For the EV mafioso

[KCSgtMaj]

I thought I would share this video for those that think ”oil bad”.

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[AndySpill]

I thought I would share this video for those that think ”oil bad”.

Hey Andy:

It may be that classifying oil as bad is the wrong way to look at this. A fairer approach might examine the true cost and benefit of competing energy sources.

Certainly, despite the advances in batteries, there is no denying that in a energy density per weight view of things, hydrocarbons pack more bang for buck than do battery power plants. To rephrase, there's a reason that aviation continues to run on "old dinosaurs" and will for the foreseeable future. That battery weighs too much (at least right now) for the power it provides for such aviation to get much off the ground (literally and from a production standpoint.) Sure, you here about the occasional battery powered plane but no way is the commercial or defense aviation industry ready to make that leap.

And there is no denying that not only do EVs have their own carbon footprint to produce and decommission (we've got to put those components of their propulsion batteries that can't be recycled someplace, as we trade off air for ground pollution) much that in fairness we have to take into account such footprints in the production, use and decommissioning of ICE (internal combustion engine) power plants as well.

And sure, the electric grid isn't there yet, and vulnerable--some say because of the very weather events produced by global warming) and take longer to fuel and and currently make it more difficult for more urban dwellers to own EVs, the very places that because of smog that such vehicles paradoxical best belong in.

In my own take on the world I am pulled between two effects of greed: one making for efficiency and the other for our own demise as a race, depending on how we apply that greed. Two famous examples from the entertainment world of these pros and cons follow:





Mills makes some good points. But he also seems to brush over some of the reasons why moving off of hydrocarbons, despite all the legitimate reasons he raises against it, is believed to be the lessor of two evils: climate change being the most evil of them all, to the extent that you subscribe to the cause and effect of CO2 emission and bad weather. And some of the reasons he raises against EVs, such as import dependence need to be counterbalanced by the fact that hardly are all the components and fuel sources for ICE power plants domestically sourced.

The economic theory at play here, and this has proven itself in history in so many places, not the least of which being the history of the very ICE automobile industry from which we seek to divest ourselves of---so it's not voodoo science, are economies of scale and innovation.

Through government incentive we can motivate people towards buying the EVs that through their very production there will rise economies of scale and innovation that bring down their cost: both paid at the dealer and to the environment.

To the climate scientists, Mills claim that EVs are too expensive is wrong. Rather, ICE power plants are too "inexpensive" (yes: I have seen the outragous sticker on a Wagoneer) in that the costs of their use on the world around us and to remediate the problems they environmentally cause aren't being fairly reflected in their cost.

And our economies are such that we can't simply start on day 1 adding all those costs to purchase price. Rather, we have to transition people in controlled ways off ICE power plants, and that they only account for 10% of energy usage isn't reason to ignore the importance of this transition, but to seek to reap the technological benefits of this sector's innovation into other polluting sectors as well.

EVs, like Democracy, to quote Churchill, may be "the worst form of (government) propulsion, except for all the others."

 

[grimmjeeper]

IBTL

 

[TheRaven]

The bottom line is very simple - it is too early, right now, to be pushing the populace to EVs. There's nothing wrong with offering them as an alternative, but trying to push everyone (i.e. "by 2035 major automakers will be only offering EVs" and so on) is a disastrous idea. At this point in time it looks like EVs are our best choice for the future of individual transportation. But that future is going to come more slowly than many would like, and there's nothing we can do about that...assuming we want to actually IMPROVE humankind's carbon footprint.

 

[Pape]

There is some big thumbs on the free market scale, not sure they are all for the reported reason.

 

[ceddy]

There's a funny (sad) story up here in Canada, the governments invested (donations really...) to have a company make electric school buses. Then they also gave huge subsidies to busineses to buy the buses while also footing a huge part of the cost of installing charging stations...then they are surprised demand dries up the minute they stop paying. They created the demand from thin air and it evaporates just as fast. It has to be market demand. Stop picking winners and loosers!!!

