The German car lobby is very powerful. But not powerful enough to prevent the implosion of their business.
There are two types of car companies in Germany: those on track to switch to fully electric production in the next 5-10 years; and those nowhere near on track that are very afraid of the implosion of their market share as those others are saturating the market with EVs. That's not a future thing; it's already happening.
So, the Germans committing to any ICE phaseout would speed this process up and mess with the (long) time they've given themselves to get out of this mess. The problem with that timeline is that they no longer control it. The transition is happening, whether they like it or not.
Tesla was within a few hundred cars of dethroning the VW Golf as the most popular car in Germany. VWs iconic Wolfsburg plant, which was restored by the allied forces after WW II, is hitting a record low production volume this year at the same time Tesla is opening up a factory in Germany. That's not a coincidence. And VW is one of the better prepared manufacturers. They actually have a decent shot at surviving the transition to EVs. But that's not necessarily true of the other manufacturers.
According to official statistics [0] the Golf is still selling more than twice as many units per month and the ID3 is selling 50% more than the Model 3. The Model 3 is more comparable to the BMW i3 numbers wise.
That are the numbers of October. Tesla doesn't sell many cars in Europe in October, as they are always produced at the quarter start, then shipped and sold towards the quarter end. This also means, that the September numbers, where the Model 3 did almost beat the Golf, are inflated. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
So, even if the Model 3 isn't quite beating the Golf yet, it is coming closer. This will even be more the case, once Tesla produced in Europe, as there are no import taxes on the vehicle and the prices lower.
According to that table, VW had 9 models among the top 50 whereas Tesla only had 1 (the Model 3), and all but one of VW's 9 most popular models outsold the Model 3 so far this year (January to October). The Golf alone sold over 3x as many units as the Model 3.
So while Tesla is quickly gaining market share, VW is still selling 10x as many cars in Germany.
No one doubts that VW is producing a higher car count then Tesla. Currently about 10x. But the point is, the Golf used to be the most popular car in Germany, so if Tesla, even shortly, can approach that number, it is a huge milestone. Especially, as the second Tesla model for the mass market, the Model Y, just entered the German market and promises to sell even better than the Model 3.
> are very afraid of the implosion of their market share as those others are saturating the market with EVs. That's not a future thing; it's already happening.
Tesla is also far ahead in the software game. It will become more and more important as a way to differentiate EVs from the competition and younger generations are prioritizing software a lot higher in general. People are used to iOS & Android levels of UX, and when you step into most cars, it's - well not pretty. It will break some well established car manufactures, because it's a world they don't understand and can't adapt. Like when a lot of old media companies simply died due to the advent of the internet. The only one that seems to be paying attention is Daimler, they must have seen the transition coming and have been making huge investments into developing their digital services for a while now.
I’ll start by saying that I’m not a Tesla owner and have only been in a few but frankly I think the peak of the UX experience in cars is having iOS/Android connectivity and plugging that fucker in and having full access to your phone. I don’t want some custom interface and I’m pretty sure I don’t want a big touchscreen (in fact I’m a Mazda driver and I love their stance against touchscreens). And I think until we reach level 5 that’s where we need to be because it’s distracting and dangerous. I think that any gap between VW/BMW/Merc today and whatever is meant to be magic about Tesla is insignificant.
The battery capacity however… different story!
Edit: it occurred to me maybe you mean their self driving tech - I think the reality is they and everyone else is really sooooo far away from this, it’s basically as far away as fusion power - just another 5 years. When a electric car can navigate my shitty rural roads or the streets of Rome, were there. Highway driving isn’t it and frankly I think the evidence is still out as to whether the high level driver assists are actually beneficial compared to something like lane warnings and that modulating cruise control which makes my regular 9 hr drives a breeze
I am thankful that there are new vehicles coming out that support this wirelessly, along with the already existing wireless charging. I have gone through so many USB cables of various lengths, materials and prices and they all seem to fail after a few months of use. Something about the cold/hot/constant movement causes them to not last. It always felt to me to be very retro for this to not all be wireless.
The annoying thing is that the shift to wireless is not just a software update. Apparently it requires an entirely new hardware solution, despite the existing solution already supporting Bluetooth for everything but CarPlay/AndroidAuto.
