Agreed that the future is electrification, but it will take trillions of dollars and a lot of time to replace all internal combustion engines. What should we do in the meantime? It seems that using renewable energy to make carbon neutral fuels for these vehicles makes a lot of sense. What is "nonsense" about this?
It would take more time, energy, money, and resources to build out enough solar and wind (etc) to turn enough CO2 into enough fuel for all our cars than it takes to just replace the cars with electric ones and use that massive solar and wind grid to just power them straight
It's not all or nothing, and further more the electricity from solar and wind is fungible and can be used for either fuel generation or direct usage by electric cars, so it would serve us either way, no matter how long it took.
These things are not contradictory. We can build out more renewable electricity supply, replace with electric cars, and generate carbon neutral fuel all at the same time. You are underestimating how long and difficult the ICE replacement is going to take. It's not like a single organization can just wave a wand and all gas cars would be replaced over night.
In Europe, fosil fuel engines are already 2-4 times more expensive to run than electrics. In 11 years, which is the average age of a car in Europe, the majority of private vehicles will switch naturally for purely economic reasons. In 20 years, the same will be true for busses, trucks & tractors.
And what do you get by replacing one ICE vehicle in Europe with an electric one?
You get two cars. A shiny new electric one running in (Central) Europe, and that same old stinky ICE one running in Eastern Europe, Asia or Africa.
The poorer countries will enjoy an influx and thus price decrease of valuable cars and happily drive them for decades to come.
The problem of course is that the planet doesn't care. Europe got cleaner but the planet got worse. Whereas Europe can outsource its dirty issues (waste, emissions, ...), the planet cannot. It stops there and we all lose.
I think the vast introduction of and blind focus on e-mobility is a mistake. Other areas are much more significant sources for GHG (industry, heating, A/C).
When you switch a 11 year ICE car with an electric, yes, you would generate a 11 year-old ICE car. If priced low enough, somebody will pick it up and use it for a few years, since the purchase price, compared to a new electric car, is lower than the (worse fuel economy + higher maintenance costs) figure.
But, unless gasoline and diesel drastically drop in price, you are running towards an economic wall, since it's exactly people from Africa and former soviet territories that are the most sensitive to fuel economy and high maintenance costs. Meanwhile, electrics drastically drop in price, since they simpler and cheaper to produce.
The extra few years European cars will see in Africa is just the long tail of the ICE car in Europe, not some fundamental shift. If those would not be available, Africans would purchase cheap new Chinese ICE or other low cost brands. A visit to Eastern Europe will convince you that some 50% of cars are newly purchased cheap brands like Dacia-Renault, Mitsubishi Colt, Chevrolet Spark, often stripped down versions made specifically for these markets and priced at something like 10.000€.
These will have an even lower life expectancy than the typical 20-40.000€ western car, and will be in need for replacing.
