Germany to ban internal combustion engine car sales in 2030, and why?

Germany has passed a bill to ban the sale of internal combustion engine cars starting in 2030. This raises questions about whether the rapid shift to electric vehicles is truly green and the reasons behind the global trend.

 

Not long ago, the German Council of Representatives passed a bill that would ban the sale of cars with internal combustion engines in Germany starting in 2030. Many experts were surprised that such a law was passed in Germany, a country that has long been a leader in the internal combustion engine-based automobile industry, and said that it was finally coming. In the late 1990s, the Kyoto Protocol to regulate and combat global warming was adopted, and in 2015, at the Climate Conference in Paris, France, all 195 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed that carbon dioxide-emitting internal combustion engines should be regulated. The internal combustion engine, which dominated the automobile market for over 100 years, is now on the way out. In their place, electric vehicles, which do not emit pollutants such as carbon dioxide when driving, are rapidly becoming the centerpiece of the future green car market.
I would like to ask two questions about this global electric vehicle craze: Is this rush to adopt electric vehicles the way to realize true eco-friendliness? And what are the real reasons for this global trend? Let’s take a look at the engineering side of things to answer the first question. The raison d’être of transportation is to provide “energy” to facilitate the movement of people and goods, so whether it’s an internal combustion engine or an electric vehicle, it’s true that energy is needed to run. However, the source of energy is different, whether it is chemical energy from fossil fuels or electric energy stored in batteries through power generation. According to Statistics Korea, about 60% of the electricity produced in South Korea in 2015 was generated by thermal power generation. In the process, various forms of fossil fuels were used and a large amount of pollutants were emitted. As a result, while electric vehicles do not emit pollutants while driving, they do emit pollutants while generating the electricity to run them. Therefore, electric vehicles are not truly eco-friendly and the common perception that electric vehicles emit no pollutants is not reasonable.
The fact that electric vehicles are not truly green can also be explained by comparing the overall efficiency of internal combustion engine vehicles and electric vehicles. Overall efficiency is the efficiency of producing the fuel needed for a car (fuel production efficiency) multiplied by the efficiency of operating the car using the fuel (vehicle efficiency). According to a lecture by Professor Kyung-Deok Min of Seoul National University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, the fuel production efficiency of an internal combustion engine car is about 88% and the vehicle efficiency is about 20%. Therefore, the overall overall efficiency is about 18%. In the case of electric vehicles, the efficiency of generating electricity from a typical thermal power plant is the fuel production efficiency, which is about 26%. If we consider that the vehicle efficiency of a typical electric vehicle is about 80%, the overall overall efficiency is about 21%. Of course, it is true that electric vehicles have a 3% advantage over internal combustion engine vehicles in terms of overall efficiency. But what’s more important to note about this result is that electric vehicles are just as polluting as their internal combustion engine counterparts. The 21% overall efficiency of an electric vehicle means that 79% of the energy is wasted in the form of heat and pollution. So even if we replaced all the internal combustion engines on the planet with electric vehicles, we would still be emitting a significant amount of pollution, which is not truly green.
We can answer the second question by looking at the current trends in the global automotive industry. The automotive industry is a national industry and is heavily protected by governments. Although this is not as true as it used to be under free trade, many countries still have policies in favor of their car companies. This is the case with Germany’s ban on internal combustion engines. It wouldn’t have been passed if German automakers weren’t ready for the future of green cars. After all, the recent electric car craze, represented by companies like Tesla in the U.S. and BYD in China, is a result of the U.S. and Chinese governments’ support for their own automakers, and European countries, represented by Germany, have begun to actively participate in order to ensure that they don’t lose out on the future green car market that is bound to arrive at some point. As a result, countries are increasingly regulating the conventional internal combustion engine automobile industry for their own benefit in the name of global warming prevention. This is the reason why electric vehicles are now being pushed out in a hurry in the name of eco-friendly cars, even though they are not truly eco-friendly.
So, how well prepared is the Korean automobile industry for the coming era of green cars? Sadly, not very well. Hyundai and Kia Motors, the only Korean automakers, have focused more on fuel cell vehicles, which use liquid hydrogen, than electric vehicles, in their development of eco-friendly vehicles since the early 1990s. As a result, they have secured world-class fuel cell vehicle technology, including the world’s first mass-produced fuel cell vehicle, the Tucson FC. However, as governments and consumers around the world have turned their attention to electric vehicles for the next generation of eco-friendly vehicles, fuel cell vehicles have been slow to gain support, infrastructure, and demand. To make matters worse, Hyundai and Kia have made little effort to bring fuel cell vehicles to consumers. This is in contrast to Toyota’s efforts to promote fuel cell vehicles in Japan, where they are selling their fuel cell vehicles such as the MIRAI and FC Bus at relatively low prices, even at a loss. It doesn’t matter how good the technology is if you can’t sell it to consumers. In that sense, it’s very worrying that Hyundai and Kia, two of the biggest pillars of the Korean economy, are still at a disadvantage in the green car market.
South Korea is one of the world’s top exporters. But that also means that if you can’t export, you can’t live. In particular, the Korean automobile industry is highly dependent on overseas markets such as Europe, the U.S., and China due to its small domestic market. Therefore, it has been trying to secure technologies that can satisfy the different environmental regulations of each country so that it can export cars to all overseas markets. Under these limitations, the Korean automobile industry has performed relatively well so far, but to survive in the rapidly changing future eco-friendly automobile market and government regulations, it will require even greater efforts and innovation. It will also require appropriate green car policies from the Korean government to drive this innovation. If it fails to respond appropriately, it is only a matter of time before the Korean automobile industry becomes the next Nokia. Who could have predicted the downfall of Nokia?
I would like to present Jeju Island’s “Carbon Free Island, Jeju” policy as a good example of preparing for the future eco-friendly car market. The core of Jeju Island’s plan to build a carbon-free island is to replace all internal combustion engine transportation on the island with electric vehicles by 2030 and generate electricity using only renewable energy. At the same time, a smart grid will be created to manage power efficiently and eco-friendly. To achieve this goal, Jeju Island has been promoting the private supply of electric vehicles since 2013. It is also planning to create an electric vehicle special zone in cooperation with the central government and foster new industries related to electric vehicles and related industries in the front and back. This example is highly desirable because it not only helps the Korean automobile industry to carry out eco-friendly automobile business, but also generates the electricity needed to run electric vehicles with wind power that does not cause pollution. These examples should be expanded to other parts of Korea so that the country can respond well to the coming era of eco-friendly cars.
Unlike in the past, when cars were only concerned about their performance, nowadays they are also concerned about their environmental impact. In addition, internal combustion engine vehicles will inevitably be replaced by electric vehicles due to the limitations of fossil fuels that will be depleted in the future. Korea needs to keep up with the times and actively promote eco-friendly automobile policies like those in Germany and Jeju Island. By doing so, the Korean automobile industry, represented by Hyundai and Kia Motors, will be able to compete in the future era of eco-friendly cars.