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Electric Car Subsidies As Handouts For the Rich
Atypical Geek writes "Charles Lane, writing for Slate, argues that subsidies for electric cars are an example of 'limousine liberalism' — a lavish gift for well-off Americans to buy expensive cars for the sake of appearing green. From the article: 'How rarefied is the electric-car demographic? When Deloitte Consulting interviewed industry experts and 2,000 potential buyers, it found that from now until 2020, only "young, very high income individuals" — from households making more than $200,000 a year — would even be interested in plug-in hybrids or all-electric cars.'
Lane also takes issue with the billions of dollars in subsidies offered to automakers for the manufacture of batteries, arguing that research (warning, PDF) concludes that the money will not help in jump-starting the economies of scale that will drive down prices. At least, not as much or as quickly as the President has argued."
The billion dollars are there to drive research for better technology, which hopefully will drive down prices. And when compared to subsidies that other industries get (e.g. the big oils), that few billion dollars is just a drop in the bucket. Look, a few $B may be a lot of money for an individual, but when talking about a whole industry, it's not a lot at all. If anything, it's underfunded.
Rebates are stupid. It's the most regressive tax spending possible. If I can afford a large portion of something, I get the rest for free? If I can't afford that much, I get nothing? Um, something is wrong here.
If the government wants to encourage electric cars, why doesn't it buy them? Switch the entire damn postal service over to start with. Give grants for local comunity to switch their police cars and mass transit over.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
That economies of scale is a red herring argument. Right now electric cars are expensive because the basic technology is expensive - you won't drive down the prices a lot by having a lot of (rich) buyers. The thing really needed is more research, which hopefully will *really* drive down prices.
What if that doesn't work? Well, if you aren't willing to take risks, you wouldn't be able to accomplish anything. A few $B among the US's GDP is almost nothing.
Most new technologies end up in the hands of the rich first, mainly because of the costs of production. Over time, if the technology ends up proving itself and becomes cheaper to produce, it starts to permeate itself into the rest of the market, it's just simple economics. Just look at the PC, most families couldn't afford one until well into the late 90's.
You can retrofit an old Volkswagen bug to be all electric for less than $7000. I don't see what the big push is for the added complexity of a hybrid gasoline/electric engine if you only need one to go more than 60 miles on a trip. Electric vehicles shouldn't be SUV-sized. For the few times you need an SUV or need to go on a long trip, the world's petroleum supply should be enough. It would be nice to see all-electric vehicles for less than $10,000 someday, because the technology is there to do it.
I don't know where they are getting their demographics from, but I have many examples where they are wrong.
My first Prius was purchased around 2003 and was the older model. I was not super high income at the time (100k per year). Cost came in around 26k I think and I was paying $400 per month for it. I would think any car with a price point below 30k is not being marketed to the young and rich.
I sold my first Prius to a gentleman from Southern California who was an appraiser. He most certainly did not seem young or rich either, but needed it for the lower operating costs due to the high mileage he was going to put on it.
Now, I did purchase a Hybrid Highlander with a price tag of around 50k about 3 years afterwards. A luxury purchase to be sure, but once again, I did not represent anywhere near 200k per year in income when I made that decision. I just wanted my SUV back while also reducing my consumption of oil.
In addition to my own personal experiences, I know at least a dozen other hybrid owners personally. With one or two exceptions, none of them are exceeding 200k per year (even with combined incomes).
Just ordinary working professionals. So I would say out of the 15 or so hybrid owners that I know of, maybe 10-15% meet the articles assumptions about hybrid car purchasers, or plug in hybrids.
I realize the article is not talking about hybrids, but pure electric, but the Toyota model is only 35k from what I have heard. Far from a Tesla, or some other luxury hybrid or electric (such as the Hybrid Highlander I owned).
Sounds to me like this article is creating an issue that does not exist to attack "limousine liberalism". I will tell you this... it's about fucking time there was some subsidies for electric/hybrid cars in price ranges below 50k. Unless we just want to forget the nearly $1 billion dollar subsidies for the Hummer?
You make two unsupported claims:
1. The Prius is more expensive
2. Only liberals drive Prius
Can you provide a source to either claim? I'm sure I could point out the flaws that lead to those conclusions, but you have to provide a link.
Otherwise, you're just trolling. Lame.
They're claiming to be able to predict vehicle buying patterns 10 years in advance, not just the technology, but the income level of customers who will buy cars that won't even be on the drawing board for 5 more years.
Then it recommends diverting the flow of money spent trying to improve EV's into improving gasoline powered vehicles. Wow, that solves all our problems!
This sentence no verb.
These cars make no economic sense because the cost adder for the hybrid/plugin drivetrain never pays for itself in saved fuel compared to a reasonably-priced econono-box like the Mazda3 or Ford Fiesta. Therefore, only wealthy JEWS wishing to appear green to their snobby rich JEW social elitist friends will buy these.. It's easy when you don't work for your money and have no sense of value.
