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>there is nothing at all stopping you from paying people in Africa or South America to buy electric cars I can think of tons of problems with this. It require

by tsol 5y ago

>there is nothing at all stopping you from paying people in Africa or South America to buy electric cars I can think of tons of problems with this. It requires more scarce than resources like lithium to make cars. You can be scammed by people selling the car and using that money to buy a house and a cheap commission engine. You don't have the issue with carbon capture. Your likely to face much more political pushback for subsidizing others carbon use. "Let's make our country carbon neutral" can resonate with people as it's cleaning up after ourselves. That's much easier to convince people to do. Can Africa and South America even use them? Is it reasonable for them, do they have the infrastructure? I know in some countries electricity can be scarce-- and power companies turn off the supply at night. It's cheaper to scrub carbon, than it is to fix the societal and economic issues across the globe required to make passing out electric vehicles work

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> It requires more scarce than resources like lithium to make cars. What do you think it takes to capture carbon? > You can be scammed by people selling the car and using that money to buy a house and a cheap commission engine. How is that a profitable scam? Anybody else could buy the same car with the same subsidy. You can't resell it for more than you paid. > Your likely to face much more political pushback for subsidizing others carbon use. "Let's make our country carbon neutral" can resonate with people as it's cleaning up after ourselves. The only reason to do this is if you've already done that. Otherwise it would make more sense to spend the money subsidizing replacement of fossil fuels in your own country first. > Can Africa and South America even use them? Is it reasonable for them, do they have the infrastructure? I know in some countries electricity can be scarce-- and power companies turn off the supply at night. Solar panels and electric cars go together like hand and glove. The car doesn't care what part of the day you charge it, so you charge it when the sun is shining. And you don't need a functioning power grid to install cheap solar on your own house/business.
- notahacker 5y ago
  > How is that a profitable scam? Anybody else could buy the same car with the same subsidy. What's the subsidy level? Because people earning a few dollars a day aren't paying much more for your subsidised Tesla than they paid for their 30 year old car with an ICE. And if you start subsidising new EVs to the extent that your giving them away for less than $1k, your scheme might actually be worse for the environment (Production costs are a significant fraction of the carbon footprint of a car, especially if it isn't used very much, and directly or indirectly the subsidy makes brand new cars cheap for a lot of people in developed countries that don't need them...) The more you consider the logistics of such a scheme, the more carbon capture makes sense, and not because I'm averse to the idea of subsidies for EVs or solar manufacture
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    You don't have to subsidize against the alternative of a 10+ year old car from the US or Europe if you stop selling ICE cars in the US and Europe, because in ten years the ten year old cars will all be electric too. So the subsidy is only the amount required to make a new electric car cheaper than a new gasoline car, for the people breaking into the middle class who can now afford that. That's the same as it is in the US, isn't very much, and is declining as batteries get cheaper. It may be soon that it won't even be necessary.
    - notahacker 5y ago
      Have you ever been to the developing world? Battered old cars are worth more than a year's average per capita income in much of the world. They're not throwing away recently manufactured US/European/Japanese cars before 2050 just because their country's 0.1% now find subsidised Teslas more financially attractive than Fords or Mercedes. Actually, they probably won't find subsidised Teslas more appealing than Fords or Mercedes if they drive long distances, because it's a lot easy to find a roadside shack with gasoline than EV hookups. There are already production EVs cheaper than any US manufactured car made in China, but it isn't going to make much of a dent in the residual demand for the billion ICE cars, trucks vans already in existence in places where people buy second hand and maintain forever.
- tsol 5y ago
  >What do you think it takes to capture carbon? I'm not familiar with how exactly carbon capture technology works to be honest, but I believe it involves taking advantage of chemistry to separate carbon from air. I don't see how lithium would factor into this as there isn't any absolute need for batteries, as there are with electric cars. Carbon capture at the point of production(ie in factories themselves) could be hooked up to the grid and still have a high rate of capture >Solar panels and electric cars go together like hand and glove. The car doesn't care what part of the day you charge it, so you charge it when the sun is shining. And you don't need a functioning power grid to install cheap solar on your own house/business. Enough to charge a car? That's not a simple setup, that takes a serious set up. That effectively increases the cost of running an electric car by a significant margin. >The only reason to do this is if you've already done that. Otherwise it would make more sense to spend the money subsidizing replacement of fossil fuels in your own country first. I don't disagree with that. It's the simplest way to start, and represents the most benefit for the taxpayers paying for it.

