Chinese government is working on a timetable to end sales of fossil-fuel cars | Hacker News Reader

Chinese government is working on a timetable to end sales of fossil-fuel cars

bloomberg.com

147 pointsmikeash68 comments

A common talking point from the right during the withdrawal from the Paris accord is that "It's just talk, China isn't actually going to do anything". I wonder what the new talking point going to be after this news? Something something developing country, coal power plants?

This seems like pretty good news in general though, combined with other smaller bans (like the UK+France ban on Diesel cars). But I'm not sure how I feel about China itself leading this green push.

This is an announcement of a desire to set a target, not an achievement. Automobiles are not the core of China's emissions problems, they are still installing a large number of new coal reactors, to my knowledge.

> an announcement of a desire to set a target

Isn't it an announcement of a future target? Seems more that "we will set a target" than "we want to but these lobbyists are making it really hard"

They double their solar installations every year though, and are in need of buffer storage, which can be found in EVs' batteries.

Here's my guess: We hit the target of the Paris accord without having to pay anyone a dime!

The talking point: "it doesn't compel anyone to do anything" is probably still valid.

Assuming that the ban actually happens, I can see a number of reasons China would do it apart from reducing CO2 emissions:

- Many Chinese cities have terrible air quality that ICE vehicle growth would make worse.

- China dominates world PV manufacturing and is pretty strong in wind equipment, but electricity storage will be critical to long term high-penetration uptake of renewables. China still lags other countries in advanced battery production. This would accelerate the development of domestic expertise and scale in battery manufacturing.

- China can supply far less of its own petroleum from domestic sources than the US can. The faster it electrifies transportation, the less dependent it becomes on foreign oil.

- It looks like the rest of the world wants to (eventually) electrify automobile transportation too. Chinese dreams of building globally competitive export cars could detour into more years of mastering advanced internal combustion just as every global brand is starting to develop electric models... or leapfrog straight to electric, where the global competition is less entrenched.

What you say does not bode well

> China still lags other countries in advanced battery production.

China makes pretty much all of world's batteries. What you call the most advanced types?

Foreign companies make their batteries in China - that is different to China making their own batteries.

For a different example - Poland has dozens of factories building cars for multiple different manufacturers, but doesn't have any domestic car manufacturers.

> (like the UK+France ban on Diesel cars)

Its worth noting this is a ban on petrol as well as diesel cars. Modern diesel cars are similar in pollution to modern petrol cars (they produce less CO2 but more NOx). In any case it doesnt come in til 2040

If I've learned anything from recent developments, it's that the right will play contrarian to anything like this. They'll just drum up a post facto reasoning along the way.

EVs in China produce two to five times the amount of smog as gas vehicles, because the supporting energy mix is so dirty.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-coal-powered-c...

Should be good long term, if China realizes other energy sourcing goals, just... EVs alone don't fix everything.

How old is the linked article? China appears to doubling its solar power capacity every year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China

also:

https://youtu.be/T4LheD1l2c4?t=723

It is only the last year or two that coal consumption has fallen, it is still at a very high level, and high penetration of the market. Although you're right in the medium to long term.

China has 20 nuclear plants under construction:

http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2107354/china...

The new AP1000s are almost done. Hopefully they get the costs under control so they can build 100 of them. Bill Gates’ Terrapower is developing the next gen plants in China:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/10/02/bill-gate...

And after those 20 plants are built, it'll increase their nuclear capacity to 58 GWe.... out of 1245 GWe total energy capacity, of which 73% is from coal. For comparison, they produce 34 GWe from two dams: Three Gorges and Yellow River.

Nuclear is kind of a drop in the bucket.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pro...

Nuclear power in China will pass the United States within 10 years:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-31/china-s-n...

Coal is expected to drop to 54%.

Yet somehow this study leaves out how much China is adding solar and wind energy to it's supply.

Infact China is closing down it's worse coal plants.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40341833 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-19/china-add... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/13/china-and-us-lead-way-with-w...

> Yet somehow this study leaves out how much China is adding solar and wind energy to it's supply.

Ahem...

> The good news is that China has shown a firm commit- ment to prompt renewable energy use, improving energy efficiency and reducing pollutant emissions from power plants. Great efforts have been, and will continue to be, made by the Chinese government to reduce the emissions of power plants, such as setting an aggressive target to reduce national SO2 emissions by 10% from 2005 to 2010 by installing FGD and closing a large number of small generating units.

They project out to 2030 and examine different international assumptions about realistic future energy mixes.

But yeah, it's still an optimistic story long term. They'll also need things like low rolling resistance tires and new braking tech to reduce pm 2.5, and reforms in ag, industry, and home heating. But every step is part of it.

http://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/publish/ess/7778/2012071915174608...

