Biden Administration Is Said To Slow Early Stage of Shift To Electric Cars 343
An anonymous reader shares a report: In a concession to automakers and labor unions, the Biden administration intends to relax elements of one of its most ambitious strategies to combat climate change, limits on tailpipe emissions that are designed to get Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles, according to three people familiar with the plan. Instead of essentially requiring automakers to rapidly ramp up sales of electric vehicles over the next few years, the administration would give car manufacturers more time [non-paywalled source], with a sharp increase in sales not required until after 2030, these people said. They asked to remain anonymous because the regulation has not been finalized. The administration plans to publish the final rule by early spring.
The change comes as President Biden faces intense crosswinds as he runs for re-election while trying to confront climate change. He is aiming to cut carbon dioxide emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles, which make up the largest single source of greenhouse gases emitted by the United States. At the same time, Mr. Biden needs cooperation from the auto industry and political support from the unionized auto workers who backed him in 2020 but now worry that an abrupt transition to electric vehicles would cost jobs. Meanwhile, consumer demand has not been what automakers hoped, with potential buyers put off by sticker prices and the relative scarcity of charging stations. The EPA last year proposed the toughest-ever limits on tailpipe emissions. The rules would be so strict, the only way car makers could comply would be to sell a tremendous number of zero-emissions vehicles in a relatively short time frame. The E.P.A. designed the proposed regulations so that 67% of sales of new cars and light-duty trucks would be all-electric by 2032, up from 7.6% in 2023, a radical remaking of the American automobile market.
The change comes as President Biden faces intense crosswinds as he runs for re-election while trying to confront climate change. He is aiming to cut carbon dioxide emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles, which make up the largest single source of greenhouse gases emitted by the United States. At the same time, Mr. Biden needs cooperation from the auto industry and political support from the unionized auto workers who backed him in 2020 but now worry that an abrupt transition to electric vehicles would cost jobs. Meanwhile, consumer demand has not been what automakers hoped, with potential buyers put off by sticker prices and the relative scarcity of charging stations. The EPA last year proposed the toughest-ever limits on tailpipe emissions. The rules would be so strict, the only way car makers could comply would be to sell a tremendous number of zero-emissions vehicles in a relatively short time frame. The E.P.A. designed the proposed regulations so that 67% of sales of new cars and light-duty trucks would be all-electric by 2032, up from 7.6% in 2023, a radical remaking of the American automobile market.
Fox seems to be saying the opposite... (Score:2)
Who's take do I believe?
https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
Re:Fox seems to be saying the opposite... (Score:4, Insightful)
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This story says, "the administration would give car manufacturers more time, with a sharp increase in sales not required until after 2030".
The Fox story says, "designed to ensure a staggering 67% of new car sales are electric by 2032. Over the weekend, the New York Times and Washington Post reported the White House is set to double down on that lofty goal while loosening earlier targets."
So where's the confl
Re:Fox seems to be saying the opposite... (Score:5, Informative)
Offhand I didn't see any objectively conflicting facts in the Fox story, just a different spin.
The Fox story is objectively misleading.
The headline is: Biden admin reportedly doubling down on gas car crackdown
What does it mean to double down?
Double Down: [merriam-webster.com] to become more tenacious, zealous, or resolute in a position or undertaking.
The Biden admin is relaxing the pace of the transition with the obvious implication that the later targets could also be relaxed if they're infeasible. You could possibly claim they're doubling down on their long term goal of a transition to EVs (by keeping the later targets). But the headline frames their actions as an immediate threat to gas cars today, which it is clearly not.
This is consistent with my experience of Fox news. Their news stories are usually factually correct. (Their editorial talking head shows are another matter). Mainly it's a different spin.
Spin is saying the eventual transition as a bad idea.
This isn't just spin, it's a bad framing. The facts are there, but they're framed in a way for you to misunderstand critical facts.
Like the OP said, if you only read the Fox News article you'd probably come away with the idea that Biden didn't back off at all and was making the rules even stricter. Can the story really be said to be factually correct if those facts are presented in a way that readers are expected to get them wrong?
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Dude! Wake the fuck up!
NONE of them even come within a light year of "reliable"!
And sometimes the other side is correct ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Fox news isn't reliable. If you don't believe the many news rating sites that rate it low, there are the lawsuits.
