[hserus]

Only zero emission vehicles to be allowed after that. So the country that was the birthplace of the engine has decided to ban it in another 14 years.

http://gizmodo.com/german-lawmakers-...-en-1787574000

[sgiitk]

I take it as no more than a message of intent. Things are often done for the headlines, with little thought.

[hserus]

If it was any other country than the very literal minded and rule driven Germany I might agree - in this case I fear they're serious.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I take it as no more than a message of intent. Things are often done for the headlines, with little thought.

Originally Posted by hserus

If it was any other country than the very literal minded and rule driven Germany I might agree - in this case I fear they're serious.

Agree with Hserus. If this were our law makers then sgiitk's comment would hold true. But this is Germany and this is an economy with one of the two most technologically advanced automotive industries in the world - the other being Japan (in my opinion). More importantly as a nation they are capable of getting there. In Germany 70% of the electrical supply to the grid comes from renewable sources - 40% Wind, 14% Hydro, 16% Solar!!! - so they will see a drop in carbon emissions if they eliminate the internal combustion engines from the roads. Exciting times ahead. Change is the only constant. I welcome this and look forward to the developments. We will also have to simultaneously solve for the disposal or re-cycling of batteries.

Scene in 2045: My grandchild, all of 8 years old, looks under the bonnet of my vintage 2010 Honda Jazz which has a special 'amateur ICE enthusiast's permit' and asks, "Dada what is this black metal thing under the bonnet? why don't you have an air purifier here?" In 2045 all cars will not only have to be green but carry an air cleaner to do their micro bit to clean the air every time they run to cure the mess made by earlier generations.

[redbaron91]

Originally Posted by hserus

If it was any other country than the very literal minded and rule driven Germany I might agree - in this case I fear they're serious.

This should be on a serious note, because it's Germany and I agree with Hserus.

All the 3 major OEMs from Germany have invested billions of Euros for the development of EV and F-cell vehicles and they are aiming for 1 Million electric vehicles on road by 2020, as per Germany's National Electromobilty Develpment plan.

It's an irony that the birth place of IC engine and its revolutions will see the end of its journey. Same time, it was Ferdinand Porsche’s “Lohner-Porsche” carriage car and Andreas Flocken's Elektrowagen were the world's first zero emission vehicles in 1900's, both born in Germany.

[hserus]

Note this is a decision from the bundesrat / lok Sabha equivalent, I believe it needs to be ratified by the upper house (Bundestag) before it becomes law.

[shankar.balan]

Amazing
So by 2030 there won't be any more Internal Combustion engine driven vehicles in Deutschland eh?
Fantastic.
What far reaching policies they think of.
But honestly, if anyone can actually implement this kind of thing, it is only Germany or the Scandinavian countries, mostly on account of an extremely disciplined behaviour, adherence to the rulebook and law and of course, an already high standard of living as well as education, all of which contribute most excellently to them being more able than others, to implement such radical decisions as this one.

[Aditya]

After Norway and Netherlands, Germany joins the bandwagon. It was inevitable. Notice how Mercedes-Benz has almost decided to join the Formula E series in 2018/19. Its rivals Audi and Jaguar are already there and BMW is expected to enter the fray as well. Clear indications of things to come.

[The Brutailer]

I want to know the thoughts of bhpians over this . Logically , yes this is the way to go as our planet needs stringent laws like this to sustain humanity but when emotions comes into the play , what's your thoughts on that?

Yes, as Tesla proves it , electric cars can be fast and have a long range . But they are also very expensive . But the biggest problem is that electric cars are very cynical in nature . They get the job done very silently.

If you drive an i8 or Model S , i'm sure you wouldn't complain. But for an average joe like me , having fun while driving a car in future seems highly unlikely. Right now , i rev the nuts off my City and though it's not super fast, I'm always grinning after a drive . Where's the NA roar or even turbo whistle in an EV? The only sound you are gonna hear is that of the wind howling your ears off.

Ofcourse, manufacturers can put fake engine sounds (like the bmw does) , but neither you nor I would want that.

So yeah, logically EV is good. Emotionally, umm not so much.

[desdemona]

Arguably the problem is NOT just emissions (co2, nox, spm etc) but the private mass-ownership automobile itself.

Germany is in a sense mis-framing the problem: it is not only about 'pollution', non-renewable fossil fuel use etc. It is also about the systematic distortion of cities, their property values and their qualities of life, city competitiveness and efficiency: too many cars, too slow commuting times, too much sprawl, too much spent catering to the private automobile, too many spatial externalities (beside pollution: the distortion of land and property markets/competitiveness/costs-of-business-and-life) etc.

Banning cars of whatever fuel type on certain days of the week, combined with stiff taxes for not-just carbon but other pollution and especially all of the other externalities each additional car-on-the-road imposes on others/businesses/the public(esp the car-less) would seem unavoidable if one is to be in good faith about the private automobile 'culture'/'system'.

Especially in high-population areas like the 'third world' mega-cities and American+Chinese ones ones. The Chinese mega cities are well aware that rationing the number of cars on the road is as important as cleaning up their tailpipe emissions, strong measures are already in-force in Beijing, Shanghai et al.

