EU countries approve 2035 phaseout of CO2-emitting cars

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-countries-poised-approve-2035-phaseout-co2-emitting-cars-2023-03-28/

by frankjr • 3 years ago

126 359 3 years ago

reuters.com

pipo234• 3 years ago

The European Commission has pledged, however, to create a legal route for sales of new cars that only run on e-fuels to continue after 2035, after Germany demanded this exemption from the ban.

Sigh!

quic5• 3 years ago

All because of a single German political party that will struggle to get the required 5% next term. Kinda crazy

go_elmo• 3 years ago

Not Germany, but the FDP Party is to blame, representing sub 5% subset of voters.

wongarsu5• 3 years ago

Arguably the represent 11.5%, since that's how many votes they got. But yeah, their current poll results are a lot worse than that.

oaiey4• 3 years ago

Unlimited Speed on Highways = People who drive really fast = People think their time is money = Entrepreneur mindset = FDP key voters.

Guess what we Germans are unable to kill either: Adding a generic speed limit so we do not get heart attacks when someone drives 300km behind us.

Sucks but is called a compromise. Democracy.

rafale• 3 years ago

If they they are carbon neutral or near neutral like lithium batteries, then why not?

henearkr4• 3 years ago

Air pollution, noise pollution, health problems.

mr_mitm2• 3 years ago

We'll be needing any kWh of green electricity we can get, and wasting it on inefficient e-fuels is dumb and wasteful. But I guess everybody has the right to be dumb and wasteful, so here we are.

unwind• 3 years ago

Sounds annoying, but I had to skim through looking for a definition of "e-fuel" since it was not a term I was accustomed to.

Found it:

E-fuels are produced by synthesising captured CO2 emissions and hydrogen produced using CO2-free electricity. They are considered carbon neutral because the CO2 released when the fuel is combusted is balanced by the CO2 removed from the atmosphere to produce the fuel.

And also learnt that they're also called "electrofuels" [1].

That makes it sound less horrible, except that such production doesn't exist yet at a sensible/interesting scale as far as I understand.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrofuel

rob74• 3 years ago

Nevertheless, e-fuel cars are still a step back compared to electric cars: electric cars don't pollute while they're running, but may still generate pollution depending on how the electricity they are charged with was produced, e-fuel cars produce both tailpipe pollution and potentially also electricity generation pollution. But I guess that due to how horrendously expensive e-fuels will be, these vehicles will be so rare that tailpipe pollution won't matter much...

LeonidasXIV6• 3 years ago

That makes it sound less horrible, except that such production doesn't exist yet at a sensible/interesting scale as far as I understand.

To me it sounds less horrible, because it sounds like fantasy technology that will not be economically feasible in the end so the end result is that this exception doesn't actually matter. Suffers the same problem as the whole carbon capture thought experiment.

baxuz• 3 years ago

e-fuels are the equivalent of carbon offsets.

It's a hand-wavey solution to keep the status quo.

thecopy• 3 years ago

"Electrofuel". God.. they are so good at lobbying and PR i have to admire it. Even though it will lead to people dying by toxic exhausts.

patall• 3 years ago

I have written that before: They only talk about Efuels because that sounds fancy. What they really mean are probably biofuels, i.e biodiesel and ethanol (not that that would make it any better).

rasz4• 3 years ago

Germany lobbied to include e-fuels made using russian gas in the bill, but not nuclear!

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/revealed-how-ge...

comandillos• 3 years ago

Is either that or Germany letting their automakers that have not been able to adapt to the new EV era just die... and nobody wants to see what is that impact of that over the whole European economy...

wongarsu5• 3 years ago

According to [1] Volkswagen was the third largest producer of EVs in 2022, only behind BYD and Tesla. And BMW and Mercedes Benz both are in the top 10. It's not like German automakers have been sitting on their hands or would just die. The problem is not so much the automakers themselves but their suppliers. Those employ far more people, and EVs just don't need a lot of those parts.

1: https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/WW-S3-...

izacus• 3 years ago

All the big German automakers have launched good EVs by now and they've been successful on the market as well in Europe.

Which ones are you talking about?

Vespasian3• 3 years ago

It's not the automakers. Those have long since started to transition to BEVs and do offer some attractive options which are produced at scale and can often be seen on the streets where I am (not near any of the OEM headquarters). They have also mostly stopped R&D on ICE technology

The issue is with the suppliers and suppliers of suppliers which are a backbone of German industry and some of which cannot transition away ICE technology.

Of course e-fuels are not going to safe them anyway but their lobbying caused this.

New_California5• 3 years ago

Poland and Hungary were also strictly against the ban on selling gasoline cars. So no, it's not only Germany.

Whether EU itself will be still a thing in 12+ years to enforce this bullshit ban is another question.

Vespasian3• 3 years ago

What makes you believe it won't be a thing (or a rebranded version of it)?

Unless any of the European countries (even the larger ones) wants to be crushed by the economic weight of the US or China they better stick together.

Even most Euro-skeptics seems to get it by now.

The fact that Russia is removing itself from the game of economics and has voluntarily killed of European dependency on their gas is reducing inner EU conflict.

ihatepython4• 3 years ago

Whether EU itself will be still a thing in 12+ years to enforce this bullshit ban is another question.

You are correct, the EU is going to break up, definitely before 2035, and probably sooner rather than later. We are at the beginning of a serious financial crisis, this time it's a sovereign debt crisis, caused by going to negative interest rates in 2014 (among other reasons).

helsinkiandrew3• 3 years ago

EU countries approve 2035 phaseout of CO2-emitting cars

That's quite a misleading headline from Reuters - they're not phasing out C02 emitting cars, they're banning sale of new CO2 emitting cars. Existing CO2 cars will continue to be legal, although probably become much more expensive to run than electric cars, and of course could be outlawed by further legislation.

devoutsalsa2• 3 years ago

I'm going to miss really simple cars with barely any electronics in them.

bruce343434• 3 years ago

In theory, electric cars are simpler. Fewer moving parts and all that. But _modern_ cars are full of electronic doodads. Theoretically there is nothing stopping someone from developing a barebones electric car.

skrebbel• 3 years ago

An electrical engine is a lot simpler than an internal combustion engine.

I don’t think that EV implies software overkill. I hope that some brands will carve out a niche for simple EVs with real buttons and low “smartness”.

helsinkiandrew3• 3 years ago

Are there any new petroleum cars that are really simple and have little electronics - perhaps the ultra cheap, mostly Chinese city cars - but car manufacturers have been putting more and more electronics into vehicles long before electric cars

djaychela• 3 years ago

You'd be talking 1970s or before, then? Anything from the 80s onwards has had plenty of electronics present. And generally been more reliable for it. Ftr I've owned and fixed hundreds of cars, and modern ones are much more reliable and need less servicing.

UncleMeat• 3 years ago

If you buy a car with a gas engine in 2035 it'll be stuffed full of electronics too. This is independent of EV vs gas. If you want to keep driving your 2011 vehicle because it doesn't have a bunch of garbage in the infotainment system then you'll still be able to do that.

marban• 3 years ago

Agreed. Just bought a '89 Porsche — 100% buttons, couple of relays, one LCD clock. And actually a pure joy to drive, and repair.

globular-toast2• 3 years ago

Me too, but they were unsustainable. I really think when it comes to technology we need to think about sustainability first. We can't just look at something and think "ooh shiny", or "ooh convenient". We need to first ask about sustainability and trash it if it doesn't cross the first hurdle.

It's like our grandparents discovered an endless supply of food, built their lives around it and forgot how to farm. Our parents realised the supply wasn't actually endless, but it wouldn't run out in their lifetime so they just kept eating and becoming more dependent. They worked out how to eat less of the food, but they just ended up eating the same and getting fatter instead. We were born into a world utterly dependent on it but critically aware that it's running out and we need to stop. Sure, I'll miss the food too. Who wouldn't? But it's not coming back.

melling4• 3 years ago

I didn’t need to read the article to know they meant new cars.

We’ve been discussing this for several years and not once has anyone said we are going to scrap existing vehicles.

ZeroGravitas6• 3 years ago

I agree, but just as an optimistic counterpoint: It seems like we might be lucky enough to get quickly to a point where recycling perfectly good ICE cars to make EVs will be the smart move for the consumers pocket and the planet.

