https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-280-million-electric-...
Next best thing is to move cars to the edges of districts in urban areas. Create big parking spaces, covered in solar panels and equip them with chargers. Design them in such a way that everybody can walk in 5-10 minutes to their home from these parking spaces. In the space that we save this way we can have cycling lanes and trees. Of course, every house should still be reachable by car, if only just for mail delivery, for moving, for doing groceries etc. And people with handicaps should be able to get a permit to park near their houses.
I know one such district near me and its lovely. And one big city in the Netherlands is planning to build a new district in this way for 10000 people, it should be amazing to live there.
When you couple this with drastic improvements to public transport, I think we can move to pretty much ideal cities within a single generation, without abolishing cars and too much inconvenience. It is much easier for newly build districts, but I think this concept can be retrofitted to existing areas very well, if you can find enough parking spaces or garages at least.
But I think they should be completely removed from some very common actions, anyone capable of walking/cycling/using public transit going for non-essential trips of less than say, 5km, should not be allowed to use a car.
Definitely anything under 1km should not be allowed. Those distances are easily walkable or bikeable. Of course, this will require that the built environment allows walking or biking (guess what, that makes for amazingly liveable environments, so it needs to be done anyway).
Anything between 1-5km is debatable, but those distance are easily bikeable and it takes about the same time, especially in a city. Similar problem with walkability/bikeability. At these distances public transit also becomes a solid option.
Anything between 5-10km requires either great bike lanes or at least decent public transit.
Anything over 10km is fair game for cars. Though for good to great public transit corridors, that's definitely a very viable option.
I think if we somehow manage to enforce this, we'd be in an amazing place, including for drivers. Because a huge chunk of the non-essential traffic would be just taken off the roads, leaving roads MUCH emptier, so whoever is still driving would get to where they need to a lot faster.
As EVs become more popular, big name stores should start adding a few chargers to their parking lots.
Apartment complexes could add them to entice maximum capacity too.
Start by spacing them mostly near housing, and spread them to replace more parking meters as usage increases.
It is also expensive to not switch off of ICE vehicles.
Pre-empting, obviously many places still require cars, but we shouldn't codify cars into the building code. It makes everything that bit more expensive, and it's a waste of valuable city real estate.
At the moment the cost per square meter in Melbourne and my city means a single carspace is worth more than my salary. That's ridiculous.
Nothing in your argument goes against what I think edwcross's proposal was: "IF an apartment has parking, that parking must have charging."
(Edit: not that these necessarily need car parks, but they'll need to wait somewhere when they're not carrying passengers)
This claim has been made for years now and a number of big companies like Google, Uber and Tesla have tried to jump into this market, but does this hold up?
I vaguely recall a self driving taxi service being active in some areas, but how are they doing?
Anyway, static routes and stations work fine for big parts of e.g. the Netherlands, but you need a good structure of bus routes and transit hubs. It's a fact that it takes longer than driving for most trips though and IMO the cost should be a lot lower, but that's the tradeoff made.
It's not even remotely competitive, and for that reason private cars are used for some ridiculously high proportion of journeys (90% of passenger miles overall).
In the UK only 17% of commuters use public transport, and 5% use "other" including bicycle/motorcycle/taxi.
I think a lot of what you're saying can be solved with cheaper ebikes and better bike infrastructure. Even the rain :-)
If it rains a lot you put on a big bike poncho, which turns you into a big sail and slows you down, and that's where the <<e>>bike part of ebike comes in, since you pump up the assist and still go fast.
The consensus seems to be on my side in spite of lower share of total commutes, because housing near stations is significantly more expensive. From that I infer two things, public transport is desired, and there's not enough of it to support demand.
This is only because of the suburban sprawl we built not being compatible, but I agree it is a problem to solve one way or another.
Yeah its sounds great until you need mass transport system to support this idea which means only mega cities can benefit the most when tier 2 and tier 3 cities is having a hard time investment
see: japan
If anything, properly built small cities and towns are actually even better for public transit, since they're small. You don't need to cover a lot of ground.
Heck, everyone talks about self-driving taxis. Self-driving trains and buses, that's where it's at, actually. A decent chunk of the cost (and limitations) for public transit is the need for human drivers. Self-driving buses could have longer routes, could drive around the clock, etc, etc.
Ah, forgot, they could also be much smaller, but still cost effective. Think 10-15 places for smaller routes. That would do wonders for connectivity in more remote places.
Agreed, with the caveat that everything is crazy expensive now so smaller cities struggle to afford to build even a small amount of rail. We had excellent public transport in the 1900s, it was torn up for the automotive revolution, and now we can't afford to put even a 10th of it back. We struggle to put an extra station into an existing line, let alone new lines.
One of the big issues is that property is so expensive in the modern west that buying up the land to build is prohibitively expensive. The old game of private rail companies making money off property around public transit stops isn't working here at least, because property is already so unaffordable, there's no room for price growth.
Heck. I arrived by train from London to a town where I found the busses to the start of my walk were basically non-existent. Fortunately a taxi pulled up as I was trying to find a taxi service by cell as the train station didn't have any staff.
