It’s Valentine’s Day and my daughter asked me this morning why she didn’t get the day off of school to celebrate. I should point out this was the morning after a snow day. Kids think every day is special and I didn’t want to rob her of the notion since, as we all know, life eventually does that job for a parent. In my head, I was like “we don’t even get a day off for elections.”
Ah yes, the P-Word is going to show up today. Actually, it’s V-Day, so I should clarify it’s not the fun P-Word. Or the funny P-Word. I’m talking about politics, and that starts with P, which rhymes with “B,” and that stands for President Biden’s attempt to enforce stricter emissions regulations on automakers. The automakers don’t love it, but even more so America’s refiners don’t love it, so they’re running some anti-Biden, anti-EV ads in key places.
While we’re on the topic of emissions I might as well point out that China’s BYD is going to build a plant in Mexico to go with their plant in Hungary. Oh, and VW’s ex-boss Martin Winterkorn is going to be testifying in a lawsuit over Dieselgate and the question will be: What did he know and when did he know it?
And, finally, math is hard. So hard, in fact, that the CFO of Lyft seems to have accidentally inflated the company’s perspective margin rise by 10x. Oops!
Anti-EV Ad: ‘They Want To Force You Into An Electric Vehicle.’
I’ve got the ad embedded above, but if you can’t see it you can click here. There hasn’t been much political advertising on this site, thankfully, but come election season I expect our programmatic advertising (which we don’t control) to light up with ads for people who live in certain places. Apologies in advance.
Our view on politics around here is that we see cars as something that should unite us, instead of dividing us. Cars are not liberal or conservative unless we choose to place those labels on them. In our deeply fractured polity, a shared love of 9th-generation F-150s might just get us through.
At the same time, it’s impossible to ignore that politics sometimes impacts our lives as car enthusiasts or just regular people. Also, some people make cars explicitly political even if that’s not what we want. [Editor’s Note: I’d argue that politics is the single biggest shaper of car culture in the world. Gas crises change what we drive. Emissions regulations change what we drive. Safety inspections change what we drive. Traffic laws change how we drive, and I could go on and on. One fun example I’ll give is from one of my trips to Belgium, where there are absurdly high taxes based on engine displacement. These taxes don’t apply to commercial vehicles, which are defined as having separate rear compartments without seats. So what many enthusiasts in Belgium do is remove their Range Rover’s rear seats, put in a partition, and save loads of money! In Belgium, you’ll see van-ified versions of SUVs running around all over the place. And it’s all because of politics. Of course, then there are the German TUV inspection requirements; the absurd fuel prices throughout Europe that have led that place to be filled with small-displacement hatchbacks; Kei-car rules in Japan; and on and on. Politics changes car culture more than anything else in our world. –DT].
Electric cars are clearly a modern political football. While they’re becoming more popular, they’re still less than 10% of total car registrations in the United States and are generally concentrated in states like California and New York, which are unlikely to be swing states in 2024’s Presidential election.
Thus, we end up with the ad above that makes an interesting suggestion: Don’t Ban Our Cars.
The idea here is that the Biden administration’s stricter emissions regulations for automakers will cause people to have to buy electric cars. That is factually incorrect as there is no specific ban in place or suggested for gas-powered cars. Some states are trying to do that individually, but it’s not a part of this administration’s plans (though there is a plan to make about half of all new cars zero emissions by 2030, but this includes PHEVs).
These ads come from the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, or AFPM, which is made of companies like Marathon Petroleum, Occidental, LyondellBasell, Chevron, Valero, and other major refiners or refinery-associated businesses. I’m extremely familiar with all these companies because I grew up in Houston and these are the places where everyone’s parents worked.
Here’s what AFPM President and CEO Chet Thompson had to say about why his group is running these ads, which leans heavily on the idea that this is about consumer protection and national security:
The Biden administration is overseeing a whole-of-government campaign to eliminate new gas, diesel, flex fuel and traditional hybrid vehicles. This forced electrification agenda is bad for American families, bad for our economy and indefensible in terms of U.S. national security.
Americans are solidly against any government efforts aimed at banning gas cars and imposing electric vehicle mandates. Unfortunately, most Americans have no idea that the Biden administration is fast-tracking such efforts. The public deserves to know now while there’s still a chance to push for better regulations that respect consumer freedom.
This is an interesting exaggeration from the AFPM because, in many ways, the government is subsidizing the production of hybrid vehicles. I wonder if the term “traditional hybrid vehicles” is trying to exclude PHEVs like the Jeep Wrangler, Grand Cherokee, and Pacifica, all of which have benefited from Biden administration policies.
I call this an exaggeration because it’s not entirely wrong. While there is no specific ban on gas-powered cars, there is a goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and halving emissions as fast as we can, with more than half of cars sold probably needing to be electric by the end of the decade for automakers to reach the expected goals (automakers are generally unhappy about this). How realistic this is entirely debatable, but EV purchases aren’t currently growing at a fast enough rate to reach these targets.
The AFPM’s goals here are pretty obvious. If people buy electric cars the companies that make up the AFPM don’t make as much money. It’s as simple as that. The timing of this is also key as the organization is spending seven figures in seven states: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio and Montana. I’m guessing the Montana bit is because of the upcoming Senate race and not the Presidential competition.
What we see here is a classic case of working the refs. While the Biden Administration outlined some fairly specific goals, the actual details aren’t going to be announced until April. Many organizations want Biden to soften the blow a bit by, potentially, changing the trajectory of CO2 targets, et cetera.
The next presidential election is key here because it’s difficult to see a Trump Administration enforcing these regulations in 2027, when they’re supposed to go into effect.
We have a quote from President Biden’s campaign, via The Detroit News:
“While (former President Donald) Trump had the United States losing the EV race to China, President Biden is keeping Michigan at the forefront of car manufacturing by investing in the future to ensure good-paying union jobs end up in America, not halfway around the world,” said Alyssa Bradley, communications director for Biden’s Michigan campaign.
Well, maybe not quite halfway around the world. Let me explain below:
BYD Might Build A Plant In Mexico
There’s another video above, this time with our pal Kristen Lee at MotorTrend, talking about the EV takeover of Mexico by Chinese automakers.
That’s timely, because BYD, which is the largest maker of electric cars right now, is reportedly going to build a plant there.
Top Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD is considering setting up a plant in Mexico, the head of the company’s local subsidiary has told Nikkei, as the automaker seeks to establish an export hub to the U.S.
Overseas production is indispensable for an international brand, said Zhou Zou, country manager of BYD Mexico. Mexico is a key market with vast potential, Zou added, expressing eagerness for a plant in the country.
Not only is Mexico a key plant for the Mexican market, it’s also right next to the United States. Tariffs and vibes have made Chinese brands stay away lately, but at some point, the huge cost savings of Chinese vehicles means that a company like BYD might just swallow the cost.
Of course, if former President Trump is reelected then he may put into place 60% tariffs on Chinese cars, although it’s not clear if a Mexican-built car would have the same restrictions.
