At the start, I thought these announcements and laws (eg Scotland) to ban ICE vehicles by 20XX were cheap politics. A promise Someone Else will deliver later, with credit due to you now.
I've come around though. I think all the bastardized carbon accounting, market based solutions are on average quite bad. The idea of a neutral, "market decides" policy is a myth. These things are complex, and that compmexity is an opportunity for regulatory capture.
For example, most European vehicle tax codes have been altered to reflect emissions.
The upshot is that (1) new vehicles are 20% ish more efficient (2) older vehicles become uneconomical faster (3) people who drive older vehicles clear pay more tax. (4) Switching from a 10yr old ICE hatchback to a new one can easily save you $500 pa. Going from a new "efficient" ICE to an electric will save you a fraction of that.
New car buyers pay less tax, old cars pay more. Vehicles hit junkyards faster. Manufacturers sell more cars. Over a decade we'll see a minor (maybe 20% at best) decrease in carbon emissions.
Very little environmental juice for a lot of poor and middle class squeeze. A nice little sales boost for VW.
There's a lot to be said for the simplicity of an outright ban. Ban ICEs. Ban commercial fishing. It worked for CFCs and market hunting. In retrospect, no one wishes we had split hairs with a complicated policy.
> I've come around though. I think all the bastardized carbon accounting, market based solutions are on average quite bad.
Carbon taxing works well when it's applied - but it's very hard to create the political consensus to impose it. For example, the high cost of fuel in Europe has driven cars to an average MPG equivalent of 45 versus the average of 33 in US. That's nothing to sneeze at, it's 40% more for a given amount of CO2 - and that's after the continous fuel efficiency improvements happening on both sides in recent decades:
https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/0...
However, the EU fuel taxes are not actually carbon taxes, they are road taxes. Imposing the same tax on industry and power generation, as pure carbon taxes, would have immense political blow back.
So I really wonder how do you think "ban all non-renewable electric stations and cement factories" would work if we can't even accept a 3-10% price increase on these products?
Unfortunately, production of cars (and consumerism in general) is extremely bad for carbon emissions and for the environment. Carbon emissions from the production of 1 car generally rival the lifetime emissions from the tailpipe [1]. If you have no choice but to replace an old car for new then sure, get a more efficient one. If you're replacing cars every 3 years like an average westerner, given the age of cars I see on the road, you are doing extreme harm. Old cars that are running should be incentivized to continue to be on the road, barring any other pollutant or smog issues.
I think all the bastardized carbon accounting, market based solutions are on average quite bad.
I'm curious, do you think the whole idea of a market-based solution is bad, or do you just think that actual real-world implementations have been lacking so far?
I mean, it seems to me that if you tax emissions strongly and uniformly enough, then at some point it has to have an impact. I think existing schemes have just been pretty weak.
I agree that carbon taxes can potentially hit poor and middle class folks unfairly hard, but this can easily be solved via carbon dividend type schemes.
>There's a lot to be said for the simplicity of an outright ban. Ban ICEs. Ban commercial fishing. It worked for CFCs and market hunting. In retrospect, no one wishes we had split hairs with a complicated policy.
Bans are just as messy because what is and isn't subject to he ban results in just as much hair splitting as a complicated policy in the first place.
When we "ban" things there are almost always trade-offs. It makes sense to allow market hunting in some cases (wild hogs, whitetail deer in some areas). There's a case to be made for allowing the use of lead paint in some industrial applications.
> Switching from a 10yr old ICE hatchback to a new one can easily save you $500 pa. Going from a new "efficient" ICE to an electric will save you a fraction of that.
Not true. From personal experience driving an electric costs one fifth the cost of fuel per km. That's an enormous saving.
>There's a lot to be said for the simplicity of an outright ban. Ban ICEs.
Do this and a massive chunk of the population will die shortly after. There is no alternative to farm and transport food at the scale required for the modern population.
Banning CFCs isn't even comparable because all of modern civilization wasn't built on them like it has been with the portable energy enabled by ICE.
There is no viable electric-only solution for the freight rail network, the air freight network, or even the road freight network.
A side effect, intended or not, is that poorer people who can not afford new and more efficient cars end up paying more for the fuel and more for the tax.
Bans are economically inefficient because they allow for zero flexibility. There will always be cases where an ICE is more appropriate, and it's very costly to try to lobby for an exemption.
A carbon emissions tax is the right solution. Just keep raising it until one gets the effect wanted - a wholesale switch to electric.
People especially here constantly rail against Europe, specifically their start-up scene, against taxes, against regulations, etc. At the same time, our cities are unlivable, inaccessible, crowded, our infrastructure is falling apart, a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor causing increases in homelessness in cities and opiod addiction in rural areas. Western Europe isn't utopia, but in many areas, their policies are actually in the public interest and raise most people up[0].
[0] Perhaps not natives, but that's another story.
