By P Gosselin on 18. February 2023
As the EU Parliament voted on February 14th to ban the registration of new fossil fuel cars beginning in 2035, it appears the folly of the idea is just beginning to dawn on those who had been expected to take a more critical stand much earlier.
Moreover, it appears even the regular German citizens are finally having doubts about the mad rush to e-mobility, as a new Allensbach survey suggests.
“Many people in Germany still have reservations about the widespread adoption of electric cars, mainly because of their high cost,” reports the German Blackout News here. “Although a majority of respondents believe that electric drives will become established in the next ten years, only 22 percent consider this desirable.”
There are number of reasons why Germans are not sold on the idea of electric cars, among them: the environmental impacts of mining the raw materials to produce the batteries and the after-life recycling. Another problem is the limited range and heavy weight of electric cars. The biggest reason why Germans are not inclined to switch to electric cars is the high price.
“According to the survey, the main reservations about electric cars are the purchase price, the limited number of charging stations, expensive electricity and doubts about the environmental balance, as well as the now threatened throttling of electricity purchases,” Blackout News sums up.
Cars remain an indispensable means of travel for German citizens, and so cost and reliability will remain the top factors to consider when a car purchase gets made. While 47% of the respondents said they use a car daily, only 18% said they use a bicycle daily.
Alternatives too pricey, inefficient
Blackout News also reports why other options like hydrogen are not going to be a real alternative, due to the high costs involved in producing hydrogen and “the lack of infrastructure for its distribution.”
The same is true concerning e-fuels, which are very electricity-intensive and inefficient in internal combustion engines, experts say.
Experts do point out that e-cars are “the environmental optimum”, but only if they are powered by green electricity generated from renewable energy sources such as wind or solar plants. In most countries this is far from being the case.
No “yuppie” rules
Germany’s opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the center-right Christian Democrat Union (CDU) sharply criticized the EU Parliament’s call for a ban of the internal combustion engines beginning 2035: “We will not take our cue from the yuppies in the big cities,” the CDU leader said. (See story, Die Welt here).
That which cannot happen will not happen.
When they do reverse course, the “why” will be a shock to everybody. But they will reverse course.
I’m not sure they will be able to find reverse.
When one sees what the green German foreign Minister is saying:
Cobolds in EV batteries, a 360° turnaround, or sending “animal tanks” to Ukraine, I really don’t think they will intellectually even be able to realize
that a reverse course is the right thing to do …
What is this “why” that is supposed to shock everybody?
Every aware person knows EVs cost too much initially, will cost more to operate because of high electricity prices and the need to replace batteries early on, they are an extreme fire hazard and are not safe to park in one’s garage nor in high-rise or underground carparks, have limited driving ranges, there will be a shortage of charging stations, they take too long to charge up, they cannot be used to haul/tow significant weights, they are unusable and cannot be charged in cold weather & etc.
On top of all that, really aware people know that the raw materials required for manufacturing their batteries will be unavailable for large numbers of EVs. That is especially true when considering the projected raw materials required for massive additions of wind and solar installations and the utility-scale batteries needed to backup unreliable wind and solar electric generation in a Nut Zero Western world.
All this is true. But take the UK as an example. Labour, Liberals, Greens, SNP, Conservative Party, all are committed to doing it. The possibility you have to take very seriously is that they mean what they say and actually will do it, and the consequences everyone here predicts will happen.
Unfortunately, very few British politicians have any scientific knowledge at all. Many of them actually believe that net zero is possible, affordable and desirable. They actually believe the omnipresent green propaganda in the media and it seems impossible to change their minds, no matter the evidence presented. At the last election, every single candidate in my seat belonged to a party which had endorsed net zero. There was nobody to vote for who could oppose the net zero fantasy. We are all doomed.
What none of these politicians are saying is when they are going to introduce road charges to replace the fuel duty and VAT paid by ICE owners.