I’ve been watching with interest the wireless shift - funnily enough I am still on my original cable after 4 years but I understand completely, I must have somehow fluked a cable that batched 5 standard deviations from the mean. I think startup times will be interesting here but I imagine for a good while both cabled and wireless will be supported
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that achieving Android/iOS levels of UX is an easier step for car companies than achieving VW standards of car production for tech startups.
Both are extremely difficult. Especially, that going towards good UX involves vertical integration, and whole legacy car business is based on extensive supply networks.
> a record low production volume this year at the same time Tesla is opening up a factory in Germany. That's not a coincidence.
Ah yeah, surely the supply chain crisis has nothing to do with it /s . This sentence made me doubt your entire comment and ability to see things clearly.
Tesla is doing way better in the supply chain crisis than VW and other carmakers. Granted, their volume is much lower, but it is still a sign for things that they are doing better.
The problem is, Tesla's are the only electric car that makes sense to buy, although VW's ID4 is a really good car as well. The BMW and Mercedes-Benz electric versions are stupid expensive, with inferior technical specifications, the range, the power and the price point are all missing the mark.
Why pay 50k Euros for a BMW/Mercedes with 350km range, while you can get a model 3 with 500km range for 42k (or the long range one with 600km range for 50k instead)?
VW's ID4 is the only one that can keep up with Tesla in price/performance ratio, while having good range.
VW's ID4 is the only one that can keep up with Tesla in price/performance ratio, while having good range.
Hyundai seems to be doing pretty well with the Ioniq 5, and the Kia EV6 looks interesting. On a price/performance scale I would definitely rate the Honda E as well as a very nice 'good enough' electric car that's significantly cheaper than a Tesla.
Interested, what are the companies that have not prepared for electric in Germany and which have?
I don't really see that many Teslas here in the UK, but maybe as a percentage of new cars sold the number is quite high (and I'm sure it's a lot higher in London).
Opel and BMW are lagging quite a bit. IMHO their current strategy has them on a path where they won't survive the transition. Too little too late basically.
Daimler has a few expensive models on the market but is not really selling those in large volume. Their recently announced cars seem nice though and their focus on the luxury segment and brand actually makes a lot of sense. And since they are not about high volume sales and selling at a premium, they can get away with cost disadvantages more easily.
The ones that are in better shape are all associated with the Volkswagen group (Porsche, Audi, VW itself) thanks to VW having gotten aggressive on this topic a bit earlier (courtesy of Diesel gate). And even those still have some catching up to do.
IMHO the real issue for these manufacturers is not even Tesla but the coming influx of cheap Chinese imports. So far, manufacturers have been able to pretend it's all about the luxury segment and sell a few EVs at a premium (typically above their ICE pricing). Once EV prices dip below 20K euro, it's a different game. That might happen in 2022 already. Chinese manufacturers have a lot of very interesting EVs already on the roads in China that are being produced in volume. Exporting those to the US and Europe is more a question of when than if.
It's a repeat of what happened when Japanese cars started competing in the 1980s. It forced everybody else to up their game. This time around, the required changes are more disruptive. Everything from supply chain management, car design, software development, sales, etc. is in need of change. It's about cost and margins. The question is not whether manufacturers can produce EVs but whether they can do so at the right price point and still make a profit. What's on the market right now is a bit challenged on that front. Except for a handful of manufacturers.
Opel is the first one that comes to my mind. They've only introduced their first electric models last year, still no electric versions of their more popular models (Astra or Insignia).
Opel had their first electric car years back, when they were still part of GM. The GM Volt is the very same car as the Opel Ampera.
Before that came out, internally they developed their own version of an electric car, but were not allowed by GM to bring it to light and had to resell the GM version.
Sure, on paper. Their HQ is still in Germany, they use German name, and more than half of its workforce is in Germany. Being a subsidiary of a French company doesn't make them not German.
Opel is not really anymore German. Opel is just re-selling cars from PSA like Seat/Skoda is re-selling cars from VW. With the distinction that Seat/Skoda has much more freedom on production decisions and personalization decisions that Opel has. I have many engineering friends who left Opel because of this. Opel is much more dependent as it ever was with GM.
Opel are a part of PSA, now a part of Stellantis. The whole bunch is a but late to the electric party, but they're working on it, it's not like they've refused, it's just taking time.