Neither are most of the news ratings sites. They may be political too. High ratings an indication of the political alignment of the ratings organization and the news organization. Both news and ratings sites are tools in manufacturing perception.
That said, a politically oriented news site is not necessarily wrong. They will absolutely report the truth when it is conveniently on their side. To learn the truth you have to listen to both sides, and then fact check evidence yourself.
Please, unplug from fox.
Only a partisan fool unplugs from their opponents arguments.
Research your sources.
Yes. And part of that research includes listening to both arguments for and against, and the rebuttals to those arguments. And the better arguments and rebuttals may come from the partisans of the other side.
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Only a partisan fool unplugs from their opponents arguments.
The problem is that Fox's articles are incredibly weasel-y. It's literally just a petroleum industry opinion piece masquerading as a news article.
"The President has been clear since 2020 that he intends to use his agencies to eliminate sales of new gas cars," the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers said in a statement following the media reports. "Tinkering with the near-term speed of implementation doesn't change the end game, which is banning new gas-powered cars." (emphasis mine)
Then we've a
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Fox News is NOT news, it's an editorial outlet. Technically that's still "journalism" but with editorialism the goal is not about telling the truth but about presenting opinions. So if Fox News says that it is raining today, you still need to open the window to be sure. When Fox News gets a story wrong, they almost never retract it.
Fox News is every bit as bad as CNN used to be with monovision about irrelevant stories. They're selling a story to viewers to gain and retain viewers in order to make money,
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Re:Fox seems to be saying the opposite... (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't Fox News the people who said under oath that they're an entertainment channel and no reasonable person would mistake them for news or expect their content to be true?
You are referring to the "Rachel Maddow defense" where they argued and the court agreed that Maddow is just an entertainer. https://greenwald.substack.com... [substack.com] .Fox copied that playbook when they got sued too.
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from: https://www.foxnews.com/terms-... [foxnews.com]
Company furnishes the Company Sites and the Company Services for your personal enjoyment and entertainment.
Why would you believe something from a website that explicitly states says their content is for entertainment?
How does one slow down "stopped"? (Score:3)
In 2021, Congress approved Biden's plan to spend $7.5 billion building EV chargers, but not a single one has been built yet.
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
It's kind of hard to slow down that kind of "progress."
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Congress can't even provide funding for stuff that was planned decades ago, why would you expect them to move quickly now, when their major supporter (the petrol industry) does not want any competition
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Biden's backing off some emmissions standards (Score:2)
This most likely isn't about the election. The EPA is on life support with the right wing Supreme Court routinely striking down the provisions of laws that make the EPA work. Biden is most likely backing off because he doesn't want to give SCOTUS another case they can use to chip away at what's left of the EPA.
Re:Biden's backing off some emmissions standards (Score:5, Interesting)
If you read the Politico article I linked to, the chargers aren't being hampered by the ineffectiveness of the EPA, but rather, by the needless complexity of the rules that come with the spending of the money. Biden and Congress seem to have gotten tied up in their own idealistic web of regulations. There is a point beyond which more rules don't make things better, but worse.
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Maybe the EPA should stop making unconstitutional rules.
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And exactly what is Trump's plan to rein in inflation, complain about it on X at 2:00AM until prices magically start dropping?
The media has tried to make EVs into yet another left-vs-right issue, but it's really more of a city and suburbs vs rural issue. I know plenty of people on both sides of the political spectrum who love their EVs, mostly because fuck having to buy gas is a fairly bi-partisan opinion.
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In 2021, Congress approved Biden's plan to spend $7.5 billion building EV chargers, but not a single one has been built yet.
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
It's kind of hard to slow down that kind of "progress."
From the WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/t... [wsj.com]
A Toyota memo to auto dealers in April explained the challenges to full electrification. For instance, “most public chargers can take anywhere from 8-30 hours to charge. To meet the federal [zero-emissions vehicle] sales targets, 1.2M public chargers are needed by 2030. That amounts to approximately 400 new chargers per day.” The U.S. isn’t close to meeting that goal.
Pressure and Complexity (Score:2)
How the US currently sets automotive environmental policy:
- CAFE which sets a mandatory averaged minimum gas economy calculated over the entire fleet of vehicles produced per auto manufacturer with credits and debits based on electric vehicle uptake and "gas guzzler" vehicles
- Special taxes on gas thirsty vehicles and credits for EVs
- Tailpipe CO2 controls on some vehicles
How the US *could* set automotive environmental policy:
- Stop subsidizing the production of fossil fuels and let the price of oil float
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It's called "The Petrodollar" for a reason.