My guess is that both road charging and fuel taxes will be levied on ICE owners forcing the switch to an EV for many that don’t want or need to make that change. This will happen around the time of the banning of new ICE vehicles.
I’m pretty sure that is the real reason behind ‘smart’ motorways, (surely the least appropriate use of the word ‘smart’). Although the government refuse to admit that they are dangerous, they have announced a moratorium on any further conversions, which is a setback for the scheme, but there are plenty of surveillance cameras around that could (and possibly are) linked to numberplate recognition technology. I also agree that more will be done to penalise ICE car drivers to drive them off the roads. In the town where I live (Slough, UK) the main through-road has effectively been reduced from a dual to single carriageway by designating one lane as a bus lane during peak traffic hours, however EVs are permitted to use it so it is effectively an EV lane since there are few buses.
Fuel Duty and Vehicle Excise (‘Road Tax’) Duty bring in over £37 billion to the UK Treasury every year. EVs are currently exempt from these charges – they will eventually have to start paying them making EVs even more unaffordable to most people.
The Commons Public Accounts Committee noted in 2022
“The Government has unveiled a plan without answers to the key questions of how it will fund the transition to net zero, including how it will deliver policy on and replace income from taxes such as fuel duty or even a general direction of travel on levies and taxation”
“The Government has no reliable estimate of what the process of implementing the net zero policy is actually likely to cost British consumers, households, businesses and government itself.”
“The Government has no clear plan for how the transition to net zero will be funded – vague performance measures, lack of overall budget, limited assessment of the cost impact on consumers”
“Our previous work on green taxation did not give us confidence that there is a clear plan. HMRC could not clearly explain how the tax system is to be used to achieve the Government’s environmental goals.”
They also noted that Treasury witnesses cautioned that the Climate Change Committee’s estimates “contain ‘heroic assumptions’ with errors potentially compounding over very long periods”
On Xhosa social media back in 1851 the general opinion was that there was no way they would kill all the cattle and fail to sow the crops, why, everyone would starve. Impossible.
But they could and they did. Kill the cattle and starve.
Its possible all right. The question is the costs of doing it, not whether it can be done.
The answer to the ‘why’ is quite simple: the law of supply and demand. It’s called a ‘law’ because it is a law: price is governed by the ratio of supply to demand. When demand becomes dictated by government edict, (no ICE vehicles are allowed), and supply is limited by lack of available technology (windmills need wind and solar panels need sun and nothing else is allowed), then electricity prices will skyrocket. Few will be able to charge their EVs. Hoards with pitchforks will descend on their capitols, and the military won’t be able to charge their tanks to stop them. The laws will change.
Few remember the previous California EV Dictate. California law REQUIRED 10 percent of all vehicles sold in the state to be EVs starting in the year 2000. GM was the only company that produced any, and not enough people bought, or even leased them. The law was quietly changed, and GM subsequently went bankrupt.
They “why” will be mis-attributed and buried in the ‘never-reported’ Inconvenient Facts section.
Are you so sure? The Bolshevik Revolution couldn’t happen, but it happened anyways and we are still currently dealing with its unending outcomes in China, Russia, Cuba and elsewhere.
I guess there’s a big difference between couldn’t and shouldn’t. Rational thinkers concluded from the Economic Calculation Debate of the early 20th century that socialism, i.e., centrally planned economies couldn’t work(*). Yet here we are, as you say, currently dealing with its unending outcomes, not just in China and elsewhere, but everywhere.
(*) – To summarize the argument, no free markets => no free market prices => no economic information => no way to efficiently plan production => economic failure.
True but there’s a lot of loot to be had from equitable sustainable imagineering in the meantime comrade.
That won’t prevent them from killing a lot of people trying to force it to happen.
There’s currently 250 million cars in the EU, can’t wait for us all to plug in at the same time.
There are no technical and economic problems that are too tough for English Lit or Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) majors to solve. The nine most fearful words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
A Bonfire of The Batteries
That’s a possibilty.
