- cross-posted to:
- climate@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- climate@slrpnk.net
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15648896
Do it
What’s with the title?! Here’s my alternative: China’s EV boom makes a dent in fossil fuel consumption.
Do you know what the word “threatens” means?
You obviously don’t know how fast China’s been manufacturing cheap EV’s and solar panels. There’s a reason oil lobby owned politicians are trying to ban them from being imported.
China’s sales of electric vehicles and hybrids have in fact reached a tipping point. They’ve accounted for more than half of retail passenger vehicle sales
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
Cheap EVs is part of it, and that part is subsidies from the government, but China has also increase the registration cost of pure ICE vehicles. Yeah, you can still buy them, but they’ll cost you a lot of extra money to register them to be legal to drive on the roads in China. On top of this, in major congestion areas, you have to get entered in a lottery to even get a license plate (ability to register a car). The government in China continues to reduce the number of ICE license plates available, and increases EV license plates. (source)
So its a lot more than just “cheap electricity and cheap batteries” in action in China causing this massive switch to EVs.
And here I have to pay more to register my hybrid.
And here I have to pay more to register my hybrid.
Same for my EV (double the hybrid registration cost in my state). However, that’s because of how road taxes are collected on the sale of gasoline/diesel fuel. Its still overpaying on EV taxes though. For the same registration fee I pay on an EV ($200/year) I could drive over 15,000 miles on a gasoline car getting 30 miles to the gallon. I drive maybe 11,000/year so I’m overly taxed compared to ICE drivers.
That’s the excuse they give, yes. That doesn’t mean it’s why they do it, though.
Sometimes China does good things.
Often times. Most of the bad things you’ve heard were probably made up anti-China propaganda.
Uyghur Genocide
Violating the sovereignty of Taiwan
Unprovoked attacks on boats in nearby international waters
Lying about being communist.
Which of these are made up?
Hong Kong to…
Uyghur Genocide
Point to the community in Xinjiang that looks like Gaza City
Violating the sovereignty of Taiwan
Imagine China encircling Puerto Rico with its navy, then complaining about the US violating its sovereignty.
Taiwan has been contested territory for centuries. The US attempting to colonize it doesn’t reflect poorly on China.
Lying about being communist.
Americans can’t decide if China is bad because Communist or bad because Not Communist Enough.
Ah, so just whataboutism
Americans will butcher tens of thousands of people on the opposite side of the China/Afghan border, accuse you of genocide, and say exactly this when they’re called on their bullshit.
You understand the list of things China did was a response to the insane comment that most of the bad things we heard of were made up. Do you think they’re made up? If not, then you most likely don’t have anything meaningful to say about the topic at hand.
Do you think they’re made up?
Exaggerated and embellished to the point of absurdity in order provoke a Red Scare and justify a new war.
most likely don’t have anything meaningful to say
You’re buying the same lies that lead us into Iraq.
I would love for this to happen, but it just seems to be another reason why Trump wants tariffs on foreign EVs–both Elon and the oil/car execs don’t want clean, affordable vehicles! They only want us buying gas-guzzling tanks or deregulated, overpriced Teslas.
I mean, I hate the guy but Tesla prices have dropped significantly over time and Tesla does a ton of battery R&D, which is good. And Tesla has done more for the EV charging infrastructure in the US than anyone else has. Even so, going forward I will never buy a Tesla, I’m hoping my next car will be an Aptera. More and more non-Tesla EVs are coming with the NACS port and can use the Tesla chargers, which is great. Non-Tesla chargers are few and far between. And generally pretty slow. But fuck Elon regardless.
It’s like they didn’t learn a goddamn thing from the 70s and the better, cheaper, more fuel efficient cars imported from Japan.
Maybe a silver lining is that this would free up these cars to be sold in other countries that have cities drowning in smog… if cheaper EVs are available there it might dramatically improve the health of these cities and all their inhabitants…
That’s a good point. I guess that was pretty American of me to dismiss this entirely because of what’s going on here.
