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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.
Internal cable routing has been a pain AD, although the wifi electronic gear systems have reduced that hassle a bit. I’m same as you though and just about to head out on the single speed with mud guards.
Something in that PB, although it may assume Elon and the real clever folks below him, haven’t thought about this weakness.
As regards push-bikes – to a degree if you can source the parts. And that is getting more expensive.
The general point I think we agree on.
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
How will they solve the whole infrastructure for the electric charging points? Living in Inner London, you currently have a few lamp posts with very slow electric outlets and faster charging points, in clusters of four, every half a mile. To provide enough electricity for the supposedly increasing numbers of EVs by 2030 ( the time when all sales of petrol cars will be stopped), they would have to open up every street and pavements in London to provide appropriate electricity cables for fast charging points for the incoming fleet of new EVs. It is absolutely impossible.
Also in the summer, when I was driving on the Continent, there was a computer glitch in July, and all fast charging points in the petrol stations of France were out of order. It was an absolute nightmare for the poor holiday travellers with their electric SUVs. After that event, I bet most of them sold their cars.
I agree the recharging infrastructure the great barrier. Most don’t have a nice driveway and can install a home charging unit.
I do wonder if what may happen in due course is EV cars pull into a service station and the battery is quickly swopped in minutes like a F1 pitstop tyre change. Then recharged overnight at lower national Grid cost etc.
Too big and heavy at present but we’ll see.
One day electricity, like radio waves, will be transmitted via an aerial… So said some academic friends when I was on a board at Dept of Engineering at Cambridge University nearly 20 years ago
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.
Loose change down the back of the sofa no doubt.
Well said. We can but hope that sanity will prevail at the next local and Senedd elections. This lot have run Wales as a private Labour fiefdom. My socialist father and grandfather would turn in their graves….
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.
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.
Excellent comment, we’re singing from the same hymn sheet. “Emit less carbon by using less energy! For a start reform the greedy and wasteful global economy” was part of my comment below.
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!
If it were possible to power vehicles with hope (HVs) it would be a matter of days before hope was in short supply.
Some one would corner the market.
There was a Tesla vehicle crash in Toronto in October, there were 5 in the car, 4 died, one was rescued with severe burns. The car was engulfed in flames, conclusion of the investigation the fire was caused by the batteries literally exploding. EV s are dangerous in a high impact accident due to fire risk. And even in low impact accidents, if the batteries are damaged they need to be replaced at very high cost. Insurance rates are higher because Insurance companies prefer to scrap the car than get it fixed, they cost too much to fix. Rapid depreciation is also due to a poor used car market, who wants to buy a 7 year old ev with a dying battery and all that 7 year old tech? A huge problem because alot of people can’t afford to by new cars, they are in the used car market only. EVs are the latest scam that favors the rich who can afford to buy expensive new cars, like Tesla, and subsidized by governments to boot.
I hope to god those people died on impact, rather than burning to death. Heart wrenching.
> and it appears increasingly obvious that EV adoption and the growing Rightward shift are incompatible
Let’s be clear here the EV adoption was pushed by and for the left and always has been it was borne out of environmental activism by the fools that protested nuclear and wanted to just “end war”. The 70s environmental activists didn’t just disappear they used “climate change” as their new religion when the risk of nuclear war started to abate. These are the same people who wanted us to stop using plastic straws, so now we get paper straws wrapped in plastic.
At the end of the day they are delusional zealots. Let me ask you how many predictions in Al Gore’s an inconvenient truth came to pass? I’ll end with a final note that if you’re real concern is climate change then you should be demanding that the government take every dollar they are wasting on solar and wind (which have enormous CO2 generation and environmental destruction in their manufacture and don’t have a long life span) be spent on building nuclear plants, and funding nuclear research.
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.
Eventually the myth will explode that EV’s are helping to save the planet. They’re wonderful for alleviating local pollution but where does electricity come from? There are much bigger engines with much bigger exhaust pipes in power stations burning more fuel to create all that extra needed electricity. Furthermore I doubt that the amount of energy invested in the manufacture of EV’s and also wind turbines will be offset during their life cycle. In the case of EV’s there’s been a calculation of 50,000 miles use before carbon saved equals carbon invested in making them. The answer? Emit less carbon by using less energy! For a start reform the greedy and wasteful global economy.
I’m a happy EV driver. What I dislike about government dictates is that they change without real warning. Years ago, I moved to diesel because it was officially declared the future. Then diesel was declared positively evil. Now I have electric, with the government assurance it will shortly be the norm. But will it?
