Germany votes to ban internal combustion engines in 14 years

[oldbike54]

 It might be worthwhile to remember that there was huge resistance to the IC engine and cars in general circa 1900 . Seriously , most folks simply would not believe that cars would , or even could replace horses . It took a series of laws and a major change in infrastucture to make cars and IC engines viable . We might be witnessing something similar here .

 Dusty

[Triple Jim]

Second is that the same track-it-by-the-second, know-exactly-where-it-is sorts of dispatching systems that you use every day with UPS, FedEx, or the USPS aren't in place for the railroads, and someone would have to get on the stick and fix that.

Actually, UPS does have it in place, and does contract work for companies like Ford to manage their purchasing and shipping by truck and rail.

[rocker59]

It might be worthwhile to remember that there was huge resistance to the IC engine and cars in general circa 1900 . Seriously , most folks simply would not believe that cars would , or even could replace horses . It took a series of laws and a major change in infrastucture to make cars and IC engines viable . We might be witnessing something similar here .

 Dusty

Gasoline availability was the biggest hindrance.

Once gasoline production and delivery began improving, livery stables and blacksmith shops became service stations.  Even Mercantiles and General Stores began selling fuel.

Mack began working on heavy trucks quite early, to begin replacing teams and wagons.

Road improvements followed, after WWI.  (And greatly accelerated after WWII).

Gasoline vehicles were dramatically cheaper to maintain than horses, so almost everyone adopted cars, trucks, and tractors at the fist available chance.

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

The first and most obvious answer is that a 5-man train crew will pull a load from the West Coast to the East that it would take 300 drivers to do.   

Train crews aren't 5-man, haven't been since the '60s, maybe even before. When I worked as a Freight Conductor for CSX, we had two-man crews (unless there was a training conductor or training engineer on board). Just a Locomotive Engineer and Freight Conductor. Some local jobs still had a brakeman or fireman - but those went away when the "veteran" railroader that worked them retired or they were negotiated out of the contract.

However, if you add together all of the two-man crews that it takes to make it across the country in 12 hour shifts, then it's considerably more than 5. 

[Lannis]

Gasoline vehicles were dramatically cheaper to maintain than horses, so almost everyone adopted cars, trucks, and tractors at the fist available chance.

It's not quite the same now, though.

The problem is not that there is a technology that everyone would like to use instead of cars and trucks if the infrastructure would just catch up.   The problem is that the unlimited availability of petroleum at cheap prices, and the publicly funded but overloaded roads, is driving a "tragedy of the commons" problem, where people just overuse IC engines and roads until they jam up and die ....

Do we let that happen, or do we (GASP!) let the government interfere for the public good and encourage plans that will NOT lead to unbreathable air, gridlocked roads, and tens of thousands more road fatalities every year?   

Lannis

[ITSec]

Back in 2013, Tesla predicted selling 10,000 cars a year in Germany. As of last year, it hadn't hit that for all of Europe (or barely so, the sources are a bit muddled).
 
As the story eventually points out (you have to get past the hyperbole in the opening paragraphs), the non-binding move in the German legislature is more of a formalization of sales trends already underway. The EU Parliament won't be as sweeping in its laws when it eventually follows, since auto workers in Italy, Spain and Eastern Europe (and the companies that employ them) will want more than 14 years to adapt. Your Ferrari or FIAT, your SEAT or Dacia will more likely be a hybrid than pure electric, but getting one that doesn't have at least partial electric power will be more and more uncommon.
 
Then again, the torque and acceleration of hybrids and electrics can be absolutely amazing!

Now, there's another non-fossil-fueled alternative that may be even more interesting. Take it with a grain of salt, but this might actually be the answer to the charging problem. http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20161010-driving-the-saltwater-sports-car

[rocker59]

In the 20th Century, "the public good" was cheap gas and subsidized highways that would bring mobility and prosperity.

Cheap Gasoline put the horses out to pasture.  Cheap diesel sent the steam locomotives to the scrap yard.

