Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020 • Hacker News Board

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#341

Post by xiphias2 » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

dawnerd wrote: post #93

r00fus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An EV inverter for $200 can allow your car to power your refrigerator + router/phone/laptops for many hours (days for a LR Tesla).

A powerwall has what, 12ish KW usable (less in reality) which a single one can power a house for for up to a day if you're careful about what you're using. If you scale that up to the 75KW+ batteries being put into EVs today buying an inverter could be a good investment if you live in an area with frequent power outages (or a cabin or whatnot). There was also some talk about Teslas being able to send power back to th…

The Roadster was able to do it, but Elon said that it wasn't used enough, and probably it's not worth it because of the battery degradation.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#342

Post by apples_oranges » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

lanevorockz wrote: post #309

kybernetikos wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strong collective identity This makes a society weaker - it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers. It also reduces a societies ability to innovate in art, culture and eventually technology and science - innovation requires the ability to take an outside view, to be self-critical, and a society that is too busy forging a 'strong collective identity' will make it harder…

> This makes a society weaker - it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers. Bingo ! A monoculture is really weak because people that act the same and think the same. It's the reason even though Asia has over 2/3s of world population they are not responsible for 2/3s of all innovation in the world.

They make up for it by learning from everyone. They even send their kids all over the world to go to university.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#343

Post by saalweachter » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #124

missedthecue wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autocracies seem to be the most efficient form of governance. It's a shame that this also means that they can do evil things very efficiently, given no one can stop them.

Autocracies are only short-term efficient. Once their initial aims are met, they become terribly inefficient, then corruption sets in, and then they must be forcibly removed. It's good for other nations who can benefit from their trailblazing, but bad for the nation itself because they're basically fucked in the future when the bill comes due. Centralization is long-term the worst kind of governance, inevitably becom…

Even in the ideal case, where your central planners are competent and moral indefinitely, centralization is a swingy strategy, for countries or companies. Every investment is ultimately a bet, that you have correctly predicted the future needs of your citizens or customers. Centralized control, of states through an autocrat or central committee, or of markets by monopolies or megacorps, ultimately amounts to placing fewer, larger bets. When the bets are good, it is very very good; when the bets are bad, it is ruinous.

Decentralized decision making is ultimately conservative, risk adverse: it is never great -- a lot of people will be wrong, so things will never go as good as they might. But it is seldom terrible: even when context shifts and the underlying conditions everyone was betting on change, the wide diversity of bets means that at least some people won't have been completely wrong, maybe for stupid reasons, but it can prevent a complete catastrophe.

(The difficulty, of course, lies in socializing the losses and gains, so that you can benefit from decentralized decision making without it ultimately reverting to a de facto central committee through successive rounds of winnowing those who guess wrong, until the small number of people who had so far guessed right can begin guessing wrong at scale.)

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#344

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #110

theshrike79 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is a country lead by engineers with unlimited power to do whatever they want. If they want all cars to be electric, that will happen. If they want a 5 million person city just there because it's logistically advantageous, then that will happen. The good thing is that they can make decisions like this. The bad thing is that they can make decisions like this.

Autocracies seem to be the most efficient form of governance. It's a shame that this also means that they can do evil things very efficiently, given no one can stop them.

[deleted]

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#345

Post by belval » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

I live in a comfortable upper-middle class suburb in Canada and the number of electric cars now is impressive. Obviously when both federal and provincial governments give a tax credit it can only help.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#346

Post by mcv » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

erik_seaberg wrote: post #87

sveingjoby wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of sold cars are electric in Norway. Above 60 in October

82% of Norwegians are homeowners. Garage orphans will hold back some other countries.

In my street it's the other way around. If you buy an electric car, the city will guarantee a charging spot in your street, which is basically a private parking spot if you're the only one in the street with an electric car.

We have a shared garage with other people in our building. One family bought an electric car and wanted a charger in the garage, but despite the whole HOA agreeing, it's apparently too hard to get metered electricity down there.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#347

Post by jjoonathan » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #215

WanderPanda wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree! I am just really struggling to put a time estimate on when the bill will come due for china. I think they can be in an upward trend for some more years as a technological follower. What I mean by that is that they use simple metrics of current technology (Ghz, GB, battery life, screen colors, electric car range and so in) and just “mandate” to get better in them. But all these things will eventual…

> At least in my (very narrow) experience I have not seen much evidence for qualitative innovation in china This argument never sounded very true and intellectually honest to me. I mean, I want to believe in it, but when I scrutinize it precisely, I wonder - how can you measure the ability to innovate of someone who doesn't want (or need) to innovate? At present time, China's competitive advantage is cheap specialize…

They're very good at it. We have plenty of data to tell.

In the industrial sectors that I watch (test equipment, industrial machinery), China has been climbing the ladder at a startling rate, from "outsourced labor" to "copycat" to "bottom tier" to "mid tier" in the last decade. They're now gunning for high tier equipment, and they show every indication of getting there in the next few years.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#348

Post by IAmGraydon » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

godmode2019 wrote: post #81

'Global sales' I hope everyone understands in China it is very hard to get a licence plate, the government allows you to get a licence plate if you buy a heavily subsidised electric car. The aim is to stimulate demand to develop an industry. Large cities also banned motorbikes and scooters, with the same aim. This is no way market driven demand, BYD is a very interesting company to look into. It is my understanding t…

BYD is Boyd Gaming, a casino operator. How is that related?

Edit: Nevermind - I see that’s the company name, not a ticker.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#349

Post by liotier » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:39 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #310

kybernetikos wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strong collective identity This makes a society weaker - it's effectively a monoculture that restricts the data available to the decision makers. It also reduces a societies ability to innovate in art, culture and eventually technology and science - innovation requires the ability to take an outside view, to be self-critical, and a society that is too busy forging a 'strong collective identity' will make it harder…

> This makes a society weaker I think there's some truth to this. But rampant individualism also makes society weaker. It reduces a societies ability to collaborate.

> rampant individualism also makes society weaker. It reduces a societies ability to collaborate.

Let's not mistake diversity for individualism. We can be diverse, yet share overarching ideals - such as living together peacefully and in solidarity.

Re: Sales of electric cars up by 43% in 2020

#350

Post by lumberingjack » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

Yeah it's great our local coal powered plant started charging more per kilowatt because of electric cars draining the grid. They've also been adding surcharges on anything they can for electric vehicles like big taxes on tires just so they can get that tax that they're missing from the gas pump.