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Right, and materially - what do you think damages EVs more? A few fires, or structural policy choice deliberately intended to destroy the industry? Yes, we can

Right, and materially - what do you think damages EVs more? A few fires, or structural policy choice deliberately intended to destroy the industry? Yes, we can truly both sides everything. But we can't just claim things are the same when they're obviously not. It's clear, and indisputable, that most EV adoption is coming from green policy, particularly around the economy. And who is most responsible for that? The explicitly pro-oil republicans, or not-them?

wakawaka28 9mo ago
[flagged]
- array_key_first 9mo ago
  The policy choice to stop subsidizing EVs while, simultaneously halting their adoption from overseas, was intended to deliberately hurt the industry as a whole. We know this because the people doing it are explicitly pro oil. Trump has gone on a few times now about how much he loves oil. And, to be clear, the subsidies didn't go away, they moved. If we want to talk subsidies, oil is at the tippy top of that list. It's disingenuous to just ignore it. I mean, for fucks sake, MOST of the corn grown in this country is just so we can turn it into gas. Do a deep dive on that. > If we leave the market alone, people will allocate resources where they are actually needed the most If we left the market alone, we would've abandoned gasoline cars a long time ago. They're one of the most, if not the most, blessed products by our government. They get every special treatment, bailout, and subsidy in the book. Down to even the streets. 25 trillion on interstates alone.
  - wakawaka28 9mo ago
    >The policy choice to stop subsidizing EVs while, simultaneously halting their adoption from overseas, was intended to deliberately hurt the industry as a whole. Chinese EVs are a Trojan horse. Even if they weren't, we cannot compete with the Chinese on cost and probably can't trust their quality standards. >I mean, for fucks sake, MOST of the corn grown in this country is just so we can turn it into gas. Do a deep dive on that. I know that. Ethanol somehow reduces certain kinds of supposedly harmful emissions, and it gives farmers someone to sell their corn to. We need to support farmers because a market spread too thin on farming means people would starve. If we had crop issues, rest assured that they would probably stop using ethanol until things got back to normal. >If we left the market alone, we would've abandoned gasoline cars a long time ago. We had EV cars a hundred years ago and abandoned them. Petrol works better. People could be encouraged to use electric trains or something but it turns out that city life is not practical or desirable for everyone. >They get every special treatment, bailout, and subsidy in the book. Down to even the streets. 25 trillion on interstates alone. Every country prizes its auto industry (if it has one) because it is related to nearly every other production capability. Building all the shit the military needs from scratch down to the raw material supply chain is not something that can be done in a hurry. Also, I don't know if you knew, but the interstates are used for rapid shipping and military movement. Trains still exist but they can't compete with trucks on highways for most things.
    - jemmyw 9mo ago
      > we cannot compete with the Chinese on cost and probably can't trust their quality standards. This already played out with Japanese cars and it turned out it was the quality rather than the cost that was hard to compete with. I'm going to bet that EVs from Asia will be better built than anything made in the US or Europe before too long (if not already). They'll manufacture at scale and work out the kinks. Western companies should have been doing this. I feel that Tesla tried and never really got there. Protectionism alone won't make it happen.
      - wakawaka28 9mo ago
        You're oversimplifying (to be fair, so did I). There is usually a cost/quality tradeoff. In the long run I think every major country could figure out how to make things with any given level of quality, and have certain costs in the same ballpark. But our labor costs are higher than nearly any other country. Chinese labor is currently very cheap. >Western companies should have been doing this. I feel that Tesla tried and never really got there. Protectionism alone won't make it happen. Just because some people online claim they want $10k EVs doesn't mean they would buy them. It also doesn't mean that we could make them for that price, at any level of effort. We pay auto workers WAY more than the Chinese pay theirs. Protectionism is why we have not already been flooded with crappy cars from overseas. We do not allow garbage vehicles to be imported. Neither do other countries. Of course, forcing people to buy cars at higher prices or different quality points inhibits domestic innovation. But if the industry dies because of ideological purity, we would be worse off as a nation than we would be driving cars that cost slightly more or lack certain features.
        jemmyw 9mo ago
        > some people online claim they want $10k EVs I wasn't really thinking about cost, but quality, when I made the comment about what we should be doing. Quality at scale with better processes and automation. I think history shows its the scale that matters. Once you have scale you can improve quality across everything. > Protectionism is why we have not already been flooded with crappy cars from overseas. I don't live in the US, but another Western country, one that doesn't protect the car market because we have no car manufacturing here at all. I'm not seeing a flood of crappy cars. The Chinese EVs seem very good on price and (so far, new models take time to reveal problems and serviceability) quality. Regulatory protectionism is a good thing, but I'm also not convinced that folks in China would be happy with crappy cars either.
RickJWagner 9mo ago
I’d love to have a nice EV, but for me they don’t make economic sense. I think that’d true for many. Subsidies don’t seem to have permanently changed that. We’ll also soon see how efficiently fully run down electric cars are to deal with at scale. They could be more harmful than we know.

