Electric cars?

[sptrawler]

Ford Europe, to join the list of manufacturers changing to BEV's by 2030.

Ford to sell only electric cars in Europe and UK by 2030

Group is largest carmaker to pledge all-electric sales on continent by end of decade

www.irishtimes.com

From the article:

Ford will stop selling cars in Europe and the UK with any form of internal combustion engine by 2030, in the most ambitious regional electrification target of any big manufacturer.
Every passenger car model will have an electric or plug-in hybrid option by 2026, but the company will go 100 per cent electric by the end of the decade, the US carmaker announced on Wednesday.
“We expect the majority of the vehicles will already be battery electric by 2026,” Ford’s European president Stuart Rowleysaid.

Options​

Ford is investing $22 billion (€18 billion) in electric technology by 2025 globally, and the announcement makes the group the largest carmaker so far to pledge all-electric sales by 2030 in the European region.
Volvo Cars, which is smaller than Ford, expects to be fully electric globally by 2030, while General Motors, which pulled out of Europe in 2017, plans to have all its passenger cars emission-free by 2035.

Ford’s commercial vehicles, which include the Transit van and the Ranger pick-up truck, will have electric and hybrid options on every model by 2024, but do not yet have a final phaseout date for traditional engine sales.

 

[Smurf1976]

Then the change over has to be forced by increasing tax on fossil fuels, registrations etc, which in the end just costs the taxpayer twice as much.

Taxing fuel as a means of forcing change will also tend to hurt the poorer half of society who are least able to afford an EV or even a more efficient ICE car.

It may well be environmentally progressive but socially it's a very regressive approach.

 

[Smurf1976]

Ford Europe, to join the list of manufacturers changing to BEV's by 2030.

At this point I think there's enough on the EV bandwagon to declare the outcome and that is batteries, not hydrogen or synthetic fuels, seem the likely winner at least in the medium term.

Anyone who tries to go down any other path is akin to a Beta versus VHS scenario with batteries being the VHS equivalent. No matter how good any other approach might be technically, if other manufacturers have all gone with batteries then they'll be the winners in practice.

 

[over9k]

Taxing fuel as a means of forcing change will also tend to hurt the poorer half of society who are least able to afford an EV or even a more efficient ICE car.

It may well be environmentally progressive but socially it's a very regressive approach.

Lol champagne socialists don't give a f**k about poor people

 

[basilio]

Taxing fuel as a means of forcing change will also tend to hurt the poorer half of society who are least able to afford an EV or even a more efficient ICE car.

It may well be environmentally progressive but socially it's a very regressive approach.

Certainly would be if such a tax raised billions of dollars for a government.
The proposal for a net neutral carbon tax that added a carbon cost to products at the start of the production cycle ie on oil, coal , gas and then distributed all raised funds as a flat dividend to every tax payer is a promising way to not have a regressive result.

It is widely supported and , as I noted earlier, a number of Republicans in the US have proposed such a measure.

Carbon Fee and Dividend​

Carbon Fee and Dividend is an efficient and transparent carbon pricing mechanism that drives greenhouse gas emissions reductions across most sectors of the economy. A steadily-rising fee (e.g. $50 per tonne on CO2 emissions) is placed on the carbon content of fossil fuels upstream – at the mine, well, or port of entry. Unlike a carbon tax where revenue goes back to the government, in a fee and dividend the entire net revenue generated by the carbon price is returned directly to every citizen through monthly ‘dividend’ payments.
There are several benefits to this approach:

BENEFITS​

• 
• Investors, producers, consumers and governments are all given an incentive to increase energy efficiency and reduce their consumption of carbon.
• The fee encourages greater investment, research and development and implementation of clean energy projects.
• The dividend (100% of revenue) would protect lower and middle income families, maintain public support and give consumers greater purchasing power, enabling all households to play their part in the mitigation of climate change.
• A dividend instead of a tax would distribute costs across the economy and stimulate economic growth, while giving a strong and positive signal to markets.
• A carbon fee would allow new business opportunities to develop, produce, install and service innovative energy projects and create thousands of new jobs.

