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China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

wsj.com

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Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#341

Post by detaro »

agsdfgsd wrote: post #339
Reason077 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London once had the world’s largest network of overhead-wire trolly-buses. But they were abandoned in the 1960s in favour of diesel buses, because they offered more flexibility and lower operating costs. Given what we now know about the health and environmental impacts of diesel, it can be argued that this was a mistake. However, it would be very difficult and costly to reinstate such a network today - we are talking…

I am replying to both posts here since HN rate limits replies. >Again, you are incorrect here. If you don't believe me, please come to London (or any one of dozens of cities in China and Europe) where battery electric buses routinely operate all day, every day, with overnight recharging only. I do not need to physically go to London to know you are incorrect. I can speak to an operations manager in London and ask him…

Various media reports claim London routes 507 and 521 run fully electric, with the city saying in the announcement that trials showed the busses running 16 hour shifts without recharges (https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-unvei..., some newer media reports repeat that that's how they operate). So apparently there are some buses running like that, even if only on relatively short routes.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#342

Post by agsdfgsd »

shaki-dora wrote: post #340
Reason077 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London once had the world’s largest network of overhead-wire trolly-buses. But they were abandoned in the 1960s in favour of diesel buses, because they offered more flexibility and lower operating costs. Given what we now know about the health and environmental impacts of diesel, it can be argued that this was a mistake. However, it would be very difficult and costly to reinstate such a network today - we are talking…

[flagged]

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Calling people you disagree with trolls and then going back through their comments to post irrelevant ad-homs in other threads doesn't seem like it is within the spirit of the commenting guidelines as I read them. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#343

Post by shaki-dora »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #165
agsdfgsd wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are a few overhead wires actually more expensive than the massive batteries electric buses require? They are certainly less damaging to the environment.

Batteries are a commodity. Production can get outsourced to whoever can deliver the best value. Up front costs are smaller and you never have to worry about infrastructure upgrades because there's no special infrastructure. You can just replace your diesel buses with electric as they come due. You automatically get upgrades buses every few years because buses don't last 40+ like trains do and you aren't ever forced t…

Maybe phrase it better in the future, in a way that does not buy into the widespread, tiresome cynicism of “goveerment waste/incompetence/beaurocacry/corruption”.

I.e. “Stringing wires in a dense urban environment requires co-ordination with many stakeholders and balancing of interests, such as the preservation of the visual appeal of historical landmarks, local shopkeepers’ interest in preserving parking spaces possibly occupied by the support structures, the disruption by construction crews...”

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#344

Post by davedx »

evandijk70 wrote: post #319
davedx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Fair point, I forgot about the cap. The Model 3 is arriving just in time for Tesla sales.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#345

Post by icebraining »

beginningguava wrote: post #219
FooHentai wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, in a weird way it's working in a way that aligns to wider, long-term, individual interests. By making the government the controlling monopoly, China ends up with a form of capitalism where externalities apply to other countries rather than surrounding corporations and citizens. That's kinda interesting compared to how most other capitalist nations are handling their shit right now. You can do 'common good' s…

It's called national socialism. Nobody wants to say it but modern China has essentially copied the economic system of Nazi Germany. Capitalism is simply a tool to be used rather than some great ideal of free markets and competition. You can see it by the way they criticize the US for protectionism while actively being the most protectionist country on earth. The way EV's have been forced is similar to how Hitler crea…

I'd say that's the fascist and corporatist roots of Nazism, rather than Nazism itself. Franco, Salazar and such were all critics of liberal capitalism as well, and market participation within their countries was heavily controlled and managed.

Of course, all countries are to some extent. The US government wanted cheap mortgages, so it created Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac; it wanted cheap education loans, so it created Sallie Mae; it wanted a strong internal agricultural production, so it created the Farm Credit System; etc. And the EU is certainly not lacking in such mechanisms.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#346

Post by 0db532a0 »

village-idiot wrote: post #163
paganel wrote: post #85

Why don't we bring trolleybuses back? They rock! You don't need polluting batteries in order to run them, just some copper to put the wires up, and we've been master of this "technology" for almost a century now. Also, we should extend or re-introduce the tram network.

This is easy. Diesel buses were more cost effective than electric trolleys, which is why they replaced all the trolleys with diesel buses. Electric (battery) buses are expected to be more cost effective than the diesel buses they’re replacing. Thanks to the transitive property of inequality, we would expect electric buses to be more cost effective than electric trolleys.

Inequality is not transitive.

Re: China ‘Is the Only One in the Race’ to Make Electric Buses, Taxis and Trucks

#347

Post by icebraining »

cc439 wrote: post #275
beginningguava wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called national socialism. Nobody wants to say it but modern China has essentially copied the economic system of Nazi Germany. Capitalism is simply a tool to be used rather than some great ideal of free markets and competition. You can see it by the way they criticize the US for protectionism while actively being the most protectionist country on earth. The way EV's have been forced is similar to how Hitler crea…

That is an apt analogy even if most people aren't going to be able to process and discuss it earnestly. You can extend the analogy even further with China's approach to social engineering, they actively pursue the censorship of content they deem socially harmful (such as pornography) as much as they pursue the censorship of dissident political content. It's interesting to see an authoritarian government use tools nor…

None of that is new, though; the social liberalism of Western countries is a relatively recent and localized aberration. Censorship of socially harmful content was and is very common, particularly in more religious countries (which describes basically all for most of history, and many nowadays).
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