 3500$, i buy it in 2018 paying 10000$ (mostly a wreck), i bring it in Greece via container ship (let's say 6000$) and in customs  i have to pay 6000$ plus 40000$ (i forget about 10000$ because they calculate the objective value, in our language meaning the value when restored according to the muscle car market) and all the above multiplied by 3.84, so 46k multiply by 3.84 and we have 176 $ (adjusted more or less in euro).

So everyone goes for registering it as a historical vehicle, paying nothing in customs but with a major drawback. All the paperwork of the car is destroyed and it can never be registered, ever, in our country as a regular vehicle.

Lastly (sorry about so long), it is the police that doesn't do its job here, so we have this kind of laws.

[GrandpaKevin]

Thanks for the post.
I'm sorry to hear of hassles the classic car owners in Europe have to deal with.

I'm curious, I'm seeing a lot of Classic muscle cars coming up for sale on E-bay from Europe, is this the reason?

[Brads70]

More thoughts....
I'm curious as to what they will then do with the boating and shipping industry and aircraft industry if pollution is the real focus? They all pollute way more than automobiles and are running 24/7 . People need cars/trucks to earn a living ( to pay taxes) not so much with boats, jet ski's etc I'm  sure we have all noticed the oil slick ontop of the water from outboard engines. They have oil in the fuel or inject oil which ends up in the water..... Google bunker fuel that all shipping companies use ( including cruise ships). What about lawn equipment, snowmobiles, motorcycles.... What about the RV industry, ( worth billions to our economy, not to mention the social impact)are we going to tow our RV's with electric trucks? I don't see it happening anytime soon. If it does I hope I'm long dead.....
As per usual follow the money......

[Jim AAR]

The problem with Hydrogen for a fuel is that you need massive powerplants (Coal, Natural Gas, or Oil) to produce it that will just move the pollution to a smaller place but creating almost as much. Hydroelectric can be used, but the environmental damage caused by massive Hydro dams cannot be reversed.

Hydrogen gas is extracted from water by a technique known as electrolysis, which involves running high electric current through water to separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The electrolysis process is pretty expensive since it involves high energy expenditure. The energy used to generate electricity in the electrolysis process is harnessed from fossil fuels like oil, natural gas or coal. It can also be tapped from renewable energy sources like solar, wind and hydropower to ensure no greenhouse gas emissions. Obtaining volumes of oxygen by this method is still under research to establish a viable method of generating it domestically at a relatively low cost.

Disadvantages of Hydrogen Energy

While hydrogen energy has a lot of admirable benefits, it's not really the outright preferable, clean and cheap energy source for most governments and companies. In gaseous state, it's quite volatile. While its volatility gives it an edge over energy sources in terms of accomplishing numerous tasks, it equally renders it risky to use and work around.  Some of the disadvantages of hydrogen energy include:

Hydrogen energy is expensive

Electrolysis and steam reforming, the two main processes of hydrogen extraction are extremely expensive. This is the real reason it's not heavily used across the world. Today, hydrogen energy is chiefly used to power most hybrid vehicles. A lot of research and innovation is required to discover cheap and sustainable ways to harness this form of energy. Until then, hydrogen energy would remain exclusively for the rich.

Storage complications

One of hydrogen properties is that it has a lower density. In fact, it is a lot less denser than gasoline. This means that it has to be compressed to liquid state and stored the same way at lower temperatures to guarantee its effectiveness and efficiency as an energy source. This reason also explains why hydrogen must at all times be stored and transported under high pressure, which is why transportation and common use is far from feasible.

It's not the safest source of energy

The power of hydrogen should not be underestimated at all. Although gasoline is a little more dangerous than hydrogen, hydrogen is hugely flammable and frequently makes headlines for its potential dangers. Compared to gas, hydrogen lacks smell, which makes any leak detection almost impossible. To detect leaks, one must install sensors.

Tricky to move around

It's a daunting task to transport hydrogen brilliantly due to its lightness. Oil can be transported safely because it's mostly pushed through pipes. Coal can conveniently be transported in dump trucks. Hydrogen also presents challenges when considering moving it in large quantities, which is why it's mostly only transported in small batches.

Hydrogen energy cannot sustain the population

Despite the fact that hydrogen is bountiful in supply, the cost of harnessing it limits extensive utilization. As you realize, it's quite challenging to disrupt the status quo. Energy from fossil fuels still rule the world. There is also no framework put in place to ensure cheap and sustainable hydrogen energy for the normal car owner in the future. Even if hydrogen were to become cheap right now, it would take years to become the most used source of energy since vehicles themselves and service stations would need to be customized to conform to hydrogen requirements. This would require massive capital outlay.

It's a fact that hydrogen energy is a renewable resource because it's abundantly available and its impacts hugely neglected. However, hydrogen companies will, in real sense, need other forms of non-renewable energy such as fossil (coal, natural gas, and oil) to separate it from oxygen. We may be able to minimize over-reliance on fossils fuels when we embrace hydrogen energy, but it will be daunting to get rid of it from the system.


The whole problem is, is that it takes energy to make energy and all the ways of making energy produce their own kinds of pollutants, so until we come up with some kind of "Beam Me Up Scotty" technology we will always be reliant on energy as Pure Energy does Not really exist to us mere mortals to harness.

So the full answer to the question of whether pure energy exists is:

For all of the particles that exist, massive and massless, energy is only one property of them, and cannot exist independently.
For all of the situations where energy appears to be lost in a system, such as through gravitational decay, there exists some form of radiation carrying off that energy, leaving it conserved.
And that dark energy itself may be the purest form of energy, existing independent of particles, but as far as any effect other than the expansion of the Universe, that energy is inaccessible to everything else in the Universe.
As far as we can tell, energy is not something we can isolate in a laboratory, but only one of many properties that matter, antimatter and radiation all possess. Creating energy independent of particles? It might be something the Universe itself does, but until we learn how to create (or destroy) spacetime itself, we find ourselves unable to make it so.

[MOPAR MITCH]

I believe in some other countries (Japan as an example), the older the car is, the increasingly higher price to register and renew for license plates.  Basically they want the public to drive newer cars and replace often with newer cars.... also, aftermarket parts are difficult to get, if also becoming non-existent.

[Brads70]

I'm left thinking.... do I buy another car ( Javelin) ? Will I end up with a 1:1 scale diecast car that I can't drive?  What will this do to the value of our cars? Not good I'd imagine?  Not a happy camper thinking about this...?

[HP2]

Well, ultimately, yea, they will become 1:1 diecasts. The only variable to the question is when will that happen. All things evolve and change, and our cars will  change eventually, otherwise we'd all be tooling around in surrys. To that point, unless you are in  Pennsylvania Dutch Amish country, no one uses horse and carriage to get around in the developed world on a daily basis.

[Shoooter]

hopefully there is a exemption  for classic cars