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US infrastructure does not support electric vehicles, full stop. There are structural headwinds by default that prevent uptake because the logistics fail at a c
by AndrewKemendo 4y ago
US infrastructure does not support electric vehicles, full stop. There are structural headwinds by default that prevent uptake because the logistics fail at a certain point when not subsidized.
This was all totally planned for by the oil companies pushing for more investment in exurbs and highway construction
- LanceJones 4y agoFull stop. You seem pretty certain. How do you explain what's happening in the US (particularly in California)? Are you saying infrastructure currently does not support or won't in the future?
- AndrewKemendo 4y agoI would hypothesize that if you counted up the cumulative stored joules of existing and accessible petro-energy stocks and compare that to the equivalent with electrical generaton, then evaluate what it would take to replicate the logistics networks that provide electricity *above and beyond* current electrical generator capacity, it wouldn't even be close to capable of being a 1:1 replacement without a century of no or negative margin investments that people have no incentive for. It's like crypto - people got excited with Musk's sexy vision of the future and so it caused a mania around it. A private company cannot possibly fund this scale of infrastructure development because it requires decades of losing money. The challenge is that it's in conflict with 100 years of oil-based infrastructure development that still has the same incentives.
- jandrese 4y agoDo you mean the US doesn't have enough generating capacity to support EVs? Charging infrastructure grows with demand, it's the market at work. https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map
- AndrewKemendo 4y ago"The market" doesn't want EVs and EV infrastructure because the majority of equity holders financially benefit more on a margin basis from the petro-dollar based system that ubiquitous EVs would threaten. However because a subset of rich (and debt insensitive) individuals want a sexy new thing that has marginal ecological benefits at small scale, we had a boom period where excess capital (and unsustainable debt) was being spent to try and push EVs into the market. When cleaning ladies and burnouts are using EVs because it's as trivial as using a petro-car then I'll grant that the market is working, but as it stands 'The Market" is only given token nod to electric and it's a fashionable thing to do in the US, it's not sustainable the way it is happening.