- Nice page! I'm extremely happy about efforts like this. You might argue that the EU is a sprawling, wasteful bureaucracy and you would not be wrong, per se, but they made a lot of useful laws that just simply make the world a better place.
Having standardized chargers for phones and laptops is SUPER nice and would never have happened without intervention IMO.
The only equivalent for US "useful, average-citizen friendly legislation" that I recently heard about was the standardization of powertool batteries pursued by doge-- which turned out to be an april hoax when I just looked it up :(
- Yay for the energy label!
We replaced our old tumble dryer with a modern one. The ones we had to choose from all have the energy sticker and fall into a similar band.
Choose a programme, wait a couple of hours, and bam! You can go from wet to still damp, just like that.
In other news, manufacturers game the system.
- Yeah, to me its crazy how anti-consumer the US is compared to the EU, just because of laws
- And yet, only US has right-to-repair laws for cars. When is EU going to fix that?
I can't get manuals and software access to fix a new car made in EU.
I don't really care that I can't fix my all-glued-up phone for <1000 EUR but I do care that I have to spend thousands on car repairs that I could do myself.
- This law has more to do with the environment/Energy usage than with the consumer. And the US consumer cares a lot less about energy usage since they're much more energy and monetarily rich than the EU.
If they paid German gas and electricity prices for example while having European wages, they'd care a lot more about energy consumption, believe that.
- I think regulation like this is just strictly good (even from US perspective/priorities), because you can not realistically "vote with your wallet" for environment-friendly products when relevant info is obfuscated, falsified or not available at all.
Just ignoring energy efficiency/repairability labelling is always an option for consumers on the other hand.
> If they paid German gas and electricity prices for example while having European wages, they'd care a lot more.
I'm not so sure on this; I think environmental concerns are mainly culture driven I think, because even after all the price increases over the last decade, especially electricity is still dirt cheap compared to e.g. rent, basically everywhere.
- >I think regulation like this is just strictly good (even from US perspective/priorities)
I never said it's bad, I was just answered why the EU is pushing for this when US isn't: because in US energy affordability is not as big of an issue for consumers.
- The article talks about ecodesign requirements as well, such as spare parts needing to be available for some years after the product isn't sold, the freedom to have 3rd parties repair devices and so on. It's not only a matter of energy but consumer protection as well
- I just checked the el. prices for Germany on [1] and [2] and I see something like 9-12 euro ct/kWh which is $0.10/kWh. In NY state [3], where I live, the prices right now are $0.25/kWh so 250% more. Average salaries for Germany are $57,198 [4] and $61,984 [5] for US. Maybe I'm missing some details about it but I don't it's about affordability and energy cost. My take is it's a lot more about top-down politics.
[1] https://www.energyprices.eu/electricity/germany
[2] https://spotprices.eu/de/spotprice/de1
[3] https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/Energy-Prices/Electricity/Monthly...
[4] https://www.learngermanonline.org/salaries-and-living-costs-...
- You only looked at spot prices which is not what a lot for consumers pay in their contracts.
- That's a good point. The numbers go the opposite way if you check household prices. Are prices in Germany anomalous due to them putting their eggs in the Russian gas basket? Countries with nuclear power plants seem to have lower electricity prices (who would've known).
US $0.18/kWh [1]
DE $0.44/kWh [2]
EU $0.32/kWh [2]
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- In Germany, I think a big cost driver is infrastructure buildout, from switching coal plants to renewables as well as building new gas turbines, more so than gas price itself (which is <20% of electricity). But the country is already >60% renewables for electricity, so there is at least something to show for it.
France basically invested 40 years ago and are still reaping the spoils; I'd expect prices there to rise significantly once a majority of nuclear reactors reaches end-of-life.
From a household perspective the cost of electricity feels pretty marginal to me, anyway.
- > this law has more to do with the environment/Energy usage than with the consumer
Not sure about the distinction there, improving the environment and energy usage is benefitting the consumer, because the consumer is also the citizen living there
- > You might argue that the EU is a sprawling, wasteful bureaucracy and you would not be wrong, per se, but they made a lot of useful laws that just simply make the world a better place.
