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EU lawmakers approve effective 2035 ban on new fossil fuel cars

75 points by huijzer 4y ago

heipei 4y ago
It's going to be interesting to observe first hand how much earlier this will effectively take place, i.e. how much sooner folks will transition to only buying new EVs, because who wants to be the last person to buy a brand-new ICE just before 2035 except maybe some petrolheads. It will also be interesting to see what this does to the used-car market in Europe, though I guess you can always sell used ICEs abroad minus their shipping cost.
- Spivak 4y ago
  I think you have it backwards and that late 2034 ICE cars are going to sell like hotcakes and the market for keeping used cars alive will thrive like we’ve never seen. I really want to believe that local governments are going to have this ban light a fire under their ass and and actuality make EVs usable for the “rest of us” who have street parking and no chargers at work but they won’t and so like everything else in this world this ban will disproportionately affect low income folks. Also governments will happily exempt themselves and their from their own laws once they realize that you can’t “just” replace busses and mail delivery with EVs and have to actually plan for it.
  - garblegarble 4y ago
    >I think you have it backwards and that late 2034 ICE cars are going to sell like hotcakes and the market for keeping used cars alive will thrive like we’ve never seen. I suspect the ever-increasing cost of fossil fuels will prevent such a thriving market in ICE repair being long-lived...
    - leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
      But the question is, why are fossil fuels going up? It's because governments and large corporations are openly hostile to the industry and are trying to kill investment. If you work for exon, would you bother to look at oil exploration that pays off in 10 years? Nah, but that's the goal artificially increase the price, make fossil fuels suck more than ev. So the goal is not to make EVs better, it's to make fossil fuels worse. The real losers are the little people.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        Exxon and the like are watching this. They will continue to drill, but they are already trying to predict how this will play out to ensure that they have enough wells to supply whatever demand there is in 10 years, while getting the best price from those that are left. They know the writing is on the wall for fuel customers - but there are other customers they have plus collectors. Note that I did not say they will predict this correctly, only that they are trying to.
    - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      There is no reason for it to go up. Less cars -> less demand -> less cost.
      - garblegarble 4y ago
        I can't say I share your confidence in OPEC... It's a resource that both producers and consumers know has a limited lifespan, and upon which a lot of consumers are totally dependent. There's every reason for OPEC nations to raise prices as high as they can to extract the most revenue possible before the source disappears. They know that as every year passes, the world's dependence on them diminishes.
- djaychela 4y ago
  Secondhand ICE cars will be on the road for their normal lifespan after the ban comes in. There will be some changes to the market in terms of pricing, but they won't be going out of common sight for another 15-20 years, I think.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    Some will be. However I think we will see a cliff. As ICE cars become less popular gas stations and the refineries supplying them will close. This will start happening when EVs have been 25% of the new market for 3 years, and accelerate when they have been 50% for 3 years. By the time EVs are 75% of the new market gas will start becoming expensive and so EVs will quickly jump to 98%, and people with ICEs will start to plan trips around where to get fuel. That last 1-2% will be some niches that cannot use an EV for some reason, and so they will lobby to reverse the law - but by then it will be too late for ICEs: a few years latter those with an ICE will special order fuel from the last refinery remaining in the world. It will start slow: gas stations will be less profitable, but investors/banks will take time to catch on so they will be built in larger numbers than the numbers justify (if you are an investor take note: there is opportunity to make money in shorts if you get it right - I'm not an investor so I won't be playing this). Then they will all see reduced profitability. When pumps break or tanks fail inspection someone will decide the market doesn't justify the investment in fixing/replacing them an so they will close and they won't be replaced (the part already happens, but there is some other new station nearby to make it up) The next part will accelerate as unprofitable gas stations go bankrupt. We will probably see some over correction in places as a corner than had 4 stations but can now only support 3 will see several go bankrupt at once, and then the one that just manages to hang on will be wildly profitable. The last part will see us where gas is hard to get. If you have an ICE it is no longer a case of when the fuel gauge is low you stop for fuel, it is you know where the stations you use are and ensure you can get back to them. when on a road trip you plan around where gas stations are (much like EV cars have to now, but soon an EV will find chargers every 20 miles and so won't have to worry - some places already have EV chargers that dense) Note that I said nothing about refineries. Many of them have better management and are watching this. At least some are already watching this and making plans to reduce size as it happens, between that and non-travel markets they will be okay for longer and probably can spin down their business. Watch out for the small ones: some of them are only running today because when they shutdown they have to cleanup decades of pollution - expect a bunch of "EPA superfund" projects around them. I believe Norway is already close to the first mark above, and probably other countries. I expect to see it show up in data (that I have no clue how to access) soon.
- seszett 4y ago
  This isn't a ban on ICEs, just on new ones. Existing ICEs will likely stay on the road until the 2050s, they will eventually get banned from city centers but many ICEs are already banned (my previous car was banned in 2020 in my city, and my current one will be in 2027, for example) and the used-car market doesn't seem to have suffered much if at all.
  - heipei 4y ago
    No, I get that it's only new cars, but what I meant what was that the attractiveness of an ICE will rapidly diminish way before the cutoff date of 2035. As other comments have said, infrastructure might heavily favour EVs (gas stations, parking lots, residential parking, city bans, tax incentives), making ICEs much less attractive even if you can still technically own and drive them. For new cars, the models that are going to be sold over the next 12 years have already been developed, many car manufacturers have developed their last iteration ICEs, so except facelifts you can essentially just buy 12-year-old models in 2034/2035. Put another way: Would you want to be the last guy to buy an Intel Mac if Apple had already announced their switch to ARM with all the changes that go along with it? Yes, you can still run it, yes there are still others who run it, but do you want to be the last holdout that buys that Intel machine right before the next Apple keynote finalising the switch?
