Yes. The EURO emissions regulations will make it essentially impossible to sell a new, purely ICE-powered car in the near future (in Europe). Every new car will be a bloated hybrid, designed entirely to scrape through the emissions and efficiency requirements.
They are the worst of both worlds: anemic, still burning fuel, hybrid complexity and combustion maintenance. BEVs or bust, anything else is window dressing on tech we’re leaving behind.
BEVs will get cheaper faster as battery manufacturing ramps. No need to waste any more effort on combustion technology and infra.
Actually disagree, plug-in hybrids will run on battery for most short trips in the city. It’s cutting out all the low hanging fruit for pollution. Most of your trips on 20/30mph roads where fuel efficiency is poor. Stop and go traffic. Sitting at a stoplight. If you’re running on battery in those scenarios, I’d say you’re making a huge improvement.
And then you still have gas for a longer trip somewhere with no charging infra. But those trips will hopefully be rarer. And when you’re going 60+ mph on these longer trips, you’re only ever burning fuel at the engine’s better efficiency.
I think there’s a good place for this tech in some lifestyles.
EVs are obviously the future, but intermediate vehicles to help people get into EVs aren’t bad. If someone chooses a plugin-hybrid over gas, but would have chosen gas over EV for range and charging reasons, it’s a good improvement
> Actually disagree, plug-in hybrids will run on battery for most short trips in the city. It’s cutting out all the low hanging fruit for pollution.
That's true in theory. Unfortunately in practice - at least where I live - Hybrids don't get charged at home. People buy hybrids for the tax/other benefits but just park them on public roads. Which means that you get the worst possible state where you have pseudo-green ICE vehicles that run with a lot of extra weight in the form of a basically useless electric motor. (Except for recuperating but that's not worth it)
Perhaps these people don't have means to charge their vehicles so they would not be able to charge a BEV too? I cannot imagine why anybody who has access to a charger would intentionally leave a PHEV uncharged, what is the point? Are you in an area where hybrid is cheaper to run on gas?
They work fairly well for some use cases. I know a few people who have plugin hybrids with maybe 50km battery range; they typically commute entirely on the battery (short urban commutes) and use the petrol engine maybe once or twice a year for long journeys. The plug-in hybrid is, of course, much cheaper than an electric car that could handle the occasional long trips, but most of their driving is on electric.
If you live in a city and mostly use the car for commuting/shopping, this can make a lot of sense, and that's not a small market.
One problem with this usage mode is that it can leave the petrol engine unused for very long periods, which will ultimately lead to problems (I think some hybrids will now deliberately periodically run it for a bit to deal with this).
How does that make any sense? What those people need is a cheap EV with 50km range, and then rent a lnog-range vehicle for those few annual long trips. Why load your EV with several 100kg of ICE gear?
I mean, possibly that's the case, but in reality, I think you'd have trouble selling an EV with 50km range (and in practice manufacturers don't try). People would feel very insecure about that.
Disagreeing too... Neighbors here both have plug-in hybrids. 50 km autonomy officially, when they actually do 40. Thing is: when your daily commute is 20 kilometers or less, this means you don't need the ICE. But you have it when you need to do more than 40 kilometers and there's no "range anxiety".
They can go for weeks without turning the ICE on.
I do also think it's not a bad stepping stone to bring people towards full electric cars: they get used to a car that you charge at home. Meanwhile the charging network gets better and better and cities/countries get the time to adapt too (there's no way everybody can charge a full electric car at home without changes to the current grids).
I don't see what's wrong with ICE -> plug-in hybrid -> full electric.
I thought so too, and bought a cheap EV, but also kept a raggedy old civic for taking longer trips. Caring for 2 cars got old quick. Sold both and bought a cheap used plug-in hybrid and haven't looked back.
Even a non-plug hybrid isn't really the worst of both worlds. The battery replacement is relatively cheap when it eventually needs it, it's gentler on the gas engine that and ICE car, and won't waste gas running the engine while you're not moving.
As for anemic/not exciting to drive, yeah, true. It's not that important for me to have an exciting car, and I think most people don't see that as a top priority.
Disagree. It’s the 80/20 rule, the PHEV will get you to 80% of your destinations on electricity. Paying $20,000 more for a battery for the added range to make those last 20% or trips isn’t worth it. (And with the state of charging, there are probably trips your EV can’t make that a PHEV can)
I'd rather see those KWHr distributed to as many vehicles as possible, able to prevent 80% of the CO2 emissions that they would generate, then hoard that capacity in a single high end vehicle that won't even tap into it.
Hybrid gas engines should be sized to only operate the vehicle on flat ground at highway speeds, so around 10-15KW tops.
The gas engine should be able to handle a mountain pass in hot or cold weather, closer to 150KW. That avoids needing to carry enough battery for that use case.
Not ridiculous, I had a 130HP / 100KW car that could do it only with protest, and modern cars are heavier. To do the same drive mostly on battery you'd need something like 50KWh which is much more than any of the current plug in hybrids I'm aware of. There's not that much weight or cost penalty going from 100HP to 200HP but quite a bit going from 15KWh to 50.
Those look fun. Figure a 2x heavier car and US freeway speeds (70 mph / 112 km/h) and I think you would end up wanting a lot more power. Even if the number seems high you only rely on about half given altitude effects and protecting engine reliability. Notably even on something as light as the i3 BMW tried using a tiny engine for their range extender and ended up switching to a larger 170HP unit.
