You find this guy to be "brilliant"? I only skimmed the article, but it's just the same old, tired, ignorant anti-EV talking points I see from Luddites and oil industry shills every time I come across some kind of anti-EV rant. This article is just better written, but it's the same crap. If I were being extremely generous, I would just say that it's obviously not written by an engineer or anyone who really understand…
> but it's just the same old, tired, ignorant anti-EV talking points I see from Luddites and oil industry shills every time I come across some kind of anti-EV rant God, how I love HN and the endless stream of negativity that it can produce. Just for you, from this 'Luddite and oil industry shill': http://jacquesmattheij.com/how-to-build-a-windmill Now, do fuck off. Apologies for breaking HN etiquette but I've really…
After all these years you've spent on HN I'm actually wondering why you would even bother to get your blood to boil. HN is a great place for discussion and to keep up-to-date with what's going on in tech, startup culture and all things connected to them, but it's quite obvious that the comments section has always been full of groupthink, non-sequiturs, echochambers, strawmen and ad-hominems, right?
I found your analysis informative, well-researched and to the point. I can't say I agree with everything (e.g. I don't think the power grid will be the biggest obstacle, I still believe we'll figure out a way to decentralize the grid and produce enough power wherever it is needed without relying on big power plants). But I do agree with the overall sentiment that EV's are not going to completely replace ICE's anytime soon (if ever).
By the way, I'd like to point out that the percentage of PEV's sold in the Netherlands is a very misleading number. The percentage is relatively high but the majority of these cars are hybrids that almost always run exclusively on gasoline. The reason for this is that most new cars sold in the Netherlands are lease-cars, most of the brand new cars you'll see on the road here are not privately owned but part of the compensation package of many middle- and higher-class jobs. Car manufacturers have been very smart to play into the tax system, strongly pushing PEV models that ended up in low tax brackets ('bijtelling', a monthly tax payed by everyone driving a lease car, based on a percentage of the list price of each lease car, where the percentage is based on how 'clean' the car is considered to be). Previously, hybrid PEV's that were terribly inefficient when driving on gasoline (such as the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV) used to have a very favorable 'bijtelling' because they could in theory be used as EV. In practice, nobody drives an Outlander on electricity because the range is horrible, and most lease car drivers have an all-inclusive contract where their employer pays for the fuel. Recently tax regulations have changed to only include pure EV's in the lowest brackets, and all these hybrid PEV's are now taxed almost as high as non-EV's. I would not be surprised to see the percentage of PEV's sold in NL to actually go down.