Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_b...
oh, got it, if we talk about population, than yes, I was thinking in terms of country size
That would be Russia and Denmark (if you count Greenland).
Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
121–130 of 162 posts
Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not really surprising. EVs (both foreign and domestic) haven't caught up in price and range as fast as expected since the proposal was originally made, for EVs to be a drop-in replacement for ICE cars the voting population can afford and drives to work everyday and on vacation in the south of Europe every summer. And neither is the EV charging infrastructure already there to support the same use cases. And since…
Price is a marketing choice, EU manufacturers (with a few exceptions) are choosing to position EV cars at the high end of their offering and brand them as high tech for high margins. More largely EU manufacturers currently have the problem of trying to position their whole offering as high end.
It isn't just prices alone. New ICE cars have also gone up in price a lot.
And EVs are marketed more towards the high end because mostly rich Europeans have a single family home with a charger at home where the EVs slot in. Most ICE car owners don't have chargers at home or in the vicinity meaning mostly the rich can quickly dump their ICES and replace them with an EV without loosing UX.
EU car manufacturers are just following the local market/demographics. Cheap EVs exist here, like the Dacia spring, but that's kinda crap and the charring infra issue still remains.
Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is an ongoing war between the progressive and old forces. And the old forces try very hard to preserve the outdated technologies for whatever reason. Problem is that they are few, but in powerful positions, so they poison the waters for everyone, as they did already for the last decade with the whole energy-topic. At this point, it's really ridiculous how much one can stay behind and still harm everyone.
I'm not sure I follow you on the energy topic? If anything, the "progressive" shutdown of the nukes was a rather questionable move. In general, I think there's a relatively healthy balance, albeit, with a fair bit of animosity between the sides. The thing about "outdated technologies" is - they work. It's really easy to see in the software world, where I will choose a battle-tested technology any day, over the new fl…
> the "progressive" shutdown of the nukes was a rather questionable move.
Nuclear plants were shutdown by the conservatives. They decided this in 2011, when Fukushima happened, and executed it over the following decade while they were simultaneous derailing the switch to EV. A notable part here was that just months before Fukushima, they had already stopped the shutdown that previously was decided on.
Only the remaining three(?) plants were shutdown by the acting administration, because there was nothing to continue anyway. The previous administration had to renew the technical checks and order new nuclear rods for the plants to continue, which they obviously did not.
Overall, the whole act was a big clusterfuck of competing interests, but this wasn't the progressives fault, because they never had the power to fail this in the first place.
> In general, I think there's a relatively healthy balance, albeit, with a fair bit of animosity between the sides.
There is no healthy balance when you make up nonsensical lies to sabotage an ongoing process, which is even for the benefit of your own country.
Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be even less and even faster decline of coal with nuclear But for Germany the priorities were other than decarbonization.
But then we would have to deal with expensive and problematic nuclear. It's much more efficient to scale renewable energy, then deploy old technology like current nuclear powerplants, which are extremely costly with lots of unsolved problems. If you look at the countries which deploy nuclear, they have/use mostly government run industries. That's not our goal. Germany also has no nuclear weapons, where other countrie…
Germany has plans to stop sales of new combustion engine cars after 2035. Significantly, they do not have similar goals for new fossil fueled power plants.
If they could just scale renewable energy then they would issue such plans, but they can't. There is no end-date for fossil fueled power plants, and plans for new ones are being built right now with operational times lasting long after 2035. German even pushed through a EU deceleration of making natural gas "green" in order to be able to continue invest and build more natural gas powered power plants. Germany is Europe's largest advocate for renewable power and natural gas with clear intention to continue supporting both for a very long time.
Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
#125I've had a couple of German cars, and a few Japanese cars. I'll never own another German car because the maintenance costs (my experience and that of a family member) are crazy compared to Japanese cars.
Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
#126Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
#127It's not too surprising. Yes, Germany is slow to adapt to new tech, but they are a car manufacturing powerhouse and are the biggest country in Europe. The whole country is in an everlasting debate about its dependency on car manufacturing, and cars are _very_ important. It would be surprising if they weren't no 1 producer (and probably consumer) in Europe.
fyi the biggest country in europe is afaik ukraine, your point holds if we talk about eu in europe to ignore france's external territories
Biggest country when talking about economics is almost invariably in reference to population. And they appear to be talking about the EU, otherwise we would have to include Turkey, and another country we would rather not.
Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, colloquially Europeans consider Russia to be an uncivilized backwater, so they don't count. Turkey is considered more middle-east.
>Also, colloquially Europeans consider Russia to be an uncivilized backwater, so they don't count. citation needed. Otherwise, your prejudice has no place here.
Chill... It's not like they're saying it publicly within earshot. Only the Finns, Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Polish, Ukrainians and Moldovans do that.
Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
nuclear doesn't have unsolved problems. It's only problem is the cost. We already know how to operate the plants, how to safely store the waste or reprocess it to reuse multiple times, how to solidify the waste - all of this is already known, the question is if govt's want to spend the money now for this infra to get the prices down in the future and reduce the build times like China did
I would also add that all these solutions are financed in the bill. Once a panel or blade reaches the end of its life, it is no one's responsibility to have to recycle it. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb... Nuclear power is the only source that solves all the "problems" on the bill.
Reprocessing and vitrification are certainly not financed in the bill since these require separate infra and nuclear pp can operate without them. Usually the waste is going through several stages of cooling and stored underground 'till reprocessing is possible/economically profitable'
Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
The goal is to use the technology which brings us world-wide fastest and cheapest forward. That's not nuclear, which stagnates mostly in building&deployment and is getting more expensive quickly.
one thing is to build, another thing is to keep what you have. The beauty of nuclear is the longer it works, the cheaper the avg energy gets since most of the cost is actually building the infra
That's not true. There are huge investments needed to upgrade nuclear power plants over their lifetime, which typically will need to be run long past its estimated lifetimes. A lot of upgrades are even not possible. The powerplant also ages. The steel ages. The pipes age. The software and computers are no longer in production. France now needs billions just to keep their old fleet running, which is based on outdated technology and designs. "Grand Carénage" is estimated to cost 50 billion Euros. EDF, the owner would be bankrupt, if the French government hadn't taken over the whole industry, where the tax payer now finances the losses.
Plus most nuclear powerplants don't cover the costs after a shutdown, incl. dealing with the materials and their radiation. We have often seen that the money available is not covering the costs of dealing with waste, spent fuel, etc. -> tax payer covers it -> the French government can't increase the state controlled electricity prices, without huge public protests.