Theres not much point in talking about it while everyone is still making up lies about running out of lithium, barcoding poor people and eating bugs, but the cleaner air, demand response benefits, reduced imports of fuel, and superior experiemce seems likely to overtake the natural aging out of existing cars as it accelerates over the next decade.

At a certain point, fuelling an ICE car simply wont make sense, just as working coal plants are closing because the coal fuel costs more than building new renewables.

wongarsu5• 3 years ago

Which is effectively a phase-out of most CO2 emitting cars by 2050, if the ban doesn't change people's purchasing patterns (which it will, but it's hard to tell how)

jnsaff24• 3 years ago

They are already much more expensive to run.

I replaced a 2003 Saab with a Tesla Model 3 and for our driving (about 40k km per year) the price difference between electricity and petrol ALONE makes up for the leasing payments.

doodlesdev• 3 years ago

That appears to be not that fuel efficient, though, right? For instance, a 2020 Honda Fit will do 36MPG [0], meanwhile a 2003 Saab would do around 20MPG [1]. Depending on where you live and the usage of your car, I can imagine electric cars being much cheaper overall, even though the starting price can be much higher. I should note I live in a Third World country where electric cars basically don't exist yet, so I'm not aware of the day-to-day realities of using electric cars.

[0] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2020_Honda_Fit.shtml

[1] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymake/Saab2003.shtml

yread• 3 years ago

40k km a year? That's a lot of driving, 200+km every workday! Good for you but the EU average is 11.300km.

mpweiher3• 3 years ago

The title is not misleading at all, as a phaseout is not a ban, but a gradual transition. And as the lifetime of cars is limited and there will be no new CO2-emitting cars to replace the ones that go away, this ban of new sales will see these cars removed completely at some time, gradually. That's a phaseout.

blueflow• 3 years ago

will see these cars removed completely at some time

You wish. Horses and Horse Carriages aren't even completely gone yet.

jjk1664• 3 years ago

Usually when a year is given for a phaseout, that's when the phaseout is supposed to be completed, not the point where it begins. The current headline is misleading in that it suggests that ICE cars will be phased out by 2035, instead of that they will begin phasing them out starting in 2035.

HPsquared6• 3 years ago

Technically any car with passengers emits CO2.

ben_w10• 3 years ago

Technically humans have radioactive breath, too.

It's not generally considered an important factor.

HPsquared6• 3 years ago

Oh indeed, it's just where do you draw the line? If a car has a very small range-extender engine that's only used occasionally, the occupants' exhalations could rival it!

black3r3• 3 years ago

Poland had called the law unrealistic and said it risked increasing car prices.

12 years is enough time to heavily invest in public transport so that most people won't need a car at all, then increased car prices won't matter....

New_California5• 3 years ago

But that would be a regress of civilization, not progress! The civilization progress is to have much more private transport and also somewhat more public transport.

HPsquared6• 3 years ago

Some people bemoan cars as a 20th-century anachronism. They forget that trains/trams/buses are from the 19th century and were superseded by cars. The e-scooter for hire is truly a 21st-century innovation, though. That, and the self-driving car.

fruit2020• 3 years ago

Thx for telling me what I need :) Only the rich will need a car

spaniard892775• 3 years ago

That's impossible to achieve. Not in 12 not in 50. It's not possible to cover with public transport all the places where cars can go. It's not capital nor operationally possible.

What we will have is another strong wave of population concentrating in cities. Any economic activity outside of beaten paths will be very expensive.

Because we are freaking retarded with housing in the west, people will lose the freedom private cars can give (because for most modal income people in europe, electric cars are simply not feasible), prices will increase even more. This happening while we have to deal with ageing and climate change, thus modal incomes will become efectively poor. Millions of rent slaves who have no savings and purchasing power, nor ability to scape because they can't move to live elsewhere where prices are lower, and commute to their job.

Of course a combination of market + planning could, potentially solve this (kind of). But it's not going to happen because in Europe pensioners and near-to-be-pensioners rule everything, and they are so selfish and so short-sighted that they will dry public budgets until they collapse the system.

The future of Europe is basically set in stone. France and Spain are very clear examples of what's ahead for everyone else. France on how a good chunk of the population is completely stupid and blind to the problem, and Spain on how politicians are willing to sacrifice a country to please pensioners.

It's sad, but it is what it is.

LeonidasXIV6• 3 years ago

That's impossible to achieve. Not in 12 not in 50. It's not possible to cover with public transport all the places where cars can go. It's not capital nor operationally possible.

It doesn't have to. A lot of population is urban and curbing car use in cities will be a massive improvement. So would proper train infrastructure to get between cities.

ben_w10• 3 years ago

It's not possible to cover with public transport all the places where cars can go.

OP said "most" not "all". Rental cars for the occasional exceptions, ownership for whoever has to use them regularly, that's still basically fine.

because for most modal income people in europe, electric cars are simply not feasible

Purchase price, or price per km? Because that's a very important difference.

Electric is already better on the latter, even if battery costs fail to get cheaper with more scale.

mamonster• 3 years ago

"Spain on how politicians are willing to sacrifice a country to please pensioners".

Funnily enough that is exactly what Macron is also doing, because the under-discussed part of the current reform is that it does not put in question the current pensions which are absolutely massive based on what french pensioners paid in.

But of course when you bring it up these people will try to gaslight you into the idea they built the society you enjoy today, unironically pretending that when they entered the job market in like 1965-70 Europe was still in ruins after WW2, and you simply don't want to work hard like they did.

lakomen7• 3 years ago

Germany spending 100 Billion Euro to buy weapons... how many houses would that have been? 1 billion is 1000 million 100000 houses if one house costs 1 million to build, which it doesn't.

I don't agree with your pensioners hate. You will be old too some day, if you live that long. And you'll be happy to not have to filter through trash cans so you can afford to survive.

ben_w10• 3 years ago

I hope so, but I'd caution against just treating national economics as scaled up personal economic. Whoever makes the factory for the electric busses needs to talk to whoever makes the factories that make the batteries, who in turn need to talk to the miners, who might be anywhere in the world so you need to be confident about regional geopolitical concerns…

Governments do this all the time, I'm sure it will be fine; but the details don't really fit into a comment box.

sdfgdfghj• 3 years ago

Public transport won't substitute the need or desire for private cars. Improving public transport's impact will plateau at some point because people will always value the privacy and benefits of using their own private car.

You will never be able to create transport system where people take a bus in front of their door step, to the grocery store and back on demand.

black3r3• 3 years ago

You don't need to take a bus to the grocery store if said grocery store is itself in 5 minute walking distance from your doorstep (or have said groceries delivered)... I buy 90% of my own groceries from one of the 3 stores on my street or using deliveries, only take the bus for the rest, usually max twice per month and then I don't really mind that the bus only comes once in 15 minutes instead of "on demand"...

abdellah1235• 3 years ago

This is utterly nonesense. Do you produce electricity without CO2 emissions? And what about those batteries?!

Last week, the battery for my cordless vaccum cleaner went flat. And to my surprise it costs half the price of the vaccum cleaner. But a bigger surprise was that they stopped making it ... even in China!

So I need to actually "buy" a new vaccum cleaner. But this time I learnt the lesson, and I like cords now !

Back to the point on electric cars, electricity pollutes, battery production (mining the materials) and lifespan (throwing old batteries) pollutes the environment. So I don't see any point in that ...

oaiey4• 3 years ago

Who said that batteries are the only way of energy storage. Hydrogen is discussed because of that. And yes, energy production also need to switch to reach CO2 emission goals.

abdellah1235• 3 years ago

in its e2e cycle, does it not pollute the environment in any way?

guardian5x• 3 years ago

It's more efficient to charge a battery and drive with an electric motor than use electricity to create hydrogen and use that to drive a car. Hydrogen might become useful for things like planes, where electric isn't good enough yet.

helsinkiandrew3• 3 years ago

Yes electric cars produce C02 but its less (arguably 1/6) than petroleum cars. Electric cars are actually driving the research into recycling batteries.

dtech• 3 years ago

Do you produce electricity without CO2 emissions?

There's multiple ways deployed on a mass-scale, and hopefully by 2035 those will provide the vast majority of electricity. So yes.

abdellah1235• 3 years ago

CO2 emissions are one way of polluting the environment. Nuclear trash is another. Is there a way of producing enough energy without pollution?

mr_mitm2• 3 years ago

Do you produce electricity without CO2 emissions?

