Daimler: Will Sell 100,000 Electric Cars Per Year By 2020… But Praises Diesel & Gas Cars
Originally published on EV Obsession.
Daimler’s electric mobility sales will grow to more than 100,000 units a year by 2020, according to Professor Dr Thomas Weber, head of Daimler Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development for the last 12 years.
In a recent interview, Weber noted that the company’s plans call for a diversity of technologies to be deployed — plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), gasoline-powered vehicles, diesel vehicles, all-electrics (EVs), hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles, etc.
Other “interesting” comments included Weber’s assertion that diesel vehicles most certainly do have a future, especially in Europe.
“We are sure it does! Especially in Europe, diesel engines are the most economical and efficient alternative for those who drive a lot. Our new premium diesel models are more fuel efficient and more powerful, lighter and more compact than ever before — and they are designed to meet all future emission standards worldwide. Diesel engines in trucks and cars are indispensable if traffic-related CO2 emissions are to be cut further.”
Similar comments were made about gasoline-powered (petrol) vehicles….
“It too has undergone a remarkable development in the last ten years, internal friction, variable valve timing, direct injection and turbocharging, just to name a few. And it will make further progress — with the introduction of petrol particulate filters as standard, and especially with the introduction of the 48-volt systems. Please keep in mind: We managed to cut the fuel consumption of our vehicle fleet practically by half within 20 years thanks to the rigorous advancement of the internal combustion engines. We will continue on this path, because the internal combustion engine and electrification are not in competition with each other. They are perfect partners for many use cases. For example, the general weakness of petrol engines in the area of efficiency under partial load is overcome with the hybridization and this blows the door for further downsizing wide open.”
Hard to know what to make of these three assertions (more than 100,000 election sales a year by 2020; diesel vehicles will continue widespread use; petrol cars will continue widespread use) when taken together. How serious is the company about a cleaner future with a transition to electric vehicles?
Comments about all-electrics included this one: “An electric vehicle is certainly not the right answer yet for people who regularly drive long distances between cities or on the motorway. But who actually does that? In reality, the usage profile of many cars is actually quite different.”
Is Weber oblivious to the existence of Tesla’s vehicles? Or just refusing to acknowledge them?
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Man. That’s a lot of electric smart cars….
Tesla says “Oh good, more B Class drivetrains.”
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X, S or wait for the S-class EV?
This is ridiculous, he must know exactly how damaging petrol and diesel cars are to the environment. Especially, when compared to electric vehicles fed from a grid which is already at 30+% renewable/clean and improving rapidly.
They don’t want their petrol/diesel to collapse, that is why they tout their old, polluting technology.
I hope many EU states start banning at least on diesels soon.
100,000 electric cars in 2020 versus Tesla’s 500,000 in 2018… it’s clear which one is actually interested in gaining market share.
Tesla is talking close to 1 million EVs per year by 2020.
Musk should send Daimler a big bouquet of flowers and thank you note for being willing to let Tesla take their market.
Yeah we just look at this the wrong way. Daimler is amazing. First they save Tesla from becoming bankrupt and then they actually let Tesla take their market. So nice!
I love Daimler. They saved Tesla from going bankrupt. I think the flowers are well deserved.
How many will Tesla sell in 2016? How many were sold in 2015?
Tesla produced about 35,000 EVs in 2014 and just over 50,000 EVs in 2015.
Their second assembly line started operating late in the year. 2016 production might be (my guess) somewhere above 70,000.
Their factory is currently gearing up for 500,000 in 2018. That was their plan for 2020 but the high number of reservations caused them to speed up their growth.
100k “plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), all-electrics (EVs), hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles”
Want to bet the plan is a lot of hybrids.
It’s fear combined with economical restrictions. None of the big German OEMs is willing to support a rapid change away from ICEs to EVs. Why should they? The customers are still believing the official consumption figures and the EU / the
individual nations are not willing to change the test procedures. On the other
hand fuel is cheap.
And if you are talking to the normal people you will always hear:’ But the range, what if I (once in a lifetime?) have to drive a long distance?’. It’s about the mindset
not about facts.
