France in Focus

As said elsewhere the "Cyber truck" will never be sold in Europe. I drive a 4x4 truck and the bed is used a few times a year, the alternative would be a trailer.

My daily car is a Ford Kuga, which I imagine is a small SUV. Whilst I love driving I would do all in my power to avoid driving in Paris.

Well, the vote was 55% "YES" to the hiked charges based on a less than 6% turnout.

The bylaw will apply to all combustion engine or plug-in hybrid vehicles weighing more than 1.6 tonnes, and electric vehicles weighing more than two tonnes.

So nothing to do with being an SUV, just its unladen weight. A Tesla Models X and Y ER will fall foul of it. And it is only for those who live outside driving in - not the residents.

Sadly, Red Khan will probably be looking on greedily for his next anti-car ideas in London.

source: https://www.turbo.fr/conseils/reglement ... ris-192776
source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... mayor-war/

I'm still looking for an answer to my question. Large or small, why do they call them a sports utility vehicle? They are neither sporty in styling or performance on a twisty road, or of any use carrying a hay bale or a large appliance.

Sales pitch? Utility means it can take the shopping from Tesco's

In the German press - the highly respected ' Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung '- also a spotlight on Paris. How to ly with statistics, how to ly with a referendum, a translated summary of this morning's headlines:

" Ideology has replaced environmental protection "

Parisians have voted in favour of tripling parking fees for SUVs from outside the city. However, voter turnout was only 5.9 per cent - and most polling stations were in districts where many people do not have a car.

The electoral commission received a number of complaints. Only 222 polling stations were open. In addition, most of the polling stations were not located in the middle-class neighbourhoods in the west, where the majority of those who own a car live. In the 17th arrondissement near Place de l'Etoile, for example, 62.37 per cent voted against the parking fee increase. In the upper-class 16th arrondissement near the Bois de Boulogne, even more than 80 percent rejected the increase. Only just under one in three households in Paris has its own car.

The turnout was even lower than in the first referendum last April on the hire of e-scooters. At the time, 89 per cent were in favour of a ban. As a result, 15,000 rental e-scooters were taken out of circulation. At the time, it was complained that with a voter turnout of 7.46 per cent, the result was hardly meaningful.

Now even fewer people voted and the result was also narrower. However, Mayor Hidalgo dismissed doubts: "Democracy has won".

And if it hadn't then follow Red Khan's example and ignore inconvenient responses.

Wealthy people won’t even notice the increased cost and will do as they always have done.

RA: "Democracy has won"

They said that about the Referendum and look how that turned out.

@ Hotrodder, to clarify my position on these matters: I was only quoting Mme Hidalgo.....