One of the positive things labour has done is allowed local authorities more control over this, which should help - I can also imagine them being very bad at communicating this if it does.
Of course I'd prefer a bunch more investment too, more train lines and go ahead with many of the previously touted tram schemes.
Or, an enterprising landchad could realize they can charge 10% more kWh than people actually pull (blaming efficiency losses), along with a healthy margin for "maintenance".
Lots can go wrong.
Most people who own a car in cities in Europe also use it for long commutes to visit family in weekends or on holidays, often crossing borders. Range is then a problem since most families can afford only one car so edge cases matter. Maybe the wealthy Benelux and Scandinavia have top EV charring infrastructure but a lot of central, eastern and southern Europe is lacking.
But it turns out that the Lidl that we go to has a charger, there are like 10 chargers on the 110 km trip to our families (and they both live in houses with driveways, so "granny charging" is available). Our last two holiday stays were in hotels that had chargers.
Just looking at the options, it doesn't seem like range will be a factor at all. And we're actually looking at cheap cars with 50 kWh batteries, not even the current high end.
Also there is some possibility that there is no power at for example summer home...
Not based on where I live. Many people I know routinely drive hundreds of KM on a weekly basis to their families and renting a car for that doesn't makes sense.
This was pretty rare for us, though we had family that did 12 hours trips in 2 segments with the same frequency. They already stopped for lunch, so they could in theory have gotten away with only charging then, not adding any time to their trip, but more reasonably it would add an extra 30 min to each leg.
Interested to know how often this stuff happens in the EU.
Maybe the wealthy Benelux and Scandinavia have top EV charring infrastructure but a lot of central, eastern and southern Europe is lacking
If I punch the same trip into one of the EV trip planners online and set the car even to something meh like an MG4 with the 51kWh battery, which is cheap EV that doesn't charge very fast, it's telling me I'd have to stop 4 times (instead of 3 times) and for 1.5 h total (instead of a bit less than that).
I don't know what you do for a living or how much you hate traveling, but for me this is a non-issue. I make maybe 1-2 trips like this a year (and <10 trips around 500 km) and spending like 15 % more time on the road is something I wouldn't even notice, much less care about.
However, many parking lots have slowish AC chargers nowadays, so it's very convenient to have the car charge for an hour or two while I do my shopping or whatever.
Basically, it's the difference between having to wait specifically for a charge or whether I'm doing my own thing and charging the car as a bonus.
Just look at this:
https://www.newsflare.com/video/704902/e-bike-battery-explod...
There are a lot of videos like this that shows the devastation of charging electric bikes or scooters indoor.
A 4G modem would probably be overkill, but one might be able to do it for free with lorawan. Or alternatively a big label saying "this bike is GPS tracked" with absolutely no extra hardware at all and hope that bike thieves are dumb fucks.
My bike, on the other hand? A thief could just find and remove the tracker - or strip the bike for parts.
But yes I do partially agree that it probably wouldn't help much, since it's more about the thieves not wanting to mess with a company with funding and a legal department behind it vs. some random bloke who they can rob with impunity. Private bike security firms might be an answer to the issue, you pay a monthly subscription, they put their own trackers on your bike, employ licensed people who retrieve stolen ones at gunpoint and guarantee protection up to some total cost. Probably not cost effective though I guess, given that the police themselves have given up.
NY:
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/09/12/the-river-wild-bikes-...
Michigan:
https://www.mlive.com/environment/2024/08/seriously-waterway...
DC:
https://irrigationleadermagazine.com/not-so-convenient-why-s...
Ohio:
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/columbus/30-electronic...
I think you can learn a lot by looking at how bikes -- acoustic and electric -- are already being parked and locked in your district. For instance my daughter is attending grad school in a big city, and while we were walking around, I noticed that the most decrepit old bikes were secured with giant U-locks plus chains. Hmmm. So my daughter rides a bike of similar ilk, and secures it in a similar fashion.
And I noticed the most beastly of chains and locks in New York City.
Plus, people generally seem to prefer e-bikes where they can take the battery pack with them.
I always lock and secure my road bike against street furniture, though.
I use normal D locks but are tempted to get an angle grinder resistant one although they are expensive - £150+.
Buy the best lock you can afford - it should be a grinder resistant one such as hiplok or litelok.
Note that while the lock may be resistant, the thing it's locked to may be easier to cut if the thief gets frustrated and has time to steal it.
Nothing will stop someone who has the time and batteries/discs from stealing your bike.
I bought one for my expensive gravel and have been happy with it so far.
From the safety point of view it's not as bad as it seems on the first glance, especially if you don't plan riding on it faster than 20-30 km/h.
Legs. I have legs. They are built in. I can just use them. I can always bring my legs onto the subway.
If they don't go fast enough, then I have two options:
1. Give myself more time.
2. Jog or run. This will make me sweaty. Maybe I will want to shower at the office. That's an option. It will make me healthier, if I do it.
There is also a third choice:
3. Obtain real estate in such a way that substantial travel is not required.
Clearly most people will look at these options and say, "FooBar, you are insane."
It's simultaneously the easiest solution to the problem, and the most difficult.
