“Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman accused President Biden of being “willing to sacrifice the American auto industry and its workers in service of its radical green agenda.”
I mean we could try and transition workers from a more negative industry type to a positive one…but that seems like a lot of work and less profitable, so never mind.
What the actual fuck is wrong with Republican politicians? I mean, I already know what’s wrong with Republican voters - brainwashing by years of Fox “News” - but the politicians? Are they all literal sociopaths?
No, they’re just doing what they’re being paid to do by special interest groups aka big business. It’s not a bug and it’s not a feature; it’s the point. Optimal profits this quarter. Every quarter is a new quasi generation of executives who want a good quarter before moving on after x quarters.
The philosophy behind conservativism is to stay still. Conserve the status. Do not progress.
But you’re describing a standard Dem. Repubs are actively trying to drag us backwards. They are regressives.
This is so infuriating, especially when it’s so easy to show that voting against progressive initiatives also hurts their own constituents…
This is so infuriating, especially when it’s so easy to show that voting against progressive initiatives also hurts their own constituents…
“I don’t care how much it hurts me, as long as the people I hate are also getting hurt!”
I’m already depressed as it is. Why do you have to do me in like that?
That’s a popular misconception. The philosophy behind conservatism is to perpetuate hierarchy. The ideology was developed by literal monarchists, and when the “divine right” excuse became untenable they moved on to others like racism and capitalism, but the goal remained the same. It only seems like they want to maintain the status quo because the historical status quo was hierarchical, but rest assured: if society were magically egalitarian instead, conservatives would vigorously try to make sweeping, wholesale changes to create a hierarchy from scratch.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
developed by literal monarchists
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Interesting insight. Thanks for the correction. Perhaps the choice of lexeme “conservatism” would best be swapped for a neologism like “hierarchism” or something to better describe the principles of the school of thought. Otherwise, I made the connection like OC that conservatism = no change, whether good or bad.
Otherwise, I made the connection like OC that conservatism = no change, whether good or bad.
That’s exactly what they want you to think. It’s one of the more prominent ways in which they launder their ideology to make it seem appealing to more people than just sociopaths. (Or at least, used to, until they went full mask-off under Trump.)
Yes. The term has been kind of redefined in practise from massive misuse. Just like many others.
Correct.
They are in charge and are going to do everything to keep it that way.
As you said.
Nothing. They’re behaving quite rationally.
You just have to understand that their motivation is not “successful governing” or “making the world better” but rather, “getting more money.”
When you view their actions through the lens of self-enrichment, they’re behaving quite normally.
It’s been so long that the inmates are running the asylum in the GOP these days.
You gotta know at this point the system has feedback. Its possible most of them were raised on the same shit their constituents are huffing.
ever since the tea party and especially trump the inmates are running the asylum
Nah before that was Bush and Cheney getting us into decades long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because some Saudis attacked us.
When you brainwashed for generations, you end with brainwashed in politics. This is just the beginning.
It’s just simple corruption (or lobby, as it’s called in the US), they are saying what the highest bidder asks them to say
Are they all literal sociopaths?
Yes. Just pick one and pay attention to what they do and say for a little while.
rustbelting makes voters transition from democrat to republican. you could argue that they actually benefit from declining industry, so of course they’re going for it
omg politicians being bad I’m absolutely gobsmacked
The American auto industry could also produce EVs, if it so chose. Nobody has to lose their jobs.
As an American auto worker, I like our move to EVs and the jobs at the massive new factories we built. But I guess wanting blue collar workers learning new skills and technologies makes me a gay communist.
Why gay?
All communists are gay trans fairy men who love satan and hate guns. Didn’t you get the pamphlet?
I’ve been dodging memos and pamphlets for some time now.
Two groups conservatives hate.
Because nonsensical insults are their bread and butter, and just being a communist isn’t good enough anymore.
just being a communist isn’t good enough anymore.
Especially since they love Russia now (because it’s fascist), but the distinction between the communist USSR and the fascist Russian Federation confuses a lot of their base.
Because it’s part of the communist agenda.
Tesla is an American company. The ‘traditional’ American auto companies like GM and Ford don’t even build or source a lot of their parts in the US and Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep has been owned by a European company for quite a while now. This guy is a chump and I wish someone would have called him out on his BS.
This guy is a chump and I wish someone would have called him out on his BS.
It’s no wonder. He’s a Republican, so that automatically makes him a assbag. Also, Toyota has a Camry manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Ford assembles Escapes in Louisville, and of course GM makes Corvettes in Bowling Green, so it’s no surprise that he’d be regressive towards automotive tech (even though Ford and SK are spending like $4 billion to build two battery manufactuing plants outside Louisville).
Maybe someone should create EV incentives, with a requirement to be manufactured in country - both incentive to buy and incentive to manufacturers to invest in guaranteed growth area, and for their own future. Oops, that’s what we already have
They already do: Ford has the Mach-E & F-150 Lightning plus a bunch of PHEVs, GM has (had) the Bolt, Stellantis makes a few PHEVs among which one of the the very few cars on the market that can carry 7 passengers on battery power (the Chrysler Pacifica) altough that one is made in Canada, not the US.
Oh, and all of Tesla.
The American auto industry could also produce EVs, if it so chose.
I find that very hard to believe.
A lot of manufacturers are. They just aren’t making as many EVs as they are ICE.
There’s also nothing stopping the big three from making EVs.
And making more than the minimum the government requires them to make for quota. Demand is even there now, so there’s no excuse other than the bottom line, plus a bit of cooperation with the oil companies.
Yeah but it’s cheaper to just kill the competition than expand into a whole new sector.
So I keep hearing people say:
“Just wait until the big players get into the game, then I’ll buy a good car”.
Imo the big players don’t deserve to survive this transition. They had their opportunity to spearhead it but instead literally chose to be on the wrong side of history.