Yeah, _global_ - Teslas are mostly sold in the US. In Europe they are still way too expensive. In Germany the total amount of Tesla models sold in the first 6 months of 2021, according to the link posted in a sibling comment, is less than a quarter of just the Golf. When you combine all models, VW in Germany sells 20 times the cars that Tesla does.
I understand the hype States-side, but in Europe the situation is different. People keep saying it will change once Tesla has an EU factory, but we'll have to see - opening a factory is no walk in the park, and by the time that happens VW might have a better electric line.
A total shift to electric vehicles in less than 20 years sounds quite optimistic if I'm being honest. Not signing something you know you can't meet sounds like a fair choice.
I'm pretty sure it's phasing it out on new cars not completely replacing old ICEs.
If anything I think 20 years is too long. Specially since these drafts always get diluted and things like hybrid motors are probably also going to be deemed 'electric'.
Yeah, 20 years is way too long. If the last ICE is sold in 2040, that car is likely still on the road in Germany in 2055 and is then sold to some poorer country where it will drive on for another ten years. How are we supposed to reach net-zero in 2045 like that?
This isn't about banning ICE cars altogether, but about banning the sale of new ICE cars. Which should hopefully basically be achieved by 2030 or so, or we are screwed. And I think it is realistic. In the last month, about 17% of all new cars in Germany were electric. Sure that has been helped by low production due to chip shortages, but I really hope that the majority of all new cars will be electric in 5 years from now.
Honestly I think it's doable. If the cost per kWh and the energy density of batteries follow the trend we currently have it will be much more convenient to own an EV. Some countries already banned the sale of ICE vehicles in less than 10y [1] if these conditions are met.
The problem will be recharging in cities. In the suburbs/countryside it is very likely you can plug your car at night in your garage or similar. This is not true in cities since owning a parking spot with access to electricity is expensive. So, if cities will start putting plugs in "normal" parking spots I don't see any major issue in shifting completely to EV.
Total shift? No. It's possible for urban areas in developed countries, assuming we solve the current energy distribution issues. Nuclear is slowly getting back on the agenda, and renewables are slowly taking market share from fossil fuels, so that might actually happen if combined with massive upgrades to local and regional public transport systems.
Even in places like the Nordic countries and Western Europe, massive infrastructure upgrades needs to be put in place to allow people in the rural areas to get rid of ICE's. And that's personal use. Getting forestry and agriculture to switch to electric will take many decades.
We need synthetic fuels produced with renewable/nuclear energy, and we need them fast. Yes, EV's are nice and they will cover a lot of the use-cases, but they're not a silver bullet to end all worries.
Absolutely, especially given the state of European electrical power production and grid, most of all Germany's. France at least has got the memo and is trying to do something about it, while Germany seems totally paralysed in this regard, which I doubt will improve with the coming administration.
Nothing like a good winter of blackouts to... energize political momentum.
Even this winter, clearly still pre-EV dominance, is going to be interesting - if it's cold in europe for long, and if Russia decides to use their current position of power for a nasty short-term shock, that could really shift people's willingness to accept a few sacrifices in the coming years.
I wouldn't count them out just because they've got issues; those things might change quite quickly - some of the needed infrastructure can be built in just a few years, once the political will is there, which currently is lacking. Sure, it's a problem, but on this topic: what else is new.
What do you mean? I cannot remember the last time we actually had a power outage here. It is also not like we aren't working on making the grid ready for increased loads. A more known example for that is Suedlink that is meant to connect the wind farms in northern Germany to the south of it by moving 4GW of power (that's 5-10% of total power generation in Germany alone) over hundreds of kilometers.
The german car lobby tries something different: Why not using the combustion engine with clean sources of energy?
I think its a rather clever choice to be against the end of the combustion engine when you can fuel them with something like: hydrogen, e-fuels or methanol. In Ingolstadt (Audi HQ is there) a former Audi engineer invented a car with 800 kilometres (500 miles). So there are alternatives to electric-only.
The efficiency numbers for e-fuels are simple too bad. Fuel cells might maybe be made to work, but there is no Hydrogen infrastructure available.
