Post #15727 by Dope1 on the US Policy board

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As usual you cherry pick an example or two and ignore the larger trend.</iL

If you think that the manufacturer of the electric version of the #1 vehicle in America pausing production is cherry picking…then I don’t know what to tell you.

EV sales trends: they’re complex.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/edgarsten/2023/12/14/...

The proof is a combination of hard numbers and harder decisions by some of the major automakers. Those decisions include General Motors Co. slowing plans for new EV introductions and delaying the rollout of a new generation Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV until 2025 and Ford Motor Co. cutting production of its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck by 50% at the start of 2024.

*shrugs*

I’m not saying “the market has spoken”.

This was you upthread:
Nobody is stopping you from buying a gas car. All major manufacturers will continue to produce them for years, probably decades, unless the market decides otherwise. You are in favor of the market, right?

As was pointed out, the market is being distorted in 2 ways: the government attempting to literally mandate gas vehicles out of existence by imposing rules and by also effectively bribing consumers to buy them. That’s not exactly the market in action.

I don’t hate electric vehicles. My college senior project was in working on my university’s hybrid electric vehicle team way back in the mid ‘90s. I’ve since managed battery teams in the PC industry and toured pack manufacturers in China and South Korea.

It’s not a clean business. The Koreans go to a lot of lengths to do things the right way but the Chinese are massive exploiters of a lot of people. Enriching these people is a huge mistake. I remember a talk over at Samsung with the head of their environmental programs. Guy said that the Chinese would mouth all the words about responsible mining…but that at every mining village in Africa where they have little kids dig cobalt out of the ground with their bare hands at night…there’s a Chinese trader at the end of the table. Responsible? Nope.

In this case it doesn’t take into account externalities: tailpipe emissions, pollution, smog, and potential climate change.

I’d consider national security via energy security to be fairly high on the list of things to do. Sending gobs of money to the Chinese for rare earth minerals and batteries is a bad idea. The other bad idea with respect to EV’s is the state of the grid itself: could the US energy grid absorb literally millions of cars?

The answer is a clear “it depends”. It depends on a number of things: can we make transformers here in the United States? Can we generate enough clean electricity to handle it? Can the physical power grid stand up to the load? Etc.

The issue is far more nuanced than is ever debated. Rushing to do full electric is a bad idea. If you want to mandate something, mandate hybrids.

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