The largest union in Germany, IG Metall, has along with the car industry association VDA now called on Germany’s politicians and government to aid in the shift to electric vehicles — but also to not “force” the phaseout of internal combustion engine vehicles — according to recent reports.
The Vice President of Finance and Controlling at Mercedes-Benz Cars, Frank Lindenberg, was recently quoted at one of Daimler’s investor meetings as saying that electric vehicles may be only half as profitable as diesel or petrol/gas-powered cars at first.
China’s vice minister of industry and information technology, Xin Guobin, has announced that the Chinese government is currently working on a timeline to end both the production and sales of fossil fuel vehicles. The bold move comes as the government struggles to respond to public outcry in major Chinese cities struggling with crippling air pollution.
The government of Scotland is currently planning to phase out the sale of new petrol/gasoline and diesel cars by the year 2032 — a full 8 years earlier than the current plans from the UK government. This plan was recently revealed by Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
Several countries have now announced or considered plans to ban gas- and diesel-powered cars by a certain year. These eventual bans are certainly welcome and helpful from a messaging and persuasion standpoint, but if you look at the expected exponential growth curve of electric car adoption, banning polluting cars in 2040 or 2050 doesn’t actually look like a very bold move. More or less, it looks like that will happen anyway from simple market forces.
The most recent cover story in The Economist announces, “The death of the internal combustion engine… it had a good run. But the end is in sight.” In a remarkable account, The Economist reports that the internal combustion engine’s “days are numbered. Rapid gains in battery technology favour electric motors instead. … Today’s electric cars, powered by lithium-ion batteries, can do much better.”
“We are announcing an end to the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040,” Nicolas Hulot, France’s new ecology minister, said last month, adding that the move was a “veritable revolution.” It looks like England may follow suit. Jesse Norman, from England’s Department for Transport has announced, “a manifesto commitment for almost all cars and vans on our roads to be zero emission by 2050. We believe this would necessitate all new cars and vans being zero emission vehicles by 2040.” How many countries are actually moving in the direction of eventual gas and diesel car bans?
The government of Germany is, in principle, open to the idea of class action lawsuits against the auto manufacturers involved in the diesel emissions cheating scandal, a spokesperson for the country’s Transport Ministry has revealed.
In response to the announcement by the UK government that the sale of new diesel- and petrol/gas-powered cars will be banned by 2040, a spokesperson for the German government was quoted as saying that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned many times against “demonizing” diesel cars.
The German auto manufacturers BMW and Audi and the truck manufacturer MAN have agreed with the German state of Bavaria to work to reduce diesel vehicle pollution — both with regard to reducing emissions from older vehicles, and also with regard to incentivizing the sale of newer cars that emits less pollution.