- nemo44x 4y ago
  I’m guessing people will be stockpiling them. Used ICEs will probably retain lots of value for years after this mandate goes into effect. Especially when people figure out the electrical to their home doesn’t have enough to charge reliably.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    For a short time. However soon after they will discover that an ICE doesn't take to just sitting around for years. Not used seals start leaking. Lead-acid batteries need to be stored correctly or they discharge and fail. And other problems - all for a car that you don't use, and fuel is hard to find. There will be a few niches that still use ICEs (but my guess is they get the law changed and one factory in the world provides all the vehicles that niche needs - this won't be the average car, but something setup for their niche, so they won't be interested in your stored car)
    - nemo44x 4y ago
      Cuban's still use cars from the 1950s. An entire ecosystem springs up around it. I don't think it will be a big deal. Eventually they will phase out except for wealthy people and collectors (sort of like horses today) but I have to imagine they will be pretty common for the next 15-20 years after the ban. I expect a lot of people to buy them leading up to the ban as well.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > how much sooner folks will transition to only buying new EVs Won't happen until we get cheap EVs. Most people can't afford even the basic models (which are glorified golf carts and can't even do highway speeds)
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    I believe its the same logic as with ICE - used electric car market needs to look similar to used ICE car market, pricewise. I can accept buying electric car say 6 years old with 90% battery capacity and usual wear and tear for half to 1/3rd of the price of new one. But even though I can easily afford it, I will simply never pay those prices for new cars, ICE nor electric. They are ridiculous, never understood who buys them outright or via some not-so-smart payment regimes.
_edmb 4y ago
Some countries and cities in Europe have put the ban in place well before 2035: https://greencitizen.com/news/amsterdam-announces-a-ban-on-fossil-fuel-vehicles-from-2030/ https://greencitizen.com/news/amsterdam-announces-a-ban-on-f... Amsterdam by 2030, and the Netherlands as a whole is trying to do it by 2025. edit: Fascinating to me that pointing out basic facts is worthy of downvoting.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Vatican City State can't have more than few dozen vehicles, so it would cost at most a few million to be the first EU state to go completely fossil-fuel-free on their transport fleet. Electrification of their railway station could be a cost, but it's so short you might be able to use a long enough train that the locomotive never enters the sovereign area.
  - eCa 4y ago
    The Vatican isn’t in the EU.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      True, you could elide by using something like "first country on the Euro" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See–European_Union_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See–European_Union_relati...
      - petodo 4y ago
        Vatican is not even in the Eurozone. Just because it use euro it doesn't make it in eurozone, there are plenty of countries which are using euro without being eurozone members.
- AdamN 4y ago
  I upvoted you - HN is becoming more like /r/cars and Trumplandia every day and I'm not sure exactly what is going on.
mhandley 4y ago
https://archive.is/H0Uji https://archive.is/H0Uji
kneebonian 4y ago
I love bans like this that are 17 years out. It allows a politician to act like they are making a stand and doing something decisive when in reality they know they'll be long gone before having to actually ever have to deal with any of the consequences or actually implementing it.
- estomagordo 4y ago
  My man, this is 12 years away. Also, I don't think much of the implementation rests on the politicians?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  I'm in the US but if the US govt passed a ban on gas vehicles effective today, I'd be extremely upset. I love my car.
  - esistgut 4y ago
    It's not a ban on gas vehicles, it's a ban on new sales of gas vehicles. Your car would be perfectly fine.
    - petodo 4y ago
      Until it breaks/crash and the repair won't be economical.
      - pwinnski 4y ago
        There are many cars on the road today that are 15 to 20 years old. There are some cars on the road older than that. Things do get more complicated with recent cars, which have more specialized computing, but you'll be able to burn repurposed dinosaurs for a very long time, regardless of restrictions on new sales.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Good news, everyone! Almost every time a technology is banned, the old grandfathered in examples of that technology become higher value! You're car you love will become worth a bit more, as people will be incentivized to keep it running.
drumhead 4y ago
Who's going to be first to extend the deadline when they realise there isnt the infrastructure, generating capacity or desire from public for this?
- akmarinov 4y ago
  This gives us enough time to start building out that infrastructure and generating capacity gradually until then.
  - geraldwhen 4y ago
    There is not nearly enough energy production in Europe for this unless the 240M car owners in Europe mostly all abandon their vehicles.
    - Robotbeat 4y ago
      In the Us, we used to double electricity production every decade from the 1940s through the 1970s. Electrification only needs about 50% more electricity and it’ll take about 3-4 decades from now for all vehicles (new and old) to be electrified.
      - eldaisfish 4y ago
        I have some bad news for you. Most electricity growth happening in the west is variable renewable energy like wind and solar. That is not firm capacity and electrifying sectors like transport and heat will double, triple or quadruple electrical energy consumption. Now, consider average wind speeds in a year like 2015 where for around six months, average wind speeds across north america were well below seasonal averages. Electrification needs 50% more electricity? Complete nonsense.
        Robotbeat 4y ago