I obey traffic lights just like everyone else, I don't just get in front of people randomly. Though of course, that doesn't stop people from deciding to shove the side of their vehicle into me.
Cargo bikes exist as well.
People with dough won’t mind the extra expense, that’s usually a given.
The conversation really should be centered on “normal” e-bikes with light pedal assist, but these monsters are imported at extremely cheap prices and becomes first choice for teenagers and anyone on a budget.
[1] low-rider bikes with very wide tires, basically an electric motorcycle where you barely have to pedal
How safe would cities with micro mobility be if we spent the same on them?
and almost zero percent of that happens in cities.
There are fatal car crashes all the time.
But nonetheless, many people fear motorbikes as they’re particularly human error prone.
The issue is that e-scooters (of the small-wheels kind) are nowadays the weapon of choice of idiots who don't take riding seriously — because they're the cheapest and most portable solution that doesn't require any energy expenditure (unlike a bike) or special skill (unlike a onewheel or similar).
On bike paths at the legal speed limit here (25 km/h) you’re far less likely to have problems, especially if not riding while affected by any substances.
Total cars down by 5-6%, and lower than 6 of the previous 13 years.
Combustion cars down by 24%, and lower than 12 of the previous 13 years.
My question is, are these sales for brand new cars or does it include used cars also ?
I know my days of buying brand new ended years ago due to how expensive new cars are. My current car (bought used) is from 2007 and if I have to buy another, it will be used.
So I have to wonder, are people avoiding buying new due to the expense. That could point to a reason. Would be interesting to see charts based upon Country or group of countries.
But EVs are eating enough market share that combustion cars are likely never climbing past their peak again.
What population growth?
But you’re right, increasing urbanisation globally leads to more public transport which offsets countries getting richer.
Even in 2024 there were still some production issues coming out of the covid years. 2023 had lots of issues.
So it's unclear what's actually going to happen, if normal markets resume.
(At least in North America, the car manufacturing market will go bananas soon with new tariffs)
Reasons:
* the driving experience is just much, much better: punch & acceleration, stability, quietness, etc.
* if you charge at home it is a lot cheaper than gas
* it is so easy to "fuel": you plug it in when you arrive home and unplug the next morning
Edit: also, after I installed solar cells at home, I drive almost for free!
On the go DC fast charging is already not cheap. It costs as much or more than gas.
And can always charge L1 120v, even if it's unbearably slow.
Or, they can just tax the car based on some average mileage statistics. That's what my state does. Registering an EV is substantially more expensive than an ICE vehicle.
Only if you trade in a gasoline SUV for an electric SUV. A hatchback EV weighs about as much as a compact SUV, and is cheaper to buy and operate.
Because trucks also used more gas. EVs don't.
The EV will pay for itself in saved gasoline after about 53K miles.
That’s not breakeven time; that’s “the car is free” time.
Breakeven was less than half that long because the old ICE car would have had non-zero depreciation.
Apples-to-apples break even would have been 10-20K miles (ignoring free charging at work), but it ended up being closer to 300 miles. Thanks to a fuel crisis, the price of the EV increased by $5K shortly after I bought it. (It’s back down now.)
My car got totalled in September and I had to replace it. Since I didn't drive much at the time I entertained just getting a super cheap old ICE to replace it. Then I started remembering all the annoying maintenance.
Still, back to DC fast charging... I use it rarely. But it's not cheap. And it's a shit non-standardized, fragmented experience.
I had plans that involved driving 8 hours each way. Electrify America chargers were all broken. Luckily, CircleK chargers "worked", slowly. An hour and 30 min to go from 10% to 90%. Had to charge twice each way. Time I will never get back.
After this experience, I talked to Hertz. There is evidently no way to note "no EV ever" on a reservation. I am avoiding hertz from now on (and dollar/thrifty that they own). Enterprise allows you to note "NO EV" on a rental reservation, and honors it.
Until EVs can charge at every corner and in 3 minutes, no thanks! I have places to be, and those places are not "90 minutes on a deserted CircleK parking lot"
This is what I do. Love it. Never ever going back to ICE.
Those very few times I have to make longer journeys and need to charge? Have found a few fast chargers on routes I take that I try and use, but its majorly inconvenient and stressful compared to ICE. A big downside.
So great for being our personal car for local journeys. Bad for long journeys.
> I had plans that involved driving 8 hours each way.
That's a Hertz problem not an EV problem. The car was patently unsuited to your particular needs on that one trip. Daily commuting doesn't involve 16-hour round trips.
You can either use that non-representative experience to reinforce your pre-existing anti-EV ideology. Or reflect on your EV hate rationally.
My charging takes less than 1 minute, really. I arrive at home at 4:30, it takes 20 seconds to plug the car and then 20 more seconds to unplug it the next morning.
And what about all the 12 hours between that? Well, I am living my life, I am not charging a car! The car is doing the whole work of charging itself, alone.
That's several orders of magnitude better than going to a gas station.
Bummer about the broken EA chargers. PlugShare has been really great for finding working chargers. People leave reviews and notes on how well the chargers are working and tips about using them.
I think once all cars are NACS and can use Tesla stations too the charging situation will be much better.