If they're so unlivable then why do so many people want to live there that they're crowded? Especially when the country is full of suburbs...suburbs, where, in fact, most people live.
Our cities are way less dense than many European cities. In fact they are way less dense than they used to be in many cases.
Isn't it ironic that most of welfare and subsidies actually come from the oil. Stuff like 25km of under sea tunnel leading to a town with sub 2k population is quite a common sight there.
While Norway is an amazing country in many aspects, the amount of oil owned by a state company puts it in a rather unique position.
As great as it is, remember that hybrids are exempt. And the law is very lax when it comes to a definition of a hybrid - Range Rover has a model with a whooping 1 mile(!!!) of electric range, but of course it has an electric motor so it qualifies as a hybrid and could still be sold under this ban. I expect very very soon we'll see this kind of extremely minor electrification coming to all kinds of vehicles, where a tiny electric motor integrated into the transmission provides few extra HP of power just to call the car a hybrid.
> Range Rover has a model with a whooping 1 mile(!!!) of electric range, but of course it has an electric motor so it qualifies as a hybrid
"Just 1 mile of electric range" is true for most hybrids that don't plug into to charge (from Ford, Chevy, Toyota, etc). Obviously more miles would be even better, but this isn't a terrible thing on it's own.
The base non-plug-in Toyota Prius Hybrid has had "just 1 mile of electric range" for over a decade now, that hasn't stopped it from getting 50mpg ratings (a full 50% decrease in emissions from the current average US fleet MPG at ~25mpg).
You would be surprised how many times you use that one EV mile during the average 30 mile commute. In traffic and cities, you often don't need more than the 40 HP given by the transmission alone.
Hybrids have a torque curve that starts like an EV, then continues like a gas car. This means great torque from 0 mph through highway speeds.
And then there's idle at stop lights, the biggest waste of fuel and a huge cause of pollution. Modern engines use 6 seconds of fuel when starting, but most cars idle for minutes at a light.
Interesting bit about the Range Rover model, but from the fourth paragraph:
> “In just 12 years, we will prohibit the sale of new diesel and petrol cars. And in 17 years, every new car in Denmark must be an electric car or other forms of zero-emissions car,” Rasmussen said, implying that hybrids will be phased out in 2035.
The 2019 Range Rover hybrid has an all electric range of 31 miles. Maybe an older model has a 1 mile electric range? That didn't pass the smell test so I had to look it up.
Indeed. Mercedes has already announced that it will "electrify" 300 models over the next decade or so, and I expect at least 280 of those to work exactly as you said, not just for the purpose of exploiting this kind of legislation, but also for marketing purposes ("An electrified car is basically just the same as an electric car, right?").
Other people have talked about this, but I'm wondering if the change to having electric drive motors and an engine just for generating electricity is more efficient and easier on the engine. (regenerative breaking aside)
> And in 17 years, every new car in Denmark must be an electric car or other forms of zero-emissions car,” Rasmussen said, implying that hybrids will be phased out in 2035.
I assume that despite the one mile figure, it will still decrease the amount of fuel burnt. Not having to burn fuel for every stop and go will save a bunch of carbon I bet.
Car manufacturers are now looking at using 48v powered turbochargers to eliminate turbo lag. I wonder if that could be seen as an electrification of the powertrain?
I went to Denmark last year and spent two weeks driving all over the countryside, and likely would have been difficult to reach with an electric car. Many of the places I visited would not have been accessible via public transit. I'm curious how future generations will reach remote places as we move away from fossil fuels.
Send yourself back in time to when less than 1% of the populace is using petrol cars to get around. In that timeframe of the early 1900's, it would've been incredibly hard to get around the rural areas as well, since they'd still be dominated by horse, foot, and perhaps bicycle traffic. Now, send yourself forward 100 years: it will be nearly impossible to use petrol-powered transport, and EV will be the standard.
Saying the current infrastructure is inadequate for a new mode of transport is a truism. Infrastructure takes decades to build out, of course EV's will not be expected to have huge charging infrastructures while less than 1% of cars are EV.
Long term, It'll be just as easy, if not easier, to get around in the future. Consider all the new transport tech that's emerging: electric bikes, scooters, fully self-driving vehicles, drones which can carry people, VTOL aircraft, hyperloop, etc. They are all more interesting and promising than the current noxious fume spewing transport. I'm excited for even 1/3 of those options to come to fruition :)
Skagen (Northernmost tip) to Flensburg in Germany is ~402km. Skagen to Copenhagen (East) is 410km. The longest reasonable point to point journey in Denmark is in the 550km or so range (e.g. Skagen to Lolland), though you can certainly end up with longer journeys if you pick more convoluted routes for sight-seeing and end up having to charge, this will not be a typical journey for most people. And most of the population is located within a much smaller part of the country.
And this is with 12 years to expand charging networks and for vehicles to increase range before a ban on new petrol/diesel car sales, and in other words many more years before everyone will be forced to use an electric.