The EU bureaucracy itself is significantly lighter and more purposeful than any of the underlying individual states' bureaucracy, though that might simply be a function of youth and restricted scope.
- > The EU bureaucracy itself is significantly lighter and more purposeful than any of the underlying individual states' bureaucracy
The EU ""states rights"" (subsidiarity) is a lot stronger and more real than the corresponding structures in the US. It also doesn't really do direct enforcement - there's no EU federal police checking tablets, it's all done through national level enforcement.
- Sad! Thankfully there are adapters that let you combine different brands, not ideal but hopefully this will be regulated in the future.
- Actually, I would argue against EU being a wasteful bureaucracy. From my experience they're more efficient than most member state governments.
- Can you share some equivalent Japanese laws that make the world a better place, or maybe Australian ones? Or are there none? :(
- For Japan, I think allowing income tax redirection to a "home town" is a really good model to keep infrastructure funded in more rural areas that suffer from brain drain/exodus.
- > laws that make the world a better place
That's a bizarre starting point to me. Iphone / Android made/make the world a better place. There were no laws mandating creation of them!
- I'm not saying that you need laws to make the world better, just that some of them do.
This belongs in that category in my opinion because it is something that costs very little in absolute terms (manufacturer has to run some tests and print some numbers that they probably already had), but it makes the whole system work better because it enables people to vote with their wallet, and gets inefficient products eliminated because people can spot them before sale.
No company would advertise a "20% below average battery lifetime" without regulation like this, which is why objectively bad devices can still get sold easily on unregulated markets.
- availability of operating system upgrades for longer periods (at least 5 years from the date of the end of placement on the market of the last unit of a product model)
This is so great! A lot of manufacturers were counting from the date of introduction. A lot of phones only had a 3 year support period. If they are on the market for two years, the people buying last would only get one year of support. This swaps to the last date of sale, which is much more consumer-friendly. I still have to read up on what operating system upgrades entails.
rules on disassembly and repair, including obligations for producers to make critical spare parts available within 5-10 working days, and for 7 years after the end of sales of the product model on the EU market
Awesome!
- I wonder if we get some malicious workarounds for this, like re-releasing the same phone under different SKUs to pretend they were different models on sale for a short time.
- Maybe, but the regulation tries to prevent this by separating "models" from "batches" from "individual items" and defaults to "model" when determining compatibility. Worth noting is that each new model requires a separate filing for both EcoDesign and other certifications like CE which could help reduce workarounds like model number inflation.
- I have mixed feeling about this.
On one side, it is good to have consumer friendly regulation like manufacturers to be forced to support right to repair. But on the opposite side, lots of bullshit requirements again like the energy labelling, that will do that we have less products, mostly from big actors only, and more expensive due the then useless regulation barrier.
And the mixed feeling is stronger for things like manufacturers that needs to provide support for the os for 5 years and more. Sure, I'm happy that it applies to big tech like apple, Google and Samsung, when it is what I'm expecting. But, I, as a consumer, I would like some times to be able to buy other products, cheaper, crappier (for a burner or test devices for example), and to have small actors being able the try innovation without needing a 500 millions backing to be able to see in Europe.
What I would have preferred is a law more oriented on consumer rights than manufacturing regulation: Forbidding more clearly explicit monopolistic behaviors like what is done with app store; and for right to repair and co, not needing the company to provide support for repair for 5 years but that if they don't, or after 5 years, that they have to release in open source the software, blueprints or tools that are needed to be able to support your own device yourself.
- > to have small actors being able the try innovation
Yes. While I'm generally in favor of the EU regulatory approach they need to learn about and understand the concept of "small business", including the fact that you can't get a new large EU business without it going through the small business stage. There should be a lot more de minimis exemptions from the whole CE marking system.
- > There should be a lot more de minimis exemptions from the whole CE marking system.
There are a lot of EU wide requirements that create barriers to entry. Before Altman's scareware campaign to "regulate" "AI", there was:
Exhibit 1:
https://pcengines.ch/recycle.htm
See the blurb about not being able to sell direct to customers in the EU.
[Think the company has shut down or is shutting down, possibly because of that too.]
- Most regulations are motivated by universal normative prescriptions. People don't want to be served asbestos in their food, structurally unsound homes being built, or data brokers conspiring to raise your insurance, regardless of the violator in question.
