Too little and too late. Draconian measures are necessary to push automakers into compliance and to push consumers to buy. It's expensive unless we want to sell out to China completely, but necessary and in the end, affordable.
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sell out to China completely
Sell what each region is best at. Mutual benefits. Crazy idea right?
In 50 years there will be literally nothing left that China doesn't do better than the west, it would be better to build trust and commerce now than attempt to delay it with artificial borders (tariffs, export bans, &c.), we're just delaying the inevitable and making a (commercial) enemy for no reason
We Europeans have sold tens of millions of cars in China for decades. The string attached was that you had to make a joint venture with a local company (which, by the way, shared the risks and increased the margins).
Why can't they do so the same here?
And I don't want to hear no "because Chinese EV industry got help by government, it's unfair", so what? In Italy alone we've given more than 200B euros to Fiat, which milks governments from Serbia to Poland out of taxpayer money. Tesla has received 16B+ in direct funding from taxpayers in US alone, got more in foreign countries to open plants there.
European and American auto industries shouldn't rely on artificially gatekeeping foreign automakers.
We've tried with Japan in the 80s forcing them to produce here, now it's China.
I don't like any of this, it's against taxpayers, it's against consumers. Free market goes both ways.
Convert public fleets. It's much more reasonable to mandate that local councils and public servant staff cars should be EV-only first; these tend to have short turnover periods of three to five years anyway. That forces the public bodies to actually address the details of adoption.
Not to mention buses and public works vehicles like refuse lorries. Expensive, but if the transition has to happen it has to happen.
But I think the momentum is there on its own:
> In August alone, 154,582 EVs were snapped up, accounting for 20% of all new car sales. Analysts note that a 20–25% share is enough to meet the EU’s emissions targets for 2025–2027 and Europe has just reached that milestone.
There's a self-reinforcing circle that as more people have EVs, they become more "normal", and the more car-centric policy caters to their needs. People who are irrationally scared speak to friends who own one or ride in EV taxis (actually, taxis are nearly always hybrids at the moment?)
> ASML Holding N.V. (commonly shortened to ASML, originally standing for Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography) is a Dutch multinational corporation
This is not at all obvious or inevitable. The exact same concerns where voiced when much of the electronics industry moved to Japan 30 years ago, but "Japan doing everything better than the west" never really happened.
China is facing the exact same challenges that made US, EU, Japanese and Korean industry stumble before: Your own success raises wages and living standards, which inevitably decreases competitiveness. China still has a lot of catching up to do (in living standards/median income) and despite that it already struggles in some sectors to compete with countries like Vietnam or Indonesia.
They .. ARE?
Dacia Spring is essentially a Chinese EV from Renault's joint venture with eGT New Energy Automotive.
VW's Cupra Tavascan is made in China and is the product of VW's joint venture with Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group.
And many EU EVs that are of domestic design and production use Chinese developed and manufactured powertrains and batteries.
EU EVs are using more and more Chinese tech.
EU tried that with Russia, then we were dependent on oil/gas, and somehow the dictatorial regime fscked us on Ukraine, and now all of us are wasting so much more time and money.
Everybody already knows China is going to invade Taiwan. The global chip market is not going to like that, and this will happen only because we played the good guy with a dictator.
And then all of this will be retroactively be seen as aiding and collaborating with evil, again.
"Curse your sudden and inevitable betrayal", again and again.
Making cars in Europe is getting near impossible, "draconian" measures mean that indeed no European Automaker will make ICE cars any more, because they will all be bankrupt.
The real problem regulators can't regulate away is that people are not buying EVs, even when manufacturers are selling them at prices where they barely break even.
Since they cost less to run and are generally better than the alternative, poor people will appreciate the step up just as everyone else does.
The German economy can not survive that. There is no "mutual benefit" when what you are doing is an existential risk to the other side.
I don't think that is rational at all. Have you ever looked at vintage car regulations in Europe? There are none, basically-- if your car is old enough, neither accident nor emission mitigation/prevention are required at all.
Why would you expect that this is going to change?