BEVs are likely to match pure ICEVs (I.e. not counting hybrids) in range in the not too distant future. Yeah you could theoretically put in a bigger fuel tank, or bring extra gasoline. But I mean a standard light vehicle that doesn't sacrifice storage space.
Meanwhile, if you get enough EVs on the road, you'll soon have charging stations everywhere. We already see it here in Norway. Almost every roadside McDonalds have rapid chargers. There are a couple of supermarket chains that have gotten pretty good at having chargers in many of their supermarkets.
I live in the furthest, most godforsaken boondocks of Denmark. I see Teslas almost daily.
Of course I do. There's probably nowhere in the country I couldn't reach on a single charge.
I used to think the same about where I live - Australia - a lot bigger and more sparsely populated than Denmark. But here is an article about the first woman (and second person) to drive around the country in an EV:
Yep they're not all superchargers, many are just EV friendly 240v hookups. But as the lady in the first article said "the reality is that if you can see the lights on, or that the kettle works, then you can charge".
Got me thinking about my next car. Or campervan. We often camp in caravan parks - with a 15 amp hookup plugged into the vehicle...
The local news is reporting the plan is to stop sales of diesel cars.
Not gasoline...
Regardless, if we force the market, electric cars will catch up. But bans probably won't do the trick, I bet it'll take incentives in terms of higher taxes on gasoline and lower on electric cars.
Did any of these places lack electricity, or why do you think an electric car would have been problematic? I just came back from a 2800 Km trip through rural Italy (5 days) and had no issues at all (OK, except for crappy roads and bad Google Maps data routing me through buildings etc.).
I biked through Denmark a few years back. It's a really small country. So a modern electric car would need like one stop to recharge in the middle somewhere?
Personally, I don't think the ban will ever be enforced. It will create the right incentives and most car sales will be electric, but there will still be fossil fuel burning car sales.
There is an easy way out too: "We believe mandating the purchase of a new car may be difficult for some families and may inadvertently discriminate against the poor". Add some buzzwords like "singe mother", "working through college", and "recently laid off" and it'll be one of the easiest regulations to walk out of, assuming anyone remembers in 2030
The "DMV" or equivalent will have a very hard time explaining why they are still giving out license plates for new vehicles that are not electric if the ban is made law.
Wonder what it'd do to the resale value of cars even before 2030.
Denmark with their famous 150% registration tax already has cars being used much longer than what I've seen in other countries. I'd love to see the 150% tax waived off for 100% electric cars that are not luxury vehicles. Set strict constraints for a common man car, and incentivize it turning electric.
I never understood how anyone possibly felt the ridiculously extremist state of affairs of automobile/fuel regulations/taxes/etc in Denmark is appropriate. The rest of Europe isn't that great either but Denmark is one of or the most insane examples (memory isn't clear on if there was another member state that was even worse). One of the things that makes me grateful to live in the USA - owning and operating a car doesn't bankrupt me, especially anything bigger than a clown car with any less than 50mpg.
Instead of governments announcing bans (I believe france announced a future ban a couple months back), I would rather see these governments committing to only purchasing electric vehicles for all government fleets. Why not put your money were your mouth is and help pump money into the industry via purchasing orders, rather then simply announcing a ban?
For one example [1], Copenhagen is converting the buses and harbour ferries to electric. Already, many of the busiest or most-central routes use LPG or hybrid buses.
Many of the city's other vehicles are electric, for example the vehicles used for collecting litter or moving the workmen who do minor repairs.
That isn't the national government though. I don't know what cars they use.
I don't want to link to the kind of newspapers that report on European royal families, but the crown prince of Denmark takes his children to school/nursery by bicycle. (Last time I saw them, the oldest was riding her own bike.)
As with most things in life, it's not black-and-white... both are happening (although fleet vehicles tend to be more visible at the municipal level). You do still need national-level policy to set market certainty and reduce risk, though (a car maker is much more likely to invest in significant retooling if they're guaranteed a market for that retooling).
If the ban is the stick, the best return on the carrots would be increasing public charging infrastructure. SF runs chargers in front of city hall, for example.
The government is happy to tell everyone else what to do but when it comes time to buy their own vehicles they don't have to play by those rules so their decision making process does not reflect the presence those rules and they wind up buying ICE vehicles for the majority of use cases because from a strict numbers perspective those are what make sense in a majority of use cases.
This is really the only, and best, solution. It's simple and clear. Car manufactures cannot get around it with their bag of tricks. Plus, 12 years is a long long time.
I'm guessing economies of scale will finish the job somewhere over the next decade already. If you operating any kind of vehicles commercially, eliminating fuel cost should be high on your agenda. Whether it is taxi's, buses, police vehicles, delivery vehicles, etc. For that kind of market what matters is the total cost of ownership. This is why many taxis were early adopters of hybrids. As soon as they become affordable enough, they'll be going full electric.
