German Lawmakers Vote To Ban Internal Combustion Engine

Megalith

Megalith

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Germany’s federal council has passed a resolution calling for a ban on new internal combustion engine cars by 2030. Basically, there is a good chance that Germans will have to operate an electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicle by then. This accompanies ongoing incentives for switching to pollution-free cars, such as tax credits.

The modern internal combustion engine first came from Germany and now Germany wants to put a nail in its coffin. The Bundesrat has passed a resolution to ban the ICE beginning in 2030. …the country’s top legislative body was able to reach a bi-partisan agreement that hopes to allow only zero-emission vehicles on EU roads in 14 years. For the resolution to be instituted across Europe, it will have to be approved by the EU. But according to Forbes, “German regulations traditionally have shaped EU and UNECE regulations.”
 
I think its a mistake, as 2030 is not that far away, and I see this either being a failed endeavor with deadlines pushed further and further forward, or much of the population holding onto cars for decades and repairing them by being grandfathered in, like a first world Cuba. If measures are taken to prevent this, then I see a change in quality of life as people simply get used to less personal mobility, and have to ride on buses with the local piss soaked hobos to get to the office. Fun!

I also can't imagine how they think their economy can support this, when they continue to pour in hordes and hordes of poorly educated migrants, importing poverty and social strife into their borders, and regressing social progress while increasing criminality and bringing social services to a breaking point from the costs.

And I know German leaders think of the EU as their new Third Reich and that they can impose their will on all member states, but do we think the Greeks and Spanish and the like can afford new electric cars as well?

Even in the US, the average age of vehicles has now reached a staggering 11.5 years, thanks to new cars becoming ever more expensive while our swiss cheese Southern border exports poverty into our lands, who are buying some of the worst polluting, poorly maintained, ultra-high mileage old vehicles (which here in Houston is also becoming a massive burden on our infrastructure as the old pickup trucks they drive break down, causing huge rush hour pileups).
 
Part of this is a "tough love" type of legislation. As long as there is access to cheap/easy fuel that has fantastic storage capabilities, people are less likely to develop alternatives. However if you put them under the gun, then they'll have to come up with other solutions. Similar thing happened in the US with automakers with large fleets of SUV vehicles that needed to get above the CAFE standard requirements. Of course they auto makers just made shitty cars with high mileage requirements and threw them into the mix.
 
Hydrogen is clean, but getting it tends not to be, or it tends to be very energy intensive, and it is a pita to store. Storing it as a low pressure gas is not economical from a vessel size standpoint, storing high pressure gas on a large scale is difficult, and storing it as a refrigerated liquid has serious issues as well.
14 years may be enough time. If it is not, they will just extend it. It does get the ball rolling though.
 
Streiw said:
What do you drive, again? :confused:
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a gas powered vehicle that is cheap to maintain and allows me to support myself. When this law is implemented you are basically forcing people to buy into a technology that has no infrastructure, not cost effective, and does not allow for freedom of movement.... how is this a good thing for people that rely on their transportation for a living?

Electric? not practical for long trips
hydrogen? no infrastructure
Solar? okay if you think so....

What does one do if they live in southern Germany and want to visit people in northern Germany and you don't have a petrol/diesel powered car that can get you there in a reasonable amount of time?
 
I love these politicians that mandate stuff like this. Why bother going through the trouble of becoming an engineer, just be a politician and throw out mandates and take vacation the rest of the year (which I'm sure will not include airplanes and/or yachts.)
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
a gas powered vehicle that is cheap to maintain and allows me to support myself. When this law is implemented you are basically forcing people to buy into a technology that has no infrastructure, not cost effective, and does not allow for freedom of movement.... how is this a good thing for people that rely on their transportation for a living?

Electric? not practical for long trips
hydrogen? no infrastructure
Solar? okay if you think so....

What does one do if they live in southern Germany and want to visit people in northern Germany and you don't have a petrol/diesel powered car that can get you there in a reasonable amount of time?
Click to expand...


You're thinking too short term. Fossil fuels will be the bane of human existence. If people won't adopt new technologies, how can you expect said technology to flourish. I bet people had the same mentality when the combustion engine was invented and everyone with a horse and buggy was worried about money.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
a gas powered vehicle that is cheap to maintain and allows me to support myself. When this law is implemented you are basically forcing people to buy into a technology that has no infrastructure, not cost effective, and does not allow for freedom of movement.... how is this a good thing for people that rely on their transportation for a living?

Electric? not practical for long trips
hydrogen? no infrastructure
Solar? okay if you think so....

