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The migration to electric vehicles will happen, and must happen, over a couple of decades - and likely more time after that for heavy-duty use cases. And that a

The migration to electric vehicles will happen, and must happen, over a couple of decades - and likely more time after that for heavy-duty use cases. And that assumes a lot of infrastructure investment along the way. Trying to go faster will generate needless and extensive backlash, cost a lot of money, and lead to a lot of unsatisfactory experiences. Somewhere along the adoption curve, electric vehicles will be cheaper than gas, and they are already (in many ways, though not range!) better than gas. Therefore, even though subsidies were instrumental in getting electric off the ground a decade ago, it makes no sense to further subsidize at this time. If there is an irresistible urge to spend more money, spend it on infrastructure.

bink 4y ago
This ignores the motivations for subsidizing electric vehicles, namely damage to the environment from burning fossil fuels and air pollution. There's a debate to be had about how much better EVs are for the environment but I don't think it's reasonable to ignore such things when developing public policy. For the record I voted against Prop 30.
- elzbardico 4y ago
  Really, cars are not even close being the main culprit in terms of carbon emissions globally speaking. And at this time we should think if it wouldn't be cheaper and more realistic to invest in mitigation for a slightly warmer climate.
  - chimprich 4y ago
    > Really, cars are not even close being the main culprit in terms of carbon emissions globally speaking There are a lot of contributors, so you have to tackle a lot of them. Transport is one of the biggies. > And at this time we should think if it wouldn't be cheaper and more realistic to invest in mitigation for a slightly warmer climate. I despair that this idea keeps coming up, even on forums such as this. It's not like this is an original idea. There have been a bunch of studies that blow this concept out of the water. It's far more expensive to deal with the results of climate change than to avert it. There's also the huge human cost of not dealing with it, and the issue that you don't fix something by kicking the can down the road. The problem is only going to get worse the longer you leave it. It's like dealing with your house being on fire by taking your jacket off.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    "Main culprit" is irrelevant, both because emissions are pretty well spread between numerous major activity/economic sectors. Even if it wasn't, we still wouldn't say "well shucks, X isn't the MAIN cause of Y, so we shouldn't do anything about it" https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data#Sector https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... By the way, in the EU for example, passenger cars account for 60% of CO2 emissions related to transportation.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  It also ignores the twenty billion dollars in subsidies the United States government provides to the fossil fuel industry: https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-how-the-united-states-can-restart-international-cooperation/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-global-fossil-f... ...which has been turning in record profits: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/oil-companies-profits-inflation/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/oil-companie... In the first quarter of 2022, US oil industry profits TRIPLED: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/these-top-5-oil-companies-just-raked-in-35-billion-while-americans-pay-more-at-the-pump/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/these-top-5-oil-com...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
slifin 4y ago
Starting to get disillusioned with this idea of hyperloop, electric cars, self driving cars The idea that we can just use technology and continue to promote a car based hellscape seems untenable to me
- akira2501 4y ago
  > Car based hellscape. There is a generation that sees it this way, and for the life of me, I can't understand it. Is it just that the internet has enabled a level of local entertainment that wasn't available before and now the absolute personal freedom that cars and roads bring don't seem as appealing as they once did? What's the strategy for emergency ambulances in a strictly walkable town? What's your evacuation plan during a natural disaster? What accommodations will be made for the elderly? A town without roads can just as easily be a "hellscape." Maybe there's a more rational "middle of the road" way to look at this problem?
  - ahelwer 4y ago
    > absolute personal freedom This association between personal car ownership and personal freedom is one of the most absurd things to me. Think of this the next time you're sitting in traffic - is that freedom you are feeling now? Of course, this situation of waiting for other people in cars to move (by far the most common situation by quantity of time for people who drive in cities) is not found at all in any car ad. Nope, it's all empty city streets and beautiful roads in the forests. It's one thing to be sold something and realize you've been had - quite another to persevere for years afterward that no, the beautiful experience you were sold really exists!
    - BitwiseFool 4y ago
      >"Think of this the next time you're sitting in traffic - is that freedom you are feeling now?" Not all trips taken in a car experience traffic, and not all commutes experience heavy traffic. When people talk about the sense of freedom afforded by owning a car, they are talking about spontaneity and not needing to deal with strangers in a crowded space.
trashtester 4y ago
No need to subsidise electric. Just add a fossil fuel tax that fully covers the externalities of their use.
- cbsmith 4y ago
  Would you count subsides for fossil fuels as externalities? ;-)
  - trashtester 4y ago
    Where I live, fossil fuels are heavily taxed, while renewables fuel virtually all electricity and heating and more than 50% (and growing) of new cars.
    - cbsmith 4y ago
      I suspect you are misperceiving the lay of the land there. It's true California does tax fossil fuels, but much of those taxes are more than offset by subsidies that go right back to the industry. The state did recently (as in a few months ago) ended one of their subsidies for fossil fuels, saving ~$160 million/year, which is a huge deal. That said, there's still substantial subsidies for fossil fuels a the state level, and the feds chip in close to $15 billion/yr. The overall subsidy picture for fossil fuels dwarfs the subsidies for renewables. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/6/16428458/us-energy-coal-oil-subsidies https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/6/1642845...
      - trashtester 4y ago
        > I suspect you are misperceiving the lay of the land there. I doubt that, since I was not making statements about California or any other location in the US, specifically. Which is why I didn't respond specifically to your previous comment. Which I will do now: > Would you count subsides for fossil fuels as externalities? ;-) My baseline assumption is that all fossil fuel subsidies are removed. If not, then yes, just slap the same amount back on through taxes. Where I live, petrol taxes are about 5x higher than in California, with no subsidies. Use of fossil fuels for most other purposes, such as residential heating is banned. And cars have huge additional sales taxes, based on fuel consumption. Budget cars start at 2-2.5x the price compared to the US, while for fuel guzzlers it is way higher, easily adding $100-$300k for a sports car. Also, expect to pay $3 toll road tax to drive into the nearest large city. Toll roads are used to limit traffic in built-up areas, to keep local pollution down. Meanwhile, electric cars have zero to low taxes and some priority access in some parking lots, bus lanes, etc. GDP per capita is similar to California, but all these taxes make purchasing power a bit lower. Still, if I park my car at the grocery store, about 50% of the cars there will be electric and maybe 20% of the total will be Teslas. Most of the petrol cars remaining are old, cheap ones. Clearly taxes do work. I would argue that my country has actually done what California seems (at least pretend) to want to do.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
> Therefore, even though subsidies were instrumental in getting electric off the ground a decade ago, it makes no sense to further subsidize at this time The fossil fuel industry tripled their profits in 2022, and we still have $20BN in fossil fuel subsidies. For those keeping score at home, that is more than ten times the subsidies for electric vehicle purchases.
cbsmith 4y ago
> The migration to electric vehicles will happen, and must happen, over a couple of decades - and likely more time after that for heavy-duty use cases. EV1's first appeared on the road in '96 (and it wasn't the first EV), so that means we've got a few years to go! ;-) Either way, California's plan is well within a "couple of decades". > Trying to go faster will generate needless and extensive backlash, cost a lot of money, and lead to a lot of unsatisfactory experiences. Same goes for not migrating, so you pick your poison. > Somewhere along the adoption curve, electric vehicles will be cheaper than gas, and they are already (in many ways, though not range!) better than gas. They already cheaper than ICEs. > Therefore, even though subsidies were instrumental in getting electric off the ground a decade ago, it makes no sense to further subsidize at this time. If there is an irresistible urge to spend more money, spend it on infrastructure. You might want to check the particulars on Prop 30. It does put money into spending on infrastructure. But hey, if we want to take back the subsidies on gas instead of increasing subsidies on electric, I'm okay with that.

