Anti EV misinformation

[007]

I saw the booty of the Taycan and I was sold right there.

“Outer beauty attracts, but inner beauty captivates.” – Kate Angell

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[rb33gl]

I was a fervent petrolhead before I drove an electric car. The sound of an air-cooled flat 6 is a symphony that you can't hear anywhere else. A V12 on full chat is a cacophony of sound to behold.

But I am now a committed EV driver. The immediate acceleration and quiet smoothness takes you to another world. My Taycan is the closest thing to teleportation I know. All journeys become an experience to savour - it's effortless and engaging at the same time.

The anti-EV brigade obviously have no interest in experiencing this. Their loss, our gain.

 

[Murph7355]

...This will go similar way of incandescent light bulbs vs. LED's. Yes there are applications where incandescent bulbs are better, and some hold-outs to this day hoard their incandescent bulbs because US government banned manufacturing and sale of a lot of them, but most people have moved on and are happy using LEDs. It did take some time and LED prices needed to come down, same will be true for EV's.

The narrative is that we don't have the time to do this via osmosis. So some interventions are going to be necessary. (At the risk of me sounding like a flat-earther, I'm a bit more of the view that Gaia will flatten us out irrespective of what we do, as our parasitic tendencies go waaaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond burning fossil fuels in V8s).

Whether applying the incentivisation to 6-fgure super saloons was sensible from a governmental perspective here in the UK is very much open to question. It would have seemed better for govt to put more of those incentives into charging infrastructure (and taking a share in any subsequent profits), banning gouging and in more lower end vehicles that better fit the majority of use cases.

But governments are generally stupid and self-serving.

 

[whitex]

Whether applying the incentivisation to 6-fgure super saloons was sensible from a governmental perspective here in the UK is very much open to question. It would have seemed better for govt to put more of those incentives into charging infrastructure (and taking a share in any subsequent profits), banning gouging and in more lower end vehicles that better fit the majority of use cases.

But governments are generally stupid and self-serving.

There is an argument to be made that incentivizing expensive EV's had its time and place. Arguably, had there not been incentives back in 2012, Tesla Model S might not have been anywhere as successful, Tesla might not be what it is today. I know this is anecdotal, but my first EV was a Model S, but I am fairly sure I would not have bought it (and perhaps the next 5 EV's after that) had it not been for government incentives. They allowed me in my mind to offset some of the risks of paying extra for a new, unproven technology.

New technology is almost always going to be expensive at fist. Are the incentives needed today anymore, I'm not sure, though I am sure the government should stop mixing purposes in the incentives, i.e. EV incentives should incentivize EV's, not union labor, domestic manufacturing, or pander to the voter base of the current politicians (e.g. only people who make less than some threshold). Ironically the way US government deployed its incentives they actually serve as disincentives to some. For example, even though I converted our household to all EV by 2016, I bought 2 ICE cars in the last 3 years instead of EV's because the EV incentives made it more financially bad for me to buy EV's - specifically I did not qualify for the fairly large incentives (as much as 27% off of an inexpensive EV), but since enough people did, me buying such EV would mean the car is taking as much as 47% depreciation in the first year instead of usual 20% depreciation when driving off the lot. In other words, it meant for me that I had to pay an extra tax on inexpensive EVs, as much as 27%, which eliminated all EV's which others qualified for significant incentives from my potential cars to buy list. This in turn only left ICE cars as viable options, so I bought those. Perhaps that was the intent of the government, but somehow I doubt it. A while back my state government proposed a $0.25 per mile tax for all EV's (something about EV's being only a rich people's toy, and how my state doesn't have an air pollution problem, so no need to incentivize EV's) - had that passed, I would have been driving a supercharged V12 sports car today instead of the Taycan - I just go with the flow, don't try to change the rules, simply adapt to what rules come into effect.

I do agree that charging infrastructure needs significant improvements and expansion. However government should not be going all in of either EV purchase or charging infrastructure. Those are closely tied together - not enough EV's means nobody can make money on the charging, not enough RELIABLE charging means EV purchases plummet. They both need to go hand in hand. US government is trying, but as usual, politicians keep mixing purposes, resulting in unintended consequences. For example, US government approved a massive, multi-billion dollar fund for EV infrastructure expansion, however they didn't have eligibility rules and details worked out for 2 years, during which all providers stopped all their expansion because they didn't know what would qualify for the government incentives - using some part made in China or some non-unionized factory might have disqualified them, so they'd rather do nothing and wait. At least 2 years of EV charging expansion was lost in the US for that. Another thing, the incentives did not address much about reliability, and expansion is great but useless when the chargers are unreliable. Then there is all the other politicizing, government pushing for stupid "inclusive" design-by-committee ideas, like CCS1 and EA's "we must allow diversity of payment processors", etc. resulting in an unreliable technical solution. The industry moved to NACS recently, while the White House was still shunning Tesla and NACS, requiring CCS1, for political reasons.

The old incentives were straightforward and they worked to incentivize EV purchases - based mostly on battery size. Today's incentives even the government has trouble answering which cars qualify for how much for whom (I guarantee they'd love to tie it to who you voted for, but cannot do that directly). The same with charging infrastructure. How much more productive it would be to have an incentive based on KWh actually delivered, with it varying year to year based on where there are charging infrastructure gaps - say $x/KWh for y years, with $z/KWh bonus for areas which need expansion in. A little planning on the government part could go a long way. Per KWh would also incentivize uptime of chargers - inoperable stations make no money nor get incentives.

 

[Murph7355]

....How much more productive it would be to have an incentive based on KWh actually delivered, with it varying year to year based on where there are charging infrastructure gaps - say $x/KWh for y years, with $z/KWh bonus for areas which need expansion in. A little planning on the government part could go a long way. Per KWh would also incentivize uptime of chargers.

Seems like a good idea...do it as a tax break rather than a payment too.

Might even curb gouging.

 

[Martin OBrien]

While they are one of the market leaders, EV's are no longer synonymous with Tesla. Hey, check out what forum we are on. Tesla had 17% of the global EV sales in Q3 2023 (some more data here) - while that is one of the highest market shares for EV's, by no means are they the entire market. Even in the USA, where they captured a whopping 55% of 2023 EV sales (other market leaders are kept out by government regulation), they are no longer in the high 90's they used to be.

What has been synonymous with Tesla is a 'Jobs' like innovative face to the company (but one that is recently less likeable) and significant class leading innovation in this space. Without Tesla the car industry and especially the legacy leaders would have made no moves at all in this direction. Like the iPhone did in communications, Tesla created this this market and are still YEARS ahead of traditional car makers. The new entrants (especially China) are moving fast and a few legacy players are desperately trying to catch up, but hampered by legacy thinking. I worked closely around the globe for 20 years with car companies on electrical systems design before retiring a year ago. What a joy the new entrants were to work with compared to legacy companies. Young bright, innovative and open thinking. I now drive a Taycan 4SCT (for a change) after Tesla Model S, 3 and Y in succession. It is a lovely car but so incredibly hard to live with compared to a Tesla. Even just changing the radio is a challenge. It drives well but so does Tesla, despite occasional counter opinions on here (Taycan may win around the Austrian alps, but most people spend 99% of their time on ordinary roads).

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