Currently battery cost and production volumes are the main limitation. As that improves, the market will gobble up whatever is being produced. This just puts the pressure on a bit more. 2030 is not even that ambitious.
Seems like we need to see about 10K less capital cost, and/or less atrocious depreciation, and TCO should come into line with a comparable ICE. Solve that and maintain the range we've got in the latest crop of EVs, and I think they'll take over pretty steadily.
It's a step forward. However I'm surprised that the focus is still on individual cars, construction of an ev is still quite polluting.
I expected to see suggestions about increase in public transportation coverage and frequency to compensate, or maybe steps towards self-driven collective fleets (2030 seems ambitious).
I don't know Denmark, are public transportation already well developed? Or am I not cynical enough and it's just an economically driven decision?
Public transit is relatively well developed. We're a relatively small country, very flat and reasonably densely populated. Obviously public transport is most well-developed in the larger cities, with several expansions in progress.
But even rural areas are serviced by trains and bus lines. It may be slower in rural areas than taking the car, but you can make it work. At least you can do with one car per household instead of two.
Electro cars are great, until you start count.
Ok, if Denmark population is about 5.7M and based on aerostat (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...) there're around 500 cars per 1000 citizen. It means country holds ~2.5M cars right now.
In general (based on https://www.worlddata.info/europe/denmark/energy-consumption...) every Denmark's citizen consumes 20kh per day. 1 of 2 citizen has a car. Electro car charging requires 50kh (average electro car consumption). So It means Denmark must increase electric production in 5!!! times. In order just a charge those new 2.5M cars. I'm now talking about infrastructure requirements for this signigficant electric consumption increase, I'm pointing to the basic knowledge (by wikipedia) that around 50% of energy comes from coal and all renewable are less than 5%. COAL! MORE COAL I SAID!
Yes you need more electricity but that’s offset by reduced gasoline. And you lower your total energy consumption because electric cars are 3-4x as efficient.
Yes, this requires more energy infrastructure. But note that in the US the majority of new generation capacity added in the last few years has been renewable. And it’s not because we’ve passed any carbon tax, it’s because it’s now the most cost effective form. The bean counters love it.
And of that new generation capacity that is wind, the largest manufacturer of wind turbines is Vestas, a Danish company.
LOL, no. Denmark used 67.5TWh gasoline and diesel fuel last year, due to better efficiency of the electric drivetrain it's equivalent to roughly 20TWh of electricity. Denmark also used 46TWh electricity last year, so they would need to increase their production by 43.5%. It's quite high actually, for Germany the same figure is just 31% (190TWh and 610TWh).
All data can be found here https://www.statbank.dk/ENE2HA.
That assumes that every car in Denmark will consume 50kwh per day. The 64kw Kona Electric will do 300 miles according to the WLTP [1]. So, that assumes every car does 234 miles every day, or over 85k miles per year.
I can't find any solid data, but I'd assume its closer to 10k miles per year, or an eighth of what you're suggesting. That is still a lot, but it is achievable especially with more offshore wind.
The last coal plant in Denmark will be retired in 2028.
Current regulation requires large district heating to produce electricity (which is no longer economical due to abundance of cheap wind power) and this delays the conversion of the last coal plant.
Good luck with that, especially with banning ultramodern, low emission, high performance diesel cars.
I was in Denmark last year to see what's going on over there and I observed the infrastructure very carefully: there is no widespread electric infrastructure for cars; it will be a gargantuan investment of epic proportions. Even if the infrastructure is put in, the current battery technology is only barely adequate for daily city driving. Everything else - forget it! So this is banking on future infrastructure improvement in batteries and recharging, and it's especially banking on invention of fast recharging. And it's assuming diesel engines and emissions will stand still, with no further improvements. Just wondering, Danes like to travel and they like to hitch a camping trailer to their cars and drive all over Europe; how will they be able to do that if their government bans sales of cars with internal combustion engines?
Whatever stuff that government is on, it's gotta be potent; I'd like some of whatever they're smoking.
I’m a Dane, I have leased a 24kwh BEV a few years ago. The charging infrastructure is fine and it is getting better. Denmark is not that big. I had a 30km commute each way. I live in an apartment, so that means public charging, which was no problem. I got 99 km at 110km/h on a full charge which means a 60 kwh battery will take me between the two furthest points in Denmark on two quick charges.
The only parts that sucks about BEVs is that you can’t have a trailer attached and the price.
The last gen diesels are about to be banned (e.g Stockholm and other cities eg in Germany). I expect Euro6 diesels to follow within 10 years and the number of cities with bans to grow.
Charging infrastructure needs to be expanded everywhere but that needs to happen regardless. The need will just be more acute. Also note most in Europe have 230V at home including a lot of places in the Nordic countries that have 230V at every parking space for multi tenant housing for car heaters. Those are very handy for an EV parked overnight.
