6 ms·

People buying that (kind of) car don't care, and I doubt there's so many of them that it would significantly skew the numbers (GLE class is not even in the list

by senko 6y ago

People buying that (kind of) car don't care, and I doubt there's so many of them that it would significantly skew the numbers (GLE class is not even in the list - assuming GLC and GLE are similar enough for this particular list, even GLC are modest numbers and they're plug-in hybrid, which is better than a mild hybrid). However I do agree with you that many of the cars - essentially the entire milid-hybrid (MHEV) segment, IMO - is there just to get the numbers (electric motor kicks in just enough to lower the max CO2 in special cases). Locally (Croatia, HR), virtually all new cars have at least a MHEV option and some have no non-e option at all. They're really pushing it hard. Even though MHEV could be considered "lipstick on a pig", it still has two useful effects: - If it does lower CO2 emission in worst cases (start, overtake, etc), it still means it lowers the overall CO2 at least somewhat - every little bit helps. - It normalizes electric vehicles. There are a people here who have extremely negative (subjective) opinions on them, and I'm talking general public, not petrolheads. Once you get a Slav to understand his (it's always his) beloved Golf running on batteries is not an abomination, the floodgates are open Due to high gas prices, main impediment to switching to fully electric cars is not cost but infrastructure. In Croatia there's very little of it and it's often vandalized or gas-powered cars are parked in charging spots, etc. Thus a pleasant road-trip to the country or the coast turns into a logistical nightmare. Similarly, for plug-hybrids, a lot of people that would have the means to buy such a car usually live in apartment buildings, often without dedicated parking spots so you have to hunt for a space around the block and you can't just plug in your car overnight.