I’m glad to see another happy EV driver. I think people don’t stop to think what they’re for, which is city driving. For that the 250 to 300 mile range is fine. I charge my car up about once a week for a fraction of the cost of gasoline, and I don’t have to go to a gas station to do it. Is it the perfect solution for every situation? No. When I have to drive hundreds of miles, which is rare, I drive a gas car. If we were serious about emissions, we’d develop nuclear power and no one would be so concerned about where the electricity comes from, Instead, I see people complain about EVs while they likely drive vehicles that have enormous engines producing much more power than is usually needed. When I see a line of, say, fifty idling cars in traffic, each with about a 200 horsepower engine, I can’t help but think, should it take 10,000 hp (and the gasoline needed to produce it) to move those people around? And no, I’m not big on government mandates; I just think people don’t realize there’s really a place for EVs.
I don’t know why politicians had to stick their oar in it, trying to change consumer sentiment by decree will never work.
For the records, we have a Kia EV6, it’s a wonderful car and we’re really happy with it. But we are in a minority in so far as we have two cars (the other being diesel) and a big driveway and garage that means charging an EV is very convenient for us at home.
Expecting people living in apartments or without off-street parking to buy EVs is utter madness. Sooner or later politicians will have to accept that EVs will only occupy a share of the market alongside wonderfully efficient ICE cars.
The green extremists and corporate entities making handsome profits on the greens’ ability to bully governments into irrational EV laws will not stop. All these unsold vehicles mandated by unrealistic government goals will just end up in corporate and rental fleets; they’ll have to go somewhere when individuals continue to reject them, and the vehicle purchasers for these companies will be happy to buy them at the pennies-on-the-dollar prices necessary to sustain the illusion that anybody wants them. There will come a day when you won’t be able to rent a gasoline vehicle; they’ll all be EVs. Or, Trumpish revolutions could sweep out of power the politicians afraid to stand up to the Green extremists and we’ll be rid of EVs for good.
We all keep reading about people becoming–justifiably–disenchanted with EVs as replacement for ICE cars. It was tragically hilarious–if that’s a thing–to watch a Fire Department Captain updating people on last month’s Hurricane Milton damage in Tampa. Behind him, across shallow Tampa Bay, was an EV on fire having been subject to sea water immersion. No one was trying to put it out. They just let it burn.
Minor accidents result in tens of thousands in repair costs, recharging takes forever, resale value is non-existent, and charging stations here in the U.S. are few, and far, between.
Meanwhile, although we have the potential resources to provide power to charge the tens of millions of EVs progressives wish for us, what we don’t have is the infrastructure to send power to where it’s needed. And, the advent of Artificial Intelligence programs has created a huge demand for power to run processors that is already challenging the capacity of existing power nets. It will be decades before the transmission lines are in place, and decades before additional generating capacity has the ability to send that power along those lines. Of course, the latter is entirely dependent upon the Progressive Policies de Jour, as to whether it will be the kind of power generation actually needed instead of Wind/Solar/Unicorns-passing-gas kind of intermittent generation so popular among the trendy set.
So, the whole idea of replacing our ICE fleet with EVs in 10, 20, or 30 years is not only delusional, it’s criminally insane.
We here across the Pond have a faint ray of hope in the election of a President, who, for all his faults at least is grounded in the reality that fossil fuels, and the other petroleum products essential for our civilization to function, are a good thing to work to increase.
As always, time will tell.
Forgive me, but I love driving an electric car and would only go back to fossil fuel and gearboxes if I had to. The acceleration is brilliant. Of course, I don’t drive 400 miles straight off without a stop, dearie me, and long journeys do have to be planned but then, I don’t drive hundreds of miles just to pick up a new dog or go to IKEA etc etc. So much nonsense is talked about batteries too. I think one record is for 250.000 miles, a Singapore electric taxi. Still going strong. Is that so bad? I agree the rest of the dashboard tech is diarrhea but am told it’s what folk want. Not bothered about Net Zero, I just like electric.
Good luck to you, but I want to hear an induction roar and an exhaust bark. I find them to be good for the soul.
Sure, it’s been politicized, but the main issues are limits of the technology, it’s real environmental impact, and especially, the economics of the whole thing.
New thinking about EVs is part of what will be new thinking on how to deal with climate change generally. It is not that climate change is going away but targets-by-dictat and ludicrous targets at that won’t work. The loss of eleven of their twelve seats in the Dail by the Green Party last week is part of the process of new thinking that is required.
With a now 325 bhp 1.6 litre, 3 cylinder engine, the handbuilt Toyota GR Yaris that I have is tiny, economical, anonymous, and has the point to point speed of a Ferrari or Porsche, so no electricar for me, thanks…
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
And I predict that Goldman Sachs will turn out to be wrong, and that Goldman Sachs will never admit it. Predicting something ten years out is an absolutely safe bet, since no one will remember you did it.
No doubt Goldmans have clients with a stake in EV companies they need to offload…
Lol
That’s strange as the UK government says all new car sales by 2030 will be electric.
Well, I’ve heard of Little Englanders but Only Englanders is a new one!