The holiday issue is a real one. I drive a diesel that does 1000km in one go. I use that range in one day maybe 2-3 days per year during holidays. That would be impossible with an EV. I can get where I want but it would require a lot more planning and longer travels and recharge waits.
As an idealist I'm glad to see the world transition away from fossil fuels in any capacity.
As a "Car Guy" however, there is a small sadness that I won't really get to experience much of the internal combustion engine. I feel like I was born a decade too late and a lot too poor. Similar to some techies who feel the missed the early internet.
Why the sadness? As a "Car Guy" I'm thrilled about electric! Instant torque and acceleration, way more responsive than ICE. Just the other month there was the story where an electric shattered all the previous Pikes Peak records: https://www.teslarati.com/vw-id-r-electric-vehicle-pikes-pea...
I mean, yeah, it doesn't have the same growl, but if you want raw performance, I'll take my spaceship whirl over rube goldberg-like thousands-of-tiny-explosions any day of the week.
The enjoyable cars and the context where they are driven e.g. tracks, events, may not change that much.
The boring utilitarian combustion engines the large majority of humanity has ever experienced probably won't be missed, though. Boring cars were still boring a decade ago.
People still ride horses for fun. Fossil fuel cars will be around for a lot longer after the ban on sales is in place even if people are just driving them around for kicks (...assuming they are not totally banned from running entirely eventually due to emissions - I cant see that happening for a while though)
While few people still use horses for transportation there are many people who still have horses as a hobby and they are readily available with many places to take them. I suspect internal combustion cars will remain in a similiar hobby niche. There will be mechanics, race tracks, drag strips, etc for a while.
I have a hard time believing that the vast majority of cars won't already be 100% electric by then. Also, I doubt there will be nearly as many personal cars and that there will be much more ride sharing and public transportation options.
Isn't Denmark the country that taxes new car purchases 120% of the price of the car already? I don't think they're a good indicator of the overall attitude of the EU.
This is great. I don't think we in the US realize how far ahead European countries are wrt EV. Their governments are working like startups to make this happen. Even if only cars get replaced (and not trucks or heavy vehicles), that's a huge boost.
Further, I think the biggest gains of this are in emerging countries like SE asia, India etc. where the cost of oil fuel is much higher than the US. The market size willing to ride on this tech is insane.
Out of curiosity, are you the kind of person who complains if Google shuts down a free product with less than a 1 year heads up?
I wonder how some HN commenters would do at being head of state, sometimes. The bar seems to have lowered lately anyway.
Edit: just to clarify and be less dismissive: Banning things everyone uses with little homework is a great way to fail at it. Since this is a tech forum, you can think of it kinda like upgrading your language, framework, kernel and landing a massive refactor, all at once, in production, without testing. It's like that, except you have tens-to-hundreds of millions of users, and their lives are at stake.
Bans take time, otherwise they're not effective. Besides, if they had announced 2020, I'm nearly certain the parent comment would ask for 2019.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
netcan|7 years ago
I've come around though. I think all the bastardized carbon accounting, market based solutions are on average quite bad. The idea of a neutral, "market decides" policy is a myth. These things are complex, and that compmexity is an opportunity for regulatory capture.
For example, most European vehicle tax codes have been altered to reflect emissions.
The upshot is that (1) new vehicles are 20% ish more efficient (2) older vehicles become uneconomical faster (3) people who drive older vehicles clear pay more tax. (4) Switching from a 10yr old ICE hatchback to a new one can easily save you $500 pa. Going from a new "efficient" ICE to an electric will save you a fraction of that.
New car buyers pay less tax, old cars pay more. Vehicles hit junkyards faster. Manufacturers sell more cars. Over a decade we'll see a minor (maybe 20% at best) decrease in carbon emissions.
Very little environmental juice for a lot of poor and middle class squeeze. A nice little sales boost for VW.
There's a lot to be said for the simplicity of an outright ban. Ban ICEs. Ban commercial fishing. It worked for CFCs and market hunting. In retrospect, no one wishes we had split hairs with a complicated policy.
yholio|7 years ago
Carbon taxing works well when it's applied - but it's very hard to create the political consensus to impose it. For example, the high cost of fuel in Europe has driven cars to an average MPG equivalent of 45 versus the average of 33 in US. That's nothing to sneeze at, it's 40% more for a given amount of CO2 - and that's after the continous fuel efficiency improvements happening on both sides in recent decades: https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/files/2012/0...
However, the EU fuel taxes are not actually carbon taxes, they are road taxes. Imposing the same tax on industry and power generation, as pure carbon taxes, would have immense political blow back.
So I really wonder how do you think "ban all non-renewable electric stations and cement factories" would work if we can't even accept a 3-10% price increase on these products?
eanzenberg|7 years ago
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
NickM|7 years ago
I'm curious, do you think the whole idea of a market-based solution is bad, or do you just think that actual real-world implementations have been lacking so far?
I mean, it seems to me that if you tax emissions strongly and uniformly enough, then at some point it has to have an impact. I think existing schemes have just been pretty weak.
