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Who has or is planning to get an electric car / EV Talk
- Thread starter PracticalMac
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Yeah, I think that's a legitimate point for someone to raise. It comes down to how you view the subsidies. Is the need for the subsidy an indication that it's not competitive and needs government support, or is it an investment in future technology?
Personally, I think the second but also a very important third thing: it's a rebate for externalities not incurred. When someone buys a car that pollutes, they pay the cost of the car but society pays the cost of the pollution. Most of that winds up being paid with tax dollars through healthcare needs and infrastructure needed to deal with rising temperatures and sea levels. I see the subsidies as not only accelerating the development of an important future technology, but also as a rebate for the asthma cases you and consumers of future generations of this technology won't burden society with.
I received no tax incentives for sharing that 2 cents.
Ok, so it turns out that same site has total registrations on a different page:
Reading the description (and looking at the total registrations being close to 250M), I think this is the number of registered vehicles not the number of newly registered vehicles. In other words it's all the registration forms submitted that year for new and existing light vehicles operating on the roads. That's actually a better metric of how common they are.
Light duty includes pickups and SUVs, but not heavy commercial vehicles.
Utah and Vermont have above average adoption, New York is below average.
Reading the description (and looking at the total registrations being close to 250M), I think this is the number of registered vehicles not the number of newly registered vehicles. In other words it's all the registration forms submitted that year for new and existing light vehicles operating on the roads. That's actually a better metric of how common they are.
Light duty includes pickups and SUVs, but not heavy commercial vehicles.
Utah and Vermont have above average adoption, New York is below average.
I understand and to a large degree agree and to aN even larger part agree. In order to enact some necessary changes it may require incentives. The question surrounds the word necessary and in what reasonable time table. Thanks much for sharing your thoughts.
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Without going down the rabbit hole government does provide rebates, subsidies and incentives where it deems necessary. One example, economic zones, whereby retailers can pass on sales tax savings to customers. This is a NJ thing.
So I don’t think it’s out of line for government providing the same to spur bev sales. It’s a technology that has its benefits (as well as drawbacks). Just like everything under the sun.
Out of luck I timed this just right. With every incentive including Tesla discount and referral bonus except federal tax credit I knocked $10k off the price and no sales tax.
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If you have problems with subsidies on electric vehicles, I hope you never ever visit a gas pump. I seem to remember going to Iraq to help subsidize gas prices. I’m sure the US and other governments have spent hundreds of billions trying to ensure affordable oil production. The subsidies electric vehicles are getting don’t even come close to that. No one thinks of how much money governments have spent to keep the oil production infrastructure going. We can’t have gasoline without oil production.
This being said I’m not against gasoline powered vehicles or taxpayer dollars to keep them going. I just think we need to take that in the consideration when we talk about electric versus gas and how much one costs for infrastructure.
I can’t understand people having an issue with it but can understand people taking advantage of it while it is available. It doesn’t last forever as we’ve seen in the UK.
In short, yes, but that is how all government subsidies work. They rob Peter to pay Paul, it is the core principle of Government subsidies, but they are designed to facilitate change in a community, and support wider goals and objectives, can even support international climate targets. They are a fine instrument to drive different behaviours. So yes, when one group gets disadvantaged, even more so by their contributions (funnily enough, often they aren't net contributors in the first place, but that is a different story) they'll take issue. Especially so when the advantage is currently predominantly for a price point they couldn't afford. It frequently happens, it is silly, but it is what it is. That is why some have to make the difficult decisions.
All, thanks for the replies. And just to be clear I am not anti-subsidy on their face.
These are just the visible ones. I grew up in an Oil family, living overseas. Even in countries where we aren't in a war, we have US bases/embassies to support American people and Oil companies in these oil producing nations... If it wasn't for the big US Oil company investment, the US would likely only have small consulate offices.
There is a TON of hidden subsidies as well as known subsidies to support US Oil. It only makes sense to have some subsidies to promote US development and growth in the future of the Automotive industry. Otherwise, we will fall behind.
We’ve already fallen behind some countries, but there’s nothing saying we can’t catch up or at least not fall too far behind. It is hard to convince some people to buy an electric vehicle when the public charging infrastructure is not great.
500 kilometre maximum EV range won't work anywhere outside the cities here in Australia.
here are just 2 examples of a typical 1 day drive …
here are just 2 examples of a typical 1 day drive …
So what you’re saying is that there is no charging infrastructure, right?
cause I’ve done trips of that length with a charging stop …
I'll guess that during a 676KM and 8 HOUR DRIVE you will need to stop and eat, use the restroom, etc. You'd charge at those times.
