I would love to see a deep dive of how (badly) they ended up at the end of 2019. For example, in 2018, emissions *rose* from all the majors in EU.
https://www.ft.com/content/74c04dc2-5b9c-11e9-9dde-7aedca0a081a

In 2019, I bet they rose again. How did this happen? Well, my understanding is they thought diesel was a sure victory. Diesel is fairly low CO2, and fairly high MPG.. problem solved. But then there was this pesky problem.. it would require users to put stinky urea into an extra tank every so often during fillups. So, that might deter customers due to the extra maintenace. The solution? Skip the urea, cheat on all the emissions tests, and dump out 40 times the legal limit of NOx all the way to the bank. And thank god, they got BUSTED. Suddenly, diesel begins to fade, each year dropping 20-30% as customers reel in disgust. Countries start taxing diesel higher, they start getting banned from inner cities.. Suddenly they're selling more gasoline ICE, and CO2 starts climbing, climbing.. What to do now? Announce all the EV plans of course! It's obviously easy, just reverse engineer a Tesla.. right? In reality, they were trying to kill Tesla through various methods, and then there would have been THE perfect excuse: "see? EVs don't work and they lose money. It's just not a viable business model. We can't lose all these jobs. Do you want us to lose jobs EU?" (*gets slap on the wrist*). But for a very rare occasion, the good guys won :D

All they need to do to avoid the $40B in fines is make some damn EVs... and if they don't, a huge public shaming is in order. Don't tell us it's not possible as Tesla begins building in Berlin!

Oh, and they ONLY need to bring down emissions 25-30% .. in a year, to avoid fines.

So, poor prior planning (by the worlds oldest automaker) leads to piss-poor performance.

Yeah, how do you plan for 60k vehicles but then realize you only have enough batteries for 30k vehicles?
Once again, demand isn't the problem, it's continued foot-dragging while the planet burns.

If they are outsourcing the batteries, they have to get in line with everybody else wanting a piece of the same limited battery production. And because they have to deal with their suppliers' profit margin (not to mention competition with the other OEMs), there's no way to get the batteries at a cost that'll let them compete on price in the final product.

If they'd started building gigafactories a couple of years ago, all these problems would be manageable. But they didn't, so now it's a question of which OEMs will survive the transition. Boo hoo.

If only there was a way for them to make their OWN batteries. Too bad that mystery has never been solved....

I'm guessing their Saudi buddies told them, "don't worry, we'll take care of Tesla.. keep producing those ICEs!"

Real contracts, not "memorandums of understanding". The problem is, if Tesla were to die, they wanted a quick exit! So on the other end, one could assume, that if LG had other demand, they too had an exit clause.

Hyundai-KIA, and Tesla. VW want's their own factories (look, they have identified the problem!) so likely they will survive in form or another, but customer demand is completely other case then. Not every single person on Earth wants EV, they like choises and freedom, so that question will be answered with fuell cell and biogas cars. Holy Trinity. =)

Why would you buy a worse car (fuel cell or biogas)?? I mean not having enough infrastructure to refuel and being a less efficient car is a NO-NO for me at least.

You're funny. Whole EU has the infra for methane and portion of biogas is growing rapidly on methane network.

You don't have any idea about efficiencys don't'ya?

Gotta stop burning things to drive vehicles. The only "safe" thing to burn is Hydrogen/Oxygen, since the byproduct is water, but hydrogen is difficult to get without using fossil fuels and venting yet more GHG to the atmosphere.

It's not a matter of people wanting choice. WE HAVE TO STOP BURNING THINGS, end of story.

I know that infrastructure for methane leaks, and that may largely negate the difference between burning gas and liquid fuels.

Yeah. Right. If they can not get batteries or set up charging networks, good luck with hydrogen infrastructure

You're funny. Germany has hydrogen infra covering the whole country. Looks like EVangelists doesn't know really a thing or 2 about anything.

Show us a map of this amazing hydrogen infrastructure then...

But do they have an electrical grid?

Right.. Can you look up how many hydrogen fuel stations they have and compare that to the number of fast chargers? You don't even have to count the L2 chargers.

When you keep starting your answers with "You're funny", you indicate that you are not here because you respect the mission of this site or the community that has been here for years.
If you want to be an enemy, be an honest one.

Piss poor prior planning plummets productivity plus product performance.

Wow. Insightful comment

Mercedes Benz got caught in Innovator’s Dilemma. If history is any guide, they are in trouble. Look at horse carriage companies that folded. Digital Equipment, Sun Microsystems, Wang, etc. Now Model Y is coming...

Apples and oranges. By the way, Daimler did build the first motorized horse carriage, did you know?

https://www.daimler.com/company/tradition/company-history/1885-1886.html

History means nothing. Daimler is a fossil-fuel company. Investments that have been paid off and a business-model based on servicing and cheap components. Trying to get them to change is impossible. They will lie, stall, obfuscate. Eventually, this fossil-fuel company will fold, and good riddance at that.

Take into account german model of corporations. Employees as stake holder have way more influence over long term investment goals. Obviously, Diesel was a union favorit since lots of people were needed to build it - but times change. So does the german car industry. They will adapt.

By the way, show me a fossil free produced car today. Even Tesla needs natural gas and huge amounts of non fossil free energy to produce its cars. Let's face it, there is no free lunch.

Well the Diesel issue is a bit more complicated.
First in many countries in Europe Diesel is cheaper then regular fuel, mostly because theier are lower taxes on it, or there is a government subsidiary for it. This coupled with the better MPG led to customers wanting Diesel cars.

