Comment on Biden Administration Is Said to Slow Early Stage of Shift to Electric Cars
fredhampton@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I’m not in the know on this. How might one play devil’s advocate? Aren’t they still considered to be too expensive for most people? The electric grid ready?
The electric grid will be ready when it needs to be ready. Power companies aren’t going to just leave EVs on the table, even if they have to beg for money to upgrade.
There’s a post around here somewhere about a Chinese (BYD) EV for $15,000. I didn’t look at it, but that’s going to be entry level with few bells/whistles. Still, that’s cheaper than any US ICE vehicle I know of.
The electric grid will be ready when it needs to be ready
Indeed. If the grid could not expand and would be overloaded, it works also be impossible to add more houses, offices or businesses. But it’s no problem building those and connecting them to the grid, but EV would blow every fuse.
With how Cheap solar energy and battery storage has been getting, as far as I’m concerned there’s no reason that major developed countries can’t start programs to install cheap solar panels on willing peoples yards/roofs/whatever, along with a battery storage container/wall to offset the strain of an EV
If the only thing standing in the way of something is “money”, then it’s a problem that humans are intentionally KEEPING a problem.
Solar/battery is not cheaper than natural-gas peaker plants yet, even today with all the cheapest Chinese panels with Chinese battery packs.
These complaints about EVs being too expensive are way out of date, now that China is pumping out hordes of cheap EVs that consumers like.
Even if the US doesn’t want to let in Chinese auto imports, the question remains: why are Chinese automakers able to bring down prices, but not US automakers? You can point to Chinese government subsidies, but the US also does industrial policy these days. One of Biden’s favourite talking points is how much money his government is putting into supporting US green manufacturing through the IRA.
why are Chinese automakers able to bring down prices
Because their economy is entering a deflationary spiral built off of 25%+ youth unemployment.
Yes, unemployment lowers labor costs severely. That’s… not a good thing or a strategy we’d want to replicate.
Too expensive
Charging infrastructure is terrible for road-trips. Many families can only afford 2 or 3 cars at best, and being forced into a 1-hour wait every 250 miles even in the best case is terrible.
Terrible trailer performance. EVs “secret” is hyper-efficiency with lightweight loads like typical driving. Its a good thing if our daily drive were replaced with EV. However, the range drops dramatically more than ICE/Diesel when under load: mountain / hill territory, drag from trailers, and rolling-resistance from higher weights all worsen EVs. Meanwhile, ICE actually increases in efficiency in these high-load circumstances. Trailers, Trucks, RVs will likely be ICE or at most Hybrid for the foreseeable future.
Terrible hotel infrastructure. Again for road-trips, but most vacation spots (beach houses, mountain lodges, hunting lodges, vacations at lakes, ski resorts etc. etc.) do NOT have enough chargers. So you can’t even charge at night when you get there.
Practically, the biggest obstacle to overcoming EV suppression is Tesla. They is mainly profitable through sales of carbon credits via various emissions offset schemes, which they sell to other manufacturers such that they can show required carbon offsets by just paying some money. A whole lot easier than upending their business model to actually produce EV’s, and creates a positive feedback loop where Tesla retains position as only significant EV game in town. The EV development right now is targeting China, not the US.
Too expensive, not enough charging stations, and potential grid issues. I knew these ICE bans were unlikely to take effect as nobody seems in a hurry to build out the infrastructure needed for massive adoption.
They will continue to not build infrastructure and in five years we’ll see this exact headline again. Self fulfilling excuses.
jmiller@lemm.ee 8 months ago
They are too expensive. But only because auto manufacturers are only making midsized and larger suvs or luxury cars. The average price of an EV has dropped over 50% in China since 2015. That would have been tough for us to match, mostly because of batteries, but we could have made much more progress than we have.
The electric grid isn’t nearly as unprepared as people say. Sure, we need to build out more charging stations, but the grid as a whole far exceeds current needs. In fact, nationwide electrical usage is actually trending down in the US because of efficiency gains. Better building codes, heat pumps, LED lighting, if it uses electricity newer stuff is more efficient. If we had sold 8 times as many EVs in 2023 than we did, electricity usage would have stayed about flat.
cleantechnica.com/…/the-us-added-1-2-million-evs-…
cyd@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Here’s the story as I understand it. US automakers want to make expensive premium cars because those sell for high margins. The big breakthrough in the EV market over the past few years has been China EV makers figuring out how to make cheap and “good-enough” EVs, which are catching on in many places across the world. This is clearly the direction in which the market has to move (whether via Chinese or non-Chinese automakers) to spur mass EV adoption. In the US, however, the established automakers can rely on protectionism to block imports, this keeping the US market limited to big expensive cars that remain using ICEs.
Tak@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
It’s really just a matter of time till Chinese manufacturers set up in Mexico and the US will have to accept Chinese EVs because of NAFTA. The US also has lots of range anxiety about EVs that I don’t see as much in other markets. Being 120v and sprawling with limited government willingness to build infrastructure, with no requirements for rentals to add chargers makes a perfect storm for that fear.
IncogCyberspaceUser@lemmy.world 8 months ago
They just announced that’s the plan actually
reuters.com/…/chinas-byd-plans-new-electric-vehic…
shalafi@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You sound informed, more so than I. The heat pump thing confuses me, and I’ve seen it a lot lately.
I was under the impression that the vast majority of homes were using a heat pump system. Seems like a no-brainer? Is this not so?
Tak@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
It’s technically a heat pump but it only cools and can’t switch to heating the space. It’s a fucked up way the American HVAC system has done things for decades.
dragontamer@lemmy.world 8 months ago
No.
Typical gas / coal plants are ~40% efficient. That means that if you do natural gas -> electricity -> heat pump, you only have 40% of the energy available to you. Yes, Heat-pumps then multiply that 40% energy out into “energy movement” rather than heating, but its a huge efficiency break.
If you instead run a pipe from the central source of natural gas and then burn the natural gas inside of a home, you have something like 95% efficiency (5% lost in the chimney).
Its only in the most recent decades have heat pumps actually become more efficient than burning natural gas inside of homes, because you have to factor the inefficiency of the power plant in your conversion. So today we’re finally in a position where modern, advanced, efficient heat pumps are worthwhile. But go back just 20 years ago and the math still pointed towards burning fuel inside of our homes as the most efficient solution.
jmiller@lemm.ee 8 months ago
A increasing percentage of new construction gets heat pumps. Some replacement HVAC units make the switch, but there is still a large portion of people who won’t because of misinformation and/or stubbornness.
But, unfortunately, most existing residential systems do not use heat pumps, under 20% in the US I believe.
mosiacmango@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Nope. Burning gas and direct electric heat of some sort are still the most prevalent forms of heating in the US, and often have separate cooling systems.
New building almost all use heat pumps because they were a no brainer, but a house built 60yr befofe the technology existed may still be using a very old heat source. Many people do not have the 20k+ to retrofit their current home with new technology even if it can save hundreds/month on their power/gas bill.
circuitfarmer@lemmy.world 8 months ago
As a renter, I have no way to charge an electric car nightly. The availability of charging infrastructure outside of private homes will be more and more of an issue, unless battery tech significantly improves to be at parity with gas (e.g. I spend 10 minutes at a public charger as if I were filling a gas car).