This should not be a blanket ban. Actually I don’t think they would even need to implement any policy at all. By 2030 I would expect electric cars to be so economical that it’s the only viable choice for the majority of people.
Not to mention that there will still be plenty of valid use cases for ICE cars in 2030. Need to go anywhere without the charging infrastructure? Need to travel a long distance? Need to travel in an emergency like a blackout?
The other part which is just kind of sad is that this is another nail in the coffin for the hobby of building and modding cars. Parts supplies will dry up and working on older cars will just become more and more prohibitively expensive. It’s already happening. To be honest when a car is just another computer it ceases to be interesting.
The timelines for ICE bans within a decade are ridiculous from a technology and market standpoint and terrible for the environment.
The best car technology is the one you don't use much. And we already have decades of cars in good enough condition to be driven weekly rather than daily.
EVs will barely scratch the surface of environmental issues with transportation. And they will create a new range of supply problems while also not solving traffic congestion issues that plague our cities.
It would be far more preferable to encourage people to use the same car for longer and especially to leave it in the garage when they can use other modes of transportation. Or, use car sharing rather than a personal car.
You might as well ban cars entirely at that point. The biggest criticism of EVs is that they are still cars. They are still the most resource and footprint intensive form of transportation out there.
Btw, that's not me arguing against electric vehicles. They are absolutely fantastic. I think in the next ~10 years everyone who can aford one and has a place to charge one should get one. There will be a massive shift towards them. I just don't see a total ban in 2030 to be necessary -the market will shift towards electric anyway, but if you are in a situation where an electric car just doesn't work for you for whatever reason, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to buy an ICE car. Especially since I imagine they will start being in minority by then, so their impact will be smaller and smaller every year. With a total ban you aren't solving the situation for people who can't work around the limits of an EV - you're just making them pay higher and higer prices on the second hand market for existing ICE cars(as pre-2030 cars are meant to be allowed for as long as they work).
Banning NEW* ICE vehicles, where medium and heavy duty vehicles are still by 2045. Honestly we need to push that up a decade by atleast phasing out non-hybrids. Still have people buying and factories making 15mpg Dodge Challengers that will be running the next 20 years, when they can afford the zero emission alternatives...
2040 is a hilarious timescale. That's 21 years away. The Model S is only 7 years old.
Banning new ICE car sales in 2025 and on the road in 2030 would be about in line with what I'd expect the market to do anyway.
It seems, well, silly to be producing brand new petrol/diesel cars when there are already masses of used ones out there that will do the job.
The article talks about EVs having some small digit percentage difference in cost of ownership or whatever vs. a diesel. If it's that close, then you may as well just ban new diesel sales now.
The main reason not to would be a worry about demand spikes causing shortages.
That's too late! Doesn't even make sense. By 2040 they will be banned in nearly all developed world. Volvo doesn't plan to build any of them starting 2020 by the way (while they will still build mild hybrids, which are 80% ICE vehicles). Germany is planning a ban from 2030 and that seems spot on, by this time technology will be definitely up to it.
Doing it by 2040 is same as doing nothing, because gasoline cars will be clearly competed away by that time without any legislative action.
I say this as an EV fanatic and Tesla owner, but I'm with you that outright banning ICE cars is the wrong solution.
It totally fucks anybody that can't charge at home. Do you know how many millions of people live in apartments? Do you think they're really going to shell out the cash to build EV chargers in all their parking spots?
The problem is, increasing taxes on gas will disproportionately affect the poor who can't afford to buy an EV (and again, are unlikely to live somewhere with a charger), while also having side effects of increasing the cost of all physical goods that need to be shipped. Semitrucks become more expensive to run, and while Tesla is working on a semi, it's only going to be useful for intra-city distribution, since semis used for inter-city travel are almost constantly on the road and will be driven by multiple drivers to keep moving, so they don't have time to charge.
Unless EVs are actually less expensive in 2035, the ban will be removed. However, they will be cheaper so no one will opt for an ICE car at that point anyway.
He raised a valid point. Industrialized countries have power grids and the like that were built before such demands for power existed. Adding millions of electric cars in a short time would be a problem for sure, and it would likely lead to coal and gas turbine power plants as those are cheap and quick to set up. Gas turbine actually isn’t too bad but coal is. Also, the need to somehow recycle and dispose of all of the internal combustion engine cars would be a problem. The thing is, these laws only prevent the sale of new vehicles using petrol, not driving the ones that already exist. Toyota does have hybrids and those seem to be acceptable under many of these laws.
The main thing bothering me currently is just the battery tech. I would prefer something that didn’t involve destructive mining and crazy foreign policies like oil and lithium do. But, wants are infinite and technology and resources aren’t.
Look, greed knows no bounds. My country's government gave car importers tax exemptions to bring electric and hybrid cars and what do you think happened after that? They were selling them almost 100% over market value.
What happened after that? The market didn't even bother asking anything about them and with electric bills ramping up, the opportunity of somewhat have a seizable market for electric cars was lost.
Whoever think we'll phase out regular cars by 2035 is either lying, being naive or getting something out of it.
What gets me is the subsidies going to buyers of these expensive new cars. Of all the things the public can spend taxpayer money on, we pick luxuries for (by and large) already-well-off people.
California has mitigated this to a degree by making their state subsidy means-tested: [1], which is a good first step.
I strongly suspect that ban will be delayed. There's still no serious effort to build large-scale public EV charging infrastructure.
The ban on new petrol vehicles seems likely to result in more older (higher-emission) vehicles remaining on the road for longer, as EVs still remain 'toys for the wealthy', far too expensive for the working class (who rely on inexpensive used cars).
It's unclear what the used EV market is going to look like longer-term in terms of pricing, degraded battery packs, and reduced range, and availability of repair/servicing for a vehicle that's now a 'tech product' full of software locks, that can only be repaired by authorised dealers, rather than by any skilled mechanic.
It's also unclear how governments are going to tax EV users to recoup the huge amount of fuel tax lost from the switch to EVs...
Hm, average lifetime of American cars is 8-12 years.
Most models have an update or iteration every 2-5 years.
This means car manufacturers need to come up with a solution rather fast and acceptance should be initiated very soon, if someone buys a brand new car in 2031, they might not want to give it up 4 years later.
Electric car infrastructure is not ready yet for this scale either and permissions to build might take a while.
Rd, testing and production are all very low.
Seems unrealistic to me, unless this legislation only covers new cars and selling used cars is still ok?
That's why we need regulations that will ban the sale of any new non-eletric vehicle in the next 5-10-15 years. Thankfully Europe is going in this direction. Asia not so much.
Sounds evil-ish, but how about gasoline tax paying for electric car recharge? Electric cars being very expensive to buy is a problem though. You'd end up subsidising those who are already wealthy.
Not to mention that there will still be plenty of valid use cases for ICE cars in 2030. Need to go anywhere without the charging infrastructure? Need to travel a long distance? Need to travel in an emergency like a blackout?
The other part which is just kind of sad is that this is another nail in the coffin for the hobby of building and modding cars. Parts supplies will dry up and working on older cars will just become more and more prohibitively expensive. It’s already happening. To be honest when a car is just another computer it ceases to be interesting.
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