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November 29, 2024 - 7:00am
For over a century, there has been an anticipation that electric vehicles will replace internal combustion engines (ICE) and push them into obsolescence. Because the free market failed to deliver this result, in recent decades governments around the globe have been aggressively pushing for the adoption of EVs, including subsidies and — for now — legally-binding phase-outs of non-zero-emission cars. Alas, none of this appears to have had the desired effect: while global EV sales continue to grow, the pace is slowing down. According to Bloomberg’s Net Zero scenario, to accomplish a fully zero-emission vehicle fleet by 2050 it would be necessary to cease the sales of combustion engine vehicles by approximately 2038.
While the UK Government remains committed to its goal of banning the sale of non-zero-emission cars from 2030, this week it has indicated plans to soften its electric vehicle rules. As the industry suffers across Europe due to an inability to compete with the likes of China, and British factories close in the face of crippling targets, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has confirmed that Labour will review its zero-emission vehicle mandate. The demand simply is not there, according to British manufacturers who are now demanding new Government incentives to persuade consumers.
These developments provide further evidence that the euphoria around EVs often clouds the actual facts on the ground. The most popular numbers touted involve the share of EVs among new car sales, a value that reached 18% globally in 2023. This seems impressive at first glance, but becomes less so when one considers that there are 40 million EVs currently on the roads — out of a little under 1.5 billion cars worldwide. In other words, these vehicles constitute around 2.7% of all cars worldwide, and it requires a heavy dose of optimism to believe this number will be anywhere near 100% in the next 25 years.
A further issue, however, is the politicisation of EVs. Within the context of the Left-Right divide, electric vehicles are seen as a symbol of Greta Thunberg and Net Zero excess, while the internal combustion engine is regaining its status as a symbol of freedom. In Germany, both the conservative CDU and the Right-wing AfD want to overturn the EU’s 2035 ban on gasoline and diesel cars. In Italy, a member of Giorgia Meloni’s government has called the rules “absurd”. Meanwhile, Austria’s Freedom Party — since September the strongest party in parliament — has echoed that sentiment, as has Reform UK in Britain.
Add to this the position of Donald Trump, who said there will be no ICE bans during his administration, no matter how close he is to electric-car innovator Elon Musk, and it appears increasingly obvious that EV adoption and the growing Rightward shift are incompatible. When one considers which of these two trends is more likely to continue in the coming decade, it becomes clear that EVs won’t overtake more traditional cars anytime soon.
Ralph Schoellhammer is assistant professor of International Relations at Webster University, Vienna.
Raphfel
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SubscribeI agree that there is a link to the culture war, but it’s more simple economics and practicality. An EV BMW that is 8 years old is worthless, but I drive a seventeen year old Suzuki Swift because I’m poor, and it’s going great guns. The numbers for EVs just don’t stack. Sticking fingers up at leftists is just a bonus.
Totally agree. If EVs were practical and economical, people would buy them. Govt managing the economy simply doesn’t work and everyone pays for it in the end.
I see New South Wales in Australia narrowly avoided blackouts this week, after consumers were told to moderate consumption and industrial users shut down for a few hours. Apparently it gets hot in Australia in the summer. Who knew?
Not sure Elon would see himself as a Leftist, but good additional point about what vehicles currently have a track record of lasting longer. Engineering wise this should change even if batteries need changing.
Anything with loads of tech in it has huge depreciation and built-in obsolescence. There’s so much tech hardware and software in modern cars that that they will be far harder and more expensive to maintain. I’ve spent my entire career in tech. And I avoid this stuff. This applies to all modern cars, not just EVs. But EVs tend to have more of it. It will be the software upgrades and bugs that decide how long your car is usable. And a lot of very high value kit will end up being scrapped as a result. No way is this good for the environment. If we were creating EVs with less tech content, it might be a different story. But we aren’t.
It’s much the same with road bicycles. It’s cheaper and easier to maintain a bike from the 1970s or 80s than a modern one. And you can do it yourself.
Yep. Car manufacturers have gone through a transition where engineers were primarily mechanical, then electrical and now software*.
The phenomena you describe of obsolescence is an interesting one. In theory, software should make hardware have a longer shelf-life because we can change the software on a physical device to extend functionality. In practice it is the exact opposite because software drives hardware updates. Look at smart watches for some of the worst offenders of this trend today.
As for road bikes, if you stay away from electronic groupsets it’s not so bad. Currently it’s just the shifters – and if somebody does come up with electronic breaks, I wouldn’t touch them at all. My winter bike is still just 100% mech while my Sunday best is electronic. And as much as I think electronic shifters are fantastic, I’ve had to drag the other bike out on occasion having forgot to recharge the batteries.
*Whether us software engineers should really call ourselves engineers is another matter.
As long as it takes 20 minutes or longer to charge a battery, the EV revolution is never happening – ever. Too many people can’t charge at home – either because they don’t have a personal driveway or they are on the road for long stretches of the day. Battery fires are also an unappreciated issue.
No one talks about the number and size of what those charging stations would look like even if EVs take 10 mins to charge. Compared to 3 to 5 mins for a car to fill with gasoline / petrol. I can’t fathom how those stations won’t be the size of a football field along the highways with the lines and wait times
Great comment, succinctly summing up the state of the car market and what millions of fellow car owners are thinking.