Ex-VW CEO Winterkorn Will Take The Stand
In the aftermath of the Dieselgate emissions cheating scandal, then head of all of Volkswagen Martin Winterkorn has mostly vanished. He’s also cited health concerns as a reason for delaying his criminal trial in Germany, but that’s reportedly back on later this year.
So it’s therefore interesting that Winterkorn plans to testify in a lawsuit brought up by investors, as Automotive News points out:
The lingering question is what Winterkorn knew at the time about VW’s diesel-engine software. In his last public appearance at a parliamentary inquiry into the scam, he denied any responsibility.
The former CEO is expected to make a statement along those lines this week, when he becomes the latest of the 86 witnesses testifying in the class action-style lawsuit.
This will be one I’m keeping an eye on this week.
Lyft’s CFO Makes A Big Ol’ Mistake
Thoughts and prayers with the Lyft CFO. If you make us talk in nothing but bps for 90 minutes every quarter, one of us was going to fuck it up eventually. Humbled and honored it wasn’t me. pic.twitter.com/r1AfMwgCOO
— The Secret CFO (@SecretCFO) February 14, 2024
Percentages are tough, and explaining the differences in the movement of percentages comes with its own interesting quirks. Just ask Lyft!
Shares were up 17% in late afterhours trade, despite a major gaffe: Lyft’s said incorrectly in a statement that a key margin metric was expected to rise by 500 basis points this year. On a conference call later, Chief Financial Officer Erin Brewer corrected the forecast to an increase of 50 basis points.
That’s a big oopsie.
Here’s a nice explainer of how basis points work from Investopedia:
Basis points, otherwise known as bps or “bips,” are a unit of measure used in finance to describe the percentage change in the value of financial instruments or the rate change in an index or other benchmark. One basis point is equivalent to 0.01% (1/100th of a percent) or 0.0001 in decimal form. Likewise, a fractional basis point such as 1.5 basis points is equivalent to 0.015% or 0.00015 in decimal form.
Usually, this is something used when talking about financial instruments, like bonds, that only change very slightly so people don’t have to say “We expect the credit yield spread to narrow 0.05% over the next month” or whatever.
By mixing up 50 and 500 what the Lyft forecast said was the company was expecting a 5% improvement versus a 0.5% improvement. Oops.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Kind of a bleak one for V-Day, but I love Rilo Kiley’s “Under the Blacklight.” Some people might complain that it’s slightly overproduced, but I think in retrospect it finds the sweet spot between highlighting a stellar vocal performance by Jenny Lewis and that denser late-aughts Indie Rock sound. Also: “I never felt so wicked. As when I willed our love to die…” just murders me every time.
The Big Question
I know you’re all going to talk about the emissions thing, but I am curious: What was your biggest screwup with numbers at work?
I hate to be a broken record on the topic, but there are 15 “ZEV mandate” states, and every single one of them has carveouts for FCEVs and PHEVs. California has additional limits on total PHEV sales, but the other 14 states do not share those limits. If you can buy new gas cars (PHEVs) and drive old gas cars, then gas cars are — objectively — not being banned.
The ZEV program is a compromise. Biden’s EPA plans are full of compromises. If conservatives vote against these policies (like these ads want) as if they were all-or-nothing bans on gas cars, they are rejecting all those compromises as if no emissions regulation is better than any.
Here’s my Nostradumbass prediction: climate change is moving fast and it does not negotiate — we will see mass disruption in our lifetimes. The carbon budget is running out and we can either wean ourselves off fossil fuels today, or go cold turkey tomorrow.
There will be no cold turkey, there are enough people who would rather go over the cliff than compromise. Mass extinction event inevitable.
The resource wars of the 2040s will be interesting to watch if you live on the sidelines. At least assuming current trends continue
The factories in Mexico aren’t just for the US, also for Canada and to serve the whole of Middle and South America. It’s a bit cheaper to ship from Mex to Brazil than from China. Labor costs has gone up in China and those tariffs of course.
Anyways ; energy independence = wind turbines, solar, hydro, tidal. Stuff that cannot run out. Unlike fossil fuel. Fracking or no fracking.
Unless I’m mistaken EVs run cheaper for the folks in the US than a fossil fuel car. If/when in a couple of years the charging infrastructure is adequate then range anxiety will be a thing of the past as well.
Meanwhile I’m enjoying my 2 V8s. I don’t worry that they will be banned ; they’ll fall apart before those regulations kick in and by then EVs will be more than a fine replacement. Say 10 years from now.
I do not support the government forcing consumers into any product. The products (cars) should compete against each other and the consumer will decide which suits them most. I like the ad.
If gov’d didn’t force the industry to change then you’d still be driving a car without seatbelts, an airbag, a bumper that kill anyone on impact and weak-ass steel that’d squish you in a roll-over. You need someone to setup rules. The industry has no interest in creating safer and cleaner cars for you and me.
‘Merica
Seriously though, have they learned nothing? I mean either you don’t want to lose the tiniest bit of profit to retool to EV/Hybrids or you’re colossally inept and didn’t see, ten freaking years ago, that EVs were going to be a thing.
I don’t think it is that they don’t know this. It is that there is no reward for long-term strategy. Execs for publicly traded companies are rewarded for short-term success.
EVs might be king in 5 years, but you can bump revenue 5% this quarter by cutting Bolt production for more Tahoes (I know it doesn’t work like that, you get my point though). Shareholders want that 5% now.
Frankly it is the same thing in Congress. Congress could pass the most well thought out, certain to be a success plan for some long-term issue….but that doesn’t help you in 2 years when you have to run again. The people voting for you want something now. Your opponent will hammer you for not producing something now.
I don’t even think it’s all or nothing, I subscribe to Kaizen, continuous improvement. That’s in industry and legislation. Perfect example are gun laws, rather than an incremental slow adoption of improvements, everyone want the whole pie, then cry when they can’t get it. Not everything has to be completely well thought out, something is always better than nothing.
We’d be huffing a lot more lead without regulations.
This.
All of your examples are safety related, ICE cars are just as safe as electric cars.
“You think that’s air you’re breathing?” Pretty sure you can’t start up an ice car in a closed garage, sure it’s fine ‘outside’ but people like to go outside too. Some Europe cities actually are caked in diesel soot. And before you say “you’re just moving the problem to the coal plant”, the coal plants have particulate emissions to meet, vs that 50 year old Cordoba scraping down the road. Not that I wouldn’t totally ride in a 50 year old Cordoba, those things were sweet.
There’s also the issue of localization. Probably can build some sort of pollution containment/mitigation much easier and cheaper to target a single plant. People in this debate also never seem to bring up local air quality and only talk about net emissions on a macro scale. Cities of places near mountain ranges that tend to trap dirty air have a huge benefit from moving the pollution away from the population.
See: Salt Lake City during an inversion. I went there for the first time last November and was utterly shocked. I’ve heard other places (Boise) that you wouldn’t think to have terrible pollution get this way too.