It's funny how you can just go on and on with any kind of delusions as long as you remember to use the magic "liberal" word. I changed your quote to show that it's the same as classic anti-semitist stuff: just say that they have lots of money, don't have to work, and form strange networks and you don't need to base anything on facts.
Also notice how these "liberals" should buy really small fuel-efficient cars instead, but so-called conservatives can drive whatever they want. Also notice how it is implied that no one "conservative" is ever a slacker born into wealth. After all, that has never happened.
I'm not from the US. Where I'm from, there's no liberal/conservative dichotomy. This means we on average have a better grip on reality. Of course, the article with its "limousine liberal" thing is a huge trollbait in itself, so nothing good will result.
Electric cars make no economic sense at this time, which is why we don't drive them.
Electric cars would make economic sense in a truly free market. Unfortunately, the market is quite distorted.
There are huge externalities with fossil-fuel vehicles—air pollution, climate change,oil spills, etc. These are effectively subsidized by everyone, lowering their price far below what it should be.
"Electric cars make no economic sense at this time, which is why we don't drive them."
They would make a lot more financial sense if the government would stop subsidizing the oil industry so heavily. But hey, since when have Fox News neocons been interested in facts?
I don't respond to AC's.
The Nissan Leaf is scheduled to debut with the price tag of around $32,000. I wouldn't call it cheap but I wouldn't call it a prohibitive luxury good. With federal and state tax subsidies, it makes it cheaper and a working incentive to go electric
Meanwhile a Civic will cost you around $20k and can drive more than 100 miles without waiting hours to refuel.
Even if you don't need to travel long distances, $12k will buy you a lot of gas.
The thing really needed is more research, which hopefully will *really* drive down prices.
You mean like the DOE program for battery R&D? Granted it is only a third of a billion per year, but it's not like they're not funding R&D. Besides, if the DOE does it, the car companies won't have to do as much redundant R&D.
Thats precisely the point toonol was trying to show as erroneous. Even if the government brings the price of the cars down to $10,000 a piece, and people are fighting for the few thousand cars in the production run, the technology wont take off because the technology is not ready, and the infrastructure isn't in place to keep the price at $10,000. The only way to keep it there is if the government continues to spend money on subsidies.
"And exactly where does the government 'heavily subsidise' the EVIL OIL COMPANIES?"
Google is your friend!
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/25/nation/la-na-oil-spill-subsidies-20100525
Why did you think that we pay less than $3/gallon for gas and Europeans pay $7-$8.
I don't respond to AC's.
You ended up supporting the premise of his point by acting as the kind of liberal guy he was mocking. Instead of responding with facts, you used emotional by somehow relating his criticism of the environmentalist movement to that of anti-semitism. There's zero logical leap for that comparison--you're just replacing words and acting as if that's a rebuttal.
You also claim "conservatives can drive whatever they want," which wasn't said. The point is that rich liberals drive these cars, so that was the subject of the post. Conservatives weren't even mentioned. You took it as a personal attack on your ideology, so to respond, you had to bring up conservatives for some reason and draw a bunch of conclusions out of thin air about what you thought was implied by the post.
In fact, you're the one making implication that only conservatives could agree with the post, turning it into a battle of us versus them. You're encouraging the very dichotomy you claim to live away from.
No, the "liberals" being discussed here are the same ones that tell the rest of us that we must make sacrifices, that we must cut back. They expect us to ride the bus, but they won't provide the fundage. They'll just raise taxes. They are as phony as three dollar bills, and no different from the so called "conservatives". They're both top down types who want control. And both use their money to keep it.
I'm not from the US. Where I'm from, there's no liberal/conservative dichotomy.
No? I suppose there's no rich/poor dichotomy either? No social stratification of any kind?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Why did you think that we pay less than $3/gallon for gas and Europeans pay $7-$8.
Because Europeans impose massive taxes on fuel. Presumably because they hate poor people.
So I am curious, did Charles Lane have a whining rant to publish in 2002 when Bush signed off on a $30,000 tax credit for monster trucks?
And by that, I mean that when the government offers a $5K rebate on something, whomever is selling that something raises the price by $5K. The consumer doesn't actually get that money. Whenever the government artificially increases the demand for something, the supply artificially shrinks and drives up the price by a corresponding amount.
This is why college costs $35-50K/year now - there's so much cheap government money to pay for it that natural market forces have made it all but impossible to afford except for either the very wealthy or the very poor who qualify for the government money.
Those of us stuck in the middle end up graduating with a "second mortgage."
My first CD writer cost $45,000(!) and came in a rack with its own PC - and the blank disks were $60 each when bought in quantities of at least 100. Clearly this isn't going to catch on.
My first home network connection was a 110 baud acoustic coupler that cost $250. 6 months later I upgraded to a 300 baud modem that cost the same amount. It takes an hour to download a 10KB file from my local BBS. And they call this an improvement?
My first Windows mouse cost $220 including the board that you needed to run it in a PC. Damn, this will NEVER, EVER catch on.
