9 ms·

COP26: Germany fails to sign up to 2040 combustion engine phaseout

44 points by dsnr 5y ago

hef19898 5y ago
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.
- marcyb5st 5y ago
  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.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >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.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      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.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Perhaps Volkswagens recent experience building electric vehicles gives them a more realistic outlook.
authorityofnil 5y ago
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.
- _0ffh 5y ago
  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.
  - emn13 5y ago
    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.
  - _Microft 5y ago
    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.
    - _0ffh 5y ago
      Progress on SuedLink is glacial and projected completion has been pushed back from 2022 to 2025 in 2016. Current estimates are between 2026 and 2028. Meanwhile the shutting down of the last nuclear power plants in Germany, the original reason for SuedLink, is on track to happen by the end of 2022. I am not impressed by the level of foresight on display here.
noja 5y ago
Makes sense. Nobody (aside from special cases) will be buying combustion engines by then anyway. The "signing up" is pointless. Just as pointless as some countries cough cough agreeing to things, forcing other countries to ratify them, and then ratifying it themselves.
- nicbou 5y ago
  Nobody except the countries we ship the old ICE cars to. Those cars that fail emissions tests end up in Central Asia. Sometimes I wonder if we're not just shifting emissions onto other countries rather than reducing them.
  - Kliment 5y ago
    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.
- noja 5y ago
  Correction: and then never ratifying it themselves.
docdeek 5y ago
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."
- dsnr 5y ago
  So exactly the countries profiting the most from selling polluting cars? The UK is banning the sale of internal combustion cars starting 2030, now how is 10 years later a problem for the rest of the world?
  - thorin 5y ago
    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.
  - toyg 5y ago
    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".
- emn13 5y ago
  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.
jillesvangurp 5y ago
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.
- thorin 5y ago
  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).
  - input_sh 5y ago
    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).
    - csunbird 5y ago
      They are French, owned by Peugeot.
      - PinguTS 5y ago
hotz 5y ago
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.
- nicbou 5y ago
  > Public transport isn't safe in developed nations Huh?
  - Kliment 5y ago
    I suspect it's either a typo or an extremely US-centric view.
- Kliment 5y ago
  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.
- dsnr 5y ago
  > 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.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  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?
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  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.
yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
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.
- phicoh 5y ago
  ICE is quite horrible. The situation now is a lot better than in the past. But still compared to electric vehicals, they should be banned immediately. The other part of the equation is that the selling of ICE vehicles will happen in poor countries. Who will not use sustainable fuel.
- emn13 5y ago
  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.
  - kgwgk 5y ago
    > If somehow alternative fuels turn out to be acceptable on price and in terms of the climate, whats to stop them being adopted? The laws banning combustion engines.
    - emn13 5y ago
      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.
havkd 5y ago
Good. They are taking the freedom off the lower classes in the name of nonspecific future threats.
- iso1210 5y ago
  > nonspecific future threats Actual real threats which affect and kill the worlds poorest on a daily basis today.
  - havkd 5y ago
    In Germany?
    - iso1210 5y ago
      Well Germany is part of the world, but yes, in Germany too https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58992093 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58992093 Then you've got the climate change effects destroying places like much of Africa and South Asia, leading to mass migration including into Germany
throw63738 5y ago
"Fails"? DW is now world police?
lnsru 5y ago
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.
- adrianN 5y ago
  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.
  - lnsru 5y ago
    Heat pumps are coming too as green heating technology. These devices are power hungry too: https://myhomefarm.co.uk/air-source-heat-pump-electricity-consumption 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.
- tralarpa 5y ago
  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 :)
wolframhempel 5y ago
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-from-co2/ 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)
- perfunctory 5y ago
  I always felt that trying to remove co2 out of the atmosphere without decarbonizing energy production is like trying to build a perpetuum mobile.
- phicoh 5y ago
  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.
- unsung 5y ago
  > 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). * Edited for math
wink 5y ago
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.
- Isinlor 5y ago
  In Netherlands charging stations next to roads in local neighborhoods are pretty normal. Overall, most people probably will be charging while parked at work.
  - wink 5y ago
    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.
Isinlor 5y ago
If Germany will not commit to combustion engine phaseout their market will dwindle. Not only countries will be banning combustion engines, but major cities too. Also, probably by 2030 we will have big switch towards self-driving cars, by 2040 self-driving cars will dominate across all developed economies.

