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Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

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Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#21

Post by borissk »

darklycan51 wrote: post #15

Germany is legit the one country in the western hemisphere doing the most damage to the future, and I am surprised how nobody calls them out on it. 1)Turning off nuclear and cancelling plans for new plants because literally their party, the "green party" originated as an anti nuclear party, so of course they don't care and just do it for political reasons. 2)E-Vehicles from US and China threatening Germany's old guar…

Don't think they are doing most damage. Their CO2 emission per capita are a lot lower than US. They didn't recently have a president speaking about "clean coal". They have a huge amount of solar and wind power generation. A lot of modern renewable technology came from German companies and engineers. They don't build new coal power stations.

Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#22

Post by elzbardico »

The problem with e-vehicle subsidies is that for some reason we as society decided that an electrical car should also be a luxury car with insane and impractical acceleration, humungous range numbers and all kind of creature conforts and aesthetical fru-fru you can imagine.

It doesn't even matter if people don't get rid of their petrol boxes, as long as they are kept as a second car for the very rare long-distance trip.

I refuse to believe that people wouldn't get attracted to a small and INEXPENSIVE small electric car for daily usage and commuting. We just need to sell them on this: keep your ICE if you want, we don't care as long as you get this cheap electrical econo-box. Yes, it only gets some 60-80 miles of range, but we are not telling you to get rid of your SUV, you can keep it, this is your SECOND car.

Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#23

Post by andsoitis »

elzbardico wrote: post #22

The problem with e-vehicle subsidies is that for some reason we as society decided that an electrical car should also be a luxury car with insane and impractical acceleration, humungous range numbers and all kind of creature conforts and aesthetical fru-fru you can imagine. It doesn't even matter if people don't get rid of their petrol boxes, as long as they are kept as a second car for the very rare long-distance tr…

> The problem with e-vehicle subsidies is that for some reason we as society decided that an electrical car should also be a luxury car with insane and impractical acceleration, humungous range numbers and all kind of creature conforts and aesthetical fru-fru you can imagine.

That's not true.

There are many electrical cars that definitively NOT luxury. Heck, I don't consider my Tesla a luxury vehicle when I compare it to vehicles from Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, etc.

On "impractical acceleration" - isn't that just a consequence of the technology? I suppose we can mandate artificial limits on acceleration, but it isn't an effect of a "luxury" denotation.

Humungous range: EVs have much less range than fossil fuel counterparts.

I think your framing of EVs as luxury is unfounded. Pricey perhaps, but that is a different matter.

Agree with your point about a marketplace for EVs with less range and consequently less battery capacity needs (also less impactful on the environment), and there are cars offered of that segment, but I maybe they're much less popular?

Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#24

Post by hnaccount_rng »

elzbardico wrote: post #22

The problem with e-vehicle subsidies is that for some reason we as society decided that an electrical car should also be a luxury car with insane and impractical acceleration, humungous range numbers and all kind of creature conforts and aesthetical fru-fru you can imagine. It doesn't even matter if people don't get rid of their petrol boxes, as long as they are kept as a second car for the very rare long-distance tr…

The problem with that line of thinking is, that while your proposition ("[...] people would be attracted to [...] inexpensive cars [...]") is likely correct, that's not an offer that is possible to make. The luxurious cars you talk about have _half_ their value in their battery. Even if you strip out any profit, and get by with a quarter of the range of a Tesla, even then it won't be 10x cheaper.

And everything in that scenario is insane: The no profit part is obvious, but even the 4x less range is insane (as in it doesn't cover the daily commute safely anymore). Because 4x less range does not give you a 25% battery, because there is some overhead (mainly heating). On the other hand you have huge amounts of money sunk into the tooling around "classic" cars, that investment is being financed both over a lot of generations and an insane number of cars.

