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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

The VW emissions scandal and them being forced to switch to EVs in the US as part of the settlement/punishment (which by the way was also a suggestion Elon Musk made before it happened), is probably what will save VW in the long-term.

It really started a fire underneath them that they couldn't just ignore, as most other carmakers, including VW continued to have the ingrained thinking that EVs are just a "fad" or a "niche market" that they need to address "somehow", but mostly not put a lot of effort into it.

Tesla Model 3 having 400,000 pre-orders in week 1 probably freaked out most carmakers, too, though. I'm glad VW, as well as other carmakers have realized by now that EVs are the future of the vast majority of road vehicles, and there is nothing stopping it.

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>>The VW emissions scandal and them being forced to switch to EVs in the US as part of the settlement/punishment

Has that actually happened? From my perspective the ongoing exodus towards EVs is due to EU enforcing incredibly strict emissions standard, basically from this year every manufacturer has to have a fleet average of 100g of CO2/km traveled, with very heavy fines paid for every single car sold above that level(it has already led to Mercedes completely stopping sales of AMG vehicles since September until the end of the year, because they are so badly over the threshold), and then in few years the required average drops to 75g of CO2/km and then 50g. Those targets are bonkers, and impossible to achieve on pure ICEs(the 100g target is maybe just possible, but definitely not the 75 or 50g ones). So every manufacturer who sells cars in EU has to innovate and has to move towards PHEVs and BEVs, because otherwise it will be simply impossible to sell any cars at a profit over here. VW of course knows this and that's why there is such a strong push from their entire group towards electric vehicles.

I have no idea what impact the US market had on this, but from my perspective it was zero - just like American manufacturers have pulled out even further from EU, European manufacturers are simply cutting out all models that are hard to sell in US due to their regulations.

One thing I don't understand is how the EU public will afford this. I drive a Plugin Hybrid, but since moving from my old place and living in an apartment, I have no where to charge it. The closest charging station is around 12km from me and has 2 plugs (it is in an Aldi). After that there is another on 4-5 km after also with 2 plugs and one is mostly out of service.

I am all for lower emission vehicles, but most people in my country live in apartments, a lot of them without garages even. What will people do? (I end up charging my car at my parents when I need, but even so it is a PITA as I have to leave it there for a few hours and then walk back home for 10-15 minutes)

Yeah I also drive a PHEV and it just doesn't work if you can't charge it at home - you might as well not bother at all.

However, I think the idea going forward is that proper BEVs will charge at stupid fast rates - 150-200kW charges, giving you 200-300 miles range in just 30-40 minutes of charging.

And which point, for majority of commuters, it's not completely inconceivable that once a week you just go to a "fuel station" where you plug in for 30 minutes to fill up and that lasts you the whole week of commuting, even if you can't charge anywhere in between. We're not quite there yet, but I think that's the ultimate future.

I agree with you.

But once people start having en masse these problems, things will change ASAP. It's like bike infrastructure: if there are 2 bikes on the road, nobody cares, if there are 20000 bikes on the road, everybody cares.

The hardest part is getting people to care. Once you do that, they will everything in their power to make things go their way.

Wireless charging would be the best solution. Charge where you park and no cables on the street:

https://witricity.com/products/automotive/

My local council barely has enough money to patch potholes in the streets, they are switching the lights off at night to save money. Yet somehow.....they will build this expensive to build and maintain infrastructure?

I imagine the first answer people will have is "it's simple! We will just let the private sector handle this!" - to which I say, this is an absolutely awful idea. The charging infrastructure is already handled like this and it's an absolute mess - every charger requires a different app, from a different provider, they all have different rules and requirements, if you turn up to a charger that you don't already have an account for, good luck spending the next 15-20 minutes setting up an account and hoping it actually works(instead of giving you "unknown error occurred" like it happens in my experience, just yesterday I wanted to use a "public" charger but failed because the 1 star android app by that provider kept crashing - it's a shitshow basically). The best thing that could happen to it is either all charging infrastructure being nationalized, or at least the government introducing very strict standards like they do with petrol stations.

> Yet somehow.....they will build this expensive to build and maintain infrastructure?

Sure. Ghent is: https://www.themayor.eu/ga/ghent-speeds-up-the-transition-to...

New York is: https://www.nypa.gov/services/clean-energy-advisory-services...

Tulsa is with chargers with built-in batteries for lower installation cost: https://freewiretech.com/news/electrifying-the-heartland-tul...

The problem is that there is no infrastructure at all. Inductive charging is already a mature technology even for EVs. It's not going to change things up if nobody installs chargers.

Year by year there will be more infrastructure. Like these on-street pop up chargers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb5aA3Qepe8

Or lamppost chargers: https://thedriven.io/2020/03/24/siemens-converts-all-lamp-po...

Hybrids are great! So setting a goal that's impossible to meet with pure ICE isn't bonkers.

You're misunderstanding me. The goals were bonkers in the sense that the average goal was set way below pretty much every vehicle on the market - so the day it was announced, there were maybe 2-3 compliant models. Bonkers as in - "crazy" low. Not that they are bad. I myself drive a PHEV and my next car is definitely going to be a full electric.

Do you know when are those reductions to 75/50g set to go into effect? I've been hoping to move to electric vehicles for a while now but unfortunately the infrastructure is lacking, it's simply not practical to do so. I'm hopeful though that with these changes there will be more investment in electric recharging infrastructure.

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