What does one do if they live in southern Germany and want to visit people in northern Germany and you don't have a petrol/diesel powered car that can get you there in a reasonable amount of time?
Click to expand...

How soon do you expect the world to run out of oil, and what is your plan for when that occurs?
 
As long as electric charging stations are available and they can design cars that charge faster I don't have a problem if they did this. Would be harder to do in the US because it's so far spread out (thinking of infrastructure needs) and because "MERICA" type reasons.
 
evilsofa said:
How soon do you expect the world to run out of oil, and what is your plan for when that occurs?
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people have been saying we would run out of oil by [insert some made up date here].. it has not happened yet.. matter of fact they keep finding MORE of it....

Streiw said:
You're thinking too short term. Fossil fuels will be the bane of human existence. If people won't adopt new technologies, how can you expect said technology to flourish. I bet people had the same mentality when the combustion engine was invented and everyone with a horse and buggy was worried about money.
Click to expand...

you want it, you pay for it... this just another liberal entity trying to force their precontrived OMG if we don't do this, X is going to happen....
 
Hmmm.... I wonder if an abiotic process is actually at play here.... If so, that kinda blows the whole running out of oil argument....
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
people have been saying we would run out of oil by [insert some made up date here].. it has not happened yet.. matter of fact they keep finding MORE of it....
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Sure, we keep finding new oil reserves, but it's still a non-renewable source of energy. Not to mention the negative impact it has on the environment. Why not harbor progression? Oh, because it affects people's bottom lines. People need to lose the mentality of, "Oh, I'll be dead before it affects me, who gives a fuck?".
 
Streiw said:
Sure, we keep finding new oil reserves, but it's still a non-renewable source of energy. Not to mention the negative impact it has on the environment. Why not harbor progression? Oh, because it affects people's bottom lines. People need to lose the mentality of, "Oh, I'll be dead before it affects me, who gives a fuck?".
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you don't know that so quit stating it as fact.....
 
Personally I think it's funny. But I am still driving a 94 Honda Accord, so what do I know. I just have had really good luck with this car.

Electric still seems like a bad idea for long term and hydrogen.... Well others have already pointed out their problems.
 
To be somewhat fair, Germany has a far better mass transit than the US. Or it did the last time I was there in the 90's. Imagine the NYC mass transit system but it covers most of the country of Germany.
I still do not think the tech will be there in just 14 years to eliminate ICE vehicles. But outlawing ICE vehicles would be far less crippling to Germans than it would Americans.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
people have been saying we would run out of oil by [insert some made up date here].. it has not happened yet.. matter of fact they keep finding MORE of it....

you want it, you pay for it... this just another liberal entity trying to force their precontrived OMG if we don't do this, X is going to happen....
Click to expand...

You should buy coastal property in Florida.
 
Vercinaigh said:
Positive, got some credible sources otherwise? Like, ones not paid by Big Oil? :p
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So oil/natural gas absolutely could not be created by an abiotic process?

There must have been a shit ton of dinosaurs roaming the Earth.
 
Streiw said:
If people won't adopt new technologies, how can you expect said technology to flourish. I bet people had the same mentality when the combustion engine was invented and everyone with a horse and buggy was worried about money.
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What a backwards way of thinking.

People adopt new technologies when that technology is superior to existing technology. People switched to automobiles because you could travel far further and faster than you could with a horse drawn carriage, and you didn't need a stable and food and scooping horse poop and the like for your horses. ICE offers superior performance for your dollars and greater convenience, so its a regressive step.

Whene electric is cheaper, further range, and more convenient than gasoline engines, of course people will naturally migrate because it would represent a superior, rather than inferior, technology.
 
Streiw said:
You're thinking too short term. Fossil fuels will be the bane of human existence.
Click to expand...
If people don't worry about the short term, there won't be a long term. Maybe fossil fuels will be the bane of human existence, but at the moment they're the most important resource in the world and human civilization is utterly dependent on it.
If people won't adopt new technologies, how can you expect said technology to flourish. I bet people had the same mentality when the combustion engine was invented and everyone with a horse and buggy was worried about money.
Click to expand...
If people don't adopt new technologies, it's because they're not as good as existing technologies. And I bet most people, once they saw a car that could go faster, carry more people and cargo and required less maintenance and upkeep wanted one right away.
 