Boy, it sucked. Even with a Type 2 charger at work, and maybe 2 miles between the office and my hotel, charging was a huge hassle. And with an ICE vehicle I can refuel before dropping it back off at the airport in about 5 minutes. It's just not practical to recharge my EV after driving 1.5 hours to catch my flight.
The only other noteworthy experience was making an adjustment in a parking space and having 2 or 3 alarms going off concurrently without any indication of what they meant. (Excluding the proximity sensor, if memory serves.)
Doesn't affect the overall conclusion as even if they were all hybrids the number of cars with internal combustion would still be lower.
I'm very, very bullish on EVs, they're going to take over the world rapidly but this graph isn't great support as you can't see the exponential rise very well and it's swamped by other data inluences.
Really the only conclusion I would make is that combustion-only has peaked, and that much is very clear if you go and shop for a new car. Everything is being hybridised.
But, if one digs a bit into the data then one finds that EV sales in nearly all countries had double digit increases. The two major exceptions are Germany and Italy. But on the other hand the Chinese market both grew substantially and there it is more or less a policy goal to boost local manufactures and those are ~all electric. And if China is not going back to gas-powered cars then the conclusion is a pretty safe bet, isn't it?
It is monstrously inefficient. A scuba tank might power a vehicle for a half hour tops, though I forget the exact numbers. Scuba tanks are huge and heavy for small hobby vehicles.
I'd love to pick it back up are there other options here?
Higher compression. Scuba is older tech and standardized around relatively low pressures. CNG runs above 3000psi. Paintball guns run air at 4-5000. Carbon fiber tanks are readily available for both as are compressors.
One thing people don't realize is that EVs are going to be SO MASSIVELY CHEAPER than ICE cars that we will see massive changes in behaviour and socioeconomic dynamics in society. I think we will see a day where a new car won't be much more expensive than a new fridge.
What happens when everyone who can afford a fridge can afford a car? And drive it for next to nothing? With car repair basically being a non issue (just throw away and get a new one)?
Some societies are not equipped for that. Roads will need to be repaired much more often (due to EV weight as well). Tire microplastic particles are going to be much bigger problem (but less gas emissions at least). Gas taxes used to pay for road infrastructure in some countries, that doesn't work anymore. Electricity taxes? But then you are taxing people who don't use the roads as much. IoT meters on cars beeping your location to the government (UK actually proposed this)? Battery fire management? Recycling (especially for the batteries)?
Car manufacturing won't be a big industry that matters that much for the overall economy anymore.
Lots of countries where a lot of the population use motorized-scooters/motorcycles will move to use bigger cars. Traffic is going to get much worse everywhere, public transport will become less attractive. Parking demand will skyrocket.
People who already own cars will resist any form of government control to reduce traffic/parking. US car-centric lifestyle will be exported to all of the developing world. If anything the US and Canada are only of the few countries prepared for this new world (the only places where everyone, even poor people, own cars and drive everywhere).
Why?
Batteries are expensive, but are mostly automated manufacturing. Raw minerals for batteries will become mostly closed-loop in the long-term with recycling (like aluminum). And the prices is going down a lot even without recycling being significant yet.
I imagine you would be able to trade-in your current car and get a big discount for a new one.
https://www.bmwmotorcycles.com/en/models/urban_mobility/ce04...
Edit: 855mm wide, 1675mm wheelbase, weighs like a 1000cc adventure bike (clearly bottom-heavy, though). That's one Goldwing of a scooter.
Looks good for belting about a city on, where I am (rural Australian town) I'm happy with walking or a scooter for local travel .. an 80 mile range just gets me to the nearest town and back with little reserve.
A 150 mile range would be better .. that'll come I guess.
FWiW I rode the BMW R650 (light road bike) for a decade and had a GS 1250 with long range tanks for road|off road trips.
European Model Shown. U.S. model only available with clear windscreen.
Is that the piece of orange plastic in front of the handlebar base, that they are calling a "windscreen"?
https://www.zeroto60times.com/body-style/motorcycle/fast-slo...?
Which has an MSRP of $20K.
I suspect the BMW will sell extremely well.
Not bad but it's not zero to 60 mph in 2.6
The police should still be stopping those bikes as they don't meet the legal definition of EAPC and so require a licence plate. Not that they do.
Related:
Tracking global data on electric vehicles - https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
Downhill = good, momentum is unstoppable, nothing stops the electrification transition, we’re simply arguing time horizon now; China will be the clean energy and mobility manufacturer to the world.
(50% of car sales in China in 2024 were battery electric or plug in hybrid)
The coal companies started going bankrupt long before the end of coal. (hell it's still not over...) Simply because investors could see that it's a shrinking industry, making it impossible to get financing for new plants, mines, etc.
Was fun to make the attempt, but sometimes city hall wins. It turns out it is easier to expat than to import a Chinese car.
[1] https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/biden-administration-effect...
I suddenly just became a proponent of in-person voting.
But sure, maybe Tesla. Though I suspect they use parts from Magna etc on this side of the border, too.
To note, the US has no robotics foundries, and already is experiencing labor shortages today.
https://itif.org/publications/2024/03/11/how-innovative-is-c...
https://apnews.com/article/population-projections-congressio...
