The electric-car transition is here. Car maker after car maker is committing to selling electric vehicles. General Motors will go all-electric by 2035. Volkswagen has said it will increase its proportion of electric vehicles to 70% by 2030. Audi will stop designing cars with combustion engines altogether in 2025.
Such bold moves are matched by government commitments. The EU will impose stricter emissions standards in 2025. The UK plans to end the sale of combustion-engine cars by 2030, France by 2040. And starting in 2035, California will ban the sale of gas-fueled trucks and cars. This massive transition to electric vehicles made me wonder: What will happen to the millions of old internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles? I envisioned rusty shells of vehicles piling up in landfills or stockyards, while car makers built yet more new vehicles to ultimately add to the heap. I worried that car companies could be creating a new environmental crisis in their efforts to avert the current one.
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