Electric Car Subsidies As Handouts For the Rich 589
Atypical Geek writes "Charles Lane, writing for Slate, argues that subsidies for electric cars are an example of 'limousine liberalism' — a lavish gift for well-off Americans to buy expensive cars for the sake of appearing green. From the article: 'How rarefied is the electric-car demographic? When Deloitte Consulting interviewed industry experts and 2,000 potential buyers, it found that from now until 2020, only "young, very high income individuals" — from households making more than $200,000 a year — would even be interested in plug-in hybrids or all-electric cars.'
Lane also takes issue with the billions of dollars in subsidies offered to automakers for the manufacture of batteries, arguing that research (warning, PDF) concludes that the money will not help in jump-starting the economies of scale that will drive down prices. At least, not as much or as quickly as the President has argued."
News at eleven (Score:0, Informative)
Old people set in their ways and people currently happily burning gas not interested in changing their ways, or experimenting. Chocking news.
Captcha; Amateurs - made this survey
Re:Yeah... (Score:5, Informative)
The thing really needed is more research, which hopefully will *really* drive down prices.
You mean like the DOE program for battery R&D? Granted it is only a third of a billion per year, but it's not like they're not funding R&D. Besides, if the DOE does it, the car companies won't have to do as much redundant R&D.
Re:'limousine liberalism' (Score:2, Informative)
Google is your friend!
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/25/nation/la-na-oil-spill-subsidies-20100525 [latimes.com]
Why did you think that we pay less than $3/gallon for gas and Europeans pay $7-$8.
Re:'limousine liberalism' (Score:3, Informative)
Why did you think that we pay less than $3/gallon for gas and Europeans pay $7-$8.
Because Europeans impose massive taxes on fuel. Presumably because they hate poor people.
Re:Not to sure about that.... (Score:3, Informative)
I did not write 100k "exactly" though. What I wrote was "less than" 100k, but Slashdot stripped out the symbol. My income at that time was much closer to the median household income for 2003, trust me.
Re:This is why I'm never a fan of 'rebates'. (Score:1, Informative)
Over 20% of the USPS fleet are already alternative fuel vehicles (though not all electric). They went through a pile of segways and various other 'alternative' vehicles as well - actually they had some of the oldest electric vehicles. The buses here are natural gas (public, college and most of the lower school ones), and one of the bus stations has the largest solar panel installation in the state to power it.
It's not all of them, but the government does adopt this sort of tech frequently.
Re:Not to sure about that.... (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know about you, but most people I know would not consider 100k as "not super high income". You individually were making roughly double the median household income for the US in 2003.
Be that as it may, the summary specificlally talks about those making over 200k.
As opposed to ... (Score:1, Informative)
The Hummer tax loophole? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11172853 [npr.org] I prefer the electric car tax break as opposed to the polluting gas-guzzler loophole.
Re:Taxing Nerves (Score:4, Informative)
The Nissan Leaf is scheduled to debut with the price tag of around $32,000. I wouldn't call it cheap but I wouldn't call it a prohibitive luxury good. With federal and state tax subsidies, it makes it cheaper and a working incentive to go electric
Meanwhile a Civic will cost you around $20k and can drive more than 100 miles without waiting hours to refuel.
Even if you don't need to travel long distances, $12k will buy you a lot of gas.
Lets run some number. At $4 a gallon, $12,000 will by you 3000 gallons. At 30 miles per gallon that will get you 90,000 miles. So you will need to drive a Nissan Leaf for 90,000 miles to break even and that's not including the cost of electricity to recharge it, the cost to replace the batteries after they lose their capacity or the cost of rental cars when you need to make trips beyond the 100 mile range of the leaf.
Re:Taxing Nerves (Score:3, Informative)
If we go to all electric cars or mostly electric cars get ready for toll roads everywhere. Right now it's the tax on fuel that pays for roads (well at least is *supposed* to pay for roads, whether it does or just goes into the general funds is a debate for another day). As soon as people stop buying gas and diesel, they government(s) (state and federal) will be crying fowl and we'll see some sort of black box required on electric cars to see how many miles you drive and sending you a "road use" tax bill at the end of the year. Either that electronic tags on the windshields with passive sensors over the road like current toll booths.
Both solutions have that great added feature of tracking. And it won't take long for there to be automatic "speeding" tickets issues as an excuse for local governments to make an extra buck in the name "Public safety".
Re:'limousine liberalism' (Score:3, Informative)
Well, in the Netherlands at least, we pay our $7-$8 per gallon of gas because of the massive excises. On the other hand, I am sure at least some government effort and money is being expended on gaining access to and control over oil, so I have no doubt that the oil industry is being helped by governments around the world - regardless of whether or not money is directly being given to the industry.