And that double speed NEC CD reader that I bought for $450 was a real bargain.
Oh, and I remember when RAM switched from core to semiconductor memory, and the price came down to a million bucks per megabyte. We thought we were in heaven when our company bought 3 systems with 2 megabytes each.
I can come up with many, many more examples of costs that have dropped incredibly over time. I don't know if electric cars are in that category, but I think there's an excellent chance that they are.
Money spent on R & D is not money wasted. Yes, you have to be certain that there's a real chance of success, but if you wait until that chance is 100% then someone else will have already done it.
Darn it all, I created a spreadsheet once where I could just punch the figures in and it even did cost of capital calcs, maintenance savings, etc...
Prius is more expensive - $23 - 28k; 51/48 mpg. Call it 50mpg.
Mazda3 4 door - $15k, 29mpg average city/highway
Fiesta - $13k, 34 mpg average
Going by a rather high 15k miles a year, and $4/gallon gasoline(I'm being nice to the hybrid)
Prius - 300 gallons/year, $1200 fuel cost a year.
Mazda3 - 517 gallons, $2069 fuel, $869 more than the Prius
Fiesta - 441, $1765, $565 more than the Prius
Assuming the Cars last 10 years, that's a combined fuel cost of 2.4k/year for the Prius, $1.7k for the Mazda3, $1.5k for the Fiesta.
As for the 'only liberals driving them', I won't go that far, merely stating that you get mostly those who are obsessed with 'green' or those lured by some combination of subsidies, unusual driving patterns excessively canted towards hybrid styles(inner city cab driver?), etc...
Or I could say 'those bad at math'.
I don't read AC A human right
Exactly which liberals told anyone except the very rich to make any sacrifices?
The Nissan Leaf is scheduled to debut with the price tag of around $32,000. I wouldn't call it cheap but I wouldn't call it a prohibitive luxury good. With federal and state tax subsidies, it makes it cheaper and a working incentive to go electric
Meanwhile a Civic will cost you around $20k and can drive more than 100 miles without waiting hours to refuel.
Even if you don't need to travel long distances, $12k will buy you a lot of gas.
Lets run some number. At $4 a gallon, $12,000 will by you 3000 gallons. At 30 miles per gallon that will get you 90,000 miles. So you will need to drive a Nissan Leaf for 90,000 miles to break even and that's not including the cost of electricity to recharge it, the cost to replace the batteries after they lose their capacity or the cost of rental cars when you need to make trips beyond the 100 mile range of the leaf.
If we go to all electric cars or mostly electric cars get ready for toll roads everywhere. Right now it's the tax on fuel that pays for roads (well at least is *supposed* to pay for roads, whether it does or just goes into the general funds is a debate for another day). As soon as people stop buying gas and diesel, they government(s) (state and federal) will be crying fowl and we'll see some sort of black box required on electric cars to see how many miles you drive and sending you a "road use" tax bill at the end of the year. Either that electronic tags on the windshields with passive sensors over the road like current toll booths.
Both solutions have that great added feature of tracking. And it won't take long for there to be automatic "speeding" tickets issues as an excuse for local governments to make an extra buck in the name "Public safety".
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I don't know what data Deloitte Consulting was looking at, but I follow market research on EVs as part of my job, and it's not "Young people wealthy people" who are generally determined to be the most likely buyers for electric vehicles. Like with hybrids, it's educated, middle aged, upper-middle class people (EV buyers average slightly younger, but not much). I could conjecture that they primarily looked at the market for Tesla Roadsters to reach their conclusion. But the Tesla Roadster is nothing like, say the Nissan Leaf.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Just curious, how much of that was government subsidized? This isn't against your post, but a number of posts above seem to think government subsidies for early-adopters are going to work regarding electric vehicles. Instead I think it's clearly a demand issue. As your post does point out, companies desperately needed storage space and the ability to transfer data from point to point quickly. They were willing to shell out $$$ for the tech to do it. This seems clearly different, as now we're trying to replace an old and established industry with a new one, whereas in your examples, these were emerging technologies from an emerging industry.
Well, in the Netherlands at least, we pay our $7-$8 per gallon of gas because of the massive excises. On the other hand, I am sure at least some government effort and money is being expended on gaining access to and control over oil, so I have no doubt that the oil industry is being helped by governments around the world - regardless of whether or not money is directly being given to the industry.
Interestingly, the high fuel prices over here make electric cars rather attractive. The price difference per kilometer (or mile, if you wish) may not be large enough to make up for the cost of a battery pack as will be featured in the Tesla Model S, but, for example, the Chevy Volt doesn't actually cost that much more than the car I currently drive, and would get me to and from work without using any gasoline at all. At that, it's actually cheaper to drive than a lot of regular gasoline cars.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
That economies of scale is a red herring argument. Right now electric cars are expensive because the basic technology is expensive.
The technology is only expensive because it is not yet done on a mass scale. None of the materials involved are prohibitively scarce. None of the manufacturing processes are grueling or unusual.
