1 in 5 EV owners ditches electric, goes back to burning dead dinosaurs - California study

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

When GM tax credits ended, they massively dropped the price; like $10k on the Bolt. It's cheaper to buy a new Bolt now than stacking all the tax credits before.

Manufacturers should be motivating people to purchase their vehicles by making them awesome and affordable, not the government subsidizing wealthy people to purchase vehicles they otherwise wouldn't get at the expense of the public. Why should we give $7,500 to someone to purchase a Tesla instead of a Toyota Corolla?

Anyhow, at least if the credit was "refundable", it wouldn't be a subsidy only for the wealthy. Refundable credits like the first time homebuyer credit pay out the difference if one doesn't have enough tax liability. The IRS cut me an $8,000 check to purchase a house.

I don't begrudge anyone for legally taking advantage of something, even if it's a dumb idea.

I'll presume that psychology is part of the tax subsidy calculus.
Poor people want what 'wealthy' people have. A carrot incentivizes wealthy to be early adopters. When their lease expires, or when trading in for a new car, the used cars become a highly-discounted pre-owned vehicle, now within reach of those lower in the pecking order. Every few years the process repeats itself, and finally, those of the lower echelons have access to a 'wealthy' persons car.
The whole chain of events involves cars with zero-carbon potential, something the Corolla can't offer.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by aerohead

I'll presume that psychology is part of the tax subsidy calculus.
Poor people want what 'wealthy' people have. A carrot incentivizes wealthy to be early adopters. When their lease expires, or when trading in for a new car, the used cars become a highly-discounted pre-owned vehicle, now within reach of those lower in the pecking order. Every few years the process repeats itself, and finally, those of the lower echelons have access to a 'wealthy' persons car.
The whole chain of events involves cars with zero-carbon potential, something the Corolla can't offer.

The process of the less wealthy eventually having access to greater technology and resources is true of most things.

I understand that the point of the credit is to pay lip service to a tribal constituency and not to actually solve a problem. If a problem was being addressed, it would be clearly stated, along with an analysis of how the proposal would address that clearly defined problem. It would provide a way to measure progress.

Although it's impossible to know, there's a chance that these tax credit schemes delayed EV development and adoption because they introduce so much uncertainty into the market, and remove incentive to invest long term considering the expiration of the subsidy. Those who exhaust their credits then find themselves at a massive disadvantage to those who have not.

[Hersbird]

The incentive is similar to NOT developing owned or leased underground oil reserves. Oil in the ground is ultimately going to be worth more than oil that is pumped or has been pumped. Governor Palen did a great job at this and made a ton of enemies on both sides by saying use it or lose it on the Alaska leases.

[redpoint5]

Just to play devil's advocate, there's some chance that oil will become less valuable at some point in the future, meaning anything not rendered represents an opportunity cost. As they say, a bird in hand is worth 2 in the bush.

[Hersbird]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Just to play devil's advocate, there's some chance that oil will become less valuable at some point in the future, meaning anything not rendered represents an opportunity cost. As they say, a bird in hand is worth 2 in the bush.

I have always believed that we ultimately will get every drop of all the recoverable oil we have today, and that may expand as we get even better at getting it. Maybe cars won't burn it after 50 years or so, but jets will, and all the rubber, plastics, and asphalt will use it. If anything cars not using the kind of "waste product" of gasoline, will result in a big surplus of it. Then they will build clean burning gasoline powered generators at the refineries to use that. It should be possible to make a more efficient and clean large scale stationary ICE compared to ICE used in cars with lots of low to high power usage and cold starts. Then when or if oil finally runs out necessity will be the mother of the future. If anything switching all the cars to EV will just drag out the whole process. Again IMO, that would be a good thing, sort of like flattening the curve and getting more time to adapt to whatever changes might occur.

In the mean time I do think we should continue to be as energy independent as possible with drilling on federal land and continue to develop our petroleum infrastructure. Trains are better than trucks but pipelines are better than trains.

[redpoint5]

My expectation is that we'll mostly move away from fossil fuel for energy, except for certain applications where high energy density is necessary such as aviation. We'll still need petroleum products because absolutely everything is made from them. Reduced demand should reduce the price as well, making the more difficult ways to extract oil unprofitable.

That said, I don't even know if we'll hit peak oil in my lifetime. There's a direct correlation between GDP and oil consumption, and if the world is going to get more populous and wealthy, then we're going to consume more oil. I can't see the world using less oil 40 years from now.

I just don't see graphs like this happening, with peak oil in a decade.

[oil pan 4]

Less oil, less natural gas and less coal means less renewables.
And there's absolutely no reason to use less nuclear power, it's not like we are running out of fissile fuel or heavy water. Humanity has barely scratched the surface of the available fissile fuel.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I just don't see graphs like this happening, with peak oil in a decade.

That graph looks about right to me. 33% of energy production from renewables 30 years from now.

10 years sound about right for EV adoption to start taking off.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

if the world is going to get more populous [or] wealthy, then we're going to consume more oil.

Wouldn't that be an "or?" From what I understand, a wealthier world would be less populated. If poverty continues then so will population growth. Children are an economical asset to the poor, but an expense to the rich.

Still, either way there will be more oil consumption. Either because you have more people who use oil in one form or another, even if they can't afford a lot of it, or you have fewer people in the world, but who can buy the stuff in large quantities.

Although I guess you're probably right. If there continues to be two pools of wealthy and poor people respectively, then both will continue to demand more oil.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Wouldn't that be an "or?" From what I understand, a wealthier world would be less populated. If poverty continues then so will population growth. Children are an economical asset to the poor, but an expense to the rich.

The world has continued to increase both population and per capita GDP, and unsurprisingly oil consumption has followed this.

Population and wealth will continue to rise, with the most likely to decline first being population. Technology is going to massively decrease birth rates.