Volkswagen says last generation of combustion engines to be launched in 2026

e-beach

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Good news, just not soon enough IMO.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-combustion-idUSKBN1O32O6

WOLFSBURG, Germany (Reuters) - Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) strategy chief said on Tuesday the German carmaker’s core brand will develop its final generation of vehicles using combustion engine technology in 2026.

Volkswagen made a strategy shift toward battery-driven vehicles in the wake of a damaging diesel-emissions cheating scandal in 2015, which forced the carmaker to pay more than 27 billion euros in fines for hiding excessive pollution.

“In the year 2026 will be the last product start on a combustion engine platform,” Michael Jost told the Handelsblatt automotive summit conference at Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany.

A spokesman confirmed Jost’s remarks meant that VW, Europe and China’s best selling passenger car brand, will focus on electric cars instead.

VW will continue to adapt its petrol and diesel engined cars to meet environmental standards during the lifetime of those vehicles, but the German carmaker is now committed to radical steps to stop global warming, Jost said. ......snip

:D :bolt:
 
Image: International Energy Agency, Global EV Outlook 2017
Firstly, producing an electric vehicle contributes, on average, twice as much to global warming potential and uses double the amount of energy than producing a combustion engine car. This is mainly because of its battery. Battery production uses a lot of energy, from the extraction of raw materials to the electricity consumed in manufacture. The bigger the electric car and its range, the more battery cells are needed to power it, and consequently the more carbon produced.

Secondly, once in use, an electric vehicle is only as green as the electricity that feeds its battery. A coal-powered battery is dirtier than a solar-powered battery. Governments can help by speeding up their transition to greener energy.

Thirdly, while an electric vehicle has a higher carbon footprint at the beginning of its lifecycle, it is typically cleaner once in use. Over time, it can catch up on the combustion engine car. The point at which an electric vehicle’s lifetime emissions break even with a combustion engine car also depends on the car’s mileage.
 
If you believe the headlines, traditional automobiles are speeding toward a dead end. All those V8s, V6s and turbocharged vehicles we’ve grown to love will soon be replaced by squadrons of clean, whisper-quiet, all-electric vehicles. And if you believe the headlines, the environment will be much better off.

Policymakers at every level have done their part to push electric vehicles by creating a tankful of subsidies. Thanks to laws signed by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, electric-vehicle buyers can feast on federal tax credits of up to $7,500 that reduce the initial purchase cost of their vehicles. Not to be outdone, many states also dangle their own mix of goodies for electric vehicle buyers, including purchase rebates as large as $5,000, additional rebates for vehicle chargers, and free use of public charging stations—which, of course, are only “free” because they’re subsidized by ratepayers and taxpayers. Some states even give electric vehicles preferential access to carpool lanes.

Then there are the electric vehicle mandates. In January, California Gov. Jerry Brown decreed that 5 million electric vehicles must be on his state’s roads by 2025, along with 250,000 charging stations. Eight other states are following California’s lead. One California lawmaker has even introduced legislation to ban all internal combustion vehicles by 2040.

All of this might make sense if electric vehicles, as their supporters claim, were truly likely to reduce air pollution and tackle climate change. But are they?

To answer that question, I used the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s most recent long-term forecasts for the number of new electric vehicles through 2050, estimated how much electricity they’d use, and then figured out how much pollution that electricity would generate, looking at three key pollutants regulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act—sulfur dioxide (SO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), and particulates—as well as CO2 emissions. I compared them to the emissions of new gasoline-powered vehicles, using the EIA’s “real world” miles-per-gallon forecast, rather than the higher CAFE standard values.

What I found is that widespread adoption of electric vehicles nationwide will likely increase air pollution compared with new internal combustion vehicles. You read that right: more electric cars and trucks will mean more pollution.

That might sound counterintuitive: After all, won’t replacing a 30-year old, smoke-belching Oldsmobile with a new electric vehicle reduce air pollution? Yes, of course. But that’s also where many electric vehicle proponents’ arguments run off the road: they fail to consider just how clean and efficient new internal combustion vehicles are. The appropriate comparison for evaluating the benefits of all those electric vehicle subsidies and mandates isn’t the difference between an electric vehicle and an old gas-guzzler; it’s the difference between an electric car and a new gas car. And new internal combustion engines are really clean. Today’s vehicles emit only about 1% of the pollution than they did in the 1960s, and new innovations continue to improve those engines’ efficiency and cleanliness.

