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8 US States Pushing For 3.3 Million Electric Cars
An anonymous reader writes "A coalition of eight U.S. states, including New York and California, have announced a plan to get 3.3 million zero-emission electric vehicles onto their roads by 2025. 'The states, which represent more than a quarter of the national car market, said they would seek to develop charging stations that all took the same form of payment, simplify rules for installing chargers and set building codes and other regulations to require the stations at workplaces, multifamily residences and at other places.' An editorial in Quartz says that while the initiative itself is fine, the states should really take cues from Tesla if they want to plan out an infrastructure that will convince people to switch. ' For longer distances, [Tesla drivers] can stop at "Supercharger" stations strategically placed along highways that let them add 150 miles of range in as little as 20 minutes. Currently, [government] money is being spent on installing much-slower chargers at stores, shopping malls and other urban locations in the hope that drivers will use them. Tesla says it will blanket the US with its Superchargers for a fraction of the cost, because it studies the driving patterms of its customers and installs charging stations only where they tend to travel. This isn't hard; most other electric cars also record their drivers' habits. If privacy concerns could be addressed and automakers would be willing to share that data with government transportation planners, the rollout of public charging stations could be more targeted and cash-efficient.'"
HOW would privacy be addressed?
You can be sure that Texas is not one of those eight states.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Electric cars still look quite unattractive to me. The primary problem is the weight, cost, and limited life of the batteries. But long charging times are also still a problem, and even 20 minutes is rather long.
Given the current state of the US electrical grid, I'm not confident it would fare well against a sudden increase of large battery packs being plugged in at once. Yeah, we can setup delayed or offset charging times, etc. But I'm not sure lawmakers or even the utility executives have a good grip on this.
But that might be the plan. A brownout would drive demand for the government to invest in the grid. Maybe.
But I'm not in a position to run the number, so I could be full of shit.
Place nail here >+
Where do they think the power comes from? Those magic wall sockets most likely are connected to coal burning plants. There aren't enough sites for hydroelectric power to increase by a substantial amount, and solar and wind power aren't capable of supplying the "base curve" of the grid demand because of their unreliable nature. Either allow nuclear energy and/or fracking to supplement them, or STFU about renewable sources please.
"If privacy concerns could be addressed and automakers would be willing to share that data with government transportation planners, the rollout of public charging stations could be more targeted and cash-efficient."
How would one adequately address privacy concerns when the spy agencies routinely lie about what they do?
I see the power company lobbyists are busy.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
I guess car stories are good for starting high-traffic, high-clickthrough flamewars, but it seems like we're going a bit overboard lately.
As it sits, you're looking at putting down an additional $10k on a car *JUST* because it's electric, while the typical price-conscious consumer looks at that money difference and realizes that they can actually just get a whole lot nicer car instead.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This is correct. The solution is not ready yet. People forget how bad pollution was with horses, and how much cleaner gas-burning cars were. A buildout of the current grid to handle electric cars is incredibly wasteful.
Place nail here >+
What a load of crap. There is no reason at all to share any personal data with the government. Lets ignore that NSA already has it all, if they want to know where people drive, well, they already have good road usage statistics for most roads. They certainly don't need data on where current electric car drivers are driving now, they "need" data on where they would be driving their over priced toys if they could drive there and get back, and the current data will not tell them that. To meet their idiotic goal they would really need data on where the people who don't buy electric cars (perhaps because they perceive them to be impractical with the current infrastructure) would want to drive them, not data on where people who already bought them already can drive them. And even the "need" for that other information, which can't be obtained by turning over people's private travel history, ignores the questions of "should government be doing this at all?" and "wouldn't everyone benefit more from research into better batteries or alternate energy storage or production than from the government getting involved in the car charging business?".
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
because it studies the driving patterms of its customers and installs charging stations only where they tend to travel
Problem: Sometimes I travel where I do not tend to travel.
"By 2025, the average zero-emission vehicle driver will save nearly $6,000 in fueling costs over the life of the car. "
By 2025, $6,000 will buy as much as $600 buys today.
Also, central planning doesn't work.
Or just get uneducated americans to stop freaking out about having a small nuclear reactor under the hood. That would be my solution.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Nuclear reactors cannot modulate their level of output several times per day, yet as anyone reading this should know, demand changes greatly over the course of the day. On a minute-by-minute basis, demand is pretty chaotic. That's why the nuclear industry spurred the construction of a great deal of the hydropower capacity that we have today.... so it could actually stay in business.