So much of the economy is depending on oil prices that if they were to fluctuate, the economy would flip over it's head in a day. Plus, you know, if the price goes up, the prices of goods will go up to match it, but if it goes down, nothing will go down with it.
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How the US currently sets automotive environmental policy:
- CAFE which sets a mandatory averaged minimum gas economy calculated over the entire fleet of vehicles produced per auto manufacturer with credits and debits based on electric vehicle uptake and "gas guzzler" vehicles - Special taxes on gas thirsty vehicles and credits for EVs - Tailpipe CO2 controls on some vehicles
How the US *could* set automotive environmental policy:
- Stop subsidizing the production of fossil fuels and let the price of oil float
Oh, boy. Yeah, I'm sure our elected officials want to be known as the administration that destroyed the economy AND made gas so expensive that nobody could afford to continue to go to work. You let petroleum products rise to their natural cost in the states and transportation would be decimated, meaning *EVERYTHING* top to bottom, would cost more at the register. You think things got ugly over the last few years, turning off oil subsidies would turn our current dumpster fire background-noise level into a fu
It is also recognizing economics (Score:2)
There is not one market, there are five, and the consumers that occupy each market have very different means, needs and psychology. So each market has a different product/market fit. EVs are only at the early adopter market, they have not moved into the early majority market. This will take time.
Note that crossing from the early adopter to the early majority is considered a very difficu
Loophole (Score:2)
Back that train up (Score:2)
How about infrastructure first? (Score:3)
I love my ICE vehicles but I accept that the future is electric.
How about working on methods of actually delivering the amount of power required to consumers before arbitrarily mandating the vehicles themselves, though? Have a viable plan to actually produce that power and build out charging infrastructure to make long journeys less of a hassle for current EV owners. You'll decrease consumers' resistance to EVs at the same time you're preparing for the volume we'll eventually see. Meanwhile, you're giving battery technology time to improve as well which will make a huge difference.
Because it's not politically sexy, that's why.
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- Can't tow for shit
- Range goes to shit in the cold
- Chargers constantly broken (RIP apartment dwellers)
- Takes forever to recharge
Nobody who actually works for a living wants these things. It's like Impossible Foods: constantly shilled utter garbage.
1) Why are you buying an EV if you tow scale models of the Titanic daily?
2) Better tell everyone in the Nordic countries!
3) Most likely broken by someone in a lifted King Ranch with extended side mirrors and no hitch installed
4) Charging times are an issue yes, but now we're able to get to 80% charge in 15 minutes
5) Most trade people drive things like box trucks or sprinter vans. You know something that can fit sheetrock and not be exposed to the elements. How are you going to fit a load of 8 foot plywood i
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You've highlight exactly why they suck:
1). They can't tow what people want (over any appreciable distance).
2). Broken chargers.
3). Charging times.
4). Beds of a useless size.
As for Nordic countries, compare their average daily driving distance with the U.S. and get back to me.
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2) Better tell everyone in the Nordic countries!
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] as of 2022 only 27% of the cars on the road in Norway are plug-in EV. That is the biggest percentage by far in the region .
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You haven't priced vehicles lately.
Re:No surprises there (Score:5, Informative)
-- They are too expensive and a very large percentage of the population cannot afford them. This is only going to get worse, not better.
Ahh yes, historically we all know new technology only gets more expensive as more factories and units are made. "I predict that within 10 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them"
For me, an EV would not be a problem. But a very large percentage of the population lives in various houses/apartments where charging is simply impossible.
"Things are this way now so they will be this way forever" also "We don't know to run electrical lines?!?!"
Do you really think that the owners of large apartment complexes are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to install chargers?
Yes! Firstly they get some amount of subsidy, 2ndly apartments don't get DC fast chargers, they get AC level 1/2 chargers which are less than $500
This will result in houses/apartments being crammed together even more tightly
What does the size of an apartment have to do with the space for parking? This is either sneaky or stupid.
we are never going to see more than 50% adoption at best.
You say 50% adoption rate like that isn't a massive, unbelievable success for electric vehichles. 236m passenger vehichles in the US, if we have 118m EV's your other problems are already solved.
