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Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

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Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#91

Post by nick7376182 »

happytiger wrote: post #54
bequanna wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t this rate jump partially the result of rulings that made PG&E liable for damages from fires started by overheated transformers?

Indeed. That was the story. The reality is after all these rate hikes PG&E, which so desperately complained about their future being in jeopardy, forcing worker concessions, and undergoing a 58 billion dollar wildfire fueled restructuring, paid their CEO more than 40 million dollars and cleared more than 25 percent pure profit last quarter. Oh, and this most recent rate hike was justified to bury cables. All while be…

Maybe a residential power generation owners union (association?) could coalesce enough collective action power. Residential producers go on strike by disabling their systems on a coordinated random Saturday each month causing spikes in power cost and headaches for PG&E until the solar rate structure is negotiated with the union on fair terms.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#92

Post by happytiger »

nick7376182 wrote: post #91
happytiger wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. That was the story. The reality is after all these rate hikes PG&E, which so desperately complained about their future being in jeopardy, forcing worker concessions, and undergoing a 58 billion dollar wildfire fueled restructuring, paid their CEO more than 40 million dollars and cleared more than 25 percent pure profit last quarter. Oh, and this most recent rate hike was justified to bury cables. All while be…

Maybe a residential power generation owners union (association?) could coalesce enough collective action power. Residential producers go on strike by disabling their systems on a coordinated random Saturday each month causing spikes in power cost and headaches for PG&E until the solar rate structure is negotiated with the union on fair terms.

That’s pretty smart. Might change the dynamic somewhat if they knew there was substantive resistance. But at the end of the day it’s pretty hard to beat regulatory capture unless you start threatening the politicians.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#94

Post by happytiger »

nicolashahn wrote: post #64
happytiger wrote: post #21

I will never buy and EV as long as I’m beholden to the tyranny of PG&E’s constant gamification of my power. They keep raising and raising prices and there’s nothing attractive about putting all my eggs in the electric basket in California as long as the rates are controlled by cartels. PG&E will exploit any electric car progress for themselves and rip off their customers as hard as they can as soon as they thought th…

PHEVs are the answer

Yea I actually tend to agree with this. It really fits my daily use cases beautifully.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#95

Post by happytiger »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #50
bequanna wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t this rate jump partially the result of rulings that made PG&E liable for damages from fires started by overheated transformers?

Who else but them would be responsible for those fires?

Well there have been a few arsonists responsible tbh. But a lot of it is negligence.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#96

Post by happytiger »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #31
happytiger wrote: post #21

I will never buy and EV as long as I’m beholden to the tyranny of PG&E’s constant gamification of my power. They keep raising and raising prices and there’s nothing attractive about putting all my eggs in the electric basket in California as long as the rates are controlled by cartels. PG&E will exploit any electric car progress for themselves and rip off their customers as hard as they can as soon as they thought th…

A lot of folks (like me) just use high speed charger infrastructure, which would intermediate you from PG&E I would note that drilling, refineries, distribution, and point of sale for oil have all been and still are an assortment of disgusting cartels, monopolies, and nefarious governments hell bent on screwing you and the planet. But they’re definitely at more arms reach as a consumer than PG&E.

I just can’t agree with you anymore. I think companies that are government supported monopolies are a lot more difficult to change than those subject to competition. There’s just so little incentive to change and it’s baked into regulatory capture on so many levels that changing a company that appears to be available but actually isn’t is probably harder than making change when market forces can create incentives for that change.

I used to believe what you wrote, but my opinion has changed.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#97

Post by wakawaka28 »

two_handfuls wrote: post #46
vhold wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apartment complex won't even let you park an EV inside or under any of the structures because of the fear they have of EV fires.

Gasoline cars are much more likely to catch fire than EVs. They just don’t make the news. “per 100,000 cars sold in each category, electric vehicles had the lowest number of fires.” Source: https://www.popsci.com/technology/electric-vehicle-fire-rate...

An EV fire is at least 10x worse than a gas vehicle fire. Hybrid fires due to batteries are also misclassified as petrol fires. If you catch a gas fire in time it can be put out with a bit of water or a fire extinguisher. It is also exceedingly rare. An EV fire is not extinguishable, burns several times hotter than any petrol fire, may reignite for weeks or months, and emits shocking volumes of toxic gasses that can injure anyone around. Although the fires can't be extinguished, firefighters still spray hundreds of thousands of liters of water onto battery fires, and that water is polluted and not captured. The whole thing is a nightmare.

The possibility of EVs catching fire all together inside an underground parking garage in a high rise should scare the hell out of anyone sane. Sprinkers will do nothing for that, and all that heat could permanently damage the building. The gasses could suffocate anyone unlucky enough to get stuck down below.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#98

Post by fnordpiglet »

happytiger wrote: post #96
fnordpiglet wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of folks (like me) just use high speed charger infrastructure, which would intermediate you from PG&E I would note that drilling, refineries, distribution, and point of sale for oil have all been and still are an assortment of disgusting cartels, monopolies, and nefarious governments hell bent on screwing you and the planet. But they’re definitely at more arms reach as a consumer than PG&E.

I just can’t agree with you anymore. I think companies that are government supported monopolies are a lot more difficult to change than those subject to competition. There’s just so little incentive to change and it’s baked into regulatory capture on so many levels that changing a company that appears to be available but actually isn’t is probably harder than making change when market forces can create incentives for…

It’s true - the oil end to end isn’t government supported, it controls their governments transnationally. Big difference I guess.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#99

Post by rainsford »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #3

For people living in apartments, with the building providing no way to charge your vehicle, especially when parked outside, the value proposition is a lot less tempting. Takes 5 minutes to get gas, gas stations are everywhere, but having to find a charging station for your EV and having to sit there for an hour or longer is just not appealing if the tradeoff is the good feelings of one's microscopic contribution to s…

That's definitely true, but that still leaves a pretty large potential market for home owners with garages (i.e. people for whom an EV is a decent value proposition) that is far from saturated. My guess is that by the time the garage owner market for EVs is getting tapped out, the charging problem for everyone else will have been solved as well.

I also think the market forces work the other way around. I currently own my home, but it's a condo with a shared parking lot and no way to charge an EV. I've been looking to upgrade at some point, and one of my non-negotiable requirements is that whatever I buy next needs to have a way to charge an EV at home (private garage with power, shared parking with the ability to install charges, etc). As EV market share increased, I expect this to create more and more pressure on the housing market to meet home charging needs.

Re: Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both

#100

Post by bequanna »

happytiger wrote: post #54
bequanna wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t this rate jump partially the result of rulings that made PG&E liable for damages from fires started by overheated transformers?

Indeed. That was the story. The reality is after all these rate hikes PG&E, which so desperately complained about their future being in jeopardy, forcing worker concessions, and undergoing a 58 billion dollar wildfire fueled restructuring, paid their CEO more than 40 million dollars and cleared more than 25 percent pure profit last quarter. Oh, and this most recent rate hike was justified to bury cables. All while be…

Yeesh… assuming that is all accurate that is quite a raw deal for customers.

I don’t know much about the regulatory environment in CA but I thought there was either deregulation which allowed you to pick your provider or strong monopoly regulation which restricted utility margin. Is CA neither of those?

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