This car costs $8500. Not a typo. Less than 10 racks. And you don't have to put gas in it.
But we can't have it in the US, because we'd rather have racism and argue about solved problems like birthright citizenship, and should Black people be allowed to vote.
So you get Cybertrucks instead. Enjoy!
@jeffmcneill AFAIU, the Big Oil fought against electric cars in USA so long that in the end, electric cars only managed to break into the luxury cars' market segment there.
@Red_Shirt_no2 @riley @Lightfighter @jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke
I read one economic analysis of the USA economy in the mid-2010's, that had the conclusion that without the 25-year mortgage, the USA economy would collapse.
It's one of the reasons that the cartels in the construction industry keep banning technology that would make construction cheaper and last longer.
@BillySmith For the 'wrong people might get rich, and wrong people might get poor' values of 'economic collapse', though.
@riley @Red_Shirt_no2 @Lightfighter @jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke
It's not just that.
It's that large parts of the industry would shut down, as they wouldn't be needed...
Vinay Gupta did an excellent talk where this was one of the themes:
@riley @jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke
Big oil only did so much, the average American doesn't care about climate change and did very little to push for greener technology. Just look at the gas guzzlers most people drive.
@HakeemG Er, do you not know the story about the lobbying effort that went into making "SUVs" a legally induced thing?
@riley @jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke
I know that when I talk to the average American they proudly proclaim they don't give a shit about climate change.
@sidereal @robloblaw @johne @jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke this is the thing that somehow doesn’t make it into the media narratives.
Being an EV driver I make a point of talking to EV drivers.
The response is always“my EV needs no maintenance”. Sure, tires, wipers, cabin air filters and wiper fluid but that’s it.
Took my VW in for a “service inspection”. Service desk person says “EVs don’t need servicing. This is a formality”.
How is it that this story is not making it into the news?
@jonshell @sidereal @robloblaw @johne @jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke
"How is it that this story is not making it into the news?"
Indeed, my friend. Indeed.
@advicepig same. Trust my family mechanic to do tires.
He’s old school but no fool. He’s seeing people switch to EVs and then he doesn’t see them again except for tires.
Used to see him all the time for the Camry. Oil every 6k. Timing belts. Brake rotors. Oil leaks. Muffler. Now we go over there to take him banana bread and shoot the breeze. He knows his business is changing, same as my Dad who had a film processing shop. Digital came and he just smiled and retired.
@advicepig @jonshell Regenerative braking goes a long way to eliminating friction brake wear. Even my civic hybrid now has 185k miles on it and the brake pads are only at about 50%. Past experience with normal civics is that you need pads replaced somewhere between 50-90k miles.
Suspension components however ... there is no difference here, and EVs tend to be heavier with current battery technology, so more work for those systems.
@acsawdey @advicepig @jonshell
The low brake wear was also a thing with manual transmissions when using your gears and engine to slow you down. In most cases you only had to tap your brake to finalize your stop, and you had tons more traction than an automatic (especially in a winter climate). But few know how to drive a standard and fewer still know how to use it right.
@jonshell @sidereal @robloblaw @johne @jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke The amount of money I've spent on the suspension on my (non-EV) car over the last few years, I suspect you're going to get surprised at some point.
You might not need to deal with an internal combustion engine, but there's a whole load of things that *aren't* the engine to go wrong, too.
I'm sure the EV is still cheaper overall, but you're missing some fairly major things from your list of stuff that's going to need work.
@sidereal @jonshell @robloblaw @johne @jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke Sure. I even said that.
I just don't want to see EV maintenance oversold as nothing more than "tyres, wipers, air filters and wiper fluid". There's going to be other things, some of them much more expensive than the above list.
US domestic auto manufacturers have long disliked making affordable cars. The profit margins are too low.
Meanwhile, even luxury goods in other commodities has been outsourced to China and other 'developing' countries. That there is still a US auto industry at all is a matter of macho national pride and its very profitable military production side.
@hamishb @jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke
Also, the vast majority of government agencies (national, state, and local) are mandated to buy only American vehicles.
@jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke
Part if it is US manufacturers were slow to embrace LFP battery chemistries (cheaper than NMC batteries).
But most of it is the Chinese government and industry spent billions in research and capital to make EVs cheaper than gas cars. Economies of scale and strategic vertical integration of supply chains.
@jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke the same car in Singapore costs over 170000 SGD (that's 4.3 million baht).
That's considered pretty cheap by the way, and I'll probably get a BYD when it's time to change car.
@RnDanger @cascheranno Right. It's highly taxed (130% import tax, if I'm not wrong). But the majority of the cost comes from the fact that you need a 'certificate of entitlement', which is a permit to drive the car that is valid for 10 years.
In order to control the number of cars on the roads, they only issue a certain number of these certificates every month, and they are auctioned off so the cost depends on demand.
The current prices can be found here: https://www.motorist.sg/coe-results
@jeffmcneill @mekkaokereke substantial subsidies by the Chinese govt. But the US govt has also greatly subsidized manufacturing over the years, like bailing them out in 2009.