One might even say a likelihood.
an inevitability?
I continue to ask ‘what’s the point’ in a transport landscape dominated by huge diesel powered 12 wheeler articulated lorries.
I assume you are being sarcastic….in a tongue in cheek way. Other wise no one can be that “thick” as the brits would say. I which case, I trust you would prefer ox carts or maybe mule trains.
Yes. But the point has nothing to do with clean air or lowering CO2 emissions or affecting global warming. EVs have become one of the 39 articles of faith and so we do them ‘whatever the consequences’. And whatever the effects, or lack of any.
Just like all the other articles of faith, the main reason for advocating them is to avoid excommunication.
In a few years when the point of no return has passed and enough people are in them, it will suddenly be discovered that EVs are problematic for all the reasons that normal people have been pointing out from the start. Then EVs will be banned, too. The point is not to get people into EVs but to get them out of all car ownership and into 15-minute cities.
Remember what happened to the push to make everyone buy diesels.
I agree with QODTMWTD below, the objective is to get the peasants out of private transport.
Presumably they would still be permitted. Though as personal vehicles they would be expensive to run, and likely constantly monitored by satellite.
Want To Buy An EV? Warning: Charging Stations Are (Often) Broken (forbes.com)
“For example, as of early 2023, in Santa Clarita Valley (a Los Angeles suburb) there are three separate Electrify America locations (gas-car analogy: think three gas stations). Only a few years ago there were none.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that most of the time — based* on my experience — at least half of the chargers are down. It’s a crapshoot every time you try to “fill up.”
——————
Same issues in other countries, including Australia…
just curious but what happens to the chargers that they fail so often?
You don’t just hook these things up to a 220v service drop. There are electronics in the charging stations to control the charging process. If these electronics are not protected from things like condensation, insect infestation, lightning surges delivered over the service drop, temperature excursions, and a whole host of other impacts, mean time between failure can become rather short. This doesn’t even include things like vandalism and just plain accidental impacts from cars pulling up to the station.
How do you pay for the charge- does it have a credit card slot?
Good question. I often see these things, without a card reader, in front of ‘woke’ business establishments and wonder if I’m somehow subsidizing this madness by shopping there.
maybe it’s free 🙂
Yes you are.
Many of those ‘super’ chargers at the charging stations require a 440V drop. The ones for homes will be set up for 220V (particularly in the Americas).
The “super” charging station electronics probably see more component aging problems than the 220v ones with a lower charging amperage.
The issue with chargers, whether the at-home low current, at-home super chargers, or commercial charge station high-current chargers is that they have to deal with a wide range of charging conditions and have to tailor the charging curve. If it’s too hot or too cold either the charge current will be severely limited, if not preventing charging because the batteries are outside the charging temperature range. And that’s just the beginning.
You are correct that the electronic components in the commercial charging stations will have to endure more extreme conditions than the ones in our homes, including the higher charging current.
That depends on whether the charging station is inside or outside of the garage.
Having it inside the garage may reduce environmental wear on the electronics, but creates a different set of problems.
The higher charge rates are achieved by combining phases. In the UK a 22kW charger is 3-phase, but is really just 3 7kW chargers, one on each phase, drawing 30 amps per phase. The superfast chargers with higher ratings are all 3 phase.
30amps per phase is plenty to cause failure of the connectors if a poorly maintained charging cable is plugged in with a high enough resistance to cause heat warping of the connection housing. A little bit of corrosion on the connection blades can cause big problems over time in an external housing exposed to the elements, be it the connector on the cable from the car or the charging housing itself.
Jimminy! We used to run into this all the time on the electrical connections between the battery, the starter, and the ignition switch on older tractors exposed to the elements. It doesn’t take much corrosion at the starter terminals to cause problems quickly. The heat from just a little corrosion and a lot of starting current causes more corrosion and more heat in a cascade which can finally melt things or just stop it from working altogether.