Nothing stopping big players but greed to get into the EV game.
Perhaps they’d like to rollback all the times we’ve bailed out the auto industry. We don’t want the government to be choosing winners and losers, after all.
Please do. “too big to fail” is bullshit. All the equipment getting liquidated could have went to companies that could have started up for pennies. I can only imaging how many companies could have started and where they’d be today if they were allowed to do their thing.
I’m really tired of republicans calling anything democrats do “radical” or “extreme” when they’re just pushing for the most mild stuff. I would die for some actual radical left ideas.
I don’t know what this guy is pissed about. China is going to make their EVs in Mexico, like responsible American companies!
They’ve already made contracts and announcements for France as well.
The funny part is that the US could just subsidize their EVs at the same rate and keep China out, but they’d rather sacrifice their whole auto industry to keep subsidizing oil.
It’s not even less profitable.
That’s weird, because my Ford PHEV was assembled in Kentucky.
and its worker
UAW got bipartisan support, right?
It’s almost like one of the main functions a functioning federal government is to create and regulate new markets. But why bother politicians with work when they can just try to bully people into complacency.
Jesus, what a stupid fucking hill to die on. Republicans never cease to amaze and appall.
If only they actually would die on that hill. They won’t, because they’ve conditioned their base to support them no matter what. Instead, they’ll rot the hill and move on to the next once the one they’re on can’t be salvaged.
Yeah, I don’t get it. I understand wanting to reduce or eliminate subsidies (they’re just a cash handout to dealers and manufacturers imo), but there’s no logical reason to be against EVs.
Here’s my proposal: allow tax credits for private sales. Perhaps add some requirements to certify that the seller owned the car more than a year or something to qualify to prevent flipping.
they’re just a cash handout to dealers and manufacturers imo
The US government subsidized $750B for the oil industry in 2022. The EV tax credit amount to peanuts compared to that. If you want a green energy and green transportation industry in the US, subsidies are absolutely necessary.
Their oil interest overlords are giving them their marching orders; it has nothing to do with logic (as usual) and everything to do with greed.
Don’t forget that subsidies also swing in the other direction to fossil fuels companies. If we want to eliminate subsidies, then why not for both players so the playing field is even again? Otherwise, giving EVs subsidies might actually level the playing field more than not.
I absolutely agree! I think we should eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, increase taxes on roads so road users (not income taxes) fully fund them, etc.
But if we’re going to subsidize used cars, it should apply to the private market and not just the dealerships.
but there’s no logical reason to be against EVs.
There is, if you get paid by the Koch mafia.
Here is my reasonable argument against EVs. EVs only really solve the emissions part of the equation. They dont solve the massive amounts of paved surface, private ownership of thousands of pounds of steel and plastic, they still use massive amounts of energy to move that steel and plastic and building cities for cars is largely ineffecient and expensive to maintain.
We could do a lot more for the environment than EVs. Id rather see their subsidies go to things like electrified transit, cycling infrastructure or walkability improvements.
Realistically, your choices aren’t “EVs or mass transit”, your choice is “EVs or Gas cars”.
Incidentally, your gripes apply to high density population areas, where busloads of people want to go from the same point A to the same point B at the same time, and cars do not make sense. That flips when you get to a more distributed population, where a hypothetical bus would run its route empty or with 2 or 3 passengers most of the time, in which case the car is actually “greener” because it’s not making empty trips and it uses less energy to move 2-3 people.
The only reason people in urban centers do not have transit is because governments neglected to build it. If they can build a 6 lane highway through your city, they could build transit.
We shouldnt use rural and spread out areas as an excuse to not build our cities and denser areas better and service them with transit.
Sure, but be aware that your messaging isn’t so targeted. The messaging is “fuck cars” not “our dense cities need to be more walkable and transit”. In this very thread it’s “we shouldn’t do anything for EVs, cars aren’t the answer anyway, we need to be ditching cars”.
Yes and i agree with that sentiment. 20 years down the line we will realize our cities are just as unwalkable and unable to be served by transit if we build them to exclussively serve the car. We should build cities so walking, cycling, transit and driving are all realistic options. For most north American cities we only prioiritize the car.
Sure, and I’ve seen some good projects, and less than good projects.
In my city, they took a street and closed it and redid it as pedestrians only. Worked great, more foot traffic going from any establishment to any other, and car people only had to walk an extra block or two to get to things.
There’s a section where they made a highly walkable environment from scratch, with car access basically through entering a big mostly underground parking deck, so the surface was reasonably car free.
On the flip side, the city loved these efforts so much they mandated mixed use zoning for all new construction. And the three big projects I’ve seen play out under this new scheme all followed the same recipe:
- Proposal with 90% residential, and 10% “retail/commercial”
- The proposal is phased, with hyper detailed residential plans and a vague box for the “retail/commercial” phase “to come later”
- The residential is built, and then the company withdraws their plan for further development.
One that did go in for the true mixed use early on suffered because no commercial tenant would tolerate streetside only parking (which was effectively part of the deal, given how the regulations were written parking lots/decks were not viable for these “walkable neighborhoods” when they could just have a parking lot or deck nearby by setting up their business somewhere else)
They could reduce the amount of paved surface, since adoption of EVs would allow some parking to be moved underground as they don’t generate fumes like ICEs do. Still should be treated as a stopgap solution as we move away from car-dependemce, though.
Question is what is the population density where you live?
If it’s over 1,500 people a square mile, I get it. Cars suck and they screw things up for you while making relatively little sense. Any mass transit can be reasonably highly utilized with that volume of people. Meanwhile out-of-towners with their cars really screw with your day to day life.
But for places that are, say, 200 people a square mile, cars are about the only way things can work. So hardcore “we shouldn’t have cars” rhetoric is going to alienate a whole bunch of people, for good reason.