Any e-fuel that can use normal petrol infrastructure and is burnt in an ICE has absolutely atrocious efficiency. Not only do you lose a large fraction of the energy going from electricity to fuel, but then you burn it in an engine that has 40% efficiency is a lab and 15% efficiency in city traffic. It just makes no sense outside of niche applications.
There is also no comprehensive infrastructure for charging your e-car everyhwere, at least in Germany. Also if all cars would be replaced into e-cars we simply do not have enough juice. So there has to be a infrastructure development no matter what way you choose.
You also have charging losses which electric cars, they are just not that high as with e-fuels. E-fuels have the advantage of being easily transportable and refuel is done in 1-3 minutes. So why not create them in countries that have much sun (free and endless energy) and convert this into something useful.
> So why not create them in countries that have much sun (free and endless energy) and convert this into something useful.
Because that's not economical. It's cheaper to ship in the electricity directly, or if you don't want to build the HVDC lines (there are good reasons for that), turn it into Hydrogen, ship that and turn it back into electricity. Electrolysis is reasonably efficient (>70%), and the round trip to electricity can be done at 40% efficiency or so. Charge an EV with that elecricity and you're still much better off than first turning the electricity to Diesel (<30% efficienct) and then burning the Diesel (<<40%).
And that's not even taking into account all the health benefits of not burning stuff where people want to breathe.
If you just argue economical we should continue to burn fossile energy, because its pretty cheap. In smaller countries the amount of space for solar panels and sufficient amount of wind is not given. Not if you also want to produce food in your country. So there you need an alternative and hydrogen that comes from country with nearly unlimited energy and much space is inevitable.
Fossil fuels are not cheap if you properly price in the externality of causing global warming (and other pollution).
You don't need a lot of space for wind and solar. Take Germany for example. Using just the area currently used for "energy crops" (around 2.4 million hectares) for PV you could cover most of the primary(!) energy demand of the country. Wind is even more space efficient in Germany.
E-cars and other technology have also "hidden" costs, your cobalt does not grow on trees.
Yeah perfect idea using farmland that could be used for growing food wasting on PVs. Do not get me wrong, there has something to happen but perhaps only solar and wind will not safe us as long as we have no good battery technology. Therefore it would be better to store this in some fuel.
Oil doesn't grow on trees either, remember the oil spills we have regularly?
We already use that farmland to grow fuel instead of food, and we also have the technology to store the energy: electrolysis. But because that is relatively expensive you don't want to burn that fuel in shitty tiny generators, you want to burn it in efficient combined-cycle plants.
In my opinion, we need stop burning things. When we have the technology to heat, cook, or move without burning stuff we need to use it and kill the old technologies.
In theory, hydrogen fuel cell is perfectly fine. But then we reach the other problem: there won't be any infrastructure. Hydrogen, e-fuels, etc. It is just too expensive. Maybe fine for a few rich people driving on a track.
As far as I can see, this is a nice prototype but not a practical concept. This car is using a methanol fuel cell. They seem to be quite rare yet and not ready for mass production. And there is no mass production of green methanol yet. It would of course be much more storeable than hydrogen.
My old Peugeot Partner (2003), can easily go 650 km with plenty of petrol left in the tank. I don't think 800 km would be out of the question.
Edit: according to the specs, it should have a range of 960 km (597 miles) under optimal conditions. It sounds more than I would expect, but then the car is almost 20 years old. Still, the low fuel consumption is one of the reasons I keep it -- it uses less fuel than modern hybrids do.
I feel the big takeaway from COP26 and its predecessor events is that realistically, we simply won't do anything on a global scale to reduce CO2 emissions to any sustainable level. Not without China participating, not without nations making any genuine commitments, not with the lax timetables proposed and the various fossil interest lobbies blocking. This is simply not happening.
The upside is, that once we accept that this is not happening we can move on from these attempts and fully focus on technologies that capture/remove carbon from the air. This one to efficiently convert CO2 into starch (https://newatlas.com/science/artificial-synthesis-starch-fro...) comes to mind. I have no insight of my own to contribute, but David Friedberg argued on the all in podcast that a 25 square-mile areal of these would be enough to capture all CO2 currently in the atmosphere. (again, just quoting, not able to verify this myself)
According to wikipedia, China added 71.6 GW of wind power in 2020 and now has a total of 281GW. Note that 71 GW is more than the electrical power usage in Germany as a whole. And they just added that in one year.