        Context was electrification of vehicles, and yes, we only need about 50% more for that. And it isn’t “complete nonsense.” It takes about 10kWh to displace one gallon of gasoline (gasoline car gets around 30-40mpg, an electric car like a Model 3 gets 4miles per kWh). The US currently consumes about 575 GW electricity on average over a year. The US consumes about 369 million gallons of gasoline per day, which works out to about 154GW steady state average electricity. Increase that by, say, 10-20% to account for distribution and charging (not counting the fact that this is offset by electricity being delivered by wires and not by fuel trucks which need fuel themselves), and we’re at 32% of US electricity to displace all the gasoline we consume. Gasoline accounts for most transport fuel (diesel is about 128 million gallons per day in the US), so yeah, I’d say I’m pretty close to 50% of current electricity. Battery-electric vehicles are better able to flexibly adjust use of electricity during time of day than other large electric loads like air conditioning (which tend to be used en masse at the same time of day with little flexibility) that drove much of the growth in electricity demand when we were doubling electricity production every decade, so I’d say we’re pretty well off overall. So what’s the need for histrionics about “complete nonsense”?
nbevans 4y ago
Quite a "u-turn" from the bloc which for two decades pushed (through regulation) dirty diesel engines as the solution.
- thworp 4y ago
  Yes but those engines did emit something like 30% less CO2 per km and in good conditions almost no nitrous oxide.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Not from my perspective. Petrol is 100 units of bad for CO2, diesel is (say) 95 units, batteries are perhaps 20, bicycles 5, good shoes and walkable neighbourhoods 1. But petrol has cost ($ up front not TCO or non-CO2 pollution) of 20, diesel 22, batteries were 100 and are now 25, bicycles 1-2, and I'm not sure how to make even this level of wild guess for walkable neighbourhoods. The reduction in cost of batteries is what's made this viable. Before this was viable, diesel was sill less bad.
- yread 4y ago
  That helped reduce NOx emmissions 7x times in 30 years https://nitter.net/BM_Visser/status/1624717450297348096#m https://nitter.net/BM_Visser/status/1624717450297348096#m
  - cowl 4y ago
    Eh? They helpedd reduce the Emmisions of the system they were promoting for? Diesel is more CO2 friendly but much more polluting with NOx. This agressive push for a clearly inferior fuel (for this metric) is what raised the NOx emissions. They don't get bonus point for minimising an effect that was caused by that decision in the first place. And there are plenty of studies that show that real-life use of the Cars of whatever Euro-X standard does not match the laboratory results based on which they get those certifications in the first place. And not this was not something only for VW that caused the scandaaal, these tests are done with all the brands and outside of very limitied scenarios all produced more than the standard dictated.
jakear 4y ago
I suppose if there's any place EV's make sense, it's the EU. Dense enough populations and prevalent enough trains that odds are you aren't going to find yourself on a 500 mile trip through the middle of nowhere. Amusing to see American city slickers claim the same is true here.
- cowl 4y ago
  |prevalent enough trains Everyone keeps repeating this farce. No Trains are not prevalent enough. Those are prevalent only between major cities and do not offer a good service. (Most of trains in rush hours do not have enough capacity, are a health hazzard, heating or cooling does not work etc, on the otherside of the coin, outside of rush hours you have these trains run practically empty, total waste of Energy). Asking people to exhange their 1 hour commute for a 2.5 hours (each direction) public transport is not a solution. But the main problem is that not everyone need to move between major cities where these trains are prevalent. I drive one hour to get to work. there are no Train lines there. While that distance is doable with an EV, it makes you nervous, there is effectivly zero infrastructure build for EVs outside of Major cities and I know fully well that the infrastructure will not be ready by 2035. EU has put the cart before the horse. They should have first mandated the building of the infrastructure and I am sure more people will adopt the EVs. Meanwhile more incetivising of Hybrid Cars should be in place.
- ben_w 4y ago
  EU is as variable as the US for such things, but with more languages and currencies and the police may ask to see your ID when crossing borders (happened to me twice in recent years when leaving France, with the border inspection on the train itself, even though I've also gone across the French-German-Swiss borders on bike without even a signpost in all cases). We've got the Blue Banana region[0] which is well connected, and western Europe more broadly, but if there's a way to get from Berlin to Athens only by train I don't know how to find it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana ironically straightened by Brexit
  - jakear 4y ago
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Kon-Peki 4y ago
Modern automobiles are so durable that they can last almost indefinitely with maintenance. There's a lot of evidence, especially with demographic projections, to suggest that all the cars that will ever be needed (in the EU) have already been produced. Think about steel. Very little steel is now produced from raw materials. 95% or more of steel production is recycling. Cars will be the same. Want to get into a growth industry? Start investing in businesses that go far beyond normal car repair and will be able to refresh an old car to feel new again, especially car interiors and tech.
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  Seems like dismantling the hundreds of millions of ICE cars for valuable parts and materials should have some money to be made. Even better if some of them can be converted - but that might be too difficult
  - AdamN 4y ago
    That already happens. Basically every car gets recycled, even if it's just for raw materials.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  Nobody would pay for such maintenance, it would end up costing more than new cars. Checking every valve, bolt, tube, sealing etc. Metal parts get fatigue. Plastics and sealants get weird chemical reactions over time. You would end up with same looking car without most of original components, and that's ridiculously expensive proposition. Since we talk about systems comprised of at least few thousands of pieces, and failure of most will degrade usability/safety of the car or render it unable to drive, I can't agree with some of your statements. Recycling of course is a valid point but those are not same cars. Also its trivial for bureaucracies to tax older more polluting cars to hell... people are sensitive to costs. And older cars do pollute more.
  - Kon-Peki 4y ago
    > Nobody would pay for such maintenance, it would end up costing more than new cars And what if new cars aren't available? Like if some crazy European technocrats pass a law? Somebody is going to make a lot of money off this; it clearly won't be anyone from HN.
TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
Will get eventually reversed when politicians figure out that it is so easy for populists to grab votes of poor people just by pointing on expensive EVs.
- deleted 4y ago
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- Isinlor 4y ago
  Nobody will remember about it in few years. The same was with cap and trade system.