I own an EV (Ioniq) and believe this is the future. But Toyota Hybrids have been known to drive 400k miles without major hiccups. There exist use cases that EVs just can’t fulfill right now. So why not save 30-40% fuel while battery production is ramping, which will take a few more years.
> They are the worst of both worlds: anemic, still burning fuel
You should back up these strong opinions with some facts. Hybrid batteries which minuscule compared to EVs, put out 25kw+ instantaneous power. More than enough to beat ICE cars across the intersection.
>Hybrid batteries which minuscule compared to EVs, put out 25kw+ instantaneous power.
Which is exactly the problem with hybrid batteries - the peak power demanded from them is about the same as a pure EV, but each cell is put under much greater load because there are fewer of them. Those tiny, over-stressed hybrid batteries will not last very long. Not that many people will notice, as they just want a car that can take them where they want to go.
I drive a PHEV (Ford C-Max) and I don't get the claim that it's anemic. It spins the tires just fine taking off, and I've never felt it was short of power except the couple times I tried to quickly get up to highway speeds in 'EV Only' mode. But running in EV Only mode at highway speeds uses the battery too fast anyway. It's better to use gasoline to go fast and electricity to go slow unless I was expecting to have enough electricity to do the whole trip. You can still put it in 'EV Now' which will mostly use the battery but turn on the engine when you need it for acceleration.
Combustion maintenance intervals are doubled on the PHEV vs a conventional gas only vehicle. And the transaxle shouldn't require any service (although Ford had some manufacturing defects and a recently got a new one under warranty).
Battery manufacturing improvements would improve a PHEV too. Smaller batteries would take up less storage space (C-Max design is suboptimal) or allow for a bigger EV range with the same volume.
Only if the power charging the battery is cleaner than petroleum based fuels. If we had nuclear everywhere, I'd totally agree with you. But if you in get your power from coal power plants, you will cause more emissions charging an electric car compared to petrol car.
You're also assuming the electric grids around the world can handle this increase in load.
False. A petrol car burns petrol it’s entire life. An EV is already cleaner burning coal than a petrol vehicle, and the electric grid will only get cleaner over time. You can Google “well to wheel efficiency” to confirm.
With regards to charging infra, yes, I assume at the current global production rate of ~2 million EVs/year built and sold, the electric grid can absorb these new distributed loads (which are roughly the same draw as a large central heat pump, 20-40amps). There are already systems to orchestrate vehicle charging when there is excess clean energy on a local grid (“DER”). Tesla supports this today with a Scandinavian utility, no different then your Nest thermostat shedding AC load during peak power demand but the inverse.
Below is a list of jurisdictions banning new fossil fuel vehicle sales and when the bans go into effect. Everyone has plenty of notice to prepare.
Many people will be charging their vehicles in the evening after being out for the day. In the US, this time of day is already a large power draw just as solar power starts to wane for the day. If the cars delays charging until after this peak, solar and wind won't be as prevalent either.
Your heat pump comment makes my point for me. This is additional draw on top of what homes already draw today. Yes, it's just a 20-50amp draw, but this is a new draw and will be there year around, along when a heat pump may also be running.
And while you point out that there is regulation around the sale of electric vehicles, is there regulation around the production of clean energy? What to expect to happen with Russia cutting off natural gas, and the US slowing down or stopping the permitting of new drilling locations of natural gas. Where do you expect all of the energy to charge these electric vehicles to come from as the world seems to push back against fossil fuels for powering our grid. World leaders are still hesitant about nuclear. But they're also fighting fossil fuels at the same time. Solar, wind, and hydro will not be enough to cover this increase demand plus normal growth.
>An EV is already cleaner burning coal than a petrol vehicle
That is a patently ridiculous claim.
The most efficient coal power stations approach 50% thermal efficiency. Near 15% of that is lost in power line transmission, and another 15% or so in EV charging cycle losses.
Modern diesels approach 40% thermal efficiency.
Also, this completely ignores one of the main benefits of EVs - that is, externalising emissions and pollution away from the point of use.
> Electric Cars Are Cleaner Even When Powered by Coal
> Emissions from EVs 40% lower than gasoline cars, BNEF says
Researcher expects difference to grow as clean energy expands
> That’s the conclusion of research by BloombergNEF, which found carbon dioxide emissions from battery-powered vehicles were about 40 percent lower than for internal combustion engines last year.
"an average ICE vehicle will emit around 69 metric tonnes in its lifetime.
But an EV, in a state like Wyoming which is almost completely powered by coal, will only produce 66 metric tonnes if the vehicle is made by a manufacturer using a grid that is 13% renewables (the US national average)."
My back-of-the-envelope maths shows that fuelling an EV from a coal power source results in about the same thermal efficiency, and thus about the same CO2 emissions, as a modern diesel. Those published numbers show the same thing. I thought saving the planet required truly drastic reductions in CO2 output?
It is good for now, given battery powered vehicles' advantage in terms of regulation. My guess is that as they become the majority of vehicles over time there will be an interest in efficiency regulation similar to fuel economy for ICE engines. There is already an interest in taxing electric vehicles differently given the eroding base of road-building taxes based on hydrocarbon fuels.
There was a market research in Germany and plug ins are mostly owned by upper class, using it for cheaper/free parking and (ab)using government incentives for co2 grants. Funniest thing is there's very low percentage of owners who drive them in EV mode, they barely bother to charge them, it's being ran in ICE mode all the time.