Not yet, but just because switching to EVs is not a sufficient step towards CO2 neutrality doesn't mean it's not a necessary step.

pimterry3• 3 years ago

Do you produce electricity without CO2 emissions?

I mean, yes, that is clearly the plan. A substantial proportion of EU energy usage is carbon-neutral already, and the current plan is that all coal & oil power plants will be closed entirely before 2040.

You can see current energy sources live on https://app.electricitymaps.com/ - even countries like Germany & Poland (famously fossil fuel keen) currently use 63% / 47% fully renewable energy today, and at the other end of the spectrum there's Iceland (100% renewable), Sweden (100% renewable + nuclear), Norway (98%), France (93%), Spain (86%) etc.

Not 100% yet, but heading in a good direction. There are of course other challenges, but on this specific point: I think it's clearly possible for the EU to get to a 100% renewable/nuclear grid by 2035 if they continue on the current trajectory.

abdellah1235• 3 years ago

thanks for the link. This is interesting.

By carbon free, do they actually mean e2e energy production? Do they include mining for the material needed to make the turbins, the batteries and the impact of throwing the batteries afterwards? ...

ihatepython4• 3 years ago

So I need to actually "buy" a new vaccum cleaner. But this time I learnt the lesson, and I like cords now !

I had the same problem, but I decided to buy a diesel-powered vacuum cleaner.

suddenclarity• 3 years ago

Meanwhile government employees here have to drive their private cars during the winter because the electric cars supplied by the employer can't handle the cold. I'm curious how planned the date is with respect to the consequences. This will shake everything from mechanics to handling crisis such as weather catastrophes or war as in Ukraine. Will we have enough batteries? Will we become dependent on China? Will the average Joe afford a car or will it become a privilege for rich people? Where will we get the power from when we barely can supply existing infrastructure and companies are denied permission to expand? Will we have hundreds of thousands of charging stations on the streets? Lots of questions I'd love to see the answers to.

LeonidasXIV6• 3 years ago

Or maybe we should replace individual mobility with useful public transport, as electric vehicles are not a general solution due to all the issues you're pointing out and many more.

sofixa4• 3 years ago

There is already massive work planned on that axis across the EU, with multi-billion investments in various important (at the EU and local levels) transit projects.

https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/transport-infras...

https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/infrastructu...

inglor_cz• 3 years ago

This can be done, but it will take decades and major construction activity. Which may be constrained by the fact that steel and concrete production is CO2-heavy too. (And not just that, AFAIK the Netherlands put very strict limits on construction activity because of nitrogen emissions from the construction vehicles.)

In the West, a lot of the middle class settlements have spread thin and wide, making public transport inefficient. Redensification is possible, but complicated - it involves a lot of people moving and at least some of them losing their gardens.

Meanwhile, construction of new railways or upgrades of existing tracks (including light rail) meets heavy NIMBY opposition on every step, even in countries where rail is widely used for commute (such as in Czechia).

In contemporary developed civilization, it is much easier to ban than to build.

DocTomoe• 3 years ago

That works great if you are living in a major city. Once you become even remotely rural, public transit becomes a massive problem - turns out point-to-point connections do not all converge on the same entry- and exit points.

Which leads to an even more overheated market for flats in major cities and even more incentive of rural voters to vote for whatever radical party promises them a radically easier way of transport outside of major population centres.

tokinonagare2• 3 years ago

The use cases don't overlap for a lot of car's usage. And the only people pushing public transports are people who never use them daily, because if they did they would know how bad it is to have train delay or cancelation twice a week, strikes at least 3 times a year, issue with tramway hitting cars or people fighting inside it, not to mention the permanent insecurity and piss odour in the subway.

New_California5• 3 years ago

Anything else individual to be replaced by communal? Like, maybe, everything? Or just the cars? There are countries already implementing what you believe is right. Please emigrate over there and enjoy.

paulluuk• 3 years ago

Absolutely! First step: ban cars from cities.

ihatepython4• 3 years ago

Or maybe we should replace individual mobility with useful public transport

I'd really like to see more monorails being built. I believe monorails would be an excellent general solution.

New_California5• 3 years ago

The governments will certainly exempt themselves the very first moment they get affected by the ban.

dundarious3• 3 years ago

I’m assuming you’re in the US. Norway is presumably managing electric in the cold just fine. https://twitter.com/mattbruenig/status/1640082146294464515

margorczynski• 3 years ago

The thing is that was mostly done via government price manipulation (decreased VAT and other benefits). Now after VAT is back to normal sales of EV vehicles there drastically dropped.

https://insideevs.com/news/651052/norway-plugin-car-sales-ja...

wilgertvelinga2• 3 years ago

Do you have a source for that story. I'm curious to learn about the details!

toomuchtodo• 3 years ago

We have more than a decade to answer your questions. This nudges everyone in the right direction.

ZeroGravitas6• 3 years ago

You should try googling, all those questions have been answered. There are YouTube videos summarizing the academic research in an approachable way.

Or, catching onto the zeitgeist, try asking ChatGPT, it's almost certainly absorbed answers to all of these.

edit: Your question about average Joes returns:

The cost of electric vehicles (EVs) has been decreasing steadily in recent years due to advancements in technology and economies of scale in production. As a result, the price of EVs is now comparable to many traditional gasoline-powered vehicles, and in some cases, they can even be less expensive over the life of the vehicle due to lower operating costs.
However, at present, the upfront cost of EVs is still generally higher than gasoline-powered vehicles, and this may make them more difficult for some people to afford. This is especially true for lower-income individuals who may have limited access to financing or tax incentives that can help reduce the cost of EVs.
Nevertheless, governments and automakers are implementing policies and incentives to encourage the adoption of EVs and make them more accessible to the average consumer. For example, many countries offer tax credits or rebates for purchasing an EV, and some cities are providing free charging stations and preferential parking for EV owners. Additionally, as the production of EVs continues to scale up, it is likely that the price of EVs will continue to decline, making them more affordable for a wider range of consumers.
Overall, while the cost of EVs may still be a barrier for some people, it is expected that the transition to electric vehicles will become increasingly accessible and affordable as the technology continues to improve and become more widespread.

hcurtiss2• 3 years ago

As an aside, it is stunning to watch ChatGPT already incorporated into casual online discourse. That technology is truly earth shattering. It will change what it is to be human.

lakomen7• 3 years ago

I don't trust ChatGPT and never will. Because it's fed with half-truth sources.

chki• 3 years ago

Volkswagen just announced their next generation electric car that will be similar to the normal Golf/Polo and cost under 25k€ (which would be quite normal for an ICE car like this). I would be positive that the cost will go down significantly (and yes even taking into account that batteries might be exchanged to provide a functioning market for used-cars).

mantas4• 3 years ago

They had announced that with ID.3. Yet the result was slightly different.

rtuulik• 3 years ago

For the last 20 years battery cost per kW/h has fallen around 10% average every year. ICE engines have thousands of moving parts driving up the complexity and price, while electric engines have what, 3 moving parts? It is inevitable that the electric cars will take over, ICE engines just can´t compete on price.

globular-toast2• 3 years ago

It's funny how in some threads you've got people panicking that there will be no work left to do because of AI and in others people panicking that twelve years is far too short a time to make a change like getting rid of cars.

lnsru5• 3 years ago

You'll own nothing. And you'll be happy! <- welcome to the new world. All cheap Dacias (cheap European car brand) will be gone. So the mobility for lower income people. With automotive industry gone European de-industrialization will be already far far ahead. And afterwards Europe will loose all the significance in the world.

sofixa4• 3 years ago

EVs are still vehicles that are owned.

Regarding Dacia, they have an EV, the Spring, which starts at 20k euros (without counting in a 5k "eco bonus", so around 15k), meanwhile their cheapest other car is the smaller Sandero at 12k. 12k/15k isn't a massive difference over the lifetime of a vehicle.

lnsru5• 3 years ago

I see Sandero at 11300€ and Spring 22750€. “Eco Bonus” is 4500€ and is being phased out.

Personally I will have luxury car afterwards too. But I know enough less fortunate people still driving VW Golfs from 2002, 2005. They will have hard time. They are not interested in crazy expensive cars with 120 km winter range.

krzyk5• 3 years ago

What country does have that "eco bonus"?

enigma208• 3 years ago

You are comparing to different segments.

