That'll go over big when the lights go out!...for 10 years or More!!!
It's not a question of IF but WHEN.
Just this week we had an X8 that just barely braised us and missed a following X9.

Had that happened in the earth facing position...we would gone back to the stone age for quite a while.

What!!! no cars for us petrol heads in the UK!!! I'm glad I left then, who wants do a normal eight hour drive in eight days? Not me!!!!

The driver for the UK, China, India, France, Iran is urban pollution, not climate change. London, Paris, Beijing, Mumbai, New Delhi, Tehran all have pollution far worse than Los Angeles. The Indian cities are really bad, having relied on two cycle engine vehicles like the ubiquitous three wheel tuk tuks for decades.

I've been working with a U.S. electric vehicle developer, http://www.zelectricvehicle.com/ who's developed a variety of two wheel electrics, and is now offering a three wheel vehicle that could replace the Indian tuk tuk. Lots of information on that site. Most of ZEV's U.S. customers buy the electric vehicles for the ease of maintenance compared to their ICE-powered counterparts.

Electric vehicles have a long way to go, given the best battery energy density is pathetic compared to gasoline or diesel fuels. However, as a means of helping reduce urban pollution they have a legitimate market.

There are other ways to reduce pollution, with other alternate fuels, like compressed natural gas (CNG), liquid propane, dimethyl ether (diesel replacement), ammonia (NH3, no carbon, so no CO2), butanol (heavy alcohol that replaces gasoline and diesel), but none are serious replacements yet. Butanol is the only alternative that can be used without significant modifications to existing engines and fuel tanks, as it doesn't need pressurization and has the best energy profile (near that of gasoline).

Hydrogen fuel cell. Unlimited fuel. No pollution from electricity generation to charge batteries. The separation of water into H & O2 can be done as part of the new nuclear reactor technology that is coming online in labs. They actually run on nuclear waste. Here's just one example. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/51...

This is once again, about total government control, be it China, Britain, or the US. They know that climate change is not the issue they want us to believe, or as the UN puts it, they don't care if it is true or not, as long as people believe it is so they can control them! They are fully aware that putting everyone in electrics, when adequate electric supplies are not there, will give them control over who may go where and when. When the car charges over load the electric supply, all power will go down, which is exactly the goal of teh power hungry. Remember, Britain was the first to give us Outcome Based Education, which they later deemed a "brain drain", and which Clinton went for full force during his administration. Now we have drained brain students in both countries!

I'm not worried about the future of the internal combustion engine in cars. Why haven't people learned that when politicians announce that they are going to accomplish some lofty-sounding goal in the next 10, 20, or 30 years, that goal is never achieved? Donald Trump shot an arrow through the heart of those goals that have grown out of the global warming political hoax when he pulled the USA out of the Paris Climate Accords.

France and Britain mean what they say and what they say is economic suicide.
China however, seeing what France and Britain will be using (or trying to use) intends to make it and sell it.
At the moment Chinese built vehicles are generally cheap and horrid, this will not last. improvement across the board is a fact, you can argue if it fervor from the top or increasing market freedom.

Yes as FFA etc observe, China, whatever they say, have a massive number of coal powered generators under construction or planned. These are high efficiency low-emissions, super-critical designs. Some may even use Chinese invented tech, some are very large. They can use low quality coal and will produce electricity at low cost. The scale of use of these will be the basis of a big export market.
China does have solar generators, they produce little electricity but are tools for promoting sales of solar plant as well as plant that actually produces.
It is a clever political and industrial strategy, the only flaw is that Western Europe is on the path to impoverishment and will not be able to buy.

I'm sorry guy's driving an electric car is a blast A few months ago I purchased a 2012 Nissan Leaf at 1/4 of the the original sticker price 9 out of ten rating on the battery pack. Actually, using the Leaf app and a OBDE pull-in module found that only one segment of the battery pack lost capacity. But driving back and forth to my new part-time job in the city I live in works out very well. Plus pulling ahead of all the IC cars from a stop light is fun. My wife and I still have an IC car for out of town travel. I have an extended warranty for the battery pack so when the time comes I can get the higher Kilowatt pack, Though I hope they find a replacement for the Lithium Ion Batteries. Maybe a cross between capacitors and composite battery,

I read this to my wife who wisely pointed out that the way things are going in Europe, by 2040 the Muslims will have taken over and every body will be riding camels. ;-)

The last century of economic growth by countries shows a pattern which these planners seem to be completely clueless about.

First a country is poor, and has very little pollution beyond the local level because nobody can afford a car or a modern home.

Then, IF they adopt free market principles or at least a system where ordinary people can sometimes keep the fruits of their labor, the country becomes developed. Pollution becomes noticeable and maybe even pretty bad, but the law does nothing about it because common sense correctly tells everyone that modern industry and heated houses are more important (and save more lives!) than trying to solve air pollution by regulating them away.

Finally, they become as wealthy as the US in 1900-29 or 1950-80, and they can afford to start doing something about pollution. Then air gets cleaner.

And if they're really lucky, they make it through all these stages without ever letting "gimme-ists" get their hands on government power, which they will use to destroy everything and force us back to primitive existence if given half a chance.

Give the Red Chinese local and regional government leadership some credit, because they seem to understand this pattern (if not all its causes) and are trying to keep growth going in spite of corruption. But try to teach this to people in the West and the Democrats will vilify you as Nazis or whatever lie about you they think they can sell today.

The thing that a lot of people forget is that for electricity to be available there must be a generator somewhere and for that generator to work it needs a source of energy. Where is that going to come from?

The fact that I hate the way China does it, this is a long time coming.Up until recently, electricity for vehicles has remained to a large extent undeveloped. If a real market incentive for electric cars showed up, then I would be willing to bet that a solution to the problems would be quickly forthcoming. Two things are needed. A power storage system that will allow you to go 300 to 400 miles. The power needs only minutes to be replenished.

Once engineers saw the value of the internal combustion engine and developed ways to utilize it, as the old-timers would say, it was "Katy bar the door."

One other thing to keep in mind, this is also a great tactic to limit the population's mobility. The typical electric car has 1/3 the range of a typical gas-powered vehicle. Mobility means better market conditions for labor. It's one of the reasons you'll never get me to buy an all-electric vehicle - aside from the sheer hypocrisy in the energy sourcing!

I haven't studied it, but I don't understand the reason for phasing out gas and diesel in favor of electric. Is it just that's a case of burning fossil fuels that the average person is personally involved with? It seems like it would be more efficient to replace power plants with sources that do not emit greenhouse gases. My intuition says even if they have to step it up to high voltage to send it from solar farms in AZ and wind farms in the Dakotas, that's still less loss than putting it into batteries in local cars. It seems like cars would be most efficient if they had diesel engines with batteries to sink and source power for braking and accelerating, i.e. a "hybrid". If they just worked out the cost to others per unit of fuel for each type of fuel, the market would determine the most efficient approach. Someone might thing of something new. Just saying no gas or diesel cars at some point in the future strikes me as away to put off dealing with global warming into some time in the future.