whatever1 6y ago
Btw, expect huge taxes to hit electric cars in Europe. The European governments have a significant part of their budget coming from gas tax and they are not happy with that revenue stream going away. For those not from Europe: It is pretty common for us to have to pay $4-5 tax per gallon of fuel.
- jblok 6y ago
  The UK government is doing the complete opposite in fact. They’ll give you a grant towards the cost of a new EV, a grant for a wall box to be installed at you home, 0% tax on company car benefits if it’s an EV, 0% road tax, etc. They’ve even just moved The ban on new petrol and diesel sales forward to 2030. Fuel duties help to offset the negative externalities to society of driving, namely CO2 emissions, pollution and congestion. With EVs tou don’t have emissions and pollutions and the health problems they bring so there’s no negatives to offset (ie fuel duty revenue will go down, but so will spending on health and environmental related issues) There’s still the congestion any vehicle can cause and I think we’ll move to a much different form of vehicle taxation over the next 20 years, perhaps with more toll roads or even surge pricing style taxation for usage of roads.
  - ivanche 6y ago
    Of course you have! Emissions from tires and brake pads are very significant. CO2 and pollution from driving is just externalized - where do you think all that electricity for charging EVs is coming from? Also, pollution from manufacturing EVs is still there.
    - shiftpgdn 6y ago
      The sun and wind? If everyone went to smart charging infrastructure your vehicle could easily stay topped up during excess generation.
      - logifail 6y ago
        > If everyone went to smart charging infrastructure your vehicle could easily stay topped up during excess generation ...and yet from today's headlines: British coal plants fired up to meet temporary electricity shortfall. Remaining UK coal plants, including Drax, supply 6% of grid’s electricity to cover power supply drop and colder weather https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/26/british-coal-plants-fired-up-to-meet-temporary-electricity-shortfall https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/26/british-coa... Also note: "renewable electricity was in relatively short supply in western Europe too, meaning the UK would need to keep running its coal plants while exporting power to France and to the Netherlands via cable interconnectors"
    - formerly_proven 6y ago
      Even if the energy source would still be purely fossile-based (which it isn't), it would still be a net win, since large power plants are more efficient than ICE vehicles and are better set up to reduce emissions other than CO2.
      - est31 6y ago
        Yeah you can put good filters and carbon sequestration tech onto those plants much easier than putting it onto all cars.
    - 6y ago
- imglorp 6y ago
  We pay similar gas tax in the US, but we don't pay it at the pump. There are direct subsidies around $20 B/yr [1] and indirect ones, such as $2 T for a couple of gulf wars which were clearly about oil. Then there's spills, climate FUD from the oil companies [2] which will cost us for centuries in floods, fires, and other climate exacerbated disasters. If anything we need to tax the hell out of fossil fuel to break even with its actual costs. 1. https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subs... 2. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-10-21/oil-companies-exxon-climate-change-denial-report https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-10-21/oil-com...
- IronRanger 6y ago
  These replacement taxes need to come from road use charging, to deal with congestion during commutes. Shifting non-essential travel to an hour earlier or later in the day will have a hugely beneficial impact in unclogging many cities.
  - petre 6y ago
    How does one classify travel as essential or non-essential?
    - corty 6y ago
      "Essential" means "all bosses have agreed on this arbitrary time to start work so all workers can enjoy congestion and stuffed subways".
numpad0 6y ago
I wonder why people aren’t excited about hybrids, they seem like a genuine next step of automotive engineering to me. Petrolheads of all people hate it the most, and that feels wrong. If you think twin turbo is superior to single, then THS II should be vastly more so. I personally blame it to Toyota’s horrible packaging. The thorough objective horrendousness of Prius is inexcusable, especially the latest ones. But that shouldn’t decide on the technology!
- freeone3000 6y ago
  It adds a lot of weight for not a lot of benefit, on either side. A pure-electric drive gives amazing benefits in torque and latency reduction, but the motors on MHEVs and even PHEVs don't give enough "oomph" to justify the complexity, the cost, or the added weight. The Koeingsegg One:1 is exciting. The BMW i3 is exciting. The Jaguar I-Pace is exciting. Heck, the Tesla is exciting. The BMW 3-series hybrid is $15,000 more for not a whole lot.
  - logifail 6y ago
    > exciting (Full disclosure: two working parents, three young kids, not a lot of spare time and even less spare money...) We own two (ICE) cars, a seven-seater that's diesel-powered and a four-seater that's petrol. Neither of them are even remotely "exciting" (both have the smallest, most economical engines that the manufacturer offers for that model). We would not be looking for "exciting" in a replacement for either of them, either. What I am looking for is a like-for-like replacement that isn't hugely more expensive. With electric, I'm struggling. We [very briefly] sat in the battery version of the four-seater in the showroom when we bought the petrol, it cost more than twice as much, range was dire, and the sales guy pointed out that it wouldn't hold its purchase value as battery technology is changing so rapidly. So that was that :( I would love to switch to electric, but right now we don't have the spare cash to throw around. "Exciting" might be great for persuading petrolheads and/or the wealthy and/or the virtue-signallers to switch, but for everyone else, what can pure-electric offer?
    - romanoderoma 6y ago
Daniel_sk 6y ago
MHEV like Audi or MB do not help in overtaking or in the city. It's only for coasting, there is a small electric motor that will only help to re-start the engine. It's basically a better start-stop for driving on highways - you don't notice that the car is in "neutral" gear with the motor turned off. It helps a bit, but I would definitely not call this a hybrid, not even a mild hybrid. But - I saved 50% of the registration tax, so I don't complain.
- n3k5 6y ago
  > It's only for coasting, there is a small electric motor that will only help to re-start the engine [but not really pull the vehicle]. Classifying a car as a mild hybrid electric vehicle on the basis of nothing but a glorified starter motor doesn't sound entirely unlike something Volkswagen Group might try to get away with, but this doesn't seem like a fair assessment. Doesn't conventional coasting mean that the ICE still is driving the wheels — at idle RPM? So if instead the clutch decouples, the electric motor has to make up the difference, right? That's not nothing when you consider that diesels (such as your Audi) output significantly more power at idle RPM (and also use more fuel, I'd guess?) than petrol engines (relative to max power).
  - Daniel_sk 6y ago
    The engine decouples and either shuts down completely (if you don't have Start-Stop switched off) or it just idles on low RPM. Before the Audi I had a BMW that wasn't classified as MHEV and it still would decouple the engine during coasting (in Eco mode), but it would not turn it off because this would add a delay of 1-2 seconds until the engine is ready again (and it didn't have the additional battery + electric motor to start it in these conditions). The small electric motor helps to quickly start the motor in this decoupled mode (which again is not something that only hybrids have) and so it can be turned off for up to 40 seconds of coasting. All of this can be disabled in the Settings menu and the engine will never go into "coasting" mode and this coasting mode will almost never be triggered in the city anyway (you can see that it will shift from a specific gear like 6 to just "D" - and then you know that the engine is decoupled). Anyway, I and many others (most?) turn off the start-stop right when you start the vehicle. I just don't like that the engine turns off on every intersection and then you have a second of delay and slow response + more wear on engine for so many starts and stops. In this case it will still coast with the decoupled - but idling - engine. Also by coasting I mean condition where the car has enough momentum and either goes downhill or there is a slower speed limit ahead (this is detected automatically from map data) and the car knows that it can just decouple the engine. This is evaluated by the car based on some conditions, it's not controlled by the driver.