Everyone can agree regulation burden exists, but I too often see it invoked in bad faith, like in the case of GDPR. This primes me to ask for concrete proof why any regulation would be especially burdensome for small business.
- Sibling provides an example: https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/product-requirements/r...
If you want to market small circuit boards from the EU into the EU, you need to register in all EU countries. It's not 100% clear whether the requirement is incurred at "making available for sale in country X" (ie as soon as you put it on the website) or at the point you make your first sale.
This is on top of trying to untangle what CE marking testing may be required.
On the other hand, if you're a Chinese small board vendor, you just advertise it on AliExpress, put it in the (subsidized!) small parcel post, and ignore the EU rules.
- > that they have to release in open source the software, blueprints or tools that are needed to be able to support your own device yourself.
You can safely bet that there is no end product [you care this regulation to apply to] that has 100% in-house engineering, unencumbered with licenses. This would be either unenforceable or eliminate all but the largest players from EU market.
If you look at a distance, most of these regulations simply mandate managing product lifecycle. Yes, you can enter the market quicker and cheaper if you don't think about eventual recycling or bodger together something that barely works. We take warranties for granted now, but warranties are part of this family of regulations: if you introduce a product to the market, introduce something that is actually functional.
- > I have mixed feeling about this.
“WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.”
- Agreed, in general I'm disappointed that so many government regulations (on both sides of both ponds, this is one issue that's pretty universal) are just simplistic hard coded numbers. Even with carve outs I think that's much worse vs more focused, thoughtful reactive criteria. Like:
>And the mixed feeling is stronger for things like manufacturers that needs to provide support for the os for 5 years and more.
What I'd have liked to see for this (and still would) is that support is tied to control, ie, as a principle power being intimately linked with responsibility, not some ""big tech"" or not thing either. So maybe have some absolute bare minimum like 3 months unless bankrupt, but then link it to whether product owners are able to install alternate OS, access the source code etc. If a manufacturer wants to throw out some hardware and also give me all the source code and any certificate store access required for me and/or the community of fellow owners to alter and maintain it as we wish, then I'm completely fine with a very short (or possibly even zero) required support period on the software side. Conversely if a company (like Apple) wishes to profit by locking down a device very heavily, then they should also be forced to pay for all support costs for as long as they do. And I'd make that indefinite also, like, Apple would NEVER be able to stop supporting a device that they didn't at least offer alternative OS install capability for. If they wanted to EOL an iPhone after 7-10 years, they'd have to unlock the bootloader as part of that.
IMO that would most properly align all the incentives and then let various players small to large experiment with the best solutions, and for consumers to react in turn. Full open do-anything and walled gardens would both be allowed, but no profiting while externalizing the downsides.
- I mean just look at Fairphone they already implemented (most) of this without being forced to. Also even without this regulation its pretty hard to compete in this space anyway.
And I think 5 years of software updates should be achievable if Qualcomm, Google, etc are more supportive of manufacturers.
- I was going to agree with you but then I remembered that while I don't care about energy labels when I decide to buy a phone or tablet...
... I know far less about, say, refrigerators. So last time i needed one i bought the one with the most economic energy label from the ones I liked.
- I don’t see why energy labels move the needle for phones and tablets, considering battery life is already a highly maximized and sought after feature.
An appliance plugged into a wall is different as most people have no easy way to discern energy usage. But they are reminded everyday of their mobile’s energy efficiency.
And no one is going to use a black and white mobile to save 100kWh per year.
- Estimates for the numbers are right there (which I really appreciated).
I think the main expected gains here are less from the estimated 0.2% electricity savings and more about longer average product lifetimes (thanks to better repairability).
If a manufacturer gets his phone to last for a day of heavy use, there is little motivation to improve efficiency past that benchmark I think (and this labeling provides that).
- I really like it. It makes being a more conscious customer easier and you can make your own trade-offs by looking at a product and price.
Hopefully online stores will add ability to filter by these criteria.
- Phones and tablets are already among the most energy efficient devices. A tablet sips power compared to a desktop PC. Isn't energy use totally dominated by lights, cooling and heating of the spaces we inhabit?