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    If you think dumb energy exchange in EU, then people never ceased to be salty about it and it was major driver of energy prices, thanks to the fact, that this stupid system is pricing by the most expensive power plant - which were gas power plants.
    - Isinlor 4y ago
      No, I mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Trading_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi... It was introduced, then largely forgotten until prices started spiking.
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petodo 4y ago
In before these politicians will be voted out and new politicians will reverse this nonsense majority of people doesn't want, but politicians ignore majority of voters.
DrBazza 4y ago
I hope the same EU lawmakers have mandated a huge building programme of nuclear power, wind turbines, solar and storage to keep up. And demand that range hits comparable petrol distances in the same time scale. Of course they haven't.
- dividedbyzero 4y ago
  The French have, but in all likelihood any new nuclear capacity is going to go online way too late and cost way too much. Flamanville has a delay of 11 years, Olkiluoto construction is turning 20 this year and is still in evaluations. All have colossal cost overruns too. Nuclear is pretty dead in the water right now in that it's currently not possible to actually get them built.
  - DrBazza 4y ago
    The US have approved modular nuclear. But might be too little too late for Europe. And it’s nimby approach to certain things. Especially protectionist France. Can’t imagine they’d ever give a nuclear contract to anyone other than EdF https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-approves-design-nuscale-small-modular-nuclear-reactor-2023-01-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-approves-design-n...
    - dividedbyzero 4y ago
      It remains to be seen how that will go. Pro-nuke people were pretty stoked for Olkiluoto/Flamanville/Hinkley Point too and that didn't work out so well despite being a much more proven technology and form factor. I think it's way to soon to consider SMRs a solution to demand for green energy, right now it's more like a big experiment with highly uncertain outcome.
hammon 4y ago
[dead]
goatsneez 4y ago
I would be of opinion that by 2035 the gasses to liquid fuels transformation of CO2 + CH4 from the atmosphere (using SE) will overtake the electrification idea of today. The liquid fuels are here to stay, not necessarily for the entire chain of transportation system, but for a significant portion of it (and certainly for humanty's ever larger scope of war efforts which cannot run on electricity).
GuB-42 4y ago
Technically, we are already there. All cars sold today are able to run on biofuels: ethanol for gas cars, vegetable oil for diesel. It is not manufacturers fault if people put fossil fuel in them... Of course, I am being sarcastic, but while electric and hydrogen cars seem to be the obvious response, I don't see biofuels being unacceptable (and I've seen several mentions of net CO2 in articles).
- 331c8c71 4y ago
  > All cars sold today are able to run on biofuels: ethanol for gas cars, vegetable oil for diesel. Cars adapted to E10 or E15 won't run on pure ethanol. You can probably run diesel cars on vegoil but I expect problems cause it's more viscous. Talking about Europe here, not LatAm or Brazil.
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
Are they likewise mandating the construction of the infrastructure needed to handle all the vehicle charging?
pier25 4y ago
Very bold move but if they don't provide clean electricity for those electric cars it won't change anything as far as emissions go. 12 years to transition the EU to clean electricity and increase grid capacity is going to be quite a challenge.
- arrrg 4y ago
  Why does that have to happen at the same time? It should, obviously, but even today (with not so great energy mixes) electric cars do better than gas cars from an emissions point of view (even if looking at the whole life cycle). Electric cars are energy mix agnostic and you try to frame that as a disadvantage but it actually is not, quite the opposite. They are one puzzle piece that enables change and without which change is not possible. I don’t get arguments like yours. Obviously we always have to do much, much more. We have to massively push individual cars out of densely populated areas and turn them into an option that is not fun at all to use there. We have to upgrade public transport. We have to better our energy mix. Buildings have to become more efficient on a massive scale. Energy intensive industrial processes have to transition to ways of doing things that can at least be plausibly made CO2 (equivalent) neutral like hydrogen. And and and. Doesn’t mean that all of this has to or even can happen at the same time.
  - pier25 4y ago
    > Why does that have to happen at the same time? Well because the grid capacity has to increase rapidly to satisfy the demand of electric cars and then some. If the EU countries are going to invest into new energy infra during this decade, it better be clean considering the whole point is to reduce emissions. This massive investment probably won't happen again in generations and it would be pretty stupid to have to rebuild the energy grid. > and you try to frame that as a disadvantage I'm happy with the transition to electric cars. Not sure where you're getting that idea from. > I don’t get arguments like yours. What argument? That the EU will need more electricity very soon? That's a fact.
irthomasthomas 4y ago
This is impossible, surely? Or do they only care about the running of the car, and not it's manufacturing? If so, that's just incredibly dumb. The CO2 required to manufacture EVs is significantly higher than ICE (like 40-60% higher)[0]. Unless manufacturing moves away from fossil fuels, first, this will massively accelerate the amount of CO2 we release, and we won't see any reduction for a decade or more (partly depends on the lifecycle of the batteries). And you won't see a NET reduction for many decades, due to the front-loading of the CO2 premium in manufacturing EVs Vs ICE. This is crazy. We cannot consume our way to a fossil fuel free world. We need to invent and build clean energy sources, and low carbon manufacturing. [0] "The emissions from Materials production and refining of the ICE are roughly 40 per cent less than for the BEV" https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/project/contentpl https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/project/contentpl...
- thinkcontext 4y ago
  Yes, BEVs have higher manufacturing emissions but study after study finds lifetime emissions are substantially lower. This holds even on coal heavy electric grids, it just takes longer. For instance this article talks about a study that found it takes 1.5 years in the US for a BEV to "pay off" its higher manufacturing emissions vs 6 years in China because of its dirtier manufacturing and electricity. https://about.bnef.com/blog/the-lifecycle-emissions-of-electric-vehicles/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/the-lifecycle-emissions-of-elect... Of course these studies are looking at averages. If you drive a 10 year old Honda Civic and only go 500 miles a year, you aren't going to be saving the environment by buying an electric Hummer.

