The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars • Hacker News Board

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#191

Post by r00fus » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

pnutjam wrote: post #180

Judgmentality wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it's about money and who gets it. Unless electric cars are going to generate less revenue than petroleum based, which they won't, the pie is the same size. Right now the margins on gasoline vehicles are much better than electric vehicles, partially due to the technology being relatively immature. The internal combustion engine has more than 100 years and hundreds of billions of dollars in R&D behind its infrastr…

I don't think "the size of the pie" refers to how much is in the pie, but how it's divided.

It’s size of pie vs share of pie. The former is most definitely related to absolute size while the latter is % of the whole.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#192

Post by MuffinFlavored » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:32 PM UTC

mateo411 wrote: post #115

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any career change is non-trivial for a mid-career worker and it's probably unrealistic that a majority of blue-collar workers would be able to transition into software jobs. Unrealistic in what sense? That most people are unable to learn managing state and code flow? I never hear anybody say "it is unrealistic for workers to learn Spanish/Russian/Mandarin/Japanese", yet I really feel basic programming is even easie…

It's unrealistic for middle age blue collar workers in America to learn Spanish/Russian/Mandarin/Japanese, assuming that they have no prior experience or exposure to these languages. Learning a natural language is a lot harder than learning a programming language.

The tone of the comments here at HackerNews are basically:

middle age blue collar workers can't learn a natural language or a programming language

I really have to ask, what makes us "programmers" so elite? I find it hard to believe that if your average person spent 90 months learning programming that they couldn't scrape by as a mid-level web developers. I have developers in my org who go weeks without committing and management seems to have no problem with that. If that's the quality accepted, why can't that be taught in 90 days?

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#193

Post by toss1 » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:32 PM UTC

woodandsteel wrote: post #170

TomMckenny wrote: post #122

No it's about money and who gets it. Unless electric cars are going to generate less revenue than petroleum based, which they won't, the pie is the same size. That manufacturing becomes more efficient is no surprise: it always has. The question is whether they have fewer workers at the same compensation level, fewer workers at a higher compensation level or the same number of workers with fewer hours. Owners are push…

>Unless electric cars are going to generate less revenue than petroleum based, which they won't, the pie is the same size As battery prices continue to fall, electrics will get cheaper than ice's, so there will be less revenue. Beyond that, fsd means many people who now own a car will use robotaxis instead, which means many fewer autos needed. In addition Tesla is working on making its cars last a million miles. So t…

The move motivated by Full Self Drive away from full-time ownership and towards robotaxis should indeed reduce the number of personally owned vehicles, but would it really reduce the number of vehicles?

Instead of vehicles driving 150K miles over 11 years (~~ average car age now in US) a robotaxi could burn through 500 miles in a day or 500K miles in 2.7 years. They'd certainly need the interior replaced several times in that period.

Overall miles driven, could it increase with robotaxis, if the cost per mile is less than for owned cars? I'd think so, since it would open up car usage to whole new classes of people who don't use cars much, since they can now 'buy' the usage of the car a lower rates and in the smallest package, of only the miles they need.

Anyone have some data that points more strongly in either direction?

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#194

Post by MuffinFlavored » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:32 PM UTC

klingonopera wrote: post #114

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole “learn 2 code” thing that was directed toward coal workers was exactly the wrong thing to do. Can somebody go into depth on this? Everyday I interact with people who have jobs that suck way more than coding and pay way less. Why wouldn't people want to work 40 hours remotely with full benefits making decent wages?

Because most people on this forum live in a bubble when it comes to computer literacy and the average population is really, really bad at it, you won't get them into coding when they're already failing at tasks you'd need for a basic white-collar job. Telling blue-collar workers to learn to code is in their analogy like telling them to be rocket-scientists. If they could, they probably wouldn't be blue-collar in the…

> for a basic white-collar job.

What are some basic white-collar jobs other than "go to meetings" and "Excel"?

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#195

Post by refurb » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #32

blunte wrote: post #4

One person’s right to keep a job is not greater than humanity’s right to reasonable progress. It’s cases like these that give unions a bad name.

