The emissions part I’ll have to agree on, but safety? Germany is literally among the safest nations to drive in. There’s not much lower you can go.
As ICE vehicles get phased out, people will naturally start driving fast less often. EVs force you to stop for much longer when you run out of charge. Driving 2x as fast means making 4x as many stops and the stops aren’t 3 minutes with an EV.
The emissions part I’ll have to agree on, but safety? Germany is literally among the safest nations to drive in. There’s not much lower you can go.
Always room for improvement, especially if there’s such an unnecessary reason it’s “only” 16th place.
Regarding EVs: You didn’t really acknowledged the economics arguments but simply assume that ICEs will be faced out. Which might still be true even in the worst of all economical situations, however my argument also entailed that people want to buy EVs. Giving ICEs and EVs equal footing in a “free” market is a good thing unless you want offset not doing so with a heavy hand with more regulations. One way or another we need this change asap, so a regulation that’s literally everywhere but here, has support from a majority of people and benefits every cause there is makes the most sense if you ask me.
“Top 10 in road safety” also has a nice ring to it.
EVs have to be legislated into being the only choice anyway. There’s no way around it, they’re unfortunately inferior for a lot of people’s use cases still. We’ve grown accustomed to the energy density of fossil fuels and being able to keep cars running out of warranty. A quick look at the replacement battery cost of an original Audi E-Tron will reveal that at this point, EVs are expensive paper weights once out of warranty.
Those problems are being fixed with newer vehicle designs though. The charging speed (the 800V systems seem to reach sub 20 minutes consistently by now), range (450+ km appear to become normal, the more fancy ones even got over 650km) and economics (battery packs become repairable and way more affordable even for a full replacement, especially given the savings in other expenses compared to ICE) seem to check out. The main problems are infrastructure, lack of affordable second-hand options… and honestly that stupid idea that cars should be our primary mode of transportation. Damn, we even got viable alternatives to lithium-ion batteries by now, that technology didn’t properly evolve for half a century or sth.
The data on battery longevity is also promising, they stay at usable capacities way longer than expected. Those first generation EVs just age really poorly given they’re, well… first generation. The technology is developing at breakneck speeds for the last decade.
On a sidenote, don’t let anyone tell you european EVs are somehow worse than chinese (they are not). They’re just more expensive due to a fortunate lack of slavery, and generally higher standards of everything in the production chain compared to China.
The emissions part I’ll have to agree on, but safety? Germany is literally among the safest nations to drive in. There’s not much lower you can go.
As ICE vehicles get phased out, people will naturally start driving fast less often. EVs force you to stop for much longer when you run out of charge. Driving 2x as fast means making 4x as many stops and the stops aren’t 3 minutes with an EV.
Always room for improvement, especially if there’s such an unnecessary reason it’s “only” 16th place. Regarding EVs: You didn’t really acknowledged the economics arguments but simply assume that ICEs will be faced out. Which might still be true even in the worst of all economical situations, however my argument also entailed that people want to buy EVs. Giving ICEs and EVs equal footing in a “free” market is a good thing unless you want offset not doing so with a heavy hand with more regulations. One way or another we need this change asap, so a regulation that’s literally everywhere but here, has support from a majority of people and benefits every cause there is makes the most sense if you ask me.
“Top 10 in road safety” also has a nice ring to it.
EVs have to be legislated into being the only choice anyway. There’s no way around it, they’re unfortunately inferior for a lot of people’s use cases still. We’ve grown accustomed to the energy density of fossil fuels and being able to keep cars running out of warranty. A quick look at the replacement battery cost of an original Audi E-Tron will reveal that at this point, EVs are expensive paper weights once out of warranty.
Those problems are being fixed with newer vehicle designs though. The charging speed (the 800V systems seem to reach sub 20 minutes consistently by now), range (450+ km appear to become normal, the more fancy ones even got over 650km) and economics (battery packs become repairable and way more affordable even for a full replacement, especially given the savings in other expenses compared to ICE) seem to check out. The main problems are infrastructure, lack of affordable second-hand options… and honestly that stupid idea that cars should be our primary mode of transportation. Damn, we even got viable alternatives to lithium-ion batteries by now, that technology didn’t properly evolve for half a century or sth.
The data on battery longevity is also promising, they stay at usable capacities way longer than expected. Those first generation EVs just age really poorly given they’re, well… first generation. The technology is developing at breakneck speeds for the last decade.
On a sidenote, don’t let anyone tell you european EVs are somehow worse than chinese (they are not). They’re just more expensive due to a fortunate lack of slavery, and generally higher standards of everything in the production chain compared to China.