As someone who was initially very excited about the switch to EVs, a lot of the incentives to push towards EV ownership were seen as good in my eyes. However, as a car enthusiast, the full swing towards banning anything but EVs is an overreaction and something I am very upset about. I know Europe is still wary after the diesel fallout, and they're reticent to try anything else. But this is repeating the same mistake of the diesel regulations in that they're putting all of their eggs in one basket.

The manufacturing of batteries is going to be a problem if all vehicles are EV. That includes small personal transportation like motorcycles, large personal transportation like cars, and public transportation like buses. There are charging concerns as well. Currently Europe is struggling to generate enough power using non-fossil fuel sources to even keep running. If the electrical demands go up by 1.5x due to mass EV adoption as has been predicted, then Europe's going to have to turn to power rationing until they can build out the necessary infrastructure. And I don't think that's going to go over well with the population.

There's also the research that indicates that internal combustion motive engines in personal transport like cars, boats, and motorcycles have a comparatively negligible impact on greenhouse gases and airborne toxins in the modern age. The numbers dropped dramatically throughout the 1980s and then again in the 2010s, driven by CAFE (Corporate Average Fleet Emissions) standards in the U.S. and Euro 1 through 6 in Europe. I used the word comparatively earlier, because industry is the main contributor. Industries such as steel manufacturing, power generation, air transport, and farming are the biggest contributors to greenhouse gasses, while industries such as plastics manufacturing, ocean transport, and underground resource extraction are the biggest contributors to airborne toxins. There's been a lot of regulatory movement to restrict motor vehicles, but very little for industrial level problems. Bunker fuel, which is almost entirely sulfurous tar fuel oil, has been the standard for large container ships since the 1940s. Only in 2020 was there a global agreement to reduce the sulfur content in bunker fuel used by ships. Meanwhile there has been absolutely no substantial progress on the four major types of aviation fuel that are used. High octane kerosene jet fuel, low octane kerosene jet fuel, unleaded aviation gasoline, and leaded aviation gasoline. Aviation fuel is the only type in the U.S. that's still allowed to contain tetraethyl lead. Airliners continue using high octane kerosene jet fuel, while the military, farmers, and even wildfire firefighting teams continue using leaded aviation gasoline. Regulators continue squeezing the collar ever tighter on cars while airplanes get away with poisoning their maintenance crews and the people they fly over.

My personal conclusion has been that diversification and control of industrial emissions seems to be the solution, not concentration in EVs. Certain engines such as the Wankel and diesel will certainly have to die as the power/emissions ratio for them is atrocious. But Atkins cycle engines for example can work on hydrogen. For other engines pure E100 ethanol, while having about the same carbon dioxide output as and lower energy density than gasoline, is viable via compression ratio increases. Compression ratio increases also tend to create more drivetrain power output, so it's not really a mechanical loss. Ethanol's also renewable. The issues are that hydrogen is expensive to create and contain in pure enough form to be used as fuel, and ethanol requires large amounts of industrial farming that contribute to greenhouse gasses.