75 points by huijzer 4y ago

It's going to be interesting to observe first hand how much earlier this will effectively take place, i.e. how much sooner folks will transition to only buying new EVs, because who wants to be the last person to buy a brand-new ICE just before 2035 except maybe some petrolheads. It will also be interesting to see what this does to the used-car market in Europe, though I guess you can always sell used ICEs abroad minus their shipping cost.

Spivak 4y ago
I think you have it backwards and that late 2034 ICE cars are going to sell like hotcakes and the market for keeping used cars alive will thrive like we’ve never seen. I really want to believe that local governments are going to have this ban light a fire under their ass and and actuality make EVs usable for the “rest of us” who have street parking and no chargers at work but they won’t and so like everything else in this world this ban will disproportionately affect low income folks. Also governments will happily exempt themselves and their from their own laws once they realize that you can’t “just” replace busses and mail delivery with EVs and have to actually plan for it.
- garblegarble 4y ago
  >I think you have it backwards and that late 2034 ICE cars are going to sell like hotcakes and the market for keeping used cars alive will thrive like we’ve never seen. I suspect the ever-increasing cost of fossil fuels will prevent such a thriving market in ICE repair being long-lived...
  - leeroyjenkins11 4y ago
    But the question is, why are fossil fuels going up? It's because governments and large corporations are openly hostile to the industry and are trying to kill investment. If you work for exon, would you bother to look at oil exploration that pays off in 10 years? Nah, but that's the goal artificially increase the price, make fossil fuels suck more than ev. So the goal is not to make EVs better, it's to make fossil fuels worse. The real losers are the little people.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      Exxon and the like are watching this. They will continue to drill, but they are already trying to predict how this will play out to ensure that they have enough wells to supply whatever demand there is in 10 years, while getting the best price from those that are left. They know the writing is on the wall for fuel customers - but there are other customers they have plus collectors. Note that I did not say they will predict this correctly, only that they are trying to.
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    There is no reason for it to go up. Less cars -> less demand -> less cost.
    - garblegarble 4y ago
      I can't say I share your confidence in OPEC... It's a resource that both producers and consumers know has a limited lifespan, and upon which a lot of consumers are totally dependent. There's every reason for OPEC nations to raise prices as high as they can to extract the most revenue possible before the source disappears. They know that as every year passes, the world's dependence on them diminishes.
djaychela 4y ago
Secondhand ICE cars will be on the road for their normal lifespan after the ban comes in. There will be some changes to the market in terms of pricing, but they won't be going out of common sight for another 15-20 years, I think.
- bluGill 4y ago
  Some will be. However I think we will see a cliff. As ICE cars become less popular gas stations and the refineries supplying them will close. This will start happening when EVs have been 25% of the new market for 3 years, and accelerate when they have been 50% for 3 years. By the time EVs are 75% of the new market gas will start becoming expensive and so EVs will quickly jump to 98%, and people with ICEs will start to plan trips around where to get fuel. That last 1-2% will be some niches that cannot use an EV for some reason, and so they will lobby to reverse the law - but by then it will be too late for ICEs: a few years latter those with an ICE will special order fuel from the last refinery remaining in the world. It will start slow: gas stations will be less profitable, but investors/banks will take time to catch on so they will be built in larger numbers than the numbers justify (if you are an investor take note: there is opportunity to make money in shorts if you get it right - I'm not an investor so I won't be playing this). Then they will all see reduced profitability. When pumps break or tanks fail inspection someone will decide the market doesn't justify the investment in fixing/replacing them an so they will close and they won't be replaced (the part already happens, but there is some other new station nearby to make it up) The next part will accelerate as unprofitable gas stations go bankrupt. We will probably see some over correction in places as a corner than had 4 stations but can now only support 3 will see several go bankrupt at once, and then the one that just manages to hang on will be wildly profitable. The last part will see us where gas is hard to get. If you have an ICE it is no longer a case of when the fuel gauge is low you stop for fuel, it is you know where the stations you use are and ensure you can get back to them. when on a road trip you plan around where gas stations are (much like EV cars have to now, but soon an EV will find chargers every 20 miles and so won't have to worry - some places already have EV chargers that dense) Note that I said nothing about refineries. Many of them have better management and are watching this. At least some are already watching this and making plans to reduce size as it happens, between that and non-travel markets they will be okay for longer and probably can spin down their business. Watch out for the small ones: some of them are only running today because when they shutdown they have to cleanup decades of pollution - expect a bunch of "EPA superfund" projects around them. I believe Norway is already close to the first mark above, and probably other countries. I expect to see it show up in data (that I have no clue how to access) soon.
seszett 4y ago
This isn't a ban on ICEs, just on new ones. Existing ICEs will likely stay on the road until the 2050s, they will eventually get banned from city centers but many ICEs are already banned (my previous car was banned in 2020 in my city, and my current one will be in 2027, for example) and the used-car market doesn't seem to have suffered much if at all.
- heipei 4y ago
  No, I get that it's only new cars, but what I meant what was that the attractiveness of an ICE will rapidly diminish way before the cutoff date of 2035. As other comments have said, infrastructure might heavily favour EVs (gas stations, parking lots, residential parking, city bans, tax incentives), making ICEs much less attractive even if you can still technically own and drive them. For new cars, the models that are going to be sold over the next 12 years have already been developed, many car manufacturers have developed their last iteration ICEs, so except facelifts you can essentially just buy 12-year-old models in 2034/2035. Put another way: Would you want to be the last guy to buy an Intel Mac if Apple had already announced their switch to ARM with all the changes that go along with it? Yes, you can still run it, yes there are still others who run it, but do you want to be the last holdout that buys that Intel machine right before the next Apple keynote finalising the switch?
nemo44x 4y ago
I’m guessing people will be stockpiling them. Used ICEs will probably retain lots of value for years after this mandate goes into effect. Especially when people figure out the electrical to their home doesn’t have enough to charge reliably.
- bluGill 4y ago
  For a short time. However soon after they will discover that an ICE doesn't take to just sitting around for years. Not used seals start leaking. Lead-acid batteries need to be stored correctly or they discharge and fail. And other problems - all for a car that you don't use, and fuel is hard to find. There will be a few niches that still use ICEs (but my guess is they get the law changed and one factory in the world provides all the vehicles that niche needs - this won't be the average car, but something setup for their niche, so they won't be interested in your stored car)
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    Cuban's still use cars from the 1950s. An entire ecosystem springs up around it. I don't think it will be a big deal. Eventually they will phase out except for wealthy people and collectors (sort of like horses today) but I have to imagine they will be pretty common for the next 15-20 years after the ban. I expect a lot of people to buy them leading up to the ban as well.
lm28469 4y ago
> how much sooner folks will transition to only buying new EVs Won't happen until we get cheap EVs. Most people can't afford even the basic models (which are glorified golf carts and can't even do highway speeds)
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  I believe its the same logic as with ICE - used electric car market needs to look similar to used ICE car market, pricewise. I can accept buying electric car say 6 years old with 90% battery capacity and usual wear and tear for half to 1/3rd of the price of new one. But even though I can easily afford it, I will simply never pay those prices for new cars, ICE nor electric. They are ridiculous, never understood who buys them outright or via some not-so-smart payment regimes.