Also, given that polluted air affects poor people the most, getting rid of all that exhaust of old worn out cars with ICEs will be a good thing in any case.
It is not Trumpian completely insane tariffs applied without thought. It is a scalpel applied to ensure fair competition.
As the middle class shrinks it becomes clearer that these sort of heavy handed policies are almost exclusively peddled by what marx would call the bourgeois. You don't see the "my car is a significant expense" or "home ownership isn't a given" class people going off advocating for policy like this on minor issues.
To quote the article: Analysts note that a 20–25% share is enough to meet the EU’s emissions targets for 2025–2027 and Europe has just reached that milestone.
BEVs are like the best consumers imaginable for our grids. Their owners get hourly contracts and perfectly time their charging when the prices are low helping stabilize the grid.
Some even grid companies even support adding cars charging to the ancillary markets further increasing grid reliability - while also paying the BEV owners for their service.
Taking in the supply chain from producing oil, refining it and transporting it the change in electricity consumption is negigible because especially the refining step is quite electricity intensive.
But if no refining happens in a market then something like a 20-30% increase in electricity usage is expected.
Please do tell me how that entails a "collapse"?
Then why are they not doing it? Isn't it in the national interest? Why not create a US company that makes EUV machines like ASML does? Why is there only one company in the world capable of doing it if they are "just steppers"?
btw what is used now in EUV machines are step and scan scanners and ASML builds the whole EUV scanner system (stages, metrology, controls, system integration). Scanners replaced steppers for leading edge nodes.
Oh and Cymer is owned by ASML from 2013, so it’s ASML's own US light source business working with TRUMPF (Germany) for the CO2 drive lasers.
I can't immediately find reference to them licensing from Sandia, although I do see a mention of a collaboration with LLNL.
How'd you work this out and can you link a resource or publication?
Most of the world is playing catch up with Norway (97% EV market share) - if their grid will handle the transition then it is possible. If it will not then others will prepare better.
Of course not at all engaging with the point about BEVs acting like demand response for a grid. Scheduling their charging to not add more load when the grid is already strained, unless forced to do so due to e.g. being on a roadtrip without possibility of timing the charging and therefore paying a premium for expensive electricity.
All in all I see a lot of hand waving and little substance.
Did you miss the portion where on average the refinement of raw crude to gasoline/diesel is neutral in terms of electricity usage compared to just driving a BEV?
TSMC (taiwan) is the only company that has reached the latest and greatest chips tech. Apple gets their chips from Taiwan only. AMD. Intel. Everyone.
Taiwan does not let TSMC export the latest tech, exactly because they would lose USA protection.
...basically it's a 160B$ industry with something like 70% of the global output, as per last year data.
Now imagine Taiwan blowing up the industry to prevent China from controlling it, or China destroying the industry to crash the global economy, weaken the USA protection and come back a few years later.
China will not be affected much by the sudden non-existence of Taiwan Chip industry. They produce everything internally. The rest of the world would be thrown 5+ years back in terms of tech, and I don't even want to know how much it will take to ramp up older production elsewhere.
Remember the problems caused by Covid, where the car industry had problems getting chips? That was a mere shift in who gets the chips first, the production was still there.
70% less global chip production? Buy a cars/computers/whatever as soon as China invades, it's going to last you for a while.
So all the European societies need to be forced and pushed with draconian measures and punishments, while racist excuses are made for why other groups are exempt from these climate punishments.
It is textbook abusive guilt shifting of narcissism. It’s not like most politicians are not grandiose, especially the ones who not only think they are some form of special one’s chosen by God, but have even just effectively declared themselves to be the only God they need (i.e., some form of external regulation). Talk about peak grandiose narcissism, this time with robots and AI.
For one, cars old enough to be without emissions or safety equipment are becoming more rare, to the point that they are now worth a significant amount of money. Anything that is currently in that grey, "pre-classic" area is already a very complicated machine that is very hard to maintain without OEM spares and support. Anything newer is designed from the ground up to hit a specified lifetime then get ground up into flakes for recycling. Opinions vary on the positive outcomes of this.
