121–130 of 328 posts
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What's wrong with trading with China?
China arbitrarily bans trade when it wants to "punish" nations: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/china-turns-to-lobsters-wine-and... China has made it clear that it is an unreliable business partner. It is a mistake to do business with nations that don't share your values, as Russia is also currently demonstrating.
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There were plans in Japan for wide use of hydrogen as the fuel of the future. Japanese car manufacturers aligned on that, but weren’t keen on building the necessary infrastructure. You could lease a hydrogen fuel cell car in CA. There was even a lot of state incentives if you did. But very few fueling stations (iirc, only two in the whole Bay Area)
Because the infrastructure needed would be bonkers, and creating fuelibg stations is not really a solved problem. You also loose a big amount of energy converting from electric to hydrogen and back. The cars themselves almost always have low storage because the tanks are very big. Hydrogen car performance is also a lot lower then pure EV.
You're wrong.
And claims of energy loss!! Sure, no loss to heat in batteries? And batteries lose charge if they sit idle!
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The main cost for cheap 2nd hand cars is the fuel in my experience. So you can have a cheap fuel commuter car and a "real" car for trips and towing your boat. Requires parking for two cars though. But since we are talking about an EV it requires a house anyways since most apartments have no charging.
Yeah but you can manage the fuel within your cash flow. Difficult to get credit and manage the purchase of a large expensive car. And having two cars is too expensive as well.
Maybe so, but the average American family has about 2 cars. Lots of sources for that, but here’s one from top of search results:
https://housegrail.com/how-many-cars-does-the-average-americ...
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I really think the push for hydrogen (highly impractical at scale) by the right wing press is part of fossil fuel industry attempts to spread fud around battery evs.
I hadn't realised until very recently that most hydrogen produced comes from coal: https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/explain... Most of the time it isn't a green fuel at all and is just a way to keep mining coal.
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> Current-day Ford Motor having to go begging to China - for a major, iron-based component needed to produce more cars - that is laughable, and beyond pathetic. In a dark, miserable sort of way, if you care about America or its future. Sounds similar to Boeing where accounting for personal gain (promotions / raises) of upper managers and executives took effect over the long term advantage of the company.
But there was no McDonald Douglas absorbed into Ford to explain this shift. Yet it seemed to happen during a similar timeframe (late '90s, early 2000s).
We’re shifting to a new era where cash is king. That’s why Amazon built their own UPS and Apple will be a bank in a few years.
> Automotive giant Ford is shoring up its battery supply chain — partly by importing lower-cost, iron-based batteries popular in China — as it sprints to increase electric vehicle production. Old geezer's perspective: Back in its heyday, Ford Motor was one of the most vertically integrated (large manufacturing) companies in the world. They owned and operated their own fleet of ore carriers (cargo ships), to haul iron…
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China arbitrarily bans trade when it wants to "punish" nations: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/china-turns-to-lobsters-wine-and... China has made it clear that it is an unreliable business partner. It is a mistake to do business with nations that don't share your values, as Russia is also currently demonstrating.
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Democratic nations which abide by international trade agreements. Nations you can do business with which are governed by the rule of law instead of the whims of a political party or dictator.
> We just had president who was white supremacist who called other countries shitholes.
America can turn itself into whatever it wants to be. If America can no longer be trusted in business then it's correct not to do business with it.
> When business with China was good nobody cared they still had communist party ruling the country.
Yes, that's a mistake.
> Automotive giant Ford is shoring up its battery supply chain — partly by importing lower-cost, iron-based batteries popular in China — as it sprints to increase electric vehicle production. Old geezer's perspective: Back in its heyday, Ford Motor was one of the most vertically integrated (large manufacturing) companies in the world. They owned and operated their own fleet of ore carriers (cargo ships), to haul iron…
What's wrong with trading with China?
- "We must travel to the most-distant place in the world, and the only source of $Thing, which we cannot survive without!" That sounds great, if you're writing epic fantasy quest stories. If you're talking supply chain management...maybe there is something profoundly wrong with your company?
- Even if the CCP would never dream of squeezing Ford's battery life-line...the battery factory there could be shut down for yet another COVID outbreak, or the US could squeeze it (due to domestic politics or "Taiwan Troubles"), or etc.
- The giant mess (huge delays, staggering price spikes, etc.) that global shipping has been in the past few years. Shipping car batteries from China to the US via air freight does not sound like a money-making plan. My old World Atlas suggests that shipping by rail is probably not an option.
I'm not sure why we aren't making EVs with small but upgradeable batteries. Like for example a $20k car with a 10kWh "good enough for now" starter battery that can be bought today. Still good enough for 90% of trips and upgradable to 50kWh with additional after market battery modules should the user decide. As simple as upgrading the RAM on an (old) laptop.
I’d love a car with a tiny battery for 99% of the time when I’m just driving locally and the ability to have an extra, large battery that can be slotted in when I want to make a longer trip. With only the short range battery most of the time, my car’s weight is low and efficiency high. Maybe I could keep that battery in my house and use it to store solar electricity most of the time. It seems like it should be possib…
That's basically what an electric cargo bike is, functionally.
>I’d also be happy to drive into somewhere local that rents me that long range battery and slots it in with machinery designed for the purpose.
Rent the whole car...
>my car’s weight is low and efficiency high.
...and you don't have the weight the rest of the time.
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Yeah but you can manage the fuel within your cash flow. Difficult to get credit and manage the purchase of a large expensive car. And having two cars is too expensive as well.
> And having two cars is too expensive as well. Maybe so, but the average American family has about 2 cars. Lots of sources for that, but here’s one from top of search results: https://housegrail.com/how-many-cars-does-the-average-americ...