We've agreed to ban petrol and diesel. But what do we replace them with? And how?

Saw a great infographic on https://talkwellington.org.nz/2017/07/13/lambton-the-golden-smile/ about the changes that would come with less cars and more bulk transport.

yup all those cars pouring into wellington everyday to go where ? ??

I could see a solution where the motorway from the bottom of ngauranga to the ferry was parking with light rail running from there Wellington would be transformed ! it is doable.

I agree - I drive into Wellington just to park for the day. $15 parking + $10 petrol vs $2+$7+$2 x 2 on public buses - but I can't take a car load of gear - so often choose the car for convienence - having a park and ride closer to the city with overnight storage would be ideal for tradespeople...

You'd have to plan the transition. Building up both renewable electricity generation and storage while also building up infrastructure to remove petrol and diesel vehicles.

To do the latter requires building up the public transport so that people in the cities didn't need cars. We could go diesel on them to start with but there are electric bus technologies available. Electric trains are already here but we'd need to look at electrifying the entire railway network (Kiwirail replacing the electric main-trunk engines with diesel are actually going against the economics BTW).

The big one is the building of the infrastructure for the generation and distribution of the electricity to power them. This will require a combination of renewable generation from solar, wind, hydro and geothermal. This will require research into what is the best combination.

Get a plan in place with a defined objective and schedule and, most importantly, keep updating that plan. Considering our starting position we should be able to retire petrol and diesel vehicles fairly quickly (I'm not going to put a time-frame on it with some research).

Agree with above comments that electric vehicles (EVs) are replacing those with internal combustion engines (ICEs). EVs are becoming technologically superior for the same price, as documented below. This is due largely to the efforts of Elon Musk, CEO of TESLA.

Musk says EVs will replace ICE on all vehicles other than rockets.
“Aircraft and ships, and all other modes of transport, will go fully electric — not half electric, but fully electric.” Link: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/elon-musk-electric-planes.

As commented above by others, this means electricity is a natural replacement for fossil fuels for transport - it will happen automatically.

So in terms of transportation policy, I would suggest encouraging what will be a natural transition.

A very important aspect is that vehicles are becoming autonomous much faster than most anticipated. Within a year or so they will have the capability of driving themselves!

Teslas can almost do this already. Musk claims a Model S will drive without human intervention the 5000 km (iirc) across the US this year, presumably with a human sitting ready to intervene if required. Link: http://bgr.com/2017/05/22/model-s-tesla-self-driving-new-york-los-angeles/

That is going to have all sorts of ramifications for traffic. E.g. cars will be driving people, parking themselves. It has even been suggested that car owners will 'let their cars off the leash' to roam around as self-driving taxis :)
E.g. Mercedes has promised this in just 3 years' time. Link: https://www.wired.com/2017/04/mercedes-promises-self-driving-taxis-just-three-years/

NZ should prepare for autonomous driving, and this can be part of Internet Party's policy.

As an aside, this topic relates also to our power generation policy.

NZ's electricity grid is already 75% renewable (Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_New_Zealand). IMO we should aim for 100% renewable grid by - to throw out a date range before detailed study - say, 2030-40. Basically replace non-renewable generation with renewables at retirement, which can be accelerated.

I would be happy if a 100% renewable NZ electric grid in the not-too-distant future becomes part of Internet Party's environmental policy.

DETAILED DOCUMENTATION:

For those interested in the details, the following documents the situation with EVs.

Where are we now with EVs?

The Tesla Model S EV is already the best selling vehicle in the, admittedly fractionally small, large luxury sedan segment of the market. Link: http://fortune.com/2016/02/11/tesla-best-selling-luxury-sedan/.
The Tesla Model X is doing well in the equivalent market for cross-over vehicles (~SUVs, depending on terminology). Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_X .

Tesla has just begun production of its first mass-market vehicle, the Model 3, which is a mid-size sedan with the base model selling for US$35,000 - approximately the median price for ICE cars in that segment.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_3 .

Musk released a photo of the first production Model 3 just a week ago. Link: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/883900030163324930

Beyond that, Tesla has plans for all other segments of the market. For example, their full-sized truck will be unveiled in September: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/852580027178696704

Tesla Company has already surpassed Ford and General Motors in market value - it is now the highest value car company in the US. E.g.: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/tesla-general-motors-elon-musk-us-most-valuable-car-company-electric-hybrid-cars-ford-a7678541.html

The traditional ICE car companies are now playing catch-up and progressively switching to EV production.