And as for that electric car: The energy doesn’t come from nowhere. Cars are charged from the nation’s electrical grid, which means that they’re only as “clean” as America’s mix of power sources. Those are getting cleaner, but we still generate power mainly by burning fossil fuels: natural gas is our biggest source of electricity, and is projected to increase. And coal, while still declining, will remain the second largest source of electricity for some time. (Third is nuclear power, which doesn’t generate emissions but has other byproducts that worry some environmentalists.) Even with large increases in wind and solar generation, the EIA projects that the nation’s electric generating mix will be just 30% renewable by 2030. Based on that forecast, if the EIA’s projected number of electric vehicles were replaced with new internal combustion vehicles, air pollution would actually decrease—and this holds true even if you include the emissions from oil refineries that manufacture gasoline.

As for states like California with stringent mandates to use more renewable energy for their power grid, they also have the highest electric rates in the continental US, 50% higher than the US average. And electric rates in those states just keep increasing. So it’s a cleaner power mix, but makes recharging your car more expensive. The higher the electric rate, the lower the incentive for a new car buyer to purchase an electric vehicle.

As for greenhouse-gas emissions, my analysis shows that electric vehicles will reduce them compared to new internal combustion vehicles. But based on the EIA’s projection of the number of new electric vehicles, the net reduction in CO2 emissions between 2018 and 2050 would be only about one-half of one percent of total forecast U.S. energy-related carbon emissions. Such a small change will have no impact whatsoever on climate, and thus have no economic benefit.


So, if electric-vehicle subsidies don’t help the environment, what—or who—do they help? Most electric-vehicle buyers are far wealthier than average Americans. A nationwide survey in 2017 found that 56% had household incomes of at least $100,000 and 17% had household incomes of at least $200,000. (In 2016, median household income for the US as a whole was less than $58,000.) So it’s fair to say the subsidies disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor, who cannot afford to buy even subsidized electric vehicles or live in their own homes to take advantage of residential chargers or solar panels.

Not only that, the wires and charging stations needed to charge all those electric vehicles will be paid for by all ratepayers, further raising electric rates. And as more wealthy customers install solar panels to charge their electric vehicles, the costs to provide them back-up power will fall on those who cannot afford to do so.

In effect, the wealthy owners of electric vehicles will enjoy the benefits of their clean, silent cars, while passing on many of the costs of keeping their vehicles on the road to everyone else, especially the poor.

To be sure, electric cars are impressive. Some are quicker off the line than a Formula 1 race car. But there is no economic or environmental justification for the many billions of dollars in subsidies that America is already paying to speed their adoption.

So what to do? First, Congress should immediately terminate those electric-vehicle tax credits, which just benefit the wealthy. Congress should also eliminate zero-emissions credits, which electric-vehicle manufacturers have used to boost their bottom line – $860 million for Tesla alone in the last three years. And third, states should eliminate their various subsidies for electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, which are also paid for disproportionately by the poor and are contributing to rising electric rates.

Electric vehicle subsidies and mandates share an unfortunate, and all too common trait with other government policies: They’re based on “conventional wisdom” that turns out to be wrong. Wealthy consumers who have purchased Teslas and Chevy Bolts primarily to signal their green bona fides for their friends and neighbors, and who have socialized many of the costs of their purchases to those who are less well-off, might wish to take a closer look at the numbers. Their hands may not be quite so clean as they believe.

Jonathan Lesser is the President of Continental Economics, an economic and regulatory consulting firm. His new report, “Short Circuit: The High Cost of Electric Vehicle Subsidies” was published by the Manhattan Institute on May 15.
 
It is what it is, and yet...

The "problem" with the dieselgate fiasco was that as an engine RPM rises and falls, there are transient situations where perfect combustion is missed, and there is either too much fuel or too much air. This is not the case with a constant-state RPM engine, such as what is found in a series hybrid plug-in system. 90% of trips are pure electric, but when you need to go far? and engine spins a generator as a range extender.

