You can pick up a 2017 BMW i8 with 114,000 km for CHF 50k. I would jump at it for that price had it not been for the fact that they’re well out of warranty and being a now discontinued car could make repairs eye-wateringly expensive e.g. an aircon compressor is ~ CHF 16,000 and its a pretty common fault on that car.
Do you think Europe will make EVs compulsory within the next 15 years? i.e. illegal to buy ICE cars? I think they are/were supposed to be banned from 2035 - but I do wonder whether we will be ready by then…
Yes I think its entirely possible. Once you can get an EV for the same price as an ICE, and the cost of running it are less than an ICE then the market will decide. Those existing ICE cars on the road will slowly phase out together with gas stations.
I’m a petrolhead but when you look at the kinds of ICE cars now being produced, you start to see the writing on the wall e.g. I had a 2015 3.0l, 6 cyl BMW M140 which was buttery smooth and a riot to drive. The most powerful 1 series today is a FWD biased 2.0l, 4 cyl which puts out equivalent power (with turbo charging wizardry) but is boring as hell.
OH deals in high-performance classic cars…the top examples are flying off the shelves because people are starting to hoard.
There are already companies converting classics to electric.
Electrogenic in the UK
They offer kits but also bespoke conversions - how a conversion is formed will affect the handling and so on. Some people may want a smaller battery pack and a more responsive vehicle at the expense of range which they might no be bothered with.
Sounds like overpainting the Mona Lisa with environmentally-friendly paint to me.
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If they eventually ban ICEs, should these classics just be consigned to a museum?
No. They should have an oldtimer registration and be allowed on the roads.
I also hope that ICE cars will never be banned in general. The market should solve this, with a bit of support by taxation of fuel and CO2 emissions. Globally, I don’t see ICE disappear in a long while, so I also think that EU car manufacturers need to be able to produce them.
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No, they should still be driven and enjoyed by those that can afford to run them. By 2035 if the plans for ICE phase out are true, then a few classics being driven on the weekend will have a negligible carbon footprint.
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Although some pieces of the puzzle may be harder to give up than cars - food for example.
Within food, you can move from resource heavy meats to less intensive foods.
With transport you can go to car-sharing, smaller-more efficient cars, bicycles and public transport.
Or just walk.
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My body is ridiculously efficient, it takes me 42 minutes of walking or 22 minutes of running to burn a 230 calorie Mars Bar 
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That’s precisely the point of e-fuels, alternative fuels, or fossil-free fuels, whatever you call them. Made them from biowaste and renewable energy sources.
Right now, year 2024, you can buy fossil-free racing fuel at 4.72€ + VAT per liter:
Or the ETS Renewablaze, 70% made from plant waste at 4.8 € / liter before taxes.
I guess after taxes and transport this fuel is 3 or 4 times more expensive than gasoline at any local station. It’s still a bit expensive, but not impossible. All I need to do is drive only 25% of the distance of last year and the numbers work.
I’m curious to see where the e-fuel prices are by year 2030. If it’s only 2x the price of fossil gasoline. It wouldn’t be that hard to cut driving by half and switch to carbon neutral fuel.
Another pipedream, brought to you by Big Oil and Legacy Auto Manufacturers to persuade you to buy another ICE car so their CEOs and managers can outrun the clock that is ticking on their usefulness.
If you drive only 25% of what you normally drive, you could just as well drive an EV and save the giant amount of energy that is needed to make e-fuels.
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Probably. Both big oil behind e-fuel startups and being able to use an EV for local errands.
Also, some years down the road more apartment buildings will have chargers in the parking. It’s something that advances little by little.
Just saw the Xiaomi Su7 on TV looks very nice, sort of Porsche shape.
Entry level price is similar to Tesla 3, with longer range and slightly faster acceleration, comparisons here and here and here.
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I was initially sceptical but it is actually a very nice car inside too. The torsional rigidity is particularly impressive, which makes for excellent handling. It’s built under licence by BAIC, and they do know what they are doing. Between this and the Model 3, I think I would rather have this.
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