Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

electrek.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 162 posts

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#131

Post by lispm »

palata wrote: post #115
lispm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is upside down. Nuclear energy has pretty much nothing to do with nuclear weapons, and is pretty much solved. Also it's not "old" technology (there are new designs like the 4th gen that we actually need). Scaling renewable energy is an open problem: it has never been done. It's easy to say that "renewables doubled last year" when they go from "marginal" to "still marginal". Renewable energy is intermittent, and…

> Nuclear energy has pretty much nothing to do with nuclear weapons

That's not true. For example Japan has Plutonium for several thousand nuclear weapons, where the Plutonium comes from reprocessing of fuel of Nuclear Power Plants.

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-10/features/japans-misg...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency

Take Iran, which was hiding their nuclear weapons program behind a nuclear energy program. -> "Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful,[58] and had then enriched uranium to less than 5 percent, consistent with fuel for a civilian nuclear power plant."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran

> It's easy to say that "renewables doubled last year" when they go from "marginal" to "still marginal"

60% electricity from renewable for Germany is far from marginal.

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#132

Post by Log_out_ »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #55
probably_wrong wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is surprising to me, though, seeing as Germany was the country responsible for undercutting the ban [1] on sales of new combustion engine cars in the EU after 2035. It is wild to me that they would block such an important deal knowing that they are already ahead of everyone else. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/24/cars/eu-combustion-engine...

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.

Everyone can make EVs. Not everyone can make good combustion engines. It swwms unwise to risk your main source of income when your population majority consists of nostalgic pensioners.

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#133

Post by TheRoque »

lispm wrote: post #130
Moldoteck wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's true, nuclear energy costs more, but you're avoiding the elephant in the room and don't address the core issue that solar and wind energies are intermittent, and that you will anyways need to use some controllable energy source (batteries, coal plans, nuclear plans...) to offset this issue.

The part about public protests is kind of cliché, as a french myself, rising the electricity prices happened and people were fine. The protests happened mostly for the oil prices. One thing about french electricity, is that because of the European agreement "ARENH" [1] (will end in 2025), they are forced to sell at capped price to private actors, in order to boost the competition. If this wasn't the case, then maybe the nuclear power sector could be much less costly, or profitable.

[1]: https://www.conseil-etat.fr/en/news/rising-energy-prices-the...

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#134

Post by r00fus »

art3m wrote: post #56
mensetmanusman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people are the automakers, not the brand behind it.

Assembly line doesn't make you 'automaker'.

This article and analysis is obviously comparing countries to their EV build output. What's your complaint - that Tesla should be a country?

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#135

Post by ben_w »

Ekaros wrote: post #104
epolanski wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And to be frank electric cars don’t solve the climate crisis If governments were serious about climate change they would invest heavier in public transport, not greener cars (which are only greener to drive, but definitely not manufacture).

If there was real seriousness. We would ban all sort of current sized cars and move everyone to slower, smaller and lighter cars... Less material and less energy expenditure in general. Same thing should happen to housing... If anyone was actually serious about whole process.

People want big things and climate only 'cares' about the emissions, so focus on the energy bill not on the size.

To the extent those are the same, the market forces work out the same anyway.

To the extent that they are different, focusing on the wrong thing means Goodheart's law will bite, and you'll end up with small dirty vehicles/homes instead of encouraging innovation that would allow big clean vehicles/homes.

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#136

Post by lispm »

TheRoque wrote: post #133
lispm wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's true, nuclear energy costs more, but you're avoiding the elephant in the room and don't address the core issue that solar and wind energies are intermittent, and that you will anyways need to use some controllable energy source (batteries, coal plans, nuclear plans...) to offset this issue. The part about public protests is kind of cliché, as a french myself, rising the electricity prices happened and people wer…

> don't address the core issue that solar and wind energies are intermittent

I was under the impression that that problem is easier solvable than making nuclear cost effective and making it scale in a safe way. For decades nuclear power deployment stagnates, while renewable technology is rapidly expanding and getting cheaper by the day, with more storage options. Nuclear power already has difficulty keeping the current level of electricity production, while increasingly outdated and aging nuclear powerplants need to be replaced.