I'm not saying this would be a pleasant or fun experience for those involved, but I am saying I wouldn't bet against China even on demographics.
If you see the breakdown graph [1], the likes of Norway is about to peak at 100%. The UK, US and EU are already becoming saturated, and China have saturated their internal markets and now face export tariffs to other significant markets to prevent dumping. The largest driving forces for this trend are essentially saturated.
Just in the EU for example we see that energy prices continue to increase per kWh [2], further reducing the "low cost benefit" of electricity that EVs previously enjoyed. We also see governments beginning to realise that they miss out on vehicle tax for EVs due to incentives, and such benefits begin to be withheld [3].
As the global economy continues to slow, I expect to see EVs and any green agenda items decrease in popularity, and a return to combustion engines and other policies with higher economic growth.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electric-car-sales-share
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
[3] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vehicle-tax-for-electric-and-low...
Regarding your points. First the thing about used evs not selling has more to do with the rapid pace of innovation of evs rather than lack of demand. In the 90s it was very difficult to sell a used PC because PCs improved so quickly. That did not mean that PCs were not doing well, in fact PC sales were growing exponentially. And evs do improve fast.
Your second point is silly. Basically you are saying that EVs are doomed because EVs are already selling too much. Thats like the old joke that nobody goes to this restaurant anymore because it is too crowded.
Your third point is about rising electricity costs. That sucks for sure, but electricity costs tend to rise together with gasoline costs. It will be very difficult for those two to diverge so that a gas car all of a sudden becomes more economical. The fact that one can make electricity out of oil and oil products tends to mean that electricity costs will not rise very much in comparison to gasoline costs in a short period of time.
I found it thought provoking rather than silly. Anecdotally, I've noticed EVs have gone from a type of car frequently seen on road trips to more of a city vehicle. This confines their location and purchasers.
> The fact that one can make electricity out of oil.
If you do that, there's little benefit from car electrification. Also electricity is cheap usually when the car is not charging and vice versa. People arrive home, start cooking, washing clothes and plug in their car. The sun is already set and the local grid's unprepared cable sections cause voltage drops. The energy dilivered by the pv panels at noon is worth less than 10 percent of the nominal price. That is what holding EV usage back right now.
Untrue, if you generate power from oil at a big power plant, transmit it down to a house and charge a battery then use the battery to power an electric motor it will still be considerably more efficient than using a car-sized combustion engine (not even counting the energy required to transport the gasoline/diesel to the gas station).
> The sun is already set and the local grid's unprepared cable sections cause voltage drops
It seems inevitable that car-makers and utilities will need to agree on some kind of smart metering for charging cars at non-peak points. Energy costs at 12am->6am are actually cheaper than during the day even in areas with a lot of PVs (baseline power load can't be easily shut on/off). I heard there are some standards about this.
I don't mind, I have internet points to spare. I think it's more important we have a proper discussion in this place.
> Regarding your points. First the thing about used evs not selling has more to do with the rapid pace of innovation of evs rather than lack of demand. In the 90s it was very difficult to sell a used PC because PCs improved so quickly. That did not mean that PCs were not doing well, in fact PC sales were growing exponentially. And evs do improve fast.
I disagree. I spoke to several dealerships and they simply cannot sell even a few year old EVs, despite them being able to sell 'new' EVs of that manufacturing date. From what I can tell it's that if you've got the money to spend £30k on an EV, why would you take a risk and buy a used one for £20k? There will be limited warranty and no 'classic' mechanic will touch it. If it's out of manufacturer warranty and you develop a battery fault, the battery and fitment can be comparable to the cost you paid for the entire vehicle. This is extremely unlikely to change soon.
> Your second point is silly. Basically you are saying that EVs are doomed because EVs are already selling too much. Thats like the old joke that nobody goes to this restaurant anymore because it is too crowded.
I'm not making that point at all. Whatever the market force is, there appears to be a saturation on the near horizon for percentage of sales. It's not an opinion, it's what the numbers suggest.
> Your third point is about rising electricity costs. That sucks for sure, but electricity costs tend to rise together with gasoline costs. It will be very difficult for those two to diverge so that a gas car all of a sudden becomes more economical. The fact that one can make electricity out of oil and oil products tends to mean that electricity costs will not rise very much in comparison to gasoline costs in a short period of time.
Without taxes, combustion engines are more economical (we're not discussing efficiency). Fuel duty and VAT in the UK represents over 50% of the overall cost of fuel [1]. Some portion of that tax is then used to subsidise green energy projects such as wind turbines and solar panels, further reducing the cost of electricity.
[1] https://www.racfoundation.org/data/percentage-uk-pump-price-...
So where do you pay to get your HN posts to the top? Let me know, I have some ludicrous opinions I would like to promote too!
I will not respond to the rest of your post, your arguments have deteriorated from being simply false to being incomprehensible.
Just to be clear, "I have internet points to spare" refers specifically to the loss caused by downvoting. The point is that I don't care to be downvoted, I don't say things to be popular, I am far more interested in the fruits the discussions lead to.