I have investigated brewing alcohol as a fuel (to fill-in for gasoline), and also growing crops to make bio-diesel. and if given a choice, I am firmly in the camp of bio-diesel made from vegetable oil. VW may have "cheated" but nobody knows diesel like VW. I'd waive the fines if they designed a series-hybrid with a tiny diesel generator that could run off of bio-diesel.

This isn't even my craziest idea. I have been very impressed by the Doble steam car, which (unfortunately) was the most advanced steam design made just as gasoline cars were taking off. It reduced the amount of time to get it started from 30 minutes (Stanley Steamer) to only five minutes. It had a condenser so you didn't need to refill it with cold water (and re-heat) to go another 20 minutes of drive time.

For five minutes of drive-time during the heating process, I'd use electric, maybe LTO, maybe 120V. If the electric portion was also used for acceleration, then the steam portion could be even smaller since it would only need to provide cruise-power.

Since a steam-cars' fire is constant (and adjustable) it can burn clean. Leno has taken his steam cars to California emissions stations, and the exhaust met the highest standards of clean emissions.
 
Cool, but..

That date probably coincides with the dates that a lot of european countries either ban internal combustion ( 2030-ish ), or choke it so bad that complying to emissions regs is a nearly unmeetable challenge.

Also, just imagine how far battery technology will be in 8 years, with one just starting producing solid state batteries this year, and more to follow. It might be a moot point to even produce gas engines at all.

You will probably see a lot of automakers make similar statements in the future to try to make themselves look better in public view.
 
slacker said:
If you believe the headlines, traditional automobiles are speeding toward a dead end. All those V8s, V6s and turbocharged vehicles we’ve grown to love will soon be replaced by squadrons of clean, whisper-quiet, all-electric vehicles.
Some will. Most won't. There will be a long, long time where IC engines are used, albeit as part of a hybrid or pluggable hybrid system. By 2050 I'd bet that half the cars on the road will still be capable of burning something.
And as for that electric car: The energy doesn’t come from nowhere. Cars are charged from the nation’s electrical grid, which means that they’re only as “clean” as America’s mix of power sources.
Quite true. However, I would point out that unlike, say, a microwave oven, an EV can be charged at almost any time. Want to charge your EV when power is cheap? Set it up to charge at night, where there is power to spare from all the baseload plants that never shut down. Want to charge it when power is cheap in 10 years? That will likely be around 10am when solar is generating a lot and load hasn't caught up yet. You can charge when the power is clean and the system isn't stressed.
So, if electric-vehicle subsidies don’t help the environment, what—or who—do they help? Most electric-vehicle buyers are far wealthier than average Americans. A nationwide survey in 2017 found that 56% had household incomes of at least $100,000 and 17% had household incomes of at least $200,000. (In 2016, median household income for the US as a whole was less than $58,000.) So it’s fair to say the subsidies disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor, who cannot afford to buy even subsidized electric vehicles or live in their own homes to take advantage of residential chargers or solar panels.
I'd say that's true right up until the point where the first used EV is sold. Early EV's (like the first gen Leaf) are super cheap on the used-car market because they had battery problems; some of those cars have 30 mile ranges now. But to get between your apartment and your job at Wal-Mart 8 miles away, that may well be all you need.
Not only that, the wires and charging stations needed to charge all those electric vehicles will be paid for by all ratepayers
?? I paid for my EV charger. My company paid for all the EV chargers it installed. And since it also has a 500kW solar power installation, and people there charge during the day, there's no new infrastructure needed.

In the short term, with power being cheap at night, people will charge when it's cheap and the grid is underloaded - no new 'wires' needed. In the long term there will be more cost as the grid is upgraded. But those upgrades will have to happen anyway to support renewables which are "peaky" (i.e. higher peak powers.)
further raising electric rates. And as more wealthy customers install solar panels to charge their electric vehicles, the costs to provide them back-up power will fall on those who cannot afford to do so.
?? I have back up power in the form of a solar system with a battery. I paid for the battery and the inverter. Not sure what they are talking about here.

It sounds like the author heard some things third-hand and misunderstood them a bit.
 
billvon, please enlighten me what a microwave oven has to do with charging a EV at night. Not trying to be sarcastic just confused with your analogy. Thanks
 
Neptronix hit the nail on the head: this isn't a progressive, bold or ambitious move by VW at all - it's spin. It's the bare minimum they need to do to comply with the latest possible date it will become illegal to sell ICE cars in many countries (2040).