I agree that carbon taxes can potentially hit poor and middle class folks unfairly hard, but this can easily be solved via carbon dividend type schemes.
dsfyu404ed|7 years ago
Bans are just as messy because what is and isn't subject to he ban results in just as much hair splitting as a complicated policy in the first place.
When we "ban" things there are almost always trade-offs. It makes sense to allow market hunting in some cases (wild hogs, whitetail deer in some areas). There's a case to be made for allowing the use of lead paint in some industrial applications.
ciconia|7 years ago
Not true. From personal experience driving an electric costs one fifth the cost of fuel per km. That's an enormous saving.
robben1234|7 years ago
not really. They just migrate faster to Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
hueving|7 years ago
Do this and a massive chunk of the population will die shortly after. There is no alternative to farm and transport food at the scale required for the modern population.
Banning CFCs isn't even comparable because all of modern civilization wasn't built on them like it has been with the portable energy enabled by ICE.
There is no viable electric-only solution for the freight rail network, the air freight network, or even the road freight network.
jacquesm|7 years ago
indemnity|7 years ago
We’re going go have to come up with creative solutions when most vehicles are electric.
skookumchuck|7 years ago
A carbon emissions tax is the right solution. Just keep raising it until one gets the effect wanted - a wholesale switch to electric.
noobermin|7 years ago
[0] Perhaps not natives, but that's another story.
lewis500|7 years ago
If they're so unlivable then why do so many people want to live there that they're crowded? Especially when the country is full of suburbs...suburbs, where, in fact, most people live.
Our cities are way less dense than many European cities. In fact they are way less dense than they used to be in many cases.
BonjelaSoup|7 years ago
> "our cities"
Where is "here" and "our cities"?
tengbretson|7 years ago
For starters, I'd be curious to see a source on whether or not the United States even has a significantly increasing number of homeless per-capita.
Secondly, even if that is the case, the causal relationship between the wealth gap and homelessness would be speculative at best.
calcifer|7 years ago
At the risk of inviting some xenophobic and/or racist commentary, I'll bite. What's your story?
unit91|7 years ago
false by definition
dbuder|7 years ago
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DerJacques|7 years ago
Also, incentives to increase sales of electric vehicles are yet to be announced.
Denmark's Scandinavian neighbour Norway is on the other side of the spectrum. Heavy subsidisation has caused every 2nd (!) car sold to be electric (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-norway-autos/...).
xxs|7 years ago
While Norway is an amazing country in many aspects, the amount of oil owned by a state company puts it in a rather unique position.
martin_bech|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
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elyonkiNIR|7 years ago
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camelCaseOfBeer|7 years ago
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gambiting|7 years ago
maxsilver|7 years ago
"Just 1 mile of electric range" is true for most hybrids that don't plug into to charge (from Ford, Chevy, Toyota, etc). Obviously more miles would be even better, but this isn't a terrible thing on it's own.
The base non-plug-in Toyota Prius Hybrid has had "just 1 mile of electric range" for over a decade now, that hasn't stopped it from getting 50mpg ratings (a full 50% decrease in emissions from the current average US fleet MPG at ~25mpg).
stephengillie|7 years ago
Hybrids have a torque curve that starts like an EV, then continues like a gas car. This means great torque from 0 mph through highway speeds.
And then there's idle at stop lights, the biggest waste of fuel and a huge cause of pollution. Modern engines use 6 seconds of fuel when starting, but most cars idle for minutes at a light.
floatrock|7 years ago
> “In just 12 years, we will prohibit the sale of new diesel and petrol cars. And in 17 years, every new car in Denmark must be an electric car or other forms of zero-emissions car,” Rasmussen said, implying that hybrids will be phased out in 2035.
phil248|7 years ago
mtgx|7 years ago
rb808|7 years ago
Other people have talked about this, but I'm wondering if the change to having electric drive motors and an engine just for generating electricity is more efficient and easier on the engine. (regenerative breaking aside)
the8472|7 years ago
rohit2412|7 years ago
Why make a 90KwHr battery for a car, if you can make 3 cars out of it. After all current reserves of Cobalt, nickel, and lithium are finite.
ATsch|7 years ago
meguest|7 years ago
PopeDotNinja|7 years ago
BTW, I loved Denmark :)
WhompingWindows|7 years ago
Saying the current infrastructure is inadequate for a new mode of transport is a truism. Infrastructure takes decades to build out, of course EV's will not be expected to have huge charging infrastructures while less than 1% of cars are EV.