 

[Pape]

There's a funny (sad) story up here in Canada, the governments invested (donations really...) to have a company make electric school buses. Then they also gave huge subsidies to busineses to buy the buses while also footing a huge part of the cost of installing charging stations...then they are surprised demand dries up the minute they stop paying. They created the demand from thin air and it evaporates just as fast. It has to be market demand. Stop picking winners and loosers!!!

C series 2.0

 

[KCSgtMaj]

There's a funny (sad) story up here in Canada, the governments invested (donations really...) to have a company make electric school buses. Then they also gave huge subsidies to busineses to buy the buses while also footing a huge part of the cost of installing charging stations...then they are surprised demand dries up the minute they stop paying. They created the demand from thin air and it evaporates just as fast. It has to be market demand. Stop picking winners and loosers!!!

There was a school district here in the U.S. that tried EV buses. It failed after spending big money. If there’s no electrical grid advancement true EV’s ain’t gonna make it. Filling stations back in the early days were easy and inexpensive, hence the ridiculously rapid growth of the ice automobiles. Running wires and building power plants is ridiculously expensive. Not to mention the watts per mile IMO will be just as expensive as gasoline or more. I don’t think EVs are the future. I think it’s neat tech, but that’s about it. Without govt. subsidies I think EVs die a slow death. NY Governor wants to EV the whole School bus fleet at a price tag of $20 billion u.s. which includes cost of vehicles and infrastructure to charge them. It’s easy to spend other people’s money when there are no consequences.

 

[Dusty Dude]

Chicago converted their diesel public transportation buses and garbage trucks to CNG for a fraction of the cost. They are more reliable, environmentally cleaner, AND they work in cold weather. The infrastructure for refueling was pretty much already there.

Yet our government makes it difficult for the public to use CNG. They are putting their thumb down on the scale in favor of other more controllable technologies.

 

[driventoadventure]

My debunk of this fallacious video:

EV's ARE simpler. This is fact, unquestionable by anyone honest and/or competent. The argument that the chemical processes in the battery are equivalently complex to the thousands of moving components on an ICE is straight up ludicrous. First, because the chemical process is a solid-state process in that it occurs naturally without requiring any external influence once the components required to make the natural process are assembled into the combination which causes them to occur. Stating that these systems require cooling to optimize their efficiency is not an example of systemic complexity - especially when these processes occur exponentially more in the reference system that is being touted as no worse. Overall, the vehicle is simpler in that there are far fewer mechanical interactions, virtually zero (comparatively speaking) moving parts, and the system interactions are much simpler in that you have far fewer material interactions to worry about things like galvanic interactions.

EV's extractive processes produce pollution elsewhere (implying ICEs do not) - this argument is constantly used to say that "EV's pollute more when being made by more than the fuel burned in ICEs" and rarely accounts for the construction of the ICE. Sure, an EV will require mining more Lithium than an ICE, but an ICE will require more materials such as Aluminum, Iron, etc simply in the engines, let alone the rest of the drivetrain, etc. It also never accounts for the fact that EV batteries can now be recycled and up to 95%-99% of the material can be reused economically. No engine or drivetrain has that much recyclability.

The "EV sales slump is proof that people don't like them" is a fallacy that we all here should be intimately familiar with. EVs sales are no greater affected right now than ICE sales are simply as an effect of increased financing costs and increased overall vehicle cost relative to income.

The one true statement he made is that EVs aren't particularly "revolutionary" in that some of he first automobiles were EVs, and they came largely to a similar conclusion as most non-biased people today come to - EVs are really nice, but the energy storage technology still isn't at the level that hydrocarbons are, yet.

The most egregious fallacy though, is that only EVs are given tax benefits... The reality is that fossil fuels are far more heavily subsidized. Between 2021 and 2023 it's estimated that even before externalities, the fossil fuel industry in the US was subsidized by about $1200 billion dollars (yes 1.2 trillion, but here's why I used that number) compared to approximately $28 billion dollars for the EV industry. Even accounting for total subsidies since introduction in 2015, the best data that I can find shows less than $60 billion has ever been subsidied to EVs, but there's no definitve single source, just some quick math of many sources.