The interesting thing is that today's deregulated energy markets don't have the stomach to stick with nuclear power projects: Once bureaucrats commit their ratepayers (you and me) to a project, the price invariably skyrockets. Geographic monopoly, business culture and the sheer size and complexity combine in an unfortunate way that sets nuclear up for failure.
Those renewable sources, however, are already making use of the hydropower capacity that the flagging nuclear industry in no longer using. They say: Thanks!!!
As for the dis-ingenuity of posting about "unreliable" renewables in a thread about BATTERY-based transportation.... LOL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWM4R5JsakE
For this too work at least 100 million cars with compatible charging units would have to be on the road in those states by 2025. In addition every unit of power would have to be subsidized by either the state or federal government. Plus think of the strain this puts on an aging power producing infrastructure. Electric prices will soar. Unless we switch to nuclear power or solar become MUCH cheaper this plan can't be sustainable.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
I wonder if these states adopt Tesla's supercharger stations then will Tesla be able to charge $$$ or get royalties from licensing the technology etc...
If so then that could lead them down the path towards being a monopoly, since they'd own all the supercharging stations...
Yes if you are standing around waiting for it. If they had slow charging stations in parking locations it doesn't matter
That's fine if 0.05% of cars around are electric. But it's totally unrealistic to think anything justifies the expense of putting an electric charging unit into every single parking spot.
Even if there aren't ever very many electric cars, you have to worry about non-electric cars taking up your spot. And if you decide that there are going to be some electric-only spaces now you have reduced the capacity of the whole parking lot for something used even more infrequently than handicapped spots.
Instead, if there was a charging station at the oasis I would plug in, go inside to use the bathroom
The thought that every time I need to charge in public I get to experience a public gas station restroom is reason enough to go buy a stiff drink and a hummer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We are not ready for mass adoption of electric cars, but the technology is not yet cheap enough for that yet anyway. By the time the technology does get cheap enough, and starts trickling down to the majority who have rarely if ever bought a new car in their lives, we will have had plenty of tie to start shifting to more sustainable power generation.
For that matter we could roll out high-efficiency gasoline generator power plants that will burn far more cleanly, and generate far more power per gallon, than most modern cars do. Even with transmission and storage losses you'd *still* come out ahead with electric vehicles in terms of fuel pollution.
Perhaps more to the point that substantial delay in adoption means you can't quickly change the fuel source for hundreds of millions of gasoline cars on the road. You can try shenanigans like ethanol fuel "enrichment", but that's really a drop in the bucket. Diesel has a little more potential since they are a lot more tolerant to alternative fuels. Electric cars though, those will be powered by whatever your power plants happen to be consuming, without any modifiation. That's mostly coal right now in the US, but that's starting to change, and IIRC Germany already gets something like 60% of its electricity from solar, and they're not exactly known for their long sunny days.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Right now even the cheapest hybrid cars tend to cost double what a cheap gas powered economical car costs. This means you can go through like 100,000 miles of gasoline before you break even.
Some company should try and make a bare bones economical car with electromagnetic return braking. Aim for a short range if you have to 20-40 miles, and have a or a hybrid gas/electric drive. Basically you'd charge at home, so most of your commute is near-free.
A car like this would empower a lot of low income families who spend a noticeable portion of their income on gas to get to their minimum wage job. Also it would give low income families the chance to shop around more at stores since often you don't go to stores for discounts when the gas money eats up the savings.
The downsides are that the highways would get a lot more crowded, and the power grid would be hammered and need upgrading. A hammered power grid can be offset temporarily by people getting solar installs at their houses. When your car is using lots of electricity, the investment is worth it. Whether you're going to be driving a hybrid now or even a hydrogen later, solar panels help with both.
God spoke to me
Nothing will educated them about nuclear like a pacific ocean without fish!!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Oh, also worth mentioning - the shift towards electric cars creates the promise a vast and lucrative new high-dollar market for *good* batteries (safer, cheaper, and/or more environmentally friendly) - which makes the necessary R&D far easier to justify, bringing significant attention to a technological field that had been largely languishing.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Electric cars result in plenty of emissions, from the production of the electricity that powers them, to the energy expended manufacturing them, to the diesel used in the locomotives that transport them.
All cars result in emissions.