I suspect we are going to see very much the same thing as more and more charging stations are added to the grid and more and more poorly maintained charging cables are used.
It all seems very complicated, and full of tech that can fail. Give me the subterranean tank full of petroleum connected to a pump and a hose and away we go in a matter of a few minutes. Sure, petrol pumps have problems too, but these new high-pressure pumps are good, no problems.
We haven’t discussed the obvious fire and electrocution risks inherent in charging stations. EV charging has become a commercial market and industry..
Since there is little to no air in those underground tanks, they aren’t a problem.
Not really when the Brandon IRA put 8 BILLION dollars toward building charging stations.
Not commercial, but crony capitalist.
Don’t you worry about the maintenance required to keep these EV charging stations working properly.
I am sure gas tax highway funds will be diverted to pay for the upkeep.
Those gas tax highway funds have already been diverted. None left for actual maintenance of anything.
Its interesting. The EV issue has become a critical experiment for the climate agenda, but probably the first results will be seen in the UK not the EU.
In the UK, new sales of pure ICE cars will be banned from 2030. Hybrids will be permitted till 2035, and thereafter the plan is EV only. This coincides with the EU date of 2035 EV only new sales. Its perhaps a more intelligent way of going about it.
So the main thing to watch is whether the UK 2030 ban really happens. That will then affect whether the 2035 bans do. If the UK cannot manage to get its 2030 ban over the line, its very unlikely that the 2035 one will happen either in the EU or the UK.
Most people here approach this by saying that the policies will have very serious consequences for social and economic life. Cars will become unaffordable for most people, the refuel issues make them impractical for people without off street parking, the range and refuel issues mean that the ordinary use people make of cars now will be impossible. Garaging them is problematic given the fire risk.
So, they, conclude, it will never happen. But this is not at all clear.
You might have thought the same of the consequences, in Scotland, of allowing anyone to say he is a woman and in three months fully legally be one. This is what the recent Scottish Gender bill did. It was obvious that the consequence of this would be the abolition of women only facilities and services, and it was obvious that this would be maliciously exploited by some men with bad intentions.
All the same, and despite these concerns being voiced both in the Scottish Parliament during the debate on the Bill and in the country at large by women’s groups and the Conservative Party, and indeed by a UN Rapporteur, both the SNP, Greens and Scottish Labour Party adopted it as policy and voted for it and voted down all amendments designed to lessen the danger to women. It was a whipped vote – a Minister had to resign from the SNP in order to vote against it. And they all called anyone who drew attention to the consequences racist, trans-phobic, reactionary…etc.
The UK Government vetoed the Bill, so it has not become law.
However, to see the determination of the committed, take the case of the current Scottish Health Minister, a candidate for the SNP leadership. Even after two notorious cases surfaced of violent criminals, one of whom is a convicted rapist, deciding they were really women and so should be housed in women’s prisons, he is still committed to the policy and proposes, if elected as SNP leader, to take court action to try to implement it. And this is even in the face of large scale vocal opposition in Scotland, and polls showing something like two thirds of the electorate opposing it. And a significant fall in support for the SNP who brought the Bill forward, and a fall in support for Scottish Independence as a result.
This is even after the Bill was a key factor in the receent resignation of the current First Minister and leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon. You might think that would have brought him to his senses. But no.
Do not underestimate the fanaticism of the convinced righteous. What in my youth used to be referred to in Scotland as the “unco’ guid”. Public opinion, rational objection, foreseeable consequences, they have no effect on them.
So just because the social and economic and environment costs of the EV car policies are huge, just because they will lead to widespread opposition when people realize the implications, do not be at all confident that they will not be brought in regardless. The same thing applies to the proposals to electrify home heating and ban gas boilers in the UK. The grid will not support it, the cost is astronomical, there are not enough installers…. etc.
