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I will never buy and EV as long as I’m beholden to the tyranny of PG&E’s constant gamification of my power. They keep raising and raising prices and there’s no

I will never buy and EV as long as I’m beholden to the tyranny of PG&E’s constant gamification of my power. They keep raising and raising prices and there’s nothing attractive about putting all my eggs in the electric basket in California as long as the rates are controlled by cartels. PG&E will exploit any electric car progress for themselves and rip off their customers as hard as they can as soon as they thought they had a critical mass worth really rate exploiting and could get away with it. I know lots of people disagree with me, but low institutional trust is the main reason we don’t have one. That and we tend to buy and keep our vehicles for decades and I’m quite sure I don’t believe the rhetoric around durability and reliability. When it’s truly a superior product from a quality and reliability standpoint and not a car body stapled to a battery with a smartphone quality warranty, and I have choice in how to fuel it beyond predatory power companies controlled by corrupt institutions, I’m in. Nobody ever talks about the profound lack of diversity in the power suppliers, but it’s more than a minor existential risk to electric car viability in many parts of the country.

bequanna 3y ago
Isn’t this rate jump partially the result of rulings that made PG&E liable for damages from fires started by overheated transformers?
- CogitoCogito 3y ago
  Who else but them would be responsible for those fires?
  - happytiger 3y ago
    Well there have been a few arsonists responsible tbh. But a lot of it is negligence.
- happytiger 3y ago
  Indeed. That was the story. The reality is after all these rate hikes PG&E, which so desperately complained about their future being in jeopardy, forcing worker concessions, and undergoing a 58 billion dollar wildfire fueled restructuring, paid their CEO more than 40 million dollars and cleared more than 25 percent pure profit last quarter. Oh, and this most recent rate hike was justified to bury cables. All while becoming the most expensive provider in California. And did I mention that, after announcing a massive across the board rate hike, they decided to start the very expensive program of giving dividends to stock holders. But wait! THEN they announced that instead of paying for what you use, you’re going to pay for how much money you earn and that you would now need to report income to them like they are the Government. A private corporation? Every rate payer pays on household incomes?!? What? https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2022/10/ratepayers-struggle-pay-pge-energy-bills-ceo-rakes-over-190#:~:text=Most%20of%20Poppe's%20compensation%20came,stark%20example%20of%20rewarding%20failure https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2022/10/ratep.... https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/pg-e-corp-s-poppe-was-highest-paid-us-utility-ceo-in-2021-71538853 https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights... https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/national-investigations/pge-rate-hike-california/3302833/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/national-invest... We’re rewarding failure and the utility is killing people.
  - nick7376182 3y ago
    Maybe a residential power generation owners union (association?) could coalesce enough collective action power. Residential producers go on strike by disabling their systems on a coordinated random Saturday each month causing spikes in power cost and headaches for PG&E until the solar rate structure is negotiated with the union on fair terms.
    - happytiger 3y ago
      That’s pretty smart. Might change the dynamic somewhat if they knew there was substantive resistance. But at the end of the day it’s pretty hard to beat regulatory capture unless you start threatening the politicians.
    - frumper 3y ago
      Local areas can create public districts for power, and there are many throughout California. They generally work quite well, though the creation of new ones can be time consuming to get control over existing PG&E areas.
  - bequanna 3y ago
    Yeesh… assuming that is all accurate that is quite a raw deal for customers. I don’t know much about the regulatory environment in CA but I thought there was either deregulation which allowed you to pick your provider or strong monopoly regulation which restricted utility margin. Is CA neither of those?
fnordpiglet 3y ago
A lot of folks (like me) just use high speed charger infrastructure, which would intermediate you from PG&E I would note that drilling, refineries, distribution, and point of sale for oil have all been and still are an assortment of disgusting cartels, monopolies, and nefarious governments hell bent on screwing you and the planet. But they’re definitely at more arms reach as a consumer than PG&E.
- happytiger 3y ago
  I just can’t agree with you anymore. I think companies that are government supported monopolies are a lot more difficult to change than those subject to competition. There’s just so little incentive to change and it’s baked into regulatory capture on so many levels that changing a company that appears to be available but actually isn’t is probably harder than making change when market forces can create incentives for that change. I used to believe what you wrote, but my opinion has changed.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    It’s true - the oil end to end isn’t government supported, it controls their governments transnationally. Big difference I guess.
bee_rider 3y ago
There are also some not so friendly entities that play games with the petroleum market.
- nostromo 3y ago
  But there is real competition in the petroleum market. Yes, OPEC exists, but they are just one player of many. PG&E is a 100% monopoly for it's customer with no choice whatsoever.
- happytiger 3y ago
  Yep. But there are more than one of them competing with one another, and that has made all the difference.
- NewJazz 3y ago
  https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-14/gas-prices-vary-from-place-to-place https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-14/gas-pric...
njarboe 3y ago
Having enough personal solar for your car charging solves this problem for now but who know what kind of fuckery there will be around home solar rules in California in the future.
f0e4c2f7 3y ago
Long term, my plan is to buy a cheap EV like a Bolt as well as a powerwall or other home battery in a part of the world with good sunlight and build a nice little solar farm to power the house and car. Solar panels just keep getting cheaper and this plan seems increasingly like a way to nearly do away with power bills all together while still staying on grid. But until then I tend to agree, EVs aren't as appealing when you can't predict what energy prices will be over 10 years
- happytiger 3y ago
  Yea, we’ve been discussing this as an option, especially now that there are such high quality integrated controllers and batteries. It’s become viable to do this, but it’s really rough as it kind of abandons everyone else to the meat grinder.
nicolashahn 3y ago
PHEVs are the answer
- happytiger 3y ago
  Yea I actually tend to agree with this. It really fits my daily use cases beautifully.

bequanna 3y ago

Isn’t this rate jump partially the result of rulings that made PG&E liable for damages from fires started by overheated transformers?