Long term, It'll be just as easy, if not easier, to get around in the future. Consider all the new transport tech that's emerging: electric bikes, scooters, fully self-driving vehicles, drones which can carry people, VTOL aircraft, hyperloop, etc. They are all more interesting and promising than the current noxious fume spewing transport. I'm excited for even 1/3 of those options to come to fruition :)
vidarh|7 years ago
Skagen (Northernmost tip) to Flensburg in Germany is ~402km. Skagen to Copenhagen (East) is 410km. The longest reasonable point to point journey in Denmark is in the 550km or so range (e.g. Skagen to Lolland), though you can certainly end up with longer journeys if you pick more convoluted routes for sight-seeing and end up having to charge, this will not be a typical journey for most people. And most of the population is located within a much smaller part of the country.
And this is with 12 years to expand charging networks and for vehicles to increase range before a ban on new petrol/diesel car sales, and in other words many more years before everyone will be forced to use an electric.
ainiriand|7 years ago
audunw|7 years ago
BEVs are likely to match pure ICEVs (I.e. not counting hybrids) in range in the not too distant future. Yeah you could theoretically put in a bigger fuel tank, or bring extra gasoline. But I mean a standard light vehicle that doesn't sacrifice storage space.
Meanwhile, if you get enough EVs on the road, you'll soon have charging stations everywhere. We already see it here in Norway. Almost every roadside McDonalds have rapid chargers. There are a couple of supermarket chains that have gotten pretty good at having chargers in many of their supermarkets.
interfixus|7 years ago
fineline|7 years ago
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/12/how-much...
and two maps of the network in 2016 and 2018, showing the effort (by Tesla owners club!) in building out the network:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/12/how-much...
Yep they're not all superchargers, many are just EV friendly 240v hookups. But as the lady in the first article said "the reality is that if you can see the lights on, or that the kettle works, then you can charge".
Got me thinking about my next car. Or campervan. We often camp in caravan parks - with a 15 amp hookup plugged into the vehicle...
jopsen|7 years ago
Not gasoline...
Regardless, if we force the market, electric cars will catch up. But bans probably won't do the trick, I bet it'll take incentives in terms of higher taxes on gasoline and lower on electric cars.
lazyjones|7 years ago
toomuchtodo|7 years ago
https://i.imgur.com/dd9Jdzf.png (Orange are high power chargers, green are lower power chargers, source is plugshare.com)
maaaats|7 years ago
ATsch|7 years ago
linuxftw|7 years ago
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josu|7 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_banning_foss...
Personally, I don't think the ban will ever be enforced. It will create the right incentives and most car sales will be electric, but there will still be fossil fuel burning car sales.
frockington|7 years ago
tedeh|7 years ago
The "DMV" or equivalent will have a very hard time explaining why they are still giving out license plates for new vehicles that are not electric if the ban is made law.
reacharavindh|7 years ago
Denmark with their famous 150% registration tax already has cars being used much longer than what I've seen in other countries. I'd love to see the 150% tax waived off for 100% electric cars that are not luxury vehicles. Set strict constraints for a common man car, and incentivize it turning electric.
Also, think about the charging infrastructure....
jimmaswell|7 years ago
jstanley|7 years ago
seanalltogether|7 years ago
RobAley|7 years ago
Symbiote|7 years ago
Many of the city's other vehicles are electric, for example the vehicles used for collecting litter or moving the workmen who do minor repairs.
That isn't the national government though. I don't know what cars they use.
I don't want to link to the kind of newspapers that report on European royal families, but the crown prince of Denmark takes his children to school/nursery by bicycle. (Last time I saw them, the oldest was riding her own bike.)
[1] https://www.sustainable-bus.com/electric-bus/copenaghen-purc...
vegardx|7 years ago
In Norway you're going to have a hard time finding a petrol or diesel car that fits the government requirements.
See §5: https://lovdata.no/dokument/SF/forskrift/2017-12-11-1995/§5
floatrock|7 years ago
Even in the US, the USPS is experimenting with electric mail trucks: https://about.usps.com/what-we-are-doing/green/vehicles.htm
If the ban is the stick, the best return on the carrots would be increasing public charging infrastructure. SF runs chargers in front of city hall, for example.
dsfyu404ed|7 years ago
"Rules for thee and not for me"
The government is happy to tell everyone else what to do but when it comes time to buy their own vehicles they don't have to play by those rules so their decision making process does not reflect the presence those rules and they wind up buying ICE vehicles for the majority of use cases because from a strict numbers perspective those are what make sense in a majority of use cases.
rb666|7 years ago
jillesvangurp|7 years ago
Currently battery cost and production volumes are the main limitation. As that improves, the market will gobble up whatever is being produced. This just puts the pressure on a bit more. 2030 is not even that ambitious.
rootusrootus|7 years ago
m3at|7 years ago
I expected to see suggestions about increase in public transportation coverage and frequency to compensate, or maybe steps towards self-driven collective fleets (2030 seems ambitious).
I don't know Denmark, are public transportation already well developed? Or am I not cynical enough and it's just an economically driven decision?
KozmoNau7|7 years ago
But even rural areas are serviced by trains and bus lines. It may be slower in rural areas than taking the car, but you can make it work. At least you can do with one car per household instead of two.
