Porsche engines are clearly sport/pleasure engines, not draft engines.

I believe this has a lot to do with the failure of the Maginot line: it had been constructed to slow down an army with horse-drawn logistics (after all, germany had no oil) but the germans did their end run with mechanised units (having researched synfuels in the meantime).

From 1940 to 1943, one can readily explain Axis strategy as an insatiable quest for more oil: no barrels, no Blitz.

You seem to be using “actual” in a way that suggests proportion to population is a key part of the definition. But although a company that served a market for 20 million might well have failed as the market shrank, it also had the opportunity to survive and continue serving an actual market with an actual demand for 7 million actual horses.

Oh, they will be, no worries - doubly so as the fuel they need goes from being a necessary evil of civilization to a niche product for enthusiasts.

There's going to be along tail of ICE vehicles out there, though - say, I have a tractor on my farm (which is not being worked commercially, it is basically an expensive and time-consuming hobby seeing as my wife's family has tilled this plot of land since the dark ages. Literally.)

Anyway, even if diesel prices soar to $25/l (That's $100/gal for the metrically challenged), with our current usage, it will still be cheaper to buy diesel at that cost than to invest in a new, EV tractor. Hence I can't see that tractor going anywhere anytime soon.

They’re already heavily taxed. But why vilified?

Your proposals are a bit contradictory. If you heavily tax something, it becomes a money source for the government; does it then make sense to try to extinguish said activity through artificial social aversion? Also, whatever is vilified by the government, but stays legal or at least feasible, will act as a magnet for the counterculture.

If you really hate something, just propose an outright ban. It would work for Porsches; no one can secretly grow a Porsche in his backyard.

you must be european

I suppose you don't know how to drive a manual either :)

Thats a very common misconception. Being very fast doesnt necessarily make a car very fun.

Eh, no?

One car being objectively faster than another does not mean that it is more fun.

And even if one vehicle is more fun in some total measure, it will not be fun in all the same ways as all other fun vehicles.

There are plenty of people who alternate between something like a modern Mercedes V8 and a classic Mini. There is no question of which one is faster, but it might be the slow one that gives the most joy of sporty driving

-True, but I believe (at least this holds true for me) - the tinkerability, if you like, of ICEs is much higher. You can work on them at home, install all sorts of modifications and upgrades - real or perceived - to a much larger extent than you (currently) can on your EV.

It all depends on what makes cars interesting to you, of course - but a lot of the car enthusiast clientele would merrily start tinkering with their pride and joy even if all is well, just because they can.

Instant torque is cool, but goddamn it is soulless.

Which ICE performance car? I went from an SRT8 back in 2012 to a Tesla Model 3 performance + mods and now most recently went back to ICE via an AMG GT63. I can confidently say that the GT63 is leagues more fun than the Tesla ever was. Sure the Tesla was quick off the line, but outside of that it felt sterile and the ride was quite uninspired.

> What constitutes “walking back”?

Legally+Economically. After seeing how badly their cars were doing against Chinese EVs, it seems the EV-only mandates in the EU and US are on shaky ground; only heavy tariffs on imported cars seem to be giving local producers a chance. I do not think they will figure it out by the 2030-ish targets, and bet that European and American companies will be allowed to sell combustion engine cars after that.

> marking a 16.3% increase compared to the same period last year

This is buoyed a lot by growth in China (which is not nothing, I guess), but growth in Europe and the Americas is slowing.

I need to check that source but I guess is heavily per country. In Southern Europe is under 5%, south from the US border between 0 to 1 % (source: per country Car Makers Association report)

Globally, if I recall, you need 20 years to replace the whole global fleet (so around 5% replacement rate). Let’s assume this global number is fixed (installed base is growing, as more vehicles are being created that destroyed, actually)

1/7 is 15%. 15% of 5% is 0,75%. So this means that every year 0,75% of global installed base is replaced by EVs. So 130y for full replacement?

Yes, the 1/7 weight will increase. But so will expand base. Even if suddenly today every car made now on the planet is EV only, iCE will still be around for 20-30 years.

Not the op but in NZ there has been a significant drop in demand due to removal of subsidies and introduction of a distance-based tax (road user charge) for EVs.

https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/09/15/car-importers-stuck-with-...