Yeah I used to live in eastern CT which had continuous emmissions testing due to the state’s bad air quality. Problem is it’s east of NYC, right along the usual wind pattern, so they’d never be able to get their air quality under control. More than double the in NYC alone, than the entire state of CT, but ok we’re the problem.
Plus, an EV charged by a coal power plant still has about 1/2 the CO2 emissions of an ICE car.
You like lying propaganda? The free market is a myth, by the way.
You must be fun to talk to at parties
But they’re not really competing. The gas cars impose a cost on everyone that isn’t included in the price. That’s the whole point of the subsidies and regulations. A carbon tax would probably be a better way to go economically, but we all know that’s got zero chance of passing because adding a tax is political suicide.
Using ” instead of ‘ for my set prop.
The Chinese can sell a brand new car over here for under 10k even with the tariffs. That shit doesn’t stop them, and like you said, they can undercut ANYBODY and are not afraid to play dirty. A brand new car for under 10k and a brand new EV under 20k will make them an instant hit.
They don’t even need to sell them here. Most of the world do not have a domestic auto industry to protect, and will gladly roll out the red carpet for inexpensive EVs.
All the while we are coming up with the latest memes slamming EVs.
It doesn’t completely matter what the US thinks of EVs. The rest of the world has moved on.
You know the real problem here? If these political ding dongs slow down buying domestic EVs like the Ford ones, etc., then they’ll stop making them, and then BYD and whatnot will come in and kill them and we won’t have a domestic car industry anymore.
I’m pretty sure their costs of making a car in Mexico is going to be miles more expensive than making it in China with slave labor, but still miles cheaper than making the same car in the US.
They’ll still benefit from the lack of tariffs for a mexican-made car sold in the US, and China’s govt can still shadow-subsidize them at the corporate level (back in China).
It remains to be seen if the cars fall apart and/or lack post-sale support when sold here, which could dampen their prospects (Yugo-like).
Frankly I have been expecting Musk to move most of Tesla’s production to Mexico, at least from California, for a while now to cut costs.
Nah the costs in Mexico aren’t that much higher and any tariffs and transportation of those new cars into the US (Nafta, no import duty at all) will absolutely offset those costs.
Not sure why you think ‘slaves’ are building cars in China, you might want to look that up.
The quality is pretty decent, to a point that a ton of people all over the world are already buying them, but then again, some cheaper ones definitely aren’t as good. FYI Tesla (and other brands) are building cars in China and then export them to other countries, the US included. So it’s definitely possible for Chinese factories to build cars that are passing all kinds of tests and rules and what not.
I know this stuff doesn’t register for lots of ‘muricans, but we actually have a law on the books called UFLPA (Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act), which prohibits imports in the US of stuff made with slave labor. I can guarantee they wouldn’t have bothered with this law if, as you say, there was no slave labor 🙂
You can look up details in WaPo, Reuters and sites specialized on this whole uyghur slave labor issue.
As far as the automotive industry goes, there are shipments of parts, subassemblies & batteries being held by CBP for non-compliance with UFLPA, which were being imported by western carmakers in the US. If these companies are importing these slave labor -made parts here, what do you think the Chinese carmakers do over there in China, where none of this gets scrutinized?
“we actually have a law on the books called UFLPA (Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act), which prohibits imports in the US of stuff made with slave labor. I can guarantee they wouldn’t have bothered with this law if, as you say, there was no slave labor ????”
Ironically we have another, even higher law: The 13th amendment right there in the US constitution.
“Our nation incarcerates more than 1.2 million people in state and federal prisons, and two out of three of these incarcerated people are also workers. In most instances, the jobs these nearly 800,000 incarcerated workers have look similar to those of millions of people working on the outside. But there are two crucial differences: Incarcerated workers are under the complete control of their employers, and they have been stripped of even the most minimal protections against labor exploitation and abuse.
From the moment they enter the prison gates, incarcerated people lose the right to refuse to work. This is because the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects against slavery and involuntary servitude, explicitly excludes from its reach those held in confinement due to a criminal conviction.”
https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploitation-of-incarcerated-workers
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-forced-labor-movement
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e
Yes, I know all about our modern day slavery.
I also believe it is an egregious trampling of rights to ban incarcerated people from voting (and even more so convicted felons who’ve already served their sentence). Before I moved stateside, while living in Europe I’ve always assumed that every single citizen of a country over the age of 18 can vote, which is true in pretty much all democracies, except ours.
There are no major car factories in that area. There are no slaves or slaved laborers building Chinese cars. The factories are all near large cities and are all open. The ‘enslaved Xinjiang Uyghurs’ don’t have the skills to build a modern car, let alone do it properly so it would pass QA.
Do you honestly believe prisoners in the US can build anything more sophisticated than the most basic of things? This is in the US, don’t even think of China where a large portion of those Uyghurs is not (well) literate with Chinese.
https://theweek.com/articles/463364/11-products-might-not-realize-made-by-prisoners
Dude, the car parts held by CBP for being afoul of the UFLPA were being imported in the US by western carmakers with factories in the US. Do you really think the Chinese companies in China don’t use car parts made by the same factories which use uyghur slave labor??
There’s also the common policy of “renting” those uyghur slave laborers to different companies, so a plant doesn’t have to be in Xinjiang province in order to employ slave labor.
It’s mind-boggling to me how anyone could be so dense as to stick their head in the sand, or you’re some chinese troll. If the former, here are some links for you, if the latter then obviously no arguments will convince you of anything.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/01/china-carmakers-implicated-uyghur-forced-labor
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/against-their-will-the-situation-in-xinjiang
I read the articles. One says nothing about car parts. The other one implies that some aluminum used for car parts might be made by forced labor, but the report nor the car manufacturers are clear about it.
So again my points stand ; no sophisticated modern car parts were made by prisoners or forced labor.
Did you skip the parts about slave laborers being ‘loaned out’ to factories outside Xinjiang? I just picked 2 articles, there are plenty more if you actually want to find out about it.
It’s ok, I know nothing could convince you, it’s just like trying to argue with anti-vaxers, flat-earthers or Republicans.
I wonder how you’ve become such an expert, you have experience going there?
Mustang had a solid rear axle and 260hp in 1999, 25 years ago. People were still using film cameras. Bill Cosby was still wholesome. Advanced cell phones played ‘snake.’
25 years is a long time. Also, if things go astray along the way it’s not like we’ll forget how to build ICE’s. I don’t know what the best solution is. Nobody does. We’ve really only ever tried one way of doing things and every new road project is above capacity the day it opens to traffic.
Automated vehicles operating in ‘smart lanes’ with sensors / transponders / whatever to keep them on-track could work. It can make use of existing roadways and can be implemented more quickly than building out intercity rail systems.
Mustang had a solid rear axle all the way until like 2015 which is crazy to me
I think there was one Cobra variant that had an IRS available. (Cobra R?) It was a rare trim level, though.
Dealing with a minor but tedious numbers gaff today. A large pre-made section of duct needed to be shortened 11” to fit the new taller unit under it. Maintenance guy came in early, measured 4” down from the flange, cut 11” out of the middle: now the top can just slide down over the bottom, right?
