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> European authorities haven’t yet specified precisely what information a battery passport must contain, but a three-year, £7 million project called the Battery

by pxtail 3y ago

> European authorities haven’t yet specified precisely what information a battery passport must contain, but a three-year, £7 million project called the Battery Pass Consortium is defining exactly that. > Led by ‘system changer’ Systemiq and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, the project’s 11 partners include car industry heavyweights such as Audi and BMW and Circulor as the tech lead. Ahh, obviously.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Alternate titles: "Uncompetitive German EV manufacturers lobby for tighter controls and taxes on EV competition entering the EU." Is that close?
- mantas 3y ago
  More like „Germany tries to prevent de-industrialisation and economy collapse“.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    ...through regulation instead of competition.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      But competition is hard, just ask Boeing. Paying politicians you golf with to make laws favoring you is easier.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        I agree - assuming the state can oversee this despite lack of expertise and being bribeable is never going to go well!
    - mantas 3y ago
      Well, China didn’t industrialize through fair competition either. There’s no mythical level playing field. Regulations is not a problem. The problem is here in europe we ain’t focusing on engineering and manufacturing culturally. Regulations can create a void but do we have what to fill it with?
- throwaway4good 3y ago
  It is the French and the Americans that lobby for this. The Germans make too much money in China to go there.
  - gawa 3y ago
    To add more context: German car manufacturers have a bigger market share in China (especially compared to other Europeans brands). They depend on China, especially VW which invest a lot there. China already threatens to retaliate with punitive tariff (or organize a boycott as it's easy to leverage nationalism there, something like "buy Chinese, not European!") in case the European Comission does something to defend its industry against the anti-competitive dumping practices that China may use (the same tactic China used to obliterate the EU and US solar panel industries). This is why Germany is officially against the probe [0] investigating the subsidies China may have given chinese manufacturers (mainly BYD) [1], and thus why Germany may not be so (publicly) in favor of this EV passport. [0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2023/754553/EPRS_ATA(2023)754553_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2023/7545... [1] https://www.gizmochina.com/2023/10/18/german-minister-warns-of-threat-from-eus-chinese-ev-subsidy-probe/ https://www.gizmochina.com/2023/10/18/german-minister-warns-...
- midasuni 3y ago
  “EU decides that goods made using slave labour should not be allowed into the EU”
  - Mystery-Machine 3y ago
    I like this one
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Then 90% of the clothing in EU should be banned. Have you checked what's on your feet? Pretty sure you're not wearing sneakers "Made in Germany" by unionized workers with 38h work weeks and pension plans, but more like some Nikes made by the finest sweatshop workers of Bangladesh/Pakistan/Vietnam/etc. Why doesn't the EU look into stopping that kind of slave labor and instead focuses on the competition of Audi and BMW? Not saying that shouldn't be taken care of, but it seems massively hypocritical by the EU to turn a blind eye to the slavery in the fast fashion industry imports for decades and suddenly wake up to it when a local industry gets some tough competition.
    - seszett 3y ago
      Not doing enough is not an excuse for not doing anything at all, though. And clothing is typically less dangerous than EV batteries.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >Not doing enough is not an excuse for not doing anything at all, though. That doesn't answer my question on why the EU turns a blind eye on other industries but suddenly focuses on those with local competition. Doing a good thing in one place doesn't suddenly absolve you of thousands of other poor things you did or not did. >And clothing is typically less dangerous than EV batteries. Is breathing in fossil fuel emissions less dangerous? How many Europeans have been killed so far by non-compliant EV batteries?
        3y ago
__m 3y ago
you want them to pass regulation without input from the industry? Isn't that what hn usually complains about, that these regulations are made by bureaucrats without knowledge of the industry?
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
  This is just regulatory capture. It is in the large companies interest to have burdensome regulation - they can shoulder the costs (which are often significant), but newcomers and smaller competitors can't. This is basically pulling up the ladder to prevent startups and protect incumbents, and the EU has been very successful at that. The share of large companies that have been created in the past three decades is very low compared to the US (mostly in IT).

by pxtail 3y ago

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

Alternate titles: "Uncompetitive German EV manufacturers lobby for tighter controls and taxes on EV competition entering the EU." Is that close?

mantas 3y ago
More like „Germany tries to prevent de-industrialisation and economy collapse“.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  ...through regulation instead of competition.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    But competition is hard, just ask Boeing. Paying politicians you golf with to make laws favoring you is easier.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      I agree - assuming the state can oversee this despite lack of expertise and being bribeable is never going to go well!
  - mantas 3y ago
    Well, China didn’t industrialize through fair competition either. There’s no mythical level playing field. Regulations is not a problem. The problem is here in europe we ain’t focusing on engineering and manufacturing culturally. Regulations can create a void but do we have what to fill it with?
throwaway4good 3y ago
It is the French and the Americans that lobby for this. The Germans make too much money in China to go there.
- gawa 3y ago
  To add more context: German car manufacturers have a bigger market share in China (especially compared to other Europeans brands). They depend on China, especially VW which invest a lot there. China already threatens to retaliate with punitive tariff (or organize a boycott as it's easy to leverage nationalism there, something like "buy Chinese, not European!") in case the European Comission does something to defend its industry against the anti-competitive dumping practices that China may use (the same tactic China used to obliterate the EU and US solar panel industries). This is why Germany is officially against the probe [0] investigating the subsidies China may have given chinese manufacturers (mainly BYD) [1], and thus why Germany may not be so (publicly) in favor of this EV passport. [0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2023/754553/EPRS_ATA(2023)754553_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2023/7545... [1] https://www.gizmochina.com/2023/10/18/german-minister-warns-of-threat-from-eus-chinese-ev-subsidy-probe/ https://www.gizmochina.com/2023/10/18/german-minister-warns-...
midasuni 3y ago
“EU decides that goods made using slave labour should not be allowed into the EU”
- Mystery-Machine 3y ago
  I like this one
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Then 90% of the clothing in EU should be banned. Have you checked what's on your feet? Pretty sure you're not wearing sneakers "Made in Germany" by unionized workers with 38h work weeks and pension plans, but more like some Nikes made by the finest sweatshop workers of Bangladesh/Pakistan/Vietnam/etc. Why doesn't the EU look into stopping that kind of slave labor and instead focuses on the competition of Audi and BMW? Not saying that shouldn't be taken care of, but it seems massively hypocritical by the EU to turn a blind eye to the slavery in the fast fashion industry imports for decades and suddenly wake up to it when a local industry gets some tough competition.
  - seszett 3y ago
    Not doing enough is not an excuse for not doing anything at all, though. And clothing is typically less dangerous than EV batteries.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >Not doing enough is not an excuse for not doing anything at all, though. That doesn't answer my question on why the EU turns a blind eye on other industries but suddenly focuses on those with local competition. Doing a good thing in one place doesn't suddenly absolve you of thousands of other poor things you did or not did. >And clothing is typically less dangerous than EV batteries. Is breathing in fossil fuel emissions less dangerous? How many Europeans have been killed so far by non-compliant EV batteries?
      - 3y ago

__m 3y ago

you want them to pass regulation without input from the industry? Isn't that what hn usually complains about, that these regulations are made by bureaucrats without knowledge of the industry?

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
This is just regulatory capture. It is in the large companies interest to have burdensome regulation - they can shoulder the costs (which are often significant), but newcomers and smaller competitors can't. This is basically pulling up the ladder to prevent startups and protect incumbents, and the EU has been very successful at that. The share of large companies that have been created in the past three decades is very low compared to the US (mostly in IT).