Bringing more buyer allows more efficient methods, factories, and basic econometrics of scale to be applied.
That being said, giving tax-break subsidies to buyers is absolute the wrong way to go. Just as all college tuition rises to absorb the available scholarships, EV prices will remain high as long as there are funds or tax breaks available.
However, waiting for more research has never proven to be a cost effective method either. How long would we have waited for a Droid-X or an iPhone if someone wasn't willing to buy a those old Analog Motorola half clam shell phones?.
You have to field something that is less than perfect in order to obtain revenue, attract customers, develop support infrastructure, and build manufacturing capacity.
Nothing in the real world is developed beyond prototypes in the lab before it is marketed. Government funded research is best used as seed money. We are well past that stage now.
Progress is slow because everyone is sitting on their patents.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Tesla Roadster production began in 2008 MSRP- $109,000
Chevy Volt production began in 2010 MSRP- $41k
Nissan Leaf production began in 2010 MSRP- $32.8k
With only three models of electric vehicle on or close to the US market, it'd be difficult to make a call as to the impact of the subsidies. Considering that the $7,500 credit brings the cost of the Volt and the Leaf from the cost of a new luxury vehicle down to the average cost of a new mid-end vehicle, it definitely looks like they could make the difference for many individuals considering buying one.
These certainly aren't 0-emission vehicles (grid power isn't 0-emission), but it shifts the economies of efficiencies so that relatively small gains at central facilities can have tremendous trickle down impact. The pressure this will create to shore up infrastructure will drive the creation of local jobs and local expertise in the long run while reducing our reliance on foreign sources of power. Win-win, I'd say.
Why did you think that we pay less than $3/gallon for gas and Europeans pay $7-$8.
As many others have answered, it's because the Europeans distort the market (via taxes) even more than we do. That's not particularly interesting; it's commonly known.
The more interesting question is, now that you know that, whether you'll refrain from using that example again? I suspect you won't, and that you will continue to make that point when you feel it will score you a point in an argument. Many political opinions don't change in response to new information.
And they won't make economic sense until the research is done and the processes needed to manufacturer the components optimized for mass production. Everything must crawl before it can run. It's stupid to compare new technologies to current technologies. This is why we need basic research and early adopters.
It would be nice if the government would make new technology vehicles equivalent in price to old school vehicles for a time so normal people could choose to be early adopters. Not forever, but long enough to see if the technology can be made cheaper with mass production.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I'm not really familiar with British models, but I think the North American Ford Fiesta is based largely on the European model. Comparing those two is not really relevant, as the Prius is a mid-sized sedan and the Fiesta is a sub-compact coupe. You may as well call a netbook better because it's less expensive than a 15" notebook.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Electric cars would make economic sense in a truly free market. Unfortunately, the market is quite distorted.
The market is what it is.
You can't sit there and suggest we totally change our entire economy so that some new technology which isn't cost effective would suddenly become so.
Subsidies in the market, to the extent they exist, are invisible to the consumer. In the absence of some monumental tax reduction, how would you propose to level the playing field and make the new EV's make economic sense?
You can not stop doing A in order to do B without killing the economy. You can not wish into existence over night fast recharge stations, new battery technology, etc. by removing any supposed subsidy to oil companies, and transferring that subsidy to EV companies.
If you did, other than the 10 year total disruption of the economy, what would you have gained besides substituting one subsidized industry for another?
Before you rail against subsidies of the oil industry, bear in mind:
Subsidies are society's way of funding development of what is important to the people as a whole in a way that society desires.
Governments takes money from citizens to give to industry in big enough chunks to assure that governments have leverage beyond what Joe Sixpack could ever achieve on his own.
Subsidies are not a zero sum game. Retuning the subsidy to the pocket of the tax payer does not provide any leverage, and does not make an uneconomic venture into EVs suddenly economic.
The vast majority of oil company "subsidies" is spent on roads. The benefit of which accrues to the people, not the oil companies.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Exactly so.
And Oil company profits in the EU are every bit as lucrative as they are in the US.
A high tax burden is not a sign of an absence of subsidy.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
They don't hate the poor, they just want to keep them in their place- where they belong, without the ability to travel that well into other areas where they do not belong.
Also, if you keep a poor person poor while promising to better them, you can control them to some degree for political benefit. This happens in the US where when someone who gets a job and gets away form welfare, actually makes less then if they didn't have the job and was still dependent on the government.
"In California, where something like 90% of electricity is generated from burning natural gas, electric vehicles in California would essentially be running on natural gas."
Umm, no.
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/overview/energy_sources.html
Natural Gas 46.5%
Nuclear 14.9%
Large Hydro 9.6%
Coal* 15.5%
Renewable 13.5%
Where California's NG comes from
In State 12.9%
Canada 22.1%
Rockies 24.2%
Southwest 40.8%
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."
And that was without even including the benefits to load balancing the electric grid with electric vehicles when they are plugged in, or all the new jobs created in making them.