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This will result in houses/apartments being crammed together even more tightly
What does the size of an apartment have to do with the space for parking? This is either sneaky or stupid.
Most mid-to-large cities in the USA have building codes that require a specific amount of parking for the size of a building. This means developers have to acquire huge tracts of land relative to the footprint of the structure they actually want to build. They either put parking in a large ring around the building, or make the building footprint large enough to contain a multilevel garage. If BuildingA requires a big buffer zone of parking and BuildingB requires a big buffer zone of parking, then the distan
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Up until recently, just about all of them
Old article but gets the point across.
New Cars More Affordable than Ever Before in U.S. History [seekingalpha.com]
Car prices fall 240% in 60 years as vehicles become monthly cost [motortrader.com]
Re:No surprises there (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't have a dedicated parking space, that sucks, though I have never found the Supercharging network unavailable in my 6 years of ownership of EVs. Not once. Ever. I have also NEVER run out of juice. I once towed my skis to Florida from Socal in my Tesla. Anyone bitching about range hasn't had to live with one. Is it the most convenient thing on the planet? Probably not. But it is far cheaper to operate, and with the insane amount of solar I installed, I feel like it basically runs for free most of the time (my first Model X still have free supercharging for life).
I've done car-camping in it too. Spending the night with the AC running is fantabulous! takes about 1% per hour. Very cool trips to Lake Powell, etc..
I bought my Model X Plaid in 2022 because of how much I loved the P100D. The thing is even faster. Cartoonishly so. IF you have an ICE car and you think different, find me at a light, and I will show you. Even the latest hypercars are going EV to help them get off the line. It is embarrassing when my $156k SUV whips your $500k Lambo SVJ at a traffic light.
No. EVs are here to stay, and they will grow on people naturally. All the bitching by everyone else is because of the lack of competition to Tesla. They got in first, owned the chargers (brilliant), and ran away with the market. I have a reservation on a Roadster 2.. cant wait.
Re:No surprises there (Score:5, Insightful)
The average person cant afford $156K for a car. Even upper middle class people cant afford that. Enjoy your luxury car and being absolutely out of touch.
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Convenient how you're not accounting for the fact they'll probably need a new battery pack by the time they end up on the used market. That's anywhere from $5K - $28K, depending on the make/model.
Barring bad thermal management design (e.g. Nissan Leaf) or a lemon, batteries should easily last hundreds of thousands of miles. They will lose some range, of course, by the time they hit 200k miles they'll probably only have 80% of their original capacity, but the good news is that the capacity loss goes slower and slower as they age. My 12 year-old Nissan Leaf (with no battery thermal management) lost 20% of its capacity by the first 100k miles, but the next 50k (it has 150k on it) doesn't seem to have
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... the good news is that the capacity loss goes slower and slower as they age.
Understatement. I don't know if Tesla's behavior is typical for EVs, but on average they lose about 5% of their capacity in the first year or so, and barely lose any capacity over the next half a decade or more.
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... the good news is that the capacity loss goes slower and slower as they age.
Understatement. I don't know if Tesla's behavior is typical for EVs, but on average they lose about 5% of their capacity in the first year or so, and barely lose any capacity over the next half a decade or more.
Agreed. My own anecdote: my 2020 Model S has only lost 4% of its range (at 75k miles on the odometer), and all of that was in the first year. I can't tell that it's lost any since. My 2012 Nissan Leaf is a different story, but its small battery means that it gets cycled a lot more (my Tesla normally oscillates between 50% and 80%, because 30% of its range represents over a hundred miles, which is more than the Leaf's range when new), and the complete lack of thermal management causes a lot more deteriorat
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Convenient how you're not accounting for the fact they'll probably need a new battery pack by the time they end up on the used market.
ICE cars seldom go more than 200k miles before they end up junked. The very best is the Toyota Land Cruiser at about 18%, but even that one is really exceptional. For most cars, it's right around 3%. Tesla's haven't been around long enough to get any decent numbers, but so far it's looking pretty good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
What to do with the battery when the car is broken (Score:3)
>> Convenient how you're not accounting for the fact they'll probably need a new battery pack
HAHAHA. Nope.