It's purely for playing the system, catch few benefits (parking) and not giving a shit about the environment.
Beat me for source, read it few months back
When you can get a 455hp (317 ICE + 145 Electric) Volvo XC90 Recharge T8, and qualifies as "zero emission" and gets free parking all around the city... you understand the classification is quite a joke.
Of course, it's absurdly huge (2300Kg, 5 metes long...) and its price is almost 100K€. It's not precisely popular.
ah alright. Definitely an odd decision, as to my knowledge there is no requirement to ever plug in the car. So it can wind up basically just running as a gasoline vehicle.
I think the same model gets larger each generation because of marketing reasons. And since all the manufacturers are doing this, no manufacturer can escape from this. At the top of the line models disappear, at the bottom of the line new models get added.
Where it goes wrong is at the bottom of the line. There are now so many safety regulations (I am looking at you, EU), that these cars get heavier and more costly to make. Many manufacturers decide to step out or up their game. 10 years ago, the cheapest model of a manufacturer would maybe be 10 thousand Euro. Now it easily starts at 15 thousand Euro, and it will mostly be a model of some years ago. New models at the low and small end are priced heavier, because of all these safety regulations.
Well, it's not like Germany would want to sell more expensive cars or something?! :)
Note that expensive entry level cars compete with the used cars. Plenty of them. Somehow those are still able to drive on the road despite not having all those safety features (and polluting more).
I feel there should be more incentive to buy smaller cars - and therefore to make them. We have a bit of this in the “golf cart cars” but we should have more - roads that are limited to smaller vehicles, etc
If the battery is easily replaceable (say 20 seconds without leaving the vehicle) you could use small ones for short commutes and drive from station to station (possible recharging on some roads) or (rent) a big battery for long trips.
Other parts could similarly be crappy, have upgrades and the manufacturer could set up a second hand part market. They might even invite even cheaper knock offs.
Eventually we will but it will take a shake-up of the market by an outsider who does not have an existing business based around cars priced at current levels. Electric cars are far less complex than ICE-based vehicles so there is no real reason for them to be more expensive. The current excuse for their high prices is the cost of the battery pack but battery prices have been on a downward trajectory for a long time now. Eventually a newcomer will find the lure of selling an EV for half of the lowest priced competitor too large to ignore and the rest will be history. That newcomer will be derided by the existing sellers and the media which depends on advertising income from those established actors but that attack won't succeed if the increase in price-performance is large enough.
Adjusted for inflation, the cheapest US small car at the start of the 1970s would be about $12,500 today. The average new car today, with similar interior space, is about twice that much money.
> If you adjust for inflation that’s roughly equivalent price
Same inflation-adjusted price is terrible performance. You're talking about the price of mass-produced machinery. That should be going down, like every other industrial product.
The cheapest Dacia Logan models are still under €10K. But the vast majority of new car buyers prefer to spend more in order to get something larger and nicer.
I think in the USA its even more. A base Chevy Spark starts at $13.6k Mitsubishi Mirage (pretty much junk) starts at $14.6k. Not sure you can even find those bare bones models at dealers. I'm not sure if there are cheaper options but these are bottom of the barrel for sure.
Always found it interesting how the small cars grow and then the manufacturer has to slot in a new model at the bottom (eg i can think of the VW Golf and Pluto, VW Tiguan and now Taos).
The ones involving hitting obstacles and not crushing the passengers. Bigger and heavier vehicles are at an obvious advantage here, due to longer crumple zones, stronger frames etc.
Thanks. The report says that 5% of the weight of new cars can be linked to safety features. So safety features can't be the main reasons cars have gotten heavier.
Off the top of my head, airbags, anti-intrusion beams, ABS, pedestrian protection (the hood has to be higher, which makes the whole car taller), rollover protection (the pillars are much thicker to prevent the roof from collapsing).
They're sensible things, but each adds weight. Most of them scale sub-linearly with vehicle size, so the burden literally weighs heavier on small cars.
Ah yeah, of course. I've should have known better, being my 98' Polo less than 3.8m IIRC. But this damned current of buying huge SUVs for the city is changing my views. Madrid is full of those ugly cars.
You can see some VW Up! around under the Seat Mii brand, but right know they're a bit expensive, being over 10 or 12K.
The article has a pretty interesting argument and seems logical. If a vehicle has some minimum set of vertexes and safety equipment that are held constant despite size, then faced with higher fuel economy standards the automaker can choose between lengthening edges (cheap and certain) or changing engine technology (expensive and risky).
"Generally, the larger the vehicle footprint, the lower the corresponding vehicle fuel economy target. Footprint-based standards help to distribute the burden of compliance across all vehicles and all manufacturers. Manufacturers are not compelled to build vehicles of any particular size or type (nor does the proposed rule create an incentive to do so), and each manufacturer will have its own fleet-wide production-weighted standard that reflects the vehicles it chooses to produce." [0]
"CAFE standards signaled the end of the traditional long station wagon, but Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca developed the idea of marketing the minivan as a station wagon alternative, while certifying it in the separate truck category to allow compliance with less-strict CAFE standards."
I'd like to commend TFA for being (a) well written (b) full of numerically based explanations of a numerical phenomenon (c) providing plenty of links to dive in a bit deeper (d) properly considering the complexity and broader context of the question in its closing paragraphs. It feels rare to me to read articles that manage to do all four of these, no matter what the topic is.