Of course the carmakers followed suit and built Diesel engines for even sub compact cars.
While the Diesel is a great engine if you need lots of power on low RPM, and need a big engine it does not fare too well if you build a tiny engine. Then came all the emission regulations making Diesel cars more expensive to buy then others, but for people who drove a lot this was offset by the lower fuel costs, and better mpg.

After Diesel Gate, there were some kneejerk reactions from governments like city bans, and other things that made customers unsure how long they could drive their car that was only a few years old, or if their new car would be banned in the next year or so.
So Diesel sales and the especially the resale value in some countries went way down.

Carmaker thought they had the worst behind them, and then came that new EU regulation about the fleet Co2 emissions, with very little time for the companies to adapt.

That especially the german companies sort of missed the train on EVs is another issue. They probably though it is a trend that will pass in time and they can sit it out and then sell again ICE cars. It shows that even BMW that produced the i3 never followed up on the idea.

What also is an issue that PHEV car are not really wanted in some European countries. In Austria Toyota just recently brought back the Prius Plug in that they had discontinued a few years back as noone was buying it.

But do not worry for Mercedes Benz, they will lobby and get a bail out from the german goverment to keep producing ICE cars.

Well, in the UK it's diesel has usually been more expensive, so much so that it sometimes almost nullifies the cost savings of better fuel consumption - which then highlights all the other disadvantages of diesel to buyers.

It used to be quite marked due to the higher particulate levels, but with the advent of supposed "clean" diesel, the prices of petrol and diesel almost equalised; however, with the aftermath of Dieselgate, there is a small but notable disparity again.

I looked up the average today and it's: Petrol 126.4p/l and Diesel 130.7p/l.

They have run out of time, because this not a dieselgate issue anymore. While forest are burning like hell in Australia, and ice is melting in Antartica due to climate crisis, the consensus is ICE cars must go. It will happen sooner than they think. So is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when. Will they survive the Chinese offensive in the EV side? Some of them no, and Mercedes is not well positioned. Good luck with the German government, but Merkel have advised them to transition to greener cars...

is that depressingly horrible graph even corrected for the diesel cheating crimes? I bet those low years were actually much higher

the diesel cheating was primarily a factor in NOx emissions (BIGTIME) but was it for CO2? Can't answer offhand.

neither can I but was it not absolutely dumping fuel into the engine under acceleration? to me that would indicate increased levels of everything... except integrity.

Daimlers biggest problem is not the fines. Their problem is they have no clue how to make EV's, they have no access to batteries and their whole organisation is set up for making the cars of yesterday. I'll say their days are numbered

It's more like yesterdays thinking. Diesel and ICE-would be perfectly clean with biogas and or hydrogen, and there's fuel cell cars also. "only BEV" is actually yesterdays organisation so they're failing again. Double losers.

Until renewables are much Much cheaper than today fuel cell cars are too inefficient to make economic sense (even if you can overcome the massive capital investment for infrastructure). It’s done for personal transport. Batteries are already too good. For shipping, maybe.

As for biogas, it doesn’t add up. Plants aren’t Nearly as efficient as panels. May be part of the picture for aviation.

You had the entire 1990s and 2000s to make biofuels happen. Your yesterdays were wasted.

and how is this hydrogen produced? (*hint - fossil fuels*)

Calling biogas and hydrogen "clean" could only come from the mouth of a European. The rest of the world is insulted to think that you consider us so stupid to believe this. What arrogance.

I'm wondering how long it will take before this guy is provoked enough to admit he's really a nuclear cultist. Usually it only takes a few days with these hydrogen guys.

You nailed it!

There's been a really dramatic shift in the last few months.

Over the course of about a year we've transitions from "we've got plenty of time and will switch to EVs in 10 or 15 years" to "looks like we should start taking this seriously", to "holy crap, how do we stay in business while catching up?".

The power of the exponential function at work.

Yeah... that is critical mass at work. The serious change will come when the gasoline infrastructure faces the same set of problems; just how much of a reduction in sales can a gas station accommodate before it closes? How many closing gas stations can a city/town accommodate before it just doesn’t work anymore? This same calculus will repeat itself for every part of the gasoline/ICE ecosystem, and it will happen much faster than many analysts are thinking.

I guess gas station makes their money from selling hot dogs. They can still sell hot dogs to people if they install charging stations as well. Follow the market.

The gas stations on highways can do this for sure. The ones in urban areas will mostly go out of business. People there will plug in at work, home, or at destination chargers.

idk, people buy sodas, coffee, cigarettes.. they can make $$. The margins on gasoline are LOW, if anything. Might as well switch electric! The problem becomes, who the hell wants to charge for 30 minutes at a stinky, grimy gas station?

Laundromats should offer charging stations.
1. they already have high-voltage outlets.
2. people living in apartments are most likely to need both charging and laundromats.
3. you're gonna be stuck in there for over an hour anyway.

great idea. Not sure how many people have an EV and not a washer/dryer, but it's definitely got the wiring to support it. I think grocery stores and big box stores like Target, Walmart, should have a *bunch*. Like, 25 each to start.

EV Charging doesn’t have the same attach rate. You either charge a buck to use the toilet, along with jacking up all other prices.

Most gas stations can’t just open a restaurant to survive.

A different business model will develop. Let them sort it out.

I wonder how many people die eating gas station food. Especially the hot dogs that have been spinning on those greasy rollers all month.