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China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
311–320 of 347 posts
Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a problem in that it's effectively banned by international treaty as part of the ICAO. I believe people are working on changing this but it will be slow going.
It requires full international cooperation, otherwise carries will tend to tank where taxes are lower. Not that that is always possible: if you land in Frankfurt and your deposit is empty, you will still need to tank in Frankfurt. But, without international cooperation, fly routes could become distorted because of kerosine tax effects.
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Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dunno, you're pinning your dismissal of the initial idea on 'those desks in the city centre will still be there' when it's entirely feasible they'll just reduce over time in-line with demand. In fact, we see that right now with the trend towards unallocated desking and flexible working, where desk numbers within the same floor space is being reduced in favour of deploying more collaboration spaces and allowing more…
Doesn't sound like you grasp market economics as applied to rents in city centres. I also think you are the handwavy one here with negative overtones. You underestimate the ability of people to actually adapt and to do jobs with a little bit of training. You, up on your fungible high horse also seem to assume that everyone does some expert job like what you do and obviously can't be replaced. Have you even worked in…
well, that turned into personal attacks quickly, didn't it?
Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People don't use nearly as much vehicle fuel in Europe as they do in the US. And you don't think the difference in prices has anything to do with that?
Increasing fuel prices will only incentivize people to drive less if there are alternative means of transportation. Those are absent in most parts of the US. You could double the price of gas in the US and driving would not change much, because people would have no other way to get to work and get their kids to school. The most you could hope for is that people would buy more efficient cars.
Maybe a similar situation is traffic in large cities, if time = money then there's an increased cost to driving during rush hour. Yet most people clearly chose to pay this price rather than trying to structure their life around cheaper (less time consuming) hours.
Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but how is a taxi different from a normal car? Build electric cars and you can have electric taxis? Aside from interior layout and a few things like a sign on top, the expected design for a London Black cab is a large, tall sedan, capable of city driving for many hours of the day, and with a very small turning circle. The new electric model London black Cab is https://www.theelectrictaxi.co.uk/ https://www.standard…
>The new electric model London black Cab is https://www.theelectrictaxi.co.uk/ Why is that marketing site even needed? It's a product for a captive market
I can take a guess:
Electric Black Cabs are still quite rare on London streets, they don't have a huge market share. Black cab drivers have reputation for being curmudgeons who don't like new things, so good PR will help wean them off polluting diesel engine vehicles.
Black Cabs aren't only sold in London, you will find the same vehicles elsewhere in the UK and abroad.
And I suppose it might be a good promo for Geely's other present or future EVs.
Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it is very frustrating. The Dutch are exceptionally good at talking the talk, when it comes to renewable energy transition, having years-long talk about the opportunity to become the best, most innovative player (e.g. in solar), and then not walking the walk. Suddenly stopping subsidies because of 'unprecedented success' is the norm, leaving all businesses who had invested out in the cold. Netherlands is now a l…
Given that the thought of the Netherlands conjures images of happy families in bakfiets {and jealousy on my part) I was startled to learn their per capita greenhouse gas emissions are among the worst in the EU.
Our many consecutive right-wing governments aren't very eager to meet our CO2 reduction targets. Bad for business, they think. Some tax reduction for electric vehicles and green electricity is the best we got, and they're constantly looking for an excuse to end those.
A big incentive for electric cars comes from cities, though: in Amsterdam, if you get an electric car, you get an electric charging spot in front of your house, which is effectively a private parking spot if you're the only one with an electric car. With the constant shortage of parking spots, this is huge.
Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of Western countries have heavy tax on gasoline. This passes the cost for the externality on to the taxi owner instead of the customer, but comes to pretty much the same thing.
The taxes for gasoline are way below the cost of pulling the CO2 back from the atmosphere, so they don't pass the full cost of the externality on the owner.
I wouldn't mind if we had a slowly increasing tax on all fossil fuels, that grew slowly to the full cost of pulling the CO2 out of the atmosphere. Then use the revenues from that tax to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere.
That creates a tax incentive as well as a new industry to fix the problem. Grow slowly so not to immediately cripple the industry, but long before the tax reaches 100% of the cost, will most people have switched to something cleaner.
Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a problem in that it's effectively banned by international treaty as part of the ICAO. I believe people are working on changing this but it will be slow going.
It requires full international cooperation, otherwise carries will tend to tank where taxes are lower. Not that that is always possible: if you land in Frankfurt and your deposit is empty, you will still need to tank in Frankfurt. But, without international cooperation, fly routes could become distorted because of kerosine tax effects.
Doing it just on internal EU flights would already make a big difference.
Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
That type of taxation of externalities is really a no-brainer in the West too, but there’s just not democratic majority for implementing it. A tragedy. Tragedy of the commons, really, on a spectacular scale. A general CO2 tax wouldn’t be hard to implement if we were a dictatorship.
In the Netherlands they’ve just reversed subsidies for electric vehicles, increasing bijtelling for them which makes them a lot more expensive for business purchases and leases. It’s a step backwards.
The reversal is only for cars priced over 50 000 euro (~ 57000 usd). Even for those cars, you can still get the subsidy for the amount up to 50 000 euro.
The subsidy mostly helped people get a Tesla Model S as a company car. And it is still subsidized for about 17% of 50k, which is 8000 euro a year. While the Tesla Model S is more environmentally friendly than a similar sized gasoline car, buying of smaller electric cars (like the volkswagen e-golf, tesla model 3, etc) should be encouraged more. I don't think it was a bad idea to cap the subsidy at 50 000 euro.
Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you don't have the network effects and lock in with cars Maybe charging stations is the network effect, Tesla has lot stations across the US so you know you wont run out of juice on your trip.
Are we going to still have branded charging stations going forward ? It sounds a bit insane to have stations where you can get fuel for a mercedes but not a kia.
Agree but to be fair it was Tesla who actually made electric cars popular and desirable and built all the charging stations for their cars so it does not make sense for them to give services to other electric cars unless some law forces them to do so.