Running a car on energy from the electric grid is greener than running on gasoline, even if your power comes from coal plants.
Not true. In city driving Tesla claim a 292 mile range off a 85kWh battery, or 651kJ/km. Adding in battery manufacture and allowing a generous 1000 cycles, that goes up to 923kJ/km. Allowing for losses in electricity generation (40% at best) and transmission (~7%), the overall consumption is 1653kJ/km.
A medium size diesel gets about 60mpg (UK gallons), equivalent to 1690kJ/km. The difference is just 2%.
Citing diminishment of of revenues from gas taxes, due to the influence of electric cars, 8 states are working to impose a per-mile road tax.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Check out the grid utilization from Midnight to 6am in any timezone. Would it surprise you to know the load is generally less than 40% of peak? Assuming reasonable charging models, there is no need to radically expand the electric grid.
And no, it is not zero emission, but certainly using an electric vehicle produces far less direct polution than driving a typical ICE car.
All this blather and government planning and so on.
I said nothing about government planning. I'm not sure your comment was directed at me?
What I said is that it's not feasible to put charging stations in every parking spot. It is insane. There's no way you will ever make a return on that investment.
Electricity is the future of autos; but not the kind where your car needs charging via electric cables to every home or parking spot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is already a vast and lucrative market for safer, better, cheaper, environmentally friendly batteries. There has been for quite some time.
Hell, ignore the premium. Anyone who even thinks they might take a road trip will balk at the idea of having to wait around for 20 minutes every 150 miles. For that reason alone, it's going to be limited mostly to upper-middle class and above.
You're totally right, and I think the industry is keenly aware of this, and they are working on how to address it.
Gasoline cars have been mass-produced and cost-reduced for decades. It's really quite amazing to look at the cost of an internal combustion engine and see just how cheap they are, considering the materials, parts and tolerances that they require to produce them. The same can and should happen to electric cars, but it just doesn't happen overnight, and it won't ever happen without them being in active production.
The Tesla Model S is Tesla's second car, and it's a huge advance over the Roadster. The Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf are first-generation products. We're just at the beginning of this change, so be patient!
Electric cars involve hideous poisons dead miners waste of energy and unnecessary power plants and inefficiencies. Dumbest idea since yuppies.
I hate that term as it is inaccurate. While the vehicle may not emit pollutants one is just shifting the emissions to the coal/natural gas fired electricity generation plant. If the cars were not charging the plants would not be emitting as much. It is less emissions that an internal combustion engine but it is non-zero. Sure, you can hook your car up to you PV array or wind turbine but if you are using grid energy it is not zero emission. If the source of the electricity is not zero emission then calling the electric car zero emission is a lie.
That $10k differential, if invested, could pay a return that would cover most of your gas.
Fuel, or cars in general, need to get much more expensive for this to make sense. Better to start the transition now, and hey - props to everyone buying a Tesla.
..don't panic
How often do you urinate?
Anybody who thinks they should make decisions that profoundly impact their everyday life due to intermittent and occasional usage needs to reconsider their decision making priorities.
For that reason alone, the middle-class needs a lot of education as to information processing.
First you make the power plants not run on fossil fuels or anything that emits CO2, THEN AFTER THAT you push for electric cars. Do it in the opposite order and you're wasting time and money.
A lesser known fact involving the economics of electric cars is that by using electricity you typically are using a locally generated energy source. If this is combined with renewable energy sources such as solar panels on your house the economics become even more interesting. The key to all this being that money normally spent "fueling" traditional vehicles often leaves the country or even the continent completely. By switching to a more local source of energy this money is freed to be potentially spent on local goods. While this sucks for the oil producing areas and countries it really works for the vast majority of countries that import massive amounts of vehicle fuel.
The above only applies to those areas that are able to source their energy locally.
Why this economic fact is important is that it must be taken into consideration when looking at the cost of improving the grid or even putting solar on people's houses. The benefits of not exporting your money can easily outweigh a fairly sizable margin in the cost of fueling the vehicles.
Some small countries with bounties of sun and no fossil fuels will really win when the combination of cheaper batteries and better solar cells become available.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the concept of an oil war will be gone in 20 years.
Woo-hoo! Eight states voluntarily take another step in crippling their own economic development and driving more of their businesses into more freedom-oriented states. Funny to see nanny-staters smuggly congratulating themselves for doing things that damage their own standard of living.
