INTERNAL COMBUSTION WILL SURVIVE A WHILE, DESPITE VW’S PROGNOSIS
Volkswagen’s commitment to battery-powered, zero-emissions vehicles, among major automakers at least, is second to none.
Yes, General Motors is throttling up its EV program — it was, after all, the excuse to shut down the Oshawa assembly plant — and no one can fault Nissan for the money it has put behind its Leaf. But it all pales compared with the vigour, resources and engineering the Volkswagen Group has thrown at lithium ion; the world’s largest automaker recently committed US$40 billion over the next five years to develop a comprehensive portfolio of electric vehicles.
Now, a cynic — who, me? — might argue this new-found devotion is simply a knee-jerk reaction to the company’s Dieselgate scandal. Maybe it’s just the communal guilt a corporation feels when it pollutes the entire world with excessive nitrogen oxides. I don’t know. What is certain is that Dieselgate, more than any other recent event, is responsible for the ramp-up of EV development.
As an entity, Volkswagen is by quite some margin the leader among major automakers in that charge. So much so that in a recent speech in Wolfsburg, Germany, Volkswagen chief strategist Michael Jost announced the company would soon stop working on platforms that “aren’t Co2-neutral” and that it is “gradually fading out combustion engines to the absolute minimum.”
That’s powerful stuff. Game changing, even. The most prolific automaker on the planet would seem to be announcing its intent to discontinue developing internal combustion engines after 2026. And even though Jost went on to say there may be some gasolineand diesel-powered models sold until 2050, many analysts — and certainly much of the public — nonetheless interpreted his prognostications as the (almost) immediate demise of the internal combustion engine.
That might be jumping the gun just a tad. First, let’s look at some facts about the future of automotive propulsion. Actually, they’re predictions, but they’re the same predictions EV protagonists use to propose that our driving future is increasingly electrified.
We — as in the whole world — currently buy just over 80 million cars and light trucks annually, the vast preponderance of which are internal-combustion engine (ICE) powered. By 2030, the consensus seems to be that 20 million of us will convert to pure electric vehicles, be they battery- or fuel cell-powered. So far, so good for Volkswagen’s prediction of reduced reliance on internal combustion, right?
The fly in Volkswagen’s emissions-reducing ointment is that, by 2030, the world new-car market is expected to grow to about 120 million units. A large number of those will be plug-in and mild hybrids, but the common denominator between all the remaining 100 million vehicles — be they pure ICE, PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) or MHEV (mild hybrid electric vehicle) — is that they are all powered, at least in part, by piston engines.
They will be more efficient. Depending on how and where you drive, PHEVS — which can sometimes run on pure electricity — might reduce consumption by as much as 50 per cent. Mild hybrids — which essentially use more powerful 48-volt alternators to electrically “supercharge” gas engines — might reduce emissions by 20 per cent, an excellent gain considering their low cost. But they are still reliant on internal combustion as their primary motivation.
Even if developed countries ban internal combustion by 2040, large swaths of the developing world simply have neither the inclination nor the infrastructure to follow suit.
In other words, whether we like it or not — whether Volkswagen likes it or not — internal combustion engines will still be powering a significant number of the world’s new automobiles well beyond 2026.
Of course, Jost’s pronouncement could just be the same disingenuous mischief Volvo got caught up in when it announced in 2017 that all its cars would be electric by 2019. What it really meant to say was “electrified;” most of those supposed “electric” cars are actually just those mild hybrid thingies.