The vast majority of people who are anti car are anti car centric urban environments. Noboby is expecting a small town of 300 people to build a tram, we are expecting places with congested highways to build transit instead of “adding one more lane to solve traffic forever”
Sure, and I can believe it, but the rhetoric is not so well targeted or scoped.
“we move away from car-[dependence], though.”
Is not going to be seen with the implied nuance by a large chunk of potential audience, and as stated may create opponents out of folks that really wouldn’t care at all either way.
as stated may create opponents out of folks that really wouldn’t care at all either way.
We shouldn’t change our statement if they wouldn’t care at all either way.
Interestingly, I lived in a small town of 3,000 people and up until the 1950s it had a trolley to the nearest small city, which then had trains that took you to the big city, and from there you could go anywhere.
But now the trolley sits in the town square as a monument, mocking everyone as they drive by.
That’s actually somewhat my argument for EVs. We know there are better ways to live, with lots of benefits including being more environmentally friendly, but it requires long term changes that were not good at and political will we don’t have, and a huge upfront expense. EVs are better than status quo, are needed for less densely populated areas, and are an improvement we can make now everywhere. Let’s “git r done”
Even here in the Boston area, which is arguably one of the best in the US for walkable cities and transit, where more improvements are hugely popular, where politics is solid blue and politicians are on board, transit improvements are a matter of decades. Here in the suburbs:
- I’d take the train into the city but that’s the only direction it works.
- I can walk to my town center and transit hub, and frequently do, but that’s not where my job is.
- I can take Acela to NYC but that’s the only practical destination.
- my town is getting its third commuter rail station, as a park and ride for highway commuters, but that’s many years away and those commuters still need to get to the park and ride
Aside from people whose complete life is in the city, it’s difficult to see a time we could actually give up on cars. However there’s plenty of room for hope and optimism: we can take some trips out of cars, and we can continue to take more. Cars are necessary to step forward but the goal should be to minimize the cases where cars are necessary until people don’t find them worth having
Oh, I agree with you.
In my area, we’re widening a highway, which will cost $3-4B. We had a train project estimate that was rejected that totally would’ve replaced my commute that was estimated at ~$1B and was a prerequisite for a major company bringing more jobs here. We did the highway and not the train…
Overhauling transit just isn’t practical politically.
That said, I’m generally against subsidies and in favor of Piguovian taxes. I think we should:
- eliminate subsidies to fossil fuels and EVs
- increase taxes on large, heavy vehicles and gas to fully fund roads (remove road infrastructure from general taxes)
- funnel money saved from the above into mass transit - our entire transit system costs $20 times the annual ridership
I think much of north america is dug so deep into car centric planning that making drivers pay the full cost would be too expensive for a significant portion of the population and workforce. I think the alternatives need to exist before the taxation because many people are constrained to their car being their only reliable way to get to work.
Making that cost more could put huge financial stress on a family whereas building the rail before the taxation could provide a cheaper alternative before the taxation even begins.
I’m thinking we’d calculate the average cost for driving a car based on a set of metrics (curb weight, miles driven, etc), then apply discounts for certain cars (older cars, EVs, etc). The bulk of the impact would be on large trucks and wealthy people. That would increase costs for shipped products (and encourage local production), which would be balanced out by better mass transit.
It should certainly be phased in to avoid a big shock, but that should be the goal. It turns out that driving for me is cheaper than taking transit because roads are so heavily subsidized. If I had to pay for my actual use, transit would look a lot more attractive.
There’s actually a really good logical reason to be against EV cars: they’re cars.
That said, there’s no good reason to be opposed to them in favor of ICE cars
Fair.
There’s already a solid market for used cars, unless you mean EVs, so no use for an incentive there.
The point of an incentive is a temporary tool to accelerate the transition to less polluting technology. While EVs are new they naturally are more expensive, there’s temptation to import from cheaper countries, but the incentive makes them less expensive to buy, plus incents growth of local industry. I’d also vote to phase out the incentive after that transition has happened: fossil fuel incentives should have been gone half a century ago.
If you’re specifically talking the used EV market, the most important factor is time. The more new EVs there are, the better the used EV market will be in a few years. It doesn’t help to try to increase sales of used EVs when there are so few. If you are looking used, please be patient: let’s do what we can to accelerate the growth of new EVs, and one of the benefits will be a strong used market in a gpfew years
Yes, I’m talking specifically about used EVs. We have an incentive for buying used from a dealer, but that doesn’t apply if I buy from the owner directly.
So all it’s doing is funneling money to dealers. Why would I buy a car for $20k from a private seller if I can get a similar car for $22k from a dealer with a $4k credit (so $18k net)? The private seller would have to sell for $18k to be on par, so why wouldn’t they sell to the dealer for $19k? In this scenario, the dealers pocket the difference. If I could get the credit for private sales, I’d be willing to pay $21k ($17k net), so both I and the seller are better off (seller gets $2k more, I pay $1k less). The result is that prices for used EVs stay higher than they normally would because the private market can’t effectively put downward pressure on prices.
It’s entirely stupid. The dealer certainly provides some level of value (financing, selection, etc), but the private option should be practical for those who don’t need or want what dealers provide. I have never purchased a car from a dealer, and I don’t plan to start now (I don’t trust them), and it’s part of why I don’t have an EV.
There is a logical reason to be against forced adoption before the technology matures. For a lot of the country they are not a viable replacement for ICE yet. They’re improving, but not as fast as ICEs are being phased out and that leaves a lot of places where a dwindling used market will be the only option for many people.
What are you talking about? Pretty much the only thing I see on the used market are ICE vehicles. Do you live somewhere where they’re legitimately hard to find?
