“Instead of adding expensive technology to the environment, why not simply regulate the weight of cars? »

2024-09-08 02:15:08

AIn the heart of summer, the new European car safety standards start to come into force with great carelessness, like all these technical methods which seem to go without saying. After all, improving road safety is a legitimate cause – no one wants to die, or be killed, in a road accident -, and strengthening cars through innovation is a method that escapes any formal debate or discussion. After seemingly painless measures, however, we found a whole political thought: of a relationship with technology, invested with all kinds of powers and seen as the only provider of solutions to each problem – with which you are responsible for.

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These new car standards are a case in point. From July 7, any (new) four-wheeled vehicle sold in the European Union must be equipped with thousands of electronic systems and sensors enabling lane-keeping assistance, autonomous emergency braking, adaptive of “intelligent” speed, alerting in the event of driver distraction or drowsiness, detecting obstacles in the back of the vehicle, etc.

Cars and trucks will also have to pass new, more demanding crash tests, which will lead to heavier engines, notes UFC-What to choose. It is impossible to anticipate the effect these measures will have on accidents, but it is certain that they will not only contribute to increasing the amount of energy necessary to run our cars, but to worsening their environmental footprint, with more and more electronic devices. screens on board, so more water and energy are required for their production, more metals, rare earths, plastics, etc. The extent of the advantages is uncertain, the disadvantages are certain.

Technological decline

Here we touch on the most amusing paradox in the making of European public policies, each of which seems to have its own merits. While on a floor of Berlaymont we have hard feet to go to the north, we go hard on the ground below to go to the south (hence the importance of the spokesmen of the Council, whose Work is then to build the strong information to convince us that north and south are in fact, more or less, in the same direction).

The European Union has set itself targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, but at the same time is forcing its car industry to reduce the environmental and climate footprint of cars. it increases. We will answer that the current movement, strongly pushed by the EU, is towards the electrification of the fleet. That’s right. But the energy from renewables or nuclear power plants is not unlimited: special efforts in sobriety will be necessary in all sectors if we want to do without fossils. In all sectors, of course, except the car – let’s note in passing that a small Renault Zoe or light Peugeot 208 weighs 1.5 tons, that is to say three times more than a 2CV.