Best example my wife: Not contra EV but: ‘Yes, but…’ Last week she and her Golf Gti (with a certain power upgrade) have been blown away by a Model S and she came home and told my: ‘Good choice to reserve a Model S, but to be sure we will buy the performance version’.
It’s about the mindset.
Cost???????
It is mainly still a range problem, especially in Germany. We drive too fast. Twice the range of the current Teslas at the same price and it would be a real competition for upper class Audis etc.. Not yet there.
Looks to me as if Teslas are competing reasonably well with “upper class” German cars in Germany.
No, thy don´t. This comparison is completely wrong. A8, 7 series and S class are a different segment. More expensive, luxury models, much higher build quality. Tesla S is a rival for A7/A6, 5 maybe 6 series and E class.
Friend of mine moved from a 530d and is not really happy with the range. If he uses the Tesla at similar speeds, he gets only 200 to 250 km he said.
Model S is the same price range as 7-series and S-class. Starting at about 80k€ and going up to about 150k€.
On their US website the A8 starts at $81,500 and the fanciest model starts at $114,900.
The A7 starts at $68,300 and the fanciest model starts at $108,900.
The Model S 70 starts at $66,000, the S 90 starts at $89,500 and the S 90D starts at $109,500.
The S and A8 clearly are selling in the same price range.
Here are Audi A8 European sales numbers from the year before the Model S was introduced through 2015….
2011 = 8.991
2012 = 6.803
2013 = 5.486
2014 = 6.556
2015 = 6.717
And here are the A7 European sales numbers for the same period…
2011 = 18.381
2012 = 11.393
2013 = 8.986
2014 = 8.473
2015 = 10.196
I hope he stays with the Tesla.
That way, at least, he doesn’t poison the air around him. When I am on bike and a 530d class of diesel car gets next to me in slow trafic, I literally choke sometimes from the horrific fumes they put out. I certainly thank him for switching to an EV.
I agree, my Audi isn´t better and I am a cyclist too. Electric drive train is the way to go only the energy source has to change.
They are mainly talking about fuel cell EV and the fact that Germany and France are moving to green hydrogen now.
That’s kind of stretching the facts.
Germany is starting to install 100 hydrogen stations. California started to install hydrogen stations and it fizzled out.
Toyota has sold only 240 Mirais in the US. I’ve seen no enthusiasm for the car. Perhaps Germans will be more interested but I’m not sure why.
Germany is starting to build 400 new hydrogen stations. The Mirai is an ugly car which won´t be selling well in Europe. I like the Audi A7 h-tron. Also don´t like the GLC-FC. Audi recently made a statement that they will focus on fuel cell too and see a market shift around 2025.
400 is a long term plan. Germany is starting on the first phase, 100 stations.
Starting to build stations says nothing about whether people will opt for hydrogen FCEVs. It might happen if hydrogen remains untaxed at the rates put on gasoline and diesel. But hydrogen can never become as inexpensive as electricity.
I’m not sure how FCEVs will work out in terms of range. Since you think the Tesla 320 mile range (at lower speeds) is too low for Germans clearly the 312 mile range of the Mirai won’t work. Could Mercedes cram more H2 tank space into their FCEV?
50 stations till 2017..
How many are there now? 14?15?.
I live near the only H2 Station in Austria.
If everything would have worked out like it was planned there would be hundreds already.
Now it’s practically over for H2.
One Audi won’t be enough. You also need a good battery to get some performance out of the FCEV. Nobody will body to refill when he got over 100km EV range. The tanks are bulky, cooling needs another 60l, the cells are heavy and expensive, the hydrogene is expensive and hard to handle.
It’s clear that this has no future.
Germans won’t buy FCEVs for many other reasons.
You will not be able to travel outside of Germany anyways…
Fueling time is one of the most misunderstood things about FCEVs. It’s regarded as an asset when it’s actually a liability.
With a FCEV every time you drain down your hydrogen tanks you have to take time out of your schedule to drive to a filling station and tank up.
EV drivers simply don’t have that aggravation in their lives.
What is difficult to understand about “4 minutes vs. 45 minutes”? LOL
But we can stop this conversation, you are clearly a Tesla sales guy and I wont buy one as long as I drive on German highways. 🙂
The time to plug in when one parks is 15 seconds or less. If one uses wireless charging then the time is zero.
