Banishing the Beast
On September 23, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsome announced a Californian ban on all Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle sales by 2035. Californians have been dealing with increasingly deadlier wild fires and record temperatures year on year. Newsome’s move was at odds with then President Trump’s fossil fuel/big oil-supporting policies. Banning ICE cars is part of California’s state-wide, all -sectors goal to be carbon neutral by 2045. That commitment by the world’s 5th largest economy, in a country of gas guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks, was a huge boost for the electric revolution.
New Jersey soon followed, then Massachusetts in January 2021. These US pioneering states follow several European country and city announcements. Norway, which topped over 60% of new cars sales being electric in 2020, led with a 2025 ban on new ICE cars.
The Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Germany and Austria have all announced new ICE sale bans to come into effect from 2025-2030.
In November 2020 the UK government brought its ICE ban date forward to 2030. Some countries, like France and Spain, still remain outliers with 2040 target dates.
Globally, major economies such as Japan and Korea have also announced bans planned for 2035.
As with smoking, it is virtually certain that every country in the world will eventually place a ban on ICE cars. While these bans are for the sale of new combustion cars, it doesn’t mean they will be ‘illegal’. In practicality petrol and diesel car will be still on the roads well into the 2040s, but will gradually become more and more scarce on the roads.
However, several cities are introducing outright bans on ICE cars. Amsterdam announced that no internal combustion cars will be allowed in the city after 2030, Brussels announced 2035 and Hong Kong wants to completely phase out all gasoline cars by 2040.
The pace of the electric revolution has been underestimated by governments and city officials worldwide. Almost all predictive models assumed a linear transition. However, a survey in mid-2021 by Transport and Environment, in over 15 European capitals, revealed that over 60% of residents want zero emissions vehicles only by 2030.
This is the same pattern whenever new disruptive technology is introduced. Just as with the steam era, the internal combustion age, electrification, mobile cell phones and many more examples, once a new technology is introduced that is better than the incumbent or beneficially transformative for the human race, its adoption accelerates exponentially.
In September 2017, I attended a conference in Ireland on the challenges electric cars will bring and the government’s plan for rollout. I was scheduled to speak to the gathering of car park owners, city planners, energy managers and independent business people.
Just before my turn to speak, a government lady, responsible for charging infrastructure planning, gave a presentation on the expected take-up of electric cars. Her chart showed a linear transition out to 2040 where the government expected just over 20% of all cars to be electric. There was no reaction from the audience.
When it was my turn to present, I respectfully contradicted her projections. I explained the indictors and trends pointed to electric cars going exponential. I suggested that by 2040 ‘all’ cars would be electric and by 2030 no one would be purchasing an ICE car. The audience reacted with disbelief.
In the bar after the event later than night, several delegates made a few friendly jokes about my statement.
That was late 2017. Within two years major city administrators and governments had announced ICE bans planned before 2040 and some of the biggest car manufacturers declared their future was electric. If I was to make that same statement, to the same audience, in 2021, no one would disagree, such is the accelerating pace of the transition.
The EV boom is accelerating. 20th century business models will fail in the 21st century. The ICE car was designed for success in the 20th century. There is no longer any rationale for continuing with gas cars.
As the public becomes more aware of the electric choice available, and as governments enforce gas car bans, the electric age will begin. ICE cars, like steam before, will be museum pieces and novelty experiences.
Climate change and the rise of Tesla sparked the beginning of the end for Big Oil and the internal combustion engine.