Prices for even 200k mile used vehicles are skyrocketing and cheap new cars simply don’t exist. Yes, ICE is the majority of vehicles out there, especially in rural areas, but they are more expensive and less available than ever. 10 years ago I bought a 100k mile Volvo wagon for $10k, put 50k more miles on it then sold it for $5k; if I wanted to buy the exact same car back today with 250k miles i would need to pay $15k for it. As manufacturers shift to EVs that problem is only going to get worse.
A 100k mile used car is already near the bottom of the depreciation curve, you probably sold it too cheap. Adjusting for inflation, $10k 10 years ago is $13k today. Covid did a number on the auto industry so all car prices skyrocketed, but they’re starting to recover: your hypothetical is only 15% higher when you adjust for inflation, which looks about right.
Cheap new cars don’t exist anymore because everyone want to buy fucking luxury SUVs or pickup trucks to drive their kids to school. It has nothing to do with EVs; we actually see this trend on the EV market too: GM abandoned their best-selling EV (Chevy Bolt) to instead focus on a bigger SUV (an electric Equinox, IIRC).
Yeah I drive a Honda fit. A vehicle with a cult following that’s no longer made
I sold it for market value, it was a rare 6 speed one and since then manuals command an insane premium in some segments.
Hybrids: am I a joke to you?
They’re a joke to all the manufacturers that went all in on EVs before the market fell out from under them.
The worst of both worlds? Yes, pretty much.
Are we in a “free market” or we not? The answer is “depends on what lobbyists want.”
Free market goes to the highest bidder.
Free for me and not for thee.
Might as well be the offical preamble of the Constitution (or at least the more conventional “rules for thee, not for me”).
Lol without all the subsidies gas would be $12/gallon. And burning fossil fuels (40% is automotive) kills more than 250,000 Americans per year. Whats the cost of a human life brah?
I think they’re more commenting on how the supposedly “free market” champions constantly interfere with the market when it suits their agenda
Yeah but in this case (EVs) it’s way better for public health and the “interference” is still a fraction of the scales tilted in fossil fuels favor.
Exactly. Those people tend to be extreme hypocrites.
Whats the cost of a human life brah?
That depends on if grandma is being evaluated by an Obama Death Panel (life is precious and invaluable) or by the stock market in 2020 (she has, what, a couple years left anyway, let her die).
In the US there is only one metric: Dow Jones death panel. The insanity of our culture is that Obama Death Panels were an invention of the Dow Jones death panel board to rally the lemming brained right against the concept of public healthcare (the horror!). Oh yeah, obligatory fuck Joe Lieberman.
Yes, that’s the point. These politicians interfere and meddle and cry “free market” when it is convenient for them.
Would have been far easier to just type “there is no free market”
Exactly I am not getting all this subsidy unfairness nonsense that stops Chinese firms from selling cars here. The only difference I’m seeing is that we’re subsidizing cars on the back end through oil subsidies, and they are subsidizing cars on the front end with production subsidies.
Free market involves pluralism of systems and distribution of power as important preconditions. Lobbyism requires monoculture of systems and power being sufficiently centralized to be controllable.
Also, the free market is a tool, not a utopia. It optimizes for whatever the people setting the limits of it make it optimize for.
Hence things I said. Otherwise the wheel is free for taking for the worst people.
Are we in a “free market” or we not?
Not.
Only when it helps to keep the poors in their place.
Not even only. The recognized goal of the modern marketplace is to achieve monopoly. Billionaires write entire textbooks on the subject.
To play devil’s advocate for a moment, is it really a free market if we are incentivizing one technology over another?
When the oil industry doesn’t have to pay to clean up their externalities we already don’t have a free market. You break it you pay. Fixing the externalities by incentivizing better technology is at minimum a correction to the market.
That argument can be made about the tax incentives.
However, regulations about emissions are intrinsically something we want, and we shouldn’t hold back on that just because gas cars can’t get to the level of emissions we need.
It’s too late. We’ve already hit the tipping point. Many of my neighbors have EVs now. They’re everywhere in my city and I’m not in a major city. They’re just plain better cars and now people know it. It’s too late.
Never underestimate the Republican ability to turn things into a culture war. My very conservative neighbor has an F-150 Lightning that his work provides him. When he first got it, he loved it and drove it everywhere. He truly seemed to believe that EVs were a better way to drive.
Then a few months ago he started making comments from the Fox News bubble. Things like, “the power grid just can’t support all these EVS” and “these EVs are so heavy that they’re destroying our roads” (note he has one child, and he bought his wife a 5,800 lb Yukon, so don’t tell me he honestly cares about vehicle weight).
Recently he bought a new ICE vehicle (a Bronco). I truly believe that he was this close to accepting that EVs have many advantages over ICE vehicles, but then he consumed enough right wing news to prevent him from making the switch long term.
Conservative brain rot. Seen it many times.
EV weight is a legitimate concern both in terms of road and tire wear. However, this is a problem more generally given the current market trend towards driving a siege tower around to go grab some groceries.
If he cared about the grid he’d put solar panels up.
Why did I suddenly remember this shit?
Exactly. Imagine driving that around and going “your EVs are destroying our roads!”
We need to do some reverse psychology to remedy this
Is Elon playing some 4D chess?
…nah he’s just a massive douche.
This is literally the one upside to that oxygen thief.
There’s a load of right-wing knuckle-draggers who view him as real-life iron man and therefore everything he touches is cool by default to them.
Tesla being the EV of choice for selfish idiots because of him still means fewer ICE vehicles on the road, at least
Many decades ago, the US decimated parts of cities and a lot of railway infrastructure to make way for cars. It’s never too late to ruin something
Abortions were pretty popular for awhile too but the GOP still uh finds a way. Never underestimate the power of angry idiots in large numbers. Have you seen who is a serious contender for the presidency this year?
Congratulations, Elon. This is who you hitched your ugly Cybertruck wagon to.