The time to drive to a H2 filling station, get out, fuel the car, and get back on track is far more than four minutes.
Most drivers take a daily trip exceeding the Tesla range rarely. They might encounter the need for a 30 minute (charge from 10% to 80%) two to four times a year.
The FCEV driver is going to be taking time out multiple times a month for refueling.
Personally I don’t give a flying fig what you drive and how you spend your money. But I do care about you spreading misinformation on this site. And don’t accuse me of selling anything again.
Who is “most drivers”? You have clearly no idea about driving habits in Germany. People don´t buy it for usability reasons. We have 45 mio. cars on the roads, how many EV? 20k.
Here’s the driving pattern for US drivers.
German drivers average far fewer miles per year than do US drivers. Clearly German drivers are not piling up a lot of > 200 mile driving days.
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So why do EVs not sell here? What do you think?
Fact is, the part of EV here is about 0.04 %. That´s why we think, we should change something. And we will.
You can’t get a plug but you can change everything to get fuelcell cars going?
EVs sell a lot better than FCEVs.
We’re less than a year away from a long range EV that will sell for less than $40k. And a second EV should join that one a few months later. EVs are starting to reach a scale at which prices can come down. We’re probably no more than five years away from a long range EV selling for well under $30k.
Sure, cause there are no FCEV and not too many fuel stations yet. And who is “we”? Tesla? 🙂
The BMW i3 is already there for about 35k. So what? Not a big success yet even if it is a really cute car and fun to drive. You don´t see the real problem: usability.
Poor baby, you’ve run out of talking points and now you’re grasping at straws.
You know that we know that you know that the i3 isn’t a long range EV. It’s a short range city car and starting price in the US is $42,400.
(And it’s kind of an ugly little toad….)
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https://g.foolcdn.com/editorial/images/141229/image2_large_1_large.jpg
But it matches our “driving pattern myth”, that you are trying to sell here. Even though it is just a theory and nobody never believed it. Actually the i3 is a great car, if people would have charging options, it would sell much better. I like it much more than Teslas “Mazda copy” you call “Model 3”.
No great or even really good EV made by a German company. Germans buy German made cars. It really is that simple.
True. Cause they fit into our way of driving. And EV don´t. FCEV will.
So Daimler just announced a 500 km EV platform.
Guess that shows they know nothing about how Germans drive….
They just announced the development project and when Daimler says 500 km, it probably will be 500 km on german highways under real conditions. Not 500 californian km which turn into 200 km here. Anyway, this is all lab only for now and might get into production if (!) improved battery and charging technologies will be available.
For real life, to buy and to drive, soon, the GLC with fuel cell was announced for early 2017.
It is not difficult to understand what you are saying only it is wrong because you don’t consider important things that you should. As a result, you come off as someone very partial to FCVs.
An EV owner typically charges at home so they have nearly zero refueling time in typical use (90%+) since you only connect the charger when you get home in the afternoon and find your car fully charged in the morning when you leave. An EV owner is faced with bigger refueling times on long trips, in which case your comparison stands but this is 10%- of the time in typical use (in my case, even less, maybe 5%).
Currently, for an EV, you should have a charger at home, otherwise it you would always have to look for chargers at your destination (too big a compromise). With a home charger, typical daily use is covered.
FC cars cannot be refueled at home so you always need to go to an H2 fueling station. You need to account for the time needed to get to the fueling station and back. Given the fact that H2 stations are extremely sparsely populated in Europe at the moment (and everywhere else in the world), visiting the station takes a lot of your time and available range of your FC car. Touting the 5min H2 refueling time is laughable at the moment. Maybe when we have an H2 station at every corner.
Even the best-served parts of the EU (France, Germany, UK) have very-very few H2 stations with huge gaps in-between, making FCVs completely impractical at the moment (for most people). Other, huge parts of the EU have no H2 stations at all. H2 networks should grow 100-fold to become practical and at $3-5 million per station, nobody will commercially start building a network.
A 200-mile Bolt would cover practically 100% of my driving (even most of my holiday driving) and I can charge at home without any actual refueling time. Even short-range, current gen EVs are completely practical in/around EU cities if you can charge at home.
