EuroWire March 2018

Transatlantic cable

† Mr Ross of IEEE appears to concur. He wrote that, wherever Amber stands in relation to the Waymos of this world, “moving cars autonomously by night may just be what self-driving tech needs to get its commercial start.” (“The Curious Incident of the Robocar in the Night-Time,” January issue) Cars electrified in some way now constitute more than 50 per cent of those sold in Norway, where diesel is dying out “Norway was one of the earliest nations to set a coherent and broad-based national plan to cut its carbon emissions, and then stick to it.” Having noted this, John Voelcker of Green Car Reports went on to cite data supporting the conclusion that Norway is well along in implementing its plan. The Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said in January 2017 that 40 per cent of new cars sold in the country in 2016 were either hybrids or plug-in electric vehicles. Now, latest figures from the OFV show that more than half the new vehicles sold in 2017 were hybrids or electrics. The 158,650 new vehicles registered in Norway (population: five million) last year – the third-highest total on record, after 1985 and 1986 – included 33,080 zero-emission vehicles, or 20.9 per cent. In addition, OFV reported 8,559 registrations of previously owned zero-emission vehicles, likely imported used cars; and of a further 917 new and used zero-emission vans and light commercial vehicles. (“Half of All New Cars Sold in Norway Last Year Are Electric or Hybrid, as Diesel Ebbs Fast,” 8 th January) The hybrids and plug-in hybrids sold in Norway in 2017 included both those using gasoline engines and a few models with diesel engines. But sales of diesel vehicles as a group are falling fast, the OFV figures showed. Last year, just 23.1 per cent of new vehicles registered in Norway had diesel engines – very little higher than the percentage of battery/electric vehicles alone. In 2016, that had been 30.8 per cent. Just five years earlier, diesel vehicles accounted for almost two-thirds of the country’s new cars, at more than 64 per cent. † For a striking contrast with Norway, Mr Voelcker pointed out that, in the USA, hybrid vehicles have never claimed more than four per cent of the new-vehicle market; and that percentage has fallen by half or more since sales peaked when gasoline prices were at their highest point, in 2012. At just under 200,000 units, the combined total of battery-electric and plug-in hybrid sold in the USA in 2017 represented just a little more than one per cent of a total market of 17.5 million new vehicles.

there is no choice but to shut down the programme.”That would be the superjumbo A380 programme with which the European aerospace group had hoped to revolutionise the long-haul passenger airplane market. Mr Leahy has acknowledged that his company needs a minimum of six to eight orders a year to keep production going at the A380 assembly plant near Toulouse, France, and that the sole likely client for those planes is Emirates. But talks between Airbus and Emirates, based in Dubai, over an order for 36 A380s broke down during the Dubai Airshow in November, clouding the future of the big aircraft. When Airbus started delivering the A380 a decade ago, the Paris-based company promoted the plane as the solution to rising demand for air travel as well as to airport congestion. The A380 has a 500-passenger payload. But, as noted by Courtney Goldsmith in City AM (London), air traffic has moved toward smaller, regional airports, favouring Chicago-based Boeing and its 787 Dreamliner – a midsize wide-body that carries a maximum of 330 passengers. The two-engine Dreamliner is moreover much less expensive to fly than the four-engine A380. (“Airbus Could Shut Down Production of Its A380 Superjumbo Without Emirates Deal,” 15 th January) Another reporter, Jack Ewing of the New York Times , commented that, while it would be premature “to write the A380’s obituary,” there is little doubt that the double-decker has been “an enormous disappointment and a financial disaster” for Airbus. The company did not book any orders for the A380 last year, it said on 15 th January. In fact, orders for two planes were cancelled. (“Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Production,” 15 th January) † An irony of the A380’s troubles is that they overshadow a worthy recent performance for Airbus, which reported delivering 718 planes in 2017, a four per cent increase from a year earlier. The company said it has a backlog of orders worth $1.1 billion. As for Mr Leahy, he firmly believes that the best days lie ahead for the A380. With passenger traffic doubling every 15 years, he said, the original rationale for the model still holds. † The Times noted that Airbus, as a result, is betting that airlines flying between large, highly congested hubs in London or New Delhi will have no choice but to buy larger planes if they want to continue to grow. “If people want to fly, they need to fly in bigger aircraft,” Mr Leahy said. “[The A380] is an airplane whose time will come.”

Immigration

Attention Donald Trump: an economic explanation of why the USA could expect to benefit from accepting more newcomers from Africa

The Airbus A380

Time will tell whether the world’s largest passenger aircraft has suffered a speedbump or something rather worse

President Donald Trump on 11 th January declared that the USA sold itself short by accepting too few immigrants from Norway and too many from Haiti, El Salvador and Africa. Even as the world was reacting with shock and dismay to the president’s sentiments, couched in crude language, Bloomberg View columnist Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia), considered “what the

Airbus sales chief John Leahy said in a mid-January webcast that if the company “could not work out a deal with Emirates I think

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March 2018