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why does this make you angry? I think these are policies that are designed to encourage electric vehicle usage. Which if you care about air quality (which you s

why does this make you angry? I think these are policies that are designed to encourage electric vehicle usage. Which if you care about air quality (which you should since air pollution kills people, albeit in a quiet way) then presumably people using an electric vehicle in lieu of an internal combustion engine driven vehicle is a good thing? I doubt at this moment the lost revenue is significant due to low market share. Maybe when electric vehicles are a large percentage of cars on the road we will have to reconsider tax structures but we just aren't there yet I think.

StillBored 9y ago
The air quality excuse is _VERY_ dependent on where you live. On average (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3) ~30% of the power in the US is derived from coal, another ~30% is natural gas. So basically for cars your just relocating where the exhaust happens. And in the case of coal the byproducts are massively more harmful and long lasting compared with the byproducts from gasoline (which is really quite clean at this point). So you then have to consider the efficiency of the generation/transmission/charging/driving which isn't so much better that electric cars are a mirracle cure for global warming/etc. Particularly in the case of tesla, which has been repeatedly shown that in most places in the US actually polite more than a modern econobox mostly due to being such a heavy car. So, beyond that, I'm sort of irritated by tax subsidies, because they are really no different than paying someone cash because someone else has to makeup the shortfall, be it through worse education systems, or simply paying more taxes. (I'm also in the camp that believes toll roads are just a convenient way to raise taxes while simultaneously claiming to cut them). But back to electricity generation, electric cars are _NOT_ an insignificant load, and further subsidizing them to the tun of tens of thousands of dollars in electric charges (assuming a ten year lifespan for the car) on the backs of the common ratepayers, is about as regressive a tax as is possible. The same is true of the loss in gas taxes. People who can afford $100k teslas (teslas are well over 50% of the electric car market in the US given rough estimates, the leaf being the other significant player with ~30k cars a year) don't need further subsidies on the backs of people who on average are earning less than $50k a year. So, yes the discounted rates are the final tipping point, $7.5k a year in tax incentives + 1-3x that much again over the life of the car paid for generally by those that can least afford is is the worse kind of policy.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  So to address just one of your points: you're going to judge the environmental value of an electric car by the mix of fuels today, even though the car lasts 20+ years? Electric cars are also extremely useful in that you can choose to charge them at times when wind and solar are producing "too much" power.
  - StillBored 9y ago
    "Electric cars are also extremely useful in that you can choose to charge them at times when wind and solar are producing "too much" power." Which sounds great, but is 100% BS in most cases. That Austin energy EV charging system I linked doesn't turn off the charger when the wind isn't blowing. Instead its strictly time based, so while much of the information is public (http://www.ercot.com/mktinfo http://www.ercot.com/mktinfo) it is pretty much impossible to say "There is spare wind capacity feeding my house, lets charge the car". I would be interested if anyone actually has such a system, and further what would such a system do when there isn't sufficient wind overcapacity for days? Then oddly enough, I see a bunch of tesla's charging on the chargers at work, which of course is during peak power usage times (aka when all the NG peak plants are running).
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      Sorry that you are blowing off future benefits based on today's actions.
      - StillBored 9y ago
        What future benefit is gained by having people driving around 5,441+ lb electric vehicles given that we will likely (given the current political climate) still be getting more than 50% of our electric (maybe more) from carbon emitting sources in 20 years? No, you want to start solving this problem by attacking it directly. The problem is too much CO2 emissions, so start taxing CO2 emissions from _ALL_ sources, don't try to pick winners (electric cars) and subsidize them, when the next big breakthrough might be a petrol engine that can catalyze out the carbon, or hydrogen fuel cells. Neither of those choices seems likely, but hey... Much like I think the "environmentalists" are as much at fault for climate change by fear mongering nukes in order to wish for renewable sources for the past 40 years as the deniers, I think the electric car people with their "zero emissions" bumper stickers are preaching a lie.

StillBored 9y ago

The air quality excuse is _VERY_ dependent on where you live. On average (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3) ~30% of the power in the US is derived from coal, another ~30% is natural gas. So basically for cars your just relocating where the exhaust happens. And in the case of coal the byproducts are massively more harmful and long lasting compared with the byproducts from gasoline (which is really quite clean at this point). So you then have to consider the efficiency of the generation/transmission/charging/driving which isn't so much better that electric cars are a mirracle cure for global warming/etc. Particularly in the case of tesla, which has been repeatedly shown that in most places in the US actually polite more than a modern econobox mostly due to being such a heavy car. So, beyond that, I'm sort of irritated by tax subsidies, because they are really no different than paying someone cash because someone else has to makeup the shortfall, be it through worse education systems, or simply paying more taxes. (I'm also in the camp that believes toll roads are just a convenient way to raise taxes while simultaneously claiming to cut them). But back to electricity generation, electric cars are _NOT_ an insignificant load, and further subsidizing them to the tun of tens of thousands of dollars in electric charges (assuming a ten year lifespan for the car) on the backs of the common ratepayers, is about as regressive a tax as is possible. The same is true of the loss in gas taxes. People who can afford $100k teslas (teslas are well over 50% of the electric car market in the US given rough estimates, the leaf being the other significant player with ~30k cars a year) don't need further subsidies on the backs of people who on average are earning less than $50k a year. So, yes the discounted rates are the final tipping point, $7.5k a year in tax incentives + 1-3x that much again over the life of the car paid for generally by those that can least afford is is the worse kind of policy.

greglindahl 9y ago
So to address just one of your points: you're going to judge the environmental value of an electric car by the mix of fuels today, even though the car lasts 20+ years? Electric cars are also extremely useful in that you can choose to charge them at times when wind and solar are producing "too much" power.
- StillBored 9y ago
  "Electric cars are also extremely useful in that you can choose to charge them at times when wind and solar are producing "too much" power." Which sounds great, but is 100% BS in most cases. That Austin energy EV charging system I linked doesn't turn off the charger when the wind isn't blowing. Instead its strictly time based, so while much of the information is public (http://www.ercot.com/mktinfo http://www.ercot.com/mktinfo) it is pretty much impossible to say "There is spare wind capacity feeding my house, lets charge the car". I would be interested if anyone actually has such a system, and further what would such a system do when there isn't sufficient wind overcapacity for days? Then oddly enough, I see a bunch of tesla's charging on the chargers at work, which of course is during peak power usage times (aka when all the NG peak plants are running).
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    Sorry that you are blowing off future benefits based on today's actions.
    - StillBored 9y ago
      What future benefit is gained by having people driving around 5,441+ lb electric vehicles given that we will likely (given the current political climate) still be getting more than 50% of our electric (maybe more) from carbon emitting sources in 20 years? No, you want to start solving this problem by attacking it directly. The problem is too much CO2 emissions, so start taxing CO2 emissions from _ALL_ sources, don't try to pick winners (electric cars) and subsidize them, when the next big breakthrough might be a petrol engine that can catalyze out the carbon, or hydrogen fuel cells. Neither of those choices seems likely, but hey... Much like I think the "environmentalists" are as much at fault for climate change by fear mongering nukes in order to wish for renewable sources for the past 40 years as the deniers, I think the electric car people with their "zero emissions" bumper stickers are preaching a lie.