Necromant2005|7 years ago
floatrock|7 years ago
Yes, this requires more energy infrastructure. But note that in the US the majority of new generation capacity added in the last few years has been renewable. And it’s not because we’ve passed any carbon tax, it’s because it’s now the most cost effective form. The bean counters love it.
And of that new generation capacity that is wind, the largest manufacturer of wind turbines is Vestas, a Danish company.
femidav|7 years ago
aembleton|7 years ago
I can't find any solid data, but I'd assume its closer to 10k miles per year, or an eighth of what you're suggesting. That is still a lot, but it is achievable especially with more offshore wind.
1. https://www.hyundai.co.uk/new-cars/kona-electric
petermonsson|7 years ago
Current regulation requires large district heating to produce electricity (which is no longer economical due to abundance of cheap wind power) and this delays the conversion of the last coal plant.
Annatar|7 years ago
I was in Denmark last year to see what's going on over there and I observed the infrastructure very carefully: there is no widespread electric infrastructure for cars; it will be a gargantuan investment of epic proportions. Even if the infrastructure is put in, the current battery technology is only barely adequate for daily city driving. Everything else - forget it! So this is banking on future infrastructure improvement in batteries and recharging, and it's especially banking on invention of fast recharging. And it's assuming diesel engines and emissions will stand still, with no further improvements. Just wondering, Danes like to travel and they like to hitch a camping trailer to their cars and drive all over Europe; how will they be able to do that if their government bans sales of cars with internal combustion engines?
Whatever stuff that government is on, it's gotta be potent; I'd like some of whatever they're smoking.
petermonsson|7 years ago
The only parts that sucks about BEVs is that you can’t have a trailer attached and the price.
alkonaut|7 years ago
Charging infrastructure needs to be expanded everywhere but that needs to happen regardless. The need will just be more acute. Also note most in Europe have 230V at home including a lot of places in the Nordic countries that have 230V at every parking space for multi tenant housing for car heaters. Those are very handy for an EV parked overnight.
The holiday issue is a real one. I drive a diesel that does 1000km in one go. I use that range in one day maybe 2-3 days per year during holidays. That would be impossible with an EV. I can get where I want but it would require a lot more planning and longer travels and recharge waits.
outworlder|7 years ago
Barely adequate? We are reaching almost 500km on a charge now (around 300km is more common). This is Denmark we are talking about, not Russia.
> and it's especially banking on invention of fast recharging
You mean under 30 minutes? How often do you need that? Road trips?
Note that they are not banning hybrids, which will take care of your road trip needs just fine.
mrguyorama|7 years ago
As a "Car Guy" however, there is a small sadness that I won't really get to experience much of the internal combustion engine. I feel like I was born a decade too late and a lot too poor. Similar to some techies who feel the missed the early internet.
floatrock|7 years ago
I mean, yeah, it doesn't have the same growl, but if you want raw performance, I'll take my spaceship whirl over rube goldberg-like thousands-of-tiny-explosions any day of the week.
FranOntanaya|7 years ago
The boring utilitarian combustion engines the large majority of humanity has ever experienced probably won't be missed, though. Boring cars were still boring a decade ago.
mattlondon|7 years ago
s0rce|7 years ago
lsiunsuex|7 years ago
Best plan is pick a few "classics" be it 60s muscle cars or current muscle cars, and buy them before they hit scrap yards or are destroyed.
Not an easy thing to do of course - cost of car, storage, restoration if it's old, but they can be saved and kept as toys.
Restoring a 60s camaro has always been a dream of mine.
unknown|7 years ago
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bcheung|7 years ago
nottorp|7 years ago
Zekio|7 years ago
NTDF9|7 years ago
Further, I think the biggest gains of this are in emerging countries like SE asia, India etc. where the cost of oil fuel is much higher than the US. The market size willing to ride on this tech is insane.
moneil971|7 years ago
femidav|7 years ago
xyproto|7 years ago
rrcaptain|7 years ago
femidav|7 years ago
snambi|7 years ago
OTOH, do they even need cars? Why can't denmark just use public transportation and abolish cars altogether?
petermonsson|7 years ago
Zekio|7 years ago
Necromant2005|7 years ago
femidav|7 years ago
bachbach|7 years ago
Does he have a point?
itry2develop|7 years ago
[deleted]
billysielu|7 years ago
scrollaway|7 years ago
I wonder how some HN commenters would do at being head of state, sometimes. The bar seems to have lowered lately anyway.
Edit: just to clarify and be less dismissive: Banning things everyone uses with little homework is a great way to fail at it. Since this is a tech forum, you can think of it kinda like upgrading your language, framework, kernel and landing a massive refactor, all at once, in production, without testing. It's like that, except you have tens-to-hundreds of millions of users, and their lives are at stake.
Bans take time, otherwise they're not effective. Besides, if they had announced 2020, I'm nearly certain the parent comment would ask for 2019.
jrnvs|7 years ago