Uh, yeah—but he forgot to subtract the 4” overlap we now have for that flange.
lucky I still have some mastic tape left from my duct days so we can hide his mistake. Fixed the first one: onto the 2nd after lunch 😉
I have never made a mistake, I am perfect.
(wait, I’m not home from work on Valentines yet, I don’t need to blow smoke up all y’all’s asses)
I don’t want to talk about work so just gonna go down the EV hole(yeah I said what I said!
To DT’s comment, I feel like this is different with EVs as the EV cars are becoming a political target, and that gets dangerous when Bubba Rightwing and his coal rolling F350 sees some poor guy in a Chevy Spark and decides that’s ‘the enemy’. Could even be a gas powered Chevy Spark but Bubba don’t know no different.
Previous regulations impacted all cars, mid to late 70s big cars sucked with the emissions controls killing the engines, late 80s cars without airbags had to have automated seatbelts, trucks are now huge due to the footprint rule(that didn’t work out as planned for sure).
So this political theater is bad, I’d much rather the ‘conservatives’ actually care about conservation, or even oil independence, but instead they’re spinning electric cars as evil, setting us back even farther.
Hard to have oil independence when politicians stop domestic production.
You’d be surprised to see how much is exported. Reducing production to meet domestic needs would go a long way to a cleaner future. Even more so with LNG, but to be fair, a lot of that is going to keep Europe from freezing while Putsi has his tantrums. This should hopefully not be a long term situation.
I agree with you but we can’t go all isolationist. We can’t leave partners at the hands of Putin but stopping supplies to are enemies and neutrals I am all for. If we have so much oil why is the national petroleum almost empty.and energy costs so high?
Duh
Hyperbole much?
The US had record oil production in 2023, so you can put away your fake concerns.
…with ground glass for lube.
LOL. Who and where was “domestic production” “stopped”?
Maybe you were not aware of the Keystone pipeline being shutdown blocking the ability to ship oil within the USA? All of the burdensome new regulations blocking new drilling? The total shutdown of any new offshore leases? The gas industry cannot turn production on and off like a light switch. It takes decades of planning and drilling. Not too mention crude oil processing needs new modern plants. There are only 4, I think, and as they age they need shutdown more for maintenance. And sooner or later they are not safe and get shutdown permanently. I got most of my knowledge from columns here.
Dude, the Keystone pipeline that got shutdown was supposed to carry tar sands from Alberta, not ‘domestic production’.
Also we produce more oil now than we ever did under the orange turd.
Turn off FoxNews and go outside for a bit 🙂
True but it was to be processed in the US. Try realclearenergy.org Jan 19th US Dept of energy admits Bidens shutdown of the keystone pipeline was a mistake. Lead to the loss of thousands of jobs, billions in revenue and historic high prices for American consumers. So Bidens own administration is releasing this as an official statement and you think Trump lies. It’s been years since Biden took office, most of the media was biased towards Biden. It’s not Trump open your eyes and see prices of everything have doubled since Biden. For all his faults just about everything was better for just about everybody VS the current shitstorm.
realclearenergy.org, part of the Real Clear Media Group, a right wing outlet. Try again.
But the statement released by the department of energy is true. Heck Biden admits a mistake and you won’t accept it.
Maybe it was Jeff Dunham and Walter dressed as Joe doing it under Donald Trump and the illiterati guidance. All while secretly creating the weather control device first started by Bush.
It says nothing about the shutdown being a mistake:
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/Keystone%20XL%20Extension%20Permit%20Revocation%20-%20Energy%20Costs%20and%20Job%20Impacts_0.pdf
You’re right my bad. It says it caused billions in lost revenue, the loss of thousands of jobs, and historically high energy prices. Nope no mistakes hurrah. Hopefully we can double these results in the next 2 years and double them again if Biden is elected. Truly we need no revenue, no jobs, and prices for everything in the stratosphere.
If if makes you feel better, I live in the most republican/conservative state (Idaho) and electric cars are extremely popular here. This is a state of introverted conservative hippies who like low taxes and want to be left alone. The state is 70% national forest, so it makes sense there are lots of nature lovers who like EVs. There is also plenty of the opposite, no shortage of big trucks here, and also no emissions tests… but it’s kind of a weird middle ground at the moment where ICE and EVs are coexisting and there isn’t much conflict yet.
Sounds nice but the snow. Too much snow.
I’ve been driving a Tesla Model S in snow country for 8 years now. At the time I’m writing this, it’s sitting outside my office under about 2″ of snow that fell today. I can start the heater any time I want from my phone and it will be melted off, ready for my drive home, without gassing out the entire neighborhood.
I brush the snow off and if necessary scrape the ice off with a scraper and no gaming out is done. Frankly with a storm notice I put a piece of cardboard over the windshield and no snow or ice.
This ain’t Montana dude, unless you’re way up in the mountains it only snows a few weeks out of the year. You can totally live in Idaho and barely deal with snow. Just know that the snow weeks are almost never at Christmas when you want them, and once you think you’re in the clear, it snows in March. It is a considerable amount of snow when it snows, but the snowiness is gone so soon that it’s really a minor inconvenience at worst. And even when it does snow, they don’t salt the roads. So really it’s the least amount of snow you can have while still saying “we get a decent amount of snow occasionally.”
You know a company trying to hire me one time said the same about Alaska. I didn’t bite.
Alaska ain’t a desert climate though. Idaho is. Trust me, it’s dry and warm for all but a few weeks out of the year.
But if you don’t believe me, that’s fine too, there’s enough people moving here already that I can give up on affordable housing as-is.
Yeah the Charlotte area is a weird mix too, plenty of Brodozers, but 1 of only 2 Tesla showrooms in the state(other is in Raleigh 3 hours away), plus banking money. So you see tons of Teslas mixed in with the lifted F250s running low profiles. Also Maseratis and Lambos and Hummer EVs, had a Fisker Ocean cut me off the other day, I was gonna get mad but too busy checking it out.
Most recent number screwup that wasn’t actually our fault was we ordered some airline that comes in 60ft rolls. So we ordered 60ft expecting one roll to show up.. yeah we got 60 rolls delivered.
That happened with this one toy for my daughter! We ended up giving the rest away (it was 12 instead of 1).
I’m in purchasing, and if some of my clients don’t have their end of the system set up right (and I don’t catch it first), I may ask for something like 1,500 individual zip ties, and end up with 150,000. Along with ducting, and thermostat wire, and on and on.
Back when Reagan was president my company ordered a dozen boxes of staples. We are a small company with only 15-20 employees.
A dozen cases showed up.
At this rate we should be done with the last case in the year 2070.
I have had that happen numerous times both ways with fasteners. Oh, these M6 SHCS are per box of 50? I’ll get one then. One screw shows up. Other times I have gotten 10 boxes of them from the same supplier.
Revisit the EV numbers in two years. Right now is a huge buildup of factories that will come online in 2025. More of everything and better tech should allow more and cheaper EV’s to be found.