They are pushing hybrids, not electric cars. If they have junk like the volt, which will encourage daytime charging, then our electric bills will go up.
Instead, you really want to encourage real electric cars, not hybrids. And they should have 100 mile range or better. In addition, the chargers should charge a tax if you use them in the busy time. By switching the charging to nighttime, it actually lowers the cost of electricity for all, and this not only cleans up the environment, but drops our imports.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We have had quite a few presidents and other politicians asking all of us to save fuel and not pollute. Now is the hour to put the money on the line. Sure charging stations will be needed but since buying an electric car is a huge service to our nation shouldn't the charging be free of costs? Already we see states that want electric cars to pay an extra tax as they no longer pay tax on gasoline. So what it the real truth about government wanting to encourage real, energy efficient cars?
As a matter of fact if we add a big tax to gas and diesel it would push people towards electric cars and start to wind down gas and oil production. So do we want to placate the rich companies and give them tax money to keep poisoning all of us? We might as well declare that our nation is severely mentally ill and we really don't have a clue as to what we really want or need to do.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/02/electric-cars-in-alaska/
So if our neighbors in the crispy cool north do it without an issue, what makes it impossible or insane in the rest of the country? This is not only possible, but we have a sort of prototype out there already. Next up is to start doing Nuc plants again.
The utter lack of "possiblenous" in so many slashdotters makes me think that it would be impossible to have any more than 64 K of Ram in computers.
Who sort of misses the point of the article that the engines need heating to make sure they start.
As it sits, you're looking at putting down an additional $10k on a car *JUST* because it's electric, while the typical price-conscious consumer looks at that money difference and realizes that they can actually just get a whole lot nicer car instead.
I suppose I'm an "atypical" price-conscious consumer, because I looked hard at the costs... and chose to buy electric because it's cheaper. Sure, if you just look at the vehicle price, gasoline-powered vehicles are less expensive, but when you factor in fuel and maintenance costs over a suitable time horizon (I chose 8 years), gasoline isn't so cheap. Even without any subsidies, I found that the break-even point was just shy of 6 years for the less-expensive EVs (LEAF, i-MiEV, etc.), at least for my driving patterns. With the federal and state tax credits available, it was two years.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Anybody who thinks they should make decisions that profoundly impact their everyday life due to intermittent and occasional usage needs to reconsider their decision making priorities.
Yes, and it is so much more rational to make decisions which profoundly impact one's standard of living and economic freedom based on some vague notion of impending climatic disaster. Incidentally, contained in that "intermittent and occasional usage" phrase is an enormous amount of personal freedom. It is not irrational to want the freedom to jump in a car at a moment's notice and drive hundreds of miles to a favorite vacation spot or to see a friend or relative. Even knowing that one can make such an impromptu trip can relieve stress.
why do you need the government promoting them? You would think if it was such a great idea that people would just ber flocking to them.
I recently bought an electric motorcycle.
Here's why:
I did not buy the electric motorcycle to save the environment.
Long tailpipe argument is valid.
I did not buy the electric motorcycle to have long range
It's pretty much stuck to the metro area that you're in until the infrastructure is in place
I bought the electric motorcycle as a hedge
By using the power grid, sure the distribution method has its issues, but it allows for getting power from multiple different sources without thinking about it. If one just goes for whatever's cheapest, be it coal or nuclear at the time, one should be a bit sheltered from shock effects of world markets for oil and political escapades that are outside of one's control.
Bonus: it's almost completely silent, which would drive some "bikers" to madness, but I get home at 11PM or later sometimes and it's good not to wake up the neighbors.
Most drivers will use one of the closest available spots. If the charger spots are far from the door, gas drivers won't use them unless the lot is full. That will keep them available for EV use without needing yet another law.
If that also messes with some selfish prick's sense of entitlement because he thinks he should get the best spot due to his $80,000 car that the rest of us had to pay half the cost on, so much the better.
That's right. In those states, you won't be allowed to hire people unless you spend $2,000 putting in an electric charging station that none of your employees have any interest in using. Here in Texas, you're allowed to make your own decisions. You can hire people and psy them that $2,000, or have paid maternity leave, or spend it on a gym that your employees actually want. We call it "freedom". (Those examples are some of the ways my employer spends their money, rather than spending it on government mandated nonsense.) Freedom not your thing? That's cool, you can stay in California where the bureaucrats tell you what to do.