CAFE is not a particularly good law, but the arms race for crash safety is clearly to blame. The majority of difference between a 1990 Golf and a 2022 Golf is in the size and complexity of the body. And if you need a 30% bigger and more expensive frame to keep up your crash safety rating, you may as well add a few inches of passenger room.
We also cannot flatly ignore consumer preference. Two door car options used to be incredibly popular. But ask a new car buyer today if they are willing to part with rear passenger doors to save $1500 on their car and they will look at you like you are crazy.
I suspect there’s something a bit like the “small phone” problem: there’s almost certainly a market for smaller sedans and coupes, but for whatever reason companies have decided that it’s not worth their time to make cars for that market. (There’s a similar issue for families with 6+ kids, where there’s just not a lot of good options in the “more seats than a minivan” space)
Ehn, didn't Apple over estimate the small phone market? It seemed like a good idea on paper, and there were many vocal supporters on the internet.. but at the end of the day, it missed expectations.
Adding to that, I think there are tradeoffs you typically make with small phones. E.g. worse battery life or slower phones. Given these tradeoffs, people end up not choosing small phones. If you could have same specs as an ultra or a pro in a smaller body, that is a different story.
Two things about the iPhone situation make the result not generalize. First, the Mini got a worse camera than the larger models. Second, Apple waited years before reintroducing a small phone so apps including theirs had mostly moved on. The small screen user experience is compromised in a way it wouldn't be if there had been continuity.
Apple shot themselves in the foot with pricing. The 13 mini is $699. While the old iPhone 11 which is still sold is $499. The mini is better in every way, but that’s a big price difference. Even the new SE is roughly the same size just with a inferior screen and it’s only $429.
The iPad mini is in the same boat now too. It used to be the most popular iPad for a while because it was also the cheapest. But then they started updating it and moving it up the pricing ladder. It’s basically a smaller version of the Air except that just got updated to a M1.
you can have either nice mini for 50% extra over SE or archaic design for reasonable price
and then people are surprised why these are not selling, maybe just maybe how about providing nice design for reasonable price? but of course that world cannibalize sales of other models they wanna push, so let's blame the small phones
for the record Samsung S10e was best selling Samsung model in Czechia the year it was released
people argue that S22 has similar dimensions (4mm longer), but with no SD card, no jack, but most importantly starting price was roughly 10% higher than S10e and with S10e the price dropped after 3.5 months 30%, while with S22 we see less than 10% drop after 2.5 months and I doubt they will catch up the drop in the one month
For both we are talking essentially about "affordable options" - and the problem is twofold: they only make sense with economies of scale, and they can end up cannibalizing sales of existing products more than they generate sales.
Are 2 doors really that uncommon? Of the 4 cars I've owned, 3 have been 2-door. My brother's car is 2-door as well. I bet there's a big split on this re if you normally drive by yourself or with 1 passenger, vs with more than 1 other passenger. Ie, people with families are more likely to not look at 2-doors.
Outside of sports cars and specialist off-road, looking at the current ranges from manufacturers, you can only find 3-door variants in the most extreme budget categories, and often not at all.
Those are what I mean by the most extreme budget categories of those manufacturers. Looking at their websites they don't even seem to advertise them? Maybe you have to special order them.
We have weird things that are like an interpolation between small trucks and big cars that fill the role of station wagons. Stuff like the Ford Edge. They're not quite SUVs, and they're not quite minivans. They're called crossovers.
The European and US car markets are really different. In addition to different safety requirements, there are dealership laws and many more import restrictions. The end result is that we have many, many fewer choices for make and model, and that affects the availability of low cost options.
Nowadays in the USA at least, it’s hard to even find a 2-door pickup truck. Forget about a 2-door car unless it’s a sports coupe. Even a tiny cheap car like a Honda Fit or Nissan Versa is 4 doors. And they eliminated mid-range coupes like the Accord Coupe or Camry Solara.
I think us as a society may need to accept that there is no safe way to operate 3000+ lb vehicles at the speeds we do now with our current system of roads and infrastructure.
The only blip came from the introduction of smartphones (distracted driving). But I think people just need to know one of the tradeoffs has been fuel economy.
One of the first things that you learn with a fancy marketing degree is that consumer responses to prices are not linear - if you have to raise your price $1 because of some new regulation, you may as well raise it $1.50 and add in a free drink.
> But ask a new car buyer today if they are willing to part with rear passenger doors to save $1500 on their car and they will look at you like you are crazy.
Oh man, I would totally do this. I have so many other things I want to spend $1500 on.
(Not saying the average car buyer would do this or trying to dispute your point. Just sayin' I would.)
If I knew I could get a (late model, U.S. market) compact pickup with 2 doors, where the vestigial passenger space most trucks have was converted into an extra foot of bed length instead, I think I would stop typing this comment and go buy one right now.
I came here looking to comment similarly - one of the other effects of the regulations not discussed in the article is the near complete disappearance of two door pickups from the American market. I have a two door, two seat 2008 Ford Ranger with manual transmission. It has a 6 foot bed which conveniently fits so many things, and it’s also compact enough to parallel park easily. I would love to upgrade to a newer model but I fear there will never be another truck that fits those requirements released again. Mine currently has ~150k miles on it and I’ve owned it for a decade and I fully intend to own it for another decade and another 150k miles.
good luck with resale of two door car, while you can ignore extra two doors while using it, nobody who needs them (and that will be vast majority of buyers) will even look at your car
The fix is easy but politically difficult, remove the distinction for light trucks or at least severely increase the standard for them, then the benefit for crossovers will disappear.