I live in a county which made a loss of about £300 million in the financial year ending in April 2024. This equates to about £300 per Council Tax payer. Before the Council Tax was set in about February 2023, we received a mail from the Council asking, effectively, what we would give up to keep the Tax down – one option was to have more infrequent refuse collections.
Now that they have reported this loss I finally got interested in what they were doing. They have bought a fleet of electric refuse trucks, they plan to buy all-electric vehicles for use in the area, they will change to heat pumps in Council offices and they will all work from home. The aim to to achieve NetZero for the Council by 2030.
Who does this fool? They are not councillors working for the community, they are climate zealots working for themselves. How can we control this? You would say that we could vote them out but new councillors would just talk about public services and then switch to Zealotism as soon as they are in power. Nobody votes in Council elections anyway.
I asked where this NetZero2030 plan came from but really I knew – The Welsh Assembly. More zealots who don’t represent the people. But they just might be voted out in 2026.
I have a nephew who works for Bristol city. He speaks of the people he works for, the public, as “they” and of himself and his fellow employees as “us”. “They” might be the unwashed peasants. I use the bus, you find it with bus drivers too. I use the footpaths and sometimes am made to feel as if I’m trespassing on “private” property these are so often restricted or closed to me for the dangerous state of repair into which they have fallen. These have to be closed or “they will sue us”. Meanwhile of course there are new cycle “paths” not even cyclists have asked for that are unused and actually are dangerous not just inconveniencing and that cost “them” a fortune. Services can obviously be employed to spite the served. Funny isn’t it?
I visited Bristol for the first time in a about a decade a couple of weeks ago. My friend lives in an area (Horfield/Ashley Down) which now has only Green councillors. It’s a complete tip – rubbish all over the streets. I knew this area fairly well 30-40 years ago and it’s quite shocking how bad parts of Bristol have become. Very sad. I used to enjoy visiting Bristol.
I inherited a property in Park Street in Bristol some 30 years ago since sold. Recently my son visited Bristol and took photos of it. Uncleared rubbish outside the shopfront and boarded up and graffiti at the back. Clear signs of deterioration. Clearly being Green doesn’t seem to involve any actual care for urban environments.
Very depressing. Very woke of course. The Old Vic Theatre, which I used to use, is now a woke tip. And losing money, imagine that. More concerned with ridding the streets of statues than consumer wrappers. Green vermin comes to mind. And the worse it gets the more pleased with themselves.
Correction. The Council lost £300 million, not £30 million.
We don’t produce enough electricity to power homes and industry as it is. Every winter we are threatened with blackouts. If the government are so desperate for us all to go EV, perhaps they should focus on the country’s electricity production, maybe they think they can power all these cars with hope!
I took an interest in electric cars a few years ago and really wanted to get one but couldn’t afford it.
After the Conservative treachery of the last few years I wouldn’t touch one now if they gave it me for free.
Also I would rather that the phrase a ‘fire that cannot be quenched’ be limited to the spiritual field.
I think most people have a simple, practical objection to being compelled to sell off cars that they bought which do everything they need and replace them by EV versions which are slightly less capable (in range and flexibility), while being asked to pay almost twice as much for the privilege.
Ideology imposed by people spending other people’s money vs common sense.
I plan to run my relatively low tech (no screens) fully depreciated 16 year old diesel for as long as I can. We live in a fairly rural area where pollution simply isn’t an issue. My answer to the environmental issues is simple: drive as little as you can. And don’t create unnecessary demand for manufacturing endless new stuff, since the environmental impact of this is huge (both in the raw material extraction and production processes and in the waste of perfectly good stuff that is disposed of).
I can tell my views here are widely held simply by looking at trends in used car prices. Prices of older petrol cars (particularly smaller ones) continue to go up (even as they’re getting older). Whereas EV residuals and depreciation are terrible.
Indeed any government keen to actually reduce carbon emissions would not embark on a programme of bullying citizens (serfs) into buying new more environmentally destructive vehicles rather than seeking to maintain the existing stock as long as possible. But that would not appeal to the fanatics or show up as GDP growth.
At present rates of emission, by 2050 Britain will have increased the level of CO2 in the atmosphere by less than 1 part in a million by volume.
Why should Britain bankrupt itself to produce a change that is undetectable on most climate graphs unless you zoom in to about 500%, when you might see a slight difference?
Put the two graphs side by side – Net Zero Britain – and – No change in emissions Britain – and you will create the world’s hardest ‘Spot The Difference’ puzzle.
Goldman Sachs predicts EVs will represent 50% of all new car sales by 2035: https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/the-future-of-four-wheels-is-all-electric
General contention of the Article seems v valid.
But will be an interesting dynamic between Elon and Trump. The former last 6mths and is a Democrat supporter by 2028.
The other factor is if the ‘hockey-stick’ graph on Global warming accelerates even more and evidence that man-made warming is v much contributing becomes even more irrefutable – what then for the naysayers? We’ll see.
Well how is everyone rushing to buy electric vehicles going to stop that. This idea that we go Net Zero and it stops climate change is pure magical thinking.
When I see the vineyards near Hadrian’s Wall where they were cultivated in Roman times, I will look at you and ask: “So what?”
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PS. If you think Musk is only interested in profits, I feel sorry for you. The guy who bought Twitter has broader interests than you can imagine