bink 4y ago

This ignores the motivations for subsidizing electric vehicles, namely damage to the environment from burning fossil fuels and air pollution. There's a debate to be had about how much better EVs are for the environment but I don't think it's reasonable to ignore such things when developing public policy. For the record I voted against Prop 30.

elzbardico 4y ago
Really, cars are not even close being the main culprit in terms of carbon emissions globally speaking. And at this time we should think if it wouldn't be cheaper and more realistic to invest in mitigation for a slightly warmer climate.
- chimprich 4y ago
  > Really, cars are not even close being the main culprit in terms of carbon emissions globally speaking There are a lot of contributors, so you have to tackle a lot of them. Transport is one of the biggies. > And at this time we should think if it wouldn't be cheaper and more realistic to invest in mitigation for a slightly warmer climate. I despair that this idea keeps coming up, even on forums such as this. It's not like this is an original idea. There have been a bunch of studies that blow this concept out of the water. It's far more expensive to deal with the results of climate change than to avert it. There's also the huge human cost of not dealing with it, and the issue that you don't fix something by kicking the can down the road. The problem is only going to get worse the longer you leave it. It's like dealing with your house being on fire by taking your jacket off.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  "Main culprit" is irrelevant, both because emissions are pretty well spread between numerous major activity/economic sectors. Even if it wasn't, we still wouldn't say "well shucks, X isn't the MAIN cause of Y, so we shouldn't do anything about it" https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data#Sector https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... By the way, in the EU for example, passenger cars account for 60% of CO2 emissions related to transportation.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
It also ignores the twenty billion dollars in subsidies the United States government provides to the fossil fuel industry: https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-how-the-united-states-can-restart-international-cooperation/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-global-fossil-f... ...which has been turning in record profits: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/oil-companies-profits-inflation/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/oil-companie... In the first quarter of 2022, US oil industry profits TRIPLED: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/these-top-5-oil-companies-just-raked-in-35-billion-while-americans-pay-more-at-the-pump/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/these-top-5-oil-com...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

slifin 4y ago

Starting to get disillusioned with this idea of hyperloop, electric cars, self driving cars The idea that we can just use technology and continue to promote a car based hellscape seems untenable to me