by tsol 5y ago

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

> It requires more scarce than resources like lithium to make cars. What do you think it takes to capture carbon? > You can be scammed by people selling the car and using that money to buy a house and a cheap commission engine. How is that a profitable scam? Anybody else could buy the same car with the same subsidy. You can't resell it for more than you paid. > Your likely to face much more political pushback for subsidizing others carbon use. "Let's make our country carbon neutral" can resonate with people as it's cleaning up after ourselves. The only reason to do this is if you've already done that. Otherwise it would make more sense to spend the money subsidizing replacement of fossil fuels in your own country first. > Can Africa and South America even use them? Is it reasonable for them, do they have the infrastructure? I know in some countries electricity can be scarce-- and power companies turn off the supply at night. Solar panels and electric cars go together like hand and glove. The car doesn't care what part of the day you charge it, so you charge it when the sun is shining. And you don't need a functioning power grid to install cheap solar on your own house/business.

notahacker 5y ago
> How is that a profitable scam? Anybody else could buy the same car with the same subsidy. What's the subsidy level? Because people earning a few dollars a day aren't paying much more for your subsidised Tesla than they paid for their 30 year old car with an ICE. And if you start subsidising new EVs to the extent that your giving them away for less than $1k, your scheme might actually be worse for the environment (Production costs are a significant fraction of the carbon footprint of a car, especially if it isn't used very much, and directly or indirectly the subsidy makes brand new cars cheap for a lot of people in developed countries that don't need them...) The more you consider the logistics of such a scheme, the more carbon capture makes sense, and not because I'm averse to the idea of subsidies for EVs or solar manufacture
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  You don't have to subsidize against the alternative of a 10+ year old car from the US or Europe if you stop selling ICE cars in the US and Europe, because in ten years the ten year old cars will all be electric too. So the subsidy is only the amount required to make a new electric car cheaper than a new gasoline car, for the people breaking into the middle class who can now afford that. That's the same as it is in the US, isn't very much, and is declining as batteries get cheaper. It may be soon that it won't even be necessary.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    Have you ever been to the developing world? Battered old cars are worth more than a year's average per capita income in much of the world. They're not throwing away recently manufactured US/European/Japanese cars before 2050 just because their country's 0.1% now find subsidised Teslas more financially attractive than Fords or Mercedes. Actually, they probably won't find subsidised Teslas more appealing than Fords or Mercedes if they drive long distances, because it's a lot easy to find a roadside shack with gasoline than EV hookups. There are already production EVs cheaper than any US manufactured car made in China, but it isn't going to make much of a dent in the residual demand for the billion ICE cars, trucks vans already in existence in places where people buy second hand and maintain forever.
tsol 5y ago
>What do you think it takes to capture carbon? I'm not familiar with how exactly carbon capture technology works to be honest, but I believe it involves taking advantage of chemistry to separate carbon from air. I don't see how lithium would factor into this as there isn't any absolute need for batteries, as there are with electric cars. Carbon capture at the point of production(ie in factories themselves) could be hooked up to the grid and still have a high rate of capture >Solar panels and electric cars go together like hand and glove. The car doesn't care what part of the day you charge it, so you charge it when the sun is shining. And you don't need a functioning power grid to install cheap solar on your own house/business. Enough to charge a car? That's not a simple setup, that takes a serious set up. That effectively increases the cost of running an electric car by a significant margin. >The only reason to do this is if you've already done that. Otherwise it would make more sense to spend the money subsidizing replacement of fossil fuels in your own country first. I don't disagree with that. It's the simplest way to start, and represents the most benefit for the taxpayers paying for it.