That does not mean it will not happen. The climate movement, like the gender movement, is in the grip of a sort of frenzied secular religious ideology. It doesn’t even matter to it whether what it proposes will have any measurable effect on the climate, which it will not.
They just want it done and will not yield to reason or opposition in their efforts to get it done. So it all may very well happenb.
Cuba has some very old cars – still running!
The only way to make the EV move is going to be limits on ICE cars. Where you can drive them, what it costs to license them, tax on fuel. This is going to be necessary to incentivize people to change and give up their old ICE cars.
If the governments of the day really go through with the ICE bans we should expect all of the above. So no more driving to city centers, or perhaps a charge to enter for ICE cars, parking only for EVs, cost of gasoline or diesel doubling because of taxation, vehicle license fee being double or more than for an EV. Maybe an insurance tax on ICE insurance.
Its pretty easy to arrange things so that no-one will be able to afford to drive an ICE car any more. And it will be necessary to enforce the transition. Otherwise what will happen is a wave of buying in 2028 & 2029 followed by very much reduced car sales in the 2030’s.
So expect it all. Buying a new ICE vehicle in 2029 is not going to work. Apart from the fact that production will have just about stopped by then as the companies get ready for the great switchover.
Whilst those “solutions” could be enforced. But what would the economic effect be on the country? People unable to travel to work (not everyone is on a convenient bus/train route). Peripatetic workers. Tourist industry etc.
See covid lockdowns. Economic implosion, widespread dependence on government welfare, sharply lower living standards, and a country going bankrupt. High inflation, social unrest, police state.
You forgot ‘civil war’ and/or ‘revolution’.
See the labor participation rate for the US, went down all through the Obama years by design, erratically went up during TRUMP!, not yet recovered, but if you go to the same site an get the total employment you ill see it going up, due to illegal and foreign workers. Many US citizens are happy to live off of government largess.
And unemployment is so low because of the number of “working age” people not looking for work or working in the underground economy.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm
The entire labor statistics paradigm is badly in need of updating. Unmployment is simply not a useful metric when the labor force participation rate is so low and when so many illegal aliens have distorted the economy.
The only metric I pay any attention to anymore is the number of available unfilled jobs.
I suspect they will choose the Soviet solution.
Build tiny apartments that are of extremely poor quality close to the factories, and require the workers to move into them.
There has already been a sharp down turn in vehicle sales, which are now at levels last seen on 1980. That means a much smaller second hand market, and soon a declining vehicle population. People are avoiding new diesels, despite the economy penalty. E10 petrol will see shortened lives for many existing petrol vehicles.
Policies are already working to reduce our freedoms.
Nice to see that you have no concern for the poor at all. For many it will mean no car at all. The economic impacts for the poor will be tragic indeed.
Yes, this is right – I would expect car ownership to fall to a fraction of what it is now, and it will be the poor who are excluded. But my post was not about concern or lack of it.
Its about what is likely to happen, whether we like it or not, and however much damage it causes. Its a real possibility that the UK and EU political classes will go ahead regardless.
Perhaps they need to lose ahead? They would lose their regard in the same process. The French know about that.
Is there a space missing? in “to lose a head”.
Remember what happened to the’Poll Tax’ introduced by Margaret Thatcher and levied on every adult without reference to income or resources.
People couldn’t afford it, there was rioting, elderly pensioners were sent to prison and eventually the tax had to go.
On the contrary, I expect that despite their attempts to drive ICE cars off the road they will fail. An ICE car purchased in 2029 will be worth about 3 times it’s purchase price in 2034, as manufacturers desperately try to rewind their ICE car manufacture back up to 2023 volume.
Cuba doesn’t have to put salt on the icy roads in winter, so the Cuban cars don’t get rusty.
Recent ice cars do not have a rust problem…
Most of Cuba is only a few miles from the sea.
Cuba doesn’t have ANPR cameras on every street corner. Nor does it have the desperate need to replace fuel duty and VAT paid by the ICE owner.