akira2501 4y ago
> Car based hellscape. There is a generation that sees it this way, and for the life of me, I can't understand it. Is it just that the internet has enabled a level of local entertainment that wasn't available before and now the absolute personal freedom that cars and roads bring don't seem as appealing as they once did? What's the strategy for emergency ambulances in a strictly walkable town? What's your evacuation plan during a natural disaster? What accommodations will be made for the elderly? A town without roads can just as easily be a "hellscape." Maybe there's a more rational "middle of the road" way to look at this problem?
- ahelwer 4y ago
  > absolute personal freedom This association between personal car ownership and personal freedom is one of the most absurd things to me. Think of this the next time you're sitting in traffic - is that freedom you are feeling now? Of course, this situation of waiting for other people in cars to move (by far the most common situation by quantity of time for people who drive in cities) is not found at all in any car ad. Nope, it's all empty city streets and beautiful roads in the forests. It's one thing to be sold something and realize you've been had - quite another to persevere for years afterward that no, the beautiful experience you were sold really exists!
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    >"Think of this the next time you're sitting in traffic - is that freedom you are feeling now?" Not all trips taken in a car experience traffic, and not all commutes experience heavy traffic. When people talk about the sense of freedom afforded by owning a car, they are talking about spontaneity and not needing to deal with strangers in a crowded space.

trashtester 4y ago

No need to subsidise electric. Just add a fossil fuel tax that fully covers the externalities of their use.

cbsmith 4y ago
Would you count subsides for fossil fuels as externalities? ;-)
- trashtester 4y ago
  Where I live, fossil fuels are heavily taxed, while renewables fuel virtually all electricity and heating and more than 50% (and growing) of new cars.
  - cbsmith 4y ago
    I suspect you are misperceiving the lay of the land there. It's true California does tax fossil fuels, but much of those taxes are more than offset by subsidies that go right back to the industry. The state did recently (as in a few months ago) ended one of their subsidies for fossil fuels, saving ~$160 million/year, which is a huge deal. That said, there's still substantial subsidies for fossil fuels a the state level, and the feds chip in close to $15 billion/yr. The overall subsidy picture for fossil fuels dwarfs the subsidies for renewables. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/6/16428458/us-energy-coal-oil-subsidies https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/6/1642845...
    - trashtester 4y ago
      > I suspect you are misperceiving the lay of the land there. I doubt that, since I was not making statements about California or any other location in the US, specifically. Which is why I didn't respond specifically to your previous comment. Which I will do now: > Would you count subsides for fossil fuels as externalities? ;-) My baseline assumption is that all fossil fuel subsidies are removed. If not, then yes, just slap the same amount back on through taxes. Where I live, petrol taxes are about 5x higher than in California, with no subsidies. Use of fossil fuels for most other purposes, such as residential heating is banned. And cars have huge additional sales taxes, based on fuel consumption. Budget cars start at 2-2.5x the price compared to the US, while for fuel guzzlers it is way higher, easily adding $100-$300k for a sports car. Also, expect to pay $3 toll road tax to drive into the nearest large city. Toll roads are used to limit traffic in built-up areas, to keep local pollution down. Meanwhile, electric cars have zero to low taxes and some priority access in some parking lots, bus lanes, etc. GDP per capita is similar to California, but all these taxes make purchasing power a bit lower. Still, if I park my car at the grocery store, about 50% of the cars there will be electric and maybe 20% of the total will be Teslas. Most of the petrol cars remaining are old, cheap ones. Clearly taxes do work. I would argue that my country has actually done what California seems (at least pretend) to want to do.

KennyBlanken 4y ago

> Therefore, even though subsidies were instrumental in getting electric off the ground a decade ago, it makes no sense to further subsidize at this time The fossil fuel industry tripled their profits in 2022, and we still have $20BN in fossil fuel subsidies. For those keeping score at home, that is more than ten times the subsidies for electric vehicle purchases.

cbsmith 4y ago

> The migration to electric vehicles will happen, and must happen, over a couple of decades - and likely more time after that for heavy-duty use cases. EV1's first appeared on the road in '96 (and it wasn't the first EV), so that means we've got a few years to go! ;-) Either way, California's plan is well within a "couple of decades". > Trying to go faster will generate needless and extensive backlash, cost a lot of money, and lead to a lot of unsatisfactory experiences. Same goes for not migrating, so you pick your poison. > Somewhere along the adoption curve, electric vehicles will be cheaper than gas, and they are already (in many ways, though not range!) better than gas. They already cheaper than ICEs. > Therefore, even though subsidies were instrumental in getting electric off the ground a decade ago, it makes no sense to further subsidize at this time. If there is an irresistible urge to spend more money, spend it on infrastructure. You might want to check the particulars on Prop 30. It does put money into spending on infrastructure. But hey, if we want to take back the subsidies on gas instead of increasing subsidies on electric, I'm okay with that.