Or this person's amazing point:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"""
To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh
To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy.
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.
Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).
So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!
"""
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
"you won't drive down the prices a lot by having a lot of (rich) buyers."
The prices will eventually drop due to competition. There won't BE competition if it isn't profitable to sell cars to early adopters.
One would think the "early adopter pays for the R&D" concept would be easy for Slashdotters to understand. In the PC world, they make developing quickerfasterbetter hardware a reasonable proposition.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
How much was earlier US high tech driven by Federal subsidies? Most of it. Who were the early adopters? Bank home offices, process controls at big refineries, and defense/aerospace... lots and lots of defense/aerospace. Even if it was used for commercial aerospace, only by the fat of defense work were Boeing, Bunker Ramo, CDC, Convair, Douglas, HP, Hughes, IBM, Lockheed, Raytheon, TRW, et al, able to fund the purchase and/or development of ever more advanced automated controls, data processing, and networks.
Given how the US economy has been structured since the mid-Depression, I doubt we'd be having this electronic discussion, or even know why we weren't having it, without the Federal intervention that helped get the ball rolling.
It only seems different, this time, because this sort of automotive subsidy isn't driven by a defense or NASA contract.
Luke, help me take this mask off
When I submitted the article, the summary included the following:
Put simply, the is no large market for production of all-electric cars to scale up to, because all-electric vehicles do not - and likely will not - meet the needs of the vast majority car buyers. Because the subsidy will not stimulate widespread demand, and because early adopters are likely to be affluent, it is misguided.
So, were not burning any fossil fuels to charge these things?
Irrelevant. The point is not to burn zero fossil fuels (an impossible goal at this point, unless you can go by bike). The point is to burn less fossil fuels, and also add flexibility to the nation's fleet. Just because an electric car uses fossil-based electricity today doesn't mean it can't use renewable electricity tomorrow.
And most Americans have really long commutes, more than 50 miles per day.
Wrong. The average commute is 16 miles each way. A modern electric car (like the Nissan Leaf) can go 100 miles on a charge. Not a problem for commuting.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The only way to get infrastructure in place is to spend the money and develop it. The only way to develop the technology is to get industries behind it researching better and more advanced forms of tech. And if we can develop it domestically, we might have an actual sustainable car market here in the United States.
I don't know. If the technology was mature, the market mass, and the price sufficiently low, why would anyone need to step in and help develop it? Just let things take off on their own. It's only when actual help is needed to develop what could be a profitable industry domestically that the government should step in.
We gave up the car market in the 90's because our cars were "good enough" that we didn't have to invest in the future of technology. International brands stepped in with stronger developed technology bases and ate our lunch. Now we have the world's only all-electric car maker, and a potential route to future competitiveness. Should we just ignore this, because our gas-powered Fords are "good enough?"
The ______ Agenda
I believe it was France which came up with a better solution:
By the class of car:
Tax cars by how much gas they use then take that money to lower the price of cars that use less gas.
It creates a market condition the car makers will adapt to over time, pays for itself. How you create this equation is a little tricky; but I'd not worry much about the transition since its the long term process that is the goal and the price "shocks" will quickly fade out.
One could also try a carbon tax; but that is impossible in some countries and the money from that tax will likely go elsewhere-- like back to the fossil fuel companies who get most the government energy subsidies already.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
100 billion every year? have a citation to quote?
here's a counter citation
http://blogs.forbes.com/energysource/2010/04/05/big-oils-tax-bill/
"Yet before you thank Big Oil for financing Uncle Sam's profligacy, get this: Exxon paid none of its 2009 income taxes in the U.S., while Chevron sent the U.S. Treasury just $200 million."
can you supply ANYTHING to back up your claim of 100 billion a year?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Bottom line, most people are not interested in "green" or "renewable", etc.
Most people are interested in saving money. Even if the car is electric, they still will not save money in terms of the total cost of ownership, over buying a regular old car that's fuel efficient.
Look at things like the Chevy Volt versus a Toyota Corolla. Even assuming no gas, ever, the Corolla is still more affordable.
Once these move beyond luxury and conversation pieces into a real solution that helps the consumer... then they'll be of interest to more than just conspicuous consumers.
Which is worse / more distortion? Giving the money to oil companies as subsidies so they can continue to depend on their main source of revenue like Microsoft depends on Office and Windows? Or giving money to the government to build the critical infrastructure that will enable an electric future at the periphery? Since when did companies in general use their own funds to provide for roads, bridges, etc that all oil guzzling car owners use and would be useless to them without? We the people need some way of building an electric future and so far government hasn't been very good in stepping away from the oil industry, but if you decide to put someone in there that does, well you have that choice, right? Besides, economy is all about deciding where to invest out money given the problem of scarcity. Having some shareholder sit on it means it is being invested somewhere else, perhaps not even in energy, maybe a derivative, so it is up to government: strengthen the rules that govern corporations/ charge tax for once, or if it is found or is generally known that the unfree market that we have doesn't work to produce / expose needed results, then shift the reward to some outfit that is capable of doing it. Even if the wealthy are being subsidized, it still means that more of your money, in addition, is going to Telsa, Chevy, Nissan who have invested the money you gave them by buying previous products. Think of it as a corporate cookie for doing a good job and as an example to others for bringing in a future that has been decided with good leadership. The "liberals" didn't get paid to drive that car, we subsidized the company in question so that we can have a future in which it is possible for others to buy a similar car.
