There seems to be a zero emission Spring looming during this Dutch EU presidency; Google kicked off its “selfdriving” bicycle on April 1 in Amsterdam and the Dutch Parliament on March 29, 2016 adopted a motion to require the sales of new vehicles in 2025 to be “emissie vrij”. The EU Dutch presidency is organizing a joint Environment and Transport Council on April 14 -15, 2016 that promises to emit some fresh air into EU’s transport policies, while Dutch fuel cell company Nedstack recently closed a deal for a 2 MW PEMFC installation in China.

Other European governments increasingly seem to endorse the idea of  ultra-low emissinon vehicle sales: Norway’s Parliament issued a transport plan calling to phase-out combustion engine cars from new sales by 2025. Germany’s environment minister recently suggested a 3% sales quota for EVs and the German economics ministry affirmed that “in 2050. The emissions of newly bought vehicles must … amount to zero”. Germany is currently considering purchase incentive for electric vehicles, The UK government has recently confirmed to reach “almost all cars and vans to be zero emission by 2050 at the Paris COP21, joining alongside other US and Canadian states the Zero Emission Vehicle Alliance. These developments might make the newly established European Alternative Fuels Observatory, supporting the implementation of the EU Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive obsolete before its 10th birthday. However no information on hydrogen stations nor fuel cell electric vehicles is yet available on this website.

(Photo: Hyundai iX35 Fuel Cell in Amsterdam)