Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030 • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by hueving » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

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…

>There's a lot to be said for the simplicity of an outright ban. Ban ICEs.

Do this and a massive chunk of the population will die shortly after. There is no alternative to farm and transport food at the scale required for the modern population.

Banning CFCs isn't even comparable because all of modern civilization wasn't built on them like it has been with the portable energy enabled by ICE.

There is no viable electric-only solution for the freight rail network, the air freight network, or even the road freight network.

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

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Post by strommen » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

logifail wrote: post #234

nielsbot wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

2x cost for electric is not typical. The average cost premium is more like 10-15k (and the US government will allow you a $7,500 tax credit for the electric).

Of course the top-selling electric vehicles (Tesla and Leaf) don't have a direct ICE equivalent so it's tough to compare...

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

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Post by im3w1l » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:18 AM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #217

amluto wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One way to look at that is that you're saying any market-based solution strong enough to be effective is indistinguishable from an outright ban. I'm not sure I agree. I could easily imagine a range of carbon taxes applied to vehicles where most, but not all, users would switch to electric. There could easily be people who like taking long trips far from major roads and are willing to pay a large premium to do so. >…

> If a small number of rich people are willing to pay $100 in extra taxes to smoke a cigarette, is that really so bad? What is the rational to "letting" the rich smoke (replace with activity "X" if desired), but not everyone else? For the most part, that is what the policy effectively ends up doing, and so enacting it becomes to an implicit approval of that result. It's obviously not the only way of looking at the si…

Smoking a cigarette harms society. Rich people can afford to compensate society for the harm they inflict, so that society comes out ahead.

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

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Post by ams6110 » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #127

ben_w wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worldwide, transport energy use is about 150% total electricity use — 30PWh/y vs. 20PWh/y. I’m not saying we can’t upgrade production (I’m actually significantly more optimistic than the best case IAE estimates), but it’s not as trivial as just installing some new wires and transformers.

Yeah, so, the first thing to know about that is ICE is ludicrously inefficient. Spinning all that metal at variable speed with tiny explosions is, unsurprisingly, not the best way to turn high density fuels into energy. The thing ICE had on its side is the energy density, on other metrics it's a bad deal (hence why free charging for EVs is affordable) So if you have 400MW of ICE cars you don't need 400MW of electrici…

It's also quite inefficient to convert hydrocarbon energy to mechanical energy to electrical energy to chemical energy back to electrical energy and then back to mechanical energy, as an electric car does. ICE goes straight from hydrocarbon to mechanical. It would not surprise me if it's more efficient, though I don't know.

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

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Post by strommen » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:20 AM UTC

quickben wrote: post #233

dijit wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Companies piling downtown helps the environment. It allows more people to live close by or commute via mass transportation. Suburban sprawl is the energy-intensive way of living.

I've got an EV in Minneapolis (colder than Toronto but less crowded) and I love it. So does every EV owner I've ever met.

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

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Post by reaperducer » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

hydrox24 wrote: post #311

reaperducer wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting with (let us say) World war two, cities and states built out substantial, publicly funded roads and road networks in order to connect up newly developed sub-urban centres that were designed for car owners In the United States, it was somewhat more complex than that. The highway network was and is primarily part of the nation's military defense infrastructure, so that weapons and personnel can be moved around…

> In the United States, it was somewhat more complex than that. The highway network was and is primarily part of the nation's military defense infrastructure You are right. I am not contesting the Highway system, which actually still seems to be a good case for Federal public spending, both because it benefits the military and because it is inter-state. My point is entirely regarding the roads that were built out fro…

If these were paid for by those who used them

Well, they are. That's the 9/10th of a cent that drivers pay on each gallon of gas they purchase.

IMO, it should be closer to an even five cents, with half of it going to mass transit. But then I also drank milk and Pepsi mixed together when I was a kid, so I'm not exactly reliable.

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

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Post by lewis500 » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:30 AM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #241

People especially here constantly rail against Europe, specifically their start-up scene, against taxes, against regulations, etc. At the same time, our cities are unlivable, inaccessible, crowded, our infrastructure is falling apart, a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor causing increases in homelessness in cities and opiod addiction in rural areas. Western Europe isn't utopia, but in many areas, their pol…

Our cities are "crowded" and "unlivable"?

If they're so unlivable then why do so many people want to live there that they're crowded? Especially when the country is full of suburbs...suburbs, where, in fact, most people live.

Our cities are way less dense than many European cities. In fact they are way less dense than they used to be in many cases.

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

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Post by Brakenshire » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:50 AM UTC

amongwhales wrote: post #304

reaperducer wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in Europe nobody fantasizes about roadtrips That's an interesting tidbit. I always thought that they did. I thought the automotive term "GT" meant "Grand Tour" and was European in inspiration. That's what I get for culling most of my European auto culture information from Top Gear.

>in Europe nobody fantasizes about roadtrips Even besides the German brands (VW, Mercedes, BMW), there are a huge number of European car manufacturers (Skoda, Peugeot, citroen) > showing ability and demand for cars in Europe. Also, the small size and mostly flat nature of Europe, cultural diversity, and longer vacation time all contribute to Europeans traveling more than Americans. Not to mention excellent roads, fam…

In the US it’s a pretty normal thing to drive coast to coast, that’s equivalent distance to driving London to Moscow, and that is a very rare thing to do. Actually the equivalent in Europe is young people doing interrail trips (a month long unlimited rail ticket). People I think mostly drive to do a specific trip, like maybe going skiing or even just going across the border to shop. But there isn’t the same prevalence of the road trip, it is strange thing in a way, but it is true. There is a particular romance that people are attracted to in different places. Funnily enough, if a European young person is going to take a road trip they’re probably just as likely to fly to the US and do it there.

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

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Post by FullyFunctional » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:50 AM UTC

woobar wrote: post #177

FullyFunctional wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumerism is bad for the planet, 100% true. However the "every 3 years like an average westerner" remark needs citation. In the context of the article (Denmark) it is certainly not true. Cars are so expensive (the 180% tax is absolutely real - I've paid it) that people hold on to cars longer and buy used more. In fact, the number of people with zero cars would be hard to believe if you come from California. Alas, t…

> that people hold on to cars longer and buy used more And yet the average age of the car in Denmark is 8.9 years [1]. For comparison Germany is at 9.3 year, and US is at 11.6 years [2] [1] http://www.aut.fi/en/statistics/international_statistics/ave... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/261881/average-age-of-li...

It surprises me and doesn’t match my observations, but there at least one element to take into account: weather. There’s a reason the California car is treasured. Snow and the salt used to fight it is really corrosive to cars in Denmark.

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

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Post by p1mrx » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:54 AM UTC

merb wrote: post #302

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of a bad comparison because the Ford F-Series (or any other pickup platform) is many different vehicles under one name.

basically in europe there are not a lot of pickups to none out there. in europe there is a trend for SUVs at the moment, but besides that we mostly buy limousines.

This is a "limousine" in the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limousine#/media/File:98-02_Li...

So I assume you were using the "sedan" interpretation.