> I will not respond to the rest of your post, your arguments have deteriorated from being simply false to being incomprehensible.
Sure, make up a conspiracy about why my comment is nearer to the top and disregard my actual points by claiming they are all false anyway. It's great to have these kinds of well structured discussions here on HN.
At least here in Germany we are rapidly approaching the point where we will require power sinks in order to absorb solar around noon. And EVs are extremely well-positioned for that. Typically the charging time can be shifted around a bit and charging stations will come with their own buffer stage. That means that most people won't pay anywhere near the normal sticker price for electricity for their cars.
All that being said: I agree that "green agenda items" will decrease in popularity (or really: they weren't that popular to begin with). But EVs in particular are just straight up cheaper. If not by construction, then definitely by the air pollution reduction interest of the Chinese government. I'd be highly surprised if incentive reduction has more than a delaying effect, if even that
I'm not advocating (here at least) for a move back to combustion vehicles, I'm just noting what I have seen. I would say that unless there is a serious used EV market and that the poorer people are able to afford an EV, there will forever be a resistance. You can push poor people out of the urban areas to rural locations with poor shared transport options, but they still need to commute to work.
> All that being said: I agree that "green agenda items" will decrease in popularity (or really: they weren't that popular to begin with). But EVs in particular are just straight up cheaper. If not by construction, then definitely by the air pollution reduction interest of the Chinese government. I'd be highly surprised if incentive reduction has more than a delaying effect, if even that
I think the reversal of most green policies is on the cards as governments struggle to balance the books with an incoming global recession.
EVs are cheaper to run once you tax fuel to a higher price, otherwise they are not. EVs cost about half as much to run, and in the UK the fuel duty is approximately 50%, some of which is put into subsidising green electricity production. EVs are definitely not cheaper to construct, maintain or recycle end-of-life.
The only thing I can think is that they have reduced emissions during the operating life-time of the vehicle, but I haven't seen the numbers to suggest if this includes the entire lifetime. Some quick numbers:
Apparently petrol/diesel vehicles require ~5.6 tonnes CO2 to build, whereas EVs ~8.8 tonnes. I see numbers assuming that combustion vehicles produce ~4.6 tonnes CO2 annually, but it assumes 22.2 miles per gallon (very low fuel economy) and 11,500 miles driven a year (a heavy commuter). I think the assumptions are bad. That considered, then there is the recycling/upcycling of the vehicles. I know that for combustion vehicles this process is extremely efficient, as literally every part is recycled, much reused in the used car market.
Agreed. And I didn't mean to imply, that there isn't a problem for "everyone gets electric". But that will fix itself with (probably) this year's new cars. So in 2-3 years there will be a fledgling 2nd hand market and in 10 it will be of similar volume as it is now (probably still a bit pricier, since there will be a non-car use for used car batteries)
> EVs are definitely not cheaper to construct, maintain or recycle end-of-life.
There I disagree. The EV price is (still) (mostly) the battery, which is _still_ coming down rapidly. I thought maintenance costs were already cheaper, but maybe not. And end-of-life is mostly a scale question, which will be fixed. Especially since we can reuse the batteries.
The same goes for energy cost and CO2 emissions. I think the EV construction numbers largely assume current (or even worst case) energy mixes, but yeah most of these comparison make at least one questionable assumption (like choosing low efficiency gas cars) and are therefore complicated. Still it's quite a fundamental property: EVs are more efficient and large combustion systems are more efficient. At least CO2-wise it will _always_ be more efficient to burn fuel in a large power plant and run an EV. And the electricity mix is significantly better than that^. Price-wise it's a more complicated story, but at least for Germany, we need to import the fuel anyways. So producing locally should work out better (both personally, where using your own solar is basically a tax break and system wide, where EVs provide a reasonably flexible dispatchable load, which has value)
I think the big question is the time scale here, but fundamentally: The biggest market in the world decided to go EV, that makes the position of any non-EV producer complicated to say the least. Everything downstream (second hand market, recycling, ...) hasn't had time to even develop yet.
^ Assuming we are not tearing down anything already installed..
> Just in the EU for example we see that energy prices continue to increase per kWh
I think we'll see energy prices in the EU continue to rise until geopolitics cool off a bit. I'd be a bit disappointed if the EU looked at the current trends and decided to become even more dependent on oil and gas given how antagonistic the main producers currently are.
Irrespective of geopolitics, I suspect we will see electricity prices come down and then go back up, for several reasons:
1. As more EVs charge on the grid, it will become further under strain. Assuming on average every house owns an EV, and that EV power usage is approximately the equivalent of one house, it would be like the population doubles in terms of pressure on the electrical grid. No country has that kind of spare capacity. They will have to cost infrastructure improvements to the electricity bill.
2. As less combustion vehicles are used, combustion-based taxes will reduce, and the green energy initiatives will lose this subsidisation. This loss will be put onto the electricity customers directly.
3. EVs are significantly heavier (cars: ~25%, sedans: ~30%, trucks/SUVs: ~150%) and cause more wear on infrastructure. That wear will directly correlate with the amount of electricity used, and will be the easiest way to introduce a tax to cover these costs. Costs associated to EVs will likely come from unexpected places, like the additional damage caused in a collision [1], and these will also directly correlate with electricity usage.