Is the headline really substantiated in the article? The key part is:

> A series of studies by Tsinghua University, whose alumni includes the incumbent president, showed electric vehicles charged in China produce two to five times as much particulate matter and chemicals that contribute to smog versus gas-engine cars. Hybrid vehicles fare little better.

Producing particulate matter 50 miles away from a city is not remotely the same as producing it 2ft from a pavement. I'm not sure about smog, though, is the effect regional or local?

That will be fixed long before fossil fuel cars are banned.

EVs could well be their strategy for distributed storage of their planned renewable energy revolution. A 20-30kwh battery can easily supply a home for a full day, supporting the grid at peak times and charging in the sunny hours.

But they can upgrade those plants to capture some of the pollution or replace them with renewables.. which they'll eventually do.

That's a lot easier than replacing everyones cars. The article talks about ending sales... it's going to take another 10-15 years before they're off the road.

The amount of renewable like solar they are adding I expect it to be a good thing plus from what I gather this ban will be in the future maybe 10 years down the road. By then their energy mix will be quite different.

First, I don't get it, Politicians pushing Electric Vehicle for PR or really to help locals with realistic setup in place? But this being china they can literally get anything running in a very short time. While this is all good, what would happen to car manufacturers, countries import and export in terms of Crude oil. What kind of impact will this bring on China's economy?

I am pretty sure that electric cars are going to take over the car market. Tesla has shown that electric cars can be more desirable than combustion engined ones. They are also the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cars. Currently, the market share is limited by the higher price and more so even by the small number of different electrical models offered. The price does not matter if you cannot get the car model you want in the first place.

So any threats to fossil car sales is about accelerating the switch and push car makers into quickly offering a wider variety of electric cars. As soon as electric cars cross 50% market share, combustion engine cars probably will become less desirable and difficult to sell. So a total ban should not matter too much then, the trick is getting to 50%.

> They are also the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cars.

From an individual perspective, maybe. From a city-planner perspective, the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cars is to deploy public transit. (And the Chinese know that: https://twitter.com/yicaichina/status/867494851511672832 )

If everybody switches to electric do we have enough raw materials for batteries like lithium to supply the whole world?

There's enough lithium. With present battery chemistries, the most bottlenecked material for lithium ion batteries is actually cobalt. There are cobalt-free chemistries, but the trade-off is lower energy density.

Another thing to add is the use of cobalt in alnico magnets that cheaper EV motors use

Do AC induction motors (like Tesla's) use magnets?

They don't. As I know, only Chinese EV makers use BLDC motos with permanent magnets.

>If everybody switches to electric do we have enough raw materials for batteries like lithium to supply the whole world?

This is a common misconception about batteries. Lithium makes up about 2% of the mass of a Li-Ion battery, and it is more abundant in the Earth's crust than lead or tin.

And unlike oil, Lithium can be recycled indefinitely

"As of 2017, the recycling of Li-Ion batteries generally does not extract lithium since the many different types of Li-Ion batteries require a different extraction process."

Source: "Battery Recycling > Lithium ion batteries" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling

This would change if there was a shortage. Nobody recycles it now because it's cheaper to mine more.

Material recycling has not to date been particularly effectively developed. The most-recycled metal in the United States is lead, and only about 40% of it is recovered. That means that the useful amount in use decreases by over half with each use generation.

Even with high recovery rates, per-generation losses mean that new mining or other recovery is constantly required. And the amounts of lithium required for widespread energy storage are truely vast.

Cobalt seems to be the biggest constraint in supply. I read somewhere we have enough lithium for a hundred years including increases in battery consumption.

Related, has anyone done napkin math on aluminum air batteries, assuming excess electricity from wind and PV?

Aluminum air batteries are not really rechargeable (you have to reduce the oxygen out), but at some point I think they may make some sense.

Is the world really ready to push battery power this quickly? We need to install millions of charging ports.

What worries me is charge time. Say it takes 2 hours to charge my car I pull over and all the charging ports are taken.

I could be waiting 2 hours to get a port and then another 2 to charge.

I think this is the kind of problem that gets solved by market forces. If the lines are too long, someone opens up a new station and has lots of customers right away.

Well, Tesla has that whole change out the entire battery in a few minutes thing going. There's also research into superchargers and capacitors that work like batteries. There's also the change in behavior and expectations. People can adapt some of their driving habits to meet charging requirements. Also eventually the whole move to self-driving cars.

There are no production EVs to my knowledge that allow a battery swap. Renault tried it with the Fluence in Israel, and discontinued that approach.

The Tesla Model S supports it. They only built one station, though, and I don't know if it's still operating. It turned out not to be very popular.

Literally any restaurant or shopping center will install a charging station in a heartbeat since it means an opportunity for a captive audience. They already have the space and the power supply, just need a reason to want to bother. My group is installing 2 spaces this week in one of our properties in downtown Memphis as an incentive to all our Tesla-driving office tenant execs. And we aren't doing it for free; charging for a power fill up is a new potential (small) profit center for us, and we will gladly install another dozen if and when We need more (edits: to clean up language)

Yes, I suspect they will be as pervasive as vending machines or pay phones 30 years ago. The biggest trick is faster charging.