Those EV’s will be increasingly charged by renewable energy. So not only will transportation fuel diminish but so will other fossil fuels like natural gas and diesel. Those oil barons are trying to make profit before their assets get stranded. We’ll still need oil for plastic and pharmaceuticals but much less.
That will do basically nothing at this point, because there’s so much compounding the momentum that’s hurling us into being doomed. The reason being is that it’s not just the combustion of the fuel of ICE powered anything that’s contributing. It’s the manufacture and maintenance as well. What really needs to happen is banning in-country and non-water airline flights of less than five hundred miles before the decade’s out, and in order to enforce this building rail networks between all the major cities that those flights would go to. Not just in the U.S. Planes fuck up a lot of things because there’s basically no emissions rules on them, and they burn some very expensive and very dirty fuel. But apparently that’s too contentious to keep the kids from living in Mad Max in thirty years.
Is jet fuel really that much dirtier than diesel? Or are you talking about AVGAS?
You like breathing in benzene? ‘Cause burning common commercial jet fuel creates benzene, among other things. And you’re breathing that in when you’re working around or boarding the planes. It would not surprise me if in a few decades almost all airports in the U.S. get treated as Superfund sites.
What a way to completely fail to answer and honest question.
Diesel and gasoline contain benzene too, just so you know. I don’t know either, so I’ll repeat Cheap Bastards question: is jet fuel really that much dirtier than diesel?
Yes. CO2 emissions from jet fuel are 3.13:1. Meaning for every 1kg of jet fuel burned, it produces 3kg of carbon dioxide.
Traditional gasoline has a rate of 2.35:1. Diesel has 2.68:1
CO2 =/= benzene
The carbon of those fuels has to go somewhere. More CO2 means less benzene and other organics.
The specific carbon content of kerosine (jet fuel) is 82%
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-emission-fuels-d_1085.html
That means each kg of jet fuel contains 0.82 kg of carbon. The atomic weight of carbon is 12 g/mol whereas the molecular weight of CO2 is 44. That means the complete combustion of a kg of jet fuel should generate 3.0kg of CO2. The slightly higher 3.13 number may be due to rounding.
https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php
According to this government source, jet fuel creates more CO2 per gallon, but less CO2 per BTU, than diesel and gasoline. That’s what really matters, since you burn less fuel the more energy dense it is.
Now, CO2 isn’t really what people usually mean when they say “dirty”. It’s a clean, colorless, odorless gas. Usually “dirty” refers to emissions that are more directly harmful. Like benzene. Which as Cheap Bastard has pointed out again, there are less organic emissions the more CO2 emissions.
So, is jet fuel really that much dirtier than diesel?
So, is jet fuel really that much dirtier than diesel?
Maybe he’s thinking of a B52 takeoff.
https://aviationhumor.net/very-smoky-departure-b-52-stratofortress-impressive-take-off/
Those old turbojets were pretty smoky.
You like breathing in benzene? ‘Cause burning common commercial jet fuel creates benzene, among other things.
Meh. I grew up in 1970s smog bowl LA a few miles from the biggest lead acid battery recycler in north America AND I’m a Ph.D. chemist AND I restored a car. I’ve inhaled a lot worse.
It would not surprise me if in a few decades almost all airports in the U.S. get treated as Superfund sites.
Again meh. I live in the SFBA. We have plenty of superfund sites. We also have a significant amount of mercury contamination thanks to the gold rush. Unlike aromatic hydrocarbons mercury doesn’t go away.
The TE of a modern jet engine is about 50%, significantly more than that of a typical diesel engine at about 33%. That means much more efficient combustion.
Now show me how jets turn more of each gallon of jet fuel into highly combustible benzene than a diesel engine turns a gallon of diesel into benzine.
Frankly, yes. But I’m willing to give up one of my indulgences to ameliorate climate change.
And in all seriousness that’s what everyone – especially in highly developed countries, which have been the primary contributors to the problem and the primary beneficiaries of the development that caused it – is going to have to get used to giving up a little something, and that’s not a bad thing. I’m not criticizing anyone for having a boat or a camper that they want to tow, but using it while “socializing” the costs of additional CO2 and chemical and particulate pollutants is the height of selfishness. Rural residents? If you choose a lifestyle that generates more carbon emissions, then you pay for them. If we had a reasonable carbon tax regime, then people and businesses would be encouraged to make more responsible choices.
Politically that’s untenable in the US, of course. JFK may have said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, ” but he didn’t mean it. The last presidential candidate who did was Mondale when he admitted he’d raise taxes to reduce the expanding deficit under Reagan, and we all know what happened to him.
Yeah, it’s mostly right of way that’s the problem. You fight for years over right of way, and then bing bang boom it’s three administrations later and nobody knows what the fuck you were even trying to get right of way for. The rail companies have been doing this for decades at this point, and the federal government keeps neutering themselves just because of an agreement made back in the 1880s that created an autonomous governing body that doesn’t have to answer to anyone.
Really the fastest solution is to just commandeer the Interstates that destroy cities by going through them and replace them with rail lines. Most cities are getting rid of artery Interstates like that anyways. So you do that and then dismantle the independent rail board that keeps fucking everything up and put all that under the jurisdiction of the Federal Railroad Administration like it should be.
Yeah, no. It would be cheaper to buy everyone an EV, put in inductive or overhead charging, and add “smarts” to the existing roads than to do rail again. Not happening.
It would be cheaper in the same way putting rubber cement on your cracking sidewall would be cheaper. You’re just delaying a problem that needed fixed a long ass time ago, and when that cheap solution finally stops working the cleanup and replacement will be dozens of times more expensive and resource intensive than just implementing the original proposed fix.
Rail is great for cargo. It’s not great for moving people in a timely manner that *they* want to move in. I’ve been all over Europe and I’ve been to China and India. I’ve looked at Japan. There are still a ton of cars there, and they aren’t going away. Passenger rail isn’t the answer. Autonomy will eventually be the prefered solution. The only question is the timeframe.
Cars are the alternative to public transport in places like that. Most of eastern and southern Europe is still making the transition away because places like Spain can’t really afford to go all in right away, but they’re also moving towards rail-centered public transport. But northern and western Europe are straight up banning cars from their cities, starting with the city centers and radiating out from there, because light rail and long distance rail do the job.
As for Japan, as far as I know the only reason people own cars there is because they travel between prefectures or work jobs where they can’t bring things on public transport, because otherwise there’s train and bus stops going everywhere and most stuff is within a few city blocks of a train.
India is still developing and is a goddamn mess where most people still use motorcycles because the existing public transport systems are overwhelmed due to the massive population boom after the 1970s. Their government isn’t things better by focusing on pet projects and ignoring southern India. Even with outside help there’s no way India’s catching up with the rest of the world before 2050 in terms of infrastructure.
And while China’s finances are faltering and they expanded well beyond what they could reasonably support, their rail network gets a ton of use. It’s estimated that nearly 20% of all Chinese people use it, and while the government’s quarantine measures cut a chunk out of their total ridership numbers, they’re still climbing. China’s total population is about 1,800,000,000 right now, and their annual ridership rates were around 2,000,000,000 for 2022, which is higher than the total population. It’s difficult to get numbers for distances over fifty miles, but I would bet at least 5% of all Chinese people use rail to cover distances over fifty miles.
