Quote:
Originally Posted by Martinjlm
Definitely not short-lived. When you have GM, Ford, and VW each directing a minimum of $25B to development of EV, it’s clear that they are putting their money where their mouths are. You can’t “unspend” that kind of money. Plus development of existing vehicle platforms has slowed to a crawl. Based on the questions some of our clients (Tier I/II/III suppliers to OEMs) are asking, they are seeing significant slow down in development of ICE products and steep increases in requests for development of electrification based components.
A lot of truth here. The brakes got slammed hard on diesel development due to DieselGate. The expense to OEMs and consumers for aftertreatment plus tightening regulations on NOx and particulate emissions combined to shut the door on the diesel transition. Diesel was on its way to being the “performance fuel” before all that stuff hit the wall.
All of these are factors, but I would say the lobbyist / political influence aspects are more at work against EV than in favor of. Thing is the world view (not to be confused with the US view) of climate change and the impact of carbon emissions on the environment have turned the corner. Countries, companies, and 10 states in the US have declared Carbon Neutrality targets. The 10 states in question have set the longest horizon, 2050. The others are in the 2035-2040 timeframe. Carbon Neutrality does not mean that every vehicle needs to be zero emissions, but it does mean that a whole heck of a lot of them will need to be. Soon.
The only auto company that is working aggressively on synthetic fuels is Volkswagen Automotive Group, and more specifically Audi. Audi was also working on AudiGas during the spin up of diesel. I’m sure most here have never heard of AudiGas. The rest of VAG is working even more aggressively on electrification. For Audi to spin the industry away from electrification is tantamount to tail wagging elephant. Huge animal, teeny weeny tail.
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I don't disagree with anything you've said.
But dang...it just seems to me like the synthetic fuel argument makes so much more sense than converting everything over to electric. I've read up on what VAG is doing...although the multiple articles I read were more specifically focused on what Porsche is doing with the fuel. I understand there are issues with it now, such as cost and supply, but with more research and economies of scale I wonder if it could become just as feasible as gasoline is today. From what I've read, it can be ran in mostly all of today's cars and trucks, and the emissions would be drastically cut, and possibly could even result in a net negative result. All of this seems like a much more realistic transition, than the transition to full electric.
Don't get me wrong...I can see myself in some sort of a hybrid in the near-ish future and then full EV further down the road....but that is assuming cost goes down, and charging times improve. But it would be awesome to have vehicles running on synthetic fuels, along with full EV.
EDIT: Originally it said "agree" above. Oops...should have said "disagree".