If anything the UK and EU appear to be near the peak of the EU sales percentage [2], if any Countries will see a decline in sales of EVs as a percentage of overall vehicles it would be those.
[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/9587791/electric-vehicle-weight-s...
[2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electric-car-sales-share
Maybe some alternate carbon-neutral fuel for combustion is possible, but all the ones we’ve tried so far have lost out to electric.
As @Ray20 pointed out, this is Western thinking. The only factor that will flip most poorer people is a direct economic incentive. Who cares about the weather when your children cannot eat.
> Maybe some alternate carbon-neutral fuel for combustion is possible, but all the ones we’ve tried so far have lost out to electric.
It was getting more efficient, but this stopped ever since all the governments got together and decided that by 2035 no more combustion vehicles would be sold. All incentives to produce more efficient combustion vehicles went out the window.
We are actually only a handful of inventions away from pretty low emissions combustion engines. There have already been significant inventions, such as the catalytic converter, DPF, fuel additives, turbos, intercoolers, direct water injection, etc.
I suspect we were only years from seeing KERS and MGU-H during acceleration events. I think it is also quite likely there would have been more effort to push for hybrid vehicles where only small batteries are used, again for acceleration events. Improvements in manufacturing processes would allow for high tolerances, increasing internal pressures and combustion efficiency.
We know how to build good EVs now, which means the result of this will be a lot less catastrophic than twenty or thirty years ago. We are lucky the peak oilers back then underestimated.
Your estimate for coal is probably low, unfortunately. There are vast amounts of it in places like Alaska and Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic, maybe Antarctica too if that melts enough. We probably have enough carbon to destroy the world if we really don't give a damn and decide we don't want Florida. We have quite a lot of gas, too, which is not nearly as bad as coal for climate change but isn't great if we keep using it forever and at huge scale.
The bottom line is that transition to electrified everything powered by solar, wind, hydro, nuclear (maybe fusion too eventually), and geothermal, is inevitable. The question is the timetable. Oil will be the first fossil fuel to go. It's already many times more expensive per kWh as a source of energy due to the difficult of substituting it for internal combustion engines and aviation.
My parents remember reading those in 70's
This is Western-centrism. In the long run 4 billion people do not go electric because poverty problem solving more important for them, then the global warming problem solving, and another 4 billion people do not consider global warming as a problem at all, the wormer - the better. And under this conditions what the remaining 2 billion people will do is not important at all.
However, the initial CO2 footprint is dwarfed when compared to the operational footprint of ICE vehicles. Takes a few years for the scale to tip in EVs favour, to which then there's a substantial difference.
> BNEF studied the US, Chinese, Germany, UK and Japanese markets. It determined the lifecycle CO2 emissions of a medium-size BEV manufactured in 2023 and driven for 250,000km would be 27-71 per cent lower than those of equivalent ICE vehicles.
I think it's good to mention that in Europe, 40% of all the electrical energy usage was renewable in 2024 [1]. This number is higher than it was in 2023, and will increase again in 2025 due to many new solar, wind, and battery installations.
In the US, 19% of all the electrical energy was produced by renewables and 20% by nuclear [2].
[1]: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/european-electricit...
(Disclaimer: I know little about cars ...)
My country, New Zealand, is awash with new BEV brands, some also offering ICE, from China and South East Asia. Compared with traditional SEA manufacturers (Japan, Korea) that supply most of our new cars, the prices are apparently ridiculously competitive and packed full of premium features.
It feels like I see a new brand advertised every couple of months. Four new brands were introduced late last year [1] One of whose SSL cert expired a couple of weeks ago and still has not been renewed.
The question is will these low cost EVs last 250,000km? I don't think the batteries will.
[1] https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/350442392/four-new-chinese-...
Are there well known SEA car manufacturers, or exporters? Proton of Malaysia is (or was?) probably the biggest, they owned the legendary Lotus brand at one point.
> Why do you think the batteries won’t?
I was commenting on low-cost EV. I don't know but I think its likely that given the following (maybe incorrect) assumption:
1. Cheap EVs use cheaper lower-quality cells to keep costs down.
2. Cheap EVs use battery tech that maximises range and performance at the expense of longevity, which would be cheaper than both maximising range and performance AND longevity.
3. Cheap EVs save money with worse cooling of the batteries.
I could be wrong on both points.
There are plenty of stories of EV batteries having low deterioration despite high KMs. But I am not sure these are usually old EVs, just EVs driven a lot.
Lithium batteries experience cyclic degradation (degradation when charged) and degradation over time (calendar degradation). We have yet to see how multiple decades effects them.
This NZ govt. report is an excellent resource [1]. It cites this paper [2] where they charted Nissan Leaf battery deterioration over time under various conditions.
Here in NZ, I looked at our post popular used-car website and 9 year old Leafs (2015 model) which had done 90-100,000km had lost 25-32% of battery capacity. There is not much data for earlier leafs.
[1] https://www.genless.govt.nz/assets/Everyone-Resources/ev-bat...
https://www.genless.govt.nz/assets/Everyone-Resources/ev-bat...
