EU-sponsored report critical of electric vehicles?
The European Union has been working on new legislation with the goal of reducing overall carbon emissions to just 130 g/km by 2015. Many believe that electric vehicles are the best way to achieve this ultimate goal, but internal reports may not agree with this assessment, according to the Financial Times. In fact, Jean Syrota, the former French energy industry regulator, is said to have authored a 129-page document that promotes the continued use of the internal combustion engine, albeit ICEs combined with new technology and advanced biofuels. Apparently, the closest that the report comes to suggesting that EVs have any potential is to promote range-extended models that wouldn't need extremely large capacity battery packs. The report also suggests setting strict speed limits in all of Europe, including Germany.
If rumors are in any way accurate, current President of the EU and the French Republic Nicolas Sarkozy is purposely sitting on the report as it may not agree with his desired intentions for European automakers.
[Source: Financial Times]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 1:47PM (12/13/2008)
This shows just the opposite:
Study Concludes Wind-Powered BEV and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles Best Options, Biofuels the Worst to Address Climate, Energy Security and Pollution.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/12/study-concludes.html#more
The overall rankings of the combinations (from best to worst) were: (1) wind-powered battery-electric vehicles (BEVs); (2) wind-powered hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; (3) concentrated-solar-powered-BEVs; (4) geothermal-powered-BEVs; (5) tidal-powered-BEVs; (6) solar-photovoltaic-powered-BEVs; (7) wave-powered-BEVs; (8) hydroelectric-powered-BEVs; (9-tie) nuclear-powered-BEVs; (9-tie) coal-with-carbon-capture-powered-BEVs; (11) corn-E85 vehicles; and (12) cellulosic-E85 vehicles. His findings are published online in an open access article in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.
Somebody is lying!
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gorr 1:48PM (12/13/2008)
These europeen contries are dangerous. They adopted communist mentality and political system. Then now a report for all europe and to determine the futur is sitting on the desk on one single guy that have to decide for all europe citizens what each single one what fuc&ing car he or she will buy, drive, pay for and i noticed that he report the decision in the futur while each single driver is waiting because each and every one single car is potentially illegal or so... This is communist at his best. Nobody decide nothing, each and every citizen is own by the state where a busy man have to decide first what everyone will do and he don't have time to decide nothing because he have himself to consult via a report from an atomated state employee that the situation is desperate but ' me, myself and i' will decide. so i decided that someone in europe is allowded to install a f?cking water electrolyser in an used cart like the one made since 1968 by d. dingel from the phillipine.
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Scatter 5:53PM (12/14/2008)
You are full of crap.
Losten 4:41PM (12/13/2008)
Gorr
I am from Europe and i must admit that it is a very true what you are saying.
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GoodCheer 6:15PM (12/13/2008)
Hmmm, maybe, but gorr is from Canada which just dissolved its parliament so that Harper would not have to face a no-confidence vote.
What kind of a threat is communism? A threat that the will of the people will not be represented?
Losten 3:40AM (12/14/2008)
I am From eastern Europe and I exactly remember what the communnism means. I use a quote from one of the eastern banker:
"
One day, when we are forced to wait in endless queues or pay bribes just to be issued with a credit card, when account statements arrive only sporadically and four months late, when we have to stand in long lines to be served by bored staff who are only there on Monday from 10 a.m. till 1 p.m. (with an hour off for lunch), when we witness strikes by nationalized financial-sector workers and the banks are closed for the duration, when we see credit committees full of unmotivated state employees and politicians whose positions are secure thanks to state-owned golden shares in each bank -- perhaps then we will understand what it means to turn the financial universe into a public-sector-like industry. Then we will truly have bad times all the time, not just now and again. But then it will be too late to think about whether, at the time of the crisis, we got a bit carried away with the state's role in the financial industry. "
And that is only economy. There is no civil rights.
pozitron 4:48PM (12/13/2008)
EU is becoming overloaded with laws and regulations. Everything is triple regulated and overregulated. We have laws for everything. Even where should the pigs go to the "toilet". Hopefully it won't last long and the union will break appart for much needed reorganization.
It's funny how a french guys tells the germans they should impose speed limits on their highways:)
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torfred 9:56PM (12/13/2008)
While the European system may not be perfect, I can mention a lot more flaws in other systems such as the one in America.
Europe has nothing to do with communism, it just limits the power of big companies so they cant do what they want. While too much regulation isnt useful, too little regulation is even worse (look what happened with too little regulation in the banking sector)
Each country in the EU is a democracy so if the people dont like something they will just vote for someone else. A lot of people in the US are quite paranoid of the state, in europe people have chosen through their vote to trust in the government to take a certain role in their life (otherwise they would of chosen a more right wing government)
While the EU needs a lot of changes (some of which are already happening), I dont think it should be broken apart, for example I dont think there would be so much pressure around the world to deal with climate change if the EU didnt push for it.
That being said I dont think this report means much, from the way it is perceived from the article it is most likely based only on the opinion of the author, so if not much action is taken it wouldnt be because they are purposely ignoring it.
Laszlo 5:03AM (12/15/2008)
The author of this report ignores the reality that we would have entered the post-oil era in about twenty years time. By then, crude oil supplies will be scarce and even more expensive than last summer and there will be a demand to substitute IC engines by powertrains that can run on fuels other than diesel and petrol. The only alternative fuel that will abundant and readily available from a variety of low-carbon primary energy sources in 20, 30 or 50 years time is electricity. I have monitored EV battery technology for last 30 years and studied the refuelling infrastructure requirement for an all-electric car fleet. My conclusions about future fuels for passenger car transport were different from what was in this report.
By 2030 it will be possible to build passenger E-REV-s to perform all the duty cycles performed by existing passenger cars using current lithium ion battery technology. As for BEV-s, an unlimited range can be provided by an infrastructure consisting of designated charging bays (1 per car), opportunity charging bays (1 per 15 cars) and battery exchange bays (1 per 1000 cars) for an entire fleet at a cost of around 5% of the total resource cost of BEV-s. For BEV-s, the high cost of lease only battery and the inconveniently low battery energy density (100-150 miles range on a single charge) are the two obstacles left in the way of viable BEV mass production. For E-REV-s, such as the Chevrolet Volt, high battery cost will not be a problem by 2020, let alone by 2030 and these vehicles will easily meet the carbon emission standards set by the EU.
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Scatter 5:58PM (12/14/2008)
Here's the report (in French) if anyone's interested:
http://www.lepoint2.com/sons/pdf/rapport-syrota-voiture-electrique.pdf
It's quite sad how the FT uncritically reported this (quite possibly without having read the report itself) and declare the opinion of one individual as an "inconvenient truth", even though the vast majority of transport experts view electric cars as the primary long term solution to passenger car emissions and oil dependency.
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Laszlo 5:03AM (12/15/2008)
Yes. I relied on the FT report to provide me with a brief and accurate summary.
Laszlo