Sandero is 36 cm longer, 27 cm wider, 2 cm taller, and has 28L more of the trunk. So the difference will be even bigger.

For 20k you get Jogger, which is a wagon, even more space, and it can be a 7-seater.

And also real life range of Dacia Spring is around 160 km. So that is very little for 20k .€

Talking about Sandero, comparable in size Renault ZOE starts at 37k €

silversmith• 3 years ago

Dacia already has a 20k EUR electric model - Spring. Sure, the equivalent ICE Stepway is 14k, but it's not all Tesla pricing levels.

ihatepython4• 3 years ago

You'll own nothing. And you'll be happy! <- welcome to the new world. All cheap Dacias (cheap European car brand) will be gone. So the mobility for lower income people.

On the bright side, you will get to eat those delicious insects.

csomar2• 3 years ago

You are getting it wrong buddy. Europe lost most of its significance in the world. They are not making any software, hardware and cars that are coming from Asia are now at par except for Germany. Europe has a strong dependency on fossils and these sources are becoming less certain. (ie: Russia and potentially the middle-east).

Europe could just accept that and become a third-world bunch of countries.. or try something ambitious and actually move from fossil fuels. If Europe can pull this off, they might find their standing again in the world.

lnsru5• 3 years ago

Move from fossil fuels where!? To solar panels and batteries all made in China?

RalfWausE• 3 years ago

You would be surprised how mobile you can be on a simple, fixed gear bicycle: My granddad made multiple trips a year using such a bicycle from Essen to some villages in Austria after the war where relatives lived...

userulluipeste• 3 years ago

Well, to be fair, Europe is still big on tourism, and these bold projects it dares to endeavor, if nothing else, will contribute to increasing its touristic significance (by setting it even more apart from the rest world and thus making it more exotic of a destination). We won't travel much, given our ideals of curbing the emissions, but that doesn't mean others will share this self-limitation and won't visit us, right?

jaclaz7• 3 years ago

I may be wrong, but 2035 is very near and the phaseout seems (to me) like very difficult to achieve.

The only zero emissions are EV's and - besides Norway - they represent today only a very small percentage of vehicles, there are of course no problems (besides possibly the scarcity of some materials) in increasing the production of EV's, but the issue (as I see it) will come when plenty of vehicles on the road will be all electric, the need to adapt the current electric grid and adding the needed recharge points (be them private or public) seems like not having been taken into consideration or plans for it are way too optimistic.

Poland calling it unrealistic seems appropriate.

There are, besides the risk of having too expensive new cars, a lot of other possible downsides, influencing the market of used cars, and creating a "recharging divide" among different countries but also among different cities/locations in a same country.

johanvts• 3 years ago

It’s going to be hard to do, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. Ambitious goals like these that actually direct society towards improvements are exactly what we need to tackle climate change, not more foot dragging and excuses.

csomar2• 3 years ago

It's not difficult to achieve. It's Europe's only solution now. This is not about CO2-emission, it's about politics. Europe used to control a good part of the world fuel and also had a pipeline to Russia. They no longer have a pipeline and also lost lots of their control on their colonial countries.

They have no choice but to find alternative energy sources. Look at what's happening politics-wise in the middle-east.

jaclaz7• 3 years ago

It's not difficult to achieve.

I believe it is extremely difficult to achieve in practice, it being Europe's only solution doesn't make it easier.

dvh2• 3 years ago

I my EU country (Slovakia) 40% of people live in flats. In my suburb lives 25000 (95% in flats) and there is 1 charging station for 3 cars on the entire suburb. There is 0 chance to meet the goal by 2035.

In 2035, if a pro-russian party SMER promise withdrawal from EU and allows gas cars again they will have landslide victory and can start importing cheap Russian gas.

sofixa4• 3 years ago

Flats doesn't mean there's no parking, the cars still have to park somewhere, either parking garages or lots. From what I've seen most Eastern European countries have parking lots on old buildings, and often underground parking garages on new ones. In both cases adding chargers is possible with the right incentives and subsidies.

jaclaz7• 3 years ago

In both cases adding chargers is possible with the right incentives and subsidies.

Incentives/subsidies may take care of the economical aspect, but the big one is the technical aspect, installing a charging point is the less relevant issue.

When you add a charging point you add (considering contemporaneity and what not) at least 1/5 or 1/4 of the nominal charging power, i.e. every 50 kW recharging point you are going to need at least 10 kW more.

When you multiply these by a "functional" (as in there are enough charging points for all the cars around[1]) number of charging points the amount of (added) electricity needed is impressive.

Besides producing it (with some zero emission method) you need to transport and distribute it, and level peaks.

[1] I have no idea of what the "enough" ratio should be but likely it is in the 1:50 - 1:100 ratio, 1 charging point every 100 cars imply 15 cars charged in 24 hours (24/7), which sounds to me very optimistic

krzyk5• 3 years ago

From what I've seen most Eastern European countries have parking lots on old buildings, and often underground parking garages on new ones.

Underground parking on new ones - correct. Parking lots on old buildings - kind of, old buildings were built at the time when fewer people could afford cards -> much less parking spaces than cars.

wongarsu5• 3 years ago

In Germany new residential buildings have to be built with parking space for the residents, and I now often see those either having chargers or being planned with the later addition of chargers in mind. Condo buyers also see this as a selling point, so there is market pressure (not sure how this looks on the landlord/tenant side yet).

But we have lots of residential buildings from the 50s and 60s still used, so it will take a couple decades for that to really have the required effect. My guess is that parking spaces with chargers will become a differentiator for shops and employers within the next 15 years.

pimterry3• 3 years ago

The title is incorrect - this isn't phasing out gas cars entirely by 2035, it's stopping sales of _new_ gas cars. Once all new cars are electric, that'll create a slow switchover over the following decade or two.

andrewshadura3• 3 years ago

Conveniently Slovakia is small enough to make it possible to improve already well-functioning public transport to eliminate most personal reasons to use a car. What's lacking is money and political ambitions.

hef19898• 3 years ago

With all major automotive OEMs switching to electric anyways, regardless of what the EU says, cars will not be the only thing getting more expensive after leaving the EU. GB serves as a great example of the degree something like Brexit can screw up a whole economy.

black3r3• 3 years ago

When 95% people live in flats, the density is high enough for public transport and walking to be more efficient than cars for most usages... I'm also from Slovakia, and I can clearly see here that gas cars being cheap led to public transport, biking and walking being deprioritized outside big cities... When I was a kid my family didn't have a car, it was in a town with ~40k people, we biked or walked everywhere.., 15 years later there's 3 times as much cars in that town even though its population meanwhile dropped to 35k...

Gas cars being cheap is also the reason why no-one buys electric cars here, which in turn is the reason why few charging stations exist as there's not enough demand... Also there's a huge market for used cars in Slovakia which means this won't really be that huge of a problem by 2035 as this goal is only about new cars...

It's really not that hard to build charging stations.., most public lightning lamps can accomodate a charging station for one or two cars (there are some like this in Bratislava already).., And I'm pretty sure they will be covered by some EU funding scheme sooner or later, so businesses will probably even have an incentive to build some so that they can charge for their usage...

dvh2• 3 years ago

What a perfect example. On my street with 80 apartments are 2 street lamps.

boxed4• 3 years ago

Let's check the math!

25000 people. Let's say half have a car, that's 12500 cars. (An upper bound for sure).

12500 cars. Let's say 100% of them needs charging in their parking lots. (Clearly an upper bound too!)

1200 charging stations. 3 today. Let's say zero today.

2023-2035 = 12 years.

That'll mean 1200/200 = 100 chargers installed PER YEAR.

If you think your suburb can't install 100 chargers PER YEAR you should flee the country, because that's quite bad. A competent electrician can install 2 to 4 of these chargers for standalone housing PER DAY. I know because my company is in this business! (https://dryft.se)

jjav6• 3 years ago

A competent electrician can install 2 to 4 of these chargers for standalone housing PER DAY. I know because my company is in this business!

Surely you know then that the hard part is not wiring up a connector and attaching it to the wall, assuming there was enough capacity in the existing wiring. No doubt 2-4 of those can be done in a day.

When you have to tear down the sidwalks and underground utilities to increase capacity, it takes a bit longer.

