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EU vote to ban all sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035

theregister.com

121–130 of 243 posts

Re: EU vote to ban all sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035

#121
post #3

Better than nothing, but the date is a bit far away if we want carbon neutrality before (or even around) 2050. Cars have fairly long service times. Hopefully the market will phase out ICEs earlier than that except for niche uses.

It's interesting to see how there are two top-level comments, one saying the date is too far away and the other saying that it's a short period for such a transition. I guess both are true in some way - it's really challenging to decarbonise quickly, but we need even quicker, because we're way past reasonable in terms of the environmental situation.

Electric cars are still ridiculously expensive, don't have the same range and features etc, why would I want one? I live in a cold place, cold isn't good for batteries and engines heat the car inside, with electric cars heating reduces the range drastically

Re: EU vote to ban all sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035

#122
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be a faster fall-off than you'd think, because of feedback effects. Same way film cameras stopped being popular and then you couldn't get the films, or get them developed, so they got more unpopular, repeat until extinct. If fuel stations start closing down and you can't get the parts, it won't matter if fuel cars have decades of good service life ahead.

Yes, that's what I'm thinking too. It's a vicious circle (or maybe a virtuous one?) but once fuel stations start closing in droves it will become very impractical to own a petrol car.

A petrol stations running costs are very low. They break even with 2% margins. Even if they go away, a 2m^3 tank at home will last you for a year or more. And if your typical full tank range of 500-600km is not enough, you can toss a few fuel cans in the trunk and travel across the continent without refueling.

The only way ICEs will go away is by hostile legislation, being regulated and taxed to death purely for ideological reasons, as is happening.

Re: EU vote to ban all sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your honour I hold it was not my client who did wrong, but the person who made the law banning murder in the first place.

Yes, well, maybe this particular regulation introduced in 2018 has the moral universality of murder or maybe it’s just a bad regulation. Really could be either way.

Ha okay fair point on how much people ethically rate the actions people are trying to ban/regulate here, but the EU aren't creating convoluted cookie pops forcing anyone to do anything. Those people are part of that literally everyone else you're proposing.

Unless your point is the legislation didn't go far enough? I didn't personally read it that way.

Re: EU vote to ban all sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035

#124

Way too rushed... I don't think there is a clear roadmap for how the required infrastructure and supply chain will work. Definitely no clear understanding on the environmental impact of EVs. Did some pushy Tesla sales reps took senior EU politicians for some cool test rides? Sounds very much like it.

We are not in a planned economy, we don't need a 10-year plan for building national supply chains. We have to make sure our electricity infrastructure can cope, everything else can be left up to the market. After all the investment to build a fast charger is easy if you have a guarantee that the number of customers will increase dramatically.

We don't only have to build fast chargers. We have to build electrical power plants with an output equivalent to the energy stored in the fuel used by today's non EV cars.

Find sites, get permissions, build. That's a big race no matter the technology used by those power plants. I expect the 2035 limit to be relaxed or result in fewer car sales because we can't power them up.

Re: EU vote to ban all sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035

#125
post #122
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's what I'm thinking too. It's a vicious circle (or maybe a virtuous one?) but once fuel stations start closing in droves it will become very impractical to own a petrol car.

A petrol stations running costs are very low. They break even with 2% margins. Even if they go away, a 2m^3 tank at home will last you for a year or more. And if your typical full tank range of 500-600km is not enough, you can toss a few fuel cans in the trunk and travel across the continent without refueling. The only way ICEs will go away is by hostile legislation, being regulated and taxed to death purely for ideo…

> a 2m^3 tank at home

Err, what? I'm in Paris, I can't drill that kind of hole anywhere near my home. The article is about the EU; but I doubt most people can do that even in the US, except when you have a house in the middle of nowhere with lots of land around it.

Re: EU vote to ban all sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German cars aren't what they used to be. I know because my wife owns a Made in Germany Volkswagen that breaks a lot more often than my other car, a US-made Hyundai.

I'm interested in the US-made car market. I don't know much but something on my todo list to learn. I've heard good things about the US making good cars

Tldr we taught the Japanese how to make quality cars back in the day, they took those lessons and refined them further and further.

Meanwhile the US car companies got stuck with Harvard Business School MBAs doing value engineering and badge engineering that nearly sank the US car companies in the 70s and 80s vs the Japanese competition in terms of reliability and TCO.

So the US can make a few good cars for things like commercial adjacent vehicles, but mostly we play catch up to Japan IMHO.

Re: EU vote to ban all sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not in a planned economy, we don't need a 10-year plan for building national supply chains. We have to make sure our electricity infrastructure can cope, everything else can be left up to the market. After all the investment to build a fast charger is easy if you have a guarantee that the number of customers will increase dramatically.

We don't only have to build fast chargers. We have to build electrical power plants with an output equivalent to the energy stored in the fuel used by today's non EV cars. Find sites, get permissions, build. That's a big race no matter the technology used by those power plants. I expect the 2035 limit to be relaxed or result in fewer car sales because we can't power them up.

> I expect the 2035 limit to be relaxed or result in fewer car sales because we can't power them up.

Good. We need fewer car sales. We need more non-car infrastructure.

We don't need an "output equivalent to the energy stored in the fuel used by today's non EV cars". What we need is fewer cars and more people on public transports and bicycles wherever it makes sense.

Less car trips. The current price of gas is already pushing people to take their car less and prioritize cheaper modes of transportation.

Fulfill the remainder of the demand with electric.

Re: EU vote to ban all sales of combustion engine vehicles by 2035

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not in a planned economy, we don't need a 10-year plan for building national supply chains. We have to make sure our electricity infrastructure can cope, everything else can be left up to the market. After all the investment to build a fast charger is easy if you have a guarantee that the number of customers will increase dramatically.

>> everything else can be left up to the market. Let's see how "the market" likes being unable to drive to their beach holidays without infrastructure. >> After all the investment to build a fast charger is easy if you have a guarantee that the number of customers will increase dramatically. Maybe, but there is no such guarantee. You can't solve everything by throwing money at it. Fast chargers/decent batteries remai…

> Let's see how "the market" likes being unable to drive to their beach holidays without infrastructure.

This is banning the sale, not the use. And trains exist in Europe.

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