10 Years ago, the question was: "What to do with the car when the battery is broken"
Today, the question is : "What to do with the battery when the car is broken"
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IF you have an ICE car and you think different, find me at a light, and I will show you.
Real car enthusiasts know it is not just about numbers. Digital watches outperform mechanical ones by all metrics, except class. People who like nice things still own mechanical watches. Your electric appliance may be faster, but will never have the cachet of a beautifully engineered engine.
The other 90% of people (Score:3)
>> Your electric appliance may be faster, but will never have the cachet of a beautifully engineered engine.
Only petrolheads care about a beautiful engine (no negativity here, really, i appreciate nice mechanical engineering)
The other 90% of people needing to go from A to B appreciate the quietness of the city with EVs, and the clean air.
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When I encounter a person wearing a wristwatch, I discount them as untrustworthy if the watch looks expensive
I'm sure they consider that a great loss LOL.
Re:No surprises there (Score:5, Insightful)
No serious person buys a car because of how fast it goes 0-60. That's nonsense.
No one drives in the real world like every trip to the supermarket or work is a 0-60 race.
I have a Tesla and an ICE sports car. Combined you spent more on your S than I did on both of my cars.
I get the EV benefits around town and when I cross the state I have a blast burning gas in the sports car. It goes much further on a tank and refills faster and makes delicious vroom vroom sounds.
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I have never found the Supercharging network unavailable in my 6 years of ownership of EVs.
I never had any traffic on my way to work in the summer of 2020. Rush hour was a breeze! Your access to supercharging stations is only good because very few people have an EV. Once EVs are mandated, the electrical grid hasn't yet been upgraded, and everyone has an EV, I'll bet easy access to Superchargers won't be a selling point. Especially after a powerful solar storm or grid attack.
Over a third of cars in the Bay Area are electric. They're still building out Supercharger capacity rather rapidly. And apart from certain times of day on the weekends, I rarely find myself unable to charge at one. Plus I can charge at work, at home, etc.
I mean sure, that's not 100%, but if your gloom-and-doom fears still haven't proven correct with EVs at 34% of cars on the road and 50% of new car sales, I think it's probably safe to say that your fears are unfounded.
I think you need to stop reading wha
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I wish electric vehicles were a viable solution, I really do. But they aren't and never will be. -- Do you really think that the owners of large apartment complexes are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to install chargers? The same people who already have to constantly be sued just to get them to comply with existing building codes? Yeah, good luck with that.
I think that it will be an attractive feature for some, and required by city governments for new construction in other cases. To read the news, this country has a history of not building cheap affordable basic housing but instead targeting the high-earners and the luxury market. So if they install chargers, they can get the Tesla and Polestar drivers to consider renting from them. If you can afford a pricey car, maybe you can afford a pricey apartment. Not everyone will do it, but it can happen.
Re:No surprises there (Score:4, Informative)
Norway, THE ENTIRE COUNTRY land area, is almost the same as one state in the USA. Montana.
As for their population, it is around 5.5 million which would be the same as South Carolina.
In Europe, you can drive across multiple countries in hours.
In the USA, it takes DAYS to drive across the USA.
We are a bit spread out and, for driving around town, EV's aren't that bad I guess, but for long haul
they are inconvenient. Who wants to spend hours charging a car to just drive across 2-3 states.
Then, there is the problem with charging stations (lack of) and more importantly, the charging grid
which can barely handle what we have now.
Solar & wind cannot put enough juice on the wires.
Only 27% of the cars in Norway are plug-in EV. The majority are diesel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I read somewhere that drivers in Norway with an EV often have a non-EV as well for longer rides.
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Can't tow for shit
The vast majority of ICE vehicles sold aren't really recommended for towing either. Plus, go out and get stuck in traffic in any major city and it's likely the only vehicles you'll see towing anything are the commercial semi trucks. Yeah, if you really need a tow vehicle you're probably stuck with ICE for the time being, but that's no reason to write EVs off for the people who only need a commuter/kid hauler/grocery getter vehicle.
Range goes to shit in the cold
That's mostly due to energy needed for the climate control, which can be mi
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And they will, if they still want renters.
