COP26: Germany fails to sign up to 2040 combustion engine phaseout

The German car lobby is very powerful. But not powerful enough to prevent the implosion of their business.<p>There are two types of car companies in Germany: those on track to switch to fully electric production in the next 5-10 years; and those nowhere near on track that are very afraid of the implosion of their market share as those others are saturating the market with EVs. That&#x27;s not a future thing; it&#x27;s already happening.<p>So, the Germans committing to any ICE phaseout would speed this process up and mess with the (long) time they&#x27;ve given themselves to get out of this mess. The problem with that timeline is that they no longer control it. The transition is happening, whether they like it or not.<p>Tesla was within a few hundred cars of dethroning the VW Golf as the most popular car in Germany. VWs iconic Wolfsburg plant, which was restored by the allied forces after WW II, is hitting a record low production volume this year at the same time Tesla is opening up a factory in Germany. That&#x27;s not a coincidence. And VW is one of the better prepared manufacturers. They actually have a decent shot at surviving the transition to EVs. But that&#x27;s not necessarily true of the other manufacturers.

A total shift to electric vehicles in less than 20 years sounds quite optimistic if I&#x27;m being honest. Not signing something you know you can&#x27;t meet sounds like a fair choice.

I feel the big takeaway from COP26 and its predecessor events is that realistically, we simply won&#x27;t do anything on a global scale to reduce CO2 emissions to any sustainable level. Not without China participating, not without nations making any genuine commitments, not with the lax timetables proposed and the various fossil interest lobbies blocking. This is simply not happening.<p>The upside is, that once we accept that this is not happening we can move on from these attempts and fully focus on technologies that capture&#x2F;remove carbon from the air. This one to efficiently convert CO2 into starch (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;newatlas.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;artificial-synthesis-starch-from-co2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;newatlas.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;artificial-synthesis-starch-fro...</a>) comes to mind. I have no insight of my own to contribute, but David Friedberg argued on the all in podcast that a 25 square-mile areal of these would be enough to capture all CO2 currently in the atmosphere. (again, just quoting, not able to verify this myself)

From the lead paragraph and worth noting, Germany is not alone: &quot;But a number of major automaking countries — including China, the US and Germany — are not on board.&quot;

I guess that could change with the new German government. Also worth noting is that Daimler, Ford and GM are on-board with it. Assuming car makers from other countries are good with that, that would mean the vast majority of manufacturers support it. No idea why BMW and VW are against it, especially VW is pushing hard towards EVs.

It’s absolutely unrealistic dream removing all petrol and diesel cars from the roads. And politicians know that very well. The charging infrastructure must be built at first. I moved to a nice village this year in wealthy region in Germany. And guess what, the cables between substations and houses are often 50-60 years old. There are mostly 2-3 cars for each house. Normally a house with 2 cars needs additional 50 kWh every day (no statistics, just a guess). Assuming that these cars will be charged 10 hours during night and ignoring losses every house needs thicker cables for additional 5 kW power. I here not willing to start with energy generation issues. I am not so sure about large scale electric vehicle adoption in Germany in close future. My neighbors just laugh when I mention interest in Dacia Spring or electric Twingo.

If Germany will not commit to combustion engine phaseout their market will dwindle.<p>Not only countries will be banning combustion engines, but major cities too.<p>Also, probably by 2030 we will have big switch towards self-driving cars, by 2040 self-driving cars will dominate across all developed economies.

Makes sense. Nobody (aside from special cases) will be buying combustion engines by then anyway. The &quot;signing up&quot; is pointless.<p>Just as pointless as some countries <i>cough cough</i> agreeing to things, forcing other countries to ratify them, and then ratifying it themselves.

Not sure how it actually &quot;feels&quot; in other countries but I know exactly 2 or 3 people in Germany who own an electric car (and one of them may not even, anymore).<p>I&#x27;m living in an apartment building and the closest place to charge it would be in front of a supermarket. I don&#x27;t think my landlord would do something for the rented parking spots, and those are even the exception because road parking is the norm.<p>Don&#x27;t take this pessimistic outlook as being against any of this, but without owning (or renting) a house with a garage I simply don&#x27;t see how charging would realistically work. Maybe I&#x27;m living in the wrong part of the city but even in other parts the charging points are far and between.

&quot;Fails&quot;?<p>DW is now world police?

Good. They are taking the freedom off the lower classes in the name of nonspecific future threats.

How would the general population afford electric vehicles? Are people fine with only certain classes of society being able to afford private transport, the plebs can use public transport if they need to go anywhere. Public transport isn&#x27;t safe in developed nations and anyone that can, uses private transport in developing ones. There&#x27;s no nice way of saying it but anyone that&#x27;s onboard with this is retarded to how the real world works.

This article is misleading right from the outset, and it has clearly misled a number of readers who have already commented here.<p>combustion engine phaseout ≠ total shift to emission-free vehicles<p>What&#x27;s wrong exactly with an ICE that uses clean and sustainable fuel? This is what Formula 1 is aiming for. There&#x27;s nothing wrong with internal combustion <i>per se</i>. It&#x27;s just the fuel we are currently using being harmful for the environment and unsustainable that is an issue.<p>Although I suspect as usual this point will be particularly unpopular with the HN crowd, as it seems anything less than full electric is the Antichrist.