Tesla built one of their charging stations not too far from here, it has maybe 6 to 8 charging spots. Putting up the posts with the cables took just a few days. But the whole project took about six months with the sidewalks and parking lot torn up!

whitehexagon6• 3 years ago

I switched to off-grid solar last year, and one thing that became instantly clear is that I'll never have enough panels for an electric car, crikey, even running the oven can be a challenge.

I really wonder how Europe is gonna manage the extra grid demand given decades of under investment in energy production. More cables to countries still investing in nuclear?

wilgertvelinga2• 3 years ago

It has all been calculated: https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/themes/themes/science-and-techn...

whitehexagon6• 3 years ago

I dont read news sites (apart from HN of course), but from the link title I get the gist.

Sure it's possible to build massive renewable systems across Europe, but these large projects require governmental commitments that exceed elected time frames.

For example one of the first things we need if we are to phase out CO2 driving is a decent inter-European rail system. Even going capital to capital can be hard. And since we are running full speed into AI unemployment, let's make that rail system for free, and save some universal benefit payments. I think the free train trials in various countries this year already proved very popular.

nonethewiser3• 3 years ago

Buying more fossil fuels

mmaurizi• 3 years ago

I would think an electric car would pair really well with off-grid solar - you can charge the car with excess energy during the day, and pull from the cars battery for power at night.

Sure it's a big power draw, but you can significantly downsize your battery system, which is presumably also a big power draw.

Or do you not have a big battery system now, and only run the high energy appliances like the oven during the day when you have lots of power?

whitehexagon6• 3 years ago

Or do you not have a big battery system now, and only run the high energy appliances like the oven during the day when you have lots of power?

Yeah it is a small system so far, so I even serialize some of my usage, but I dont see the point scaling it up too much, since the cloudy day generation is so poor. So rather than EV I probably go with an eBike.

Lutger• 3 years ago

Do you mean running the oven at night on your own solar panels without a battery? Because at full production, you would need just 4 panels to run a decent domestic oven.

A promising solution is vehicle-to-grid, using the battery in your car to store and draw solar energy from. It all depends on where you are located and what your energy demands are though. I can provide all of my yearly energy needs with about 14 panels, which includes heating, but not a car (I don't use one), but I'm not off grid.

whitehexagon6• 3 years ago

oven is 2.6kW, hob is 6kW (induction), my panels are 455W each. I am in the process of switching battery tech to li-ion, but they dont like the high resistive loads. I havent researched EV too much, but I cant imagine trying to charge 40kWh?

I was tempted to stay grid-connected, but the max energy I can sell back, is limited to what grid energy I use. i.e. they still get all their extra fees.

marcyb5st2• 3 years ago

I am not sure where you live, but in the northern of Italy it's really possible.

I have installed a 12kW system in 2018 with 20kWh of storage. I also have heat-pumps for sanitary hot water with a 100L tank and AC in summer + an EV. I admit that in winter or particularly cloudy weeks I still need to get some energy from the grid, but 1) that's likely because the house I am in was built in the 80s and the thermal insulations is terrible compared to modern materials [1] and 2) if I were to put something like dual photovoltaic-thermal hybrid panels [2] likely that wouldn't be an issue anyway.

[1] https://www.thermablok.co.uk/#:~:text=Classed%20as%20a%20Sup.... [2] https://dualsun.com/en/products/dualsun-spring/

whitehexagon6• 3 years ago

Sure, I get good energy production most days, but those cloudy days feel like 50x less? I added battery capacity for a day or two of cloudy weather, but I think the only way to add an EV would be to use the grid as the battery system, similar to what you do. For hot water I use a solar heated system, which removed a chunk of resistive load from the PV system.

prottog2• 3 years ago

It's not just energy production. The generated energy has to be transported places. This whole thread is littered with the idea that you can just add charging ports to light poles, parking lots, etc., all backed by the idea that electricity comes from the socket in the wall.

whitehexagon6• 3 years ago

Indeed. I noticed that difference traveling from the UK to FI especially. The small place there had a 3 phase supply, with multiple resistive load heaters, and a split inverter which was okay down to about -15C, and then you just had to burn electrons. I cant imagine many European countries having the grid infrastructure for something like that in every home, plus an EV in the driveway. I guess that's why much of Europe is still burning natural gas.

ar9av• 3 years ago

The charging issue and grid use is a massively overblown problem. You only need to charge your car for a few hours every 300 miles. Nowhere near everyone is always charging all the time.

Renewables and stored heat batteries will cover night/low wind loads. Geothermal in the north.

Public transit options will continue to improve, electrified bikes make them an even more viable alternative.

We’re a clever group of people. The oil drilling to gas available on every fourth corner in the country system is vastly more complex than installing chargers on light poles.

midasuni4• 3 years ago

In the U.K. the average car does less than 30 miles a day. Charging overnight would require a draw off less than 1kW. Clearly my house can do that as my kettle is currently boiling and drawing 3kW alone. My shower this morning was nearer 10kW.

uc_banana10• 3 years ago

Clearly my house can do that as my kettle is currently boiling and drawing 3kW alone.

Indeed. When people's kettle usage was much more synchronised (ie, when TV advert breaks were a shared experience by most people), they had to build a power station just to cover this scenario (Dinorwic pumped storage). "Power station" is also quite generous, as it is only storage, and therefore is a net loss to the power grid.

Even the most optimistic person has to admit that there's a limit to what can be done spread the additional load of 40 million EVs each needing to charge ~10kWh per day without grid upgrades and investment.

0_____0• 3 years ago

As a USian who uses my kettle multiple times a day I'm a bit jealous of your fast boiling kettles. It can take minutes to boil a full kettle at our measly 1.5kW limit.

Just checked. 7 minutes 30 seconds to boil 1.7L :(

ajb2• 3 years ago

A lot of people in the UK use on street parking. You're not allowed to run a wire across the footpath even if you happen to get the spot outside your house. The current plan seems to be to make every lamppost into a slow charger, but that wouldn't be enough for everyone to replace their petrol vehicle.

Waterluvian• 3 years ago

I’m also going to guess that people drive on average far less in the EU than in North America where I imagine a lot of critics are framing their mental model of the issue.

A quick search suggests that the average annual distance in the US is about double.

mschuster913• 3 years ago

The charging issue and grid use is a massively overblown problem. You only need to charge your car for a few hours every 300 miles. Nowhere near everyone is always charging all the time.

The problem is that our electricity grids are nowhere near up to the challenge. They're not as rotten as the US grid, but still - barely any smart capability, no realtime insights anywhere but on the generation and distribution level, no small-scale dynamic load management...

To support even 10% of an electric vehicle fleet getting plugged in after people arrive at home, not to mention large-scale small renewables, grid operators will have to do extensive upgrades. Street transformers need real-time load monitoring, PLC support must be present everywhere to make sure all the components of the grid can still talk to each other, and vehicle chargers and solar inverters need to talk with the grid as well.

And there are barely any standards in that area.

ivan_gammel2• 3 years ago

The problem is that our electricity grids are nowhere near up to the challenge.

This is not a problem. Our electricity grids are usually matching the current demand. In the past they were upgraded at sufficient speed and economic model of that upgrade was reasonable. I do not see, why we won’t be able to continue the same way. We have 25 years to upgrade until majority of customers will switch to EV. That is a lot of time.

javajosh• 3 years ago

installing chargers on light poles.

That seems like a reasonable idea. Almost...too reasonable.

uc_banana10• 3 years ago

I don't see what's reasonable about asking a streetlight installation designed to handle at most several hundred watts to suddenly provide several kilowatts.

jaclaz7• 3 years ago

No, it is not reasonable at all.

An old thread and relevant posts:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27352700

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27353078

uc_banana10• 3 years ago

I nearly forgot the other fact about street-lighting. It was widely adopted at a time when there was a lot of night-time baseload that couldn't be turned off. Now that we use more intermittent sources, there just isn't this "free" night time power to be used.

bluescrn5• 3 years ago

The charging issue and grid use is a massively overblown problem. You only need to charge your car for a few hours every 300 miles.

As usual, everything's just fine for the wealthy, with a new top-end Tesla with its nice big range, and parking/charging space on your own land. The wealthy people will probably be able to demand at-work charging at their 6-figure-salary tech jobs too. Not likely for the more average worker.

Many people will be stuck with old/basic models of cars with smaller/degraded batteries. Many people are unable to charge at home due to living in apartments etc. And right now, many people are entirely priced out of the EV market, as the used EV market is still small.