The industry responded to regulations and they can respond again.
The whole notion of fuel economy regulations is so stupid. If we want people to burn less fuel then just increase the tax on fuel and let the market sort it out. Which is worse, a Chevrolet Tahoe driven 3K miles per year or a Toyota Prius driven 25K miles per year?
Agreed. There’s profound value in simple rules that we can actually reason about. Yet it seems that governments are only capable of adding complexity on top of the existing mountain of regulatory tech debt.
I agree with you in concept but in reality go ahead and try passing a gas tax in the US. You will end your political career and you won't get your tax.
We already have a federal gas tax in the US. Most states also impose their own gas taxes. Increasing the gas tax would be politically difficult, which is why most serious proposals call for coupling it to a cut in income taxes in order to make the overall net change revenue neutral. The tax increase would also have to be gradually phased in over 10+ years in order to give consumers time to adjust.
Yikes that’s a great recipe for a regressive tax hike. The poor and working class feel the pinch every time gas prices inch up. Those with higher incomes only notice at all if they pay attention to the sign at the gas station—and many don’t and won’t even bother to cross the road to save money on gas.
No, you misunderstood my comment. The idea is to couple a gas tax increase with an income tax decrease. If done properly, most poor and working class would end up with a net lower tax burden.
You think that poor and working class folks pay income taxes? You'd have to pair it with a fully refundable tax credit to make it even somewhat viable, but even then, folks won't care. All they will see is money leaving their pocket every time they visit gas station. I think you over estimate the rationality of people.
Proposals like that create perverse incentives. If gas taxes become a significant source of tax revenue, the government starts depending on them, and lower gas consumption starts looking like a threat. While consumers would have the incentives to reduce gas consumption, governments have many indirect ways of encouraging activities that generate tax revenue.
In my country taxes on gas are incredibly high, they account for more than 70% of the cost at the pump, still we have one of the highest number of cars per capita in Europe.
for comparison in USA gas costs around 70 Euro cents per liter, while here is close to 2 euros per liter (depending on the brand between 1.79 and 1.89).
The number of cars per capita isn't the real issue. The problem is with CO2 and particulate emissions from car engines. That problem could be significantly reduced with a change in tax policy.
those cars are not standing by in some residential neighborhood with a lawn, they are constantly moving on the streets of our cities.
I think it would be hard to make people pay more than that, look at what happened in France with the gilets jaunes when they tried.
The only possible way I see to reduce car traffic is to stop making new roads, gradually close existing ones and enhance public transport and proximity to allow people to walk.
People do respond to the price of fuel -- if people are driving a lot at that price, they'd be driving a lot more if the price was lower. But a lot of people's driving habits comes from the way that cities and towns are laid out, too. High fuel prices can discourage driving, but if most people have no choice but to drive in order to access work and other places they need to go, then it won't have as much of an effect, and people will compensate by cutting spending in other ways.
> People do respond to the price of fuel -- if people are driving a lot at that price, they'd be driving a lot more if the price was lower.
Massive claim, particular if you're trying to map over both North America and Europe. Far from clear that this is true in the European case. Happy to see citations that prove otherwise.
You're right, it is a big claim, and I should probably walk it back. It's possible that there's such a high demand for driving that the main reason people don't do more of it is, say, the congestion, rather than the cost of fuel. This is definitely true in parts of the USA.
It does depend on the price elasticity of the demand for driving. I found this article [1] which finds that if fuel prices go up by 10%, people drive 1% less in the short term, and over the long term, about 3% less. This of course varies greatly from place to place, among different income levels, etc.
I feel this is completely and ignorantly misstating reality.
Yes, e.g. Golf has grown over last few decades. I assume this is so each and every year they can say in marketing materials that it's a bit bigger and better, or that it's biggest and best in its category, however that category is conveniently defined.
But now there are two more cars underneath it in vw range - Lupo and Polo!
Same for any other car mentioned - sure Honda Civic is bigger. But Honda fit now occupies it's previous spot. And so on for all manufacturers - any given name plate gets bigger and better but something slots underneath. Tuscon is what Santa fe was 20 years ago. Etc etc.
I find the premise deeply flawed and whole content of article a sloppy p0st hoc rationalization based on flawed premise.
But they ARE made. I don't think golf grew because of usa regulations. I think golf grew for other reasons - and then consumer preference , profit margins, safety, and fuel regulations combined to guide what is feasible to sell in USA.
Article's premise of cause and effect (these models grew because of usa fuel regulations) is I believe thusly easily disproven.
Don't get me wrong, I personally love small economic hatchbacks. But my values and politics and environmental thoughts are irrelevant - golf grew across the world for reasons many and various outside of usa laws... And other small models replaced it. This appears to be a multi decade strategy across the board.
I've never heard of the VW Lupo or Polo so I looked them up. No mention of either on vw.com. Wikipedia says the Lupo was discontinued on 2005. The Polo has never been sold in the US and its popularity is steadily declining in Europe (as measured by sales figures). The Honda Fit was discontinued in the US in 2020.
See my other comment for usa vs world ; and names keep changing - after lupo there was fox, etc etc. But as golf grew there were always smaller models.
Toyota corolla grew and was replaced by Yaris which became echo or other way around which was discontinued but then corolla got the iq and other small hatch versions.