Another issue is houses with no off-street parking where someone else can legally park in the space in front of your house, preventing you from charging an EV. In Tokyo, instead of forcing [streetsblog.org] developers to build parking as they do here in the USA, they require anyo
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- Takes forever to recharge
You charge at home while you're asleep. If you take a longer trip, you'll likely be eating and needing a bathroom break when it's time to stop to charge anyway. Even in a car like the Bolt where the DCFC rate is pretty slow by today's standards (55kWh), it's really not that bad. I recently made a round trip from Orlando to Jacksonville and by the time I was done eating, it was time to unplug and get back on I-95.
Fellow Bolt owner here. Took a recent vacation, 180 miles each way. Wanted to use the EV but drove the old pickup instead, because the cute California vacation town had all of six chargers, none near our hotel. I don't take it camping either, for the same reason. The Bolt is my happy daily driver, but I can't cut out the gas pump entirely yet.
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Being a landlord comes with the responsibility of maintaining your properties. I wasn't alive when it happened, but I'm sure there was a lot of bitching and moaning when the idea of having to provide a HVAC system for each dwelling was being proposed, too. This is a far less drastic change - it'd be some buried wires and outdoor 50A outlets.
I'm also not sure where you're getting the idea that L2 charging will be too slow. A NEMA 14-50 outlet can deliver between 8.3kWh and 9.6kWh (some apartments are wire
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Apples and oranges. Where I live, in the past, landlords were supposed to provide two parking spaces for each unit. Then it got reduced to one. Now it is reduced to zero, stating that people can park in the neighborhood or ride a bicycle (good luck with that). Landlords have a lot more control over the market than before, and not even the most extreme California lawmaker would ever push a bill to demand apartments add chargers.
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And how do you get billed for the power you use?
There are lots of level 2 chargers (the type you would install at apartments) that are billed to the person using the charger via credit card or an app. Just install those. They already exist.
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"Being a landlord comes with the responsibility..."
Show me where you get to being an entitled shitheel means you get to INSIST that said landlord invests the kind of money it takes to set up a working charging station.
It doesn't give you the right to insist on anything. What you do have the right to do is leave when your lease is up, and move to an apartment that does have EV charging.
The thing is, as the number of EVs increases, being able to charge at home is going to be more and more critical if you actually want people to rent the property that you own. In many cities, including the Bay Area, the number of EVs is high enough that rental property owners would have to be complete idiots to not have already at least s
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-Amazingly, most people never tow anything with their car.
-Most people don't live in sub-zero temperatures.
-Lots of people live in homes with garages/parking spots.
-It fully charges while I work or sleep.
I work for a living and have used an EV for all my driving for two years and 45k miles.
Please clarify (Score:2, Interesting)
Elon Musk was the only one benefiting, and since he became an right-wing ass I don't see why we should subsidize his shit anymore. Let him get paid from Trump's Gofundme.
Okay, just to be clear: climate change is an existential threat and we should be doing everything possible to address it, and you're good with punishing Elon Musk because he's right-wing.
And he's stated that his position has never changed, only that the left has moved so far to the left that he's now right of center.
So effectively you're saying that Elon being right wing is more important than everything he's doing to combat climate change.
That's your position - yes?
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He's NPR in reverse!
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He's headed down the dark path of vengefulness, gay/race hate, and prejudice against individuals based on fake bulk statistical analysis.
Which really just goes to show even if you have a lot of money you're not immune to falling down the alt-right rabbit hole. Despite Musk's insistence that his political views have not changed, he really used to not be like that. [rollingstone.com]
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Wow - so you're really arguing that Elon is dangerous because tribalism, after your first comments were basically he's not "part of our tribe, so lets stop policies he is profiting from, implying that if he was good little Democrat you'd be for enriching him!"
The absolute lack of self awareness of you left-tards is just astonishing. The worst part is you think are enlightened while perpetually demonstrating your have the moral and philosophical depth of 12 year olds.
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What's that a gotcha? LOL. I'm not going to tribe with racists. You jerks created the tribes and then get upset at the blowback. You guys tribe based on intrinsic and immutable characteristics such as race and sexual orientation and then assign behavioral and intelligence characteristics to every member of that grouping. Your side desires that entire races be exterminated due to actions of a small percent, so I'm only gonna laugh when you idiots find a "gotcha" towards me. I tribe based on evilness of a par
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The same way as eliminating welfare and deporting every single person in the country illegal is punishment.
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How is withdrawing subsidy "punishment".
