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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  595 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: April 12, 2023

It's probably unsurprising to anyone who knows me to find out that I'm very eye-rolly today at the new EV mandates. But even if I weren't, it seems to me that this is just more politics from Sleepy Joe. There's an almost 100% chance that the Court is going to nix this based on the major questions doctrine. It's almost as if he keeps doing these policy initiatives with full knowledge that they can't go forward just so he can rile the lefty base. You'd think that actual policy proposals would be restrained, achievable, and legal. Anything outside of that is just pandering that won't amount to substantive change.





kleinbl00  ·  595 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    You'd think that actual policy proposals would be restrained, achievable, and legal.

Lol no I wouldn't. The 'wingers are trying to ban libraries so that they can't host groomer books or some shit; if you know they're going to shoot you down no matter what you propose, propose free marijuana for transgender ANTIFA climate activists.

The Left has made a stunning amount of legislation and Democratic voter participation is largely driven by people under 25 at this point. People under 25? They aren't of the opinion that "restrained" is the proper approach when it comes to global warming. I happen to think they're right.

Tesla is 100% EV. Toyota fired their chairman for dragging his feet on electric vehicles. There are like five or six different competing electric trucks out there. Speaking as a mechanical engineer? EVs are EASY. You reduce your moving parts by about 95% and your reciprocating mass by 100%. Guaranteed: the Big 3 all went whingeing to the White House demanding a policy decision they could whine about so that their shareholders don't punish them for spending money on R&D.

uhsguy  ·  593 days ago  ·  link  ·  

EVs are going to kill “domestic” producers. Their main profit center is tucks and EV trucks can’t tow and actually do truck things. Now granted most people don’t actually need to do towing but I don’t think ev trucks are going to a huge sector though there will obviously be some profitable niches the as early trucks are really popular with the city crowd. I do think a large chunk of the suburban and rural market is not going to accept evs

b_b  ·  593 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The most likely scenario is that the directive is killed by the courts. The second most likely is that it's delayed indefinitely. The third most likely is Soviet-style purchase coupons that you wait like 3 years to get ahold of.

kleinbl00  ·  593 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Cash for Clunkers took like eight weeks.

As for trucks that can't tow - I keep seeing Rivians. Speaking as a former electric vehicle designer? There's no shortage of torque, the only limitation is range. Is the range an issue for most people? Inside EVs towed an airstream a hundred miles with the standard battery package. For the people at my kids' school who haul their RVs to a KOA 40 miles away to go glamping? That's plenty and they're the ones buying $100k pickups. Chelan is 180 miles away and I'll bet it'd be a nail-biter getting a bayliner from here to there but most truck-and-boat people do that like once, maybe twice.

An EV truck is the dumbest EV you can make because the efficiency just isn't there and you're gonna get punished on the highway. The way you get around that is by stacking batteries all day, which increases your cost, which gets you a six-figure F150 which is where we're at. Trucks aren't a profitable segment because they're really cheap to make, they're a profitable segment because people pay fucktons of money for them. At that point, the expense is just another bragging point.

b_b  ·  593 days ago  ·  link  ·  

99% sure you intended to reply to uhsguy, so I'm tagging him here.

Although I am one of those morons who overpays for pickup trucks...they keep getting more expensive and we keep buying them. 10 years ago I had a Silverado whose sticker was like 20k less than the Sierra I currently drive, and at the time it was a top of the line model, while the Sierra is upper-mid range. Shit's crazy. They can keep doing that because there's a giant tariff on foreign trucks. Gives GM and Ford a 25% cushion to work with...criminal to anyone free trade minded, though it keeps my wife's bonus cushy year after year.

kleinbl00  ·  593 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I figure everyone reads everything at this point, there's like 10 messages a day.

They can keep charging more for trucks because they're mostly bought by rich people and real estate agents. Who don't give a shit about towing.

uhsguy  ·  592 days ago  ·  link  ·  

At the very least it will split the market into ev and non ev trucks which will add cost. Also charging with a 20’ trailer has got to be fun. I think the lighting does under 100 miles so going to eastern wa will require a stop

b_b  ·  595 days ago  ·  link  ·  

But this isn’t legislation. It’s DOA. The conservative SCOTUS has basically said you can’t make multi hundred billion dollar changes by way of rule making. It’s a political stunt that everyone knows is going to fail. Process matters in our system, whether the under 25 set gets that or not.

kleinbl00  ·  594 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I wouldn't be so sure.

I started out in a place of pure flippancy. But the US is now a net exporter of petroleum products. Red states are jumping all over wind and solar. Saudi Arabia probably hit peak oil in 2008 (they'll never tell) and MBS will cozy up to anyone who sucks his dick. Russia's using oil as a weapon against Europe, China is consuming a fuckton - there's a deep red argument for electric vehicles. And that's before Florida submerges itself, Arizona dries up and Texas manages to do both while also freezing and flooding.