Going by the recent firings, I’d wager he’s in on it.
I’d be game to buy one once he can figure out how to build the damn things at sufficient scale
Why? Have you read about them? They can’t go offroad properly, they rust, they have endless glitches…
Well I suspect once they are in scaled production that will largely be solved.
Why do you suspect that when other Tesla models are only marginally less shitty?
There are so many other EV options now and pretty much all of them are of higher quality. Some of them are cheaper.
Nobody else makes an truck that isn’t obnoxiously large
Plenty of companies make them. They just aren’t allowed to sell them in the U.S. most of the time. And that should be changed.
Yes, we’re finally getting some choices. Next time you need to purchase a personal vehicle, please consider which EV is right for you.
There are reasons Teslas are still most popular, and you may benefit by figuring out why, rather than spout propaganda
They are still the most popular because they have the most hype, not because they are the best choice.
What pros and cons have you personally experienced?
Not going to buy an EV. No charging stations nearby. Can’t install a charging station where I live. I probably have 10 years of driving left so I will stick with an ICE.
Seems like a good plan that’s right for your situation, but for all of our future, I hope that’s rare ten years from now.
For anyone in their own house, where it’s pretty straightforward to install a charger …. It’s damn nice to never again have to go to a local refueling station. Recharging your car can be just like your phone: plug it in overnight and it’s just always full.
Yeah, it can be a bit less convenient on a road trip, but 95+% time, plugging into your home charger is more convenient
This is why I can’t be friends with conservatives of any degree. People always want to say “it’s just politics,” but it has gone beyond that for so fucking long that it’s not even a discussion I’m willing to have anymore.
Agreed. Conservatives bring politics into every aspect of their life. You can’t have more than a few moments without them making some culture war comment.
And they expect you to hold their beliefs or stay silent. If you express a contrary opinion, you are the one bringing politics into the discussion. It’s like playing chess with a pigeon.
And by doing so, they force the rest of us to bring politics everywhere, or risk having everything that cooperative society has worked for undone. It’s really tiring to have the be eternally vigilant for bullshit that shouldn’t even be seriously considered.
Politics were and have always been personal.
All that we want to do is see to it that we live another 100 years is that so god damn polarizing?!?!
But what if global warming is a hoax and we improve things for no reason?! /s
What if we do all this and all we got was more sustainable ways of living where depended less on complex geopolitical agreements with dictators? That would suck right /s
It’s all about the Petrodollar and America retaining the worlds reserve currency
Petrodollar shit is all old Soviet Cold war propaganda. It actually makes very little sense. Moreover, having the world’s reserve currency is not really the benefit people make it out to be. The dollar is powerful because the scale of the US economy is enormous, and the US has a lot of friends. But like, the Euro or GBP doesn’t suffer because random third countries don’t settle trades with it. And the reason why eg, China’s currency is shit in comparison is because it’s overtly manipulated and China’s autocratic instincts scare people away from using Chinese bonds as an inflation resistant cash proxy. The same exact things were true with the USSR, which is why they needed to push conspiracies about the omnipotence of the dollar.
Idk, seemed to really fuck with Russia for a bit when the US froze their assets.
I thought so too, but it doesn’t even make sense, because the only one they’re hurting this way is themselves.
If they don’t adopt EVs, it will be to their disadvantage in the long run.
“Long run” what’s that? The only thing that matters is quarterly profits.
unfortunately
Straightup
What’s the plan if we run out of oil? I mean seriously, it’s gonna happen eventually. Even if you want to ignore the science on climate change, you can’t ignore basic laws of the universe that oil is a finite resource. If we don’t have a plan for when it runs out, there will be utter chaos.
There’s not going to be a moment when the world suddenly goes from having oil to having no oil. Some oil reserves are relatively cheap and easy to extract. Other, very large reserves are currently so difficult and expensive to extract that doing so isn’t profitable. As the easy oil gradually runs out, the supply drops, the price rises, and sources of oil that were not profitable at the old price become profitable. This maintains the supply of oil and stabilizes the price.
Eventually oil will become so expensive that alternative technologies will be cheaper than it. This will happen with plenty of hard-to-reach oil left. So it’s true that the amount of oil is in principle finite, but that limitation isn’t really relevant.
Eventually oil will become so expensive that alternative technologies will be cheaper than it.
We’re already there. If you remove the subsidies for oil and tariffs for Chinese EVs, driving a EV would be the cheapest solution.
So prices will go up until you and me will get around with rickshaw. Whoever is poorer pulls the other. And while we bump forth; we wont have to worry about continued plastic pollution. Our rickshaw is made of metal and wood.
Carbon prices and other incentives and disincentives can help accelerate this, and renewable tech and green(er) manufacturing will play into this too. I suspect (and hope) the decline in oil usage will happen well before we run low on it.
you can’t ignore basic laws of the universe that oil is a finite resource
TLDR - oil might be a finite resource but gasoline is not oil and it can be renewable. But it’s also a rapidly shrinking market.
The stuff can literally be grown on trees. It’s cheaper to pump it out of the ground, but it’s actually not much cheaper. Fuel from plants, which we farm in bulk for human consumption, can absolutely be used to create gasoline. It’s also net-zero — because the plant takes carbon out of the atmosphere to create the oil and then it’s simply returned to the atmosphere when your burn it.
Most gasoline in the USA contains at least 10% biofuel, and some is up to 85%. The latter requires an engine tuned to run on it, however it’s possible (and is an area of active research) if you’re willing to spend a bit more money to manufacture 100% pure biofuel that can run on unmodified engines. Porsche in particular has started selling a biofuel that is specifically designed to run on classic cars that were manufactured decades ago. They plan to produce something like a million gallons a month of the stuff, and it will work in basically any car. And if you have a classic car (designed for gasoline that contained lead) then it will work better than the fossil fuel you can buy at a gas station
The thing is though, battery powered vehicles are way cheaper than doing any of that. And if you really need a fuel based approach (e.g. batteries are just too heavy for large aircraft), then Hydrogen is a better option than any biofuel.