Of course, China is a very big country with an industry that is growing at a rapid rate. So they have to add even more coal to keep up with demand.
But it is wrong to think that they are not doing anything.
As for carbon capture. People have been talking about that for a long time. Today it seems that the most effective way of carbon capture is to plant some trees.
Personally, I think it is great that banning sale of ICE vehicles are already on the table.
> David Friedberg argued on the all in podcast that a 25 square-mile areal of these would be enough to capture all CO2 currently in the atmosphere.
I felt like napkin mathing it, and even a cursory check completely obliterates that claim. Adding 1 ppm (volumetrically) of CO2 to the atmosphere is about 2 Gt of CO2, and we're at about 400 ppm. Carbon is 27% by mass. Monocrystalline diamond is 3.5 g/cm3. This makes a prism with the specified base 1km high. Talk about a ring.
The linked article seems to indicate that the researchers are also much more conservative with their claims than Freidberg, and state their technology is about 8x more efficient at capture than corn. Very cool, but nowhere near that sort of magnitude, as 8x that area would be only a fraction of the farmland in the continental US alone (by a factor of 1000).
From the lead paragraph and worth noting, Germany is not alone: "But a number of major automaking countries — including China, the US and Germany — are not on board."
Realistically this could easily not happen, or not happen in quite the way we expect, with some exclusions. I imagine the used car market is already going crazy.
The UK government made a lot of noise on this when they were desperate to steer headlines away from more controversial topics (Brexit). Since then, energy prices have skyrocketed. Trying to force a transition while electricity is so dear will prove deeply unpopular, so I fully expect a postponement of the current "deadlines".
IIRC DW is a german public broadcaster, so it's focus on Germany here is probably representative of their overall focus, not necessarily anything specific to the story.
I guess that could change with the new German government. Also worth noting is that Daimler, Ford and GM are on-board with it. Assuming car makers from other countries are good with that, that would mean the vast majority of manufacturers support it. No idea why BMW and VW are against it, especially VW is pushing hard towards EVs.
It's the workers' unions, not the companies per se that are not happy with this. Internal Combustion engines and cars have thousands of moving parts which still require a ton of manual labor for assembly, regardless of automation. EVs have something like few 10s of moving parts meaning that you need way fewer workers. Therefore, if you consider that the automotive industry is the biggest employer in Germany, you get why this outcome is not surprising at all.
Finally, companies don't want to anger the unions for something that is happening anyway regardless of their support or not. As soon as EVs cost the same as ICE cars the transition will happen naturally as the cost of ownership is already much lower.
>Finally, companies don't want to anger the unions for something that is happening anyway regardless of their support or not.
Is it really not happening? AFAIK the EV revolution is happening underneath their noses and German car manufacturers are letting Tesla and Chinese/Asian companies eat their lunch and their move is to sleep on it to not anger their ICE-focused Labour unions. Not a good strategy long term.
Kodak also shelved their digital camera Invention in the '70s to not disrupt their film business, and guess what, the digital camera revolution happened without them anyway so they missed out on it costing them the company.
I would have agreed two years ago. Today, not so much. VW is throwing a lot weight behind EVs, as is BMW finally. VW does have some serious internal conflicts between management and union reps, I could imagine some of that is driven by the drive to EVs.
It’s absolutely unrealistic dream removing all petrol and diesel cars from the roads. And politicians know that very well. The charging infrastructure must be built at first. I moved to a nice village this year in wealthy region in Germany. And guess what, the cables between substations and houses are often 50-60 years old. There are mostly 2-3 cars for each house. Normally a house with 2 cars needs additional 50 kWh every day (no statistics, just a guess). Assuming that these cars will be charged 10 hours during night and ignoring losses every house needs thicker cables for additional 5 kW power. I here not willing to start with energy generation issues. I am not so sure about large scale electric vehicle adoption in Germany in close future. My neighbors just laugh when I mention interest in Dacia Spring or electric Twingo.
If you and your neighbors can run an electric kettle while having a pie in the oven without a blackout, the local grid is strong enough to support electric car charging during the night when fewer kettles and ovens are operating.
The real issue is building enough charging points in cities where people don't have access to a garage, but that's just a matter of investing some money and will happen naturally as demand picks up.
