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I don’t think heavier batteries with less battery life are gonna do much for Americans. Not unless we can get into small vehicles real quick- and given that th

I don’t think heavier batteries with less battery life are gonna do much for Americans. Not unless we can get into small vehicles real quick- and given that the chicken tax has been imposed by executive order since 1964 I don’t see that happening.

deepdriver 4y ago
For others who didn't know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
- hughes 4y ago
  This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen
- missedthecue 4y ago
  "To circumvent the tariffs, imported Ford vehicles replace rear windows with metal panels and remove the rear seats and seat belts. The removed parts are shredded and recycled in Ohio." What an unbelievable waste. Why hasn't this cold-war relic been long abolished?
sofixa 4y ago
I don't see how a tariff on larger vehicles means that the US market can't switch to smaller vehicles. Isn't it even the opposite because smaller cheaper cars can be directly imported from overseas? I agree the US market is incapable of switching to smaller cars in the near future, but i doubt the Chicken Tax has much to do with it.
- witheld 4y ago
  The chicken tax is a tax on small trucks, not large ones
  - sofixa 4y ago
    For me a small car is a three door coupé like the Renault Zoe, not a "small" truck.
ehnto 4y ago
I think the smaller EVs currently on the market can fill a niche in America for city commuters, but only if they're cheap, and I think you'd be stretching their limits for faster highway commuting or longer travel. The sedan sized EV is I think the smartest choice for EVs in the American market, but they're still too expensive. Plug in series hybrids might be a good stop-gap, as they're cheaper and solve some of the range and size issues current EVs have. You can have a smaller car, still capable of good speed and range, and at half to a third of the cost of an equivalent performance EV. For anyone not aware of the term, a series hybrid is an EV drivetrain that has a smaller battery and an auxiliary petrol generator onboard to fill the battery if it gets low, or you demand more power from it. At first thought, that sounds ridiculous, but we're talking about compromises to fit specialty requirements here, and in that context they make a lot of sense. (also good EV conversion potential, since all you do is upgrade the battery and ditch the petrol engine once battery prices make sense)
- wongarsu 4y ago
  It's not ridiculous at all, past a certain size basically all diesel vehicles are diesel-electric, meaning they run diesel engines to produce electricity to run electric motors. All diesel trains do this to avoid needing giant gearboxes, mining trucks use it to cut weight, modern ships use it to enable articulating motors. Now we are slowly reaching the point where it becomes desirable even for car-sized vehicles.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  The main reason those cheaper EVs are not widely available yet is that the more expensive vehicles are more lucrative and the whole market is supply constrained. So, most manufacturers are just churning out big expensive SUVs as fast as they can and are allocating all their battery supplies to that because they make more profit on those. As the market continues to double in size for the next few decades, inevitably, they'll start churning out cheaper/smaller/lighter vehicles as well. Basically, the market is far from saturated yet so that might take a few years. Hybrids have a role in the market for the brief period of time that battery production capacity is not large enough yet to replace them with cheaper EVs. But they are inherently more complex and costly to manufacture and drive. So, that's not going to last long.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Price and performance are all that matters. Americans like big cars but they also like cheap cars. So, a lot of the big cars on the road aren't necessarily very good cars. They just look big. Because size is the key selling point. Americans buy the biggest car they can afford; not the best or the most economical car. How do you make a big car move further? Simple, you put a bigger battery in it. Those nice trucks that Ford is producing now come with enormous batteries. The main issue with that is that it drives up the cost and reduces the market size. So, Ford is doing what Tesla is doing: find cheaper/heavier batteries and offer the same product with less range in the lower price segments and reserve the premium batteries for the more expensive models. That way they can sell big cars to people that want to buy the biggest car they can afford. Never mind it will only go for 150 miles or so. You want 300+? Buy a better car. With a lot of the EVs in the market, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on extended range versions. The difference is mainly the battery size and weight.

deepdriver 4y ago

For others who didn't know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

hughes 4y ago
This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen
missedthecue 4y ago
"To circumvent the tariffs, imported Ford vehicles replace rear windows with metal panels and remove the rear seats and seat belts. The removed parts are shredded and recycled in Ohio." What an unbelievable waste. Why hasn't this cold-war relic been long abolished?

sofixa 4y ago

I don't see how a tariff on larger vehicles means that the US market can't switch to smaller vehicles. Isn't it even the opposite because smaller cheaper cars can be directly imported from overseas? I agree the US market is incapable of switching to smaller cars in the near future, but i doubt the Chicken Tax has much to do with it.

witheld 4y ago
The chicken tax is a tax on small trucks, not large ones
- sofixa 4y ago
  For me a small car is a three door coupé like the Renault Zoe, not a "small" truck.

ehnto 4y ago

I think the smaller EVs currently on the market can fill a niche in America for city commuters, but only if they're cheap, and I think you'd be stretching their limits for faster highway commuting or longer travel. The sedan sized EV is I think the smartest choice for EVs in the American market, but they're still too expensive. Plug in series hybrids might be a good stop-gap, as they're cheaper and solve some of the range and size issues current EVs have. You can have a smaller car, still capable of good speed and range, and at half to a third of the cost of an equivalent performance EV. For anyone not aware of the term, a series hybrid is an EV drivetrain that has a smaller battery and an auxiliary petrol generator onboard to fill the battery if it gets low, or you demand more power from it. At first thought, that sounds ridiculous, but we're talking about compromises to fit specialty requirements here, and in that context they make a lot of sense. (also good EV conversion potential, since all you do is upgrade the battery and ditch the petrol engine once battery prices make sense)

wongarsu 4y ago
It's not ridiculous at all, past a certain size basically all diesel vehicles are diesel-electric, meaning they run diesel engines to produce electricity to run electric motors. All diesel trains do this to avoid needing giant gearboxes, mining trucks use it to cut weight, modern ships use it to enable articulating motors. Now we are slowly reaching the point where it becomes desirable even for car-sized vehicles.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
The main reason those cheaper EVs are not widely available yet is that the more expensive vehicles are more lucrative and the whole market is supply constrained. So, most manufacturers are just churning out big expensive SUVs as fast as they can and are allocating all their battery supplies to that because they make more profit on those. As the market continues to double in size for the next few decades, inevitably, they'll start churning out cheaper/smaller/lighter vehicles as well. Basically, the market is far from saturated yet so that might take a few years. Hybrids have a role in the market for the brief period of time that battery production capacity is not large enough yet to replace them with cheaper EVs. But they are inherently more complex and costly to manufacture and drive. So, that's not going to last long.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Price and performance are all that matters. Americans like big cars but they also like cheap cars. So, a lot of the big cars on the road aren't necessarily very good cars. They just look big. Because size is the key selling point. Americans buy the biggest car they can afford; not the best or the most economical car. How do you make a big car move further? Simple, you put a bigger battery in it. Those nice trucks that Ford is producing now come with enormous batteries. The main issue with that is that it drives up the cost and reduces the market size. So, Ford is doing what Tesla is doing: find cheaper/heavier batteries and offer the same product with less range in the lower price segments and reserve the premium batteries for the more expensive models. That way they can sell big cars to people that want to buy the biggest car they can afford. Never mind it will only go for 150 miles or so. You want 300+? Buy a better car. With a lot of the EVs in the market, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on extended range versions. The difference is mainly the battery size and weight.