So - while gasoline can technically be environmentally friendly and is a usable source of energy for the foreseeable future, in reality it’s destined to follow horse drawn carriages and steam engines, a technology some people only use for their own personally enjoyment or to preserve our history.
Growing crops to make ethanol is not particulatly green. In fact, in most existing production loops we would be better off environmentally to just burn pure gasoline than produce the ethanol to mix into it, unfortunately. Too much water, too many tractors and trucks, and way too much electricity into ethanol production to be worth what we get out of it. And the bit of carbon the crops sequester doesn’t overcome it. Electric vehicles are by far the greenest option right now.
Not to mention ethanol (what the previous person kept referring to as “gasoline”) is far less efficient, can only be used in high quantities on certain types of engines, and creates excessive smog during warmer months.
Don’t forget that every acre of corn grown for ethanol is one less acre of food grown and when you increase from 10% ethanol to 100%, you’re going to need 10x the amount of land to grow these crops all so we can pay top dollar at the pump to live in smog filled cities and get 10MPG in our vehicles.
Burning any carbohydrates in inefficient piston engines is never going to be environmentally friendly, though.
We will move on. As it turns out there are billions if not trillions of dollars in that industry.
If we keep burning oil then our civilization won’t have to worry about it at all, whatever’s left will be for Immortan Joe
Die. We will die. The only crutch that props up our massive jump from 1 billion pre industrialized society to our current 8 billion human beings on this planet, has been cheap and plentiful fossil fuel. Notably, it is the only thing that has allowed us to practice agriculture on a scale that supports our population growth. When it’s gone, there is nothing to replace it, short of a miracle fusion revolution.
The average carbon cost to produce an electric vehicle is about 6 tons on average, not including the battery, about the same as an ICE vehicle. Where does the energy for auto manufacturing come from? Primarily coal and natural gas, with a sliver of insubstantial wind and nuclear power. About 7 barrels of oil go into each and every tire on the road (between expended energy and actual petroleum products in the tire). Charging the battery? Coal, natural gas, and the same trickle of alternative sources mentioned above.
Speaking of those alternative energy sources, what do we use to make them? Building a nuclear power plant is likely the most carbon intensive process ever devised, from the machinery that moves the earth, to the foundry that makes the steel. As much as I’ve always wanted to believe in a cozy eco future, every time I squint a little I can see that it’s all just a coat of green paint over the same old oil field. The people trying to sell you on oil, and the people trying to sell you on alternatives to it, are doing the same thing. Selling you something. That’s all that matters to them.
There is no feasible alternative that changes the outcome. There is no replacement for what has allowed us to create wonders and horrors beyond our ancestors wildest dreams, and sustain a population far beyond anything we could have achieved without fossil fuels. When oil finally becomes unproductive, so will the mechanisms that hold our current civilization together, and we will wind up back in 1810 if we’re lucky, or 400ad if we aren’t.
Call me a doomer and downvote me or whatever. It doesn’t matter.
Yeah I was heavily into peak oil once, too.
Don’t underestimate the power of literally everyone on the planet really really wanting to avoid that situation. Life finds a way.
I don’t hold your hopium against you at all, I would love a positive outcome. I’m not holding my breath though.
99.9% of those people have no power to change anything of consequence, and most of the ones who have the power think their money will protect them.
You’re getting too anxious about what every little thing costs the environment. Yes, you’re right, there’s no silver bullet that makes anything magically sustainable, but there also doesn’t have to be.
Pay more attention to the overall environmental cost, or the change in environmental cost. Of course we’ll never get to zero, but it’s quite possible to get to a sustainable level. The big example is always an EV: sure, it costs the environment a little more to make an EV than an ICE car, but looking at overall costs, you’ve already made that up after only two typical years of driving on most places. And that will only get better as manufacturing gets more efficient and power production gets more green
with a sliver of insubstantial wind and nuclear power
Dude, come on. Looking at US electricity production, yes, natural gas is the biggest. But nuclear production is about the same as coal. And renewables are about the same as coal. And coal is dropping like a rock while most new electricity production is renewables. Nuclear and renewables together are pushing 40%. Despite short sightedness from some of our corporate politicians, it’s way more than a sliver
I fully expected all replies to miss the point. You can’t make more nuclear power without massive amounts of petroleum based energy and products.
But, again, it doesn’t matter, and isn’t worth arguing about. People don’t get it because why would they want to get it? It sucks to get it.
But so what? Yes, there are dependencies and initial costs to the environment. Petroleum based energy and products are integrated throughout our economy, effectively everything is dependent on fossil fuels. Everyone gets it.
Building out things like nuclear power or EVs only effect the operations and only of those specific industries/products. It’s only a start but these are examples of great places to start, where we can make a significant and highly visible difference.
There’s a very long tail of things to work on, for the foreseeable future, but you can’t balk at less than perfect. Do one thing on the list. Then do the next
You’ve been led to believe all of this is a malthusian “die off” that the GOP will make happen one way (ruining the earth to maintain its special privilege) or another (bringing about some kind of holy war). Stop it.
Synthetic. It has profit margin and purpose. Nothing we can’t fix without adding more bad things to the air…
In a statement, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman accused President Biden of being “willing to sacrifice the American auto industry and its workers in service of its radical green agenda.”
If you look up the 10 most “Made in America” cars, the top 4 slots by a huge margin are Tesla Model 3,Y,S,X , which are all EVs, and they are at near 100% (or 100% for some models). There isn’t another American car brand on the list. So when Coleman is talking about sacrificing American auto workers, who’s he talking about? A car that is 40% American because all the parts are made in China or Mexico and there’s some final assembly done in the USA?