Heat pumps are coming too as green heating technology. These devices are power hungry too: https://myhomefarm.co.uk/air-source-heat-pump-electricity-co... and they didn’t have -10 degrees Celsius for a month.
But you are right otherwise. I could charge my Renault Twingo or Dacia Spring even using this heavily outdated infrastructure. These are cars with small batteries and not much power.
I think for many people this problem would be partially solved if employers provided the possibility to charge your car at work (some do already). Many companies are located in industrial zones where the connection to the grid is better.
A positive side effect: if the companies in the industrial zone have large-scale solar panels installed on their roofs, the load on the grid and power plants could be reduced (at home, people usually charge their cars at night).
Sounds like a perfect solution to me, which means there is something wrong in my reasoning :)
> It’s absolutely unrealistic dream removing all petrol and diesel cars from the roads.
When I hear people say these sorts of things, I always imagine someone from the end of the 19th century complaining about removing horse carriages from the roads being totally unrealistic. You know, all this gas infrastructure has to be built and ...
Gas infrastructure is few underground barrels. That’s no brainer. My house had this 20 years ago for diesel heating. Many houses still have this with up to 8000 liters diesel in basement. I have basement with weird height just for storing diesel tanks. Now they are gone, basement is useless. For electricity you need miles of thick copper cabling. And as a bonus grid needs to be managed to avoid blackouts and other issues.
In 2050, you need to heat your house with something that is not fossil fuel. Realistically, that requires electrical connections to be upgraded anyhow. No problem adding a bit extra for EV.
Assuming that cars are used on average 20000 km per year, then you can charge a Tesla 3 for 10 hour per night, 1 kW. Of course you would need to use a fast charger if you want to make long trip.
In most places to day, there should be 1 kW at night.
Of course we are, and have been doing for ages. The difference is that the trash cars end up being replaced by giant comic book spaceship cars that use the gains in fuel efficiency to add more bulk to the vehicle and still emit as much nasty. Switching to replacing the existing dirty new vehicles with electric transport won't entirely remove the problem, but it will at least stop making it worse.
Not sure how it actually "feels" in other countries but I know exactly 2 or 3 people in Germany who own an electric car (and one of them may not even, anymore).
I'm living in an apartment building and the closest place to charge it would be in front of a supermarket. I don't think my landlord would do something for the rented parking spots, and those are even the exception because road parking is the norm.
Don't take this pessimistic outlook as being against any of this, but without owning (or renting) a house with a garage I simply don't see how charging would realistically work. Maybe I'm living in the wrong part of the city but even in other parts the charging points are far and between.
It's been many years since I was going to work by car more than like once a month. Yes, my current office actually has electric charging, but it's the (rarer) case that I'd commuting from inside the city to a (kinda) suburb.
How would the general population afford electric vehicles? Are people fine with only certain classes of society being able to afford private transport, the plebs can use public transport if they need to go anywhere. Public transport isn't safe in developed nations and anyone that can, uses private transport in developing ones.
There's no nice way of saying it but anyone that's onboard with this is retarded to how the real world works.
There are <$5k EVs in China (when bought new). They're not super luxurious but they exist. The west just hasn't caught up yet, but it will if there's political will.
The real world also recognizes thermodynamics, and simple physics should confirm that taking fuel from the ground and burning it is heating up the planet. You say everything will be more expensive/won't someone think of the poor? Look up food prices, friend. Russian forest fires in 2010 made them stop exporting grains temporarily. Food prices went up, hungry "plebs" (your term) in the Middle East revolted and 11 years later Syria, Libya, Lebanon are still terrible places.
A realistic solution would be carbon tax, yes making things like fuel and holidays halfway around the world more expensive. But yeah, no populace will vote for that, they still aspire to go to Thailand as cheaply as possible. (even rich-ass Switzerland voted against laws to lower CO2 emissions earlier this year).
In my pessimistic view of reality, we'll just go on like this. When the resources get low in say 20-30 years, the rich countries will steal from the poorer ones (by money and by military), even if you're a pacifist you'll not mind your country's military shooting up refugees at the border if it means you can have some food and water.
For many models, electric cars have the same, if not cheaper TCO already. That trend is going to continue, very soon they will be cheaper than ICE cars even on purchase. In 5 years from now the question rather will be: how would the general population afford ICE vehicles?
