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Comment by ivankirigin | Hacker News Reader

This phases out car sales, not the cars. Lifecycle is 15 years, so we're looking at 2050.

For context, EVs are a few percent of sales in California, and almost zero for trucks.

With the right incentives it can go faster.

> Clean transport transition leader Norway hit a huge 70.2% plugin passenger vehicle market share in August, up from 49% a year ago. Pure battery electrics alone took 53% of the market.

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/02/norway-in-august-over-7...

I wish these articles would also count many are primary cars (i.e. a household replacing or buying a car, meaning they don't otherwise have one), and how many are secondary cars (i.e. in addition to another car, particularly non-EVs). My anecdotal evidence from Norway suggest most people get EVs as their secondary cars. I wish I had more numbers.

> The study found that 63% of Norwegian households with electric cars also have a fossil car or hybrid car, down from 70% in 2017. The survey also found that among respondents having only one car in the household, one third (32.4%) are electric car owners, up from 26.3% in 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_N...

Norway heavily subsidized new electric vehicle purchases to achieve this result.

Coincidentally, the principal for Norway's huge sovereign wealth fund comes largely from oil extraction.

My understanding is at least for Tesla’s (and presumably other EVs), Norway just lower the enormous taxes they normally apply to ICE cars.

Yes. 0% sales tax was what it was at. Whereas ICE was at 100%. Norway isn’t a good example of a country to follow because it’s an incredibly wealthy one that uses all its oil money to fund stuff. The people also get paid much more there than in other countries.

In Norway, buying a Tesla was cheaper than buying a Honda Accord. It was also cheaper to maintain and run because you didn’t pay large tolls or what not either. Basically, everyone else was subsidizing electric car owners.

Imagine paying $60k for a Honda Accord, having to pay large tolls, expensive gas, and so forth... and a Tesla isn’t taxed on any of that stuff. You’d get the Tesla just because it’s way cheaper!

Norway taxes ICE cars in such a way that they virtually all cost MORE than an expensive electrical car.

They are definitely not a good example of a free market choosing EVs because they are actually better.

A free market would account for it's externalities. If it costs 80k to remove the emissions your 20k ICE causes, then once the externalities are accounted for, your free market ICE should cost 100k...

Sure doesn’t seem aggressive enough, yet it’s the most aggressive stance on gas transportation to date, that I’m aware of.

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/nor...

As EV ownership rises gas stations are going to become rare enough to be a real hassle. That’s likely to push people to 95+% EV around 2040ish. At which point the remaining IC cars stop being a big deal.

We already went though something similar with catalytic converter requirements. Some people are going to drive 40+ year old cars, but they quickly become irrelevant.

You still have to figure out how to fill your battery as fast as you can fill at tank of gas.

Honestly not as big of a deal as many make it out to be. With EVs, the cars can be constantly charging when stopped. Even for longer trips, the newer, faster chargers can do 180 miles of charge in 15 minutes. This, combined with being able to charge virtually any time the car is stopped, can make electric cars even more convenient when it comes to filling up.

Also, having your car at 100% at the start of any day more than makes up for those rare occasions when you're going on a 500+ mile road trip.

Doesn't need to be equally fast. If you roadtrip a lot, it matters. But if you charge almost exclusively at home, then the number of times you have to recharge on a strict schedule is quite limited. The time savings from never going to the gas station is pretty significant compared with taking a half hour to recharge when you're on a long trip.

Even if you road trip significantly; Human physiology suggests eating, waste disposal, or at least moving around (to prevent blood clots) at about half the current range of Teslas (3 hrs or 180 miles). And current charging technology allows fast charging particularly well at these percentages.

Ie, charge for 30 minutes every 3 hours, 1 hour every 6 hours, and on either the 12 or 15th hour you charge for 4+ hours (and sleep)

You never drove to Florida with a couple of friends on I-95. It is possible to simply keep moving around the clock.

If that’s your benchmark, EV’s can average about 5MPH slower over very long trips at highway speeds than ICE engines. It’s worse on ultra long trips or if you’re doing 100+MPH trying to break the cannonball run record etc, but that’s frankly illegal anyway.

PS: As an edge case benchmark, a 2018 model 3 has done the New York City to Los Angeles in 45 hours and 16 minutes or 61.5MPH including breaks. I only see that time dropping as EV’s improve.

45 hours in an EV vs sub-26 hours for an ICE? That's like:

"Punch It, Chewie!"

