Won't really make any environmental difference since they'll have to produce more energy. Since germany utilizes gas and coal you will basically shift to that from petrol since they shutdown their nuclear power plant
"Electric vehicles emit no NO2 but do produce small particle pollution from the wear on brake discs and tyres and by throwing up dust from roads. A recent European commission research paper found that about half of all particulate matter comes from these sources."
You're right that EVs don't fully solve the problem, but they are a giant step in the right direction.
It's time for germany to stop relying on coal and open up to nuclear like France and Sweden
https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/repor...
- If we count hydro as an option we also have to include wind with pumped hydro storage (which comes with the same problems as hydro: geographic requirements and ecosystem disruption).
- Wind/Solar with Li-Io storage is technically a possibility and likely will become cost effective within 20 years.
- Within 20 years better grid-scale storage for use with wind/solar might become widely deployed, like molten salt. Especially if we would be willing to spend equal amounts of capital as would be required for deploying nuclear
- Energy consumption could be much more closely coupled to solar/wind availability by changing electricity prices from a fixed price to a dynamic price coupled to real spot prices. We already shift electricity use into the night by charging industrial consumers less for off-peak use, the same strategy can be used to shift consumption anywhere to any other time of day.
(And I'm not even considering the energy that we need to expend to refine the oil to make fuel that vehicles can use).
Do you have a source for that claim? Keep in mind that there are also renewable energy sources that do not rely on weather events (water and biomass).
In combination with energy storing and a reduction of the total energy needed it is afaik considered possible to go fully renewable [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy
EDIT: I misread your comment. I thought you were arguing that "unclean" power plants are nessecary. However my point about not needing nuclear still stands.
Varying power sources need to be combined with adjustable power sources. So do constant sources, unless you want to force consumption to correspond to availability. Shutting off nuclear plants and going fully renewable would require bringing more adjustable sources online, though. Hence the quest for better storage technologies.
That's incorrect. While Germany failed to make its reduction goals, it still reduced emissions while simultaneously increasing production.