Interestingly, the high fuel prices over here make electric cars rather attractive. The price difference per kilometer (or mile, if you wish) may not be large enough to make up for the cost of a battery pack as will be featured in the Tesla Model S, but, for example, the Chevy Volt doesn't actually cost that much more than the car I currently drive, and would get me to and from work without using any gasoline at all. At that, it's actually cheaper to drive than a lot of regular gasoline cars.
Re:Electric cars work if they're small (Score:3, Informative)
I need my SUV to pull the boat I don't own, up the mountain I don't live by.
Anyone remember when wealthy business owners were buying the Hummer H2 'for their business' then turning around and giving it to their wife. It weighed more than a certain weight so it was considered a 'heavy truck' and could be written off on your business' taxes. I wonder how many businesses will get new "green" cars, then turn around and give them to family members.
Re:Where were the whiners? (Score:5, Informative)
That nugget is probably never mentioned because it should EMBARRASS anyone that tries to use it as an excuse.
You included.
Re:Handouts for rich LIBERALS (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not really familiar with British models, but I think the North American Ford Fiesta is based largely on the European model. Comparing those two is not really relevant, as the Prius is a mid-sized sedan and the Fiesta is a sub-compact coupe. You may as well call a netbook better because it's less expensive than a 15" notebook.
Re:This is just stupid (Score:2, Informative)
No, not really. The subsidies are there to get oil companies to act in certain ways. It helps recover maintenance costs on no profitable wells that the government insists on keeping open and so on. Without the subsidies, those extra activities would simply disperse and only a fraction of the costs would be passed on to the consumers.
The subsidies are not a hand out saying here, take this money to keep oil cheap. They all havce conditions attached making it a partial cost recovery for doing certain things. It's more like, if you do X, we will reimburse you Y with this subsidy. Some companies do X, some don't.
Re:'limousine liberalism' (Score:2, Informative)
They don't hate the poor, they just want to keep them in their place- where they belong, without the ability to travel that well into other areas where they do not belong.
Also, if you keep a poor person poor while promising to better them, you can control them to some degree for political benefit. This happens in the US where when someone who gets a job and gets away form welfare, actually makes less then if they didn't have the job and was still dependent on the government.
Re:Taxing Nerves (Score:4, Informative)
"In California, where something like 90% of electricity is generated from burning natural gas, electric vehicles in California would essentially be running on natural gas."
Umm, no.
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/overview/energy_sources.html [ca.gov]
Natural Gas 46.5%
Nuclear 14.9%
Large Hydro 9.6%
Coal* 15.5%
Renewable 13.5%
Where California's NG comes from
In State 12.9%
Canada 22.1%
Rockies 24.2%
Southwest 40.8%
Why luxury safer electric cars should be free (Score:3, Informative)
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en [google.com]
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."
And that was without even including the benefits to load balancing the electric grid with electric vehicles when they are plugged in, or all the new jobs created in making them.
Or this person's amazing point:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm [evnut.com]
"""
To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh
To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy.
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.
Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).
So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!
"""
Re:Handouts for rich JEWS (Score:0, Informative)
Exactly which liberals told anyone except the very rich to make any sacrifices?
Barack Obama is just the latest. [nytimes.com]
Changing Stance, Administration Now Defends Insurance Mandate as a Tax
When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”
Damn, not only is Obama taxing us like crazy, he downright LIED about it.
Imagine that.
Obama's a liar.
Re:This is why I'm never a fan of 'rebates'. (Score:2, Informative)
2) The Prius / Volt gets 48mpg highway; the Golf TDI gets 41mpg. Thus, diesel is actually is less efficient than a hybrid. A base Prius is $23,560; a base Golf TDI is $23,709. So really, there is no way a Golf would recoup the extra cost since it gets worse gas mileage and in most parts of the country the gas is more expensive.
Also, isn't the LEAF supposed to debut at $33,000 - $7,500 federal = $25,500 before any state rebates (several of which are $5,000) the Leaf makes perfect sense if you are in a household that is or will be a two-car household. (If you charge it at night, it's about $0.08/kWh for PG&E customers -- in other states without tiers it's probably about $0.12/kWh.)
Most households only need one vehicle with a range of more than 100 miles, so it makes sense for multi-car families to have one or more electric vehicles and one car that takes gasoline, which could be a (plug-in) hybrid.