Cheap gasoline will continue to do what it does, until a better/cheaper/lower maintenance method of powering cars/trucks/tractors/locomotives/ships/airplanes is devised.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention, right?  The primary driving force for most new inventions is a need, right?  It will take satisfying the real, tangible needs of better/cheaper/faster/more powerful for a new innovation to knock gasoline and diesel off their thrones.

At some point gasoline and diesel will be replaced, but I don't think any of us here know yet what that will new product will be.  Whatever it is will come in and sweep gasoline and diesel out in a matter of a decade, or two, like gasoline and diesel did to horses in the early 20th Century.  It may be electric, but that will be a long time coming.  Seriously, gasoline knocked electric vehicles out in the early 20th Century.  Electric has been scratching and clawing, but it hasn't gained much ground.

[GearheadGrrrl]

UPS already has over a thousand CNG fueled tractor trailer rigs and is several railroads biggest customer. Berkshire Hathaway's electric utilities are building the world's biggest wind power installations and the BNSF railroad they own runs right along many of those wind power installations. BNSF has reportedly "done the numbers" on rail electrification but decided not to proceed at this time. But when fuel prices go up again...

[stormshearon]

It will all work out just fine, as soon as the new power plants running on pixie dust and unicorn farts come on line there will be all the electricity ever needed and it will be free. 

[Lannis]

UPS already has over a thousand CNG fueled tractor trailer rigs and is several railroads biggest customer. Berkshire Hathaway's electric utilities are building the world's biggest wind power installations and the BNSF railroad they own runs right along many of those wind power installations.

Couple of things ...

1) The problem with tractor-trailers is not only the emissions they put out (which would be lessened with CNG, although I don't know the relative energy density and efficiency between CNG and diesel), but the load they put on the highways and on traffic.   Trains fix that.

2) There's no connection between "wind farms" being along the rails, and the potential electrification of the railroads.    The energy grid, and ESPECIALLY the needs of electric trains, doesn't work like that.    Even if the wind turbines run along the tracks, it's very unlikely that many of the electrons from the windmills would actually go to the trains.  Another "base load" thing ....

Lannis

[bad Chad]

Germany is getting ever so close to becoming completely energy independent, as well as sustainable.
http://www.sciencealert.com/last-sunday-95-percent-of-germany-s-energy-was-provided-by-renewables

[ITSec]

It will all work out just fine, as soon as the new power plants running on pixie dust and unicorn farts come on line there will be all the electricity ever needed and it will be free. 

It's called fusion, and it's being researched now. Several test reactors in differing designs (laser-implosion pulse, plasma, and so on) are in use and development. It may not be free, but it will be relatively cheap, won't produce fuel wastes that can be used for weapons, and doesn't require fuel that is radioactive in the first place.

The problem is that taking it from theory or demonstration to production requires another kind of unicorn, known as a 'breakthrough'. These exist, but it's impossible to predict when you'll see one.

[cloudbase]

It'll do wonders for VW's emissions numbers.

Oh, wait. . .

[Lannis]

Germany is getting ever so close to becoming completely energy independent, as well as sustainable.
http://www.sciencealert.com/last-sunday-95-percent-of-germany-s-energy-was-provided-by-renewables

I hope you really read the article and realize the facts.   That's a staged, "made up" situation.

Right now, Germany gets 45% of their power needs from COAL and that's going up.  They buy a lot of power from the French nuclear plants.   German electricity bills are higher than they've ever been.

There's no pixie dust, much as everyone would like there to be.    There's no "oil company suppressing the carburetor that burns water".    The facts are much harder.

Lannis

[Tom]

Hey......electric Leopold tanks for their army. 

[Murray]

Will be interesting to see how they replace such things as heavy truck and construction equipment i.c. engines (just to name two) with electric.

As most construction type equipment the motor basically runs a hydraulic pump its not a stretch of the imagination there are plenty of bucket reclaimers and drag line diggers that are all electric already anything big with things like Komatsu on the side are diesel electric. Now I doubt they'll be running on batteries some sort of mains supply or a site portable solar or wind plant.

