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

Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

euractiv.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 408 posts

Re: Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

#231

Post by wil421 »

eanzenberg wrote: post #99
netcan wrote: post #65

At the start, I thought these announcements and laws (eg Scotland) to ban ICE vehicles by 20XX were cheap politics. A promise Someone Else will deliver later, with credit due to you now. I've come around though. I think all the bastardized carbon accounting, market based solutions are on average quite bad. The idea of a neutral, "market decides" policy is a myth. These things are complex, and that compmexity is an op…

Unfortunately, production of cars (and consumerism in general) is extremely bad for carbon emissions and for the environment. Carbon emissions from the production of 1 car generally rival the lifetime emissions from the tailpipe [1]. If you have no choice but to replace an old car for new then sure, get a more efficient one. If you're replacing cars every 3 years like an average westerner, given the age of cars I see…

>If you're replacing cars every 3 years like an average westerner, given the age of cars I see on the road, you are doing extreme harm.

Do you have any sources for this claim? I think I only know of a single person who changes cars in 3 years due to leases and only did it once.

According to the US government the average age is 11, almost 12 years.[1]

[1]https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-truc...

Re: Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

#232

Post by philipkglass »

rootusrootus wrote: post #224
philipkglass wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sensitive to local costs of both fuel and electricity. In my part of Washington state I last paid $3.43 per gallon of gasoline but residential electricity is about 6.5 cents per kWh. It looks like in Denmark electricity prices were 0.30 EUR (0.35 USD) per kWh in the second half of 2017, while gasoline prices are currently 12.26 DKK per liter (7.15 USD per US gallon).

Definitely it varies by location. The US national average price for fuel right now is 2.90, and the average cost per kWh for electricity is 0.12. Makes the running cost for the ICE vs EV even closer than my original numbers. I kinda leave the European prices out of the discussion because what they pay tends to be extremely distorted by local taxes. Based on a quick bit of TCO research, best I can tell is that without…

Sure, I was just adding some more data points about locales where the payback time for going electric is shorter (Washington) and longer (Denmark).

I don't buy new cars and I don't drive very much in the first place. It's not worth it for me to go electric at present, despite access to cheap electricity and relatively high gas prices here. I'm hopeful that by the time my 2007 Camry is at end-of-life there will be affordable, reliable used EVs.

Re: Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

#233

Post by quickben »

dijit wrote: post #219
quickben wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as commuting an hour to work, that may turn out to be two, in Toronto's gridlock, during a cold wave of -45c. "Most trips" doesn't work, the EV proponents want a ban on all ICE cars. Which would force part of the population to buy a truck and commute with it.

>Which would force part of the population to buy a truck and commute with it. I think this is a symptom of a larger problem and despite the fact that people have this issue as of now should not strongly colour our perception of what's possible. If you're commuting more than 2hrs to work by car then not only are you wasting a large percentage of your own life, but you're also harming the environment. It should not be…

The problem is that companies are allowed to pile downtown to maximize profits, but that people should subsidize them in that as to not harm the environment. So, if a legal framework is being made to look at sustainability, ICUs are not the only thing that should be looked at.

Edit: colder climates will have a lot of problems adopting EVs, if ever on a mass scale.

Re: Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

#234

Post by logifail »

nielsbot wrote: post #157
bluGill wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some disadvantages of electric cars which may or may not be solvable.

Sure, some ICE may remain around for special uses, but I guess the vast majority of people will be fine w an electric car. (Especially in 2030)

By coincidence, I'll be picking up a brand new (ICE) vehicle from my dealer in just over 12 hours' time.

The electric version of the vehicle I'm buying costs just a shade over twice as much(!) as the ICE version.

I'm not fine paying more than twice as much for a product that in many respects is "less good".

Re: Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

#236

Post by rootusrootus »

sjwright wrote: post #106
reacharavindh wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote the comment you responded to. I live in Denmark, and here is my take on this. It's not as extreme that I'd call it "extremist state of affairs". Fewer cars are for the greater good. However, what pisses me the most is how it is really implemented. There is the famous 150% tax when you buy a car, and then there is a green tax every 6 months/quarter that is based on how efficient &a safe your car is. I'm all fo…

> they cannot afford a better car - throwing away all the emission savings Buying a new car for proportionally lower emissions is a false economy as much of the carbon footprint of a car is in its manufacture, not just its use. Holding onto older cars that aren't offensively inefficient (e.g. any small hatchback) seems environmentally responsible to me.

The carbon footprint of the manufacturing process is ~20% of the lifetime footprint for the car.

Re: Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

#237

Post by Zekio »

rohit2412 wrote: post #136
gambiting wrote: post #3

As great as it is, remember that hybrids are exempt. And the law is very lax when it comes to a definition of a hybrid - Range Rover has a model with a whooping 1 mile(!!!) of electric range, but of course it has an electric motor so it qualifies as a hybrid and could still be sold under this ban. I expect very very soon we'll see this kind of extremely minor electrification coming to all kinds of vehicles, where a t…

But then aren't hybrids better than BEV, given a few miles of range? Why make a 90KwHr battery for a car, if you can make 3 cars out of it. After all current reserves of Cobalt, nickel, and lithium are finite.

Cobalt is the most finite one of those, and once lithium prices go up it is likely someone will begin harvesting it from sea water

Re: Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

#238

Post by newnewpdro »

yholio wrote: post #150
netcan wrote: post #65

At the start, I thought these announcements and laws (eg Scotland) to ban ICE vehicles by 20XX were cheap politics. A promise Someone Else will deliver later, with credit due to you now. I've come around though. I think all the bastardized carbon accounting, market based solutions are on average quite bad. The idea of a neutral, "market decides" policy is a myth. These things are complex, and that compmexity is an op…

> I've come around though. I think all the bastardized carbon accounting, market based solutions are on average quite bad. Carbon taxing works well when it's applied - but it's very hard to create the political consensus to impose it. For example, the high cost of fuel in Europe has driven cars to an average MPG equivalent of 45 versus the average of 33 in US. That's nothing to sneeze at, it's 40% more for a given am…

The comparison in the graph you linked isn't particularly useful.

The US, having cheap gasoline, uses gasoline vehicles in far more roles than say, the EU does, where diesel is far more common. "Light commercial" might as well read "should have been diesel" from an MPG standpoint.

Re: Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

#239

Post by rootusrootus »

jjuhl wrote: post #72
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I never understood how anyone possibly felt the ridiculously extremist state of affairs of automobile/fuel regulations/taxes/etc in Denmark is appropriate. You will never understand it because those people have a completely different world view than you or I when it comes to taxation. You will also probably never understand a lot of other crazy things that people with different world views believe. The idea that tax…

$5/L? Make that $50/L if I was in charge.

I suppose one fairly effective way to reduce emissions is to crush the economy. But it does have some negative externalities.

Re: Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

#240

Post by lazyjones »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #26

I went to Denmark last year and spent two weeks driving all over the countryside, and likely would have been difficult to reach with an electric car. Many of the places I visited would not have been accessible via public transit. I'm curious how future generations will reach remote places as we move away from fossil fuels. BTW, I loved Denmark :)

Did any of these places lack electricity, or why do you think an electric car would have been problematic? I just came back from a 2800 Km trip through rural Italy (5 days) and had no issues at all (OK, except for crappy roads and bad Google Maps data routing me through buildings etc.).
Post reply on HN