Even coming from a place of no empathy for displaced workers lives, if we hang these people out to dry we will pay the price down the line. If america had invested in a social safety net for the past 30-40 years, we might be in a different place. People would be ok with change because they'd know that society was going to have their back while they find a new career.

I don’t understand the comment “if American had invested in a social safety net”. Half of govt expenditures are for the social safety net.

Would be more accurate to say “if America had expanded the social safety net”.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#196

Post by sprash » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:37 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #179

sprash wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concerning point 1: Of course it will always be cheaper to pump Oil directly out of the ground. Nobody claimed otherwise. Concerning point 2: A few billion investment seems to me far less than forcing everybody to switch to electric and building a vast network of charging stations and additional power plants to power those cars. (Which right now predominantly work with coal what everybody somehow seems to be ignoring…

It's not easier to generate hydrogen with thermally driven processes than with electricity. People have certainly proposed thermally driven methods that could use solar heat or the output of high temperature nuclear reactors. But none of them have reached pilot plant scale, and IMO they are going to be hard to make reliable/affordable because they combine high temperatures with chemically aggressive environments.

Again, here[1] a process is demonstrated that generates CO and H directly out of CO2 and H2O with a specialized catalyst using only heat from direct sunlight on a large scale. No electrolysis necessary.

[1]: https://www.dlr.de/content/en/articles/news/2019/02/20190613...

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#197

Post by refurb » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:37 PM UTC

ako wrote: post #33

ianai wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be labeled socialism. Seemingly all it takes to defeat a proposal in US politics.

Not sure why socialism has such a bad rap. The opposite is asocialism (a society based on "avoiding social interaction; inconsiderate of or hostile to others."), which can't be good for any society.

One reason is that a lot of European countries have been moving away from socialism and freeing up markets due to their recognition of how stagnant their economies become in the 1970s.

Socialism sounds great if you make the mistake of assuming there are no downsides.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#198

Post by firethief » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

Judgmentality wrote: post #138

TomMckenny wrote: post #122

No it's about money and who gets it. Unless electric cars are going to generate less revenue than petroleum based, which they won't, the pie is the same size. That manufacturing becomes more efficient is no surprise: it always has. The question is whether they have fewer workers at the same compensation level, fewer workers at a higher compensation level or the same number of workers with fewer hours. Owners are push…

> No it's about money and who gets it. Unless electric cars are going to generate less revenue than petroleum based, which they won't, the pie is the same size. Right now the margins on gasoline vehicles are much better than electric vehicles, partially due to the technology being relatively immature. The internal combustion engine has more than 100 years and hundreds of billions of dollars in R&D behind its infrastr…

> Right now the margins on gasoline vehicles are much better than electric vehicles, partially due to the technology being relatively immature. The internal combustion engine has more than 100 years and hundreds of billions of dollars in R&D behind its infrastructure.

American automakers make all their profits on pickup trucks, because they have no foreign competition in the giant gas-guzzling family-mover-with-a-vestigial-tail market. They have little incentive to innovate, and haven't got around to electric pickups yet. There may also be technical reasons EVs would currently be less profitable, but for now in America crony-caplitalism and cultural decay alone would suffice to maintain that dynamic.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#199

Post by refurb » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #88

It's ironic they mention Germany because Germany's system has very strong unions, with labor representation on their boards, but as they said, the pivot is happening there and there isn't the same anxiety there apparently. It's not like working together isn't possible with people not losing their jobs.

For whatever reason unions in Europe seem much more on board with “what’s good for the company” versus “what good for the union”. Apparently union reps sit on the board which I’m sure helps.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#200

Post by refurb » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #42

heisenbit wrote: post #17

The US auto industry is on two non sustainable paths. The first is internal combustion engines. The second is building fewer but more expensive cars.

The second part is difficult because pretty much all cars last longer than they used to. People will grumble about plastic body panels and cheap interiors but overall the average car simply lasts longer than they would in the heyday of the Big 3. Even with a growing population, better built cars are creating less demand. There are other factors, such as ride sharing, remote work, and online socializing, but none of t…

Related to that, reliability is way up. Back in the 1980’s it wasn’t unusual at all to have your car breakdown every year or so and leave you stranded on the side of the road.

Nowadays I’ll go months before seeing someone stranded on the side of the road.

It’s actually quite amazing.