>> charging for a power fill up is a new potential (small) profit center for us,

Is that profit potential large enough for financiers to offer you the install for free for all/share of the profits ?

From a real estate business perspective, it's a drop in the bucket so we don't really care about the revenue. It's real value is providing an amenity to our tenants, which has real traction with certain tenants.. again, the tesla driving execs.

But to answer your specific question, I do not know, probably. I think we (300,00sf office tower) buy electricty at a cheaper rate than residential rates, so we have a small potential arbitrage without the customer caring.

HOWEVER, fast forward to a not-so-distant future where majority of tenants demand/request a charge, now we are talking real money.

If we are ever in that situation, what's going to change is the way the car is used; people will adapt to the new expectations just like they adapted to not having a 'real keyboard' on their phones.

Friend mentioned a coworker with a Nissan Leaf. Coming to work to find all the charging spots taken up by Tesla's. The butthurt being, they're topping up because it's convenient. Charging is free and the spots are right in front of the building. Where he needs to top up to get home after work.

Improved, 200-300 mile range fixes a lot of that. With my current 30 mile round trip commute I'd only need to charge a Chevy bolt once a week. With my old ten mile commute... twice a month.

In 20 years the tech might advance so much that we could be charging them at home, like iPhones.

(maybe it's impossible, not a scientist, but I'd like to dream)

I charge my i3 at home right now and it's feasible. European AC plugs have 220V and can supply up to 16A before melting the socket. That is 3.5kwh charging. 33kwh battery in i3 can be charged in around 10 hours from zero which provides around 200km (~130 miles) of comfortable driving. More if you go for economy.

Tealas have much larger batteries though.

Teslas also come with a domestic charge adaptor, in case you really have to use it. As you point out, it takes a very long time - something like 25 hours for 90kWh battery.

> That is 3.5kwh charging

Nitpick: Either "3.5 kW" or "3.5 kWh per hour".

Yes. The Nissan Leaf has a range of 107 miles. How is most of Florida supposed to evacuate before a hurricane if they all drive EV's? There already isn't even enough gas down there for everyone.

Trunk batteries? Like jerry cans?

Nissan just released a new version of the Leaf with a 150 mile range. Also, at the moment, electric vehicles are mostly second cars for commuting, most will be owned by multiple car households which have access to other cars in the situation you describe. This target is for 2045, so it's still a few generations off. On current trends, they will have the necessary range, low cost, and charging speed by that time to be able to make up the majority of the market.

Last year’s model was 107 miles. The new model is 150, with an option to 300 miles next year.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/05/the-new-2018-nissan-leaf-o...

The article is about some point in the future. Why are you discussing current technology?

Bus or Train?

What about partially/fully immobile family members, larger than small physical things, supplies, lower income households (that use their car as a storage and live in a tent)...?

It does not take two hours to charge your car at a dedicated EV charging station. On the UK motorways my Renault Zoe charges from 0-80% in 30 minutes; of course we never charge it that much in one go whilst motorway driving, so we don't need to charge it as long.

My Tesla Model X charges in similar amounts of time, as whilst the supercharger outputs more power, the battery is bigger.

The nice thing is that there's a lot less regulatory red tape (at least here in the US; China might be different) around putting in a charging station v. putting in a gas pump. Any commercial property owner can install EV chargers in some or all of the property's parking spaces (perhaps with dedicated EV-only spaces, like how some businesses already have spaces reserved for "low-emission" vehicles), and EV owners can install chargers in their own homes as well.

If everywhere you ever want to go has a charger in every parking spot, then suddenly - I reckon - electric vehicles will end up being way more convenient than ICE vehicles on that particular point (which is the only significant pain point besides high price nowadays).

Good point. One reason why I never liked the idea of hydrogen fuel cells, it'd be another system with a high barrier to entry. Electric is a lot nicer in that respect.

>We need to install millions of charging ports.

Quite a few places in China have 20CNY per hour charging stations, and I believe they are more prevalent in Northern cities

An advancement in supercapaitors or other storage types seems inevitable to win the race.

Current battery tech is variations on a century old concept and lacking real scalability without devastating environmental effects.

Generation is largely solved, storage and balancing electrical grids is the only problem left.

Rail energy storage making claims of half the price of pumped hydro: http://www.aresnorthamerica.com

Whenever I see news like this, it just makes it seem like the US is going to become irrelevant in the future global economy if it doesn't get more serious about renewable energy.

Holy shit! Maybe it is better if the west cedes global leadership to China. Western billionaires have figured out how to own our governments. China's communist party seems to be immune to their influence so far.

Why? There are many countries that already have such a timetable.

Well, they'd not need that great firewall any more.

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