Society use your Sciences
" from households making more than $200,000 " - Two earners making a combined $200k in many urban areas where the car will be used are middle class. This might be hard for a writer for Slate to understand given what they pay professional writers at the moment.
Gasoline at least cuts out the middle man, by allowing fairly direct use of the energy of burned fuel.
However small internal combustion engines are horribly inefficiant. Plus they only deliver usable power and efficiancy and can't deliver torque at stall at all so a complex drivetrain is needed to go between the car and the wheels.
IF the electricity is coming from CCGT plants then i'd expect the increased efficiancy of the power plants over an internal combustion engine to make up for the transmission, distribution and storage losses. Coal power plants are less efficiant but coal-oil conversion isn't exactly efficiant either.
The best pursuit out there is that of a hydrogen powered vehicle, that runs with water as it's fuel.
Umm making water into hydrogen would use up more energy than you would get from burning it so it's only worth it if you are storing the hydrogen (essentially using it as a form of battery).
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I don't want to play the conspiracy nut, but there's a lot of disinformation out there regarding electric vehicles, which have the oil companies AND their own makers against them (the traditional automakers are afraid of losing all the $$$ they make in parts & repairs.) The report is full of nonsense--we have loads of Prius owners here in a very blue-collar community. My old Mazda has a few years left, and I hope that I can replace it with an electric car.
They expect us to ride the bus, but they won't provide the fundage. They'll just raise taxes.
And...?
You do understand how funding for public transit works?
You can't tax cut your way to a robust public bus system.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I wonder how the TCO looks on the leaf if I take a 7500 federal credit, and a 5000 CA credit, and resell the car for more than I bought it for.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
As many others have answered, it's because the Europeans distort the market (via taxes) even more than we do.
The European counties properly tax gasoline to pay for the subsidies that it requires. Subsidies that the US "hides" in the general budget. Things like the billions expended in military expenses to secure access to oil and the billions spent cleaning up the environmental damage (spills, polution, etc) of oil-based fuels, the billions in health care costs associated with breathing the crap that comes out of exhaust pipes. I could go on...
That economies of scale is a red herring argument. Right now electric cars are expensive because the basic technology is expensive
This argument seems circular to me. We cannot drive down the cost of the technology using economies of scale because that technology is too expensive.
I think you are making your point too broadly. There is no reason to suspect that economics works differently in this case than any other. If competitors A and B are both profitably selling electric car technology (due to subsidies), they still have the same economic incentive to save production costs that they would if they were selling profitable with no subsidy. However, if neither A nor B can sell electric cars at a profit, neither of them can be expected to make any serious effort at reducing electric car production costs.
One could argue that the subsidy in this case is more to the manufacturers than the buyers. Are electric cars really that much better than the best ICE cars available today? I don't think so. The net benefit, then, is to manufacturers who are now able to sell a product that gives them real-world experience designing and supporting a technology that no doubt will be important in the future. It's the manufacturers who take value away from this three way deal. The reason we might want to do this is that some of the kinds of knowledge generated by real world product development and support cannot be obtained by any amount of government research, as useful as that research is.
It might be better to say that dramatic cost reductions are not guaranteed by economies of scale over the short to mid term, and it is even possible that we might run into a few dis-economies of scale in the short run. That's an important point. Hypothetically, suppose that there will be no viable EV market without government subsidies for the next ten years. Then if we are paying out subsidies this year, we'd better be committed to do it for nine more years, otherwise we might a well have thrown that money into the furnace. In that hypothetical case the money would be better spent (if at all) on federally funded research.
So there are a number of questions we should ask. (A) getting to viable electric vehicles earlier than would happen naturally a priority for the public? (B) Is the mix of private investment and public investment one that minimize the wait (keeping in mind the possibility of premature investments in non-viable technologies)? (C) Do we have the political will to sustain the expenditures long enough to have a practical impact?
I think our will to sustain public investments is the most doubtful point.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The Volt has already solved this problem for a lot of people. Battery operated for daily driving up to 40 miles, and a gas powered generator that can go a couple hundred more. There are probably tens of millions of people in the US alone who could use this car as their only vehicle, price aside.
Where are you getting this viewpoint from? The average US commute is something like 33-34 miles round trip. A 50-100 mile range electric vehicle would suit those needs just swell, with the added bonus of not concentrating massive amounts of pollution in urban heat trap zones.