P.S. Musk is an idiot, though I’m not sure that needs to be said anymore as its so obvious.
the top 4 slots by a huge margin are Tesla Model 3,Y,S,X
Is that true? I saw recently that 95% of Tesla’s cars are the Model Y. I assume a huge chunk of the remaining 5% is the Model 3, leaving very few Model S and X cars on the road. I’d be very surprised to hear that either one of them is in the top 4 best selling American made cars.
Edit: Just looked up this article of best selling cars in 2024, which includes non-American made cars.
Removing those, it looks like it’s:
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Ford F-Series: 152,943 units sold
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Chevrolet Silverado: 127,563 units sold
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Tesla Model Y: 109,000 units sold
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Ram Pickup: 89,417 units sold
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GMC Sierra: 68,597 units sold
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Ford Explorer: 58,465 units sold
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Jeep Grand Cherokee: 54,455 units sold
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Chevrolet Equinox: 54,185 units sold
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Tesla Model 3: 42,000 units sold (Looks like my 95% number was way off)
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Ford Transit: 39,890 units sold
I’d be very surprised to hear that either one of them is in the top 4 best selling American made cars.
I said nothing about top sales. I said “most made in America”. As in: of all cars sold in the USA, what are the top 10 which contain the most American manufactured parts and labor".
Oh gotcha, I misunderstood. Yes they are very much made in America. Seeing people complain about them and acting patriotic because they drive a Ford cracks me up.
how was that figured out? most evs have a less complex manufacturing process and rely on a shitload of electronic components that aren’t manufactured domestically. i’d be interested to see the methodology!
i’d be interested to see the methodology!
You’re welcome to read this 158 page PDF from the CBO https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/97th-congress-1981-1982/reports/1982_08_16_domestic.pdf
The main legislation comes from the Automobile Information Disclosure Act.
i meant the claim that teslas are the top made in america cars. i looked and found cars.com’s list of the most made in america cars and their dubious Made in America Index and that’s about it.
i also want to just throw an electronics manufacturing industry scoff at the CBOs methodology. i used to work for an electronics manufacturer that did mostly pcb assembly. a bunch of the work was government contracts or prestige stuff that had to say “made in USA” on it as opposed to the more clear symbol of a hollowed out manufacturing sector, “assembled in USA”. every day truckloads of parts from china would get soldered to PCBs from iirc taiwan and that was enough to earn made versus assembled.
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So there are politicans who really believe that climate change is a conspiracy? Or they just don’t care for the future?
Remaining rich depends on them not believing climate change
There’s an enormous amount of money in renewable energy and battery manufacturing. That’s why Texas leads the nation in wind farm power and Atlanta, Georgia is getting a $4.3B investment at its Hyundai electric vehicle plant.
But there’s also a ton of legacy infrastructure that generates enormous revenue streams. If you’ve just invested billions into our rapidly expanding oil pipeline network
You’re not going to want us to give up on mineral extraction across the American northwest or central plains.
This is a real clash of industries.
Comrades, it’s time to follow the example of Rico Rodriguez! Oil pipelines were made to be blown up! Along with military vehicles!
Alright buddy so you want to burn it down and cause utter chaos just cause you don’t like how things are going?
Well, when you put it that way it actually sounds a lot like the US military/government! You too should be friends!
…or are you only interested in blowing up pipelines in rich countries where the correct oil companies and defense contractors already own everything and are making money hand over fist?
If so would you hurt the soul of America like that? It would be like burning down Fenway or smashing the liberty bell to bits. Those poor executives would have to go home to their families and explain through tears and sobs that the halcyon days of shitting on the future of humanity for the next 15,000 years are over, and that consequences for the ruling class have officially arrived.
shudders what an awful thought!
Unironically, yes.
a short emoji novella inspired by your comment
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Oil losing value, someone remind them that selling their bag holding oil stocks is a good play.
If anything, oil is increasing in value. It certainly isn’t losing it.
Less demand=less value. More electric vehicles=less oil
They’re bought by the oil industry
Electric cars aren’t going to fix climate change
It’s gonna help. There’s not an all out 1 solution.
But don’t you see, unless there is one magical silver bullet solution that fixes everything then it’s all worthless and we should go back to dumping CFC’s into the atmosphere.
We should defintely still make EVs, overall they are going to be better than ICE. We just shouldn’t force/subsidize everyone to have to buy and drive an EV like we did with ICE cars.
Electric trains might, but we’re even worse at building them than cars.
They can be built from acorn and twigs.
Are we? Diesel-ev hybrid is fairly effective and proven. Making a pure ev would just mean taking the diesel out, adding more batteries and installing electrical rail or over head trolley cables to charge them. Trains run on a schedule, so logistic planning should be straight forward.
Are we?
Recently, yes. California’s spent 16 years not building rail. The Gulf Coast states have been tearing their rail out and replacing it with highways for over a decade. The Upper Midwest has just kinda given up on doing anything useful, and just watched its transit infrastructure collapse.
My point is is that the tech is there. There’s just an unwillingness.
In the states, certainly. Elsewhere, its wildly popular.
The problem is that highway advocates don’t solve the problem of “who’s going to pay for all this?”. The reason infrastructure in America is in disrepair is that funding for highways is supposed to be gotten from tolls and road taxes. But since everywhere in America is a freeway… there’s no funding for repairs.
Expecting the Government budget to cover maintenance of infrastructure is wishful thinking… unless you’re also willing to agree that the military is allocated too much money.
funding for highways is supposed to be gotten from tolls and road taxes.
Regressive taxation leads to overfunded main roads and underfunded side streets.
