Trump is trying to kill electric cars but will kill jobs and the climate instead

[applegrove]

Trump is trying to kill electric cars but will kill jobs and the climate instead

The global electric car boom can't be stopped, but Trump policies would insure U.S. workers miss out on it.

JOE ROMM at Think Progress

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-is-trying-to-kill-electric-cars-but-will-kill-jobs-and-the-climate-instead/

"SNIP.....

Two new analyses from Bloomberg this week make clear just how bad President Donald Trump’s policies are for the domestic electric car market and U.S. workers.

In the first report, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) explains that Trump’s plan to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency and emissions standards for vehicles would eliminate any federal requirement for carmakers to build electric vehicles (EVs). BNEF also explains that the deal Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW struck with California last week to avoid the full rollback will not undo most of the damage.

In the second, BNEF concluded that the rapid price drops in the cost of batteries that have driven the energy storage and EV revolutions this decade will continue for the next decade.

In short, while Trump can slow adoption of high-efficiency EVs in the United States, other countries — the E.U. and especially China — will simply keep adopting them so quickly that he cannot stop the global EV revolution.

.....SNIP"

[Blue Owl]

1. Trump accidentally kills electric golf carts

n/t

[MichMan]

2. Why aren't people buying them now?

Nearly every auto manufacturer has electric vehicles for sale, but they languish at dealerships as consumers pass right by them.

How do you force people to buy them?

[dumbcat]

3. Because people have other choices

"How do you force people to buy them?"

By removing other choices.

[mopinko]

4. i thought about buying one. it would fill most of my needs.

i dont generally do that much driving, so i would be fine.
but 2 things-
one, i live in the city, and i dont have a garage, so no place to plug one.
two, i dont want to get stranded somewhere.

building out charging infra is needed. and i saw that someone finally figured out you should put a solar charger on the roof. that might have made the dif to me. as much as for the fact that it makes me feel like they have really figured out the design of the whole thing.

[Takket]

5. price and access to charging stations

[JCMach1]

7. Why I own a used Volt... no range anxiety and I still use 98% electric basically

People don't yet know that electrics are just coming into the used markets the last couple of years. The prices are quite reasonable, but most people are waiting for that 200-300 range that will eliminate most of the anxiety.

I will never look back... Volt is one of the best and fun cars I have ever owned.

[cojoel]

8. One "less talked about" reason is many car dealers don't want to sell them

Most car dealerships in the US and Canada make more money servicing vehicles than selling them.

Internal Combustion Engines are very complicated systems, with many moving parts. The engine operates by having many contained explosions in the cylinders. There are many parts that need to be lubricated so there is a subsystem that pumps oil. And heat needs to be removed from there so there is a subsystem that pumps coolant. Meanwhile, an electric motor is a fairly simple component by comparison, and generally has a much longer life without significant maintenance. They do fail sometimes, and replacing them is cheaper.

Then there is the transmission. An Internal Combusion Engine to runs efficiently in a fairly narrow operational band, so a transmission provides many forward gears so the engine operates in this range at a variety of speeds. Meanwhile the electric motors have a wide operational power range so there is only one forward gear on electric cars.

Electric cars contain brakes that look like brakes on other cars, but for much of the effort of slowing an electric car, the work is done by converting the motors to generators and using the energy achieved by slowing the car to recharge the battery somewhat. Because of this the actual brakes only are used to bring the car to a stop after there is not enough energy left to make electricity. So the brakes undergo much less wear and need much less service.

Other parts like suspension, tires, body work, and so forth are going to be about the same. Those aren't the biggest moneymakers.

On the flip side the electric car has a large battery. In the early days there was much concern the battery would wear out quickly and would be expensive to replace. It turns out the batteries are fairly robust and when repairs are needed they are usually partial repairs. That was good for the car makers that provided long battery warranties to allay buyer fears.

The dealers make more money servicing regular cars than electric cars. So many of them don't expend much effort trying to sell them. Tesla built it own sales channel for a reason.

[Liberal In Texas]

9. I just bought one at the end of 2018. I had a bloody hard time getting it.

It had to be shipped from a Denver dealership and I had to pay for the shipment.

I have been looking for a plug-in SUV hybrid for 2 years.

(I have a business where I transport a lot of video gear and need an enclosed truck kind of thing. I had a Chevy Trailblazer from 2003 and it was wonderful, but you know, wearing out and crap gas mileage.)
AND, GM didn't make one. Every time I asked a GM rep at an auto show or something over the last several years when it was that they would be making one and had no plans to. (Even though I knew Buick [ick] was making a plug-in SUV in China! They didn't have a clue.

Finally, I saw on the internet that Kia was making a hybrid SUV called the Niro. And that year, they were going to start making plug-in (PHEV) versions. Smaller than my Trailblazer, but as video cameras and other equipment were starting to get smaller, and I didn't think I need so much space.

I was prepared to pay a lot of bucks to get a SUV that was a plug-in. But the Niro came in at a pretty reasonable price and had all kinds of options standard on the EX Premium, like heated and cooled seats, heated steering wheel, wireless phone charger, leather seats, lane keeping, smart cruise control (which is amazing), auto-folding mirrors, Nav, XM, keyless entry, remote start and climate start from a smart phone, auto memory drivers seat with 2 settings, 110V outlet, a fairly large cargo area, more headroom and legroom than in some vehicles of the same type.

Regenerative brakes. One time for a test I drove with no ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) and got 30 miles before the battery gave it up and had to switch to hybrid mode. (Specs are normally 24 per charge.)

Want to sit at idle with the AC running on a 98 hot day? Just sit. The gas engine doesn't run. The AC draws the power from the battery, which is a low draw as I've discovered. Didn't take away from the range as far as I could tell.

Oh, and is charging my vehicle up expensive? Since December, the electric bills are pretty much the same as they always have been. I had an electrician come in and put a 220v into the garage and can charge the car in 2.5 hours from totally drained. Normally I drive around town and never turn on the ICE. The mileage indicator always says 999 mpg. IE, I don't use gas.

Got off on a tangent here, but back to your original thought... if they were out there available, more would be sold. If GM, Ford, Chrysler etc., made the STYLE people wanted, there would be more of a demand. Americans are buying pickups and SUVs. Sedans are a dying breed. The Volt is a great car, but it is a CAR !

And if people understood how wonderful these cars were, with no problems. Mine has a 100,000 mile warranty. How good is that?

OH, Before I forget! The State of Texas sent a $2500 rebate. From the US government we got a $6000 tax rebate (boy did we need it).
That really brings the cost of a new vehicle down!

[Takket]

6. most of the auto manufacturers are forging ahead with electric vehicles

and autonomous systems.

much like drumpf insisting on supporting coal mining even though power companies don't use it anymore, rolling back these standards is an appeal to nothing more than his clueless base.