There's another alternative to hydrogen and the rest you know. It's called biofuels. They run in our current cars, and are carbon neutral.
 
evilsofa said:
How soon do you expect the world to run out of oil, and what is your plan for when that occurs?
Click to expand...
The world will never run out of oil, ever. We pass over known oil fields all the time because the cost of extraction is more than other sources, and its one of the reason offshore projects that weren't already underway are all getting canceled because there's no point when there is such a massive oversupply of oil right now. Oil will however become gradually more expensive, and eventually it will reach a point where gasoline costs more to manufacture than alternative fuels, including electric.

This will provide an organic smooth technology transition, likely in the form of greater adoption of hybrids that begin to rely less and less on the ICE component of the setup (right now, hybrids get most of their energy from gasoline still).
 
bigdogchris said:
As long as electric charging stations are available and they can design cars that charge faster I don't have a problem if they did this. Would be harder to do in the US because it's so far spread out (thinking of infrastructure needs) and because "MERICA" type reasons.
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That's the problem with people. They think it's not suitable for America, it's not suitable for the world. Long trips? Most car trips aren't long, Germany is the size of what? New Mexico. Except with 40x the population and much higher density. Limited distance isn't too much of a deterrent. Bullet trains cover the long distance + rentals.
 
Vercinaigh said:
Positive, got some credible sources otherwise? Like, ones not paid by Big Oil? :p
Click to expand...

We can make oil for about $5/gallon using microorganisms. We just haven't needed to yet.

Vehicles make up 8% of the energy consumption but I feel like they get most of our focus. If they do go to electric, where do you think the electricity will come from? If oil drops to dirt cheap I can bet you some country will use it. Likely a much less environmentally concerned one.
 
evilsofa said:
How soon do you expect the world to run out of oil, and what is your plan for when that occurs?
Click to expand...
The world isn't going to "run out" of oil in our lifetimes, however we could very easily run out of CHEAP oil by 2030.

YeuEmMaiMai said:
people have been saying we would run out of oil by [insert some made up date here].. it has not happened yet.. matter of fact they keep finding MORE of it....
Click to expand...
I don't know of any credible scientists saying we were going to RUN OUT of oil by such and such a date, just that we wouldn't be able to keep up with demand. And guess what? That's true now from conventional sources. We're long past peak discovery for that. While there's still more oil out there in deepwater rigs and fracking, it's not cheap. Most fracking well are under heavy debt, most of the profit from them has been made from licensing rights, not the operators. We need about $80 a barrel oil or higher for them to become profitable. Guess what that does to prices of everything else + the economy in general?
 
azuza001 said:
Personally I think it's funny. But I am still driving a 94 Honda Accord, so what do I know. I just have had really good luck with this car.
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Mid '90s Honda for the win.

Also, Nürburgring is crying.
 
I don't like exhaust fumes. Never have. Never will. I understand it has been a, ahem, so called necessary evil. Nevertheless, I welcome battery powered automobiles. I also do not welcome hydrogen. I don't like anything that is a 'gas'. Gasses explode. I hope we can pick up on the technology and move forward. Put it in the will of the population and it will happen. Make dino juice worthless.
 
Ducman69 said:
I think its a mistake, as 2030 is not that far away, and I see this either being a failed endeavor with deadlines pushed further and further forward, or much of the population holding onto cars for decades and repairing them by being grandfathered in, like a first world Cuba. If measures are taken to prevent this, then I see a change in quality of life as people simply get used to less personal mobility, and have to ride on buses with the local piss soaked hobos to get to the office. Fun!

I also can't imagine how they think their economy can support this, when they continue to pour in hordes and hordes of poorly educated migrants, importing poverty and social strife into their borders, and regressing social progress while increasing criminality and bringing social services to a breaking point from the costs.

And I know German leaders think of the EU as their new Third Reich and that they can impose their will on all member states, but do we think the Greeks and Spanish and the like can afford new electric cars as well?

Even in the US, the average age of vehicles has now reached a staggering 11.5 years, thanks to new cars becoming ever more expensive while our swiss cheese Southern border exports poverty into our lands, who are buying some of the worst polluting, poorly maintained, ultra-high mileage old vehicles (which here in Houston is also becoming a massive burden on our infrastructure as the old pickup trucks they drive break down, causing huge rush hour pileups).
Click to expand...

The fleet average econ (MPG) mandate is falling way is behind schedule. Automakers are finding it hard to convince people to make the improvements to ICE's they sought, and people aren't buying electric vehicles the way they hoped. Not that electric cars are that much better because you're just shifting from one polluting source to another and straining the grid in the process. (And way over 1/2 of power plant sources are still carbon based fossil fuels.)
 
Just do what they did with nuclear power; ban it and move all the engines over to Czech for you to use... oh wait...
 
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