Europe can afford this mis-framing of the 'problem' of the private automobile, since it is largely not-at all-crowded and enjoys great public transport already. We in India cannot.

Why can we not, then, have cars and powerful-capable-motorbikes for sport, kinesthetics and as engineering-artworks and 'enthusiasm' rather than for, and instead-of, commuting and routine spatial traversal? In which case, ice or no ice matters not at all.

There is a certain hypocrisy (exemplified by Norway with its gigantic sales of petroleum) in the German stance: we have the dominant car industry, we want to promote it and yet we'd like to eat our cake and have it too, and so ev-s etc.

The problem is the spatial, urban, property-market, land-value-distortion, time and other budgetry misallocations etc of the private-automobile-centric-spatial-system: NOT the automobile or the ICE itself.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by The Brutailer

Where's the NA roar or even turbo whistle in an EV? The only sound you are gonna hear is that of the wind howling your ears off.

Ofcourse, manufacturers can put fake engine sounds (like the bmw does) , but neither you nor I would want that.

So yeah, logically EV is good. Emotionally, umm not so much.

Only valid for oldies like you and me. Emotions anyway are subjective and arbitrary and prone to prevailing customs. We like revving engines only because we have been raised up on a steady diet of racing cars revving at high decibels.

The next gen will place more importance on other aspects like acceleration, quietness, smoothness (no gear jerks) and will take the engine rev sound as a noisy nuisance of the archaic vehicles.

[LordSharan]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I take it as no more than a message of intent. Things are often done for the headlines, with little thought.

Could be, couldn't be. Who knows. There's only so much future we can know.

The future we know for certain- looks bleak because of the environmental damage human kind has caused with activities over past. The pollution damages are irreversible to a large extent and accept it or not, we are going to run of gasoline and other fuels in long run.

Long story short- vehicular emissions may form a small component of the damaging emissions, but the step is a good way forward. At least the intent is there.

There is a lot of good work going on. I see a shift towards smaller engines, hybrids, electric vehicles etc. And then there are things which have not been explored yet- like fuel cells, using hydrogen as fuel etc.

With the right intent, this can be done. Timelines are tentative. Hopefully this leads to an initiative which gains traction worldwide and gets more voices to support and implement.

[RSR]

Awesome news!

I hope they demonstrate their seriousness towards getting rid of internal combustion engines by getting rid of the most notorious ones first i.e. ICEs that drink the dirty fuel (diesel obtained from crude oil) and spew out all sorts of crap from their exhausts, including carcinogenic filth! Getting rid of cars & light vehicles that drink the dirty fuel by 2025 would be a good first step in the process of getting rid of ICEs entirely by 2030.

Will it happen? I have my doubts.

After India, Germany is probably the next country in the world where the vicious dirty fuel lobby wield enormous influence. The dirty fuel lobby also wield enormous influence in France, but there is talk by the mayors of some French cities of banning cars & light vehicles that drink the dirty fuel, so it looks like the diesel lobby's influence is waning in France.

Of course, the German diesel lobby is not as influential as the Indian diesel lobby. This is clear from the fact that diesel costs a few cents more than benzin (petrol/gasoline) in Deutschland, unlike in India, where the vicious diesel lobby insidiously decide the prices of the two fuels from behind the scenes.

However, the German diesel lobby (along with the French, British & Italian diesel lobbies) wield enormous influence over the bloated EU bureaucracy in other ways, such as by deliberately painting something as essential to life as CO2 as a supposed "pollutant", while ignoring the actual deadly pollutants such as NOx, SOx, PM and other carcinogenic filth. The VAG diesel emissions cheating episode came as a mighty blow to the Deutsch dirty fuel lobby. It's quite unlikely that the German diesel lobby would allow anyone to hurt their interests any further.

If Germany, which happens to be the fourth largest car market in the world, gets rid of ICEs completely by 2030, that would be a great step forward in cutting the dangerous international oil mafia to size. So I welcome this news wholeheartedly. I hope they're able to do it.

Germany also decided to phase out the nastiest & most dangerous way of boiling water (i.e. nuclear power plants) in the interest of its citizens and the planet as a whole, after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe and the shameless cover-up that followed. So I do not doubt the intentions of the Germans in phasing out ICEs by 2030. I hope they succeed in doing so, for the benefit of current and future inhabitants (two-legged & all others) of the planet, and the planet itself!

[sriramr9]

What about the Jet engines that fly on Kerosene, will they also be banned from touching down on their airports as they run on hydrocarbon fuel?

I am sure the Aviation industry will ever be dependent on fossil fuels, as the solar powered mini plane, bi plane concepts are still evolving and a working prototype of a solar plane carrying a payload equivalent to even a 737 is on the works.

Has Germany mentioned any thing about aviation industry also going green by 2030 ?

[hserus]

Germany does not manufacture commercial aircraft so this is moot.

The days of Junkers, Messerschmitt, Heinkel etc are long past.