I just checked A Better Route Planner for one of those drives above... and there are places to stop and charge along the east coast of Australia:
Drive 3 hours... charge for 10 minutes
Drive 2 hours... charge for 20 minutes
Drive 1 hour... charge for 10 minutes
and so on...
The car's computer will plan this for you.
I don't know why people want to take these insanely long journeys without taking any breaks. I sure as hell don't.
😜
I just checked A Better Route Planner for one of those drives above... and there are places to stop and charge along the east coast of Australia:
Drive 3 hours... charge for 10 minutes
Drive 2 hours... charge for 20 minutes
Drive 1 hour... charge for 10 minutes
and so on...
The car's computer will plan this for you.
I don't know why people want to take these insanely long journeys without taking any breaks. I sure as hell don't.
😜
for starters, a 700kms drive in a day is no big deal. pee stop after 2 hours then a lunch stop at a rest area for 30 minutes. another brief stop and destination acquired by late afternoon.
to stop and charge would add at least 1 hour with diversion to large town that has a charging station and that's assuming there's a free bay.
my car (BMW diesel) has a range of just over 1000 kms highway running.
ain't an EV made as yet that can match that.
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You could get a Lucid Air that has an advertised range of up to 480 miles, so around 750 km…
But that is totally besides the point, I’m in California and have no interest exploring the charging network in Australia.
Here, there are fast chargers along all major routes, eg going South to North which could me much more than 500 miles, there are charging stations every half to an hour max, I can charge my Ioniq 5 from 20-80% (which is around 230 miles) in 18 min. Just enough for a bio break and get a coffee or other drink.
Sure, an EV today requires some more planning than an ICE but eg Tesla has that route planning with stops at the right time nailed down.
Range is not really the issue except rural areas, that I can see when you’d go west to east in Australia.
And, EVs are not for everyone, yet, but speaking for the US 50+% could get away with an EV today.
And there probably won't be an EV that can go 1,000KM on a single charge in our lifetime.
Thank goodness we can still buy good ol' gas and diesel cars.
Though people with EVs tend to like them.
😎
and yet the uptake nationally in USA is around 1.5% - and would be even lower were it not for massive gov't subsidies to manufacturers to keep costs down.
transport runs on diesel; this despite mr musk's best efforts for an electric prime mover.
mind you, most passenger rail is diesel/electirc which could be a consideration for long range trucking - a hybrid diesel motor with the grunt necessary to pull heavy loads.
And what would the purpose of that range be? To satisfy 2% of potential buyers? Apple could build an iPhone with 96hr battery life, but why don’t they?
Change is hard, I get that. If you want to continue burning fossil fuel, you still have that option, your children/grandchildren might not survive if this is continuing “as is”.
And we’ve just gone through the whole subsidies discussion a couple pages ago, if you really thing EVs are more subsidized than fossil fuel, you got to do some serious research…
Here we go again…..
Straight to the edge cases. I regularly drive 24 hours without stopping etc etc.
Look no one says EV’s will work for every single scenario today. However they do for much more than 59% of the population as suggested above. Most people don’t drive more than 200 miles more than a handful of times.
Most charging is done on driveways and garages
Yes some governments subsidise EV adoption (some don’t anymore). But they also subsidise oil companies.
We can all carry on doing what we’ve done for the last 100 odd years and not worry about the polar ice caps melting or the freak weather events increasing.
OR we can actually think about others and see if we can’t find a solution.
Or we just sit here and say I’ll buy my EV when it can do 100000 miles on one charge and take 15 seconds to charge.
Glad I’ve made the switch.
Straight to the edge cases. I regularly drive 24 hours without stopping etc etc.
Look no one says EV’s will work for every single scenario today. However they do for much more than 59% of the population as suggested above. Most people don’t drive more than 200 miles more than a handful of times.
Most charging is done on driveways and garages
Yes some governments subsidise EV adoption (some don’t anymore). But they also subsidise oil companies.
We can all carry on doing what we’ve done for the last 100 odd years and not worry about the polar ice caps melting or the freak weather events increasing.
OR we can actually think about others and see if we can’t find a solution.
Or we just sit here and say I’ll buy my EV when it can do 100000 miles on one charge and take 15 seconds to charge.
Glad I’ve made the switch.
With the "low" average speed shown, I am pretty sure the Lucid Air Grand Touring could hit 1000km. People in the US would be doing almost double the speed shown which would clearly limit how far one can go.
Almost all problems have a solution with various compromises.
The uphill battle EVs have at the moment is that making the switch requires a significant change to driving habits and more planning. As charging stations, battery charge times, and range all improve to make the experience almost indistinguishable from fossil fuel automobiles voluntary adoption rates will soar.