Right, you are describing the status-quo, but this will be changed now where I live. I can´t charge a BEV at home and about 80 % of the german population can´t. If enough hydrogen filling stations are available, probably around 2018, I can use a FCEV exactly as my current diesel. And so can all the other 80 % of my neighbors, who don´t have any option to charge a BEV at home. This will be the better solution for all of us and since we produce hydrogen based on wind energy excess, it is 100 % emission free. And I don´t understand why there are some people here who try to argue about that!? You should all be happy about this zero-emission solution we create here in Germany, if you are really interested in keeping CO2 down.
Where do you get that 80% from?
It’s around 50% of people that don’t have access to home charging and much less car owners that don’t.
But it’s easy to create charging spots.
Why would these neighbors of yours be interested in expensive cars when there is a cheaper, cleaner and more efficient solution?
I can not create a charging point. NOT at all, OK? Why do people do things ? Cause they stick to their habits if they are useful. FCEV will be at the same price level by time. And they are not less efficient and they are not less clean. Why did ICV blast away BEV in the first place? It is only usability in the end. Just produce hydrogen from RE enough, there is no other comprehensive storage option anyway.
There are already charging points everywhere. On every parking lot, every Parkgarage and many other public places.
There will be charging spots in the streets eventually.
That’s much more efficient than creating hydrogen, compressing it, trucking it and feeding it to your fuelcell to charge a battery which could have been charged in the first place with clean electricity of which you just wasted around 40-50%.
Not to mention the money you just wasted.
For now you are using steam reformed fossil hydrogen for 10€/kg anyways. A kg will take you 50-120km. H2 from electrolysis is about 20-30€/kg.
Quite expensive compared to fueling up with cheap electricity.
Nope. There are no charging points anywhere near here and we use only excess wind energy to produce hydrogen. Energy which would be wasted otherwise. And on the move to 100 % RE we will stabilize the grid with hydrogen anyway in the future. H2 gas turbines in the 500 MW class are currently in development. The most recent study from Fraunhofer ISE showed a path for the european grid which will be partly tested now. If you are in Austria, you maybe speak German. Just look for Energiepark Mainz.
That’s completely inefficient on it’s own.
There are lots of things in development and there are grid scale batteries built to stabilize the grid. They have a round-trip efficiency in excess of 90%.
Hydrolysis is 60% efficient, the turbine maybe 50%…see where you get there?
You need 55kWh for 1kg H2 plus 9l of clean water. A problem on it’s own in some countries.
That’s all pretty expensive. What do you figure would be the Auslastung of that thing? Will there ever be enough excess energy that this wastefull process will ever make sense? I doubt that.
I’d go and install a battery and soak up the cheapest electricity first…more efficient and more valuable to the grid than H2 turbines.
PowerToGas yes because we got the grid and can use it for heating and process heat.
Electrolysis is already at about 80 % and batteries are far from 90 % if you consider total energy balance. That is not a big difference in the end. Heating with p2g is extremely inefficient compared to grid-scale fuel cells in chp mode. 80 % already, 90 % possible. In total still better than our current coal/oil chp plants. Don´t forget, we have a lot central heating based on hot water. “Everything electric” does not work in Europe. Only 30 % so far. Want to rebuild the grid to triple capacity? Really?
It’s a huge difference and 80% doesn’t change anything when you consider the rest of your system. Your round-trip efficiency will be well below 40%.
Total energy balance? What do you mean? At least there is much less inertia than in the turbine setup.
I don’t think you realize how inefficient H2 FCEVs are. Or maybe you do and just don’t want to admit it.
Anyway, here’s how it plays out. If you want to drive a H2 FCEV then you’re going to have to purchase about 3x as much electricity as someone driving an EV.
And you’re going to have to pay for the infrastructure to produce, compress, store and distribute that H2.
There’s a simple economic reason that FCEVs are almost certainly not part of our futures. They are simply too expensive to drive compared to EVs.
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I think you have no idea about thermodynamics? Please apply for some lessons to understand what “combined heat power” means for what you call “efficiency”? FC in that mode get up to over 80 %. More than any coal or oil plant can do. You don´t understand that because you do everything electric in the states. The biggest energy fail on the planet and the reason why US per capita energy consumption doubles the rest of the civilized world.