Nissan sentra grew but then we got micra etc. My whole point is forget specific names - models and Renaming aside, tiny cars keep existing.
Australia: The ~2008 1.8T Polo GTI was quite the little ripper. Three door, manual, you could get an APR ECU tune that unlocked the engine's true potential - identical with and detuned from an Audi A3. So much fun in a small package, I regretted selling it later.
It had full stability control and the full set of airbags, so it was an early upspec for what would later become the norm of safety features.
Looks like it's still being sold now but it is no longer the same car.
Although crossovers are mentioned what’s not called out is the platform sharing between crossovers and sedans. The platform will be built for the high volume crossover and the sedan adapted to it.
I also don’t understand how the crosstrek gets to be a light truck since it doesn’t meet the first requirements of open bed/3 rows/10 pass. Maybe in this sentence the author meant “may instead” instead of “must also”?
> Perhaps most crucially, however, light trucks must also meet a set of measured requirements that deem them capable of "off-highway operation."
Finally, I’d really like a full-size sedan but there’s a lack of options in the market right now. This used to be something that dominated sales. The Civic is “growing” but it is still 20 inches shorter than an 80s Olds 88? Even the extra long Audi a8 is five inches shorter. Stretching a car in the middle should do little to harm the fuel economy, all the heavy parts are already dealt with, but it appears that available car lengths are being squeezed at both ends. The subcompacts are vanishing but so are the full size models.
Guidelines read to me like just having the off-road capability is sufficient, which makes sense as it’s referring to non-passenger automobiles in general.
There is nothing you can change in the CAFE regs that will be as simple, easy, and effective as a $5/gallon fuel tax.
By the way, one car that the article doesn't mention, which bucks all these trends, is the Mazda MX-5 Miata. The 2022 model is very similar in every dimension to the 1990 model, and uses 25% less fuel despite having 50% more power. The later model weighs only 10% more even though it meets 30 more years worth of crash standards.
It seems to me the problem with the footprint model is much the same as the previous model holding "trucks" to a different standard: it's treating size as a good reason for people to buy less efficient cars.
Size is occasionally a good reason. Someone who needs to carry 15 passengers needs a van, and someone with a heavy load to haul needs a truck. The trend in the US, however has been for people who only need cars to drive trucks and large SUVs.
Outright telling people what to drive seems like government overreach to me, but there may be another way: adjust the standards so that large vehicles don't get special treatment. Selling too many large vehicles would then hurt a car manufacturer's average and they would be incentivized to stop making such vehicles as appealing for everyday use, e.g. by removing luxury options.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 199 ms ] threadBEVs will get cheaper faster as battery manufacturing ramps. No need to waste any more effort on combustion technology and infra.
EVs don’t make sense for people who don't have reserved parking spaces with charging. Until that problem is solved, hybrids are a pretty good idea.
And then you still have gas for a longer trip somewhere with no charging infra. But those trips will hopefully be rarer. And when you’re going 60+ mph on these longer trips, you’re only ever burning fuel at the engine’s better efficiency.
I think there’s a good place for this tech in some lifestyles.
EVs are obviously the future, but intermediate vehicles to help people get into EVs aren’t bad. If someone chooses a plugin-hybrid over gas, but would have chosen gas over EV for range and charging reasons, it’s a good improvement
That's true in theory. Unfortunately in practice - at least where I live - Hybrids don't get charged at home. People buy hybrids for the tax/other benefits but just park them on public roads. Which means that you get the worst possible state where you have pseudo-green ICE vehicles that run with a lot of extra weight in the form of a basically useless electric motor. (Except for recuperating but that's not worth it)
If you live in a city and mostly use the car for commuting/shopping, this can make a lot of sense, and that's not a small market.
One problem with this usage mode is that it can leave the petrol engine unused for very long periods, which will ultimately lead to problems (I think some hybrids will now deliberately periodically run it for a bit to deal with this).
They can go for weeks without turning the ICE on.
I do also think it's not a bad stepping stone to bring people towards full electric cars: they get used to a car that you charge at home. Meanwhile the charging network gets better and better and cities/countries get the time to adapt too (there's no way everybody can charge a full electric car at home without changes to the current grids).
I don't see what's wrong with ICE -> plug-in hybrid -> full electric.
Even a non-plug hybrid isn't really the worst of both worlds. The battery replacement is relatively cheap when it eventually needs it, it's gentler on the gas engine that and ICE car, and won't waste gas running the engine while you're not moving.
As for anemic/not exciting to drive, yeah, true. It's not that important for me to have an exciting car, and I think most people don't see that as a top priority.
Hybrid gas engines should be sized to only operate the vehicle on flat ground at highway speeds, so around 10-15KW tops.
Battery plus a 10KW ICE can get you over a mountain pass. Going slower is always an option.
You should back up these strong opinions with some facts. Hybrid batteries which minuscule compared to EVs, put out 25kw+ instantaneous power. More than enough to beat ICE cars across the intersection.
Which is exactly the problem with hybrid batteries - the peak power demanded from them is about the same as a pure EV, but each cell is put under much greater load because there are fewer of them. Those tiny, over-stressed hybrid batteries will not last very long. Not that many people will notice, as they just want a car that can take them where they want to go.
Combustion maintenance intervals are doubled on the PHEV vs a conventional gas only vehicle. And the transaxle shouldn't require any service (although Ford had some manufacturing defects and a recently got a new one under warranty).
