“Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman accused President Biden of being “willing to sacrifice the American auto industry and its workers in service of its radical green agenda.”
I mean we could try and transition workers from a more negative industry type to a positive one…but that seems like a lot of work and less profitable, so never mind.
What the actual fuck is wrong with Republican politicians? I mean, I already know what’s wrong with Republican voters - brainwashing by years of Fox “News” - but the politicians? Are they all literal sociopaths?
No, they’re just doing what they’re being paid to do by special interest groups aka big business. It’s not a bug and it’s not a feature; it’s the point. Optimal profits this quarter. Every quarter is a new quasi generation of executives who want a good quarter before moving on after x quarters.
The philosophy behind conservativism is to stay still. Conserve the status. Do not progress.
But you’re describing a standard Dem. Repubs are actively trying to drag us backwards. They are regressives.
That’s a popular misconception. The philosophy behind conservatism is to perpetuate hierarchy. The ideology was developed by literal monarchists, and when the “divine right” excuse became untenable they moved on to others like racism and capitalism, but the goal remained the same. It only seems like they want to maintain the status quo because the historical status quo was hierarchical, but rest assured: if society were magically egalitarian instead, conservatives would vigorously try to make sweeping, wholesale changes to create a hierarchy from scratch.
Nothing. They’re behaving quite rationally.
You just have to understand that their motivation is not “successful governing” or “making the world better” but rather, “getting more money.”
When you view their actions through the lens of self-enrichment, they’re behaving quite normally.
You gotta know at this point the system has feedback. Its possible most of them were raised on the same shit their constituents are huffing.
ever since the tea party and especially trump the inmates are running the asylum
The American auto industry could also produce EVs, if it so chose. Nobody has to lose their jobs.
As an American auto worker, I like our move to EVs and the jobs at the massive new factories we built. But I guess wanting blue collar workers learning new skills and technologies makes me a gay communist.
Tesla is an American company. The ‘traditional’ American auto companies like GM and Ford don’t even build or source a lot of their parts in the US and Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep has been owned by a European company for quite a while now. This guy is a chump and I wish someone would have called him out on his BS.
This guy is a chump and I wish someone would have called him out on his BS.
It’s no wonder. He’s a Republican, so that automatically makes him a assbag. Also, Toyota has a Camry manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Ford assembles Escapes in Louisville, and of course GM makes Corvettes in Bowling Green, so it’s no surprise that he’d be regressive towards automotive tech (even though Ford and SK are spending like $4 billion to build two battery manufactuing plants outside Louisville).
They already do: Ford has the Mach-E & F-150 Lightning plus a bunch of PHEVs, GM has (had) the Bolt, Stellantis makes a few PHEVs among which one of the the very few cars on the market that can carry 7 passengers on battery power (the Chrysler Pacifica) altough that one is made in Canada, not the US.
Oh, and all of Tesla.
The American auto industry could also produce EVs, if it so chose.
I find that very hard to believe.
So I keep hearing people say:
“Just wait until the big players get into the game, then I’ll buy a good car”.
Imo the big players don’t deserve to survive this transition. They had their opportunity to spearhead it but instead literally chose to be on the wrong side of history.
Nothing stopping big players but greed to get into the EV game.
Perhaps they’d like to rollback all the times we’ve bailed out the auto industry. We don’t want the government to be choosing winners and losers, after all.
I don’t know what this guy is pissed about. China is going to make their EVs in Mexico, like responsible American companies!
Jesus, what a stupid fucking hill to die on. Republicans never cease to amaze and appall.
Yeah, I don’t get it. I understand wanting to reduce or eliminate subsidies (they’re just a cash handout to dealers and manufacturers imo), but there’s no logical reason to be against EVs.
Here’s my proposal: allow tax credits for private sales. Perhaps add some requirements to certify that the seller owned the car more than a year or something to qualify to prevent flipping.
they’re just a cash handout to dealers and manufacturers imo
The US government subsidized $750B for the oil industry in 2022. The EV tax credit amount to peanuts compared to that. If you want a green energy and green transportation industry in the US, subsidies are absolutely necessary.