CogitoCogito 3y ago
Who else but them would be responsible for those fires?
- happytiger 3y ago
  Well there have been a few arsonists responsible tbh. But a lot of it is negligence.
happytiger 3y ago
Indeed. That was the story. The reality is after all these rate hikes PG&E, which so desperately complained about their future being in jeopardy, forcing worker concessions, and undergoing a 58 billion dollar wildfire fueled restructuring, paid their CEO more than 40 million dollars and cleared more than 25 percent pure profit last quarter. Oh, and this most recent rate hike was justified to bury cables. All while becoming the most expensive provider in California. And did I mention that, after announcing a massive across the board rate hike, they decided to start the very expensive program of giving dividends to stock holders. But wait! THEN they announced that instead of paying for what you use, you’re going to pay for how much money you earn and that you would now need to report income to them like they are the Government. A private corporation? Every rate payer pays on household incomes?!? What? https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2022/10/ratepayers-struggle-pay-pge-energy-bills-ceo-rakes-over-190#:~:text=Most%20of%20Poppe's%20compensation%20came,stark%20example%20of%20rewarding%20failure https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2022/10/ratep.... https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/pg-e-corp-s-poppe-was-highest-paid-us-utility-ceo-in-2021-71538853 https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights... https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/national-investigations/pge-rate-hike-california/3302833/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/national-invest... We’re rewarding failure and the utility is killing people.
- nick7376182 3y ago
  Maybe a residential power generation owners union (association?) could coalesce enough collective action power. Residential producers go on strike by disabling their systems on a coordinated random Saturday each month causing spikes in power cost and headaches for PG&E until the solar rate structure is negotiated with the union on fair terms.
  - happytiger 3y ago
    That’s pretty smart. Might change the dynamic somewhat if they knew there was substantive resistance. But at the end of the day it’s pretty hard to beat regulatory capture unless you start threatening the politicians.
  - frumper 3y ago
    Local areas can create public districts for power, and there are many throughout California. They generally work quite well, though the creation of new ones can be time consuming to get control over existing PG&E areas.
- bequanna 3y ago
  Yeesh… assuming that is all accurate that is quite a raw deal for customers. I don’t know much about the regulatory environment in CA but I thought there was either deregulation which allowed you to pick your provider or strong monopoly regulation which restricted utility margin. Is CA neither of those?

fnordpiglet 3y ago

A lot of folks (like me) just use high speed charger infrastructure, which would intermediate you from PG&E I would note that drilling, refineries, distribution, and point of sale for oil have all been and still are an assortment of disgusting cartels, monopolies, and nefarious governments hell bent on screwing you and the planet. But they’re definitely at more arms reach as a consumer than PG&E.

happytiger 3y ago
I just can’t agree with you anymore. I think companies that are government supported monopolies are a lot more difficult to change than those subject to competition. There’s just so little incentive to change and it’s baked into regulatory capture on so many levels that changing a company that appears to be available but actually isn’t is probably harder than making change when market forces can create incentives for that change. I used to believe what you wrote, but my opinion has changed.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  It’s true - the oil end to end isn’t government supported, it controls their governments transnationally. Big difference I guess.

bee_rider 3y ago

There are also some not so friendly entities that play games with the petroleum market.

nostromo 3y ago
But there is real competition in the petroleum market. Yes, OPEC exists, but they are just one player of many. PG&E is a 100% monopoly for it's customer with no choice whatsoever.
happytiger 3y ago
Yep. But there are more than one of them competing with one another, and that has made all the difference.
NewJazz 3y ago
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-14/gas-prices-vary-from-place-to-place https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-03-14/gas-pric...

njarboe 3y ago

Having enough personal solar for your car charging solves this problem for now but who know what kind of fuckery there will be around home solar rules in California in the future.

f0e4c2f7 3y ago

Long term, my plan is to buy a cheap EV like a Bolt as well as a powerwall or other home battery in a part of the world with good sunlight and build a nice little solar farm to power the house and car. Solar panels just keep getting cheaper and this plan seems increasingly like a way to nearly do away with power bills all together while still staying on grid. But until then I tend to agree, EVs aren't as appealing when you can't predict what energy prices will be over 10 years

happytiger 3y ago
Yea, we’ve been discussing this as an option, especially now that there are such high quality integrated controllers and batteries. It’s become viable to do this, but it’s really rough as it kind of abandons everyone else to the meat grinder.

nicolashahn 3y ago

PHEVs are the answer

happytiger 3y ago
Yea I actually tend to agree with this. It really fits my daily use cases beautifully.