Repairability rules I like. Rules about OS updates are good too. But the energy claims look like BS to me:
> In 1990, the annual electricity consumption for (networked) standby of the base stations and charging cradles of cordless landline phones was 37.1 kWh. In 2020, without measures, this would have been 24.5 kWh. Due to the Ecodesign standby regulation, this was reduced to 16.1 kWh in 2020, a 34% saving. Due to the addition of the 2023 Ecodesign regulation on phones, this is expected to further reduce to 8.0 kWh in 2030, a 63% saving versus no measures.
- In the shop in my town, they sell televisions. Led ones, oled ones, big screen, the usual stuff. They have about 50 models. All have energy labels C or worse. No A, no A+, no B... Once there was an A one but the picture quality was horrible.
I'm happy to be more conscious, but someone is working against the scheme: I don't have a real choice...
- This is actually an example of the regulation working. The original energy labelling had done such a good job that every product was routinely getting A or up ratings. So the EU introduced a new system that was much more stringent, dropping everything down to a C at best but more usually an F. Gradually manufacturers are improving again.
- “Working” assumes this new scale is actually based on reality and that an A or B is realistically obtainable without compromises (ie here image quality) that no one wants to make.
- There's the law of conservation of energy. If you want a nice bright big screen there's no way around consuming a lot of electricity. If your baseline is a 32 inch LED screen it's not surprising a 65" OLED will have a worse energy label.
Seems most people want that nice TV more than a small, dim picture that uses less energy.
- In addition to the laws of physics and the engineering required to build TVs working against this, the EU deliberately changed the energy efficiency scale for things like TVs a few years back to specifically make an A hard to get and something that wouldn't be achieved by products currently on the market. They were probably too optimistic about future improvements too - a lot of TVs had to add special eco modes that aren't really designed to be used to meet the minimum efficiency now required by EU rules.
- What does it even mean for a TV to be energy efficient? A TV's job is to convert electricity into... light, I guess? It's not light like a light bulb, nor would you want it to be. You wouldn't light your home with TVs.
So is it something like "only produces light where needed on the screen" or "uses the least energy when turned off" or "does image processing for x format with the least energy" What are they measuring here?
- Yes,measuring the energy consumption and efficiency of the conversion from electricity to light is part of the label. The light bulb example is not as unsuitable as you seem to assume. Incandescent light bulbs only convert about 5 percent of the energy consumed to light, the rest is converted to heat. LEDs, in contrast, are 6 to 8 times more efficient.
Your "does image processing..." part is also important. Different processors consume vastly different amounts of energy. A hobbyist example would be trying to run something on a battery powered ESP32 with or without deep sleep.
- I meant it's it's physics job to produce light. If it does that efficiently, great! That's one thing you should want.
It's human job is to convey information. If you're measuring efficiency that way, it would be most efficient to have the dimmest screen possible (using the least energy) as long as you can still tell what's happening on screen. If that's already happening, then surely a screen twice as bright as you need it to be would use twice the energy and be half as efficient, even if it physically is equally as efficient making light at any brightness.
You could be using half the energy to do the "same" job.
- You can check the label here https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu/product-list/....
It's the electricity usage when running the TV. There is e.g. quite a difference between LED and OLED.
TVs is also quite a large part of electricity usage in a household. Maybe 75 - 150W running a few hours a day. You have to keep in mind that not many people have PCs, NAS, etc. running 24/7.
- I'm not sure about energy efficiency and energy class, but information such as battery endurance, repairability class, waterproof rating, structural durability and update support should absolutely be clearly stated on the packaging.
- I was curious so I dug into what's involved for placing a product in a particular "efficiency class." Here's the section on "electronic displays":
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?toc=OJ%3AL%3...
- What is the point of even thinking about energy efficiency of smartphones and tablets? As if they aren't already extremely efficient. They're not even using a lot of power on an absolute level.
- Key quote:
> The regulations focus on measures to extend product lifetime (reparability, upgradability, battery life). The increase in average lifetime, e.g. from 3.0 to 4.1 years for a mid-range smartphone
- I (unironically) love how the charts are basically "this is gonna save you money by you buying less shit/year, you're welcome".