_edmb 4y ago

Some countries and cities in Europe have put the ban in place well before 2035: https://greencitizen.com/news/amsterdam-announces-a-ban-on-fossil-fuel-vehicles-from-2030/ https://greencitizen.com/news/amsterdam-announces-a-ban-on-f... Amsterdam by 2030, and the Netherlands as a whole is trying to do it by 2025. edit: Fascinating to me that pointing out basic facts is worthy of downvoting.

bombcar 4y ago
Vatican City State can't have more than few dozen vehicles, so it would cost at most a few million to be the first EU state to go completely fossil-fuel-free on their transport fleet. Electrification of their railway station could be a cost, but it's so short you might be able to use a long enough train that the locomotive never enters the sovereign area.
- eCa 4y ago
  The Vatican isn’t in the EU.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    True, you could elide by using something like "first country on the Euro" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See–European_Union_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See–European_Union_relati...
    - petodo 4y ago
      Vatican is not even in the Eurozone. Just because it use euro it doesn't make it in eurozone, there are plenty of countries which are using euro without being eurozone members.
AdamN 4y ago
I upvoted you - HN is becoming more like /r/cars and Trumplandia every day and I'm not sure exactly what is going on.

mhandley 4y ago

https://archive.is/H0Uji https://archive.is/H0Uji

kneebonian 4y ago

I love bans like this that are 17 years out. It allows a politician to act like they are making a stand and doing something decisive when in reality they know they'll be long gone before having to actually ever have to deal with any of the consequences or actually implementing it.

estomagordo 4y ago
My man, this is 12 years away. Also, I don't think much of the implementation rests on the politicians?
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
I'm in the US but if the US govt passed a ban on gas vehicles effective today, I'd be extremely upset. I love my car.
- esistgut 4y ago
  It's not a ban on gas vehicles, it's a ban on new sales of gas vehicles. Your car would be perfectly fine.
  - petodo 4y ago
    Until it breaks/crash and the repair won't be economical.
    - pwinnski 4y ago
      There are many cars on the road today that are 15 to 20 years old. There are some cars on the road older than that. Things do get more complicated with recent cars, which have more specialized computing, but you'll be able to burn repurposed dinosaurs for a very long time, regardless of restrictions on new sales.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Good news, everyone! Almost every time a technology is banned, the old grandfathered in examples of that technology become higher value! You're car you love will become worth a bit more, as people will be incentivized to keep it running.

drumhead 4y ago

Who's going to be first to extend the deadline when they realise there isnt the infrastructure, generating capacity or desire from public for this?

akmarinov 4y ago
This gives us enough time to start building out that infrastructure and generating capacity gradually until then.
- geraldwhen 4y ago
  There is not nearly enough energy production in Europe for this unless the 240M car owners in Europe mostly all abandon their vehicles.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    In the Us, we used to double electricity production every decade from the 1940s through the 1970s. Electrification only needs about 50% more electricity and it’ll take about 3-4 decades from now for all vehicles (new and old) to be electrified.
    - eldaisfish 4y ago
      I have some bad news for you. Most electricity growth happening in the west is variable renewable energy like wind and solar. That is not firm capacity and electrifying sectors like transport and heat will double, triple or quadruple electrical energy consumption. Now, consider average wind speeds in a year like 2015 where for around six months, average wind speeds across north america were well below seasonal averages. Electrification needs 50% more electricity? Complete nonsense.
      - Robotbeat 4y ago
        Context was electrification of vehicles, and yes, we only need about 50% more for that. And it isn’t “complete nonsense.” It takes about 10kWh to displace one gallon of gasoline (gasoline car gets around 30-40mpg, an electric car like a Model 3 gets 4miles per kWh). The US currently consumes about 575 GW electricity on average over a year. The US consumes about 369 million gallons of gasoline per day, which works out to about 154GW steady state average electricity. Increase that by, say, 10-20% to account for distribution and charging (not counting the fact that this is offset by electricity being delivered by wires and not by fuel trucks which need fuel themselves), and we’re at 32% of US electricity to displace all the gasoline we consume. Gasoline accounts for most transport fuel (diesel is about 128 million gallons per day in the US), so yeah, I’d say I’m pretty close to 50% of current electricity. Battery-electric vehicles are better able to flexibly adjust use of electricity during time of day than other large electric loads like air conditioning (which tend to be used en masse at the same time of day with little flexibility) that drove much of the growth in electricity demand when we were doubling electricity production every decade, so I’d say we’re pretty well off overall. So what’s the need for histrionics about “complete nonsense”?