2026: start vehicle development, takes 2-4 years to bring to market. Reasonable sales life of an ICE car model: 10-15 years. Oh, look, it's about 2040 when that model is ready to retire and they've managed to squeeze out every ICE sale AND fully depreciated the investment in developing the last models just before the ban.

There has been no change of heart at VW, no atonement. The only thing that's changed is the marketing: "we're so sorry. Mistakes were made but we've learnt the error of out ways and are trying so hard to do right by everyone from now on".

The other big manyfacturers are no different: they don't care. They "care" about whatever they think most helps sales.
 
Its all simply the result of bad political policy making.
Banning a specific mechanical technology is dumb.
Rather than ban ICEs, they should simply legislate emmission levels. (zero if they want to self flagulate !).
.. Or fuel types,
.. or max consumption, etc etc..
..and let the scientistsand engineers find new ways to comply..synthetic/bio fuels, hydrogen , electric drive if that is the the best option.
Politicians should reconise their limitations , and stay out of directing tecnology .

neptronix said:
......
Also, just imagine how far battery technology will be in 8 years, ....
I do frequently try to imagine where battery tech might be in 8-10 yrs...
...but unfortunately to do that, you have to look back how far it has come in the last 8-10 years , and it is not very encouraging !
I 2010/11 we had 250-260 Wh/kg, and enough power for "stunning " performance from the likes of the Tesla Roadster. Sure prices may be lower somewhat, but that is mainly due to supply/availability and production capacity, and capacity/power balance has improved but, Capacity, price and performance have not changed significantly since then.
We have had endless promisses of "breakthrough's" and major improvements, but the reality is the basic limitations are still there,
So i wont let my imagination get too carried away with potential future battery advances......no matter how much i would like it to be true !
 
The scope of the ban varies from country to country. While some do propose to ban all combustion vehicles, most are banning specific fuels (gasoline, diesel, LPG), not ICE per se. This would presumably still permit zero-emission hydrogen ICE vehicles.

Battery capacity may not have increased that much, but they have become more useable (0.2 or 0.5C before, now 1 or 2C), they have longer cycle and calander lives and the price has fallen by an order of magnitude. Hate all you want but there has been progress.
 
Sure, as i said, there has been progress on some aspects, but not exactly at the "Moores Law" rate that some might have us believe. And very little in the key areas of energy density, or price .
Hate ??.. Im sure i have told you before about your limited psyco analytical abilities. :roll:
 
Try comparing the capacity of cells at a given C-rate rather than of differing C-rates. Apples to apples.

Moore's law has nothing to do with anything except transistor density on ICs and even then it mostly held because it was self-fulfilling.

Once again, energy density for a given c-rate has improved. Prices have fallen by an order of magnitude in 10 years! Ten times! 1000%! I'm baffled how you find this "very little".
 
Dudes, keep that attitude to the biker bar.. ffs!

Anyway, solid states have been around for a while, but they just had pathetic C rates and were unusable which is why we never saw them in production.

Batteries always operated on turtle's law.. yes, there haven't been much improvements in the last few years, just automakers slowly catching up to what we have in our bikes :lol:. But there are so many promising batteries in the pipeline at the moment that 1 out of 10 has to succeed, and my money's on solid state for now.

Don't forget that the first lithium batteries were also absolutely horrible. They started on that technology in the early 90's!

ps punx0r, the term you're looking for is 'power density'
 
spinningmagnets said:
It is what it is, and yet...

I have investigated brewing alcohol as a fuel (to fill-in for gasoline), and also growing crops to make bio-diesel. and if given a choice, I am firmly in the camp of bio-diesel made from vegetable oil. VW may have "cheated" but nobody knows diesel like VW. I'd waive the fines if they designed a series-hybrid with a tiny diesel generator that could run off of bio-diesel.

Yet Chevrolet is shutting down the Volt assembly line. Maybe some of the laid off will go to work at the new Chrysler SUV plant.

But Mr. Magnets, I'd love to casually build your steam car idea. Maybe in the style of an old time steam car. What might be a better idea would be a Sterling engine, in it's heyday it ran generators in self powered buildings at constant speed. Sucked as a conventional car engine, but. . . .

neptronix said:
Dudes, keep that attitude to the biker bar.. ffs!