That “excess electricity” fantasy. I can’t believe people still try to push that idea.
First, we will need some storage. Storage will suck up supply peaks. As will EVs.
People with an average daily driving pattern (~35 miles in the US, lower in Germany) will be very comfortable with a morning minimum of 100 or so miles in their batteries on normal driving days. That means that when there is a supply peak those EVs can grab the electricity that storage doesn’t get first and pack it away. Then avoid charging at higher rates. There will be other opportunistic loads.
You can’t run a hydrogen industry on “excess” energy. Plants cost money to build and to operate. They would need to keep running 24/365. Hydrogen, if it happened, would be another industry operating on industrial priced electricity.
The “average driving pattern myth”. Can´t believe that people still try to sell these fairy tales. If you were right, everybody would go for BEV. In fact, we are below 1 %. BEV are an epic fail. They were 100 years ago and they will be again in a couple of years. Hydrogen on excess energy is only for the transition, to enter the hydrogen economy. You´ll see. And if the US want´s to reduce the per capita energy consumption from being twice as high as in the rest of the world, they need to follow this path too. From this point of view It is ridiculous that americans even talk about efficiency. Almost as ridiculous as american cars were, until Elon Musk found the holy grail of mobility. He thought. Hilarious.
You trolled your last troll….
Deutschland ist eben in dieser Hinsicht noch ein Entwicklungsland. Das geht aber ganz schnell. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f9686607c26003c411603d91faa2c52eeb4db252cd1c28a6f1630ce0e40f86c.jpg
Whatever. Tesla S sales in western Germany are almost as high as S-Class sales.
” 98k. For the same price I could have bought a Model S with all features”
No you couldn’t. Unless you’re talking about a S60 or S70. And in that case you would not have gotten all the features.
I live in Germany. The price range is about the same. Comparing features doesn’t matter, it’s all about the price. Someone who buys a Model S will most likely have looked at the A8/7-series/s-class before.
If two sedans cost the same they are on the same level. One model may be better in one area and the other in another area.
And yes I know that the Model S still lacks some interior quality and features.
Where in Germany do you live? I got an offer for an A7 at the almost the same rate as my A6. A8 would have been far more expensive. Even with the same 3.0 diesel engine. Audi Munich, 6 months ago. Tesla offer was 10k lower.
I’m just comparing online prices.
Even if they would be on different levels, the Model S still takes sales from other high-end cars away.
Thing is you only need chargers along routes but you will need much more H2 stations.
Charging is getting faster also. Some already can do 0-80% in 18 minutes. The guys at Kreisel have states 5 minutes as their goal.
With 500-600km batteries charging is a non issue anyways and most drivers will never need a fast charger.
People will just go for the cheaper solution. Why should they want FCEVs?
A super charger in Prague would be 50k€ and takes some days to built and deploy. An H2 station 700k-1000k€.
H2 will fizzle out eventually.
Here’s the Tesla Supercharger map for the end of 2016. I count about 60 in Germany.
Of course one can’t make a direct comparison between H2 stations and rapid charger stations. FCEVs have to do 100% of their fill-ups at stations, EVs need a rapid charge only on days when they are taking long trips.
It probably works out that one SC is equal to ten or more H2 stations. Based on EV drivers likely doing more than 90% of their charging while parked.
Then there’s the issue of how many FCEVs hydrogen stations can actually fill per day. If the H2 production is done on site the rate is low.
“According to the California Air Resources Board, those stations will have a maximum fueling capacity of 180 kilograms of hydrogen per day.
That’s enough to fill 36 Toyota Mirai vehicles completely each day; the Mirai has a stated fuel capacity of 5 kg.
In other words, while the refueling process itself will likely take less than 10 minutes–or a total of six hours for those 36 Mirais–the other 18 hours is required for the necessary hydrogen to be generated and compressed.”
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1099548_gas-electricity-hydrogen-how-many-cars-can-fuel-and-what-will-it-cost
That’s similar to the number a Japanese H2 station can service.