by senko 6y ago

whatever1 6y ago

Btw, expect huge taxes to hit electric cars in Europe. The European governments have a significant part of their budget coming from gas tax and they are not happy with that revenue stream going away. For those not from Europe: It is pretty common for us to have to pay $4-5 tax per gallon of fuel.

jblok 6y ago
The UK government is doing the complete opposite in fact. They’ll give you a grant towards the cost of a new EV, a grant for a wall box to be installed at you home, 0% tax on company car benefits if it’s an EV, 0% road tax, etc. They’ve even just moved The ban on new petrol and diesel sales forward to 2030. Fuel duties help to offset the negative externalities to society of driving, namely CO2 emissions, pollution and congestion. With EVs tou don’t have emissions and pollutions and the health problems they bring so there’s no negatives to offset (ie fuel duty revenue will go down, but so will spending on health and environmental related issues) There’s still the congestion any vehicle can cause and I think we’ll move to a much different form of vehicle taxation over the next 20 years, perhaps with more toll roads or even surge pricing style taxation for usage of roads.
- ivanche 6y ago
  Of course you have! Emissions from tires and brake pads are very significant. CO2 and pollution from driving is just externalized - where do you think all that electricity for charging EVs is coming from? Also, pollution from manufacturing EVs is still there.
  - shiftpgdn 6y ago
    The sun and wind? If everyone went to smart charging infrastructure your vehicle could easily stay topped up during excess generation.
    - logifail 6y ago
      > If everyone went to smart charging infrastructure your vehicle could easily stay topped up during excess generation ...and yet from today's headlines: British coal plants fired up to meet temporary electricity shortfall. Remaining UK coal plants, including Drax, supply 6% of grid’s electricity to cover power supply drop and colder weather https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/26/british-coal-plants-fired-up-to-meet-temporary-electricity-shortfall https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/26/british-coa... Also note: "renewable electricity was in relatively short supply in western Europe too, meaning the UK would need to keep running its coal plants while exporting power to France and to the Netherlands via cable interconnectors"
  - formerly_proven 6y ago
    Even if the energy source would still be purely fossile-based (which it isn't), it would still be a net win, since large power plants are more efficient than ICE vehicles and are better set up to reduce emissions other than CO2.
    - est31 6y ago
      Yeah you can put good filters and carbon sequestration tech onto those plants much easier than putting it onto all cars.
  - 6y ago
imglorp 6y ago
We pay similar gas tax in the US, but we don't pay it at the pump. There are direct subsidies around $20 B/yr [1] and indirect ones, such as $2 T for a couple of gulf wars which were clearly about oil. Then there's spills, climate FUD from the oil companies [2] which will cost us for centuries in floods, fires, and other climate exacerbated disasters. If anything we need to tax the hell out of fossil fuel to break even with its actual costs. 1. https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subs... 2. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-10-21/oil-companies-exxon-climate-change-denial-report https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-10-21/oil-com...
IronRanger 6y ago
These replacement taxes need to come from road use charging, to deal with congestion during commutes. Shifting non-essential travel to an hour earlier or later in the day will have a hugely beneficial impact in unclogging many cities.
- petre 6y ago
  How does one classify travel as essential or non-essential?
  - corty 6y ago
    "Essential" means "all bosses have agreed on this arbitrary time to start work so all workers can enjoy congestion and stuffed subways".