“In 2023 January through August, one in four new light passenger vehicles sold were EVs. Fast forward to 2024 and EVs make up just one in 11 new light passenger vehicles sold”

That's a flawed analogy. Datacenter draw X power to do X work, and people using them don't care about the brand or aesthetics. Give techies and companies less power hungry alternatives and look how quick they will migrate. That is quite different for cars, unless their perceived value has nothing to do with their #1 function, which brings us back to my post: most people buying luxury cars give more importance to appearance rather than any environmental issue. I completely understand, but cannot agree.

It’s a ridiculous argument. You are typing this comment just because this damn not environmental friendly data center exists. But you pay nothing for HN. Hence someone’s do. That maybe this damn dude who made a fortune. But more than that, this dude has had to work hard long ago so that the data Center could be built and some nerds have got their jobs.

What that article doesn't address is the concurrent shift to electrify domestic heating. A worked analysis of the impacts can be found here: https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2022/2/11/how-much-ele...

> Since then, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16% due to improvements in energy efficiency.

Energy demand in UK declining because prices went up which accelerated deindustrialisation and forced people's to use less energy e. g. heat homes less .

Considering how early we get rid of cars that are still usable. I wonder how well the cost of ownership actually holds over when a battery change can overshadow many years of maintenance of an ICE.

I really think as soon as batteries get even cheaper and denser there will be no chance for ICEs to be dominant but right now the balance is still against the change.

I’m particularly interested in last three points. Do you mind to share some data?

For instance, where one recycle a Tesla battery, say in Poland?

I do not see to many chargers around and I believe the grid is not very modern here. Why do you think it can easily handle millions EVs? What about peak hours like nights? Do you think it will be env friendly, provided that majority of electricity in Poland is produced on coal plants.

EV initial cost is about 5-10 times more than a slightly used ICE in a perfect condition. Such a car car drive decades and will never reach in total spendings even initial cost of EV. I’m not counting charging that may not be very cheap. As electricity prices went up in recent years and may go up more.

When you stating something, think beyond your household. Your statements are not universal.

You've gone from false to unfalsifiable! (or at least unnecessarily vague).

- Plenty of electric drivetrains still use neodymium for example[0]. Whether it's too much or likely to change soon I don't know, but I feel like that's crucial to making a judgement on the overall harmfulness.

- Battery recycling is happening[1], but so is plastic recycling. Are batteries likely to be recycled, and are the environmental benefits and available profit sufficient to make it significant in the near future? Seems like yes, but it's not clear to me.

- Which grid? Is capacity sufficient just on average, or also at peak demand? Would that still be the case if EV adoption increases in the next five years? (or some timescale to short to build more plants). Looks like the US will do ok[2] but again it's not obvious.

- Does this also apply to buying new? Are you including resale value? What about carbon generated at power stations to provide the electrical power? This is a complex claim and it's hard to do anything with unless it's sharpened and given some numbers or at least references. Seems like price to consumer is roughly the same[3] and CO2 emissions even over about five years of normal use and will improve if the grid moves towards cleaner fuel[4].

Overall I think it's annoying for a commenter who knows the truth to go to the trouble of being convincing, but it's critical for having an interesting discussion that might change someone's mind.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/automa...

[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/06/27/nx-s1-5019454/ev-battery-recy...

[2] https://news.mit.edu/2023/minimizing-electric-vehicles-impac...

[3] https://www.nada.org/nada/nada-headlines/beyond-sticker-pric...

[4] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-vehicles...

> Even thought I'd agree mass EV would not be carried by the current grid

In many places putting solar panels on roofs and on parking spaces would solve such issue.

On top of that, the commenter is completely ignorant of the rise of saltwater batteries which don't even use lithium.

Also probably unaware that with the rise of extremely low cost, solar and wind, Fossil fuel use on the grid is economically nonviable long term.

Even so, the fossil fuels consumed on the grid are very likely to be combined cycle natural gas, which has less carbon emissions than have equivalent. Amounts of energy were burned in ice engines.

Also, The energy efficiency of electric vehicles is much higher than an ice car, so if solar and wind do not generate the electricity, it still will emit less carbon than an ice.

The only useful new engine technology I am interested in is an extremely compact recharging engine for use in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. There was something about the inside out rotary engine a couple years ago but nothing has come off of it.