371–380 of 519 posts
'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…
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.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only cars having actual battery issues so far are older Leafs (shit thermal management for the battery) and Priuses (they're just old). No other EV has had major battery issues yet, so there really hasn't been time to develop a viable 3rd party battery replacement industry. Even the actual car manufacturers tend to quote insane prices for full battery replacements because they really don't have a process in place…
"just old" applies to the battery technology used when they were built. Not to "a car" in general. It is totally uneconomic to scrap a car only because one part broke. I own a car from 1978 that is in very good shape (for some minimal maintenance cost, you should not just let it rot).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does ut cost to replace an engine on a BMW? Thats probably thr closest equivalent
The point is you'll never need to replace the engine in a BMW unless you got into an accident or something like that. EV batteries will just degrade with normal usage.
I buy and sell cars as a side gig, and there are plenty of models which people like me would not touch with a barge pole because of issues like this - many of them German - and you'll find many for sale as spares or repairs, and find that secondhand engine supply is low (as many have blown up), and therefore expensive. Look at a diesel vauxhall insignia, for instance. Hand grenade engine, no chance of getting one secondhand (and even if it did, its got the pin pulled).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we want to tax combustion engines for negative externalities what deductions are we giving for the positive externalities?
better air quality, reduced risk of lung disease, longer, better lives?
Fossil fuel industry is the industry that have made it possible for us to live longer, and feed as many people as we want while at the same time making the environments much cleaner over time.
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.
This is why centralized socialist states and autocracies don't produce world champion companies in the long run.
Man I wish they'd sell an electric car without all the cameras, tracking and self driving stuff.
You don't have to use the sell driving but not not want the passive safety features that come with that seems kind of insane.
Given the track record of Teslas crashing into stationary obstacles, I'm not sure if they even use cameras for emergency breaking, or if it's just the radar based stuff every other car maker uses as well.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
So, it never crossed your mind that racist write people enslaved Asia for hundreds of years? They destroyed the Asian government, drugged the Asian population, and forced financial restitutions on the Asians to pay for their their own enslavement. But yet, here we are. Hundreds of years later, and the Asian countries are finally shaking off their colonial enslavement from the white man. And here you are, claiming tha…