Heck, I live out in the sticks, my round trip to town is 26 to 30 miles depending on what stores I need to hit. A 50 mile range light weight small pickup would suit 99% of my needs *right now*, and we have mid range flatbeds and dumptrucks and even some road tractors if I need a bigger truck for the occasional heavy load. Most of the time I get by with a four cylinder diesel datsun pickup 1/2 ton that gets 30-40 MPG.
And with my solar panels, once there are pure electric vehicles beyond sedans, and only needing to travel into town once a week...free fuel for me. I'll wait a few years after I start seeing them, then get a used one. Around the farm, no probs, it's 1.5 miles wide at the widest, meaning I can scoot around here for cheap/free as well (we have a lot of our own gravel roads). Electric works just fine in industry now, plenty of useful and practical all electric vehicles, from forklifts to mining equipment. Smallish electric cars have been used since forever in the form of golf carts. It's the same tech, just scaled up to make a road vehicle.
The prius sold out fast when it was first introduced and still sells well, despite all the naysayers pre release-and I distinctly remember a lot of internet predictions saying 'they wouldn't sell". The tesla at the other end, sells all they make.
I'll make a prediction to counter your opinion..both the nissan leaf (pure electric, mid $20ks) and the chevy volt (extended range plug in hybrid, 41 grand) and the tesla model S sedan (fifty something grand) will sell every single one they first release, and will then have to increase production to meet demand. And then a few years from now the chinese electrics (BYD company at first) will finally hit, and they will come in under 20 grand and sell like freekin mad, and *that* will be when the electric vehicle dam bursts, and you will see them at all price ranges from cheap intro level "your basic ride" to luxury exotic and everything in between, just like today with pure ICE vehicles.
We'll have to wait to see who is correct of course.
Sadly, even Slashdot has succumbed to the hate politics so prevalent in the US at the moment. Watching the commentary on this story is as intellectually enlightening as watching the mainstream media with talking heads and rants. What happened - you guys get bought by Fox?
My $0.05 (AUD - we don't have pennies any more)
You ended up supporting the premise of his point by acting as the kind of liberal guy he was mocking. Instead of responding with facts, you used emotional by somehow relating his criticism of the environmentalist movement to that of anti-semitism. There's zero logical leap for that comparison--you're just replacing words and acting as if that's a rebuttal.
If his criticism of the environmentalist movement is based on prejudice, then isn't it similar to anti-semitism? I mean, he says that these cars are bought by and only by rich liberals who don't have to work. Do you think he can back this up? The article just cites a future buyer prediction, the thing about rich slackers is something the above poster pulled out of his ass. I admit I probably did this discussion a disservice by replying to him so early since he's a troll and has been moderated as such already.
You also claim "conservatives can drive whatever they want," which wasn't said. The point is that rich liberals drive these cars, so that was the subject of the post. Conservatives weren't even mentioned. You took it as a personal attack on your ideology, so to respond, you had to bring up conservatives for some reason and draw a bunch of conclusions out of thin air about what you thought was implied by the post.
Well, I admit conservatives were only mentioned in that they were excluded from being buyers of electrics ("only liberals"). However, as I mentioned at the end of my post I was railing against the whole conservative/liberal thing. Rich people are rich fucks regardless of political label, so it doesn't matter much if they're "limousine liberals" or something else.
Basically, the original poster said something reasonably insightful about fuel efficient small conventional cars. Then he just made up some stuff about buyers of electrics. There are no doubt plenty of eco nuts who believe in Jesus and atheist commies who drive SUVs - the terms conservative and liberal are just name-calling, and made the post I originally replied much worse than it could have been.
As for my ideology, it is nothing like the stereotypical US liberal NOR conservative ideology. You know nothing about it. What made me reply was the fact that the original poster was doing a childish "us vs. them" routine.
There are tax limitations on resale.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
From the FS:
In case you are missing the point, the middle class represents the vast majority of those who buy cars, and all electric vehicles do not - and will not- meet their needs. So unless you are going to force them to buy, there is no large scale market to drive down costs.
Yes, but why? Because GM and gang cannot make an EV suitable for them. PERIOD. If I buy an EV that gets 50 miles on a charge, and still worked at CompUSA, I would be walking 15 miles a day, hoping I ran out of charge someplace near a plug - otherwise I'd be walking 15 miles to work, and 65 miles home. Even if the EV got 100, it wont get me there and back, and there's nowhere I can charge my car at work.
So... what if the cars that were being promoted to these people who were polled were the Tesla Model S or (pending) BlueStar with a 300 mile range? Then, suddenly, there's no problems driving to and from work, and doing the 45 minute charge routine each night or every other night.
With all the publicity GM and others have gotten for their half assed EV attempts, Tesla (and the... what 2? other EV manufacturers who make something suitable for suburban to city commuting) have gotten virtually none, have gotten loans (and/or small subsidies) instead of big subsidies, have not gotten media coverage, etc.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
It is the usual and normal pattern in America that the wealthy acquire new devices before the poor. The wealthy guy can take the hit if he makes a bad choice and makes a lousy decision whereas the poor can sink under the waves from a tiny error. As the technology gets more common, is thought of as being reliable and cheap to operate, then expect people with less money to acquire such a product. In essence the wealthy are the guinea pig and after all companies usually seek the big spenders as buyers.