The unsaid policy is to introduce road charging for both EV and ICE and increase fuel duty on petrol and diesel to make electric motoring the lower cost option. I won’t say cheape. The ultimate goal is to reduce the number of car owners by at least 50% in the ten years after 2030.
“I won’t say cheape”
What happens to the poor or even the lower middel-class?
They can’t afford cars. And the political class accepts this consequence, because climate. It really is possible that they will bring this about.
They get to walk, or if they are wealthy enough, buy a bicycle.
Agreed. But won’t those supporting those policies and standing for election need to explain their reasoning? Surely even non-technical people will eventually realise the truth mand not vote for them?
As we say in the US, it doesn’t matter who votes. What matters is who counts the votes.
Do you suppose there will be a Black Market for ICE cars? Maybe a matte black one for night and a camo one for day use? Drugs are illegal and look how many of them are sold.
Oh yes. Creative people will come up with ways to get around any sort of restrictions and bans the gov’t might throw at them. I can see where people might come up with ways to change out trim, name plates, hide the tail pipe and other modifications where an ICE car would blend right in with EVs. Even now, unless you are aware of exact vehicle models, it’s hard to tell EVs from ICE vehicles (save for the Tesla – which sticks out like a sore thumb due to its ultra bland styling, or rather, lack of any styling). And ICE cars are pretty quiet, unless you punch the gas hard. In an urban area they could hide in plain sight.
Also look for fake tags and fake registration stickers. Especially in California! Or out of area tags….at least here in the US for now that is very doable. I predict that if the ban in CA actually takes place, the number of out of state plates roaming around on their roads will skyrocket. Anyone who (for whatever reason) doesn’t leave CA by then (this also goes for NY) and has a friend or family member in a nearby state will be in luck. They will use said friend’s address to register their nice, new ICE car (that they bought in friend’s state) and plan on visiting every year or two to take care of anything required, like inspections and emission tests.
I can vouch for that because that’s exactly what I did when I lived in CA. Not because my car wasn’t allowed, but because CA had (and probably still does) a hefty fine/duty to bring a car in from another state. Plus, their registration fees were based on the age of your car and the newer it was, the more you paid. I hadn’t even seen a paycheck when I moved there and the amount was just shy of a month’s rent. So I kept my car registered in the state where my parents lived. I laid low, drove in the slow lane (traffic enforcement was almost non-existent anyway) and didn’t have any flashy bumper stickers or anything to draw attention to my car. Worked for the whole 5 years I lived out there!
So the rest of us who do not live in Californis or the UK should be grateful that these sacrificial attempts will fail before our local rulers decide to follow suit!
Millions of people being deprived of, or restricted in, free movement is, I believe, a “where the rubber hits the road” type moment.
I think the shear numbers of the population who will be severely affected, disrupted, or indebted, will be so widespread that certain sectors of the economy will just progressively stop working.
The problem quickly comes face-to-face with reality and then fails pitifully in it’s presence. This is a modern 5 year plan.
We are perhaps starting to see push-back with the resistance to ULEZ expansion in London and to the “15-minute city” plans elsewhere. A key problem is the adherence to green fanaticism by all mainstream political parties means that only the emergence of credible alternatives will put a brake on the imposition of such policies.
Yes. For example, there are over 4m vans on UK roads. Whilst certain fleet vehicles are switching to electric most van owners are sole traders and unlikely to be able to afford to switch to electric. If their future livelihood is threatened they are unlikely to take it ‘lying down’!
I’m actually starting to think that a lot of the ICE car ban madness is fairly possible.