44 points by dsnr 5y ago

hef19898 5y ago

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.

marcyb5st 5y ago
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.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >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.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    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.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Perhaps Volkswagens recent experience building electric vehicles gives them a more realistic outlook.

authorityofnil 5y ago

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.

_0ffh 5y ago
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.
- emn13 5y ago
  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.
- _Microft 5y ago
  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.
  - _0ffh 5y ago
    Progress on SuedLink is glacial and projected completion has been pushed back from 2022 to 2025 in 2016. Current estimates are between 2026 and 2028. Meanwhile the shutting down of the last nuclear power plants in Germany, the original reason for SuedLink, is on track to happen by the end of 2022. I am not impressed by the level of foresight on display here.

noja 5y ago

Makes sense. Nobody (aside from special cases) will be buying combustion engines by then anyway. The "signing up" is pointless. Just as pointless as some countries cough cough agreeing to things, forcing other countries to ratify them, and then ratifying it themselves.

nicbou 5y ago
Nobody except the countries we ship the old ICE cars to. Those cars that fail emissions tests end up in Central Asia. Sometimes I wonder if we're not just shifting emissions onto other countries rather than reducing them.
- Kliment 5y ago
  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.
noja 5y ago
Correction: and then never ratifying it themselves.

docdeek 5y ago

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."

dsnr 5y ago
So exactly the countries profiting the most from selling polluting cars? The UK is banning the sale of internal combustion cars starting 2030, now how is 10 years later a problem for the rest of the world?
- thorin 5y ago
  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.
- toyg 5y ago
  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".
emn13 5y ago
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.

jillesvangurp 5y ago

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.

thorin 5y ago
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).
- input_sh 5y ago
  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).
  - csunbird 5y ago
    They are French, owned by Peugeot.
    - PinguTS 5y ago

hotz 5y ago

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.

nicbou 5y ago
> Public transport isn't safe in developed nations Huh?
- Kliment 5y ago
  I suspect it's either a typo or an extremely US-centric view.
Kliment 5y ago
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.
dsnr 5y ago
> 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.
_ph_ 5y ago
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?
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
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.

yakshaving_jgt 5y ago

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.

phicoh 5y ago
ICE is quite horrible. The situation now is a lot better than in the past. But still compared to electric vehicals, they should be banned immediately. The other part of the equation is that the selling of ICE vehicles will happen in poor countries. Who will not use sustainable fuel.
emn13 5y ago
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.
- kgwgk 5y ago
  > If somehow alternative fuels turn out to be acceptable on price and in terms of the climate, whats to stop them being adopted? The laws banning combustion engines.
  - emn13 5y ago
    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.

havkd 5y ago

Good. They are taking the freedom off the lower classes in the name of nonspecific future threats.

iso1210 5y ago
> nonspecific future threats Actual real threats which affect and kill the worlds poorest on a daily basis today.
- havkd 5y ago
  In Germany?
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Well Germany is part of the world, but yes, in Germany too https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58992093 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58992093 Then you've got the climate change effects destroying places like much of Africa and South Asia, leading to mass migration including into Germany

throw63738 5y ago

"Fails"? DW is now world police?

lnsru 5y ago

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.

adrianN 5y ago
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.
- lnsru 5y ago
  Heat pumps are coming too as green heating technology. These devices are power hungry too: https://myhomefarm.co.uk/air-source-heat-pump-electricity-consumption 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.
tralarpa 5y ago
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 :)

wolframhempel 5y ago

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-from-co2/ 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)

perfunctory 5y ago
I always felt that trying to remove co2 out of the atmosphere without decarbonizing energy production is like trying to build a perpetuum mobile.
phicoh 5y ago
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.
unsung 5y ago
> 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). * Edited for math

wink 5y ago

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.

Isinlor 5y ago
In Netherlands charging stations next to roads in local neighborhoods are pretty normal. Overall, most people probably will be charging while parked at work.
- wink 5y ago
  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.

Isinlor 5y ago

If Germany will not commit to combustion engine phaseout their market will dwindle. Not only countries will be banning combustion engines, but major cities too. Also, probably by 2030 we will have big switch towards self-driving cars, by 2040 self-driving cars will dominate across all developed economies.