In case you think I am pulling information out of my ass, here are some of the sources used and you will note that I am using sources across multiple policital biases:

https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel-subsidies-surged-to-record-7-trillion
https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fa...-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs
https://goodjobsfirst.org/report-at...c-vehicle-factory-subsidies-are-in-overdrive/
https://itrfoundation.org/the-recen...ies-for-electric-vehicles-and-semiconductors/
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/10/electric-vehicle-subsidies-help-the-climate-u-s-automakers
https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/

 

[JesseT]

There is some big thumbs on the free market scale, not sure they are all for the reported reason.

I have no idea what a free market for transportation would even look like. It's been messed with so much by both public and private entities over the last century+.

It's been affected by things like:

-Fossil fuel companies buying up patents on alternative fuels/vehicles and killing them.

-Government regulations on MPG for different vehicle classes. Know why we have so many crossovers and almost no cars anymore? SUVs have different MPG requirements. A manufacturer can take a car that doesn't meet requirements, lift it 2 inches and add AWD and voila! Now it gets 2 MPG worse but meets standards for SUVs. A regulation meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions just increased them.

-Government regulations on MPG for different vehicle sizes. Know why a 1500 pickup today is bigger than a 3500 from 20 years ago? MPG requirements for light trucks are tied to vehicle footprint. A manufacturer can take a truck that doesn't meet requirements, make it a couple inches wider and a couple of inches longer and voila! Now it gets 2 MPG worse but meets standards for light trucks. A regulation meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions just increased them. Where have I seen that before?

-Legacy auto manufacturers collaborating with fossil fuel companies on the above.

-Legacy auto manufacturers dumping a bunch of money to block public transportation infrastructure.

-New auto manufacturers (e.g. Tesla) leveraging their "green" image and political clout to block public transportation infrastructure.

-Government EV initiatives (even if giving them the full benefit of the doubt, still likely an overcompensation).

-Decades of government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

-EPA regulations inhibiting domestic mining of lithium which ends up increasing the carbon footprint of EV production and producing a borderline humanitarian crisis in the places where it is mined.

-Carbon credits

The list goes on.

In a true open transportation market, EV tech would probably be decades ahead of where it is today, hydrogen would probably be reasonably widespread, vehicles with a variety of fuel sources would be sharing the roads, and public transportation infrastructure would probably be good enough that vehicles with a big carbon footprint wouldn't even be much of a problem because the carbon output of overall transportation would still be less than it is now.

Instead we have this.

 

[NWJeepr]

 

[Twisted10]

There was a school district here in the U.S. that tried EV buses. It failed after spending big money. If there’s no electrical grid advancement true EV’s ain’t gonna make it. Filling stations back in the early days were easy and inexpensive, hence the ridiculously rapid growth of the ice automobiles. Running wires and building power plants is ridiculously expensive. Not to mention the watts per mile IMO will be just as expensive as gasoline or more. I don’t think EVs are the future. I think it’s neat tech, but that’s about it. Without govt. subsidies I think EVs die a slow death. NY Governor wants to EV the whole School bus fleet at a price tag of $20 billion u.s. which includes cost of vehicles and infrastructure to charge them. It’s easy to spend other people’s money when there are no consequences.

Yup. GF works at a local school. NY wants all buses electric. Its failing and it will never work. Ya'll know what winter is like in western NY?

These people are nuts and we are allowing all this crap to happen!

 

[Pape]

I have no idea what a free market for transportation would even look like. It's been messed with so much by both public and private entities over the last century+.

It's been affected by things like:

-Fossil fuel companies buying up patents on alternative fuels/vehicles and killing them.

-Government regulations on MPG for different vehicle classes. Know why we have so many crossovers and almost no cars anymore? SUVs have different MPG requirements. A manufacturer can take a car that doesn't meet requirements, lift it 2 inches and add AWD and voila! Now it gets 2 MPG worse but meets standards for SUVs. A regulation meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions just increased them.

-Government regulations on MPG for different vehicle sizes. Know why a 1500 pickup today is bigger than a 3500 from 20 years ago? MPG requirements for light trucks are tied to vehicle footprint. A manufacturer can take a truck that doesn't meet requirements, make it a couple inches wider and a couple of inches longer and voila! Now it gets 2 MPG worse but meets standards for light trucks. A regulation meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions just increased them. Where have I seen that before?