> How would the general population afford electric vehicles?
I would think that the principle of economies of scale would apply in this case, reducing the cost of production. The progress regarding battery recycling will probably drive the price further down.
This article is misleading right from the outset, and it has clearly misled a number of readers who have already commented here.
combustion engine phaseout ≠ total shift to emission-free vehicles
What's wrong exactly with an ICE that uses clean and sustainable fuel? This is what Formula 1 is aiming for. There's nothing wrong with internal combustion per se. It's just the fuel we are currently using being harmful for the environment and unsustainable that is an issue.
Although I suspect as usual this point will be particularly unpopular with the HN crowd, as it seems anything less than full electric is the Antichrist.
An ICE with non-volatile emissions i.e. make an ICE that filters, condenses, and 'poops' solid emissions into a containerized deposit. Then by all means go to town with the Auto industry.
> What's wrong exactly with an ICE that uses clean and sustainable fuel?
To name a few:
1. Terrible efficiency. ICE average at around 30% efficiency vs 90% of EVs (close to 100% if regenerative breaking is used).
2. 1000s of moving parts for ICE vs few 10s for EVs. This directly translates to cost of ownership which is a big win for EVs already now.
3. Emissions. Even using a clean fuel you generate nitrous oxides or carbon monoxide (unless you have perfect combustion which is something we didn't achieve yet even after decades of R&D).
4. Fuel logistics. Even if it's a clean fuel, you still have to transport it from the refinery to the fuel pumps. We already have an electric grid in place and we just need upgrades (a 1-off cost more or less) instead of continuously transporting stuff around.
Could you clarify how it's meaningfully different? Because just because F1 might be able to afford a certain kind of fuel in the future doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be economically relevant. If somehow alternative fuels turn out to be acceptable on price and in terms of the climate, whats to stop them being adopted? It just seems like a rather unlikely outcome.
Anyhow, the article is clearly about the politics of the current transition; not about potential future technological breakthroughs.
The devil is in the details - laws like that can have tons of exemptions, and likely will.
If there's both a plausible alternative fuel on the horizon _and_ a plausibly problematic law, _and_ a political unwillingness to grant exemptions - then let's talk. So far, laws even vaguely in that direction seem few and far between, and even those make it might turn out to have loopholes rendering the point moot. The conventional fuel industry and popular usage is so huge that surely exemptions would be granted if necessary. Finally, there does not yet appear to be plausible alternative fuel.
The risk of an overzealous restriction on ICE cars is much lower than the risk of an overly lenient ICE policy. After all, each additional ICE car sold has real, likely unavoidable, and virtually irreversible consequences. In aggregate, those consequences are pretty dire. Betting on some kind of hail mary wonder-fuel without considerable certainty of its success isn't wise. But it's also likely what society will do for quite a few more years.
Under an idealized capitalist system we'd just tax the carbon and thus raise the fuel prices. However, as long as much of the electorate has ICE cars that's political suicide in most places - and competitive suicide even where the body politic might swallow that bitter bill. Consider e.g. the proposed small fuel price tax hike in France recently and the unrest that followed. Raising fuel prices isn't easy.
> There's nothing wrong with internal combustion per se.
The majority of energy in the combusted fuel goes right out the tailpipe: vehicle engines are generally only about 25-30% efficient. Combined cycle power plants that capture energy from the exhaust of the initial combustion cycle get over 60%, but it's ridiculously impractical to put one in a car.
There are two types of car companies in Germany: those on track to switch to fully electric production in the next 5-10 years; and those nowhere near on track that are very afraid of the implosion of their market share as those others are saturating the market with EVs. That's not a future thing; it's already happening.
So, the Germans committing to any ICE phaseout would speed this process up and mess with the (long) time they've given themselves to get out of this mess. The problem with that timeline is that they no longer control it. The transition is happening, whether they like it or not.
Tesla was within a few hundred cars of dethroning the VW Golf as the most popular car in Germany. VWs iconic Wolfsburg plant, which was restored by the allied forces after WW II, is hitting a record low production volume this year at the same time Tesla is opening up a factory in Germany. That's not a coincidence. And VW is one of the better prepared manufacturers. They actually have a decent shot at surviving the transition to EVs. But that's not necessarily true of the other manufacturers.