For example, Volvo has just announced that by 2019 it will make only fully electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/07/volvos-electric-future/532659/.
[END]

Deisel Engines can run quite well on Bio Fuels & many Bio Fuels can be created via waste by products such as used vat oil & agricultural waste / Methane, (at least during a transition phase, but even as of right now) The Consumer should have the Choice of 50/50 Blended fuel or 100% biofuel, if it was available I would certainly consider switching / running on biofuel.
(such a shame so many bi-products with biofuel potential go straight to the land fill rather than providing any economic, environmental or practical benefit after its initial use - such a waste of potential 'energy')

I often think about the life cycle of all the products I consume,
for instance it's much better on the environment if our aluminium has been recycled rather than smelted from the dirt, many of the modern cars these days also use precious metals in the catalytic converters, unfortunately both examples of recycling financial incentives are the motivation before the environmental benefit, it is important to realise that all our vehicles have a limited lifespan.

NZ could encourage, invest & lead the world in ensuring that we make the most of all waste materials (particularly in transport), Eg. there are so many great examples of materials that can be made from our Tyres (have you seen those dangerous waste mountains? / on fire?)
- I've heard of a biofuel made from these, let's research & improve it!.

I have seen great things made from shredded tyres
(made into a compressed thread mat, the texture looks like threaded tobacco),an NZ company makes puzzle type mats for playgrounds from them (or did ..... was it viable? if not - why not?).

Solar panel technology is great, I've heard the latest panel is some kind of composite material that harnesses the complete light spectrum which minimises lost photons,
I've also been impressed they can make Solar Panels (flat) on a roll like wallpaper or carpet - just cut to length!.
all great, But I have also read that with the popularity of solar Panels they have now become their own kind of E-waste.

which kinda sucks, I'm not sure what can be done about it at this stage re: end of use/recycling - (insulation, stuffing, packaging materials maybe???).

(Sorry for the ramble :/ ,I guess what I'm saying is....)

What ever we replace our current system with, in the name of the environment it better actually be an improvement,
not just in the short term as warm fuzzies & virtue signalling on its own will simply not be compelling enough on its own,
we need to be smarter about the materials we use, the Bi-Products we create and the complete life cycle of the resources we use !!.

(P.S Fish & Chip oil kinda stinks lol, but it could be better refined & blended with other biofuels - not impossible, just a matter of R& D investment & a steady supply of 'waste' Bi-Products.

Deisel Engines can run quite well on Bio Fuels & many Bio Fuels can be created via waste by products such as used vat oil & agricultural waste / Methane, (at least during a transition phase, but even as of right now)

They can be, yes, tends to use up huge amounts of land though.

The Consumer should have the Choice of 50/50 Blended fuel or 100% biofuel, if it was available I would certainly consider switching / running on biofuel.

Why?

Or to be more precise, as they're such a limited energy storage we'd probably have better uses for them than personal cars.

NZ could encourage, invest & lead the world in ensuring that we make the most of all waste materials

We should have a plan to recycle everything. Landfills need to become a thing of the past.

But that's out of the scope of this thread.

Bio fuels aren't as efficient as electric power. They may provide small scale solutions where power can't be obtained easily but it will almost always be be better to use them to generate electricity than to power the machinery directly.

After this is an additional edit so @bruceking may want to read again and adjust like as needed.

I was just filling my generator when I thought there is actually a good case for bio-fuel in New Zealand in the South Island and central North Island.

Cold temperatures play havoc with batteries.

Bio-fuel could be used in these areas to solve this disadvantage if battery tech hasn't advanced enough.

Additionally, it might be of advantage to keep emergency services on bio-fuel as well.

"Cold temperatures play havoc with batteries."

True. EV battery packs have fairly serious thermal management systems to counter this, e.g. Tesla Model S: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-thermal-management-system-explanation.88055/

Due to incentives, 42% of new car sales in Norway are EVs: https://electrek.co/2017/07/04/electric-car-norway-tesla-model-x/

If we could get our scientists working on making bio fuel, solar panel manufacturing here and hydro... h2o powered vehicles etc. it would mean our education system would be filled with people trying to support the whole system, rather than lose them over seas