Germany’s Deputy Economy Minister, Rainer Baake recently spoke at an investment forum and outlined the countries path to reduction of carbon dioxide. With transport making up a significant part of CO2 emissions, addressing change in this area will take the country closer to their targets.
Baake says in 10 years from now, by 2025, the country will need renewable energy to make up between 40 and 45% of their power grid. Right now, Germany has 1.5 Million installations of renewables, made up predominantly of solar and wind farms.
The country pretty aggressive goals for green-tech, with 80-95% reduction of emissions scheduled for 2050, those numbers translate to massive disruptions to existing industries, but that’s what the planet demands.
In another speech, Bakke says that to achieve this goal, they need to act quickly to transform their transportation industry, as cars typically have a 20-year life cycle. This means if the years between 2030 and 2050 are to pan out the way the country needs, with a dramatic reduction of diesel and gasoline (petrol) powered cars, they need to make all new cars registered in Germany, emissions-free by 2030.
Germany has one of the largest auto industries on the planet, so a statement like that from a high-ranking official is certainly going to put auto-makers on notice. It is estimated that up to 20% of all carbon dioxide in Germany, comes from transportation emissions.
“Fact is there’s been no reduction at all in CO2 emissions by transport since 1990,” said Baake at a Tagesspiegel newspaper climate forum in Berlin. “We don’t have any answers to cut truck emissions right now but we do have answers for cars.”
If you think organic growth in electric vehicles is enough to reach their targets, think again, the EV marketing in Germany still remains a fraction of all vehicle sales. About 130,000 hybrids and 25,000 fully-electric cars were registered as of January, compare that to 30 million gasoline cars and 14.5 million diesels.
Australia’s political parties differ about their environmental objectives quite considerably, but it is hard to argue with the opportunity that’s available with EV over petrol-powered vehicles. With significantly lower running costs and ranges now comparable to combustion engines, battery-powered cars have one downside right now and that’s purchase cost.
Our Government could do a lot more in terms of incentives for buying electric vehicles. Having practical ranges on vehicles with the right charging infrastructure in place will mean price really is the last sticking point for people. While a cheaper Model 3 from Tesla will certainly help, so will affordable competition, with Holden’s US HQ, General Motors, offering the Chevy Bolt. At $100K, or even $50K, electric vehicles have been out of the price range for average Aussies, but there are a lot of people who buy cars in the $30-40K range.
If there was ever a part of the auto industry that they should be assisting, this is it, consumers and the purchase price to get into an all-electric vehicle. It’s also worth remembering that every auto manufacturer worth their salt is working on an electric vehicle and almost all are working towards global shipment models to achieve the scale necessary to drive costs down. This means whether you like EV or not, the car auto makers will be shipping in 2030, will be electric.
Just when you think emission standards are only going to apply to cars, it is worth noting recent developments in the EV truck market.
Nikola One: a pioneering #EV truck. It has 7000 orders worth $3billion! https://t.co/jwCzAMBFyq @nikolamotor pic.twitter.com/iMZ7cS25L0
— motoring.com.au (@motoringcomau) June 15, 2016
More information at the Globe and Mail via Elektrik.
