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Californian regulators have voted to ban the sale of new gas-powered generators, starting in 2028.

The news comes as part of a larger crackdown on “off-road small-displacement” motors, which includes lawnmowers and leaf blowers, which will become outlawed starting in 2024.

Gas generator have their provisions, which give them an extra four-year reprieve, and none of this legislation outlaws the use of currently owned equipment.

The European Union is pushing hard to become the first continent that is carbon-neutral, with a self-imposed deadline of achieving that goal by 2050.

To help reach that end, the European Commission (the EU’s executive branch) has aimed for a 55% reduction in CO2 by 2030, and that cars and vans have a 100% CO2 reduction by 2035.

With initiatives in place to bolster electric charging points throughout the European Union, our friends across the pond are poised to make some drastic shifts in their transportation sectors.

The United States of America is taking a Suzuki Motor America employee to court, over allegations that he lied in documents to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of his job with Suzuki, which included filing reports to the US government.

The court filing, made with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on June 2nd, alleges that Wayne Powell violated Title 42 of the US Code § 7413 (c)(2)(A) when he knowingly made false statements in an application for a “certificate of conformity” that was required as part of the Clean Air Act. 

In those alleged false statements, the US government says that Powell altered production numbers by Suzuki for the 2012 model year, so that the company would not be over its allotment for allowed emissions.

The Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC) has formed a task force to study the issues surrounding electric motorcycles and other vehicle segments in the powersports industry. While the task force’s participants aren’t being named, almost all the major OEM manufacturers are involved, as well as most of the electric motorcycle producers. While the groups hasn’t finalized its priority list of issues, performance standards and consumer education seem to be top-billed action items for the task force, as group looks to create fair comparisons between the budding industry and entreached ICE market.

Several publications are reporting the possibility that the European Commission (EC) could be preparing to implement a European-wide limit of 100HP on motorcycles when the European executive power meets this summer. The issue arises after France instituted a 100HP ban on new motorcycles, causing the country to be out of line with the rest of European Union. France’s new law places an undue burden on manufacturers, who must now make a French variant for each new EU motorcycle model (or just not offer the bike in the French market all-together), and as such the EC aims to bring the EU under one policy.

This has created cause for alarm in the industry (or just in sensationalist journalists) who fear that the EC could place 100HP limits across the entire EU, along with other hindering provisions as well (mandatory ABS brakes seems to be the other main concern), in order to bring balance to the Union’s approach on motorcycles. If that sounds ridiculous to you, then you’re in the same boast as us. Considering how the EC and EU directives, regulations, and decisions actually operate, the real likelihood seems to be the possibility of France’s law being repealed, but that doesn’t mean activists have any less cause for alarm.