Can we also curb those big fat ugly SUVs in the rest of the world? They are not only more polluting but infinitely more dangerous.
EVs are such a mess in North America. Unless I want a Tesla it feels like I can only get gigantic SUVs or expensive luxury cars.
I just want to replace my Mazda 3 with an electric equivalent
I was so excited when I heard Mazda was making an electric vehicle. But what they made was a joke, not even 100 miles on a charge. I also want to replace my 3 with an electric of the same size.
I understand what they were going for. Batteries are heavy, so keep the car light and nimble and completely impractical as anything but a local commuter.
Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf come to mind.
- Renault Megane E-tech Electric
- VW ID.3
- Volvo EX30
And there’s quite a lot more brands with EVs in that size bracket coming out in the near future
Sadly none of those are available in the US except the EX30, and the starting MSRP is literally double that of something like the Mazda3 the OP mentioned.
I wasn’t aware that both the VW and Renault wasn’t available in the US… That sucks. But yeah, the MSRP for EVs are generally quite a bit higher, but that goes for pretty much every size of car, but that is only a tiny bit of the whole picture. I also didn’t know the price disparity was that big in the US for the Mazda and Volvo… But when you are looking at EVs you really need to look at the service and fuel/electricity costs too.
I live in Denmark, so obviously my experience will be very different. I recently switched from a Ford Fiesta 2016 (5-door hatchback, gasoline, medium-high trim) to a Hyundai Ioniq 5 (fully electric, crossover SUV, top trim), and I drive about 30,000 km per year (~ 18600 miles). And when you factor in the cost of the car loan, the service subscription, the insurance, and fuel costs, then the much larger, and much more luxurious Hyundai Ioniq 5 comes out to costing me about the same per month.
I did all the math before we bought the Ioniq 5, but unfortunately don’t have all the numbers handy anymore. But the main factors are the MSRP cost and the fuel costs
Ford Fiesta 1.0 100 hp Titanium Fun (2016):
- Price 160,000 DKK (~ $22,690), Loan came out to 1790 DKK per month (~ $254)
- Gas costs per month ~ 2,200 DKK (~ $312)
- Sum per month 3,990 DKK (~ $565)
Hyundai Ioniq 5 Long Range Ultimate (2023):
- Price 405,000 DKK (~ $57,434), Loan comes out to 3559 DKK per month (~ $505)
- Electricity costs per month ~ 400 DKK (~ $57)
- Sum per month 3,959 DKK (~ $562)
So even though the cost was 2.5 times higher, it was about the same to own and drive. I have no idea how that math works out with gas and electricity prices in the US.
What about battery degradation? How much does that cost? Who will pay for it? Also, if you plan to sell the car in the future, you should factor in its value deprecation (general, besides the battery), which for a car of 2.5 times the price will roughly 2.5 times more in absolute numbers. Or is this that type of leasing where you basically rent the car and don’t care about this?
As a small follow up, new research seems to suggest that current EV batteries might last 40% longer than any predictions have expected, due to the real-world use of them causing very different wear on them than the heavy duty testing in labiratories:
Seen that, very good news indeed.
Edit: my last remaining worry is in regards of the effects of the cold weather (common in my country) on the batteries. Other than that, I’m sold :)
don’t give me hope.
Give it to me, please.
best I can do is tree fiddy
Primary reason I don’t understand the call for “drill baby drill”. We’ll end up with oil and needing to sell it for much cheaper than anticipated because the demand is low.
Ya I always hate when people say, “We’ll always need oil!”. I mean, maybe ya, but for every time we convert a car, or power plant, to electricity, or stop producing some plastic product, that reduces the overall demand. It’s a good thing!
We will for a long time, but the less we need the better. At some points we will replace plastics etc. But we don’t have enough alternatives that make economic sense yet.
Fuck China. Any news coming out of China is a lie. Grow up.