After all this time, you think they'll SUDDENLY. . . ?
 
slacker said:
billvon, please enlighten me what a microwave oven has to do with charging a EV at night. Not trying to be sarcastic just confused with your analogy.
When you want a burrito, you are, in general, not willing to wait 12 hours to heat it up in your microwave.

If you have an EV, generally you won't care if it charges at 7pm or 7am, as long as it charges at some point within the window of time that the car is home.

Thus EV's represent easily-dispatchable loads that can be used to equalize grid loading, or match solar generation. Other loads, like microwaves, don't have that flexibility.
 
Hillhater said:
Hate ??.. Im sure i have told you before about your limited psyco analytical abilities.
I would remind you that you have "hater" in your username. So not too much of a stretch there!
 
neptronix said:
Batteries always operated on turtle's law.. yes, there haven't been much improvements in the last few years, just automakers slowly catching up to what we have in our bikes :lol:. But there are so many promising batteries in the pipeline at the moment that 1 out of 10 has to succeed, and my money's on solid state for now.
I would add that there is a company now selling solid state lithium batteries (Pellion Technologies) for drones. They are hideously expensive, and have a lifetime measured in tens to hundreds of cycles. But for critical applications like military drones, they are an option. As time goes on, the price will go down and life will go up.
Don't forget that the first lithium batteries were also absolutely horrible. They started on that technology in the early 90's!
The first li-ion battery I used was in 1997 - a 1300mah 18650. Since then we've seen a 260% improvement. That's something like 12% a year.
 
Punx0r said:
Once again, energy density for a given c-rate has improved. Prices have fallen by an order of magnitude in 10 years! Ten times! 1000%! I'm baffled how you find this "very little".

I remember declaring some time ago that I'd buy into lithium batteries when I could get a usable 1 Wh per $1. Well, I waited a little longer than that. But the last lithium batteries I bought for myself were about $0.20/Wh (not counting BMS or packaging) and the last lithium batteries I bought for someone else were about $0.25/Wh including BMS and packaging.
 
billvon said:
I would add that there is a company now selling solid state lithium batteries (Pellion Technologies) for drones. They are hideously expensive, and have a lifetime measured in tens to hundreds of cycles. But for critical applications like military drones, they are an option. As time goes on, the price will go down and life will go up.
That's interesting. A quick search with duckduckgo found me an article on that.

https://qz.com/1349245/the-next-major-innovation-in-batteries-might-be-here/

Apparently these are "lithium metal", which would be different than solid state, no? also, they have twice the energy density, which is huge.. the article states that these batteries are only good for 50 cycles though.

Zero information on the company's website.. can't confirm anything..

But yes, the military is sort of a testing ground for a lot of technology. The only problem is that they have scads of money, so they play with things that are not economically feasible.
 
neptronix said:
Apparently these are "lithium metal", which would be different than solid state, no? also, they have twice the energy density, which is huge.. the article states that these batteries are only good for 50 cycles though.
Hmm. They are lithium metal and use a solid separator - but they still use electrolyte, so sounds like you're right. I assumed that the solid separator denoted a solid state battery, but as long as there's electrolyte it's not completely solid state.
 
Walk down any auto parts aisle and imagine all the little bits and pieces and larger stuff required to make any engine. Then imagine all the things that can go wrong. Imagine all the maintenance, oil changes, spark plugs that goes into that engine. Then look at a simple electric vehicle, forklift motor, controller, battery. I thought about that today while roaming the aisles of the Great Canadian Crappy Tire. Came across some diesel oil, thought about them diesel electrics that turn a generator. That's creeping into complexity, but some diesel engines like the 12V are bomb proof.
 
Engine/transmission reliability and repair is not a noticeable issue on most modern mainstream cars.
10-15 years 250-400k miles is not uncommon...generally the useful life of the rest of the vehicle.
If you have hang ups over oil and filter costs, then i sympathise, but i would lose more sleep over potential issues with expensive drive/inverter, charger , battery control systems, etc...things that the average joe will not be able to do in the street outside his house.....and the local EV dealer will only "replace" rather than repair.
( remember the Tesla S drive unit noise issue, or the Roadster Inverter failures ? )
Of course , warranty should help for the first few years/ kms, but ultimately someone gets sadled with a highly technical and expensive problem.
 
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