Expecting the Government budget to cover maintenance of infrastructure is wishful thinking
Roads are fundamental to the operation of any government. It isn’t simply that states need to maintain roads. It is that states need roads in order to exist.
Roads are fundamental to the operation of any government. It isn’t simply that states need to maintain roads. It is that states need roads in order to exist.
Is it right to say then, that the users of the roads pay for maintenance? Do you expect the government to print more money to pay for maintenance?
Edit:
Regressive taxation leads to overfunded main roads and underfunded side streets.
As opposed to both main roads and side streets being underfunded without tolls and road taxes? Do you expect Government to print money to pay for all this?
Who says EV are going to fix climate change?
Ok then that means we have to consider the fact that Car-oriented zoning laws and construction are bad for our future. 15-minute cities and infrastructure to support alternative modes of transit for longer distances are the way forward.
Yes, but an easy target.
I don’t think it matters whether or not they really believe it.
Those who don’t, believe in money.
Have you seen how old they are? Doesn’t matter for them.
No children, no niece?
Inb4 “both parties are the same”.
While I hate stuff like these rollbacks, we are already starting to see EVs save people money on gas and service, and they are stupidly fast compared to ICE counterparts. That’s something Americans of all stripes can get behind.
Once I tried an ebike, I realized I never wanted to go back to gas engines. So fast, so much torque, and pennies to charge vs $70 gas tanks at Costco (even more at a normal gas station). It just makes economic sense to run PEVs in all major urban areas in addition to mass transit.
With traffic and some protected bike lanes, even a conventional bike can almost beat a car in a 7-14 mile drive in my city. An ebike makes it even easier.
I’d be riding an ebike right now, if I knew how I could park it safely :/ do you typically bring it with you?
I use an Oxford Monster chain and U lock. I park my bike in highly visible areas. Registered it with 529 garage and have the tracking sticker on it. And if I’m really sketched out, I activate a bike alarm that is ungodly loud.
Mostly, it’s about making your bike harder to steal. Cutting through 12mm chain and a standard ulock sucks. Getting caught with it being easily identified on 529 makes it risky to steal and easy to be returned. Some cities also do bike valet or bike lockers.
I mean, how much does your e-bike cost? If you can get one, especially a used one for a relatively affordable price and you actually sit down and tally up car costs like insurance, gas, maintenance, AAA, tires, any number of other costs…. I don’t think it matters if someone occasionally steals your e-bike (outside of it being extremely frustrating and inconvenient). Someone could steal your e-bike every 6 months or so and you likely will still be spending FARRRRRR less buying a new/used electric bicycle than you would just owning a car and using it and then having to deal with the insane never ending bullshit costs of keeping a car on the road.
So idk, build up a savings so you can replace your e-bike if you need to and then just use it. So long as you get a years use out of it or so it has already earned you quite a bit of money from cutting car costs.
Get one of those e-bikes with a removable battery with a key lock, then take your battery so if someone steals your bicycle they can’t steal the actually expensive part.
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we are already starting to see EVs save people money on gas and service, and they are stupidly fast
- there was an article on measurable air pollution improvements in I think San Francisco, attributed to EV use
- the stupidity on industrial policy gets me: EVs are a new industry growing fast, and Chinese companies are growing fastest. Effing idiots want to throw away the chances for American companies to get into the new market. Sure, be more profitable for the next quarter while watching your legacy market dry up and don’t even try to make your mark. Somehow this is all twisted up in Sinophobia and racism and we’re in Bizarro World where everything is opposite
I have arrived! Both parties are the same! No affordable EV’s for you! Keep slurrrrping that petrol!
Hike tariffs on Chinese EVs, Senate Democrats urge Biden administration
“Artificially low-priced Chinese EVs flooding the U.S. would cost thousands of American jobs and endanger the survival of the U.S. automotive industry as a whole.”
I agree, but the real problem with ebikes over light motorcycles is the range. Trying to get an ebike with decent speed and range costs a fortune and the range and speed is still incredibly limited for long trips.
You also can’t ride them on the road where I live, a point that I’ve been trying to get through to one of my roommates.
I like it much better when Republicans stick to pushing for things that are just useless rather than destructive.
Surely the oil and energy companies have their own investments into renewables. I can’t imagine why Rs would die on this hill except for their little culture war.
Because you can’t corner the renewables market like the oil markets have been. Also oil dependence means a constant need for oil. Solar panels or windmills are much more install and forget. So yeah, they can invest in oil alternatives, but they won’t make nearly as much money from it.
Oil companies usually do not, but electricity companies do. The problem is that oil companies are great in geology, drilling and chemistry. Geothermal is a similar skill set and chemistry can be used in other products, but the first is small business and the other not renewable nexessarily.
republicans are raping the planet.
bOtH SiDeS AkShUaLlY
The cybertruck can go, sure, but let the rest be
You probably forgot about the Hummer.
wait they made an electric hummer?
edit: son of a gun
Unfortunately.
Yeah i did heh.
You could easily argue the Hummer is symbolic of the problem with legacy manufacturer’s attempts at EVs, or at least the most extreme
Rather than create an EV anyone can afford, rather than design a vehicle around the needs of an EV, rather than care about any sort of efficiency …. Take a monster of excess and just keep adding thousands of pounds of batteries until it works. And you end up with more of a monster of excess: excessive price, excessive consumption of batteries/materials, excessive weight. You have a vehicle designed for people who values excess, made it even more excessive and expensive, and try to sell it to customers in the name of efficiency and reduced pollution. Of course it won’t work.
They can go whether the driver wants them to or not once the pedal is stuck down. (Unless they’ve been mildly dampened outside of car wash mode.)
Then by all means let them drive themselves right off a high cliff
While I like the idea, unfortuanlty, that is bad for the environment. We are better off driving them into recycling plants to put the battieires and other materials towards something useful.
True. I was just thinking of the least expensive option