I can straight up tell you this: It appears that you haven’t ever been in France during a rail strike. Rail can only work if it’s rock solid, and even in those places (looking at Japan here) there are still a ton of cars. I watched British colleagues trying to get out of Paris the last time I was running training and a strike hit. No thanks. Not to mention it doesn’t work well out of high density areas, but cars work anywhere. It’s an interesting fantasy, but it’s not happening.
I can tell you haven’t lived anywhere in the Northeast Megaplex. Here’s a hint: cars don’t work well here. NYC sees about 800k daily drivers. The NYC adult population is about 6 million. So how does ~5 million of it’s adults move anywhere? About 4 million of them ride the subway and/or the bus. One NYC subway train can move more people in a smaller footprint than what cars can ever hope to achieve, even in one of the more neglected lines that people claim to be a waste of money funding. Meanwhile it takes a car longer to get to some places in Manhattan and Brooklyn that it is faster to walk the distance, nevermind renting a bike or you know, sitting in a subway car.
Fun fact: most folks in the USA don’t live in high density areas that work well for rail transit. This is a trend that will continue as remote work normalizes because it’s not cheap to live in NYC or any other major city.. I’ve visited the NorthEast megaplex — I’d never live there because it’s a death trap in a pandemic or a serious natural disaster.
And likewise, very high density areas with a ton of people don’t work well with cars
Understood. The original comment way up the chain was “car bad trains good” which is complete bovine excrement. Use rail if it makes sense, but it doesn’t make sense in most of North America. Heck, look at how badly NYC did with mass transit during covid. It’s simply too fragile for anything other than special cases for passenger use.
Unfortunately, you reinforced the arguments that the ad made.
Your solution only works in Cities or higher-density areas.
I live 10 miles outside of town. I’ve never seen a bus in the area. When I did work downtown and took transit, I had to drive 10 miles to the nearest bus stop. Take the bus to the train station and then the train to get to work.
A lot of rail systems are designed to bring people in / out of the city. Around here, the jobs in the city proper are finance, education, health care. Most other work is scattered through the suburbs in office and industrial parks. While the subway runs on a relative quick schedule, the commuter rail trains run hourly for much of the day. Depending on timing, this could make a huge difference to your commute time.
Even in a place with a good rail system, you’d often have to ride one rail line all the way into the city and another line back out to a suburb. In order to make the system attractive, there’d have to be rail linking suburbs to other suburbs.
For US transportation GHG emissions, aviation counts for 10%, heavy and medium duty trucks count for 24%, and light duty vehicles count for 58%.
In terms of climate change, aviation is objectively not as big a deal as road transport.
I remember being disappointed by “Under the Blacklight” when it came out, but it has aged very well.
This is the drama I expected in the comment section today.
> our programmatic advertising (which we don’t control)
You really might wanna look harder into that. This is not going to be a fun season to not be controlling what’s on your page. We’re all sophisticated enough here to be able to separate Autopian the Brand from whatever godawful horseshit some depraved politico decides should be shoved in the face of whatever poor SOB wins the algorithm lottery that day, but this is the internet, and there’s a lot of dumb assholes out there.
Programmatic is pretty tough to wrangle, this site might be able to blacklist certain categories but it’s not foolproof.
What just got me in the wallet was being double-taxed (or fee’d, or whaetver) for owning a plug-in hybrid in Oklahoma. While the PHEV is, in my opinion, the best transition car to get to a less fossil-fuel intensive transportation future, I am currently being punished for it by my state’s registration fees. In order to “offset” the reduction in the (absurdly low) fuel tax dollars that EV and PHEV owners pay, the state has put in a substantial “electric fee” for EVs and PHEVs in addition to the registration. Since the vast majority of PHEVs get less than 30 miles of electric range, and Oklahoma has massive sprawl that means daily mileages driven here are higher than average, a PHEV owner is still going to be using a significant amount of gas, in addition to paying the “electric fee” when they register (which is not much lower than the fee for a pure EV).
I wouldn’t be so annoyed, but it feels poorly calculated, and since they’re scaling the fee by GVWR, theoretically to compensate for the additional wear on the infrastructure from heavier vehicles, why not do the same for ALL registration fees? Or at least maybe do a better job at fixing our garbage infrastructure so potholes don’t eat my tires every year.
Bad news, they’re doing it because they’re a state controlled by the various fossil fuel lobbies. They don’t want you to own an electric car, partial or not.
Back in like 2016ish I had lunch with Oklahoma Senator James Lankford. I was working in O&G for a drilling equipment company at the time and I even thought he was straight up nuts with how pro O&G he was. So long as you weren’t drilling in his literal back yard or wherever he golfed, he was for it. It got me thinking even if he wasn’t getting paid fat cash, he’d still probably pursue the same policies. He just gave off a “better than thou, gotta teach everyone else a lesson” type vibe the whole time. 99% of his questions were leading questions on how he can better dismiss concerns around fracking, earth quakes, and ground water pollution – all of which were pretty big concerns in Oklahoma at the time. He didn’t like the message that they were 100% valid concerns for people to have, but proper regulation was really the best way to minimize risks from those activities, but ultimately a risk will always be there.
Sadly, that describes about 95% percent of Oklahoma’s elected and appointed officials.
I never saw a group that didn’t have their own NIMBY philosophy.
I mean, that’s been made fairly obvious from the get-go. Same with rooftop solar, etc.
Exactly how much are you being “punished” for?
An additional $118 a year on top of the normal registration fee. I’m very sure that’s more than offsetting the gas tax that I’m not paying.
Ouch. $2/week isn’t horrible though. I’m sorry your state doesn’t see them equally.
I wouldn’t mind so much if it were appropriately scaled. As it is, it’s about 75% of the fee for a full EV in the same GVWR class. I don’t think I’m doing 75% of my driving on electrons, since the van is also my long-distance hauler. It also more than doubles my registration fee.
Doing the math, the “electric fee” is the equivalent of the tax from 621 gallons of gas, which at my van’s nominal 30MPG is 18K miles or thereabouts. That math doesn’t math at all.
Heck in Pennsylvania you can get more than a $2 a week hit. With one 10 cent a gallon increase in gas. Not too mention big hit switch to summer gas.
My Model 3 is $110 in extra taxes in Oklahoma and my wife’s Model Y is a little more. When I did the math on vehicles with similar GVWRs and 12k/year annual mileage, their extra tax was well within reason.
It sounds like the PHEV tax is calculated just like the EV tax, which is wrong.
Yeah, it’s not at all unreasonable for a full EV. I think they didn’t math correctly for the PHEVs, but “bad at math” is very Oklahoma.
The $118 for my van is the same amount as the tax on 621 gallons of gas. At my van’s nominal 30MPG, that’s 18K miles. So I’m paying an “electric fee” on the assumption that I’m driving 18,000 extra miles on electricity alone. Plus the tax on the gas that I do use. It’s bad math.