wakawaka28 9mo ago

[flagged]

array_key_first 9mo ago
The policy choice to stop subsidizing EVs while, simultaneously halting their adoption from overseas, was intended to deliberately hurt the industry as a whole. We know this because the people doing it are explicitly pro oil. Trump has gone on a few times now about how much he loves oil. And, to be clear, the subsidies didn't go away, they moved. If we want to talk subsidies, oil is at the tippy top of that list. It's disingenuous to just ignore it. I mean, for fucks sake, MOST of the corn grown in this country is just so we can turn it into gas. Do a deep dive on that. > If we leave the market alone, people will allocate resources where they are actually needed the most If we left the market alone, we would've abandoned gasoline cars a long time ago. They're one of the most, if not the most, blessed products by our government. They get every special treatment, bailout, and subsidy in the book. Down to even the streets. 25 trillion on interstates alone.
- wakawaka28 9mo ago
  >The policy choice to stop subsidizing EVs while, simultaneously halting their adoption from overseas, was intended to deliberately hurt the industry as a whole. Chinese EVs are a Trojan horse. Even if they weren't, we cannot compete with the Chinese on cost and probably can't trust their quality standards. >I mean, for fucks sake, MOST of the corn grown in this country is just so we can turn it into gas. Do a deep dive on that. I know that. Ethanol somehow reduces certain kinds of supposedly harmful emissions, and it gives farmers someone to sell their corn to. We need to support farmers because a market spread too thin on farming means people would starve. If we had crop issues, rest assured that they would probably stop using ethanol until things got back to normal. >If we left the market alone, we would've abandoned gasoline cars a long time ago. We had EV cars a hundred years ago and abandoned them. Petrol works better. People could be encouraged to use electric trains or something but it turns out that city life is not practical or desirable for everyone. >They get every special treatment, bailout, and subsidy in the book. Down to even the streets. 25 trillion on interstates alone. Every country prizes its auto industry (if it has one) because it is related to nearly every other production capability. Building all the shit the military needs from scratch down to the raw material supply chain is not something that can be done in a hurry. Also, I don't know if you knew, but the interstates are used for rapid shipping and military movement. Trains still exist but they can't compete with trucks on highways for most things.
  - jemmyw 9mo ago
    > we cannot compete with the Chinese on cost and probably can't trust their quality standards. This already played out with Japanese cars and it turned out it was the quality rather than the cost that was hard to compete with. I'm going to bet that EVs from Asia will be better built than anything made in the US or Europe before too long (if not already). They'll manufacture at scale and work out the kinks. Western companies should have been doing this. I feel that Tesla tried and never really got there. Protectionism alone won't make it happen.
    - wakawaka28 9mo ago
      You're oversimplifying (to be fair, so did I). There is usually a cost/quality tradeoff. In the long run I think every major country could figure out how to make things with any given level of quality, and have certain costs in the same ballpark. But our labor costs are higher than nearly any other country. Chinese labor is currently very cheap. >Western companies should have been doing this. I feel that Tesla tried and never really got there. Protectionism alone won't make it happen. Just because some people online claim they want $10k EVs doesn't mean they would buy them. It also doesn't mean that we could make them for that price, at any level of effort. We pay auto workers WAY more than the Chinese pay theirs. Protectionism is why we have not already been flooded with crappy cars from overseas. We do not allow garbage vehicles to be imported. Neither do other countries. Of course, forcing people to buy cars at higher prices or different quality points inhibits domestic innovation. But if the industry dies because of ideological purity, we would be worse off as a nation than we would be driving cars that cost slightly more or lack certain features.
      - jemmyw 9mo ago
        > some people online claim they want $10k EVs I wasn't really thinking about cost, but quality, when I made the comment about what we should be doing. Quality at scale with better processes and automation. I think history shows its the scale that matters. Once you have scale you can improve quality across everything. > Protectionism is why we have not already been flooded with crappy cars from overseas. I don't live in the US, but another Western country, one that doesn't protect the car market because we have no car manufacturing here at all. I'm not seeing a flood of crappy cars. The Chinese EVs seem very good on price and (so far, new models take time to reveal problems and serviceability) quality. Regulatory protectionism is a good thing, but I'm also not convinced that folks in China would be happy with crappy cars either.

RickJWagner 9mo ago

I’d love to have a nice EV, but for me they don’t make economic sense. I think that’d true for many. Subsidies don’t seem to have permanently changed that. We’ll also soon see how efficiently fully run down electric cars are to deal with at scale. They could be more harmful than we know.