Some brands (in particular Tesla has done this) even use LFP in low-end versions of a single model, and NMC in high end.
Interesting. I may indeed be wrong!
See for example https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-21-misleading-myths-ab...
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2024/executive...
So it’s not just feel-good, it’s a real impact.
That said, I don’t think that’s what this report is doing?
The study behind your article has this to say on the issue:
> The share of kilometers that PHEVs electrify results in a total of 15%–55% less tailpipe CO2 emissions compared to conventional cars. This is much lower than expected from type-approval values.
So certainly worse than indicated, but still better than alternatives.
https://theicct.org/publication/real-world-usage-of-plug-in-...
Many plugin hybrids only need to use their petrol engine when they actually run out of power. I would wonder if whoever came up with the above study was deliberately looking for a worst case scenario, tbh; they didn't include any small/normal-sized cars at all (everything they mention is over two tonnes), even though the _average_/most typical plugin hybrid car is probably some sort of smallish hatchback.
(Even then, though, I'm curious what conditions they're testing under. I know someone who has a BMW 5-series plugin hybrid saloon, which is a close relative of the X5 mentioned, albeit a bit lighter and more aerodynamic, and it operates pretty much entirely on battery when charged.)
Granted, the same goes for modern gas cars, which is also why I stick to secondhand but premium pre-infotainment cars
I love working and riding 20-30year old bicycles, sailboats, or even an old Toyota Jeep. Less dependency on software compatibility.
I've seen and used underground car chargers in multiple European cities. They're definitely viable.
I'm not sure what the specific issue would be with race tracks. The average road course is very open and a very controlled environment; if you had to deal with a car fire, it's probably among the best places to do so, thanks to lessons learned in the blood of previous generations of drivers and track workers.
I'm pretty sure the racetrack issue was related to the garages. The pretty much standard rule I've seen at all racetracks I've been to is and absolute "NO FUELING IN THE GARAGE" as in if they even catch you with an open fuel can in the garage you are immediately banned from the premises. They're obviously trying to minimize the risk of one of their building burning down, especially since once a fire started in one team's bay, it would be likely to spread to adjacent bays. I expect they just consider electric fires to start in broader circumstances.
Also, I think it might be relaxing the rules some, as I just checked and at least SCCA is now working on rules for electric cars on road tracks, which presumably means some tracks are more open to it.
But I still see the EV as saving the car industry rather than saving the world/environment. Reducing tail pipe emissions is great, but if it means increased tire wear particles, brake dust, increased wear on road infrastructure and increased demand on lithium supplies.
Are we really better off than before?
I would like to see a future where the private vehicle is _optional_ and public transportation is a viable option. A future where our cities and towns are not built around private vehicles (ie, expensive roads, parking garages, street parking, massive highways, infrastructure maintenance).
That’s a much better goal to achieve than pushing EVs or self driving cars.
In the U.S., states have awarded massive economic development packages to EV and battery factories. Georgia, for instance, gave $1.5 billion to Rivian and $1.8 billion to Hyundai for EV plants. Nationwide, over $13.8 billion has been committed to at least 51 such projects, often funded partly by federal pandemic relief funds like the American Rescue Plan Act.
So the landscape has profoundly changed and it’ll be interesting to see what this does to growth.
Are trucks like the F150 not being captured by this data? How literal is "cars"?
it's not strange, jeff bezos can buy dozens of yachts, but most people will only buy 1 car for several years
Here's a fascinating video about a city in China that's full of cute electric cars that cost less than $5000 USD each:
I found a good video that outlines all the reasons:
China is the most important growth market for passenger vehicles for last 20+ years, this is because of China's continuous industrial upgrading, which has gradually shifted from manufacturing low value-added products (such as jeans) to producing high value-added products (such as passenger vehicles).
this brings '10s of millions of newly middle class consumers', same thing happened in Japan/Korea/Taiwan too
but now, china produced 30 million cars (12m evs) in 2024, which means China's passenger vehicle market will quickly approach saturation, even if all Chinese families purchase or replace new vehicles
btw, '10s of millions newly consumers' is a relatively small number
and there will be no other markets with '10s of millions of newly middle class consumers' unless other countries can accompolish industrial upgrading like China's did
and if these countries(India/indonesia/Vietnam) manage to do so, their industrial upgrading will intensify this competition just like what happened in China now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8zOHZINyG8
Compressed natural gas (methane) is even easier to synthesize from the raw ingredients than gasoline or diesel fuels. It's used today in many city buses, fleet vehicles, and private cars in certain parts of the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
Such fuels could become less attractive if we invent lighter, cheaper, and much faster-charging batteries than the current state of the art, but I'm not holding my breath.
There will probably be a rump of difficult to convert use cases and long lives specialty vehicles. I imagine tractors will be the last holdout. And military uses.
Good thing ICE vehicles don't use any explosive components. Any evidence of these "mass casualty" events?
I still support adding it to the title, because it's even more impressive.
Basically the laptop classes (all actual or wannabe EV-owners) have started revolting against the fact that they have to inhale cancer-igneous fumes on their way to their yoga classes, and this is the result of that.