https://au.citizensclimatelobby.org/australian-climate-dividend/

 

[qldfrog]

No matter how good any other approach might be technically

and this includes ICE , the narrative is EV, not hybrid, not hydrogen or efficient ICE so it will be in the west ;
funny thing is it could prove unfeasible but yet we will march on...
we can see west as one now, the EU and US/AU-NZ

 

[Smurf1976]

Certainly would be if such a tax raised billions of dollars for a government.

That's exactly what it does, fuel excise goes straight into consolidated revenue.

It's not a road user charge, it goes to the federal government not local councils who maintain most roads or states who do most of the rest, and it's at a rate too high, $184 per tonne of CO2 in the case of petrol and with GST on top, to be reasonably be considered as a sensible carbon tax especially given the lack of any comparable tax on other fossil fuels.

It's an issue that a future government will be forced to face. Excise revenue will diminish over time as EV's become more common and to the extent excise tax is still collected, it will in practice be mostly from the poorer half of society who tend to have older vehicles. A tax on those who don't have enough money to afford a modern car, which by then will by definition mean an EV. Politically, that's playing with fire no matter which side is in power at the time.

I intend that comment as a taxation one in regard to EV's not a political one since it applies equally regardless of which party's in government in the 2030's. At some point government's going to find itself forced to apply a user tax to EV's or drop the idea of taxing road travel altogether.

 

[basilio]

That's exactly what it does, fuel excise goes straight into consolidated revenue.

It's not a road user charge, it goes to the federal government not local councils who maintain most roads or states who do most of the rest, and it's at a rate too high, $184 per tonne of CO2 in the case of petrol and with GST on top, to be reasonably be considered as a sensible carbon tax especially given the lack of any comparable tax on other fossil fuels.

It's an issue that a future government will be forced to face. Excise revenue will diminish over time as EV's become more common and to the extent excise tax is still collected, it will in practice be mostly from the poorer half of society who tend to have older vehicles. A tax on those who don't have enough money to afford a modern car, which by then will by definition mean an EV. Politically, that's playing with fire no matter which side is in power at the time.

I intend that comment as a taxation one in regard to EV's not a political one since it applies equally regardless of which party's in government in the 2030's. At some point government's going to find itself forced to apply a user tax to EV's or drop the idea of taxing road travel altogether.

Fuel excise has always been an indirect tax which disproportionately hurt poorer people. In effect everyone who runs a car pays the same tax. I fully agree that in itself it is regressive and wrong.

However It would be interesting to hear some comment on the net neutral carbon tax and dividend proposal as fair way to redirect resources to low carbon alternatives.

The information is there. It doesn't raise taxes or overall costs because the individual dividend side of the equation redistributes the tax back to the community on a per head basis. It does however quickly change investment and consumption decisions by making high carbon products more expensive.

Home - Citizens' Climate Lobby Australia

au.citizensclimatelobby.org

 

[over9k]

That's exactly what it does, fuel excise goes straight into consolidated revenue.

It's not a road user charge, it goes to the federal government not local councils who maintain most roads or states who do most of the rest, and it's at a rate too high, $184 per tonne of CO2 in the case of petrol and with GST on top, to be reasonably be considered as a sensible carbon tax especially given the lack of any comparable tax on other fossil fuels.

It's an issue that a future government will be forced to face. Excise revenue will diminish over time as EV's become more common and to the extent excise tax is still collected, it will in practice be mostly from the poorer half of society who tend to have older vehicles. A tax on those who don't have enough money to afford a modern car, which by then will by definition mean an EV. Politically, that's playing with fire no matter which side is in power at the time.

