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Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

timharford.com

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Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#91

Post by alisonkisk »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #49
FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

> Driving an EV is a green status symbol now. I wonder if they could in the future be viewed as "battery hogs". Yes, but this exists now, with the government handouts and tax credits. They overwhelmingly go to affluent people who need these things the least. There are unsexy trades like replacing oil burning heaters for gas or wood pellet stoves but these often aren't viewed as green enough and the people who would b…

consumers don't prefer oil, but what matters is whether their properly had a gas line.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#92

Post by pksebben »

jsmith99 wrote: post #43
kansface wrote: post #9

If environmentalists made major impact shutting down mines, the price of coal would go up incentivizing new ones or at least to increase the output of existing ones - demand hasn’t changed. Just the same with buying gas stations and shutting them down, too.

There's a counter argument on the Marginal Revolution economics blog which points out that supply of coal mines is inelastic and environmentalists can simply purchase mining rights for mines that are currently uneconomical to prevent it. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/10/be...

thanks for posting this. had no idea about the "use it or lose it" clauses! what the hell, america?

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#93

Post by afbadfatdh »

gpm wrote: post #46
FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

Plug in electric hybrids strike me as insanely complex machines compared to Ev's. It strikes me as highly unlikely that from an environmental standpoint our (societies) time is better spent building them, than it is spent increasing the rate at which we can build batteries.

This makes very little sense. The complexity is an implementation detail. PHEVs are cheaper than EVs by a wide margin, complexity be damned, and are more practical to boot. Building PHEVs does not in any way reduce the amount that will be spent on battery R&D; PHEVs will consume all the batteries we can throw at them because we will still want the biggest battery pack available.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#94

Post by sokoloff »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #65

This kind of strategy ignores second order effects. For example, by buying a gas guzzler and not using it much you might lower the emissions from that specific vehicle. But supply and demand rears its ugly head: you're contributing to the increase of similar gas guzzlers' value in the market, which means that other people are more likely to maintain those vehicles in working order and resell them, instead of scrappin…

We drive our cars about 2K miles and 5K miles a year. I’ve argued (so far without success) that it makes no sense for us to buy a used hybrid or other high-efficiency car [and divert that car from a user who would likely drive it 10K+ miles per year].

We’ve got a couple more years before I have to buy another used car, so I still might win the argument.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#95

Post by Scoundreller »

wlesieutre wrote: post #70
hannob wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For most city vehicles, a PHEV will electrify the majority of the miles with a fraction of the battery capacity. There have been studies on how PHEVs are used in the real world and this is just not what's happening, see e.g.: https://theicct.org/publications/phev-real-world-usage-sept2...

> For private cars, the average utility factor (UF)—the portion of kilometers driven on electric motor versus kilometers driven on combustion engine—is 69% for NEDC type approval but only around 37% for real-world driving Not a majority, but 37% of your driving on electric is a significant chunk. Would And to take a Prius Prime for an example, you can still have a very efficient vehicle when you're running in normal…

It was kinda my dream to have drop-in kits that would turn any ICE into a plug-in micro-hybrid and just run the electric system off extra batteries for as long as possible, and then kicking in the alternator once finally required.

Could work as more and more stuff becomes electric in cars instead of running off accessory belt.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#96

Post by afbadfatdh »

FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

>Driving an EV is a green status symbol now. I wonder if they could in the future be viewed as "battery hogs".

I already view them as battery hogs. It baffles me that anyone thinks they make sense. We have the battery supply to either make a small minority of cars EVs or to make all cars PHEVs.

PHEVs are cheaper, more practical, and more environmentally sound.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#97

Post by olivermarks »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #65

This kind of strategy ignores second order effects. For example, by buying a gas guzzler and not using it much you might lower the emissions from that specific vehicle. But supply and demand rears its ugly head: you're contributing to the increase of similar gas guzzlers' value in the market, which means that other people are more likely to maintain those vehicles in working order and resell them, instead of scrappin…

We need to get used to using the term 'power consumer' instead of emotive terms like 'gas guzzler' to describe IC engines. Currently coal powered BEVs are considered by some to have superior efficiencies to gasoline powered vehicles.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#98

Post by mattlondon »

tw04 wrote: post #45
FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

>This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) The performance of pretty much every PHEV I've seen is abysmal. The people buying a Model 3 or Model S to replace their BMW or Mercedes aren't interested in something with the performance of a geo metro. So, while on paper a PHEV solution might look better, in the real world it would result in those people just goin…

Many I've seen in Europe are pretty fast - Merc 350e for example has 0-62mph of 5.9s and top speed of 155mph. BMW 330e is 6.1s and 140mph. Granted some are slower, but no one ever bought a brand like Toyota etc expecting high-performance, so it is not surprising if they are slower (FWIW my Toyota non-plugin hybrid is actually pretty fast from a standstill, but won't win any races beyond 20mph)

6s to 62mph is pretty nippy - if you need faster than 6s 0-62mph then you are likely in a fairly small niche group.

Looks like the base Tesla 3 is 0-62 in 5.8s and 140mph top speed so pretty comparable.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#99

Post by aserr »

tw04 wrote: post #45
FriedPickles wrote: post #38

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries . So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible. This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles…

>This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) The performance of pretty much every PHEV I've seen is abysmal. The people buying a Model 3 or Model S to replace their BMW or Mercedes aren't interested in something with the performance of a geo metro. So, while on paper a PHEV solution might look better, in the real world it would result in those people just goin…

I would guess that performance isn’t the main consideration for most folks, but you should check out the BMW 330e and 530e. Both are plug-in hybrids with very respectable performance numbers. You can even get them with the M-sport package (not that it makes them faster, but it makes them a little sportier).

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#100

Post by lucian1900 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #47
lucian1900 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We communists frequently argue against such programmes and instead for cheap and rational transportation for the working class, like trains, light rail and biofuel cars for rural areas. And kulaks had it coming, even my great-granddad. Destroying food during a famine is inhuman.

Cheap trains and light rail require very high levels of automation. As long as you argue in favour of that as well it makes sense.

Of course. Such automation wouldn’t be sustainable under capitalism because the rate of profit would drop even further, but it would be entirely possible under a socialist economy that produces for use instead of for profit.
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