To the person who pointed out electricity is not free: the energy content of gasoline is 36.6kWh/gal (of which only a third does useful thermodynamic work) and has an average price of $2.75 (more in California) which works out to $0.23/kWh, so unless your utility doesn't offer cheaper electricity for EV charging at night (required in California) or doesn't have tiers (most of the rest of the country), electric will be cheaper to refuel, in addition to being cheaper to maintain.
Re:Citation request? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:'limousine liberalism' (Score:2, Informative)
As many others have answered, it's because the Europeans distort the market (via taxes) even more than we do.
The European counties properly tax gasoline to pay for the subsidies that it requires. Subsidies that the US "hides" in the general budget. Things like the billions expended in military expenses to secure access to oil and the billions spent cleaning up the environmental damage (spills, polution, etc) of oil-based fuels, the billions in health care costs associated with breathing the crap that comes out of exhaust pipes. I could go on...
Re:Citation request? (Score:3, Informative)
Don't know if I would trust the "Tax Foundation" on numbers bashing the White House [blogspot.com]. I would go with official stats rather than an op-ed. I mean, the Washington Times article has the paragraph:
No citing of data, just a bunch of speculation. Try some official numbers from any one of the myriad gov't sites rather than some bullshit from people who are paid to dog everything the Administration does. (Even if it is largely ineffectual, I think the articles seem to conflate malice and incompetence.)
It was not a tax credit in 2002 (Score:2, Informative)
You misrepresent that story. To start with, it was not a tax credit. It was a rule that allowed businesses to buy a truck and expense it in one year instead of depreciating it over many years. Not individuals, businesses.
Here are the basics of the difference:
Businesses only pay tax on profits. Profits are revenues minus costs. Buying a truck is a cost. Usually, such a item lasts a number of years. The cost must be divided up and applied over those years. The only difference in the rule was that it allowed the cost to be used all in one year. With this rule, the government loses revenue in year one, but gains it all back in later years. No taxpayer pays anything extra.
A $7500 tax credit is just an extra $7500 in a tax refund check because you bought an Obama-mobile. This money never gets re-payed to the government.
Please try to get it right (and/or be honest) in the future.
Re:This is why I'm never a fan of 'rebates'. (Score:3, Informative)
If you are driving a Golf TDI and getting 41 mpg highway, take it to a skilled mechanic becuase something is wrong. Rocketting off the line at lights and holding cruise at 75-80 on interstate I still average 44mpg with a bone stock car.
A few weeks back I bumped into another TDI, the guy had swapped 5th gear out, got new injectors, and a new PROM burn, and was averaging over 56mpg combined driving.
Most of the Prius drivers I know hold anything from 38-45mpg on the interstate, depending on the car and their driving habbits.
The LEAF is neat, but at this point I know two things: They have released crap-all for information about it, and the have the worst designed website ever.
If I were in the market for an affordable full electric today, I'd be hounding Aptera ;)
-Rick
Re:Yeah... (Score:3, Informative)
There are tax limitations on resale.
Re:Yeah... (Score:3, Informative)
Invalid assumption:
Gas will be $3 for the next 195,000 miles.
When I bought my Prius, gas was $1.49 a gallon. I had calculated the break-even point between the Prius and the other car we were looking at was at 130,000 miles.
Because of the doubling of gas prices, with flirtations at the $4.00 mark occasionally, we hit break-even at 80,000 miles.
5% interest over the last 10 years would have been a miracle. My conservatively-funded retirement plan is barely positive over the period of time I have owned my Prius. (Depending on wether you pick the week before or the week after I bought the car, you get either 7.6% increase or 7.8% increase total over 6 years. Hardly 5%/year.) My aggressively-funded retirement plan is *NEGATIVE* over that time.
Re:This is just stupid (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know what this "embedded 22% tax" is
It's very important that you learn about it - the FairTax people have good write-ups, and the Harvard Economics study is a fine read.
BTW, Dollar Tree has king size loaves of bread for $1 and all my local supermarkets have store-brand for $0.89-1.50. Minimum-Wage-Mom needs to go to a different store.
Sure, bleached white flour and HFCS. I was assuming she cares about her kids. Wal*Mart has 100% whole wheat in 2-packs for $4 on occasion. Good time to stock the freezer.
Re:This is just stupid (Score:3, Informative)
The whole market place benefits
Correction: The people involved in producing and buying electric cars benefit, the rest of the market place is taxed and receives no monetary benefit. Many people will be having their tax money support the production and purchasing of green technology cars they themselves can not afford. I agree with the reasoning for doing so and I think you already addressed those reasons well but we have to be honest about the trade-off.