Don’t forget that subsidies also swing in the other direction to fossil fuels companies. If we want to eliminate subsidies, then why not for both players so the playing field is even again? Otherwise, giving EVs subsidies might actually level the playing field more than not.
There’s actually a really good logical reason to be against EV cars: they’re cars.
That said, there’s no good reason to be opposed to them in favor of ICE cars
Here is my reasonable argument against EVs. EVs only really solve the emissions part of the equation. They dont solve the massive amounts of paved surface, private ownership of thousands of pounds of steel and plastic, they still use massive amounts of energy to move that steel and plastic and building cities for cars is largely ineffecient and expensive to maintain.
We could do a lot more for the environment than EVs. Id rather see their subsidies go to things like electrified transit, cycling infrastructure or walkability improvements.
Realistically, your choices aren’t “EVs or mass transit”, your choice is “EVs or Gas cars”.
Incidentally, your gripes apply to high density population areas, where busloads of people want to go from the same point A to the same point B at the same time, and cars do not make sense. That flips when you get to a more distributed population, where a hypothetical bus would run its route empty or with 2 or 3 passengers most of the time, in which case the car is actually “greener” because it’s not making empty trips and it uses less energy to move 2-3 people.
They could reduce the amount of paved surface, since adoption of EVs would allow some parking to be moved underground as they don’t generate fumes like ICEs do. Still should be treated as a stopgap solution as we move away from car-dependemce, though.
That’s actually somewhat my argument for EVs. We know there are better ways to live, with lots of benefits including being more environmentally friendly, but it requires long term changes that were not good at and political will we don’t have, and a huge upfront expense. EVs are better than status quo, are needed for less densely populated areas, and are an improvement we can make now everywhere. Let’s “git r done”
Even here in the Boston area, which is arguably one of the best in the US for walkable cities and transit, where more improvements are hugely popular, where politics is solid blue and politicians are on board, transit improvements are a matter of decades. Here in the suburbs:
- I’d take the train into the city but that’s the only direction it works.
- I can walk to my town center and transit hub, and frequently do, but that’s not where my job is.
- I can take Acela to NYC but that’s the only practical destination.
- my town is getting its third commuter rail station, as a park and ride for highway commuters, but that’s many years away and those commuters still need to get to the park and ride
Aside from people whose complete life is in the city, it’s difficult to see a time we could actually give up on cars. However there’s plenty of room for hope and optimism: we can take some trips out of cars, and we can continue to take more. Cars are necessary to step forward but the goal should be to minimize the cases where cars are necessary until people don’t find them worth having
Oh, I agree with you.
In my area, we’re widening a highway, which will cost $3-4B. We had a train project estimate that was rejected that totally would’ve replaced my commute that was estimated at ~$1B and was a prerequisite for a major company bringing more jobs here. We did the highway and not the train…
Overhauling transit just isn’t practical politically.
That said, I’m generally against subsidies and in favor of Piguovian taxes. I think we should:
- eliminate subsidies to fossil fuels and EVs
- increase taxes on large, heavy vehicles and gas to fully fund roads (remove road infrastructure from general taxes)
- funnel money saved from the above into mass transit - our entire transit system costs $20 times the annual ridership
There’s already a solid market for used cars, unless you mean EVs, so no use for an incentive there.
The point of an incentive is a temporary tool to accelerate the transition to less polluting technology. While EVs are new they naturally are more expensive, there’s temptation to import from cheaper countries, but the incentive makes them less expensive to buy, plus incents growth of local industry. I’d also vote to phase out the incentive after that transition has happened: fossil fuel incentives should have been gone half a century ago.
If you’re specifically talking the used EV market, the most important factor is time. The more new EVs there are, the better the used EV market will be in a few years. It doesn’t help to try to increase sales of used EVs when there are so few. If you are looking used, please be patient: let’s do what we can to accelerate the growth of new EVs, and one of the benefits will be a strong used market in a gpfew years
Yes, I’m talking specifically about used EVs. We have an incentive for buying used from a dealer, but that doesn’t apply if I buy from the owner directly.