I’m not sure where all the negativity about EVs is coming from. I’ve owned one for one year, and it is a whole new world – in a good way. It is quicker, quieter and more economical than all the other cars I’ve owned (the electricity costs 60% less than the gas for my similar-sized hybrid, the yearly maintenance costs a quarter as much as an ICE car). The technology is much simpler than that of an ICE or hybrid.
I’ll grant that I can charge the car at home and if you don’t, the disadvantages of having to charge at charging stations are not negligible.
Regarding the economics, the rapid depreciation is probably due to the rapid pace of improvement of the EV models and the drops in prices of new models. All in all this seems to indicate that the EV revolution is only beginning, rather than crumbling.
Sadly, people just aren’t keen on buying used batteries. Even those in hybrids. Most people who use lithium – type batteries in everyday applications (mobile phones, laptops, power tools, radio-controlled models, etc.) are aware that batteries have a finite life-span determined by the manufacturer – usually measured in the number of recharges the battery will accept. To address this very real problem we now have software that limits charging some of those domestic devices to no more than 80% of the battery capacity. This improves the life span of most batteries. Imagine driving an EV that is not permitted to get to 100% capacity: your range will be seriously compromised!
Apart from the drop in performance of batteries over time, battery replacement costs are eye-wateringly high: often exceeding the market value of the car.
Result of the above: second hand values of both EVs and hybrids are extremely low. When I see an EV drive by, my reaction is one of pity for the unfortunate owner.
When you see me drive by in my EV, no need to pity me. The recommendation is indeed to not charge over 80% if not needed – if no long drives are planned – but if needed, then of course you charge the full charge. That’s no problem at all. And the owners’ real-life experience so far is that the batteries far exceed the manufacturers’ life-span predictions. On top of that, batteries prices keep dropping, so that by the time you need to replace it, it will cost much less (this was my experience with the hybrid).
This debate about the merits of EVs is entirely beside the point. The real question is whether the debate should be resolved by free choice or govt mandate.
By arguing about the merits of EVs we provide secret cover to those who think if the govt can just get it right then it should be allowed to force compliance.
PS. The premise of these mandates is that they will solve global warming which will otherwise destroy humanity. Neither prong of that argument has any factual support.
EVs absolutely work for some people.
And absolutely don’t work for many others, especially if you live in a rural area like I do in the western USA.
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?”
.
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
It’s going to get an awful lot hotter when the Russians are pushed too far…then much much colder…global warming solved…
Nuke winter is our friend?
A two-day climate conference in Prague, organised by the Czech division of the international Climate Intelligence Group (Clintel), which took place on November 12-13 in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in Prague, “declares and affirms that the imagined and imaginary ‘climate emergency’ is at an end”.
The communiqué, drafted by the eminent scientists and researchers who spoke at the conference, makes clear that for several decades climate scientists have systematically exaggerated the influence of CO2 on global temperature.
The high-level scientific conference also declared:
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which excludes participants and published papers disagreeing with its narrative, fails to comply with its own error-reporting protocol and draws conclusions some of which are dishonest, should be forthwith dismantled.”
Moreover, the scientists at the conference declared that even if all nations moved straight to net zero emissions, by the 2050 target date the world would be only about 0.1 C cooler than with no emissions reduction.
The cost of achieving that 0.1 C reduction in global warming would be $2 quadrillion, equivalent to 20 years’ worldwide gross domestic product.
Finally, the conference “calls upon the entire scientific community to cease and desist from its persecution of scientists and researchers who disagree with the current official narrative on climate change and instead to encourage once again the long and noble tradition of free, open and uncensored scientific research, investigation, publication and discussion”.
Fat chance …
Ugh. Musk used to be Dem. I won’t be surprised at all if he has a falling out with Trump, but it won’t be because of EVs. Trump has been very clear about his position and Musk knows this.
Climate change is real. The hysterical version of this – food shortages, islands sinking into the ocean etc.. – have been refuted after 40 years of a real life data.
Climate Change is real, but there isn’t any prove that it was caused by increased human output of CO2. It is just based on models.
Trees and plants are excellent carbon sinks, as photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide as we use oxygen.
We could simply reforest large swathes of North America and Asia easily enough, and that carbon would go back into the ground, from whence it came.
I suspect that as this wouldn’t be a profitable venture, and wouldn’t even display one’s personal wealth or public facing virtues, it will be overlooked by devotees of “the Science.”
The climate mitigation argument is irrelevant to this debate because EVs are ultimately powered by fossil fuels and will be for the foreseeable future.
That said, solid state batteries will likely transform the market by 2030 by having a significant impact on the range, longevity, reliability and safety of EVs. Unfortunately, they will destroy the second user market for the current generation of vehicles as well. In fact, the problem of rapid depreciation is likely to bedevil this technology for a long time to come. Governments, of course, have barely even thought about this.