For two - regulations are constantly changing. Many cities have low-emissions zones. The EU is making significant changes to their vehicle end-of-life laws.
"Poor people" are not going to be maintaing classic old cars as a cheap form of transport, like some rose-tinted view of Cuba. They already lease brand-new cars.
Pretty much world-wide. The cost of new cars has risen several times faster than inflation for at least a few years now.
This of course does not answer the question about which draconic measures the car industry should be subjected to.
Additionally, long delays can be for other reasons than high demands.
While you're at it, you can also imagine an alien invasion. You would have to be out of your mind to destroy your country's economy on purpose this way. Did Hong Kong destroy its financial sector when it was politically overtaken by China? China depends on the global economy, it needs to avoid any crash because it is an exporting country. This argument is so irrational that I really don't know where people are getting it from. This is a total misunderstanding of Asia in general, Taiwan, Chinese culture, economy and geopolitics.
> China will not be affected much by the sudden non-existence of Taiwan Chip industry. They produce everything internally.
Of course they will! In 2024 China imported $385 billion worth of integrated circuits.
A typical commute of 50km/day at 20kWh/100km means you have to put 10kWh into you car (per day). A 230V outlet can deliver 3,7kW at 16A, so your car would be topped up again after about 3h.
Tesla Supercharger prizes at 20kWh/100km are in the same ball park as Diesel at 5l/100km. Charging at home should approach half that, and charging with PV will amount to <2€/100km.
Because ASMR is doing fine by keeping its stuff out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
Operating on US soil, in US jurisdiction under US laws.
They had a stepper manufacturer, Silicon Valley Group (SVG), and ASML bought it, that's how ASML got the EUV license from the US.
That's a case by case basis and not valid blanket-wide over everyone in every city on the whole continent. Outside of HN bubble, not everyone lives in big cities with high speed rail, underground subways or working remotely in small villages with amazing bicycle paths
A lot of tier 2 cities are heavily underdeveloped in that regard and need a car for commute to work outsider or inside the city, unless you wanna spend 1-2+ hours/day, each way, on public transit switching and waiting on buses since such cities sprawled out and grew in size a lot, but public transit infra is still stuck in the 90s with slow busses and no trains. Car ownership is still the only way you can have some free time between work, sleep and commute.
I never said that.
What I meant was that once ASML acquired SVG, it also become a US-based operation, which gave them the leverage over Canon and Nikon when acquiring a EUV license from the US gov as it was now also a US company, not just a Dutch one.
That the Netherlands adds 500 jobs making EUV machines is a tiny consolation for mass unemployment in Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary and France with millions of jobs lost.
Again, free trade is an insane idea when the proposition of one side is an existential threat to the other side.
Reading your first comment in full, it seems like you actually did, at least that's the impression I got from the wording you used. Then you toned it down and didn’t address the other arguments.
What I meant is that simply giving a license to company Y is not the same as being capable of producing the EUV machines that ASML produces. It's similar to TSMC, anyone can buy an ASML machine, but there is only one TSMC, because it's not just about the machine and not just about the light source.
He is an anti-nuclear troll, randomly posting nonsense about nuclear everywhere he goes. It's always emotionally driven bullshit, crafted to create a reaction.
Just google his pseudo. I wouldn't be surprised if he was sponsored by a foreign agency to destabilize political discourse. Considering he is from Sweden, the potential of Russian influence isn't negligible.
In any case, whatever he says, is at best, extremely idealistic and based on wishful thinking about the true capabilities of renewables (we are still waiting on reliable and cost-effective storage, if that's even possible at scale for European weather patterns).
It goes both ways as well. German cars are already suffering in China as tariff retaliation.
China is facing the exact same challenges that made US, EU, Japanese and Korean industry stumble before: Your own success raises wages and living standards, which inevitably decreases competitiveness. China still has a lot of catching up to do (in living standards/median income) and despite that it already struggles in some sectors to compete with countries like Vietnam or Indonesia.
You truly are completely out of your depth here. As evidenced by your previous attempt [1] where you didn't know that China so far has finished 0 reactors in 2025.
Certainly the preferable alternative.