Banning them by date x? Easy Peasy. Governments love banning stuff. That’s what they do.Worried about the “very serious consequences for social and economic life”? – So what? Governments around the world have just proved they are more than willing to inflict loads of social and economic pain on the people.Restrictions on movement? Already coming to cities near you (so-called 15 minute cities). I saw some story just this week in NZ MSM gushing about how wonderful they’ll be.Can’t afford an EV? So what? Having one will just encourage you to travel.Vote them out? Fat chance. Here in NZ I don’t think there is _any_ significant (with more than a few percent support) that is prepared to call time on the climate change crisis nonsense. Just today our so-called conservative National party leader declared there is no room for climate change denialism or minimisation in the party. I think the situation in the UK is similar.What will bring some sanity to the table? I dunno, but I don’t think it’s going to be pretty before it happens.
People need to learn to curb their enthusiasm so that they see the cons before getting on board with some great-sounding idea that can’t pan out.
Er, who will need a car in the brave new world of the 15 minute city?
“”Police say they made five arrests after thousands of people joined a protest in Oxford against measures to shut off roads to motorists.
Campaigners gathered in Broad Street to demonstrate against Low Traffic Neighbourhoods ( LTNs) and proposed traffic filters in the city.
The controversial LTNs have attracted huge outcry since being introduced in the city last year.””
https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2023-02-19/five-arrests-as-thousands-protest-in-oxford-against-ltn-15-minute-cities
Will the politicians listen to the people?
No.
At least I heard that the arrests were of some violent Antifa counter demonstrators.
Yes – until it affects their own incomes, and the national finances cannot survive the huge drop in incomes plus the massively increased demand from those who decide to give up productive work. Money is not necessarily the “root of all evil”!
…”only 22 percent consider this desirable.”
These 22 percent people will be the german rich people who can afford buying these e-vehicles. The poor people will walk, bike or use public buses.
Thus Germany will solve its problem of cars jamming and stop building new roads, streets and highways.
That’s the beginning of the german new/old dream: “You will own nothing and you will be happy”.
That same dream the DDR citizens (East Germany) fleed in hoards, so unhappy they were !
WEF’s Klaus Schwab has a very short memory or maybe the beginning of an Alzheimer syndrom ?
The East Germans could at least aspire to own a Trabant 🙂
Dave, when I lived in Iceland Trabants were everywhere. Icelanders called them throwaway cars. They often bought two at a time. Hard cardboard in the dash and glove holder, hollow tube for shifter with a plastic bicycle grip over the end. My boss had one and they were unpleasant to ride in but kept you out of the weather.
The Trabant’s motor was a 2 strokes one, very pollutant, emitting a thick and stinking smoke. God only knows how often the Trabant cars were out of order, typical of the bad quality of the communist car industry, though the number of these cars was the highest ever produced in a communist countries.
All the problems are now visible. In the UK most electric models are on 18 months or more delivery schedule, so effectively unavailable except from a few fringe manufacturers (China etc). A friend has now waited 15 months and it will arrive in June unless the schedule slips again (VW). An identical diesel model is available next week, so he has changed to it. One cannot make it up! The inability of electric cars to tow anything much is also daft, but the reason is simple, the range would then be very small and all the motors, batteries etc. would overheat! We are back to 1920 in one small step!
“The biggest reason why Germans are not inclined to switch to electric cars is the high price.”
When they grow up they’ll realize that EVs are unnecessary because there is no climate emergency.
Tell that to David Attenborough. On his beautifully-shot programme on TVNZ last night, he proclaimed that mitigation must be pursued if all those nasty climate-warming effects are to be overcome eventually. The openy-stated lies were appalling, but no doubt believed by the majority of viewers!
And that the biggest “issues” with EVs have nothing to do with the bloated price tags.
The plans get worse.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11771325/Climate-change-World-War-II-style-rationing-petrol-energy-meat-slash-carbon-emissions.html
Holy cow! Rationing because your country is under threat of being overtaken by a hostile invading force vs rationing for no reason at all is just crazy….. And yes, people generally were OK with rationing if it meant a chance of defeating Hitler and winning the war.