Before they changed the law Elon was in favor of withdrawing all subsidies for EV's because Tesla was about to reach the limits to make them unqualified for them. Subsidies to competitors would give them an advantage over Tesla's pricing. Once they lifted the caps he was fine with subsidies again.
You can't write a law excluding Tesla by name. It would have to be based on number of cars sold, price of car, income of buyer, place of manufacture etc.
Re:Please clarify (Score:5, Interesting)
Green haired screechers dumping paint on famous art works and blocking highways during rush hour have become the standard bearers for left wing climate change activism.
They have definitely dragged the center way left putting lots of normal rational liberals into the conservative column.
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Fringe groups don't represent the mainstream views of a party, unless you also want to include those Neo-Nazis who were marching through central Florida a few months ago. To paraphrase Trump with a bit of sarcasm, there's very fine people on both sides.
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I'm no fan of Musk's politics either, but Tesla did manage to light a fire under the butts of the other automakers who were content to keep selling us ICE vehicles until the last drop of oil was pumped from the ground.
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I'm no fan of Musk's politics either, but Tesla did manage to light a fire under the butts of the other automakers who were content to keep selling us ICE vehicles until the last drop of oil was pumped from the ground.
Toyota has been offering hybrids for 20 years and sales of hybrids are booming. Toyota has been criticized for insisting hybrids are a better solution for most people globally but they are making record profits as a result. https://www.wsj.com/business/e... [wsj.com]
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I can't believe I'm saying this, but a hybrid is still an ICE vehicle.
An ICE with very high gas mileage. The current Prius is rated at 57 MPG. With a plug-in hybrid you may very rarely use gas at all.
From https://www.wsj.com/articles/t... [wsj.com]
The sudden concern suggests it is merely a pretext for punishing Mr. Toyoda for the heresy of doubting the West’s hell-bent EV transition. He made news in December when he claimed that a “silent majority” in the auto industry “is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’
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You do realize that most hydrogen schemes are based on using natural gas as the source, and they are just an attempt to greenwash the petrol industry [energyandpolicy.org]
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Re:Japan and Germany are ditching electric (Score:5, Insightful)
EVs that charge from a fossil fuel electric grid are a benefit because the large power plant operates at about over 60% efficiency compared to an ICE with efficiency around 25%
It just gets way better when you also have solar panels and use that to charge the car
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China now accounts for nearly 60% of EV sales worldwide. When it comes to the electric vehicle (EV) market, China is leading the charge ahead of traditional automotive juggernauts like Germany and Japan. China's new EV sales increased by 82% in 2022, accounting for nearly 60% of global EV purchases. [hbr.org]
Your BS is getting stale chas, maybe it is time to accept that you are not all knowing and start learning what is happening before spouting such nonsense
Re:Japan and Germany are ditching electric (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is, in a sufficiently dense region (like Japan), it could make sense.
The distribution method/locations already exists.
Hydrogen will never make sense. The round-trip from electricity through a battery is O(99%) efficient. The round-trip through hydrogen is O(32%) efficient [strath.ac.uk]. That means you can basically power roughly three EVs with the same amount of power it takes to produce hydrogen for one fuel cell car.
And it's not a matter of "Perfectly green".
Hydrogen isn't green at all. You either make it by cracking natural gas (which is not really any greener than burning natural gas unless you sequester the carbon somehow) or you make it by electrolysis and you use so much more power that with an average energy mix that you're probably better off driving an ICE car.
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Japan may be going hydrogen, but the people buying cars don't seem to be: https://www.hydrogeninsight.co... [hydrogeninsight.com]
Re: Japan and Germany are ditching electric (Score:5, Informative)
Lose a little carbon?? LOL! Do you know how hideously inefficient electrolysis is? Then you have to transport and store this very explosive gas which leaks through pretty much any rubber and plastic. At the end you lose about 75% of the energy compared to just putting the electricity direct into a battery.
Oh, and fuel cells have even shorter lives than lithium batteries.
HTH
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Hydrogen is an amazing fuel. How do you go about capturing or manufacturing it?
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I recall George W Bush promoting the hydrogen economy during his terms, but it never got anywhere. I wish it had. I drive electric, but would be fine with hydrogen based system. Why can't we have moderate battery sizes with hydrogen tank and fuel cells so we have unlimited range when needed, and charge at home for daily commute?
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Perhaps we can use hydrogen in our air ships. What could go wrong?
