Around a month ago, Francina Armengol was ambushed in Madrid. At a pre-Fitur tourism fair session organised by the Exceltur alliance for tourism excellence she was left friendless in the face of an onslaught on various fronts. She couldn't even count on fellow PSOE-ite, the president of Valencia Ximo Puig: Valencia's PSOE is not in favour of a tourist tax.
The Balearic tax was but one issue. It was the one that grabbed most attention, as Francina copped it from the likes of Carmen Riu, whose brother is now of interest to the authorities in Florida. It was as well that the allegations against Luis Riu hadn't surfaced pre-Fitur; Francina might otherwise have wandered into dangerous territory re "irregular" practices in seeking to get her own back on Carmen.
Moderating that session was the president of Exceltur. The moderation was not as moderate as it perhaps should have been. The Exceltur president is José María González Álvarez. His day job is that of the CEO of Europcar, one of the car-hire giants which don't always appear to be the Balearic government's best friends.
Francina couldn't even rely on the moderator. Apart from the fact that José María was supposedly moderating, it wasn't entirely a surprise that he seemed disinclined to give Francina an easy ride. Within Exceltur, one has always felt that there must be business leaders who take a different view to the big hoteliers on an issue as controversial as holiday rentals: the car-hire sector would be one of them. Holiday rentals are good news for Europcar and others.
It wasn't holiday rentals, however, that had moderated José María's moderation. What had annoyed him in particular was an aspect of the Balearic government's proposed legislation for climate change. Faced with the prospect of all hire cars in the Balearics being electric by 2030, he informed Francina that "it will be the sector which decides this and not the Balearics". In actual fact the deadline for all hire cars being electric will be 2035. Seventeen years away; there is surely time for the car-hire sector to fall into line. Isn't there?
José María's apparent disagreement with Francina was not entirely in keeping with Europcar's own thinking. At the International Car Rental Show in Las Vegas last April, Europcar unveiled an initiative to create an all-electric car club. The car-hire sector is fully aware of the dynamics - electric cars, demanded because of their environmental friendliness, are going to have a significant impact on the industry.
In pure PR terms, José María might have adopted a more moderate tone with Francina. But the electric stipulation was just the latest issue in the far from harmonious relationship between the Balearic government and the hire-car multinationals. There has been all the business with not registering cars in the Balearics, with tax being paid elsewhere, with the hire-car sector being accused of "saturating" the islands' roads in summer.
It may have been the case that José María had felt that the Balearic government was stealing Europcar's thunder: look, we're already planning for an electric future, and we don't need a government to impose it. Possibly it was. But setting aside the differences that the multinationals have with the government, why should there be a problem with going all electric? Seventeen years represent a long time for technologies to further advance, for costs to come down, for infrastructure to be in place. The government is planning this infrastructure, and for islands the size of the Balearics, there can ultimately be little doubt that an all-electric future is eminently feasible.
There is a fear with the government's climate change strategy that some of it is just designed to grab headlines and be a potential boost to votes in 2019. Nevertheless, this government is the first to truly attempt to try and get to grips with climate change and with the related subjects, such as switching to renewables, if Madrid wasn't being as obstinate as it is.
An all-electric hire-car future is seventeen years off. Of course it's feasible. Who makes the decision shouldn't be the issue.
Showing posts with label Electric vehicles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Electric vehicles. Show all posts
Saturday, February 17, 2018
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Body Electric: Cars and energy
At Puerto Alcúdia's recent spring fair, one of the exhibits was that of an electric car. The fairs are often the venues for environmentally-conscious propaganda and promotion. The local environment ministry is always to the fore with its recycling bags and leaflets. Planet saving has become a tradition of the traditional.
The local environment ministry has a thing about electric cars, or should I say electric buggies. They are described as buses, but they are like what you get on a golf course except bigger - the electric multi-people carrier. Not that these buggies would ever set wheel onto a golf course, if the environment ministry had its way, because golf courses, more of them, there would not be.
The regional government, courtesy of the environment ministry, bought three of these buggies in 2006. They cost 60,000 euros. Five years on and the three buggies are unused, as they have been unused ever since they were acquired. One of them would be especially hard to be usable. It was never actually delivered. Who was ultimately responsible for their purchase? Jaume Font, he of the new La Lliga, and then the Partido Popular's environment minister.
They were bought because ... . Well, why were they bought? No one seems to have really known what they were going to do with them. And they don't move very fast. Indeed, so slowly do they go that they weren't considered appropriate for somewhere with as slow a pace of life as the Albufera nature park. Visitors apparently would prefer their bird- and wildlife-watching on something with a bit more zip. Whether they would have even been suitable for the terrain is quite another matter. What about using them at the Mondragó park in Santanyí? Well, what about doing this? The buggies were despatched, and there they remained. Unused.
For two years, at a cost of 4,000 euros to rent a space at Mondragó, the two bus-buggies which did turn up stood idle. Finally, when the PSM Mallorcan socialists got hold of the environment ministry early last year, they had the good sense to move them again. Not that they were going to be used for anything, just that they were on their way to some government land where it didn't cost to store them. Maybe the university might now want them? Maybe it would. Or maybe the government should just sell them to a golf course at a no-doubt knocked-down price.