That being said: Cheaper EVs are coming. Both from a production point of view (battery costs decrease, more tooling and ultimately capacity is being build up), but also from an market point of view as the secondary market of EVs is just starting to come alive (it's only now that used and new EVs start to differ meaningfully in price) and also from a purely economic point of view in the sense that EVs are far cheaper to operate, so they don't _actually_ need to be price competitive at point of sale

Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#25

Post by the-dude »

borissk wrote: post #21
darklycan51 wrote: post #15

Germany is legit the one country in the western hemisphere doing the most damage to the future, and I am surprised how nobody calls them out on it. 1)Turning off nuclear and cancelling plans for new plants because literally their party, the "green party" originated as an anti nuclear party, so of course they don't care and just do it for political reasons. 2)E-Vehicles from US and China threatening Germany's old guar…

Don't think they are doing most damage. Their CO2 emission per capita are a lot lower than US. They didn't recently have a president speaking about "clean coal". They have a huge amount of solar and wind power generation. A lot of modern renewable technology came from German companies and engineers. They don't build new coal power stations.

They don't have to : they have approved plans to restart decommisioned existing ones.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-approves-bri...

Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#26

Post by two_handfuls »

mike_hock wrote: post #12
grecy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not correct. EVs are so much more efficient than ICE vehicles they are still a net win even when powered with "dirty" electricity. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2020/03/30/yes-electr...

Equivalent to a net win that could easily be gotten by replacing SUVs by other petroleum-powered vehicles with a more reasonable carbon footprint, without the need to build completely new infrastructure.

Yes let’s do both

Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#27

Post by saturn_vk »

physicsguy wrote: post #5
hiq wrote: post #4

> Germany's plans to get 15 million electric cars on the road by 2030. That's such a bad metric. Increasing the number of cars on the road is not good from an environmental perspective. Reducing the number of cars burning fossil fuels is.

> Reducing the number of cars burning fossil fuels is. Only if it's matched by a sufficient switch to renewables instead of fossil fuel generation.

This conveniently ignores the location of the pollutants, not to mention the difference in difficulty with recapturing pollution particles from many small, vs few big sources.

Even if the electrical grid is only run on coal, the end result is still less pollution, especially in dense population centers

Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#28

Post by rat87 »

adamsb6 wrote: post #13
bradley13 wrote: post #3

The auto industry has a huge amount of influence in Germany. Consumers are probably less bothered - all subsidy programs have an end, and people know this. However, the auto industry claiming "woe is us, the economy will crash, because we are so important"? That's the backlash. Germany has a deficit problem. They are expecting to run a deficit of 4.25% this year, when 3% is the upper limit if there is no emergency. T…

One perspective I found illuminating recently: US debt in practical terms is financed by creditors showing up for treasury auctions. The biggest two holders of our treasury bills, Japan and China, are scaling down how much they’re willing to purchase. If the world appetite for these instruments dries up we’re in serious trouble, either we default or we print money and inflation takes off again. At the same time there…

Japan (an ally) and China may own most of America's foreign debt but the vast majority of US debt is owed by the US.

And if China sells some of that debt other countries are more then happy to buy it. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/foreign-holdings-us-treas...

The US would prefer to have a better relationship with China but Chinese threats to invade independent country of Taiwan make it very difficult

Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#29

Post by Log_out_ »

bradley13 wrote: post #3

The auto industry has a huge amount of influence in Germany. Consumers are probably less bothered - all subsidy programs have an end, and people know this. However, the auto industry claiming "woe is us, the economy will crash, because we are so important"? That's the backlash. Germany has a deficit problem. They are expecting to run a deficit of 4.25% this year, when 3% is the upper limit if there is no emergency. T…

Car industry also tried to sabotage the 50€ bus ticket

Re: Plan to End E-Vehicle Subsidies Sparks Anger in Germany

#30

Post by mrangle »

adamsb6 wrote: post #13
bradley13 wrote: post #3

The auto industry has a huge amount of influence in Germany. Consumers are probably less bothered - all subsidy programs have an end, and people know this. However, the auto industry claiming "woe is us, the economy will crash, because we are so important"? That's the backlash. Germany has a deficit problem. They are expecting to run a deficit of 4.25% this year, when 3% is the upper limit if there is no emergency. T…

One perspective I found illuminating recently: US debt in practical terms is financed by creditors showing up for treasury auctions. The biggest two holders of our treasury bills, Japan and China, are scaling down how much they’re willing to purchase. If the world appetite for these instruments dries up we’re in serious trouble, either we default or we print money and inflation takes off again. At the same time there…

Now apply this logic to Germany, through a geopolitical lens, and there will be more insight on Germany's retreat from EV subsidies.
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