This is not a belated April Fool’s joke or an additional episode of the watered sprinkler, but the information revealed by the Caradisiac site. She has, at least, the merit of being funny. It starts with a seemingly innocuous question from Jérôme Nury, elected Les Républicains de l’Orne, one of the departments of Normandy where the privatization of driving radar cars began to be deployed in 2018.
When he asked the Home Office if the fleet of radar cars “as part of the reduction of CO2 emissions” would soon go electric, he drew this answer, to say the least astonishing. “Radar cars are recent models of the compact or sedan type, but which require a diesel engine (Crit’Air 2 sticker) insofar as the equipment integrated into the vehicle requires a minimum engine power. And to continue: “Adaptations are currently being made to the equipment in order to make it functional with gasoline-powered vehicles. »
This somewhat embarrassed clarification underlines the greediness of on-board devices faced with the complexity of implementing low-emission zones (ZFE), which will restrict the access of polluting and therefore old cars in city centers. Initially, 43 agglomerations of more than 150,000 inhabitants in metropolitan France are concerned by December 31, 2024. In theory, because several municipalities to which this European obligation is made plan to delay the deadlines by six or twelve months, at the risk of incurring fines themselves.
But there are also the zealous car-hunting activists like the Paris conurbation, which, instead of following the timeline of the Crit’Air sticker ban 3 and beyond, has since preempted the call. 2019 in Greater Paris. The region is not stopping there and is targeting the Crit’Air 2 from 2024, very recent cars, largely depolluted and including all diesels… which equip radar cars.
The choice of diesel is a matter of “before” common sense, that is to say an economical and enduring engine on vehicles which, according to Beauvau, drive an average of 250 km per day. As our colleague points out, the electric car now exceeding 400 kilometers of autonomy could in theory replace diesel, but the Ministry of the Interior admitted that the study of technical developments would soon be launched.
It is rather a passage to the petrol engine that Beauvau envisages, still because of the considerable energy needs of radars, computers, cameras and recording videos. This will involve completely renewing a fleet estimated at 400 vehicles in service in 2023, 223 of which will be delegated to private operators. Petrol cars which would then have the Crit’Air 1 sticker, enough to satisfy Greater Paris until 2030, when only electric cars will be tolerated.