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Comment by TacticalCoder | Hacker News Reader

> From absolute gold standard electric production/infrastructure in the 70s to barely able to light school rooms in 2022

And they voted, like the rest of the EU, the ban of ICE and hybrid vehicles sales by 2035.

2023, risks of blackouts.

2035: every single car sold is going to be 100% EV.

And the switch to EVs is already happening, which is already putting a shitload of stress on the network. If 0% of the vehicles in France were EVs, there would be absolutely zero blackout this winter.

I'm not saying we should not switch to EVs. What I'm saying is we're simply not ready at all.

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> If 0% of the vehicles in France were EVs, there would be absolutely zero blackout this winter.

Data source for this? I don't remotely believe you.

The average car (EV or ICE) drives for ~40km/day, meaning EVs don't need to charge every single day. Also, most EVs charge at night. They are not the problem.

Also, France has approx. 200,000 EVs, out of ~38M of vehicles [0]. A rounding error.

[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/455887/passenger-cars-re...

Funnily enough, Switzerland is mulling a temporary EV ban because of its toll on the electric grid.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/swiss-government-may-ban-...

The article doesn't say it's a ban: just a limitation for essential travel, after non-essential heating is turned off in nightclubs, etc:

The first one would be the emergency phase and would have three degrees of restrictions that will entail reducing shop operating hours, turning off heating systems in nightclubs, and reducing temperature in buildings to no more than 20 degrees celsius. The restrictions on electric vehicle usage for non-essential travel is in the third escalation level of the emergency phase.

> What I'm saying is we're simply not ready at all

Then they will simply push the deadline out.

But far better to have an aggressive timeline for the market to coalesce around.

No?

We should build more reactors.

No, this is terrible for the EV industry.

It causes uncertainty and removes willingness in private business and citizens to lead the change. More and more will start considering it may be better to wait and move only when the risk is low.

Switzerland is considering banning EVs. Even if they don't, your car is banned if you can't charge it...

This is different from an oil supply issue. It's your government telling you to buy an EV than the same government (not a foreign one) denying you electricity out of stupidity.

Edit: Switzerland isn't banning EVs, more appropriate to say it's considering restricting EVs

I didn’t know if you followed the news but France had a massive oil crisis in the last months, people were scrambling to fill the car. Every energy source has risks and electricity is more modular than oil because it can be produced for many different sources. Also we live in a time of crisis, we have to not be so weak and accept temporary restrictions for the greater good.

I follow the news in France, but the reason people were scrambling to fill their cars had nothing to do with an energy crisis.

The first wave of "people scrambling to fill their cars" was caused by union strikes at French refineries in October, leading to supply shortages at the pumps.

The second wave was caused by people scrambling to fill up their cars at a lower price per litre, before the government "subsidy" on fuel was reduced in mid-November. Whatever one might think of people who will sit in a traffic queue for several hours to save €10 at the pump, it has nothing to do with an energy crisis.

Why does the reason matter? The fact is that people want to present combustion engines as more robust while they‘re clearly not. France can’t produce oil on its own territory much.

It matters for consumer behavior, I think.

In my opinion, the current energy crisis in France is more damning for the vehicle electrification plans than what you mentioned for gas cars.

One thing is the government telling you to buy EVs and then totally failing to deliver the "E" of the equation.

Another thing is an event caused by third-parties.

Maybe people will decide to have two cars, then: gas and electric.

Point is: it doesn't look good for the EV industry. Saying the oil industry is ugly doesn't help.

Ironically, given battery availability as the limiting factor in EV adoption, you are far better off for CO2 emission using the one big battery in an EV to power dozens (or more!) hybrids!

> And they voted, like the rest of the EU, the ban of ICE and hybrid vehicles sales by 2035.

Yes, because we need to make things better. And doing so will be difficult, it will be uncomfortable, it will be expensive and it will be very hard work.

And it will be worthwhile, so we should keep striving to get there.

>2035: every single car sold is going to be 100% EV.

Yeah, that's not happening. It wouldn't even happen without the whole energy hoopla going on today, even less so as it is now.

>What I'm saying is we're simply not ready at all.

This is one of those feel-good goals that get moved decade by decade. It's not meant to be taken seriously...

It will just help push some subsidies and sell some more EVs, but nothing will be 100% EV or even 50% EV in 2035.

Why make such bold proclamations? Norway is at 84% of new car sales already. A lot can change in 10 years.

Due to subsidies from selling oil. In a climate where lithium batteries will die way faster than a combustion engine would. It looks great on paper, as long as you don't look at the big picture.

Norway has _really_ cheap electricity due to producing 90% of it via hydro, backed by being a gas and oil exporter with a total population smaller than Paris.

This is not the case for most of the EU.

I do agree that things can change in ten years.

Really cheap electricity can be achieved with nuclear everywhere in the world.

Making the same errors we made in France are not a mandatory thing. What is happening right now is not because nuclear was the wrong choice, but because we stopped investing in it during decades and so we are now stuck with this corrosion issue everywhere because all our power plants aged in parallel and so, issues relative to aging happens in parallel.

It’s a sad state because this corrosion issue is said to be easily solvable … as long as you don’t have dozens of reactors to fix in parallel before the winter.

> Really cheap electricity can be achieved with nuclear everywhere in the world.

sure, in abstract, but we're talking of the EU in 12 years.

I think the discussion is not meaningful anyway: the stop to ICE vehicles sales in 2035 does not mean the whole continent will stop having them.

My mom's neighbor drives a 20 year old FIAT Panda.

They supported it with natural resources, subsidies/tax cuts for EVs, and a good enough economy. All of which are either non existend, or declining in most of Europe.

And having a country with big sales is nowhere close to the same thing as supporting a 350 market with anywhere near replacement rates of its cars - which beside lacking infrastructure, it also needs capacities, battery resources etc, that are not there at this level.

The trends affecting the next 10 years are reversing, not boosting this though...

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