What about the crash risks? (Score:2)
How do they handle in a crash, especially with 2 of them crashing?
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That seems to be the only real downside
You can literally plug an EV in anywhere there's an outlet and it can be "refueled", albeit slowly. You can charge twice as fast if you exploit a quirk in our split-phase power by using a Y shaped adapter which combines two 120v branch circuits into one single 240v (the proper outlet it should terminate in is a NEMA 6-15, but since it's not proper electrical code to begin with, people usually just hack on whatever socket fits their existing EVSE and then turn the charging rate down to 12.5A).
Despite the ub
That doesn't answer my question about hydrogen (Score:2)
Yeah they can build more charging stations and more infrastructure but we are literally debating whether we should spend that money on electric vehicles with long charge times and huge weight increases or if we should spend it on hydrogen that doesn't have those problems.
Also electr
same old lie from rsilvergun (Score:2)
"Also electric vehicles burn through tires like crazy and those tires turn into particulate that you end up breathing. A huge part of the air pollution, in fact most of it, is from tire particulate and electric cars are going to make that substantially worse."
This lie never gets old for you, no matter how many people and how often you get called on it. Tire particulates are NOT a "huge part" of "the air pollution", nor do "electric vehicles burn through tires like crazy". It's almost as if it is impossibl
You've got Google you know it's not a lie (Score:2)
And you can find plenty of studies and articles showing that the smog we're breathing these days is tire particulate at a rate of about 2000 to1. Where the hell did you think those tires were going?
Love you si
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I would like to think there aren't any nerds left to haven't figured out that Elmo isn't one of them.
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On the flipside - I've never seen a hydrogen refueling station.
And it's not getting better... there are only 58 across the US and Canada right now, and some are closing soon: https://www.hydrogeninsight.co... [hydrogeninsight.com]
Re:Japan and Germany are ditching electric (Score:5, Interesting)
"That's 200x less weight."
No it's not. A battery provides everything needed to provide DC electricity. Your hydrogen only considers the gas, not the storage or the conversion to electric. Liquified H2 requires high pressure containers and then there is an engine or fuel cell.
"...but you just can't get around the economy savings of not having to drag around an extra 2000 lbs of battery when you only need 10lbs of Hydrogen."
2000 pounds is quite an exaggeration, unless you think every BEV is a Hummer, and if we're talking about a Hummer-sized vehicle the fuel cells for that 10 pounds of H2 will weigh 1000 pounds, not even considering the storage tanks.
"Not counting the tanks, but those are hollow until filled and return to a hollow state as fuel is used. Not to mention there are lots of lightweight composite tanks these days."
And yet all still objectively too heavy to ignore for those of us who are not liars.
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Japan and Germany are ditching in favor of Hydrogen
LOL, no. They don't. Cope harder.
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I doubt the petroleum industry is paying anyone to shill on lowly ol' /. Most likely he's just one of those guys who modified their truck to get the fuel efficiency of a barge so they can "roll coal" as compensation for their lack of genital endowment.
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Except this practice works. California mandated better emissions standards for vehicles because they were famous for smog and pollution. Car companies bitched and moaned how they wouldn't be able to comply. California passed the legislation and almost as if it were magic, cars started polluting less.
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Mandating cars be more efficient is not the same as mandating which kind of vehicles buyers spend their money on.
But you knew that.
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Some corrections:
1) the poor are hit hard by gas price increase because they have to get to work every day. They don't shop every day.
2) the middle class does plenty of unnecessary travel
3) the rich may not be dramatically impacted by gas prices however inflation hits the rich exactly the same as everyone else by reducing the purchase power of their total wealth. A year of 10% inflation makes them 10% poorer. There are no magical investments that eliminate inflation.
You are correct about the generally re
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There are no magical investments that eliminate inflation.
A well managed portfolio should easily grow at greater than the rate of inflation every single year. This presumes you have money to invest of course.
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Sure, if you're smart and lucky you can make more than inflation. Or shit can happen and you don't and you lose money on your investments -and- you get fucked by inflation.
Inflation is a guaranteed loss of net wealth buying power.
Investing is a risky attempt to overcome that inflation loss guarantee.
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Now if only we could get the other party to ease up a bit on some of their more draconian positions too out of fear of voter reprisal, we might begin to resemble a functional democracy!