[Penderic]

And it is Euro 6 compliant  ......


 

[Tom]

What is that 1bpm?  bale per mile.

[Lannis]

It's called fusion, and it's being researched now. Several test reactors in differing designs (laser-implosion pulse, plasma, and so on) are in use and development. It may not be free, but it will be relatively cheap, won't produce fuel wastes that can be used for weapons, and doesn't require fuel that is radioactive in the first place.

The problem is that taking it from theory or demonstration to production requires another kind of unicorn, known as a 'breakthrough'. These exist, but it's impossible to predict when you'll see one.

Practical, controllable fusion would be a world-changer for sure.   But it's a millenium-sized engineering problem; and we've been waiting for that "breakthrough" for almost 60 years now, try as we might ....

Lannis

[Aaron D.]

Aren't the freight rail lines pretty much at capacity now?

[Tom]

Yes, at least for the U.S.  The infrastructure for rail would have to be upgraded for more use and availability.  The freight would still need trucks to move from the rail yards out to the distribution centers.  Electric motors and batteries can't handle right now.

[rodekyll]

I think it's a good place to start.  It remains to be seen if it amounts to anything.


Oh -- and in 1900 the big reason horses were still popular was because there were no auto-suitable roads.  if there was no place to drive, fuel was a secondary consideration.  Remember the 'seed miles' you read about that were built in the 19-teens and 20s?  Those were isolated, 1-mile stretches of paved road to show folks what was possible.  We all know how THAT turned out.

[Tom]

IIRC, a big reason to switch to IC engines was the pollution by horses in the cities, manure & effluent etc.   

[rocker59]

IIRC, a big reason to switch to IC engines was the pollution by horses in the cities, manure & effluent etc.

Imagine 100,000 horses working New York City each day in 1900 !!!

[Sasquatch Jim]

 So after the deadline has passed, all vehicles will run on PFM?

[Shorty]

Someone will have to train the German drunks not to piss on the 3rd rail buried in the street......

[Doppelgaenger]

Also, don't forget that electric and steam cars were popular at the turn of the century, and gasoline was actually the less preferable way to go when you had to crank a vehicle by hand and have it possibly break your arm if it backfired.

But in the end it was the most convenient and easy to develop out of the three given the technologies available at the time. Technology is at the point now where internal combustion is reaching the maximum attainable efficiency. Internal combustion engines are about 35% efficient at the best of times. Electric is over 90% efficient. Internal combustion has dozens of moving parts, electrics have one. Electrics are off when stationary and they regenerate power when decelerating. Electricity is cents per kWh vs dollars per gallon. Other than lacking noise and vibration, there really isn't a downside to electric drive. Assuming we don't talk about batteries... 

But then I read today about how someone drove their tesla to the top of a mountain and parked it next to a radio tower, which proceeded to saturate the area with signals, which prevented the key fob from working. And in all their wisdom, Tesla made their car without any way of getting into it if your key fob isn't working.... They had to have a guy come out with one of those inflating pads and a wire hanger to get the car open so they could drive home after being stranded for five hours. All because the door handles wouldn't come out.

[Jim Rich]

The Tesla cars are awesome performers & electric vehicles have been kicking A as Pikes Peak Race in recent years.   

[Tom]

If you can get into it.

[keuka4884]

As an interim strategy we could convert all vehicles to gas, but there are too many powerful men who have too much money invested in oil. I find all the global warming blather a bit hypocritical knowing that we COULD convert to gas. Now we're talking hydrocarbon emissions reductions. The big money interests have thus far thwarted such a move.

Electric vehicles depend on mass quantities of lithium. Fortunately for us, Afghanistan is to lithium as Saudi Arabia is to oil. Rare earth elements come with those deposits too. I think driverless will come before all electric. I will count my lucky stars that I lived in a time where you could steer, brake and shift your own vehicle.