At the start, I thought these announcements and laws (eg Scotland) to ban ICE vehicles by 20XX were cheap politics. A promise Someone Else will deliver later, with credit due to you now.

I've come around though. I think all the bastardized carbon accounting, market based solutions are on average quite bad. The idea of a neutral, "market decides" policy is a myth. These things are complex, and that compmexity is an opportunity for regulatory capture.

For example, most European vehicle tax codes have been altered to reflect emissions.

The upshot is that (1) new vehicles are 20% ish more efficient (2) older vehicles become uneconomical faster (3) people who drive older vehicles clear pay more tax. (4) Switching from a 10yr old ICE hatchback to a new one can easily save you $500 pa. Going from a new "efficient" ICE to an electric will save you a fraction of that.

New car buyers pay less tax, old cars pay more. Vehicles hit junkyards faster. Manufacturers sell more cars. Over a decade we'll see a minor (maybe 20% at best) decrease in carbon emissions.

Very little environmental juice for a lot of poor and middle class squeeze. A nice little sales boost for VW.

There's a lot to be said for the simplicity of an outright ban. Ban ICEs. Ban commercial fishing. It worked for CFCs and market hunting. In retrospect, no one wishes we had split hairs with a complicated policy.

People especially here constantly rail against Europe, specifically their start-up scene, against taxes, against regulations, etc. At the same time, our cities are unlivable, inaccessible, crowded, our infrastructure is falling apart, a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor causing increases in homelessness in cities and opiod addiction in rural areas. Western Europe isn't utopia, but in many areas, their policies are actually in the public interest and raise most people up[0].

[0] Perhaps not natives, but that's another story.

While the promise sounds great, it's important to note that no law has actually been passed.

Also, incentives to increase sales of electric vehicles are yet to be announced.

Denmark's Scandinavian neighbour Norway is on the other side of the spectrum. Heavy subsidisation has caused every 2nd (!) car sold to be electric (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-norway-autos/...).

As great as it is, remember that hybrids are exempt. And the law is very lax when it comes to a definition of a hybrid - Range Rover has a model with a whooping 1 mile(!!!) of electric range, but of course it has an electric motor so it qualifies as a hybrid and could still be sold under this ban. I expect very very soon we'll see this kind of extremely minor electrification coming to all kinds of vehicles, where a tiny electric motor integrated into the transmission provides few extra HP of power just to call the car a hybrid.

I went to Denmark last year and spent two weeks driving all over the countryside, and likely would have been difficult to reach with an electric car. Many of the places I visited would not have been accessible via public transit. I'm curious how future generations will reach remote places as we move away from fossil fuels.

BTW, I loved Denmark :)

There is a long list of countries that decided to ban fossil fuel burning cars in the upcoming years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_banning_foss...

Personally, I don't think the ban will ever be enforced. It will create the right incentives and most car sales will be electric, but there will still be fossil fuel burning car sales.

Wonder what it'd do to the resale value of cars even before 2030.

Denmark with their famous 150% registration tax already has cars being used much longer than what I've seen in other countries. I'd love to see the 150% tax waived off for 100% electric cars that are not luxury vehicles. Set strict constraints for a common man car, and incentivize it turning electric.

Also, think about the charging infrastructure....

Instead of governments announcing bans (I believe france announced a future ban a couple months back), I would rather see these governments committing to only purchasing electric vehicles for all government fleets. Why not put your money were your mouth is and help pump money into the industry via purchasing orders, rather then simply announcing a ban?

This is really the only, and best, solution. It's simple and clear. Car manufactures cannot get around it with their bag of tricks. Plus, 12 years is a long long time.

I'm guessing economies of scale will finish the job somewhere over the next decade already. If you operating any kind of vehicles commercially, eliminating fuel cost should be high on your agenda. Whether it is taxi's, buses, police vehicles, delivery vehicles, etc. For that kind of market what matters is the total cost of ownership. This is why many taxis were early adopters of hybrids. As soon as they become affordable enough, they'll be going full electric.

Currently battery cost and production volumes are the main limitation. As that improves, the market will gobble up whatever is being produced. This just puts the pressure on a bit more. 2030 is not even that ambitious.

It's a step forward. However I'm surprised that the focus is still on individual cars, construction of an ev is still quite polluting.

I expected to see suggestions about increase in public transportation coverage and frequency to compensate, or maybe steps towards self-driven collective fleets (2030 seems ambitious).

I don't know Denmark, are public transportation already well developed? Or am I not cynical enough and it's just an economically driven decision?

Electro cars are great, until you start count. Ok, if Denmark population is about 5.7M and based on aerostat (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...) there're around 500 cars per 1000 citizen. It means country holds ~2.5M cars right now. In general (based on https://www.worlddata.info/europe/denmark/energy-consumption...) every Denmark's citizen consumes 20kh per day. 1 of 2 citizen has a car. Electro car charging requires 50kh (average electro car consumption). So It means Denmark must increase electric production in 5!!! times. In order just a charge those new 2.5M cars. I'm now talking about infrastructure requirements for this signigficant electric consumption increase, I'm pointing to the basic knowledge (by wikipedia) that around 50% of energy comes from coal and all renewable are less than 5%. COAL! MORE COAL I SAID!

Good luck with that, especially with banning ultramodern, low emission, high performance diesel cars.

I was in Denmark last year to see what's going on over there and I observed the infrastructure very carefully: there is no widespread electric infrastructure for cars; it will be a gargantuan investment of epic proportions. Even if the infrastructure is put in, the current battery technology is only barely adequate for daily city driving. Everything else - forget it! So this is banking on future infrastructure improvement in batteries and recharging, and it's especially banking on invention of fast recharging. And it's assuming diesel engines and emissions will stand still, with no further improvements. Just wondering, Danes like to travel and they like to hitch a camping trailer to their cars and drive all over Europe; how will they be able to do that if their government bans sales of cars with internal combustion engines?

Whatever stuff that government is on, it's gotta be potent; I'd like some of whatever they're smoking.

As an idealist I'm glad to see the world transition away from fossil fuels in any capacity.

As a "Car Guy" however, there is a small sadness that I won't really get to experience much of the internal combustion engine. I feel like I was born a decade too late and a lot too poor. Similar to some techies who feel the missed the early internet.

I have a hard time believing that the vast majority of cars won't already be 100% electric by then. Also, I doubt there will be nearly as many personal cars and that there will be much more ride sharing and public transportation options.

Isn't Denmark the country that taxes new car purchases 120% of the price of the car already? I don't think they're a good indicator of the overall attitude of the EU.

This is great. I don't think we in the US realize how far ahead European countries are wrt EV. Their governments are working like startups to make this happen. Even if only cars get replaced (and not trucks or heavy vehicles), that's a huge boost.

Further, I think the biggest gains of this are in emerging countries like SE asia, India etc. where the cost of oil fuel is much higher than the US. The market size willing to ride on this tech is insane.

The more countries that commit to this, the more innovation we'll see, happy to see this being taken seriously!

This is a solid move. Better air quality and smaller chance of natural disasters benefits us all.

While this is a good thing, it's not nearly sufficient to stop climate catastrophe.

denmark is the size of bayarea. Yes, they can move to electric cars, because a tesla will NOT run out of battery by travelling all over the country.

OTOH, do they even need cars? Why can't denmark just use public transportation and abolish cars altogether?

Coal price will rise. Oil will fall. Gas'll rise.

Incredibly dumb move. CO2 is our friend, not an enemy.

Atsushi Horiba seems to think this is rubbish.

Does he have a point?

2030 is ages away, try 2020.