Battery manufacturing improvements would improve a PHEV too. Smaller batteries would take up less storage space (C-Max design is suboptimal) or allow for a bigger EV range with the same volume.
As someone who has neither a garage, nor a driveway, I have to park on the street. So I have no convenient place to charge a vehicle at home.
And probably neither does anyone else in a community built pre-WW2:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb
You're also assuming the electric grids around the world can handle this increase in load.
With regards to charging infra, yes, I assume at the current global production rate of ~2 million EVs/year built and sold, the electric grid can absorb these new distributed loads (which are roughly the same draw as a large central heat pump, 20-40amps). There are already systems to orchestrate vehicle charging when there is excess clean energy on a local grid (“DER”). Tesla supports this today with a Scandinavian utility, no different then your Nest thermostat shedding AC load during peak power demand but the inverse.
Below is a list of jurisdictions banning new fossil fuel vehicle sales and when the bans go into effect. Everyone has plenty of notice to prepare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
Your heat pump comment makes my point for me. This is additional draw on top of what homes already draw today. Yes, it's just a 20-50amp draw, but this is a new draw and will be there year around, along when a heat pump may also be running.
And while you point out that there is regulation around the sale of electric vehicles, is there regulation around the production of clean energy? What to expect to happen with Russia cutting off natural gas, and the US slowing down or stopping the permitting of new drilling locations of natural gas. Where do you expect all of the energy to charge these electric vehicles to come from as the world seems to push back against fossil fuels for powering our grid. World leaders are still hesitant about nuclear. But they're also fighting fossil fuels at the same time. Solar, wind, and hydro will not be enough to cover this increase demand plus normal growth.
That is a patently ridiculous claim.
The most efficient coal power stations approach 50% thermal efficiency. Near 15% of that is lost in power line transmission, and another 15% or so in EV charging cycle losses.
Modern diesels approach 40% thermal efficiency.
Also, this completely ignores one of the main benefits of EVs - that is, externalising emissions and pollution away from the point of use.
> Electric Cars Are Cleaner Even When Powered by Coal
> Emissions from EVs 40% lower than gasoline cars, BNEF says Researcher expects difference to grow as clean energy expands
> That’s the conclusion of research by BloombergNEF, which found carbon dioxide emissions from battery-powered vehicles were about 40 percent lower than for internal combustion engines last year.
https://thedriven.io/2019/12/09/are-evs-cleaner-than-ice-coa...
https://cgscholar.com/bookstore/works/the-climate-change-mit...
"an average ICE vehicle will emit around 69 metric tonnes in its lifetime.
But an EV, in a state like Wyoming which is almost completely powered by coal, will only produce 66 metric tonnes if the vehicle is made by a manufacturer using a grid that is 13% renewables (the US national average)."
My back-of-the-envelope maths shows that fuelling an EV from a coal power source results in about the same thermal efficiency, and thus about the same CO2 emissions, as a modern diesel. Those published numbers show the same thing. I thought saving the planet required truly drastic reductions in CO2 output?
Of course, it's absurdly huge (2300Kg, 5 metes long...) and its price is almost 100K€. It's not precisely popular.
https://www.dgt.es/nuestros-servicios/tu-vehiculo/tus-vehicu...
Why?
Where it goes wrong is at the bottom of the line. There are now so many safety regulations (I am looking at you, EU), that these cars get heavier and more costly to make. Many manufacturers decide to step out or up their game. 10 years ago, the cheapest model of a manufacturer would maybe be 10 thousand Euro. Now it easily starts at 15 thousand Euro, and it will mostly be a model of some years ago. New models at the low and small end are priced heavier, because of all these safety regulations.
Note that expensive entry level cars compete with the used cars. Plenty of them. Somehow those are still able to drive on the road despite not having all those safety features (and polluting more).
Other parts could similarly be crappy, have upgrades and the manufacturer could set up a second hand part market. They might even invite even cheaper knock offs.
Same inflation-adjusted price is terrible performance. You're talking about the price of mass-produced machinery. That should be going down, like every other industrial product.
small car is Skoda citigo with 3.5m or Fiat Panda with 3.7m
True, but with the State incentives to scrap old models, you can buy a FIAT Panda for 8 thousand euros
But the Panda of 2022 is a much better car than the 80s Panda, that costed more than that adjusting for inflation.
They're sensible things, but each adds weight. Most of them scale sub-linearly with vehicle size, so the burden literally weighs heavier on small cars.
Dacia Sandero, Fiat Panda, Mitsubishi Space Star, Renault Clio, the Hyundai i10...
3.5m Skoda Citigo (aka VW Up) is very popular here in Czechia as company/delivery car
You can see some VW Up! around under the Seat Mii brand, but right know they're a bit expensive, being over 10 or 12K.
"Generally, the larger the vehicle footprint, the lower the corresponding vehicle fuel economy target. Footprint-based standards help to distribute the burden of compliance across all vehicles and all manufacturers. Manufacturers are not compelled to build vehicles of any particular size or type (nor does the proposed rule create an incentive to do so), and each manufacturer will have its own fleet-wide production-weighted standard that reflects the vehicles it chooses to produce." [0]
"CAFE standards signaled the end of the traditional long station wagon, but Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca developed the idea of marketing the minivan as a station wagon alternative, while certifying it in the separate truck category to allow compliance with less-strict CAFE standards."