I intend that comment as a taxation one in regard to EV's not a political one since it applies equally regardless of which party's in government in the 2030's. At some point government's going to find itself forced to apply a user tax to EV's or drop the idea of taxing road travel altogether.

I'm tipping it to be like when the power company comes & inspects your meter, just the odometer of your car instead.

 

[Smurf1976]

However It would be interesting to hear some comment on the net neutral carbon tax and dividend proposal as fair way to redirect resources to low carbon alternatives.

As I see it, the concept of taxing emissions is a very different one from the concept of taxing petrol specifically.

Emissions tax (or charge / price if we don't want to call it a tax) relies on the principle that all sources of CO2 are taxed (or priced) at the same rate per tonne emitted, thus encouraging a shift to options which emit the least (ideally no) CO2 in order to get the job done. Politically it's contentious but it can certainly be argued that there's a logical reasoning behind it and so on and especially so if it's revenue neutral.

Taxing petrol and diesel specifically, whilst not taxing any other source of emissions beyond a token amount at most, is a very different thing however. First because it is a significant revenue tax and second because, as EV's become more common, petrol ends up being a product mostly bought by the poorer half of society (some exceptions of course).

We're not there yet but at some point government's going to have to decide whether to tax EV's or to alternatively do away with the idea of taxing vehicle use altogether (offset by some other tax in practice).

 

[over9k]

Hah. If there's one thing governments do NOT do, it's lower taxes/costs/etc for the everyday joe.

They will continue to get their pound of flesh somehow.

 

[sptrawler]

Interesting article from someone with inside knowledge, that explains why government incentives shouldn't be used to push the BEV initiative.
As smurf and I have said the transition to renewables should be technically driven, not politically driven, that way the best outcome is achieved.
https://www.ft.com/content/8b6cd7b6-d817-4042-b6ee-aa4e40ebe40c

 

[Smurf1976]

As smurf and I have said the transition to renewables should be technically driven, not politically driven, that way the best outcome is achieved.

As smurf and I have said the transition to renewables should be technically driven, not politically driven, that way the best outcome is achieved.

It’s a situation where detail is crucial but, due to technical complexity, easily lost.

SA over the past 7 days there’s been approximately 25 hours with renewable energy going to waste and about 7 hours with diesel generators running. That says it all really - it crucial to get the detail of charging EV’s right if the benefits they offer are to be maximised. That requires a technical approach not a political one.

 

[sptrawler]

Which is why the Government jumping in with subsidies and incentives skews the outcome.
The Government not getting heavily involved at this stage is the best move IMO.
Let the technicals be fully sorted before commiting taxpayers money in a big way.
At the moment every clean energy product is pushing for government subsidies.
For the government to try and pick a winner at this point, is playing with fire, it could be a winner or it could blow up in their face.
Currently the government seems to be co funding all options, which seems to be the sensible option IMO

 

[basilio]

Bit of a problem for Hyundai . Seems they will need to recall and replace batteries in about 100,000 electric vehicles. Cars, Buses.
Ouch !!

Hyundai to replace electric car batteries after spate of fires, reports say

Hyundai reportedly agrees to replace batteries in all electric vehicles, including Kona and Ioniq, but it is not yet clear if this will extend to overseas markets such as Australia.

thedriven.io

 

[sptrawler]

I wonder if that will get splashed all over the news.

 

[sptrawler]

Fuel cells are the poor relative of E.V's at the moment, but they aren't going away.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/transport/sinopec-throws-itself-into-hydrogen-for-chinas-green-car-goals

 

[over9k]

FCEL

 

[Smurf1976]

I wonder if that will get splashed all over the news.

That depends on which news you read....

 

[Smurf1976]

Bit of a problem for Hyundai . Seems they will need to recall and replace batteries in about 100,000 electric vehicles. Cars, Buses.

Hopefully that's only relevant to LG batteries installed in EV's and doesn't apply to other LG batteries.

I've got one one installed at home. An LG battery that is, not a Hyundai EV, hence the thought.