You are a moron.
First of all, how is any time or money wasted? It isn't. At all.
Second, real life is not a fucking game of Civilization. In real life, we can in fact research more than one technology at a time.
Third, you're saying that electric car manufacturers should just sit on their hands waiting for new power plants to be developed and deployed (a process that will take years or decades), even though the technology they've invented is usable and marketable now, today. That's obviously stupid on many levels. If you're better at making business decisions than, say, Elon Musk, why is he a billionaire with multiple successful business ventures while you're a pissant little computer-shop drone who gets no respect even in the place he (mistakenly) thinks he runs? You have NO intelligent response to that question, and you never will or can.
Fourth, if you have electric cars out in use before power plants are upgraded, that means that when any given plant is upgraded, you IMMEDIATELY get the benefits for EVERY electric car whose power originates from that plant. If electric car makers followed your symptom-of-fetal-alcohol-syndrome advice and just twiddled their thumbs until every power plant in the world ran on unicorn farts or whatever, then you would have to wait for EV's to be developed, brought to market, and adopted for use before you'd start to see the automotive gains from them, and in the meantime all the fossil-fuel cars that would have been replaced would be out there gaining NOTHING from the new plants.
You are reading this post, and as you read it you are feeling the shame and humiliation you deserve for being such a stupid little fuck.
Now either babble some more stupid bullshit that digs you even deeper into your retard-hole, or just tuck your tail between your legs and slink away like the little bitch we both know you are.
Those are your ONLY possible choices.
Because electric cars presently are bullshit.
"Yeah, 68% of the electricity in the US comes from fossil fuels but big plants burn it more efficiently than your car's IC engine."
So, we've established it's okay to burn fossil fuels if the process is efficient enough? Okay, screw these damn batteries and let's develop better ways of turning fossil fuels into forward motion. Or, perhaps, accept the fact that maybe burning fuels that have the potential to be carbon neutral (like biodiesel and ethanol) may actually be more green than a car that essentially runs on 68% dead dinos.
"There's all this unused grid capacity during the night."
There's also a lot of unused road capacity during the middle of the night, too. Just like roads, the electrical grid needs to be designed with the capacity to handle peak usage, like around 6pm when everyone gets home, plugs in their car, cranks up their air conditioning and starts cooking dinner.
"Electric car technology will come down in price, just like cell phones."
Electric cars have actually been around since 1888. Electric cars are expensive not because the technology is new, but because the batteries are resource intensive to build.
"The price of electricity won't be affected."
Used cooking oil was essentially worthless until demand started for using it as feedstock for biodiesel. Corn jumped up quite a bit in price when the government increased the amount of ethanol required to be blended into gasoline. Adding more demand to the electrical grid will cause electrical prices to increase, it's a simple matter of supply and demand.
"Electric cars will help lower demand for gasoline."
Yes. But gasoline isn't really used for much else other than as a motor vehicle fuel, so your electric car purchase is actually helping make my gasoline slightly cheaper. Thanks.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
FTFA :- "Tesla says it will blanket the US with its Superchargers for a fraction of the cost, because it .... installs charging stations only where [customers] tend to travel"
:- "Tesla will put chargers only where there is a lot of traffic"
Translation
Self-contradiction. Putting only where there is a lot of traffic is not "blanketing". No wonder Tesla can do it cheaper.
In the 1960's, the UK closed most of its railways because a study for the Beeching Report found that a third of the system generated only 1% of the revenue. In fact, a similar statistic would be found for the UK roads (and any nation's roads I suspect) - ie a third of the roads carry a tiny % of the traffic - buy no-one talks of withdrawing public finding for them. If such backwaters are to have any modern infrastructure they require subsidy and I don't imaging Tesla would be prepared to provide it. Although I live in the hills, I don't care - because I'll continue to drive home over the neglected roads in my gas-powered off-roader.
Let's not forget the "keep it" option.
How about, instead standardizing the charger, we standardize the form factor of the battery and make them hot swappable ? Three or four battery sizes/shapes could cover most types of electric cars. The battery would be owned by the charging station chain, and you would pay prorated electricity, wear-and-tear and rent.
For example, you could chose to use the services of Tesla battery station, knowing that Tesla has the largest capacity/autonomy, at a higher cost. A city dweller would prefer to use cheaper, older generation cells which are sufficient for his daily commute. If you charge your battery in some other fashion, the smart battery will record that event and you will be charged only wear and tear.