numpad0 6y ago

I wonder why people aren’t excited about hybrids, they seem like a genuine next step of automotive engineering to me. Petrolheads of all people hate it the most, and that feels wrong. If you think twin turbo is superior to single, then THS II should be vastly more so. I personally blame it to Toyota’s horrible packaging. The thorough objective horrendousness of Prius is inexcusable, especially the latest ones. But that shouldn’t decide on the technology!

freeone3000 6y ago
It adds a lot of weight for not a lot of benefit, on either side. A pure-electric drive gives amazing benefits in torque and latency reduction, but the motors on MHEVs and even PHEVs don't give enough "oomph" to justify the complexity, the cost, or the added weight. The Koeingsegg One:1 is exciting. The BMW i3 is exciting. The Jaguar I-Pace is exciting. Heck, the Tesla is exciting. The BMW 3-series hybrid is $15,000 more for not a whole lot.
- logifail 6y ago
  > exciting (Full disclosure: two working parents, three young kids, not a lot of spare time and even less spare money...) We own two (ICE) cars, a seven-seater that's diesel-powered and a four-seater that's petrol. Neither of them are even remotely "exciting" (both have the smallest, most economical engines that the manufacturer offers for that model). We would not be looking for "exciting" in a replacement for either of them, either. What I am looking for is a like-for-like replacement that isn't hugely more expensive. With electric, I'm struggling. We [very briefly] sat in the battery version of the four-seater in the showroom when we bought the petrol, it cost more than twice as much, range was dire, and the sales guy pointed out that it wouldn't hold its purchase value as battery technology is changing so rapidly. So that was that :( I would love to switch to electric, but right now we don't have the spare cash to throw around. "Exciting" might be great for persuading petrolheads and/or the wealthy and/or the virtue-signallers to switch, but for everyone else, what can pure-electric offer?
  - romanoderoma 6y ago

Daniel_sk 6y ago

MHEV like Audi or MB do not help in overtaking or in the city. It's only for coasting, there is a small electric motor that will only help to re-start the engine. It's basically a better start-stop for driving on highways - you don't notice that the car is in "neutral" gear with the motor turned off. It helps a bit, but I would definitely not call this a hybrid, not even a mild hybrid. But - I saved 50% of the registration tax, so I don't complain.

n3k5 6y ago
> It's only for coasting, there is a small electric motor that will only help to re-start the engine [but not really pull the vehicle]. Classifying a car as a mild hybrid electric vehicle on the basis of nothing but a glorified starter motor doesn't sound entirely unlike something Volkswagen Group might try to get away with, but this doesn't seem like a fair assessment. Doesn't conventional coasting mean that the ICE still is driving the wheels — at idle RPM? So if instead the clutch decouples, the electric motor has to make up the difference, right? That's not nothing when you consider that diesels (such as your Audi) output significantly more power at idle RPM (and also use more fuel, I'd guess?) than petrol engines (relative to max power).
- Daniel_sk 6y ago
  The engine decouples and either shuts down completely (if you don't have Start-Stop switched off) or it just idles on low RPM. Before the Audi I had a BMW that wasn't classified as MHEV and it still would decouple the engine during coasting (in Eco mode), but it would not turn it off because this would add a delay of 1-2 seconds until the engine is ready again (and it didn't have the additional battery + electric motor to start it in these conditions). The small electric motor helps to quickly start the motor in this decoupled mode (which again is not something that only hybrids have) and so it can be turned off for up to 40 seconds of coasting. All of this can be disabled in the Settings menu and the engine will never go into "coasting" mode and this coasting mode will almost never be triggered in the city anyway (you can see that it will shift from a specific gear like 6 to just "D" - and then you know that the engine is decoupled). Anyway, I and many others (most?) turn off the start-stop right when you start the vehicle. I just don't like that the engine turns off on every intersection and then you have a second of delay and slow response + more wear on engine for so many starts and stops. In this case it will still coast with the decoupled - but idling - engine. Also by coasting I mean condition where the car has enough momentum and either goes downhill or there is a slower speed limit ahead (this is detected automatically from map data) and the car knows that it can just decouple the engine. This is evaluated by the car based on some conditions, it's not controlled by the driver.