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Denmark to ban petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Toyota Camry Hybrid will get better MPG with a 2.5 liter engine, and give more space for passengers and cargo, than the Yaris. Also it has EV-like torque.

My relatives drive a Camry Hybrid, and I've used it a fair bit. It certainly does have better torque, and slightly better real world mileage (5.5 litre/100km for the Camry, vs my Yaris at 6.0 litre/100km). It also drives more comfortably on the highway. It's less affected by wind/passenger weight, though downshifting to 4th has never been an issue for me. However, as a sedan, I strongly dispute the "more space for pa…

Last weekend, I took an assembled office chair to my parents in the back seat of my Camry Hybrid. If you put the fridge in the back seat, it would probably fit.

And I used to haul my 46" HDTV in my 99 Sentra, pretty sure it will fit in Camry too.

Camry is big for city driving. Moving to Seattle again reminds me how much better a Yaris can parallel park than my 'boat'.

I'm consistently driving 1100 miles a month on 28 gallons. This may change after the upcoming move, since walking will replace driving as primary transportation.

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

#342
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why the "Cash for Clunkers" program was a giant environmental disaster. There's no way the fuel efficiency gains made up for the fuel burned manufacturing the car.

I think the motivation was reducing pollution. A small minority of badly running cars emit most of the particulate and nitrogen oxide pollution. In certain areas like Los Angeles in the 1980s, smog (caused by nitrogen oxides) was killing people, and removing a few clunkers made a significant difference.

I recall the motivation was improving fuel efficiency.

"intended to provide economic incentives to U.S. residents to purchase a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle when trading in a less fuel-efficient vehicle."

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

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

#343
post #150
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…

I think the issue with carbon taxes is a 10-20% reduction isn't enough. A 75% reduction is needed. Which means some sectors the reduction will have to be more than that.

At that point bans make more sense.

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

#344
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Better to have the pollution we know, rather than the unknown pollution from the avreage diesel engine. American buses are 10x cleaner.

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

#345
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the motivation was reducing pollution. A small minority of badly running cars emit most of the particulate and nitrogen oxide pollution. In certain areas like Los Angeles in the 1980s, smog (caused by nitrogen oxides) was killing people, and removing a few clunkers made a significant difference.

I recall the motivation was improving fuel efficiency. "intended to provide economic incentives to U.S. residents to purchase a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle when trading in a less fuel-efficient vehicle." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System

I think part of the motivation was preventing open rebellion by a hurting voter base. Those were bad years.

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

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, a big reason people buy new cars is because their old one failed emissions screening, and wasn't economical to repair.

I always wonder at this. I've seen those expensive repair bills and they're usually expensive relative to the value of the car to be repaired, but they're cheap relative to the cost of a brand new car.

Just went through this calculating a few months ago.

Had a 14 year old car... 225k miles on it... a couple years ago had put in $1k or so, but the last 18 month had put in less than $500 in repairs (tires, oil changes, some other issues).

However, there was an oil leak, and some damage to front-end suspension. Oil leak had been going on for a while, but getting worse. Finding it would have meant taking the engine apart, and the front-end stuff was also expensive. Even without the engine leak, I was looking at probably $1500 to get this to pass inspection this year, and... there's no guarantee that all the fixes wouldn't have left me with something with a broken transmission that needed an overhaul or replacement. Fixing it all would probably have been north of $3k to feel good that it would be road worthy for at least another few years.

As much as a I hate change, I bit the bullet, and got a 'newer' car for $11k. 'used' but still relatively new (2016) and it's far more fuel efficient - getting around 40mpg vs the 25 I was getting before. The fuel efficiency won't totally make up for the entire diff in fixing vs replacing, but I have something that's more modern, more comfortable, gets better mileage and better safety features. The 'brand new car' comparison - yeah, but loads of people are fine getting a 'lightly used' car vs 'brand new'.

A friend went through similar decision within 10 days of my process, and he ended up getting a lightly used car (2017?) but it was $21k - I just can't bring myself to pay that type of money for a car right now. I was looking sub $10k; my wife pushed me to go a little higher.

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

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Good point, but how much of that is the manufacturer pre-compensating itself for all the extra maintenance that it won't sell you?

There's a healthy open market in servicing ICE vehicles.

I can take pretty much any kind of car to my local independent place - which happens to be less than 1/2 mile away - and they'll fix it for me. They'll stick to using original manufacturers parts unless I instruct them not to. If they think something ought to be covered by warranty and so ought to be looked at via the original manufacturer's servicing network, they'll decline the job and tell me why.

It's hard to imagine a system with less lock-in!

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

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Converted to USD: I'll be paying $12.5k including taxes tomorrow for the new ICE vehicle, the electric version is priced at $26.5k

The salesman showed me the electric version. They are cool. For my usage pattern it would even be a good fit 90% of the time, lots of short trips from home.

The problem is that 10% of the time I'm on the road, and that's a bit of a deal-breaker.

The absolute killer is, of course, paying an additional $14k for a vehicle where the resale value will fall far more rapidly than the much cheaper ICE equivalent.

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

#349

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 :)

I used to think the same about where I live - Australia - a lot bigger and more sparsely populated than Denmark. But here is an article about the first woman (and second person) to drive around the country in an EV:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/12/how-much...

and two maps of the network in 2016 and 2018, showing the effort (by Tesla owners club!) in building out the network:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/12/how-much...

Yep they're not all superchargers, many are just EV friendly 240v hookups. But as the lady in the first article said "the reality is that if you can see the lights on, or that the kettle works, then you can charge".

Got me thinking about my next car. Or campervan. We often camp in caravan parks - with a 15 amp hookup plugged into the vehicle...

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

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My relatives drive a Camry Hybrid, and I've used it a fair bit. It certainly does have better torque, and slightly better real world mileage (5.5 litre/100km for the Camry, vs my Yaris at 6.0 litre/100km). It also drives more comfortably on the highway. It's less affected by wind/passenger weight, though downshifting to 4th has never been an issue for me. However, as a sedan, I strongly dispute the "more space for pa…

Last weekend, I took an assembled office chair to my parents in the back seat of my Camry Hybrid. If you put the fridge in the back seat, it would probably fit. And I used to haul my 46" HDTV in my 99 Sentra, pretty sure it will fit in Camry too. Camry is big for city driving. Moving to Seattle again reminds me how much better a Yaris can parallel park than my 'boat'. I'm consistently driving 1100 miles a month on 28…

Definitely tradeoffs with any model of car. I'm hopeful that when I'm ready to get a new car (in another 5 years or so...) that the electric car landscape has changed enough that there's something that ticks more boxes for me. A hatchback really fits best with how I use a car (an SUV would provide most of the same, but be much less fun in the city)
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