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Germany Plans $1.4 Billion In Incentives For Electric Cars (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg article: German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government reached a deal with automakers to jointly spend 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) on incentives to boost sluggish electric-car sales. Buyers will be able to receive as much as 4,000 euros in rebates to help offset the higher price of an electric vehicle, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said at a press conference in Berlin. Purchasers of hybrid cars will get as much as 3,000 euros off the price. The industry will shoulder 50 percent of the cost. The program is set to start in May, pending approval from the German parliament's budget committee, he said. "The goal is to move forward as quickly as possible on electric vehicles," Schaeuble told reporters, adding that the aim is to begin offering the incentives next month. "With this, we are giving an impetus."
Last time i drove on the autobahn (about 6 months ago) everyone was already driving pretty slowly. About 120km/h. Sure there was the odd fast driver, not many compared to say 8-10 years ago.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
"You have to generate the power somewhere. If not in an internal combustion, then where?"
That *somewhere* is at power plants but lots of Germans have rooftop solar so perhaps self-generation will offset much of it.
We're also a long way from the time where EVs make up enough of cars on the road to be a significant draw on the grid, if well-managed.
California has about 200,000 plug-in EVs, roughly 1/2 the US total and they're not building power plants or suffering rolling blackouts because of demand.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The autobahn is just the German version of the USA's interstate system. Half of it has speed limits below 81 mph, and the other half has an "advisory limit" of about 81 mph. The sections with speed limits are dispersed, so it's not like you can go for very long before hitting one which slows all the traffic down. If you go over 81 mph in the areas with "advisory limits" only and you have an accident, you're automatically considered partially if not completely at fault. The fastest 6 lane free-flowing section of the autobahn averages about 88 mph. That's because it really isn't safe to drive most cars faster than that. The aerodynamics make it difficult, but a side-wind can push the broad side of the car hard enough to make steering against it quickly enough to counter-act the push very difficult as well. Imagine an 18-wheeler 3 feet to your left on a curved road as a strong wind blows you towards it while you're driving 90 mph. Most people that drive on the autobahn just want to get from A to B, not use it as a drag strip or you know... die because they were driving foolishly.
How would Teslas which have a max speed of about 130 mph make any difference? There are plenty of hybrids on the roads in Atlanta, GA -- and to see someone driving under 80 mph on the interstates near Atlanta is really rare. It's understood everyone goes at least 10 mph over the posted limit around Atlanta. The same goes for parts of Knoxville, TN. In those parts, the majority of Americans are driving the same if not faster than they would be on the Autobahn.
If anything, hybrids and electrics are an improvement -- especially over old POS cars like a 1950s or 1960s oldsmobile with a top speed of 97 mph that burns gas so fast, you'd think there was a hole in the tank. A 2002/2003 Ford Taurus with a top speed of 139 mph technically could beat a Tesla (after it catches up) in a long stretch, but it would burn through fuel and need a pit-stop before the Tesla... assuming it didn't fly off the road first as it becomes very hard to control over 90 mph since it lacks the aerodynamics of a Tesla.
I get that a lot of initial hybrid users stared at their dashboard trying to hypermile and that used to slow everyone to a crawl, but I think that fad is pretty much over -- especially now that hybrids are more mainstream and gas prices have plummeted.
California has about 200,000 plug-in EVs, roughly 1/2 the US total and they're not building power plants or suffering rolling blackouts because of demand.
Most vehicle charging is done at night with baseload power. So rather than more power plants, we just better utilize the power plants that we already have. My wife has a Tesla, and it is programmed to start charging at 2am. We have demand billing, so we save money by using baseload power. A full charge (240 miles) costs us about $6.
Internal combustion will never pass 50% efficiency. A power plant would be above 90%.
ICEs are typically less than 20% efficient, and some more is lost in the transmission system (which electric cars don't need). The best gas turbine power plants are less than 60% efficient, and will never get near 90%.
Elon isn't doing this. He's making cars the majority of people can't afford. Electric cars need a 300 mile range for $25k new with the infrastructure to back it up or adoption will never be as good as we'd like it to be.
It's OK to have luxury electrics, but if they make up the entire market it will never take off.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
You achieve much higher levels oaf efficiency with power stations, by associating industries that need heat for their processes. So you pipe waste heat to those places, reducing waste quite significantly. Similar can be done with desalination plants in the opposite direction, making them more efficient by using their waste water to for cooling, recovering energy lost in pumping. So immediate match associate power plants with desalination plants and they both become far more efficient.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Electric car incentives are because electric cars are currently significantly more expensive to manufacture. The incentives bring the cost to the buyer down closer to the price of a gas car.
Nobody says, "I really want a car that's louder, smellier, and helps fund Saudi Arabia!" They buy gas because it's cheaper. So far. Another 5-10 years and electric cars will get down to gas's price point, on top of being much cheaper to run. Reaching that point sooner is the point of electric car incentives.
Great non sequitur. They are only good for 90% of the people 99% of the time, we shouldn't allow them to be sold. Would that make you feel better?
And the battery myth has moved from myth to outright lie. You know they aren't that bad when it takes people lying about them to find anything bad to say about them.
Learn to love Alaska
So, rather than just being 2x more efficient baseline, electric vehicles are 3x as efficient?
That's about right. ICE+transmission delivers about 15% of fuel energy to the wheels. A gas turbine power plant + battery + charger delivers about 45%. So you get about three times the miles for a given amount of fuel. But gas/coal is much cheaper than gasoline, so the cost is much less than a third. Also, gas and coal are produced domestically, generating jobs for Americans. Petroleum is often from Iran/Venezuela/Russia or other people that hate us.
Here in Germany, the main issue why people do not buy electric cars is not that they are slightly more expensive than standard cars (talking about stuff like the e-Golf, not Tesla), it is that the infrastructure is not there and so electric cars are not practical. People look at electric cars and ask "where am I supposed to charge that?". Many people park their car on the streets, so they simply cannot charge it over night, or they have a garage with no suitable power outlet, so that the incentives would have to be enough to buy the expensive electric car AND pay for all the work to put a suitable outlet into the garage. 4000 Euros in incentives won't magically make a power outlet appear on the street where you park your car over night. So all these incentives will do is make rich people (who can afford it anyway) save 4000 Euros when they buy a Tesla or i8 as a 2nd or 3rd car.
California *is* suffering blackouts in summer and they are building their icky power plants in the neighboring states and Mexico.
Germany gets 80% of its power from fossil fuel. It's more efficient to burn it at a plant than in a cylinder however.
Yeah, they are a fad, like mobile phones, flatscreen TVs, solar panels and the internet.
- Chuq
Yes, they replace older and less efficient coal power plants that are decommissioned. Germany won't exit coal power any time soon because it is the only domestic source and relying on imports is dangerous.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
There isn't any additional net electricity. It takes more than 4 KWh to refine a gallon of gasoline. 4 is the lowest number you will hear. Some say 6, some say 8 if they add more elements in the chain than just refining. An average car will go further on the 4KWh than the gallon of gas. So the more electric cars we have the less electricity we will be using. best explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... http://www.autoblog.com/2011/1...