But if people are told they can’t have this or that for no reason at all (at least during the war people in the UK could see and hear German missiles flying overhead and demolishing whatever they landed upon), look out!
And even with rationing being accepted as necessary, these loons forget that people still did whatever they could to get by. My mom was born right at the end of WW2, and she has memories of going with her mother to pick wild black berries and check the rabbit traps. So her parents were going about supplementing the protein they were permitted to buy with wild game. Deer were scarce in those days, but I don’t doubt my grandfather would have had any qualms about popping off a few here and there to feed his family.
I don’t know what people would do about being restricted from buying fuel (maybe horses will make a comeback….) but I would expect that restrictions on meat would cause a major decline of various small animals. Even stray and outdoor cats will vanish. The natives would be unlikely to eat them but probably some of the immigrants would…..
Remember, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And all this also assumes that people won’t be rioting in the streets.
I’ll add that part of the reason deer were so rare in those days because they were vastly over-hunted during the great depression. In other words, hungry people did what they had to in order to survive…..
You are right. On the contrary, the huntig restrictions in France in the region where I live (coastal mediterranean) have provoked a thriving of all kinds of wild animals, boars, deers, badgers, foxes, even wolves (!!!) pheasants, woodcocks, partridges, eagles, hawks, etc…
Until now only the boars are invasive and causing destructions.
That’s why they have to hype climate change as a ‘climate emergency’, so that people will tolerate serious limitations to their quality of life. In the Second World War people had to grudgingly tolerate food and clothing rationing, shortages or unavailability of many things, ID cards, restrictions on travel, blackouts and of course conscription, both military and civilian. The former Labour MP Tony Benn once said that the war was one of the best times because it was the closest Britain came to true socialism, never mind that most people were glad when it was over. The problem is that the ‘climate emergency’ will never be over.
I was born in 1949. In France in these times there were still shortages of foods a and peculiarly of milk. My father had purchased a goat because my mother hadn’t milk enough to feed me. My mother told me the daily milking of the goat was homeric !
When I tell this to my grandchildren they find it hard to believe.
Possibly will we have to undergo a comeback of this harsh period with Mr K. Schwab’s “Great Reset” ? “You will own nothing and you will be happy” !
Where will you keep your goat in their mandated high-density urban living? In your apartment? What will you feed it and do with the manure?
Renewable is not a valid concept.
All this push to “Go Green” is like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane and hoping somebody invents antigravity boots before you hit the ground.
Like any good insider trader with sizable market influence, the Germans will tactfully retreat when it suits them leaving many others to bear the brunt.
The germans are pondering about the next mandatory ban of fossil fuel powered cars that should be replaced by electric ones. They are deeming it too expensive and technically unfeasible. In my opinon the ban limit date will be strongly postponed in the next coming years.
The goal is to confine the peons in 15 minutes zones without any cars.
The elite is perfectly aware of the impossibility of their perfect future.
Time for Germany to get out of European Union.
Time for Europe to get out of the European Union.
Is Ev mandates and electricity rationing going to end up meaning no labor mobility, no ability to fire a useless employee because they won’t have transport to a job further away?
What if you can’t find a job within your 15minute city?
Job? The robots + AI/machine learning will have replaced 70% of employees.
The unemployed will just need to expire for the “greater good” of solving ‘Climate Change’.
For the Davis Elite those who cannot adapt are useless people that should vanish shamefull of their inutility.
Yval noah harari sums it blankly:
“maybe in economics and politics of the coming decades will be what to do with all these useless people?
The problem is more boredom and how what to do with them and how will they find some sense of meaning in life, when they are basically meaningless, worthless?
My best guess, at present is a combination of drugs and computer games as a solution for [most]. It’s already happening. ”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/05/no_author/yuval-noah-harari-what-to-do-with-all-of-these-useless-people/
For those pushing electric cars, the high price is part of the reason. They want to see fewer people using fewer cars for less of the time.
“…pushing electric cars…” After the battery goes flat?