I expect a tipping point in which there will eventually be a stampede of buyers seeking electric cars. Companies that have put them selves in the right position will earn a whole lot of money.
What it'll do is help drive research. It'd be silly to think we have developed the best system for hybrid cars as it is. They are just simple setups with a gas engine and batteries. There are probably much better ways of doing it. Well, one way to help get that researched is to help the things sell. If it is a profitable market, a new market, companies will work on it. Subsidies can help push that.
I mean you have to consider that in the development stage, hybrids are like Model Ns or maybe Model Ts. They are very much in their infancy. Now look at how far pure gas powered cars have come in that time till now. Given time, hybrids should too.
While I'll grant you current battery technology is pretty much maxed out, this will generate demand for new tech, with performance better suited for cars. For example in terms of batteries we aren't looking for the same thing as in, say, a laptop where energy density is king and the entire solution has to be tiny. What we need is low cost, and not too much weight. We could have something that is larger and more complex. Fuel cells maybe. Right now too expensive, but then not much has been developed with them. Also maybe research progresses along using multiple storage techs. Have something like fuel cells for sustained cruise, but super capacitors to overcome inertia and get the car going.
It's a new problem, and I don't know what the solution is going to be. However, I think there probably is one. We are real good with technology and to think we've already discovered everything in any area is pretty arrogant. I think it is the sort of thing we can solve, but to do so will take development. Something that'll help that is making the cars more marketable. If the companies can sell what they make, there's incentive to invest in new tech.
"Even if the car is electric, they still will not save money in terms of the total cost of ownership, over buying a regular old car that's fuel efficient. Look at things like the Chevy Volt versus a Toyota Corolla. Even assuming no gas, ever, the Corolla is still more affordable."
Same could be said about the Prius but look how well they're selling.
2010 Prius MSRP = $22800 to $28070
2010 Corolla MSRP = $15,450 to $20,150
Price difference = $7350 to $7920 = $7635 average
Prius mpg = 51/48 = 49.5 mpg average
Corolla mpg = 26/34 = 30 mpg average
195,000 miles / 49.5mpg x $3 average per gallon = $11,818 dollars
195,000 miles / 30mpg x $3 average per gallon = $19,500 dollars
$19,500 - $11,818 = $7682.
So basically, you'd have to drive 195,000 miles in a Prius to break even compared to the price of a Corolla. Until you surpass 195,000 miles the Corolla would have saved money.
This also doesn't figure the interest you could make on $7,682 while you're driving your Prius to reach 195,000 miles. If it takes 10 years to reach 195,000 miles that $7,682 at 5% interest would be $12,513.17.
In summary, the new Corolla will always be better than the new Prius. Of course this is assuming you're deciding between the two cars comparing gas prices only, not size of vehicle, status, smugness, etc.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Let the early adopters bring me an affordable, not-ugly-ass electric car.
And this is the typical "liberal" tactic of throwing a red-herring into the argument by saying "racist" instead of having a REAL discussion using facts and figures.
I live in the Bay area - one of the hightest concentrations of liberal folks in the country - I suspect the original author's points are correct.
1) We're subsidizing this technology with everyone's funds so a few people can buy them and feel good about themselves.
2) They are STILL not economically viable compared to conventional technology.
The facts are that the electric car has been around as long as the combustion engine. They haven't been competitive from an engineering perspective for that entire length of time. Their inherent weekness - charge time, and cost (both to purchase and own - wait till you get to replace that $6K battery stack.) make them uncompetitive in the market.
Leave the race baiting out it.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
You should also add in the resale or trade in value. Trade in value for 2005 Prius in excellent condition is around $11,000 while trade in value of Corolla in excellent condition is around $6,000. So after 5 years, the Prius still holds about $5,000 value over the Corolla which nullifies most of the price difference from the initial purchase. Also, the Prius has held on to more of it's value (30 to 50%) versus the Corolla (15 to 30%).
Just saying, if you want to do a detailed analysis you should include resale cost since most people do use their existing cars as trade ins when they purchase new cars.
Invalid assumption:
Gas will be $3 for the next 195,000 miles.
When I bought my Prius, gas was $1.49 a gallon. I had calculated the break-even point between the Prius and the other car we were looking at was at 130,000 miles.
Because of the doubling of gas prices, with flirtations at the $4.00 mark occasionally, we hit break-even at 80,000 miles.
5% interest over the last 10 years would have been a miracle. My conservatively-funded retirement plan is barely positive over the period of time I have owned my Prius. (Depending on wether you pick the week before or the week after I bought the car, you get either 7.6% increase or 7.8% increase total over 6 years. Hardly 5%/year.) My aggressively-funded retirement plan is *NEGATIVE* over that time.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.