This will allow the battery to be charged in controlled, optimal conditions to maximize the number of charge cycles, using offpeak, cheap and clean electricity (night wind power). Swapping the battery would be faster than filling your tank.
Assuming you mean the owners of the business could keep it, they could keep half after assorted business and personal taxes.
There's no question that money laundering schemes politicians come up with that have "green" in the marketing plan are very good for the politicians and the corrupt businessmen who profit from them. It's the new cronyism, rob people of their money because they feel good about being ripped off. What's incredible is the number of people who fall for this crap.
If one were to really dig into this, they would surely find that the makers of the charging stations are corrupt to the bone, and are looking to get rich off the government teat. They conspired with eight blue states, who's population is easily duped, and they have come up with a new way to steal from the people and pad their greedy pockets.
In 1903 the electric car was a fierce competitor with the internal combustion engine. In 1903 the electric car had about a 40 mile range, using lead acid batteries. Fast forward one hundred and ten years and the range of the electric car in real life... is about 40 miles. Yet politicians have hoodwinked a large segment into the population into believing that we if just throw enough of YOUR money at the problem, it will be magically solved, using unicorns and pixie dust to overcome the laws of chemistry and physics.
Never mind the fact that many here have pointed out, nobody actually knows where the electricity to run all these cars is going to come from, and nobody is talking about the environmental impact of producing that many batteries.... The same people pushing electric cars are the same people who are slowly destroying our ability to generate electricity in the first place. Or the fantasy that a solar panel on the roof of your garage is going to power your daily drive.
We have failure after failure after failure of green energy schemes to do any of us any good - and in the post mortem analysis it turns out that the whole thing was just a way to take money from YOU, give it to some evil and greedy businessman, and they then returned a good portion of that money to the corrupt politician, who used it to give the businessman more breaks. Living in Michigan, we have seen this right before our eyes more than once in the past few years alone.
So here we have eight corrupt states with sucker populations who are going to pay some exorbitant sum for a fantasy that will only put money into the incumbents pockets, insuring that they remain in power, and the people in those states get screwed. And we have legions of passionate idealists who wouldn't know the reality of how this will work in practice if it hit them in the face.
Putting all of our effort into electric cars, because of slick marketing, means we aren't actively looking at every other alternative, we aren't open to other ideas, and we are committing ourselves to a path that has the highest short term profit, not what's best for you, the consumer.
It's the same story with so many other things... Al Gore comes to mind... Wind Farms - that work in a few places, sure, but generally do not pay for themselves unless the government steals money from you to make up the difference.
We had the Ethanol scam - Where a group of greedy agribusiness companies led by ADM used their powerful lobby to sell us on Ethanol, not because it was good for the environment, but because it was good for their profit. They sold us a package where the amount of Ethanol produced per year was fixed - assuring them a steady guaranteed client in any economic condition. Then gasoline consumption went down, because the economy sucks, and surprise the refiners are now sitting on massive stockpiles of ethanol they were forced to buy by this onerous legislation. The solution? Force us all to buy even more of the stuff, reducing gas mileage and costing us all more. This is how this will turn out too.... Who will be hurt the most? Poor people, minorities, and the middle class -- the exact people the feel good crowd claims to want to protect.
And the government continues to help corporations like ADM with this
Murphy was an optimist
So you favor stealing money from the rest of us (That's where that subsidy money comes from) in order to support your personal decision.
And I am sure you rant about how evil corporations steal from the people too, don't you?
Murphy was an optimist
Only to the extent that taxes are theft... but consider that since the person who is getting those subsidies is also paying taxes, they are at least also contributing to such subsidies.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The batteries must be standardised. The stations can the sell (replace) the drained battery in the car with fully charged batteries thus reducing the time to 'fill the tank'
For one thing, as noted those are for block heaters - not charging, which would consume a significant amount more electricity. They are there because they are required by the nature of the environment, whereas a charging station at a parking spot is more for convenience.
Also, there is no kind of payment situation there - adding payment stations significantly increases the cost and requires some kind of connectivity beyond just connection to the electrical grid.
You really are not fully grasping the extent or what would have to be done to have EVERY car be electric, not just a handful driven by the rich or highly dedicated.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
you just need to look at it long term and not in pure revenue-per-charger terms.
