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.
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?
The US, having cheap gasoline, uses gasoline vehicles in far more roles than say, the EU does, where diesel is far more common. "Light commercial" might as well read "should have been diesel" from an MPG standpoint.
At that point bans make more sense.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
Alas, the politics are made by city people (who have access to really good public transport) and paid for by people in suburbia who _have_ to own a car to survive (and no, we can't just move everyone to the city).
EDIT: typos
Those 3 year old cars aren't just scrapped, the used car market is much larger than the new car market.
Do you have any sources for this claim? I think I only know of a single person who changes cars in 3 years due to leases and only did it once.
According to the US government the average age is 11, almost 12 years.[1]
[1]https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-truc...
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.
One way to look at that is that you're saying any market-based solution strong enough to be effective is indistinguishable from an outright ban.
We could, for example, discourage smoking by putting a $500 tax on each pack of cigarettes. But at that point, you may as well stop pretending and ban it outright.
Another way to look at it is that bans are fair because they apply to all people equally. Taxes unfairly punish the poor who have less discretionary income. (A $100 tax on cigarettes would drive most of the working and middle classes to quit, but there are certainly a number of rich folks who would keep on lighting up because $100 means little to them.)
My theory is that the people push for market based solutions the most are usually the same people that are against regulations and taxes so whatever they come up with will usually be very weak. They certainly won't support taxation of carbon emissions to the degree that's necessary for real behavior.
Most existing schemes seem to have been cleverly designed to avoid hitting certain industries with large enough lobbying power.
Taxing/banning/regulating specific polluters rather than pollution itself is just ripe for regulatory capture.
I do think that making stuff more market based to avoid "picking winners" is probably a bad idea. We know what the winner is here, more or less. The winner is non-ICE vehicles. We should be backing that, not 25% more efficient engines.
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.
Not true. From personal experience driving an electric costs one fifth the cost of fuel per km. That's an enormous saving.
not really. They just migrate faster to Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
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.
We’re going go have to come up with creative solutions when most vehicles are electric.
Same mechanism can work for electric cars
A carbon emissions tax is the right solution. Just keep raising it until one gets the effect wanted - a wholesale switch to electric.
[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.
> "our cities"
Where is "here" and "our cities"?
/s/public transportation/health care/cars/etc.
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.
First, there is social housing available at a price between €335 and €710. True, you may have to wait a little for a house, but if it's a critical situation you will get priority. As you have no income, you will also get rent subsidies. After those, you'll pay roughly €250 / month for rent.
Second, healthcare. Health insurance is mandatory and covers practically everything, so you'll still have this. No need to worry about healthcare costs. You still have to pay for it. With a €385 / year copay, it costs you €94 / month. With a €885 copay, it'll cost you €75 / month. As you have no income, the government will subsidize your healthcare for €94 / month. Net cost: between €0 and €-20 / month. Yes, you can actually profit on healthcare.
Third, welfare. About €930 / month.
Let's look at some basic needs: heating is about €75, electricity is €28, water is €10, a 50/5 internet connection is €25, a basic 100 minutes, 100 sms, 1 GB internet mobile phone connection is about €7. There are some municipal taxes, but you don't have to pay any of them because you have no income.
This leaves you with about €535 a month for food, clothing, and all your other stuff. Note that I intentionally did not mention any car costs: you don't need it for grocery shopping, and you don't need it for a job, so any use is only incidental. If you even want to keep it, the main cost would be insurance, and that starts at €20 / month.
So let's look at the original question: is there a causal relationship between the wealth gap and homelessness? I'd say there is, because when rich people pay slightly higher taxes, literally nobody has to be homeless because the government will pay for their safety net. So how many people depend on this? Roughly 6%. This means that, on average, every working person has to pay €75 / month in taxes for a guaranteed safety net, including housing and healthcare. If you consider the amount of taxes you pay, that's not such a bad deal.