-Legacy auto manufacturers collaborating with fossil fuel companies on the above.

-Legacy auto manufacturers dumping a bunch of money to block public transportation infrastructure.

-New auto manufacturers (e.g. Tesla) leveraging their "green" image and political clout to block public transportation infrastructure.

-Government EV initiatives (even if giving them the full benefit of the doubt, still likely an overcompensation).

-Decades of government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

-EPA regulations inhibiting domestic mining of lithium which ends up increasing the carbon footprint of EV production and producing a borderline humanitarian crisis in the places where it is mined.

-Carbon credits

The list goes on.

In a true open transportation market, EV tech would probably be decades ahead of where it is today, hydrogen would probably be reasonably widespread, vehicles with a variety of fuel sources would be sharing the roads, and public transportation infrastructure would probably be good enough that vehicles with a big carbon footprint wouldn't even be much of a problem because the carbon output of overall transportation would still be less than it is now.

Instead we have this.

It I think you are mixing some stuff. Working on improving your market share is one thing, creating law and program to sway some one else market in a different direction is putting your thumb on the scale.

 

[KCSgtMaj]

My debunk of this fallacious video:

EV's ARE simpler. This is fact, unquestionable by anyone honest and/or competent. The argument that the chemical processes in the battery are equivalently complex to the thousands of moving components on an ICE is straight up ludicrous. First, because the chemical process is a solid-state process in that it occurs naturally without requiring any external influence once the components required to make the natural process are assembled into the combination which causes them to occur. Stating that these systems require cooling to optimize their efficiency is not an example of systemic complexity - especially when these processes occur exponentially more in the reference system that is being touted as no worse. Overall, the vehicle is simpler in that there are far fewer mechanical interactions, virtually zero (comparatively speaking) moving parts, and the system interactions are much simpler in that you have far fewer material interactions to worry about things like galvanic interactions.

EV's extractive processes produce pollution elsewhere (implying ICEs do not) - this argument is constantly used to say that "EV's pollute more when being made by more than the fuel burned in ICEs" and rarely accounts for the construction of the ICE. Sure, an EV will require mining more Lithium than an ICE, but an ICE will require more materials such as Aluminum, Iron, etc simply in the engines, let alone the rest of the drivetrain, etc. It also never accounts for the fact that EV batteries can now be recycled and up to 95%-99% of the material can be reused economically. No engine or drivetrain has that much recyclability.

The "EV sales slump is proof that people don't like them" is a fallacy that we all here should be intimately familiar with. EVs sales are no greater affected right now than ICE sales are simply as an effect of increased financing costs and increased overall vehicle cost relative to income.

The one true statement he made is that EVs aren't particularly "revolutionary" in that some of he first automobiles were EVs, and they came largely to a similar conclusion as most non-biased people today come to - EVs are really nice, but the energy storage technology still isn't at the level that hydrocarbons are, yet.

The most egregious fallacy though, is that only EVs are given tax benefits... The reality is that fossil fuels are far more heavily subsidized. Between 2021 and 2023 it's estimated that even before externalities, the fossil fuel industry in the US was subsidized by about $1200 billion dollars (yes 1.2 trillion, but here's why I used that number) compared to approximately $28 billion dollars for the EV industry. Even accounting for total subsidies since introduction in 2015, the best data that I can find shows less than $60 billion has ever been subsidied to EVs, but there's no definitve single source, just some quick math of many sources.

In case you think I am pulling information out of my ass, here are some of the sources used and you will note that I am using sources across multiple policital biases:

https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel-subsidies-surged-to-record-7-trillion
https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fa...-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs
https://goodjobsfirst.org/report-at...c-vehicle-factory-subsidies-are-in-overdrive/
https://itrfoundation.org/the-recen...ies-for-electric-vehicles-and-semiconductors/
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/10/electric-vehicle-subsidies-help-the-climate-u-s-automakers
https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/

Subsidy and tax break galore. I think none of that is needed.

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