Also consider that filling up a petrol car takes ~2mins. Charging an EV takes 10-20x that. It's a huge time cost to have to sit around near a public charger, let alone having to queue to charge. And then there's the near-certainty of public chargers price-gouging like crazy once the demand is sufficiently high.

For a large chunk of the population, this transition is going to be painful (If we survive another decade of 'omnicrisis' to even reach 2035 without world war, total collapse, or mass uprising of some kind, that is)

uc_banana10• 3 years ago

That's fine. Average Joe will live in a 15-minute city and find that all his needs are covered without a car!

Edit: I am being a little sarcastic, although I really like the idea of a 15-minute city and would happily live in one. I'm also priviledged to live in a country that largely developed before the car, and thus most cities are intrinsically capable of being 15-minute cities.

However, I say this to point out what is clearly true - there is no way for every citizen to own an EV. The "15-minute city" types of vision are how this will be addressed.

zonotope• 3 years ago

Public Transit > Cars for both individuals and society, if the infrastructure is there. Maybe we could devote more energy and resources on developing and improving that infrastructure before 2035 so that cars, electric or otherwise, are less necessary?

jnsaff24• 3 years ago

Consider who climate change is going to impact most? The climate transition, mass migrations, ecosystem collapses etc are going to hit the most vulnerable people the hardest.

matthewdgreen• 3 years ago

Many people are unable to charge at home due to living in apartments etc.

We will solve the charging problem by running simple L2 240V AC wiring to plugs/poles on the street. It will cost a little bit of money and billing will have to be sorted, but compared to the vast hidden costs of maintaining the roads and urban parking spaces (let alone the costs of not reducing fossil fuel usage) it's basically a rounding error.

It's not even much power: the average European driver travels 32.9km/day. At a (Tesla) usage of 166wH/km that’s 5.461kWh/day, or 273W continuous average power draw assuming most people drive for 4H/day and park the rest of the time. More than a streetlight, but not that much.

numbers_guy3• 3 years ago

You need a charging port literally every two meters on all residential streets in all cities in all of Europe, because most people park outside and have no driveway/garage available.

Also you charge ever 300 miles if you have an expensive luxury EV with a huge battery, which is definitely way beyond what the vast majority can afford, especially on EU salaries.

ajsnigrutin8• 3 years ago

You only need to charge your car for a few hours every 300 miles

But where?

https://goo.gl/maps/giAwwS5qRKBuKNDH6

This is one of the many neighbourhoods in my country and many other european ones, with a large parking lot with a lot of cars. All there cars now need ~5 minutes at a gas station every 600-1000km.

53% of our country works outside of their place of residence, ~20% of people even drive more than 40km to work (and 40 back), and ~10% more than 60km one way.

So, this means that a rather large percentage of people will need to "only charge their car for a few hours" every two days. And again.. where?

If you have a house with a garage and cheap electricity, sure, you can. If you don't (as many not-rich people don't), you're basically fucked.

Add some studies that electric cars are even more expensive to charge than gaspowered ones are to refill, and it's even worse - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/electric-shock-study-found-ev...

And 2035 is not some distant future project... if you want to retrofit all those parking yards with chargers, you literally have to start doing it today... also build a bunch of nuclear power plants too, because if we do it the german way, by digging coal, we didn't do much.

Cthulhu_• 3 years ago

Not to mention the electric grids are getting overloaded, meaning they cannot add charging stations anymore until the grids have been upgraded - which will cost billions and years. This goes on top of a huge surge for renewables and getting rid of the dependency on gas - solar panels, heat pumps, infrared panels, electric stovetops and, indeed, electric cars.

The will is there for sure, but we're running into real capacity issues. We can only go so fast.

And the pessimist in me is saying it's too little, too late and we've passed the point of no return decades ago; no amount of switching to EVs will stop the polar caps melting (removing the ice means less sunlight is reflected), the permafrost melting (exposing sequestered plant material, their now decomposition releasing co2 and methane), and with that the glaciers melting (raising the sea level and lowering the salt content, causing the gulf stream to slow down / stop which will make the north colder and the equator warmer)

Fradow• 3 years ago

But where?

The GP already address that "We’re a clever group of people. The oil drilling to gas available on every fourth corner in the country system is vastly more complex than installing chargers on light poles."

On the other hand, yeah, it's time to get started for real to install plugs.

Add some studies that electric cars are even more expensive to charge than gaspowered ones are to refill, and it's even worse - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/electric-shock-study-found-ev...

That studio shows US prices. Keep in mind prices are widely different in Europe. For example, gas is about twice as expensive where I live (about 1.9€/L currently, but it varies by country) than in the US (looking it up, it's a national average of $3.4/gal today, or $0.9/L).

Kelteseth• 3 years ago

They said the same thing about ice cars in the beginning. I can feed my horse everywhere. I need dedicated fuel stations? Madness! /s This will take time and if demand rises, so will the supply.

marsokod• 3 years ago

> You only need to charge your car for a few hours every 300 miles
But where?
https://goo.gl/maps/giAwwS5qRKBuKNDH6
This is one of the many neighbourhoods in my country and many other european ones, with a large parking lot with a lot of cars. All there cars now need ~5 minutes at a gas station every 600-1000km.

I am not sure I understand your point here. You are showing a residential car park that is a very nice location to install multiple slow chargers for cheap. The only reason this is not done at the moment is that there are not enough EV around, but otherwise you are looking at a small investment for regular revenues on electricity sale (or you can get your building association to buy some and keep the electricity as cheap as possible)

Add some studies that electric cars are even more expensive to charge than gaspowered ones are to refill, and it's even worse - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/electric-shock-study-found-ev...

Be careful about this kind of studies, and even more about news article about them. While this one has a bit more data and is doing less mistakes than the usual rogue journalist study we see once in a while, the electricity cost they used for residential charging is wrong: they use at least very high prices for home electricity, in one of the worst state in the US for electricity pricings without using off-peak prices.

And 2035 is not some distant future project... if you want to retrofit all those parking yards with chargers, you literally have to start doing it today... also build a bunch of nuclear power plants too, because if we do it the german way, by digging coal, we didn't do much.

Yup, that's the point of this bill. To provide guarantee to the industry that they won't be building these chargers and power plants for nothing. Now they know that the market will shift towards EV with hard deadline in 2035, and you can pretty much guarantee that the vast majority of the cars on the road I'll be EV by 2040/2045.

jtc3312• 3 years ago

It's nice to be able to hand wave away the problem. "A few hours" is "10 hours", and the instantaneous energy for each of those is very high. When I charge my EV it doubles my normal peak electrical usage (in KW, instantaneous) and quadruples (or more) my average KW usage.

In my new neighborhood a set of ~5 homes is connected to a 50 KVa transformer. Those five homes charging a single vehicle each at the same time is enough to overload that transformer even with zero other demand. That's a real problem.

My understanding is that we're talking about a doubling of demand. Are we ready to double all of our electrical generation and transmission infrastructure?

jtc3312• 3 years ago

I don’t understand the downvotes. These are specific datapoints we have to wrestle with to make this transition, not a position on desirability of any of these things.

aboringusername• 3 years ago

Nowhere near everyone is always charging all the time.

The amount of turn-over of cars, daily, or even hourly at gas stations today is insane. As soon as you hit 50%+ of call cars being electric, there will be a % of those charging 24/7 (any hour/time of day, for possibly multiple hours). That's going to hit the grid. Hard.

Now imagine in 2022/2023 where governments in the EU are giving citizens cost of living payments, money off their energy bills. And that's today. Apparently because one country invaded another. But people were scared they couldn't "heat their homes" let alone charge their cars. Whatever you are paying for electric today just times that by 3/4 because that's the realistic cost once EV's are the main vehicle on the road.

As soon as EV's take off and become the "norm" the costs for electric will skyrocket. Wouldn't be surprised if it costs 1-2+ euros per kWh.

elif6• 3 years ago

As someone that provides more energy to the grid than I draw from march to october, using solar panels I could afford in large part thanks to the economics of an electric car, it really bothers me when people use this argument.

During peaker plant hours I'm pumping 3-4kW to my neighbors, actively reducing grid demand..

When my car charges itself at 4am, it is using base load nuclear that needs a destination.