- If only the EU was like "you can save money and our environment by buying Chinese EVs instead of smokey German, Italian & French diesels" in the same spirit. Oh well.
It's pretty easy to regulate things that aren't made by your domestic companies.
- This is oversimplifying; European EV tariffs are company specific and (formally) aim to counteract state subsidies.
From a an average voter perspective, "sacrificing" local industry for a (temporary?) 20% discount on EVs is not too popular anyway, and neither is it gonna meaningfully save the planet IMO.
Tariff levels are basically the same as US import tariffs on pickup trucks, so not especially high, either.
- >and neither is it gonna meaningfully save the planet IMO
The EU's tethered bottle caps also aren't gonna save the planet yet we have to live with them because that was the selling point.
- I personally think tethered caps are fine, pretty sure they objectively reduce wild trash/lead to less cleanup requirements behind tourists and the like.
Do you think that the cost/benefit tradeoff in untariffed Chinese cars would be significantly better than tethered caps or deposits on bottles, or banning throwaway plastic straws?
Because this is far from clear to me; sure, introducing more, cheaper electric cars would help much more than reducing plastic waste, but the cost/risk to local industry is also MUCH higher, and a situation like the one with agriculture (a whole industry sector running basically on subsidies, in every industrialized country) is worth trying to avoid, too.
- The tariffs on Chinese EVs are very unserious at the same time as subsidies are being withdrawn while the alleged deadline for phaseout of ICE is still in place.
VW showed which side they were going to bet on with Dieselgate and should get no further sympathy.
- I wonder how much charging infrastructure China has built inside their borders for their cheap EVs.
In the EU, everyone who could afford an EV probably already has one. The rest will buy what they can afford and can charge.
- > everyone who could afford an EV probably already has one
Obviously not: this depends on the price of EVs, which is a constantly moving target and is determined by .. the import tariffs I just mentioned. Not to mention that cars have a long product lifecycle. I could afford an electric car, I have a space to park it, but for the time being I'm using my elderly petrol car because my annual mileage is low.
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/362910/average-uk-car-now... : average UK car is 9 years old. EV tech has changed a lot in that time.
This looks like a comprehensive, long list of Chinese incentives; https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/chinese-ev-dil... ; each EU country has its own schemes.
- When I last bought a car 5 years ago, the used car marked for EVs was very small and EVs were very expensive. Since then, they became much cheaper, there are a lot of new models and a lot of used cars on the market.
I'm not planning to buy a new car though, as mine is only 8 years old and still working fine. I'll check again when repairs start to get more expensive, maybe in a few years.
- A lot of people also just keep their cars for a decade or more, and buy cheaper used cars mainly-- you can not expect such a market to completely switch in a fraction of product lifetime (especially while new tech is still rapidly improving).
- Not even China will switch overnight. I'm asking if China is better at EV incentives.
I'm driving a 15 year old car :) I want to replace it some time in the next 2-3 years. Right now I wouldn't consider an EV or PHEV because I don't think I can charge one regularly and the price premium is not worth it to me, especially compared to the hassle.
- The choice isn't between a Chinese EV and an Italian diesel car. There are plenty of EVs by EU based manufacturers, including affordable ones from e.g. Renault/Dacia.
Sacrificing the European automakers for a temporary discount would be very foolish.
- Quick reminder that when alarmists talk about "data center energy use" they are almost always quoting aggregate statistics that encompass mobile networks. The mobile networks are actually using half of the aggregate power[1]. So how do these regulations address that aspect of the problem. This press release claims to save 2.2TWh/a by 2030 which is less than one percent of the energy used by transmission networks today.
1: https://www.iea.org/energy-system/buildings/data-centres-and...
- This is just me thinking this through and is not a claim to be authoritative whatsoever.
The average power draw of a cell phone is what, 4 watts? 6 watts? Lets say 10W, which is silly high (most can only charge at around 20W for an hour and a charge lasts at least 12 hours, but lets just take a high number.) At 10W constant draw it would consume 87,600Wh per year. Lets round up for inefficiencies and call it 100kWh. (That's about $11/yr of electricity where I live, about 3 cents per day but this isn't my point.)