A Tesla SC has, typically, 6 or 8 bays. At one car per 30 minutes that would be 336 EVs charged (30 min each and 7 bays). One every 30 minutes is a bit high, it doesn’t leave time for one vehicle to move out and another to move in. But with autonomous driving we should see quick turnover times.
So 1:10 based on need to charge. Perhaps 1: 250 given a more reasonable switchover time. That sounds like one SC facility equals over 2,000 H2 stations.
Tesla is not the only company installing charge outlets in Europe.
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Great calculation Bob, I never considered the required SC stations / number of EVs this way but it is absolutely true that most of the EV charging will be at home and in ordinary parking spots (with low/medium level chargers)
Many posters seem to forget that the main consideration when buying a car should be the environment. It is not the cost of the car, the speed, the looks, the sound, it’s the environment.
If you don’t understand this you have not been paying attention!!
The main consideration when buying a car is if it will get you around.
If you are really concerned about the environment you don’t use cars at all.
We can reasonably assume that any car will get you around. We can also assume that people are going to continue buying cars.
Therefore considering the environment should be your first priority because some cars are better than others.
The general public will not put environmental considerations first. Just ain’t gonna happen.
The way we get the general public to drive environmentally friendly cars is to make those cars more desirable. That’s Tesla’s goal. Attractive, safe, fun to drive EVs that cost less per mile to operate and (will eventually) cost less to purchase.
It’s gonna happen all right but by then it will be too late. Unless, of course, that 100% of the worlds peer-reviewed climate scientist are wrong.
Well, yes, if we can’t move people into low carbon cars in time then by the time they agree to buy green cars it may be too late.
But I don’t think that’s something we need to worry much about. EVs should hit purchase price parity around 2020 and then should become cheaper to manufacturer than ICEVs. They are already much cheaper to operate.
Economics should start pushing people into EVs within about five years. Smooth, quiet rides will push others. Avoiding filling stations will motivate some. And blazing acceleration will be the driver for other drivers.
I’m not worrying much about personal transportation or electricity any longer. My concerns are turning toward flight and ocean shipping.
We are going to find out and 20 years should do it.
Twenty years to reach zero CO2 emissions? That’s an extreme position.
There’s a large range of assumptions of how quickly we have to reach Z-CO2. I’m somewhat comfortable with the IPCC’s 2050 but think we should really be aiming for 2040, just in case.
Based on the amount of energy that is going into improving renewable technologies I suspect the job will get easier pretty much every year going forward. It might look really hard to reach Z-CO2 by 2040 right now but chances are good that our solar panels will be more efficient as will our wind turbines and as time goes on it will become easier and easier to replace a coal or natural gas plant with renewables.
I meant that in 20 years we will know if all the pissing around we are doing now will lead to a global disaster. CO2 levels will still be well above 400.
I’d say there’s a possibility that 20 years from now we might find we’ve done too little. But I can’t make very good predictions that far out.
Let’s look back 20 years. 1996. Solar and wind were very expensive. The batteries we had just weren’t adequate for EVs and they were very expensive. Our computers were crude by today’s standards. And we still took pictures with film.
We’re fairly sure that solar, wind and battery prices will continue to fall over the next few years which will make renewable electricity cheaper than what we paid for coal and nuclear in the past. There’s a very good chance that EVs will become cheaper to manufacturer than ICEVs in the next ten years.
Put all that together and we should be well on our way toward abandoning fossil fuels 20 years from now. And that requires no new inventions, just modest changes to what we already have.
We’ve got smart people working to find ways to make renewable energy generation more efficient. And looking for ways to make energy use more efficient. If they find things then our progress accelerates.
We’ve got smart people working on ideas as to how we could pull significant amounts of CO2 back out of the atmosphere and re-sequester it. We don’t know if they will come up with solutions.
I think what we need to do is to worry about the next five years. We need to reach peak CO2 emissions (we’re close) and slow our rate of emission. I think we’re in the period in which the goal is to quit making things worse. And then we move into the period of making things better.
Volkswagen CEO Müller just said today that are expecting 25% of the market to be electric by 2025.
Looks promising, maybe things are going to turn very fast now.