Also, using renters as the excuse in a wealth argument is disingenuous. That is an entirely separate poor financial decision. My house was purchased for 7 years of what my rent was costing when I bought it in 2012. In today's rent the figure would be much worse.

saiya-jin• 3 years ago

Well, in the peak you won't be able to charge your car due to all slots being taken with hours long queues, when you need to drive NOW. I don't think you realize how great throughput gas stations have with few pumps, compared to place where you need to park your car for X hours. 300 miles maybe for top models, but I don't think current generation of cheapest (=most popular) electric cars will be charged every 500km, nobody sane drives from full to empty.

Electrified bikes require a bit more than just being available for purchase for often price of used basic ICE car. You need serious improvement in width and density in bike lanes, and they can't be shared with cars (or scooters/motorbikes). Many cities will struggle with that, unless removing car lanes completely.

The oil infrastructure is everywhere because we had 150 years to develop and deploy it as needed.

All this and much, much more to say - these are good moves, in right directions, but 2035 is utterly unrealistic even for rich countries, while eastern half of EU is far from rich and generally look at this Brussel activities as... clueless to be polite, very very polite. We can force it earlier than reasonable a bit, just a bit, but at costs which are insane while most of the world still burns coal and everything else like there is no tomorrow. Hard to explain to family with kids where parents earn equivalent of 800$ that they should buy this new electric car for 40k just to get to work because some bureaucrats thought that's the only way.

enigma208• 3 years ago

The charging issue and grid use is a massively overblown problem. You only need to charge your car for a few hours every 300 miles.

You are joking, right? 300 miles is 482 km. On paper, yes. What about reality?

See this CarWow video https://youtu.be/fvwOa7TCd1E?t=2240

- Volkswagen ID Buzz - 203 miles

- Mercedes EQA - 208 miles

- Audi Q4 e-tron Sportback - 235 miles

- Genesis GV60 - 253 miles

- Nissan Ariya - 267 miles

- Tesla Model Y - 285 miles

And those are big, bulky SUVs with big batteries. What about small/medium hatchbacks?

They will probably have 50-70% percent of that.

Test done in UK. What about colder countries, or countries where winters are cold?

naranha2• 3 years ago

I got down-voted heavily on reddit for this idea, but I still think it's genius: Everybody gets a card with their yearly CO2 budget stored on it. For filling up your car at a gas station, but also for consuming electricity, taking a plane or buying stuff (except low CO2 food) a corresponding amount will be withdrawn from your card.

The card is credited weekly, so you can't overspend too much of it. Your saved credits will decline slowly over time. Of course all has to be balanced considering socio-economic factors.

The great thing is you can sell your credits to rich people, so it would even reward you for staying at home giving you sort of a minimal income.

jamil73• 3 years ago

Apart from causing all kinds of undesirable side effects and incentives, isn’t this more effectively done with a carbon tax?

naranha2• 3 years ago

Not really, rich people don't care about carbon taxes.

numbers_guy3• 3 years ago

That would be nice and fair, but that would actually hurt rich people so it would not be implemented. Only laws that affect the poor get implemented.

jaclaz7• 3 years ago

Naah, rich people will buy other (poor) people's allowance.

yosito6• 3 years ago

Some context for Americans as a dual US/EU citizen: for many people, especially near cities, electric cars are already far more practical in the EU than gas cars. And they're far cheaper and more available than they are in the US. A lot of cities in the EU, even in Eastern Europe, have car sharing services that are 100% electric cars. Anytime I need a car in Europe, I just use an app and walk a couple minutes to the nearest electric car. They're pre-charged, have a range of 3-400 km, and are far faster and easier to drive than gas cars. When I spent some time in the US recently, and had to rent a gas car, I felt like I was using ancient technology. It was so sluggish and inconvenient and more expensive.

I say this because most Americans have the impression that the US on the cutting edge with technology, but in terms of electric cars, the US is really far behind.

soco• 3 years ago

The local garbage trucks are also all electric, while the public transport was already (let's say 90%).

jaclaz7• 3 years ago

You are describing EU as if it was all the same.

What you describe may exist (now) in a selected subset of EU cities, but it is not at all common nor ubiquitous all over EU.

Please, list the cities you went to that offer these services, very likely they are a handful (i.e. not "a lot") and only in a few countries of EU.

yosito6• 3 years ago

Fair enough. I'm describing Budapest. I'm sure not every EU city is up to Hungary's high standards. ;)

returningfory2• 3 years ago

I feel this a general phenomenon on HN. Someone living in a specific European country will describe a specific good thing about their country (or even just their local area), and then extrapolate to the entire European Union.

krzyk5• 3 years ago

And they're far cheaper and more available than they are in the US

Ekhem, I think you live in a really wealthy place in EU, maybe Norway that subsidies electric cars so e.g. plumbers are driving Teslas.

But in the real world, electric cars are too expensive for normies to buy.

Car sharing - OK, that's available - but I'm yet to drive such car, because in in city in Poland there are only few such cars available (for a normal price) to drive. And I would like to test them out - but not at the price of driving to the other side of the city.

Car rental - tried that - either not available or too expensive to rent (trip to Italy last year).

boxed4• 3 years ago

They are cheaper TCO right now, but not initial investment.

yosito6• 3 years ago

Nope, I live in Hungary. Also Teslas aren't really the electric vehicles of choice in Europe. Volkswagens are much more practical.

I haven't been to Poland, but I'm surprised that the car sharing options there are worse than in Hungary.

elif6• 3 years ago

I bought my used 2012 Nissan Leaf in 2015 for $6000. I left it sitting uncharged for 8 months while I travelled and lost no discernable range, I have done absolutely no maintenance other than tires and windshield wipers, and I can sell it for $6000.

bryanlarsen3• 3 years ago

The TCO of a Tesla Model 3 is less than that of a Toyota Camry over a 15 year period. If you can afford a new Toyota Camry, you can also afford to finance a Model 3 to take advantage of the TCO savings.

If you can't, then you should be buying used. But in that case the phaseout of availability for new vehicles doesn't affect you.

stephen_g4• 3 years ago

“In the real world, computers are too expensive for normies to buy”. Was true once too, but things move fast.

A huge difference is going to be in four or five years when currently new cars start really showing up on the used car market. At the same time, there will be more entry-level priced new EVs (in part because of laws like this, but also just the normal technology development cycle)

blfr• 3 years ago

There used to be a large network of electric cars in Warsaw by one of the utilitiy companies, Innogy GO. They had a few hundred cars, very nice BMWs (i3 and i3s), decent prices but, sadly, didn't survive the lockdowns and folded in early 2021.

numbers_guy3• 3 years ago

I live in Germany and have no idea what you are talking about.

fxtentacle• 3 years ago

Well, you do live in the only EU country where local industry opposed this bill ;)

Symbiote2• 3 years ago

In 2021, Germany had 15.6 plug-in EVs per 1000 people, compared to the EU average of 11.0 and the US figure of 6.2.

If you're not interested in cars, you may need to look more carefully to spot them. Here in Denmark, there are plenty of Teslas around, but there are also EVs from normal brands (VW, BMW, Volvo etc) which go unnoticed, except the lack of an exhaust pipe.

Look especially at new cars, 31% of new cars in Germany are electric.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country (2nd chart).

HPsquared6• 3 years ago

They're sufficiently practical for some applications, but not (yet) all.

elif6• 3 years ago

I've been driving electric cars exclusively for about a decade and this week I am borrowing my father's new expensive audi to do him a favor and "sluggish and inconvenient" is not critical enough!!

These cars are just dangerous. Trying to accelerate rapidly to make a merge? Actually impossible. A stoppage in traffic is coming? Just mash the brake pedal hard.. Maybe they have a deal with brake pad manufacturers... Sitting at a stoplight and want to fumble around with something? If you accidentally slip off the brake pedal, the DEFAULT behavior of the vehicle is to GO. What kind of design is that? Not to mention the gas station 'experience'

e4325f• 3 years ago

You've just forgotten how to drive

IG_Semmelweiss• 3 years ago

Ive seen this car-sharing app in Munich.

What is the model exactly?

I can see it being useful to cut the bureaucracy of car rental out, but what are these prices and how do they make sense vs buying a car outright?

Vespasian3• 3 years ago

It's when you mostly live without a car but occasionally need one for transportation and day trips. You usually can rent them by the hour or day and as you said it's a slightly different user experience than traditional car rental agencies.