(For reference, my Pixel 8 Pro gets 16+ hours on average if I don't put it on my wireless charger, and it's battery is only 5000mAh, which my calculations say is around 1W of average draw. This matches what I see on the display on my charging cord.)
An average person in Norway consumes 24000kWh per year (according to wikipedia. Someone in Spain would be about 5000kWh). This regulation will cut their cell phone power usage by about 1/3 (based on the quoted estimated savings and the # of people in the EU, but I don't believe these numbers), so maybe about 33kWh per year (and remember this is using absurdly over estimated numbers). That is approximately a 1/1000 reduction in power usage (or 1/200 in spain). Using realistic numbers I don't see how it's possible to anticipate any reduction in energy usage, in fact it would be a huge increase if all phones only met the minimum required in this regulation.
I will wager that the cost of compliance will slightly increase, however. This is a benefit to established manufacturers as their cost per device for compliance is low, and they already have mechanisms to ensure compliance and testing, and relationships with regulators. It's a nontrivial increase in the already significant barrier to entry to everyone else, even if their devices easily comply.
Cell phones and other mobile devices already compete on energy efficiency being one of the primary factors driving purchasing decisions (in fact it's more potent competition than that, since it's battery life). There is no meaningful initial price/efficiency tradeoff like some other products, such as mini splits or other HVAC where people might be 'cheap' up front but then it costs them more over time due to less efficiency, in fact the more efficient a phone is the cheaper it can be to manufacture because you can install a smaller battery. This compounds the benefit of being efficient. Based just on my own intuition, I would predict that the anti-competitive barriers to entry this sets up will lead to a slight reduction in competition in the market, which will actually let manufacturers invest less in energy efficiency (and every other aspect of their phones) while maintaining their market share.
I predict that this regulation actually causes phones to become slightly less energy efficient than they would otherwise. Worse, if there were no regulation phones and other devices would likely become significantly more efficient than this regulation requires regardless, so the regulation just imposes a cost. Worse, there isn't a problem here to begin with, the energy usage of these devices does not show up in the data of total energy use unless you scroll all the way to the bottom, these devices are already using less power than a single LED light bulb turned on for 4 hours a day. If they just redirected the costs of compliance with this stupid regulation to something effective, such as adding to the subsidy on hyper-efficient mini split systems, it could save substantial amount of energy and push forwards electrification goals.
- > I will wager that the cost of compliance will dramatically increase, however.
What makes you confident in that assumption? Because I would wager that cost of compliance is gonna be pretty much negligible, because manufacturers have most of the numbers already anyway, and this pales in comparison to EMF testing, too.
Estimates for effects of the regulation are right there-- they hope for total savings of 8TWh within 2030, but mainly from longer product lifetime through devices staying functional for longer on old batteries and easier battery repairability.
- > Estimates for effects of the regulation are right there-- they hope for total savings of 8TWh within 2030, but mainly from longer product lifetime through devices staying functional for longer on old batteries and easier battery repairability.
That's an interesting point I didn't realize. I still don't see how they can get to those numbers, do they quote the calculations somewhere? I toned down the claim to be less hyperbolic based on your feedback here.
I wonder how often a recent generation phone is replaced due to battery life issues, especially considering the 'smart charging' features that phones have now which makes battery wear a fraction of what it was previously (such as charging to 80% max, 'smart' slow charging at night instead of fast charging, etc)
- I agree with you that battery tech is basically getting better by itself.
Anecdotally, I bought at least one phone where slightly easier/cheaper repairability of screen + battery would have made me keep the old one.
I think making these metrics clear on product packaging is also becoming more important, because the improvements in phones have slowed down already, and longer lifetimes should be a consequence/benefit (but this is against manufacturer interests).
- Product packaging? Where do you see the package for a phone? I haven't seen a box for a phone before I bought it before, even in the 90's when I sold phones at RadioShack they were kept under lock and key. In fact every phone I have purchased in the last 15 years or so has been second hand via eBay or direct from Google and shipped. Even at the Apple store you can't see a package.
- I phrased that poorly, I ment "mandatory labeling" rather than physical package.
Screen/battery fixability was a major criteria when selecting my last phone and this was really hard to gauge, I'm hopeful that regulation like this is gonna help.
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83 points by sohkamyung 6 hours ago | 74 comments