Hamburg: Ban on combustion cars in the entire city?
Many e-cars are on the road, but many are and remain combustion engines. But politicians want to keep trying to push e-mobility and are planning a blanket ban on diesel and petrol cars by 2030.
Although evaluations a few months ago had shown that fewer cars were on the road in the city, it now seems that the number of vehicles in Hamburg has increased again. By contrast, the number of electric cars on the streets of the Hanseatic city is increasing only slightly. With an 8.1 percent share of electric cars, the city is above the national average of 1.3 percent, but this is not enough to achieve the climate policy goals. There are also signs of an upward trend in hybrid vehicles, which nevertheless represent too small a share. All in all, there are still too few citizens in densely populated Hamburg who decide in favour of climate-friendly mobility alternatives.
The current figures are not enough - this is also the opinion of Hamburg's Green Party - to do justice to the desired mobility turnaround. Nevertheless, the politicians want to continue to focus fully on e-mobility and not only promote electric vehicles, but at the same time prevent the increase of internal combustion vehicles. For the city plans to ban all cars with combustion engines from the urban area by 2030. Even the police authorities will only be allowed to drive electrically powered vehicles from then on.
If the electric drive does not catch on among private purchases - as well as in the public mobility offer - in the coming years, the city's future ban on internal combustion cars could only lead to traffic chaos. However, the Greens are confident and believe that the mobility turnaround is already in full swing. They admit that there is no definite breakthrough of electric mobility yet, but consider the still limited number of e-cars as a symptom of current problems - such as rising charging costs worldwide and undeveloped infrastructure. The bottom line is that the figures show an upward trend, with registrations of electric vehicles doubling from the 3.9 per cent recorded in 2020.
It is still unclear whether the final establishment of e-mobility will simply take some more time - or whether it is already too late for transport electrification in preparation for Hamburg's ban on internal combustion engines. There is currently no low emission zone in the Hanseatic city and only two roads have a diesel driving ban at all. It is absolutely necessary to take transport policy measures that can drive the internal combustion engine and its pollutant emissions out of Hamburg. An area-wide ban on combustion engines could be the best option for the health of citizens and the environment. Will the city be the first in Germany to follow such a strategy and introduce the first zero-emission zone?