nbevans 4y ago

Quite a "u-turn" from the bloc which for two decades pushed (through regulation) dirty diesel engines as the solution.

thworp 4y ago
Yes but those engines did emit something like 30% less CO2 per km and in good conditions almost no nitrous oxide.
ben_w 4y ago
Not from my perspective. Petrol is 100 units of bad for CO2, diesel is (say) 95 units, batteries are perhaps 20, bicycles 5, good shoes and walkable neighbourhoods 1. But petrol has cost ($ up front not TCO or non-CO2 pollution) of 20, diesel 22, batteries were 100 and are now 25, bicycles 1-2, and I'm not sure how to make even this level of wild guess for walkable neighbourhoods. The reduction in cost of batteries is what's made this viable. Before this was viable, diesel was sill less bad.
yread 4y ago
That helped reduce NOx emmissions 7x times in 30 years https://nitter.net/BM_Visser/status/1624717450297348096#m https://nitter.net/BM_Visser/status/1624717450297348096#m
- cowl 4y ago
  Eh? They helpedd reduce the Emmisions of the system they were promoting for? Diesel is more CO2 friendly but much more polluting with NOx. This agressive push for a clearly inferior fuel (for this metric) is what raised the NOx emissions. They don't get bonus point for minimising an effect that was caused by that decision in the first place. And there are plenty of studies that show that real-life use of the Cars of whatever Euro-X standard does not match the laboratory results based on which they get those certifications in the first place. And not this was not something only for VW that caused the scandaaal, these tests are done with all the brands and outside of very limitied scenarios all produced more than the standard dictated.

jakear 4y ago

I suppose if there's any place EV's make sense, it's the EU. Dense enough populations and prevalent enough trains that odds are you aren't going to find yourself on a 500 mile trip through the middle of nowhere. Amusing to see American city slickers claim the same is true here.

cowl 4y ago
|prevalent enough trains Everyone keeps repeating this farce. No Trains are not prevalent enough. Those are prevalent only between major cities and do not offer a good service. (Most of trains in rush hours do not have enough capacity, are a health hazzard, heating or cooling does not work etc, on the otherside of the coin, outside of rush hours you have these trains run practically empty, total waste of Energy). Asking people to exhange their 1 hour commute for a 2.5 hours (each direction) public transport is not a solution. But the main problem is that not everyone need to move between major cities where these trains are prevalent. I drive one hour to get to work. there are no Train lines there. While that distance is doable with an EV, it makes you nervous, there is effectivly zero infrastructure build for EVs outside of Major cities and I know fully well that the infrastructure will not be ready by 2035. EU has put the cart before the horse. They should have first mandated the building of the infrastructure and I am sure more people will adopt the EVs. Meanwhile more incetivising of Hybrid Cars should be in place.
ben_w 4y ago
EU is as variable as the US for such things, but with more languages and currencies and the police may ask to see your ID when crossing borders (happened to me twice in recent years when leaving France, with the border inspection on the train itself, even though I've also gone across the French-German-Swiss borders on bike without even a signpost in all cases). We've got the Blue Banana region[0] which is well connected, and western Europe more broadly, but if there's a way to get from Berlin to Athens only by train I don't know how to find it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Banana ironically straightened by Brexit
- jakear 4y ago

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Kon-Peki 4y ago

Modern automobiles are so durable that they can last almost indefinitely with maintenance. There's a lot of evidence, especially with demographic projections, to suggest that all the cars that will ever be needed (in the EU) have already been produced. Think about steel. Very little steel is now produced from raw materials. 95% or more of steel production is recycling. Cars will be the same. Want to get into a growth industry? Start investing in businesses that go far beyond normal car repair and will be able to refresh an old car to feel new again, especially car interiors and tech.

coffeebeqn 4y ago
Seems like dismantling the hundreds of millions of ICE cars for valuable parts and materials should have some money to be made. Even better if some of them can be converted - but that might be too difficult
- AdamN 4y ago
  That already happens. Basically every car gets recycled, even if it's just for raw materials.
saiya-jin 4y ago
Nobody would pay for such maintenance, it would end up costing more than new cars. Checking every valve, bolt, tube, sealing etc. Metal parts get fatigue. Plastics and sealants get weird chemical reactions over time. You would end up with same looking car without most of original components, and that's ridiculously expensive proposition. Since we talk about systems comprised of at least few thousands of pieces, and failure of most will degrade usability/safety of the car or render it unable to drive, I can't agree with some of your statements. Recycling of course is a valid point but those are not same cars. Also its trivial for bureaucracies to tax older more polluting cars to hell... people are sensitive to costs. And older cars do pollute more.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago
  > Nobody would pay for such maintenance, it would end up costing more than new cars And what if new cars aren't available? Like if some crazy European technocrats pass a law? Somebody is going to make a lot of money off this; it clearly won't be anyone from HN.

TheLoafOfBread 4y ago

Will get eventually reversed when politicians figure out that it is so easy for populists to grab votes of poor people just by pointing on expensive EVs.

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Isinlor 4y ago
Nobody will remember about it in few years. The same was with cap and trade system.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  If you think dumb energy exchange in EU, then people never ceased to be salty about it and it was major driver of energy prices, thanks to the fact, that this stupid system is pricing by the most expensive power plant - which were gas power plants.
  - Isinlor 4y ago
    No, I mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Trading_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi... It was introduced, then largely forgotten until prices started spiking.