I *am* thinking of it long term; you are plainly not. If you ignore the economics of a situation then you are doomed to failure eventually.
It's a shame you don't have socialized healthcare in the US because then things which improve the population's health
The U.S. already has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Meanwhile socialized healthcare is starting to fail around the world, as is inevitable for a system that is not economically feasible long term.
like removing particulate spewing ICE vehicles from the road and replacing them with zero emission vehicles
You don't seem to understand that is my goal, which is why I heap such scorn on ideas that get you half-way there and then collapse. The only realistic way to get to 100% zero emission vehicles is hydrogen. It takes longer (maybe) but it actually works. All efforts should be put into furthering that solution, not wasting time and a LOT of money on charging station boondoggles which you'll be pulling up in 10 years.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So you favor stealing money from the rest of us (That's where that subsidy money comes from) in order to support your personal decision.
Stealing money from you? That's a rather twisted way of looking at things. You're saying that my money is yours. I disagree, completely. I think 80% of the federal taxes I pay are theft from me, and I'm perfectly happy to reduce that burden in any (legal) way I can. And I still pay plenty.
I'm philosophically opposed to subsidies for EVs (or any other product). If you offer me the chance I'll vote against them. However, if you offer me a legal way to reduce the taxes I pay -- regardless of its basis -- I'll take it.
And, even without the subsidies, I'd still have bought the EV, because it still would have made financial sense!
And I am sure you rant about how evil corporations steal from the people too, don't you?
I don't think I have ever in my life ranted about evil corporations stealing from people.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Or, you know, you could make sure everyone has the *right* to paid maternity (or paternity) leave, as in most of the world... That you have to depend on the goodwill of your employer in cases like this is mindboggingly insane.
Whether you make up a new "right" or not, you can't pay someone for paternity leave if the money is already spent on government mandated BS.
You seem to be confused about the definition of the word "right" is, though. When you talk about giving people new "rights", you've made the word virtually meaningless, turning it into a synonym for "entitlement" or "privilege". This is important, very important
The right to free speech means I can voice my opinion EVEN IF THE MAJORITY OR GOVERNMENT DOESN'TLIKE IT. You have the right to a fair trial even if the government would rather ramrod you. The Bill of Rights is a list of freedoms the government "shall not infringe". Note it doesn't say "should give you", it says "shall not infringe". Rights are not at the government's discretion. They can not take your rights away because your rights don't come from the government. Your right to think your own thoughts is intrinsic to your humaness; government can only infringe your rights or not. They can not take them because they did not give them.
Your natural rights as a person include your right to have your own thoughts, and your right to your own production - to eat what you grow in your own garden, to live in the house you built.
If you build your house for your family, I do not have the "right" to kick you out and take it for my family. I do not have any right to take your food you grew in your garden. My wife is pregnant at the moment. That has zero bearing on your rights to your own food. You may choose to share some tasty vegetables with me, but knocking up my wife doesn't give me the right to take your stuff.
You want to create a new government mandate? Fine. Do not lie and call it a "right", though, because as soon as you pretend that government creates rights, government is justified in taking away your rights that "they gave you".
This is a bit unexpected. I've actually designed many products that are used to construct the grid, with several patents, so I have a bit of knowledge about it. Yet my post was modded flamebait. Wow - talk about shooting the messenger.
Place nail here >+
Helpful to the environment....you can also read my blogs http://www.allerin.com/blog/
When a politician passes a law that puts money in his or his party's pocket by making a back door deal with a corporation, or a lobbying firm, that results in money being taken from me, it's stealing from me to pad his (and his parties) pockets. When I pay taxes for things that result in income redistribution to other citizens, that is an entirely different matter.
:-)
Those of us who live in or near some of America's most corrupted cities (Detroit, Chicago) know exactly how this works, and have watched this same way of doing business imported into Washington, DC by this Administration-- not surprising as Chicago is where Obama learned politics. Not that it was clean as whistle before Obama came by any means
In Detroit the difference between the Mafia and the Democratic Party and the Unions is negligible. Same thing in Chicago... In Detroit a good percentage of the last administration is in prison, and the city went bankrupt because they couldn't possibly pay all the bribes they had committed to pay!!
Murphy was an optimist
When you said eight states that have 25 percent of national car rentals, I think you meant to say 50 percent of US GDP.
Fixed it for you.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --