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You mean 2 decades from now? It’s a little premature to worry about an EU ban. Investing in battery R&D is probably important now. Meeting the requirements of

You mean 2 decades from now? It’s a little premature to worry about an EU ban. Investing in battery R&D is probably important now. Meeting the requirements of China is also important.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Certhas 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Countries_with_a_full_ban_enacted_into_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic... 2025: Norway 2030 EU: Sweden, Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark 2030 Non-EU: India, Israel --- If you take a lifetime of 20+ years for new vehicles into account, and you want to be phased out by 2050, you need to ban in 2030. Very simple. Maybe you don't need a full ban, maybe strong incentives suffice (see China). But full bans have been enacted in law in very substantial markets already.
- nradov 8y ago
  Those deadlines are aspirational, not realistic based on actual vehicle production capacity or energy supplies. In 2030 the majority of new passenger vehicles will still contain internal combustion engines, although those may just be components of plug-in hybrid systems. Governments will end up allowing a lot of extensions and exceptions.
  - silvestrov 8y ago
    Then Norway has a very different interpretation of the word "aspirational". From https://electrek.co/2019/01/02/electric-car-sales-norway-2018/ https://electrek.co/2019/01/02/electric-car-sales-norway-201... > 45% of new cars were all-electric and 60% were plug-in in October 2018. The Nissan Leaf was the most popular all-electric vehicle in the market.
    - melling 8y ago
      That’s because electric vehicles are heavily subsidized in Norway.
      - Reason077 8y ago
        It's not so much that electrics are subsidized. More that fossil-fuel vehicles are heavily taxed.
        melling 8y ago
        Well, let’s clarify this: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jul/02/norway-electric-cars-subsidies-fossil-fuel https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jul/02/norway-electri... https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/12/norway-electric-vehicle-models-incentives-car-free-oslo/578932/ https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/12/norway-electric-...
        Reason077 8y ago
        To be clear, electric vehicles in Norway cost the same or more as they do in (eg) the United States. The difference is that there are heavy taxes on fossil fuel vehicles that do not apply to electrics, making the relative difference in cost between electrics and fossils much smaller. (Yes, there are also many fringe benefits like free/discounted road tolls and HOV lane access, but as your article mentions, many of those are already being rolled back)
      - Certhas 8y ago
        So it's not aspirational, but real law backed by real money and government investment.
  - Certhas 8y ago
    If VW offers a wide range of EVs at reasonable prices the argument that we need extensions and exceptions will be hard to make. VWs move creates a regulatory environment beneficial to VWs move. TCO of EVs is about the same now and will be considerably better than ICE in the next years. How many consumers will be willing to pay a premium for outdated technology? This could switch quickly with electric energy and power grids being the bigger bottlenecks. At least Grid operators are deeply worried about the upcoming transition.
- semi-extrinsic 8y ago
  FWIW the Norway one was widely reported as a ban, but it is not. The official government policy is that they "have a goal that all new cars should be zero emission (ZEV) in 2025". Nobody who's actually crunched the numbers thinks this is realistic (that we reach 100% new cars are ZEV), but maybe we'll reach 60% by 2025. Currently we're at 30% of new cars are ZEV, up from 10% in 2014, and it's highly likely we will see a sigmoid growth curve with a long tail. One of the issues is that a very large portion of Norwegians like to ski in winter (which typically requires a roof box) and to go e.g. boating or caravaning etc. in summer (which typically requires a tow hitch). Currently there are exactly zero EVs on the market that can do both of those things.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    Toyota RAV4 EV: https://www.toyota.com/rav4ev/ https://www.toyota.com/rav4ev/ Tows 400+ kilos and has a roof box.
    - justsomedood 8y ago
      With tow ratings you subtract the weight inside the vehicle. At a tow rating of 800lbs you're not going to be pulling much of anything, and with a 41 kW/h battery it is not going to be going far at all either while towing. I would love to replace our ICE tow vehicle with an electric if any existed, but the electric range would drop by at least half while towing. That's a lot of stopping. As a comparison a v6 Dodge Durango's tow capacity is 6200lbs/2800kg. A v6 tow vehicle is a part-time tow vechile not intended for large loads. That durango can pull some boats and smaller camper trailers. We have used it to haul rock/gravel/stone as well. Electric would be great because the transmission wouldn't be as much of a concern but it would definitely need a lot of battery and would need a larger cooling system for the batteries and motors just like ICE tow vehicles need larger fuel tanks and larger radiators.
    - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
      For comparison, a 400 kg tow rating you get on a Fiat 500 with the 0.9 L three-cylinder petrol engine...
  - 8y ago
ciceryadam 8y ago
By 2021, phased in from 2020, the fleet average to be achieved by all new cars is 95 grams of CO2 per kilometre. This means a fuel consumption of around 4.1 l/100 km of petrol or 3.6 l/100 km of diesel. To encourage eco-innovation, manufacturers can be granted emission credits equivalent to a maximum emissions saving of 7 g/km per year for their fleet if they equip vehicles with innovative technologies, based on independently verified data. [0] So this move is more of a combination of short-term gains of less-restrictive emissions, and a long-term move to electric. [0] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_en https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_...
- richardhod 8y ago
  Just as a reference, that's 57mpg for petrol and 65mpg for diesel, and that's average, not peak, for all cars. A good diesel estate might average 50mpg if driven carefully, but in towns a lot less. So there's a long way to go. Companies will need to build/sell/operate a lot of tiny cars, or definitely have significant electric and hybrid parts of the fleet.
  - throw0101a 8y ago
    > A good diesel estate might average 50mpg if driven carefully, but in towns a lot less. Going to fuelly.com, newer Golf TDIs seem to average out at 40 mpg, with the tails trailing out by +/- 5mpg: * http://www.fuelly.com/car/volkswagen/golf?engineconfig_id=103 http://www.fuelly.com/car/volkswagen/golf?engineconfig_id=10... The older 1.9L engines are slightly better.
    - richardhod 8y ago
      Ah yes, i forgot Americans gallons are 4/5 size. Adjust data accordingly, so i did mean 40mpg US! (Most modern diesel estates(station wagons) do up to and sometimes over that, such as mazda 6, Ford Mondeo)
- ansible 8y ago
  > By 2021, phased in from 2020, the fleet average to be achieved by all new cars is 95 grams of CO2 per kilometre. This means a fuel consumption of around 4.1 l/100 km of petrol or 3.6 l/100 km of diesel. Whew, that's going to be interesting. Toyota can hit that with the Prius Eco... if that was the only car in their fleet.
leesec 8y ago
Things move slowly in the world of Big Automotive. A new model can easily get worked on for 5 years. If they are planning on having an electric version of each of there models, they need to be making this investment ASAP.
natch 8y ago
It’s not premature because savvy buyers are going to soon start realizing that ICE car resale value will plummet fast and hard as good electrics roll out with good infrastructure. As someone buying today, I have to factor in that (say) five years from now when I sell, the buyers at that time will be thinking about their resale prospects (say) five years from that date. And for ICE cars, it’s not going to be pretty. I would suggest, if you have an ICE car, trade it in now while you can still get more money for it.
- ghaff 8y ago
  The average car is over 11 years old and many of us drive a car for 15 or so years until it basically has no value. Resale value doesn’t enter into the buying calculus of a lot of people.
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    In the UK most new cars are bought on personal lease plans, fairly short and the cost is dependent on the resale value of the car at the end of the lease.
  - natch 8y ago
    Yes ymmv but it’s something that some people will consider.
- justsomedood 8y ago
  That only means it will get less expensive to buy and operate an ICE vehicle, especially as the demand for fuel decreases and the price for it goes down as well. For those using an ICE vehicle for transportation and not as investment that is only a good thing
  - pedrocr 8y ago
    The fact that you will be subsidizing other people's transportation costs in the future is little consolation for the loss. Particularly when you're subsidizing pollution.
  - 8y ago

You mean 2 decades from now? It’s a little premature to worry about an EU ban. Investing in battery R&D is probably important now. Meeting the requirements of China is also important.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Certhas 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehicles#Countries_with_a_full_ban_enacted_into_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic... 2025: Norway 2030 EU: Sweden, Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark 2030 Non-EU: India, Israel --- If you take a lifetime of 20+ years for new vehicles into account, and you want to be phased out by 2050, you need to ban in 2030. Very simple. Maybe you don't need a full ban, maybe strong incentives suffice (see China). But full bans have been enacted in law in very substantial markets already.

nradov 8y ago
Those deadlines are aspirational, not realistic based on actual vehicle production capacity or energy supplies. In 2030 the majority of new passenger vehicles will still contain internal combustion engines, although those may just be components of plug-in hybrid systems. Governments will end up allowing a lot of extensions and exceptions.
- silvestrov 8y ago
  Then Norway has a very different interpretation of the word "aspirational". From https://electrek.co/2019/01/02/electric-car-sales-norway-2018/ https://electrek.co/2019/01/02/electric-car-sales-norway-201... > 45% of new cars were all-electric and 60% were plug-in in October 2018. The Nissan Leaf was the most popular all-electric vehicle in the market.
  - melling 8y ago
    That’s because electric vehicles are heavily subsidized in Norway.
    - Reason077 8y ago
      It's not so much that electrics are subsidized. More that fossil-fuel vehicles are heavily taxed.
      - melling 8y ago
        Well, let’s clarify this: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jul/02/norway-electric-cars-subsidies-fossil-fuel https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jul/02/norway-electri... https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/12/norway-electric-vehicle-models-incentives-car-free-oslo/578932/ https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/12/norway-electric-...
        Reason077 8y ago
        To be clear, electric vehicles in Norway cost the same or more as they do in (eg) the United States. The difference is that there are heavy taxes on fossil fuel vehicles that do not apply to electrics, making the relative difference in cost between electrics and fossils much smaller. (Yes, there are also many fringe benefits like free/discounted road tolls and HOV lane access, but as your article mentions, many of those are already being rolled back)
    - Certhas 8y ago
      So it's not aspirational, but real law backed by real money and government investment.
- Certhas 8y ago
  If VW offers a wide range of EVs at reasonable prices the argument that we need extensions and exceptions will be hard to make. VWs move creates a regulatory environment beneficial to VWs move. TCO of EVs is about the same now and will be considerably better than ICE in the next years. How many consumers will be willing to pay a premium for outdated technology? This could switch quickly with electric energy and power grids being the bigger bottlenecks. At least Grid operators are deeply worried about the upcoming transition.
semi-extrinsic 8y ago
FWIW the Norway one was widely reported as a ban, but it is not. The official government policy is that they "have a goal that all new cars should be zero emission (ZEV) in 2025". Nobody who's actually crunched the numbers thinks this is realistic (that we reach 100% new cars are ZEV), but maybe we'll reach 60% by 2025. Currently we're at 30% of new cars are ZEV, up from 10% in 2014, and it's highly likely we will see a sigmoid growth curve with a long tail. One of the issues is that a very large portion of Norwegians like to ski in winter (which typically requires a roof box) and to go e.g. boating or caravaning etc. in summer (which typically requires a tow hitch). Currently there are exactly zero EVs on the market that can do both of those things.
- jedberg 8y ago
  Toyota RAV4 EV: https://www.toyota.com/rav4ev/ https://www.toyota.com/rav4ev/ Tows 400+ kilos and has a roof box.
  - justsomedood 8y ago
    With tow ratings you subtract the weight inside the vehicle. At a tow rating of 800lbs you're not going to be pulling much of anything, and with a 41 kW/h battery it is not going to be going far at all either while towing. I would love to replace our ICE tow vehicle with an electric if any existed, but the electric range would drop by at least half while towing. That's a lot of stopping. As a comparison a v6 Dodge Durango's tow capacity is 6200lbs/2800kg. A v6 tow vehicle is a part-time tow vechile not intended for large loads. That durango can pull some boats and smaller camper trailers. We have used it to haul rock/gravel/stone as well. Electric would be great because the transmission wouldn't be as much of a concern but it would definitely need a lot of battery and would need a larger cooling system for the batteries and motors just like ICE tow vehicles need larger fuel tanks and larger radiators.
  - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
    For comparison, a 400 kg tow rating you get on a Fiat 500 with the 0.9 L three-cylinder petrol engine...
- 8y ago