So all it’s doing is funneling money to dealers. Why would I buy a car for $20k from a private seller if I can get a similar car for $22k from a dealer with a $4k credit (so $18k net)? The private seller would have to sell for $18k to be on par, so why wouldn’t they sell to the dealer for $19k? In this scenario, the dealers pocket the difference. If I could get the credit for private sales, I’d be willing to pay $21k ($17k net), so both I and the seller are better off (seller gets $2k more, I pay $1k less). The result is that prices for used EVs stay higher than they normally would because the private market can’t effectively put downward pressure on prices.
It’s entirely stupid. The dealer certainly provides some level of value (financing, selection, etc), but the private option should be practical for those who don’t need or want what dealers provide. I have never purchased a car from a dealer, and I don’t plan to start now (I don’t trust them), and it’s part of why I don’t have an EV.
There is a logical reason to be against forced adoption before the technology matures. For a lot of the country they are not a viable replacement for ICE yet. They’re improving, but not as fast as ICEs are being phased out and that leaves a lot of places where a dwindling used market will be the only option for many people.
What are you talking about? Pretty much the only thing I see on the used market are ICE vehicles. Do you live somewhere where they’re legitimately hard to find?
Are we in a “free market” or we not? The answer is “depends on what lobbyists want.”
Lol without all the subsidies gas would be $12/gallon. And burning fossil fuels (40% is automotive) kills more than 250,000 Americans per year. Whats the cost of a human life brah?
I think they’re more commenting on how the supposedly “free market” champions constantly interfere with the market when it suits their agenda
Whats the cost of a human life brah?
That depends on if grandma is being evaluated by an Obama Death Panel (life is precious and invaluable) or by the stock market in 2020 (she has, what, a couple years left anyway, let her die).
In the US there is only one metric: Dow Jones death panel. The insanity of our culture is that Obama Death Panels were an invention of the Dow Jones death panel board to rally the lemming brained right against the concept of public healthcare (the horror!). Oh yeah, obligatory fuck Joe Lieberman.
Yes, that’s the point. These politicians interfere and meddle and cry “free market” when it is convenient for them.
Exactly I am not getting all this subsidy unfairness nonsense that stops Chinese firms from selling cars here. The only difference I’m seeing is that we’re subsidizing cars on the back end through oil subsidies, and they are subsidizing cars on the front end with production subsidies.
Free market involves pluralism of systems and distribution of power as important preconditions. Lobbyism requires monoculture of systems and power being sufficiently centralized to be controllable.
Also, the free market is a tool, not a utopia. It optimizes for whatever the people setting the limits of it make it optimize for.
Not even only. The recognized goal of the modern marketplace is to achieve monopoly. Billionaires write entire textbooks on the subject.
To play devil’s advocate for a moment, is it really a free market if we are incentivizing one technology over another?
It’s too late. We’ve already hit the tipping point. Many of my neighbors have EVs now. They’re everywhere in my city and I’m not in a major city. They’re just plain better cars and now people know it. It’s too late.
Never underestimate the Republican ability to turn things into a culture war. My very conservative neighbor has an F-150 Lightning that his work provides him. When he first got it, he loved it and drove it everywhere. He truly seemed to believe that EVs were a better way to drive.
Then a few months ago he started making comments from the Fox News bubble. Things like, “the power grid just can’t support all these EVS” and “these EVs are so heavy that they’re destroying our roads” (note he has one child, and he bought his wife a 5,800 lb Yukon, so don’t tell me he honestly cares about vehicle weight).
Recently he bought a new ICE vehicle (a Bronco). I truly believe that he was this close to accepting that EVs have many advantages over ICE vehicles, but then he consumed enough right wing news to prevent him from making the switch long term.
EV weight is a legitimate concern both in terms of road and tire wear. However, this is a problem more generally given the current market trend towards driving a siege tower around to go grab some groceries.
If he cared about the grid he’d put solar panels up.
Congratulations, Elon. This is who you hitched your ugly Cybertruck wagon to.
I’d be game to buy one once he can figure out how to build the damn things at sufficient scale
Why? Have you read about them? They can’t go offroad properly, they rust, they have endless glitches…
Well I suspect once they are in scaled production that will largely be solved.