Then, the Empire wins.

Sub 26 hours in an ICE averaging over 110 MPH and a top speed of 175 mph. That’s not just lose your license but head straight to jail territory.

But sure as I said, if that’s what your going for ICE engines currently have a significant advantage using current technology and infrastructure. However, in terms of capacity to do a real world road trip the difference is already minimal.

PS: Don’t forget electric trains do 375 mph and can maintain that indefinitely. Assuming EV is always just going to be a battery technology is far from proven at this point.

EV’s could use in road charging to get effectively unlimited range on highways. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/12/worlds-f... But, I think that’s completely unnecessary. Charging at home actually saves time traveling to gas stations more than making up for spending an extra 5-10 minutes on the extremely unusual 400+ mile road trip.

Remember, we are talking about 50+% of cars being EV that means plentiful charging infrastructure.

EV’s are already shipping with 400+ mile ranges and 180 miles of charging in 15 minutes. 2 different 15 minute stops for food, bathroom breaks, and just stretching over 10 hours means your EV is doing 750~ miles per day, that’s well past what most people are willing to spend in their cars, and it can completely charge overnight.

2040? This bans new vehicles. Existing ICE vehicles remain and with a 20 year lifespan, you’d be lucky to hit 95% EVs by 2055.

I expect there will be other measures in the future. Heavier taxes on gasoline and such, and higher DMV registration fees, growing over time. And EV sales will grow as more people test drive the better EVs. People looking for a used car will be trying to find a good used electric. Gasoline car resale value is going to crash hard.

How I wish we could phase out cars. I know that they're necessary for some, and a huge convenience for most. But I would LOVE to be able to walk down a street and not have to worry about getting run over by a 1T steel object because the driver was reading a text.

Use a sidewalk?

> "so we're looking at 2050"

Probably sooner. In 2034, a year before this takes place, gasoline car sales will probably be small to negligible. In 2045, it'll be a hassle to own a gasoline car when most of the gas stations are closed.

Don't trucks generally run on Diesel, so aren't effected by this?

Could people start buying more Diesel cars, as well as trucks, because of this?

The title says gasoline but the body says “zero-emission”. I suspect the actual legislation is about emissions not type of fuel.

It says passenger vehicles, so I expect trucks to be included but not semi trucks and other cargo vehicles.

The subtitle says all vehicles sold must be zero-emissions, so that presumably includes diesel. But this seems to only target passenger vehicles, not freight carriers.

There is a provision in there for medium and heavy duty vehicles to require it 10 yrs later but heavy duty day cab trucks meet the same req as cars.

“ Following the order, the California Air Resources Board will develop regulations to mandate that 100 percent of in-state sales of new passenger cars and trucks are zero-emission by 2035 – a target which would achieve more than a 35 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and an 80 percent improvement in oxides of nitrogen emissions from cars statewide. In addition, the Air Resources Board will develop regulations to mandate that all operations of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles shall be 100 percent zero emission by 2045 where feasible, with the mandate going into effect by 2035 for drayage trucks.”

https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/09/23/governor-newsom-announces-...

Hmmm I wonder why the title only mentions gasoline then?

We're likely looking at massive "polluter" surcharges on already expensive registration for anyone driving an ICE vehicle in 2040 or so.

Gotta kick 'em when they're down. /s

On the flip side, it will be a great time to own a "buy here pay here" lot.

Since you posted almost exactly the same comment further up the thread. It's important to consider that ICE vehicles have been puking out air pollution and CO2 for more than a century, killing thousands, if not millions of people and contributing greatly to climate change, which is getting worse.

It frustrates me that people take umbrage at being charged money for using energy and polluting the environment.

>It frustrates me that people take umbrage at being charged money for using energy and polluting the environment.

I take issue with it when those people are mostly only the people who do so because they cannot afford to do better (which will likely be the case in 2035+).

And then in the next breath you question the need for a government subsidy.

There's a difference between a subsidy and kicking who's already down.

I was questioning the need for a government mandate in 2035 by pointing out that electric cars are soon to be viable without subsidies so if the market's gonna go that way anyway what's the point of the mandate?

> There's a difference between a subsidy and kicking who's already down.

Dude what? If it's economically viable then it's not kicking anyone, up or down. Besides, these are complete opposites (penalty vs reward)?

I literally cannot understand what in the heck you are trying to argue because your logic is self-refuting.

Sounds like only for "new car" sales also.

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