0. https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/rulemaking/pdf/cafe/2017-2...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...
We also cannot flatly ignore consumer preference. Two door car options used to be incredibly popular. But ask a new car buyer today if they are willing to part with rear passenger doors to save $1500 on their car and they will look at you like you are crazy.
The iPad mini is in the same boat now too. It used to be the most popular iPad for a while because it was also the cheapest. But then they started updating it and moving it up the pricing ladder. It’s basically a smaller version of the Air except that just got updated to a M1.
you can have either nice mini for 50% extra over SE or archaic design for reasonable price
and then people are surprised why these are not selling, maybe just maybe how about providing nice design for reasonable price? but of course that world cannibalize sales of other models they wanna push, so let's blame the small phones
for the record Samsung S10e was best selling Samsung model in Czechia the year it was released
people argue that S22 has similar dimensions (4mm longer), but with no SD card, no jack, but most importantly starting price was roughly 10% higher than S10e and with S10e the price dropped after 3.5 months 30%, while with S22 we see less than 10% drop after 2.5 months and I doubt they will catch up the drop in the one month
I'm not sure if those are sold in the United States, I think you also aren't big fans of station wagons which are very common in Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossover_(automobile)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
The only blip came from the introduction of smartphones (distracted driving). But I think people just need to know one of the tradeoffs has been fuel economy.
Oh man, I would totally do this. I have so many other things I want to spend $1500 on.
(Not saying the average car buyer would do this or trying to dispute your point. Just sayin' I would.)
The industry responded to regulations and they can respond again.
That seems remarkably optimistic, given the recent history of US tax policy (recent == last 200 years or so).
In my country taxes on gas are incredibly high, they account for more than 70% of the cost at the pump, still we have one of the highest number of cars per capita in Europe.
for comparison in USA gas costs around 70 Euro cents per liter, while here is close to 2 euros per liter (depending on the brand between 1.79 and 1.89).
I think it would be hard to make people pay more than that, look at what happened in France with the gilets jaunes when they tried.
The only possible way I see to reduce car traffic is to stop making new roads, gradually close existing ones and enhance public transport and proximity to allow people to walk.
Massive claim, particular if you're trying to map over both North America and Europe. Far from clear that this is true in the European case. Happy to see citations that prove otherwise.
It does depend on the price elasticity of the demand for driving. I found this article [1] which finds that if fuel prices go up by 10%, people drive 1% less in the short term, and over the long term, about 3% less. This of course varies greatly from place to place, among different income levels, etc.
[1] https://www.vtpi.org/elasticities.pdf
Yes, e.g. Golf has grown over last few decades. I assume this is so each and every year they can say in marketing materials that it's a bit bigger and better, or that it's biggest and best in its category, however that category is conveniently defined.
But now there are two more cars underneath it in vw range - Lupo and Polo!
Same for any other car mentioned - sure Honda Civic is bigger. But Honda fit now occupies it's previous spot. And so on for all manufacturers - any given name plate gets bigger and better but something slots underneath. Tuscon is what Santa fe was 20 years ago. Etc etc.
I find the premise deeply flawed and whole content of article a sloppy p0st hoc rationalization based on flawed premise.
Article's premise of cause and effect (these models grew because of usa fuel regulations) is I believe thusly easily disproven.
Don't get me wrong, I personally love small economic hatchbacks. But my values and politics and environmental thoughts are irrelevant - golf grew across the world for reasons many and various outside of usa laws... And other small models replaced it. This appears to be a multi decade strategy across the board.
Toyota corolla grew and was replaced by Yaris which became echo or other way around which was discontinued but then corolla got the iq and other small hatch versions.
Nissan sentra grew but then we got micra etc. My whole point is forget specific names - models and Renaming aside, tiny cars keep existing.
It had full stability control and the full set of airbags, so it was an early upspec for what would later become the norm of safety features.
Looks like it's still being sold now but it is no longer the same car.
I also don’t understand how the crosstrek gets to be a light truck since it doesn’t meet the first requirements of open bed/3 rows/10 pass. Maybe in this sentence the author meant “may instead” instead of “must also”?
> Perhaps most crucially, however, light trucks must also meet a set of measured requirements that deem them capable of "off-highway operation."
Finally, I’d really like a full-size sedan but there’s a lack of options in the market right now. This used to be something that dominated sales. The Civic is “growing” but it is still 20 inches shorter than an 80s Olds 88? Even the extra long Audi a8 is five inches shorter. Stretching a car in the middle should do little to harm the fuel economy, all the heavy parts are already dealt with, but it appears that available car lengths are being squeezed at both ends. The subcompacts are vanishing but so are the full size models.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/p...
By the way, one car that the article doesn't mention, which bucks all these trends, is the Mazda MX-5 Miata. The 2022 model is very similar in every dimension to the 1990 model, and uses 25% less fuel despite having 50% more power. The later model weighs only 10% more even though it meets 30 more years worth of crash standards.
Size is occasionally a good reason. Someone who needs to carry 15 passengers needs a van, and someone with a heavy load to haul needs a truck. The trend in the US, however has been for people who only need cars to drive trucks and large SUVs.
Outright telling people what to drive seems like government overreach to me, but there may be another way: adjust the standards so that large vehicles don't get special treatment. Selling too many large vehicles would then hurt a car manufacturer's average and they would be incentivized to stop making such vehicles as appealing for everyday use, e.g. by removing luxury options.