At a time when the cost of petrol rises by the week - it is now an average of 1.363 euros per litre - the attractions of electric vehicles grow. President Antich, one eye on the environmental vote no doubt and critical of the previous administration's lunatic purchase of vehicles that didn't do anything, has announced that he hopes that, by 2015, there will be some 7,500 electric vehicles knocking around the Balearics.
As ever, figures can be put on what this would mean. A 67% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, for example. How is the figure arrived at? Pass. But arrived at, it is. This fleet of quietly-moving vehicles, and it should be noted that electric vehicles are criticised on safety grounds because you can't hear them coming, would not solely be those of the government. Far from it. The car-hire sector has been engaged in discussions.
Electric vehicles are all well and good. They are well and good for the environment, potentially. But how is the electricity created? Currently, so we keep being reminded, the power station in Alcúdia is one of the main culprits when it comes to emissions. It may move to being fuelled by natural gas, but it would still emit pollutants, admittedly at lower levels than coal. And then there are the renewables, solar energy in particular.
The regional government, at a cost of nearly 200,000 euros, commissioned a study which suggested that it would be possible to generate all the Balearics' energy needs with clean renewables. When might this happen? Ever? A bit over one per cent is at present from renewables, and the prospects for much more, any time soon, aren't that great. They have not been helped by the fact that central government has turned down over 40 projects that might have contributed to increasing substantially the amount of solar energy in Mallorca.
Herein lies the rub. You can create greener vehicles, but the advantages of doing so need to be complemented by how you create their "fuel". There again, there is one way you can be sure of not polluting the atmosphere; that's to buy vehicles that you never use. Just ask the environment ministry.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The local environment ministry has a thing about electric cars, or should I say electric buggies. They are described as buses, but they are like what you get on a golf course except bigger - the electric multi-people carrier. Not that these buggies would ever set wheel onto a golf course, if the environment ministry had its way, because golf courses, more of them, there would not be.
The regional government, courtesy of the environment ministry, bought three of these buggies in 2006. They cost 60,000 euros. Five years on and the three buggies are unused, as they have been unused ever since they were acquired. One of them would be especially hard to be usable. It was never actually delivered. Who was ultimately responsible for their purchase? Jaume Font, he of the new La Lliga, and then the Partido Popular's environment minister.
They were bought because ... . Well, why were they bought? No one seems to have really known what they were going to do with them. And they don't move very fast. Indeed, so slowly do they go that they weren't considered appropriate for somewhere with as slow a pace of life as the Albufera nature park. Visitors apparently would prefer their bird- and wildlife-watching on something with a bit more zip. Whether they would have even been suitable for the terrain is quite another matter. What about using them at the Mondragó park in Santanyí? Well, what about doing this? The buggies were despatched, and there they remained. Unused.
For two years, at a cost of 4,000 euros to rent a space at Mondragó, the two bus-buggies which did turn up stood idle. Finally, when the PSM Mallorcan socialists got hold of the environment ministry early last year, they had the good sense to move them again. Not that they were going to be used for anything, just that they were on their way to some government land where it didn't cost to store them. Maybe the university might now want them? Maybe it would. Or maybe the government should just sell them to a golf course at a no-doubt knocked-down price.
At a time when the cost of petrol rises by the week - it is now an average of 1.363 euros per litre - the attractions of electric vehicles grow. President Antich, one eye on the environmental vote no doubt and critical of the previous administration's lunatic purchase of vehicles that didn't do anything, has announced that he hopes that, by 2015, there will be some 7,500 electric vehicles knocking around the Balearics.
As ever, figures can be put on what this would mean. A 67% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, for example. How is the figure arrived at? Pass. But arrived at, it is. This fleet of quietly-moving vehicles, and it should be noted that electric vehicles are criticised on safety grounds because you can't hear them coming, would not solely be those of the government. Far from it. The car-hire sector has been engaged in discussions.
Electric vehicles are all well and good. They are well and good for the environment, potentially. But how is the electricity created? Currently, so we keep being reminded, the power station in Alcúdia is one of the main culprits when it comes to emissions. It may move to being fuelled by natural gas, but it would still emit pollutants, admittedly at lower levels than coal. And then there are the renewables, solar energy in particular.
The regional government, at a cost of nearly 200,000 euros, commissioned a study which suggested that it would be possible to generate all the Balearics' energy needs with clean renewables. When might this happen? Ever? A bit over one per cent is at present from renewables, and the prospects for much more, any time soon, aren't that great. They have not been helped by the fact that central government has turned down over 40 projects that might have contributed to increasing substantially the amount of solar energy in Mallorca.
Herein lies the rub. You can create greener vehicles, but the advantages of doing so need to be complemented by how you create their "fuel". There again, there is one way you can be sure of not polluting the atmosphere; that's to buy vehicles that you never use. Just ask the environment ministry.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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