I’d love to see a counter ad showing folks in a blacked out home during a bomb cyclone, warm and comfortable thanks to their V2H PHEV providing all the power and heat they could want.
That’s good old American individualism right there!
‘Murica! Fuck YEAH!!
Heck, market it specifically at Texas:
“Fragile electrical grid got you down? Tired of outages in hot, cold, and regular weather? Here’s how a PHEV can help…”
Ford did that when things went south 2 years ago. It was a smart move for them to take F-150 Powerboosts off of the lot and power homes.
IMO they haven’t taken it nearly far enough. If you REALLY want your PHEV to be useful during an extended winter blackout you need:
I don’t think any of those is unreasonable or particularly expensive to implement.
I don’t disagree with most that, although it needs to be balanced against the functionality of the vehicle. I have an F-150 PB now and I can run critical systems with it for quite some time. Can I go full party mode? No, but we’ll be fine. Cypertruck + some solar = nearly perfect middle finger. Our local power coop is pretty good though.
All of that can only enhance the functionality. Running critical systems is wonderful but you can only do so long as the gasoline lasts, then you have to go get more assuming the gas pumps are working. That means the house is offline until you get back.
Being able to plug into a massive propane tank or even better piped gas (which in my area never goes offline) means the PHEV can go a longer time without interrupting the power. You also avoid using the gas in the tank so you also don’t risk an empty gas tank.
The heat exchanger means you can keep most of if not all of the whole house toasty warm as well as the hot water hot using the waste heat. A lot of vehicles have such heat exchangers for the engine oil and they take up very little room under the hood.
All this would also be very useful for off grid camping.
Ohhh the hot water idea is gold
“If you aren’t in Cancun during the deep freeze, it’s your problem.”
Sen. Fled Cruz
You can purchase a decent generator to power your home more efficiently and cheaper than an EV that you can’t move or recharge during a 3 day blackout.
PHEVs not EVs.
Small ICE engines such as those in generators have a typical peak thermal efficiency of 15% and are air cooled. A modern hybrid ICE peak TE is 40% or better and is water cooled making it easier to harness the waste heat to make a cogen system. Cogen systems are upwards of 80% TE. That’s a Hell of a lot more efficient than a decent generator. A PHEV will be much cleaner and more reliable too AND its self mobile so it can go where its needed.
The cost of a generator powerful enough to heat and power a home through an extended blackout I think would cost quite a bit more than what I’m proposing here. You’d also have to store it when not in use.
However if you feel up to the challenge I’m sure you can wrangle a used Prius missing its cat and make a killer propane/NG cogen out of it. It might not even cost that much. Heck you can take the efficiency to the max by converting it to a steam 5 stroke by conjoining the middle cylinders and adding water injection, adding hit and miss, cylinder deactivation, etc.
I don’t get all the science but since you definitely do I will bow to your knowledge.
That’s your first mistake…
😉
Of course I mean on this point.
.;)
How do you get more fuel in a 3-day blackout? Gas stations are powered by electricity…
Why do anti-EV people always try to argue this point? There are plenty of photos and proof that gas stations with no power can’t dispense fuel.
I have these magic plastic jugs. I fil them with a magic elixir. Then I use that elixir to power cars, mowers, snow blowers, rototillets and generators.
Silver Lining is not even Valentine-adjacent. It comes after love with a butcher knife.
Personally I’ve almost lost all interest in new automobiles. Either they’re mostly good but have a deal breaker “feature” I cannot accept, they’re crap, or they won’t be made in time before bad regs kick in that make them crap. I won’t be effected by these regs much because I can afford to get around them with restomodded older cars and moving to more (legally) car friendly states to a large degree.
That being said I do worry about the effects bad automotive regs will have on this country and our community as a whole.
I’m still a proponent of letting the free market solve the BEV issue. People don’t have to buy new cars, if all new cars end up being shit due to bad regs don’t expect people to buy them enmasse.
You can thank CAFE laws for turning every car into a giant SUV
That and the Chicken tax banning more reasonably sized foreign made Truck and Van offerings.
That and the NHTSA accidentally creating a conspiracy theory that bigger vehicles are safer thanks to how body-on-frame vehicles performed better in crash tests during the transition era to unibodies.
I don’t think that’s a conspiracy theory, nor do I think body on frame vehicles do better in crash tests, nor are all smaller vehicles unibody……….?
During that transition era of the early 1980s there were large body-on-frame vehicles like the R-body Chryslers that protected passengers better in a crash. That’s thanks to companies like GM developing things like the E-bodies and A-bodies to use as little material as possible for a variety of reasons like better fuel efficiency by use of weaker engines and maximizing interior volume. When you combine that with the common observation that body-on-frame vehicles with large steel body panels suffered less damage from low speed collisions than vehicles designed with crumple zones, that created the myth — that’s the word I should’ve used, myth, not conspiracy theory — that the bigger, older vehicles were safer in a crash.
Yeah but I am sure the current group of politicians will have us in mind and be correct in their methods this time.
If there were such a thing as a “free market” that’d be awesome, but there isn’t, of course.
Understood and mostly agree. I should have put free market in quotations.
Oil Billionaire: “I need more billions! Sacrifice your children to my almighty altar of profit! Without your help, I might have to settle for a 400-foot yacht!”
I have to ask if you believe the billionaire owner of the world’s largest EV company is any better?
I don’t know that much about Wang Chuanfu.
LOL good one.
Nope.
The one who owns no yacht or any houses, and rents a $50k one-story bungalow? I’ve got serious beefs with Musk, but I think you called that one wrong.
Are we speaking about the same Elon Musk who was recently in Delaware court fighting for his $56,000,000,000 pay package?
I’m not a “billionaires should be illegal” or “eat the rich” type person whatsoever, but the idea that shadowy oil execs are somehow uniquely the worst people in the world doesn’t seem logical to me.
The original post suggested that the big oil execs are more concerned with private material possessions (the yacht mentioned) than the environment. (Seems to be true, by the way.) The response I then responded to suggested that Elon has the same motivation. Elon’s interest in more money is to afford those colonies on Mars — which may be foolhardy, but isn’t a private material possession. He owns no yachts or real estate.
The one who commutes between Texas and California by private jet?
Yes, for business — or were you thinking that was vacations?
What was I thinking? Who among us doesn’t travel 1600 miles to get to work in the morning?
If you’re a CEO with company locations that are that far apart, it shouldn’t be part of your job to travel to them? What’s your point, exactly?
There’s plenty to be critical of with Musk — enough that one doesn’t have to concoct BS to pose an argument.
The People: I inexplicably trust you more than I do my elected officials!
The people trust literally anybody more than elected officials, as they should.
We know what biases a rich CEO has, he’s only being paid by one company. Who knows who’s paying off senators?
Just look for the Senators who live like regular folks and you’ll know the rest are on the take.