At the risk of inviting some xenophobic and/or racist commentary, I'll bite. What's your story?
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/...).
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.
It's not really common. They only have one tunnel that's 24.5km ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tunnels_in_Norway ) and it's not under the sea. The remaining are 10km or shorter.
The longest undersea tunnel is 8.9km and it goes to a city with a population of 8,215. It goes to an entire island though, so a few more people than that benefit.
Your overall point is completely right, but might as well get the facts straight, so people can compare and don't recite wrong information.
Norway doesn't actually show up much on the list of longest tunnels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_tunnels
Creating a national investment fund from the oil bonus seems a far better choice than continuing as usual, or using it to pay for tax cuts (1980's UK).
When the oil runs out, or is considered too damaging to use any more, the infrastructure will still be there, and so will the fund.
https://www.ft.com/content/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feab...
State wealthfare fund and research in various techniques to minimize pollution from oil production.
"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).
Is this the "50mpg under ideal laboratory conditions driven by an AI" or "as driven in a real city/highway by a human"?
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.
> “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.
Any thoughts on converting a hybrid to an EV?
Edit: The engine cavity should be able to hold a lithium battery ~250+ lbs, and the 1.6 kWh NiMH battery is another ~250+ lbs that can be replaced with another lithium battery pack. If a Powerwall were used for each, the car would have 27.4 kWh, which I think would power my Camry Hybrid only about 30 miles. So maybe not very feasible until after another battery technology upgrade.
https://www.landrover.com/Images/HYBRID_FAQ_GUIDE_Intreactiv...
"How far can my Range Rover Hybrid travel using just the electric motor?
When Electric Vehicle mode is activated manually using the EV button, the EV light on the instrument cluster will glow green. The Range Rover Hybrid will drive silently at slow speeds for a distance of up to 1 mile/1.6km provided the hybrid battery is fully charged when EV mode is activated"
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)
Most hybrids use a slightly different engine, which is more efficient but generates less force. The hybrid transmission can add torque when accelerating or going uphill.
The engine must get less wear. My Camry Hybrid only needs an oil change every edit: 10,000 miles.
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.
BTW, I loved Denmark :)
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 :)
But I do wonder how we're gonna cover that last mile. Adding hundreds of miles of range to an ICE car is hilariously simple, just a couple of plastic containers in the trunk and you're good to go.
Can't add extra batteries like that. Energy density is not a truism.
Maybe portable ICE generators, sort of like hybrid addons for full EVs.
I really liked the hybrid tech. I don't know why its not dominating.
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.
You're not wrong. I was just wondering how people would get around.
Factors that made me wonder included:
- when you're sightseeing, it's faster to buy gas (in today's era) than to charge to full battery - the place I parked my car each night was not near a charging station and/or outlet - having infrastructure in place to drive all over makes means there's less friction to go to remote places, and if there's less demand for remote places in the future, there may be less infrastructure near those places
I'm not trying to make argue any specific point here. I was just wondering. And even though Denmark is a tiny country, many other are damn huge!
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.
Not where I am. I've recently driven several times from Drammen to Trondheim and never seen a charger at any of the supermarkets I passed on the way. I don't mean they don't exist, just that I didn't see them, can you list a few of them?
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...
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.
https://i.imgur.com/dd9Jdzf.png (Orange are high power chargers, green are lower power chargers, source is plugshare.com)
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.
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.
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....
Denmark may have some fairly onerous taxes, but that seems to be more than made up for by the quality of life, healthcare, education and so on. I have two good friends who moved from UK to Denmark, both high earners with families, neither would consider returning to the UK for a millisecond. As UK austerity continues and Brexit nears I'm thinking of it myself.
The USA's ridiculously high subsidy of petrol has struck me as crazy ever since my first visit in the 80s or 90s, and I rented a "standard" car that turned out to be as large as a small aircraft carrier. It handled like an aircraft carrier too.
In Portland, the US's most celebrated cycle city, 6.3% of commuter journeys are by bike.
