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Comment by Odenwaelder | Hacker News Reader

My bet as a german is that this is not going to happen. Ze lobbying is strong with this one.

I think it'll happen to a substantial degree. The automotive giants have put a lot of r&d into alternate energy sources and drivetrains - this has been looming on the horizon for decades.

I don't think they'll achieve an outright ban, but we probably will see a limit on capacity for ICE engines, and see them disallowed in trucks and other heavy vehicles - they account for a majority of emissions.

Market demand will take care of the rest, as I don't think there'll be much interest in new fossil cars once electric is cheaper and more powerful, which is happening as we speak.

Also, VW probably achieved a stonking own goal with the emissions scandal - many who bought "eco" cars thinking they were doing their bit have been let down, and the Germans are an environmentally conscious lot.

Me, I've been putting my money where my mouth is and buying nice houses on busy noisy roads. They'll still be busy in ten years, but quiet and no longer polluted - and once driverless tech is firmly in, congestion and density go away too.

The roads will not be much quieter. At 35km/h the rolling noise of the tires is louder than a modern combustion engine. In Germany a lot of new roads are paved with so called "whisper pavement" that reduces this noise but it will take decades until all roads are paved that way and on very buys roads it will not have much of an impact.

I challenge this opinion. If you have any ressources to back your claim, please share!

My estimates for the velocity where tire noise will be substantially louder than the rest of the car are much higher, more like 60km/h.

It is surprisingly difficult to find an English source for this.

[1] shows on page 3 a significantly higher tire noise for 50 kph (+8 dbA) but doesn't show lower speeds than 50 kph.

[2] is in German and from the Austrian Federal Environment Agency and states that for cars build after 1996 25 kph is the point where the tire noise takes over at a steady speed and at 50 kph when the car is accelerating.

1: http://www.asphaltroads.org/assets/_control/content/files/an...

2: http://www.umweltbundesamt.at/umweltsituation/laerm/laermsch...

Thanks! The various components of tire noise are interesting.

One other thing that came to my mind is that tire noise is usually concetrated in the high frequencies, whereas some cars, especially trucks, emit very low-frequency noises. The latter penetrate walls and windows much more easily.

Of course tire noise won't go away with electric cars, but in my opion there's a vast underestimation of how much quieter roads and cities could be without combustion engines.

Even if it's 60 km/h that won't help you much, as the average street in a German city has a speed limit of 50 km/h, and driving 70 km/h only gets you a 35€ ticket, so many people drive 60-70 and pay the odd ticket.

Also, with truly autonomous vehicles, travel speed would likely be increased in order to maximize capacity - like it's done with trains, where both speed and minimum distance are chosen for maximum capacity.

with autonomous vehicles you do not need to increase speed to gain capacity, you can already reduce the safety distance since the vehicles have a much lower reaction time than humans.

And energy efficiency decreases with higher speeds due to air resistance, so saving energy (reducing load on the grid from charging) is also a competing concern.

When you're talking about city roads where three hundred trucks sit every hour at the lights outside homes, engines rumbling, the difference will be huge.

Also, tyre noise is high frequency, easily blocked by windows and walls. Engine noise is low frequency, and makes your dishes rattle in the cupboard.

Either way, no skin off my nose, the fewer agree with me the lower these properties are priced.

A century and a bit ago living on the bank of a canal would have been seen as madness. Now it's desirable.

Trucks and heavy vehicles are a small percentage (<3%) of all vehicles, at least in the U.S., and are far more efficient than cars. Banning ICEs in cars first would have a much bigger impact on both noise and pollution.

The government had a 1M EVs on road target (in 2010?) by 2020. The current number of EVs and hybrids on road are 50,000. Early this year, the German cabinet had approved incentives - 4000 Euros subsidy for EVS, 3000 for hybrids. 300M to be spent on electric charging stations.

I think there is a good chance this could be reached unless the auto lobby does not come and plays spoil sport.

If every German needs to replace their non-electric car at some point, isn't that actually a great victory for ze lobbyists?

It would never be retrospective. If you own a car made before a certain time in the UK, you don't even need to pass the basic safety tests. Stuff like this gets grandfathered in, and as long as the new supply is closed down, it'll sort itself out fine long term. No need for rapid change at huge cost to everyone.

Agreed, it's unlikely to be retrospective on the federal level. But I assume cities are free to introduce no-emission zones once electric cars hit the mainstream. The existing Umweltzonen (low-emission zones) in Germany are retrospective, they don't make exceptions for cars that are older than the law (except for antique cars).

The German gov't also subsidised the renewal of older cars in 2009 with 2500€ per citizen, so that's another model that could be of interest to lobbyists. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umweltprämie

Of course, that won't work out for the German industry if everyone buys a Tesla.

It's not good for the German lobbyists if those end up being Japanese and American cars

It's bound to happen sooner or later. Banning ICE seems like overreaching, a more sensible approach is just making sure fuel taxes for those cars are high enough that buying one isn't economically sensible. Even today that might be as low as 2-3€/liter.

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