The echo of the success of the Tesla Model 3 launch — the affordable (or near-affordable) electric car set to revolutionise the market — is still reverberating, and in the Netherlands they are already thinking of banning the sale of new diesel and petrol cars from 2025.

By that date, it could become impossible to buy an internal combustion engine car in the Netherlands, whether petrol, diesel, hybrid or plug-in hybrid. This is a motion brought by several members of parliament from the Dutch Labour Party (the PvdA), and approved by the majority of the Tweede Kamer, the lower house or second chamber of the Dutch Parliament. It is the first step towards outlawing all cars that are not zero-emission, and the first example of its kind in the whole of Europe.

Only electric cars in the Netherlands?

There has been no shortage of criticism from opposing sides, and even within the party itself. The Minister of Economic Affairs himself declared that only 15 per cent of all cars will be able to be electric by 2025, and that a higher figure will be extremely difficult, if not unlikely.

Whether this is therefore more of a provocation than a realistic possibility of outlawing fossil-fuel-powered cars, this does not change the fact that the political debate has at least been opened in the Netherlands. Nor is it even the first example. Recently, the municipality of Paris moved to ban all vehicles registered before 2000 from entering the city. Meanwhile, Hamburg will be the first European city to have a city centre completely free of cars by 2019. Helsinki and Oslo will follow, with a focus on electric vehicles.

Following the heartfelt appeal from 20 mayors of as many European capitals to the European Parliament for stricter laws on vehicle emission limits, it is clear what path at least part of the political world wants to take: that of sustainable mobility, with lower emissions, ideally powered by renewable energy.