In 2019, global warming and its consequences on our environment are on the front page of all the newspapers: there is an emergency. Faced with this global challenge, European countries are mobilizing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. European targets are legitimately ambitious in order to act quickly. However, they will be difficult to reach and Belgium does not appear to be a good student to reduce its carbon footprint.

To reach the 2030 targets, i.e. for Belgium to reduce its CO2 emissions by 35%, 34% of the car fleet should run on electricity as well as 34% others have a hybrid engine according to a study for the VBO – FED. On a Belgian fleet of 6 million private vehicles, this would represent 2 million fully electric vehicles. Currently, we are far from it: 9,244 fully electric vehicles were registered in Belgium at the end of 2018. 

The challenge is serious but the solutions do exist and must be put forward and encouraged. Promoting the development of the electric vehicle is obviously necessary. In addition, innovation in this sector continues to surprise thanks to the rapid evolution of its technologies. Political awareness is also awakening, making it easier for citizens to transition to reduce their carbon footprint.

That is not enough. New solutions must be found or the process must be speeded up in order to reverse this latest upward trend and redirect CO2 emissions downwards towards the set course. Accelerate the fleet renewal process? This is happening little by little but people are not yet ready to resell their used thermal car which is losing a lot of value due to their increasingly high restrictions and taxes. The price of a new electric vehicle is also still too high to make it accessible. In addition, it would also be totally detrimental to send a third of the car fleet to scrapping and consider a new production of electric vehicles of an equivalent amount in such a short time.

What if the answer is to open the doors to more solutions facilitating the transition to green mobility ? The conversion of thermal cars into electric cars is definitely a new possible alternative for the citizen to participate in the ecological revolution.