I know some people who use public transport / (e-)bikes exclusively but every once in a while want to visit a relative out in the wood or make a bigger purchases which would be hard to transport otherwise (some of them also own a cargo trailer for their bikes).

It's not a majority by any means but for some people it work

They would have to maintain and store a basically unused car otherwise.

pif• 3 years ago

Well, there are also some of us EU citizens, born and bred in the EU, who still love the concept of having our own car, waiting for us in our garage.

We also like, from time to time, to drive thousands of km during leisure trips (read: driving to a holiday destination while hopping from a nice place on the way to another) without being constantly worried about the battery range.

Oh, and we appreciate our car being designed with comfort in mind (read: spacious) rather than range (read: see those ugly dome-shaped Prius).

noja• 3 years ago

have a range of 3-400 km

That is some range!

atlantic• 3 years ago

Generally speaking, in southern Europe, electric cars are very expensive (prices start at 2-3 times an annual salary), electricity is expensive, and refuelling is complicated. There are no pre-charged electric cars anywhere; electric mopeds are available, but they are slow and have a small range. Are you sure you're in Europe?

Symbiote2• 3 years ago

Share Now operates in Madrid, Milan, Rome and Turin. Zity in Madrid.

kyriakos• 3 years ago

I live in southern Europe, electric cars are 15 to 20% more expensive than equivalent ICE cars. They also get government subsidies which makes the difference much smaller. Considering the lower TCO because there's lesser need for maintenance, lower road tax, occasional free parking, and the fact that PV in homes are very common here I think owning electric is generally favorable.

Yes electric cars are more expensive but the initial investment is not that different from buying any new diesel or petrol powered car.

enigma208• 3 years ago

And they're far cheaper and more available than they are in the US.

But they are still very very expensive! In Germany for example: - Kia Niro EV, crosover/mini-suv, 47.590 € (ICE with mild-hybrid 32.590 €) - BMW 3 wagon, ICE, starts at 46.300,00 €

So no, thank you. If I have that much money I will buy anything but expensive, lower class EV.

For people with a low budget, probably cheapest wagon option is Dacia Jogger, starting 16.900 €. Find my reasonable priced, decent sized wagon for someone who can afford max 20k loan for a car.

So no. If prices of EVs don't drop by 20%, and range (real, not on the paper) doesn't increase to at least 450 km in light winter conditions then I don't want to see an EV, although it's cool to drive.

Also I live in a pretty new building, 5 years old in a really big city. We don't have chargers in the underground garage, although there is close to 200 apartments here.

Yizahi• 3 years ago

Ugh, no. There are a lot of EVs, but they are much less practical for Europeans that for Americans, because they can charge them at home, and we usually can't. And car sharing in Europe (and probably other region too) is an extreme hassle - it is very expensive (unless you can make a super optimized multi stop same day route, basically a lot of trips same day), it is not widespread yet, and you can get hit with huge car damage fees many days/weeks after the trip, for pre-existing damage. And for travellers it is close to impossible due to drive permit restrictions.

jamil73• 3 years ago

Unsurprising to see Germany creating escape hatches for itself with “e-fuels”.

belorn• 3 years ago

"The European Commission has pledged, however, to create a legal route for sales of new cars that only run on e-fuels to continue after 2035, after Germany demanded this exemption from the ban."

How would someone build an engine that explicitly only run on ethanol and which would reject any mixture which contains gasoline, such as E85.

HPsquared6• 3 years ago

The same way they control other emissions: locked-down software in the engine control system. Possible, though often illegal, to circumvent.

Edit: the software can detect if the engine is running on ethanol or gasoline (or mixed) by looking at the air/fuel ratio, which is set using the oxygen sensor in the exhaust. It's called flex-fuel. Quite simple for the software to only allow operation on pure ethanol.

credit_guy• 3 years ago

I like the compromise.

Plug-in hybrids with reasonable range (let's say 40 miles) achieve 99% emissions reductions. But don't have to lug around 1000 pounds of battery.

Allowing for plug-in hybrids outright would have been a good idea. Allowing only e-fuels is a second best.

enigma208• 3 years ago

Problem is that companies are buying those for tax advantage, and never charge, so CO2 emissions are higher - additional weight of the battery.

There was report somewhere, that often such vehicles are never charged.

nradov2• 3 years ago

I guarantee that a significant percentage of the new cars sold in the EU in 2036 will still emit CO2. Reducing CO2 emissions is absolutely something we should do, but the 2035 deadline is totally arbitrary and disconnected from objective reality in terms of manufacturing capacity and charging infrastructure. I predict that as the deadline approaches many exceptions will be granted for plug-in hybrid vehicles and rural areas with limited infrastructure.

Ekaros• 3 years ago

I could also bet that 2035 will set all time historical record on new vehicle "sales".

elforce0022• 3 years ago

Interesting. Will this be replicated in Africa, Asia, LATAM or even the US? The EU as a whole is wealthy enough to test this premise (full electric) and let the rest of the world know the results of this.

I'm wondering what would citizens from each EU country say about this?

Dalewyn• 3 years ago

the US

Speaking as an American: Likely only the cities, the coastal ones at that.

The rest of the country is far more concerned with practical matters that, for now, can only be satisfied with the energy densities only found in fossil fuels and combustion engines. The reasons for this stem from lack of EV infrastructure to low population densities to trans-continental travel ranges to simple lack of political will and more.

elforce0022• 3 years ago

Thanks for the insights. I don't think I'll see any way these policies being implemented in Asia, Latam, and Africa. These continents need to go from developing economies to developed economies and that could be achieved using fossil fuels (just like the US and the EU did last century).

This means no food insecurity, good electrical services, efficient logistics, etc... things the EU and the US are used to by now.

Kharvok• 3 years ago

Electric cars are still far too small for taller than average families to drive. Until there's a viable SUV alternative for 4 6ft+ adults to fit comfortably I don't think electric will take off in the US.

lakomen7• 3 years ago

I don't know...

on one hand I welcome a more quiet street and without the gas smell.

on the other hand I can't tell if it's really better for our habitat and actually less CO2 producing, because you need to produce those batteries and you have to "load" them, transport them, and what is more efficient than direct conversion vs remotely generated power that needs to be transported to a vehicle. I think it's mostly a lie, a feel good lie that don't help anyone except those wanting to wrestle power from established companies. A paranoid guy might even say it's a plot to destroy Germany's car industry.

stephen_g4• 3 years ago

The reduction in localised air- position is huge, yes - real world studies show impressive improvements even with a small displacement of internal combustion cars [1].

As for the other but, no, it’s not worse overall. With a somewhat clean grid, it does take something like 20,000km before you’ve paid back the carbon cost of building the car, but after that, it’s far better. This should improve, too, as things like green steelmaking start to come online.

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...

guepe• 3 years ago

Even on grid using a ton of coal, ev more than compensate extra co2 generated during battery production. On the not so green us grid (average of us), ev save 50% co2 over their lifetime. But the grid is greening and so they are saving more and more. In france it's a factor 5.

ICE as the dominant form of locomotion is dead. People don't know it yet.

Of course some will be used for specialty work, but they will become a rarity in our lifetime.

anonyfox• 3 years ago

First and foremost, the german car industry already shifted towards producing EVs, and really don't want to see those investments dwindle now, the plan is set and clear, execution and changing production lines just takes a while to execute and they're in the midst of it. No conspiracy needed here, its simply false to assume that a "plot".

Secondly, the _real_ solution is to get people to use public transport and build up those capabilities (depends on demand to verify investments). In most places of europe, you can get to nearly any destination you want without a car at all, and we need only carsharing pools in case you really need it.

So the optimal transition is public transport/scaling that up, and only have EVs as a fallback for edge cases or special circumstances. Replacing every single individual ICE with an EV is still harmful for the planet, even though its at least not CO2.

dark-star• 3 years ago

Unless I can get 700+ km out of a (fully charged) EV I'm not getting rid of my cumbustion car. I mean I am okay with a small compromise (currently I can get up to 900km from a single tank), but having to charge 2 or 3 times (especially in winter), each 2+ hours, for a longer cross-country holiday is a no-go for me.

I hope they will keep exceptions for e-fuels, or cars used by companies. EVs are just too inconvenient (unless you live and work in a big city and own a house)

EU countries approve 2035 phaseout of CO2-emitting cars

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