> rising the electricity prices happened

The state rescued the French nuclear industry from bankruptcy, it's now a full government owned monopolistic electricity energy landscape. If the electricity price would be high enough to pay for the costs of the nuclear landscape, that would not have happened. Why were companies like Areva such a commercial failure?

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#137

Post by tarsinge »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #122
tarsinge wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I live in the countryside and single family home are mostly not rich people but very middle class. EV would be perfect for them but they are far too expensive. No it’s really like manufacturers deliberately price EV to make up for the energy economy so it doesn’t cannibalize their ICE offering they spent billions developing.

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#138

Post by epolanski »

ben_w wrote: post #135
Ekaros wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was real seriousness. We would ban all sort of current sized cars and move everyone to slower, smaller and lighter cars... Less material and less energy expenditure in general. Same thing should happen to housing... If anyone was actually serious about whole process.

People want big things and climate only 'cares' about the emissions, so focus on the energy bill not on the size. To the extent those are the same, the market forces work out the same anyway. To the extent that they are different, focusing on the wrong thing means Goodheart's law will bite, and you'll end up with small dirty vehicles/homes instead of encouraging innovation that would allow big clean vehicles/homes.

> and climate only 'cares' about the emissions

How can size not be an issue behind emissions?

Both the energy and materials required to manufacture and transport the car to the dealership are dramatically impacted by size. Between a light compact car and a huge SUV there is a way bigger difference in those costs that just weight would suggest.

There's also other factors such as microplastics: most of those on our planet are not coming from plastic straws but tire wear. Bigger cars require bigger tires which will wear more due to weight and higher stress.

We just can't pretend that the way we consume does not impact the planet.

I'm not against big cars. But they should get taxed more, as in many parts of the world, whereas in US legislation which focused on the ratio between weight and fuel consumption basically made it more efficient to just build bigger trucks.

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#139

Post by palata »

lispm wrote: post #131
palata wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is upside down. Nuclear energy has pretty much nothing to do with nuclear weapons, and is pretty much solved. Also it's not "old" technology (there are new designs like the 4th gen that we actually need). Scaling renewable energy is an open problem: it has never been done. It's easy to say that "renewables doubled last year" when they go from "marginal" to "still marginal". Renewable energy is intermittent, and…

> Nuclear energy has pretty much nothing to do with nuclear weapons That's not true. For example Japan has Plutonium for several thousand nuclear weapons, where the Plutonium comes from reprocessing of fuel of Nuclear Power Plants. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018-10/features/japans-misg... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency Take Iran, which was hiding their nuclear weapons program behind a nuclear ene…

> where the Plutonium comes from reprocessing of fuel of Nuclear Power Plants.

With this logic, the Raspberry Pi foundation is involved in producing F35 fighter jets, because there is electronics in the F35.

> Take Iran, which was hiding their nuclear weapons program behind a nuclear energy program

As you say, there was a "weapons program" hidden there. It's not like a power plant reactor gives you the weapon technology magically.

> 60% electricity from renewable for Germany

All year? What happens when there is no wind and no sun?

> is far from marginal.

Electricity accounts for like 20% of the energy. So it's 60% of 20% = 12% and that's when there is wind and sun.

Re: Germany is No 1 in Europe for EV production, No 2 in the world

#140

Post by aaomidi »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #112
aaomidi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but that same car is used for vacation trips in summer and winter with the whole family. Right, and the charging network isn't _that_ bad, is it? Like, I've now done 4 cross country trips in the US (PA FL WA) in both summer, and winter. With the pre-heat-pump-for-heating Tesla Model 3. I basically had to charge one to two times a day, for about 20-30 minutes each time. This was genuinely a good way to force me to s…

Good for you. But I'm talking about Europe, not the US. And most don't have (and can't afford) Teslas here. Maybe in Norway and Switzerland, but not all Europe is like that. A lot of non-supercharger infra here is non-existent or slow charging meaning long distance trips are gonna be much longer and less predictable, hence why those who rent cars for long distance trips never rent EVs. >and the charging network isn't…

That’s fair.
Post reply on HN