It looks to me like Denmark has it right; and that taxing polluting vehicles (you know, there's this thing called climate change?) is perhaps a better strategy than sneeringly calling them "clown cars".
It's not as extreme that I'd call it "extremist state of affairs". Fewer cars are for the greater good. However, what pisses me the most is how it is really implemented. There is the famous 150% tax when you buy a car, and then there is a green tax every 6 months/quarter that is based on how efficient &a safe your car is. I'm all for the green tax. Heck, double or triple it, and make the SUV drivers pay. But, the 150% tax IMO is lop sided policy. It lead to too many small cars(VW Up, Seat equivalent, and the like) because that's what common people can afford. Another side effect is that people tend to keep shitty cars much longer than rational, because they cannot afford a better car - throwing away all the emission savings in the wind(pun intended).
I think the law is made by politicians just based on life in Copenhagen, where you can use the trains and bike wherever. Public transportation is A-class, and you don't particularly need a car for the most part.
The rest of Denmark, where I live, public transport is not as good, and car becomes a necessity if you go to work outside the city. We're the collateral damage of the narrow minded policies.
/rant.
Denmark, as everyone here says is an excellent place to live, and I have a bigger list of positives to list, and a tiny list including this car tax to complain about.
You will never understand it because those people have a completely different world view than you or I when it comes to taxation. You will also probably never understand a lot of other crazy things that people with different world views believe.
The idea that taxes and government involvement in everything should be the minimum possible is foreign to them in the same way that a woman is CEO of GM and that's not a problem to us is completely foreign to the Taliban.
Obviously it's a two way street and the idea that someone would want gas to cost $5/L and that someone might not be ok with a female CEO is equally foreign and impossible for us to relate to.
But historically this was a trick to minimize the trade deficit, because we don't produce cars in Denmark.
Today, however, it's hard to get rid off this tax. Because you have to find the money, and as soon as you start talking about this tax people stop trading cars.
IMO, cars isn't where we need tax breaks it'll mean even more congestion in the roads. We need to invest the upcoming surpluses if you ask me.
until you get into an accident severe enough to need extensive medical attention.
On the other hand, the current government could easily announce that starting in 2020 all new government fleet purchases are required to be electric and it would help create a lot of new competition to bid for those orders.
Purchasing electric fleets in order to speed up development and adopting of EVs is leading by example.
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...
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
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.
"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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The only parts that sucks about BEVs is that you can’t have a trailer attached and the price.
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.
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.
Of course and of course!
"Note that they are not banning hybrids,"
Yeah but hybrids suck: gasoline automatics, and except for the Volvo, ugly sedans. If there were more sportwagon diesel hybrids with manual transmissions, that'd be a different story, but there aren't and probably won't be.
And what will happen to car enthusiasts in Denmark if this legislature is enacted?
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.
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 ability to get beat on the track 1 weekend, drop a couple grand on new parts the next, then go back and beat them the following weekend.
car shows and seeing a super charged mustang or camaro or twin turbos or something completely different someone came up with an idea for and built.
the same way us programmers tinker and build stuff for the hell of it, is the same was us car guys build stuff and tinker for the hell of it. some take it seriously and go to track, some (me) just do it cause it's a nice break.
spending a day installing a new exhaust can be fun. playing with 240volts of batteries (or whatever it is, lol) (if theres anything to play with) - not so much i'm thinking, lol...
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.
In contrast it will no longer be legal to manufacture and sell ICE cars, and so the price of these cars will go up as demand outgrows supply, making it financially unattainable for all but the rich.
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.
It used to be 180% for the high tier, 105% for the low tier. I don't know the cutover points used back then.
Today, it's 85% for the low tier (below ~190K DKK) and 150% for the high tier above that. The cutover point will increase to account for inflation and such.
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.
OTOH, do they even need cars? Why can't denmark just use public transportation and abolish cars altogether?
Does he have a point?
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.