I think that as soon as EVs dip to about 10% more than same-model ICEVs the switch will happen very quickly. Well more than 50% of the population is concerned about climate change and if they can do something personally that does not cost them much then they will make different car decision rather than continue with oil.
At about $28k vs. $25 an EV becomes very attractive. The fuel savings covers the extra loan payment. Add in the quality of ride, convenience of not having to go to stations to fuel up, and the low maintenance requirements and I’m thinking more that 25% by 2025. If companies can supply EVs in those numbers.
Also being able to put up your own panels and reduce the cost further is a great incentive.
It won’t work! 20 years ago atmospheric CO2 was 380ppm, today it is over 400. There is no evidence that it will not be 420ppm in 20 years as the rate of atmospheric CO2 is still increasing.
Even if the level was 400ppm in 20 years this is enough to melt all the ice over time, that’s 230 feet. Might be difficult driving around in your classic Tesla S.
To suggest that we have “smart people working” on pulling 40,000,000,000 tons of CO out of the air per year as well as the other 800,000,000,000 billion tons to get us down to 350ppm is unrealistic.
PS: We are way past peak CO2 emissions.
I don’t think there is sufficient data to support the claim that we are past peak CO2 emissions. We seem to be at plateau CO2 emissions but it will take a few more years (and some downturn) to confirm that we’ve passed the peak.
And you contradict yourself. Earlier in the comment you said – “There is no evidence that it will not be 420ppm in 20 years as the rate of atmospheric CO2 is still increasing.”
Huhhh. We are past peak CO2 emissions because the planet is warming. That is indisputable. There is also evidence that emissions are increasing faster than ever, look it up.
Right, there is no evidence that it will not be 420ppm in 20 years, the rate we had in the past 20 years. Which is to say that our efforts to slow CO2 emissions are a complete failure and no amount of smart people are going to change this.
420ppm in 20 years will be a disaster and no amount of BS today will change this.
Peak CO2 emissions is the year in which the world emits the most CO2.
Warming is lagging CO2 emissions. After we hit peak and after emission levels start declining we will still experience warming.
CO2 emissions peak in Europe in 1991, IIRC. CO2 emissions peaked in the US in 2005. CO2 emissions may have peaked in China in 2014. Global CO2 emissions may have peaked, we need a few more years to make sure.
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Let’s try the China graph again…
http://ecowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/chinachart1_750.jpg
Here, B.F. I plotted up global CO2 by year just for you. See how emissions are flattening out?
Some countries/regions are still increasing but that’s largely offset (or more than offset) by drops in other countries.
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Here’s some more info on China…
https://robertscribbler.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/china-co2-emissions-per-year-by-source.jpg?w=600
Here in my country the government has been telling us for years that the government is “carbon neutral”, that is BS. Of course it is a shock to learn that governments routinely lie to us.
There is only one CO2 emission peak. The peak that will result in a long term survivable planet and that is less than 350ppm atmospheric carbon, probably closer to 300ppm.
If you think that the various peaks you describe are accurate or meaningful while the rate of atmospheric carbon continues to increase past 400ppm then you are part of the problem.
As I said, in about 20 years we will know what 100% of the worlds peer-reviewed climate scientist have already told us.
Our current climate change efforts are woefully inadequate and there is nothing on the horizon that indicates we will get to 350 or 300ppm in the foreseeable future.
Bob, look at the graph below. This is global CO2 emissions for 2006 through 2015.
Look at the last two data points. There was only a 0.1% increase from 2014 to 2015. The curve from about 2011 to 2015 bends toward zero increase.
Based on what is happening in various countries around the world there is an excellent change that we’re reaching peak CO2 right now. 2016 may be up some because we are exiting a very large El Nino and the very warm upwelling brings extra CO2 with it. But that should be past by 2017 and we may see a downward movement, a slowing of emissions.
We have to stop before we can reduce.
If the Tesla’s learn to drive themselves, then taxi service should get much cheaper, so many may not buy a car at all, and then it could happen much faster. Imagine if the car knew when to get you based on your smartphone app sending GPS, then it could be very fast and convenient, and could even arrange the car pooling, making it even cheaper. Then a couple of city ordanences about them having to be all electric, and you get there fast.