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petodo 4y ago

In before these politicians will be voted out and new politicians will reverse this nonsense majority of people doesn't want, but politicians ignore majority of voters.

DrBazza 4y ago

I hope the same EU lawmakers have mandated a huge building programme of nuclear power, wind turbines, solar and storage to keep up. And demand that range hits comparable petrol distances in the same time scale. Of course they haven't.

dividedbyzero 4y ago
The French have, but in all likelihood any new nuclear capacity is going to go online way too late and cost way too much. Flamanville has a delay of 11 years, Olkiluoto construction is turning 20 this year and is still in evaluations. All have colossal cost overruns too. Nuclear is pretty dead in the water right now in that it's currently not possible to actually get them built.
- DrBazza 4y ago
  The US have approved modular nuclear. But might be too little too late for Europe. And it’s nimby approach to certain things. Especially protectionist France. Can’t imagine they’d ever give a nuclear contract to anyone other than EdF https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-approves-design-nuscale-small-modular-nuclear-reactor-2023-01-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-approves-design-n...
  - dividedbyzero 4y ago
    It remains to be seen how that will go. Pro-nuke people were pretty stoked for Olkiluoto/Flamanville/Hinkley Point too and that didn't work out so well despite being a much more proven technology and form factor. I think it's way to soon to consider SMRs a solution to demand for green energy, right now it's more like a big experiment with highly uncertain outcome.

hammon 4y ago

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goatsneez 4y ago

I would be of opinion that by 2035 the gasses to liquid fuels transformation of CO2 + CH4 from the atmosphere (using SE) will overtake the electrification idea of today. The liquid fuels are here to stay, not necessarily for the entire chain of transportation system, but for a significant portion of it (and certainly for humanty's ever larger scope of war efforts which cannot run on electricity).

GuB-42 4y ago

Technically, we are already there. All cars sold today are able to run on biofuels: ethanol for gas cars, vegetable oil for diesel. It is not manufacturers fault if people put fossil fuel in them... Of course, I am being sarcastic, but while electric and hydrogen cars seem to be the obvious response, I don't see biofuels being unacceptable (and I've seen several mentions of net CO2 in articles).

331c8c71 4y ago
> All cars sold today are able to run on biofuels: ethanol for gas cars, vegetable oil for diesel. Cars adapted to E10 or E15 won't run on pure ethanol. You can probably run diesel cars on vegoil but I expect problems cause it's more viscous. Talking about Europe here, not LatAm or Brazil.

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

Are they likewise mandating the construction of the infrastructure needed to handle all the vehicle charging?

pier25 4y ago

Very bold move but if they don't provide clean electricity for those electric cars it won't change anything as far as emissions go. 12 years to transition the EU to clean electricity and increase grid capacity is going to be quite a challenge.

arrrg 4y ago
Why does that have to happen at the same time? It should, obviously, but even today (with not so great energy mixes) electric cars do better than gas cars from an emissions point of view (even if looking at the whole life cycle). Electric cars are energy mix agnostic and you try to frame that as a disadvantage but it actually is not, quite the opposite. They are one puzzle piece that enables change and without which change is not possible. I don’t get arguments like yours. Obviously we always have to do much, much more. We have to massively push individual cars out of densely populated areas and turn them into an option that is not fun at all to use there. We have to upgrade public transport. We have to better our energy mix. Buildings have to become more efficient on a massive scale. Energy intensive industrial processes have to transition to ways of doing things that can at least be plausibly made CO2 (equivalent) neutral like hydrogen. And and and. Doesn’t mean that all of this has to or even can happen at the same time.
- pier25 4y ago
  > Why does that have to happen at the same time? Well because the grid capacity has to increase rapidly to satisfy the demand of electric cars and then some. If the EU countries are going to invest into new energy infra during this decade, it better be clean considering the whole point is to reduce emissions. This massive investment probably won't happen again in generations and it would be pretty stupid to have to rebuild the energy grid. > and you try to frame that as a disadvantage I'm happy with the transition to electric cars. Not sure where you're getting that idea from. > I don’t get arguments like yours. What argument? That the EU will need more electricity very soon? That's a fact.

irthomasthomas 4y ago

This is impossible, surely? Or do they only care about the running of the car, and not it's manufacturing? If so, that's just incredibly dumb. The CO2 required to manufacture EVs is significantly higher than ICE (like 40-60% higher)[0]. Unless manufacturing moves away from fossil fuels, first, this will massively accelerate the amount of CO2 we release, and we won't see any reduction for a decade or more (partly depends on the lifecycle of the batteries). And you won't see a NET reduction for many decades, due to the front-loading of the CO2 premium in manufacturing EVs Vs ICE. This is crazy. We cannot consume our way to a fossil fuel free world. We need to invent and build clean energy sources, and low carbon manufacturing. [0] "The emissions from Materials production and refining of the ICE are roughly 40 per cent less than for the BEV" https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/project/contentpl https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/project/contentpl...

thinkcontext 4y ago
Yes, BEVs have higher manufacturing emissions but study after study finds lifetime emissions are substantially lower. This holds even on coal heavy electric grids, it just takes longer. For instance this article talks about a study that found it takes 1.5 years in the US for a BEV to "pay off" its higher manufacturing emissions vs 6 years in China because of its dirtier manufacturing and electricity. https://about.bnef.com/blog/the-lifecycle-emissions-of-electric-vehicles/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/the-lifecycle-emissions-of-elect... Of course these studies are looking at averages. If you drive a 10 year old Honda Civic and only go 500 miles a year, you aren't going to be saving the environment by buying an electric Hummer.