I wouldn't be terribly upset if the govt of China wants to pay for half of my EV, if I can get one of the 50k that will be imported to Canada with a low 7% tarrif. That seems like a good deal for me.
This is exactly working as intended. You should be thinking "Hey! If the Chinese government wants to give me, a proud Canadian, some free money for a car, I will gladly accept it!"
And the more EVs that are on Canada's roads, the more apartment owners and office buildings will say, "🤔Hmm... I should put in charging ports! All the potential renters ask about it!"
And the more that apartment and office building owners will say, "Man! If I put some solar panels on the top of my building, I could offset my electricity costs!"
And the more that bike people will say, "EVs are not the answer! Stop buying cars! Electric bikes are even better! You can charge them too!"
And before long Canada is a solar punk wonderland, and is less dependent on oil imports, and has transitioned more to renewables.
@mekkaokereke @johnefrancis @jeffmcneill
You know, that is exactly what I'm thinking! 😎
FWIW, the US subsidized EVs too, but you don't feel a $7500 subsidy on a $100K car as much as you do on a $17K car.
@mekkaokereke Blocking Chinese imports makes sense if we are part of a long-term, stable economic alliance with a trusted partner. Under those circumstances, we have to think about China dumping EVs and ultimately taking our cross-border automotive manufacturing sector down.
What's that? We no longer have a stable relationship with a trusted partner? Canadian jobs are not threatened by imports? We might be better off with the Chinese EVs?
Ok, fine, let'm roll.
@raganwald @mekkaokereke @jeffmcneill it's not a Canadian manufacturing industry, it's all foreign owned and serves the US market.
Foreign car and oil industries are presented as bringing great benefits to Canada, as they receive huge subsidies to export all the value of Canadian resources and labour.
@johnefrancis Not sure we have the will and market size to build a sustainable domestic auto industry. But it sure would be nice to see whether EVs change that calculation. Why export minerals only to buy them back as body panels, batteries, and motors?
@jeffmcneill I am not claiming they are dumping. Dumping applies only when a foreign country subsidizes an export for the specific purpose of driving domestic competition out of business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)
If we aren't making EVs, it doesn't matter whether the cost is low because of Chinese subsidies, Canadian incentives, innovation, or a mix: There is no dumping if there is no domestic competition to disadvantage.
@jeffmcneill My pint was and is that IF we were still part of a long-term, stable alliance with a trusted partner with whom we had an integrated automobile manufacturing economy, THEN we would need to look at the imports and determine whether there was dumping going on.
If you say "there isn't any dumping," that is not in any way incompatible with what I wrote. And now, I am done with this not-picking.
@jeffmcneill @raganwald @mekkaokereke the number I keep seeing is $231B via a variety of mechanisms.
Is it "dumping"? I don't know. No industry exists in a vacuum devoid of govt support, "free markets" are only markets within their own scope, they all exist in a wider context of govt supports (ie enforceable contracts).
https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/chinese-ev-dilemma-subsidized-yet-striking
If it gets me a great value, then maybe I'm OK with that.
Scott Kennedy writes that Chinese EVs have benefitted from massive industrial policy support, and their quality is improving, making them attractive to domestic and overseas consumers. An effective response by the U.S., Europe and others must take account of both facts.
“Dumping, in economics, is a form of predatory pricing, especially in the context of international trade. It occurs when manufacturers export a product to another country at a price below the normal price with an injuring effect. The objective of dumping is to increase market share in a foreign market by driving out competition and thereby create a monopoly situation where the exporter will be able to unilaterally dictate price and quality of the product.”
1/2
@johnefrancis From where I sit, it can't be dumping unless there is domestic competition the imports are unfairly driving out of business with nation-state support.
That being said, even if we had competition it may still not be dumping. China has a big head start and has used its economic clout to develop its EV industries while North America stuck its thumb up its ass and made it easy to buy gas-guzzling pickups.
2/2
@mekkaokereke @jeffmcneill putting gas in a car with oil at $100 is uneconomic compared to an EV. Canada's considerable oil reserves are uneconomic at normal oil prices of $60 or less. There are no Canadian car manufacturers, and 90% of cars made in Canada are for the US market. These are current issues in Canadian politics.
I'll happily accept all the solar equipment paid for and overproduced by the Chinese govt that they want to dump in Canada, none is made here.
One thing I have noticed missing from the opponents of "electric cars from China" is that their narrative does not talk about quality.
Those of us of a certain age can remember when "Made in Japan" was a punchline for jokes, based on the then-questionable quality of Japanese products.
When inexpensive Chinese-manufactured products started appearing in the 1990s, the quality was assumed to be poor.
Even in 2015, a guy where I worked bought six or seven instrument gadgets for the price of one from a North American supplier. He needed two or three, but figured, at that price, he could afford a 50 percent failure rate. This guy was a refugee from a communist country with strong anti-communist feelings, too. The gadgets turned out okay.
But silence from the North American suppliers on the quality of Chinese cars
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