ciceryadam 8y ago

By 2021, phased in from 2020, the fleet average to be achieved by all new cars is 95 grams of CO2 per kilometre. This means a fuel consumption of around 4.1 l/100 km of petrol or 3.6 l/100 km of diesel. To encourage eco-innovation, manufacturers can be granted emission credits equivalent to a maximum emissions saving of 7 g/km per year for their fleet if they equip vehicles with innovative technologies, based on independently verified data. [0] So this move is more of a combination of short-term gains of less-restrictive emissions, and a long-term move to electric. [0] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_en https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars_...

richardhod 8y ago
Just as a reference, that's 57mpg for petrol and 65mpg for diesel, and that's average, not peak, for all cars. A good diesel estate might average 50mpg if driven carefully, but in towns a lot less. So there's a long way to go. Companies will need to build/sell/operate a lot of tiny cars, or definitely have significant electric and hybrid parts of the fleet.
- throw0101a 8y ago
  > A good diesel estate might average 50mpg if driven carefully, but in towns a lot less. Going to fuelly.com, newer Golf TDIs seem to average out at 40 mpg, with the tails trailing out by +/- 5mpg: * http://www.fuelly.com/car/volkswagen/golf?engineconfig_id=103 http://www.fuelly.com/car/volkswagen/golf?engineconfig_id=10... The older 1.9L engines are slightly better.
  - richardhod 8y ago
    Ah yes, i forgot Americans gallons are 4/5 size. Adjust data accordingly, so i did mean 40mpg US! (Most modern diesel estates(station wagons) do up to and sometimes over that, such as mazda 6, Ford Mondeo)
ansible 8y ago
> By 2021, phased in from 2020, the fleet average to be achieved by all new cars is 95 grams of CO2 per kilometre. This means a fuel consumption of around 4.1 l/100 km of petrol or 3.6 l/100 km of diesel. Whew, that's going to be interesting. Toyota can hit that with the Prius Eco... if that was the only car in their fleet.

leesec 8y ago

Things move slowly in the world of Big Automotive. A new model can easily get worked on for 5 years. If they are planning on having an electric version of each of there models, they need to be making this investment ASAP.

natch 8y ago

It’s not premature because savvy buyers are going to soon start realizing that ICE car resale value will plummet fast and hard as good electrics roll out with good infrastructure. As someone buying today, I have to factor in that (say) five years from now when I sell, the buyers at that time will be thinking about their resale prospects (say) five years from that date. And for ICE cars, it’s not going to be pretty. I would suggest, if you have an ICE car, trade it in now while you can still get more money for it.

ghaff 8y ago
The average car is over 11 years old and many of us drive a car for 15 or so years until it basically has no value. Resale value doesn’t enter into the buying calculus of a lot of people.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  In the UK most new cars are bought on personal lease plans, fairly short and the cost is dependent on the resale value of the car at the end of the lease.
- natch 8y ago
  Yes ymmv but it’s something that some people will consider.
justsomedood 8y ago
That only means it will get less expensive to buy and operate an ICE vehicle, especially as the demand for fuel decreases and the price for it goes down as well. For those using an ICE vehicle for transportation and not as investment that is only a good thing
- pedrocr 8y ago
  The fact that you will be subsidizing other people's transportation costs in the future is little consolation for the loss. Particularly when you're subsidizing pollution.
- 8y ago