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China plans to ban sales of fossil fuel cars entirely
- donatj 9y agoHopefully the battery tech arrives to support all these bans.
- jl6 9y agoWe could do it with current tech if we expanded lithium mining and the charging networks.
- ekianjo 9y agoNatural resources are limited and an increased demand is going to make prices rise especially if the demand goes faster than the supply expansion.
- kowdermeister 9y agoMaybe that's a great incentive for the battery industry.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoThe government should rather use high taxes on fossil-fuels so the market can efficiently work, instead of trying to micromanage with all these subsidies, special rules, outright bans, and other "incentive programs".
- paublyrne 9y agoWouldn't applying high taxes also be 'micromanaging'? And why do you think the market, guided by tax changes or not, should decide on how long we keep building combustion engine cars? If the market wanted to keep them around for a hundred years, until the oil runs out, would that be ok, given what we know about how damaging the emissions from cars are?
- ekianjo 9y agoHigh taxes still leave some space for innovation compared to a straight ban.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoThat answers the first question, "Wouldn't applying high taxes also be 'micromanaging'?" For the second question "And why do you think the market, guided by tax changes or not, should decide on how long we keep building combustion engine cars?" I would say because the market under a fossil-fuel tax will do a better job at optimizing for what ought to be the desired ultimate goal of fewer fossil-fuel emissions overall instead of simply meeting what is an unnecessary side-goal of no fossil-fuel-burning cars. For the third question, "If the market wanted to keep them around for a hundred years, until the oil runs out, would that be ok, given what we know about how damaging the emissions from cars are?", I would say a large-enough fossil-fuel tax would cause humans to not use up the remaining oil as fast as these other schemes.
- loonattic 9y agoThat's a good way to screw over poor people who have to commute..
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- throwaway613834 9y agoHow much cleaner is electricity that comes from fossil fuels compared to direct burning of fossil fuels? EDIT 1: Thanks for all the enthusiastic replies telling me that power generation is better optimized. Yes, I already understand power plants are much more likely to be better optimized than car engines. That's why I asked "how much" instead of "whether". I'm wondering if the difference ends up being something like 10% (by whatever the suitable metric is) or 30% or 60%. Numbers and/or references from actual data would be appreciated. EDIT 2: Note that we also need to consider the energy loss in transferring the electric power and charging up the battery; it's not just about power generation efficiency. I don't know if this is significant or not.
- kseistrup 9y agoAt least the pollution is more centralized and can be dealt with more efficiently.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- EGreg 9y agoYes, the CO2 exhaust can be captured before it escapes!
- mark024 9y agoNuclear power
- n17r4m 9y agoIIRC, a car engine runs at about 25% efficiency and a power plant usually exceeds 40%.
- throwaway613834 9y agoGreat! This is the kind of number I was hoping for; thanks! The remaining part is how much efficiency is lost in between (charging, transformers, etc.)... hopefully it's not a significant fraction of the difference?
- aylmao 9y agoThis is an interesting move not only from the environmental perspective, but also the industrial. Depending on how they do this, they could be creating a captive market that pushes demand for EVs to the point Chineese automakers get a real head start on affordable electric car design and manufacturing.
- _ph_ 9y agoI am pretty sure that electric cars are going to take over the car market. Tesla has shown that electric cars can be more desirable than combustion engined ones. They are also the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cars. Currently, the market share is limited by the higher price and more so even by the small number of different electrical models offered. The price does not matter if you cannot get the car model you want in the first place. So any threats of fossil car sales is about accelerating the switch and push car makers into quickly offering a wider variety of electric cars. As soon as electric cars cross 50% market share, combustion engine cars probably will become less desirable and difficult to sell. So a total ban should not matter too much then, the trick is getting to 50%.
- danenania 9y agoAs much as I would like this to happen soon, I see the 30 minute charge as main ux impediment that needs to be overcome before they can really go mainstream. People simply aren't going to want to wait that long. It needs to be comparable to getting gas or it's a dealbreaker imo.
- _ph_ 9y agoThe key to that is to have the car charge, when it parks. Then even modest charge speeds are sufficient to keep your car charged all the time. You would only have to wait for a recharge when going long distance>300 miles in one drive. There electric cars would be slower than combustion engined ones - unless you take breaks anyway, which would make the charge time mostly vanish. But yes, electric cars have tradeoffs too. As a plus you never have to refuel in day-to-day driving and there are all the other benefits of electric propulsion (comfort and environmental impact).
- danenania 9y agoThat's a good point--requires quite a big infrastructure push though to get there. Seems like a bit of a chicken and egg problem, as it will be hard to justify the spending required to make charge-while-parking sufficiently ubiquitous until electric cars have a big market share, but I'm not sure they can get that market share without a good charging story like the one you describe. Tough problem.
- dang 9y agohttps://hn.algolia.com/?query=china%20fossil%20fuel%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=china%20fossil%20fuel%20points...
- majewsky 9y agopoints>10 Oooh, that's nice.
- imron 9y agoIf you've ever visited or lived in a Chinese city they need to do this to cut down on pollution, which is awful. They're also ramping up nuclear power for similar reasons (http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pro...)
- njarboe 9y agoIs there any other rational explanation of why China was granted "Most Favored Nation" status and entrance into the WTO other than short sightedness and the willing to sell out the western workers for a quick buck? No company can manufacture in China without transferring their technology and know-how to a local company. I can understand why China does this. Seems to be working well. Why does the west support this undemocratic, closed system, internet firewall, rising economy; soon to be superpower? Cheap iphones? The west had quite a bit of leverage over China at one point. No longer.