Saw the Lede, just came here to say, no thanks
Beware of any special interest group, company or individual whose approach is to wave The Flag. It’s nothing but a distraction; pay attention to what the offhand is doing; usually it’s picking your pocket.
Counterpoint: beware of any political group who doesn’t wave The Flag. If they’re not openly patriotic and working for what’s best for America, then they’re working for what’s not best for America.
Or the think of the children crowd putting kids or animals out front for something that really hurts them than benefits them.
Most people and companies that are patriotic don’t feel a need to constantly claim they are patriotic. Those that really try to pull that emotional string almost always have ulterior motives.
That’s a fair point, you shouldn’t need to constantly show that you’re patriotic, but some organizations NEVER show that they’re patriotic. I think making your motives and values known as transparently as possible is a good thing.
EBITDA (mentioned in the Lyft meme thing) stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization.
Basically it’s a way to show how profitable the company is by comparing before to after but at a different level of detail. Often we talk about gross income vs net income (as with paychecks); the EBITDA process does a similar kind of thing but for a company.
I feel as though this is a distinction without much difference when it comes to actual effects on people. Democratic-run states are the ones passing EV mandates, a Democratic administration is tightening standards, and it’s reasonable to assume that a second Biden administration would at a minimum continue these trends (if not accelerate them). While a Trump administration’s EPA might conceivably challenge the state mandates in court, there’s zero chance of a Biden EPA doing so.
While the real-world consequences are obviously different in degree, this is sort of like insurrectionists/MAGA in the Republican party. Whatever your actual feelings on the matter, if you have the R by your name, you’re by now inevitably (and correctly) associated with those in your party who do believe in violent storming of the Capitol. Similarly if you’re the leader of the Democrats, it’s reasonable to assume you (whether openly or not) ultimately agree with what’s being done in your party’s name in the states. Namely EV mandates.
I would like to see an exhaustive list about what these politicians drive.
It’s mostly large, expensive SUVs that can be written off as business expenses, if I recall correctly.
My state’s representative drives a Maserati Levante, for example. Which he threatened to run people over with.
So you live in Florida?
https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/florida-gov-desantis-signs-anti-riot-bill-that-grants-civil-immunity-to-drivers-who-hit-protestors-and-protects-police-budgets-from-being-cut/articleshow/82147947.cms
West Virginia. Almost as bad, but as far as I know at least we don’t have anything akin to the cult fields or The Villages.
Many don’t drive, they are driven. Why should they care?
This. The best ideas don’t require force.
People resisted seatbelt laws, airbag laws, crash regulation changes, etc….
Yes, good ideas often require force because most of the world is not paying attention enough to care or learn why it helps them in the long run.
Just so long as you’re willing to accept as valid the self-proclaimed “good ideas” of people who disagree with you politically once they’re in power as well.
Ah, the ol’ ‘There’s good people on both sides’.
No, I just believe it’s the height of hubris to think that you or your tribe knows the answers to everything and should be the only ones with the moral authority to limit the rights of others.
There are literally answers to things. It’s pretty well ‘the height of hubris’ to look at data, review the solutions, and say ‘well, that doesn’t make me feel good’ and insist that things carry on like they always have, when the status quo is murdering people.
Also, L.O.L. at ‘limit the rights of others’. We’re not talking about restricting what you can do with your own body. At the absolute worst, you may have to accept a solution that adds a bit of inconvenience to your life. Oh Noes! The Horror! As everyone else knows, no one is ever going to come take away your current vehicles. You’re almost certainly going to be able to buy fossil fueled vehicles, at least for the duration of our lifetimes.
But, I guess it’s more fun to cry about it on the internet.
As everyone knows, no future government has ever gone farther than the one before it, no unforeseen or unintended consequence has ever come to pass, and no extremist agenda has ever become law.
Man. You’ve got me there. /S
Financial Incentive does not equal Force.
People resisted seatbelt laws for a while, but everybody(mostly) eventually learned that they are beneficial to safety and worth the inconvenience.
The best ideas don’t require force. People will eventually figure it out.
There’s a fantastic video on YouTube of Texans complaining about open container laws limiting their freedom to drink and drive
“I feel as though this is a distinction without much difference when it comes to actual effects on people”
Wait, there’s not a distinction between increased fleet-wide mileage requirements that would have the effect of increasing the proportion of HEV, BHEV and PHEV vehicles sold by auto manufacturers vs an EPA CAR BAN??
Did you stop reading my post after the first sentence?
No, and in fact I wrote a long-ish response to your post, and then I re-read that first sentence and kind of thought my longer more thoughtful response would just muddy the important point here, which is that if we feel okay just straight-up lying to each other, I think that puts us on a path to…not a good place.
The longer response, among other things, pointed out that these ads are not even being run in CARB states (other than PA I believe), so whether a D administration allows those state mandates or an R administration challenges them, it’s only indirectly relevant to the people seeing these ads.
But anyway the ad that we’re discussing here has nothing to do with state mandates anyway. It’s about THE EPA CAR BAN. That doesn’t exist.
It’s a scare ad of a plausible future, not something that exists now.
In that sense it’s no different in my eyes than a Republican ad trying to scare people with “They’re going to defund the police!” or “They’re going to open the borders!” or a Democrat ad “They’re going to ban abortion nationwide!”
Bingo. And those ads all make me crazy, every one of them. If your position is sound, it should be completely unnecessary to lie, exaggerate or obfuscate in order to promote it effectively. Even in a 30-second TV spot.
As the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled, creating a set of regulations which do not explicitly ban something but which restrict access to the point of an effective ban counts as a ban. That’s illegal when applied to a Constitutional right, but the logic works here too. If CARB + EU or whoever effectively bans ICE within their markets, manufacturers respond by eliminating ICE choices from *my* market because of economics, then the D crowd which didn’t stop CARB/EU/whoever has banned ICE for *me*. There are enough people who see this as a plausible future that these ads will seem reasonable.
This is a great argument, but from what I’ve read (it may have changed…correct me if I’m wrong) the current proposed federal standards are estimated to result in EVs having a roughly 50% market share of new car sales in 2032. That’s a dramatic increase from the current 10%, but I don’t see how even that would come anywhere near restricting access to the point of an “effective ban.” An effective ban means you effectively can’t get something. If you walk onto the local Ford dealer’s lot and half the cars there are ICE, how is that even close to an effective ban? You want the gas car, you buy the gas car.
Now, would the more restrictive rules in CARB states (a completely separate but very valid topic) result in fewer ICE models for those of us in red states? Likely yes, and that would suck! We should be talking about that instead of fear-mongering about non-existent federal bans. But “talk to your congressman about maintaining automotive choice” just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Biden is coming for your car.”
Worse number screwup? Nothing to bad. I used a .500 pin to check a .5 radius by accident instead of a 1.000 pin. Part was returned by the MFG for rework.
LOL, whoops!
I owned a Leaf when I lived in Louisiana and it was very triggering to the brodozer trucks. And that’s before I beat them off the line at a stoplight.
it was very triggering to the brodozer trucks
That reminds me, I need to have my tiny violin tuned.