How does that song go sung to starry eyed high school graduates? To dream the impossible dream . . . The whole idea of making the world electric is stupid and unrealistic and not going to happen. Of course things can be made to seemingly work if you put a gun to their heads.
Widely claimed and completely incorrect.
From the site;
Some people think that to get these figures on unemployment, the government uses the number of people collecting unemployment insurance (UI) benefits under state or federal government programs. But some people are still jobless when their benefits run out, and many more are not eligible at all or delay or never apply for benefits. So, quite clearly, UI information cannot be used as a source for complete information on the number of unemployed.
But more simply than the long winded Guv explanation, if a person is looking for work irrespective of whether or not they are receiving benefits or not, they are counted as unemployed.
No we are not as of 2021 and we won’t be in 2022. didn’t take long for THAT to turn around, did it?
No they aren’t forcing the price to be raised. But they are creating the policies that have been contributing to the higher prices for raw materials, labor, shipping and more that goes into the end product that causes the price to be raised to the consumer and the Fed isn’t using its tools to contain inflation at all in the meantime.
How far do you think people commute? There are electric cars with 300 miles worth of range. Are you saying that’s not enough? And that’s what we have now after wasting decades refusing to pursue with any seriousness a replacement for fossil fuels. Imagine how far they’d go if we’d been working on improving EV battery tech since the 70s.
But…we do care. Because we do have to fill the tank. That’s the legitimate point that the conservative is making. It’s the “if we’d done this thing that we don’t even know is feasible, then the price wouldn’t matter” that sounds like the legitimacy is a little shaky on to me.
If oil supply wasn’t an issue with pricing, why would the Biden admin tap into the oil reserves to lower the price?
And fwiw, we are no longer a net exporter of oil from what I’ve read.
3 Likes
Do you drive an EV?
I was trying to understand what you were trying to say with that statement.
yes, in theory it would be good that people drove EV’s to work. but most people cannot afford to just go out and buy one. and some people who work on their own vehicles might be reluctant to get one because of the expense of having to bring it someone else or the dealer to get it fixed every time there is a problem. I think in general a lot of people still think this is too new of a technology and are skeptical to go out and buy one.
1 Like
$4.20 in Illinois. Some gas stations bumped their prices up to $4.60 since since at least a day ago. I believe 38 cents of that is an Illinois tax.
$4.00 -$4.15 for Reg. on Long Island near me yesterday. depending on the station
I think some things are getting lost here. I’m not so insane as to think that everyone can just drop everything and run out to buy an EV tomorrow. I’m saying that had we been pushing for EV technology as early as we should have been, then we’d be mostly if not entirely converted over by now. I mean, almost everyone drives a fuel-injected car. Hardly any carbs left out there in daily drivers because FI has been increasingly widely available since the 80’s, and we’re now at a point where the carbed cars have long since cycled through the junk yards. Had we gotten serious about EV development even in the late 70’s, most daily-driven gas cars would have gone the way of the carbed car by now.
When the automobile was invented, not everyone could run out and buy one to replace their horse either. It happened over time. Had the anti-car crowd been as successful as the anti-EV crowd, car development would have been delayed by decades just as was EV development.
I am not proposing that there is some magic solution now, I am saying that the time to get to work on the solution we need now was 40+ years ago. Because we chose not to (remember Reagan ripping the solar panels off the roof of the White House? That’s the attitude that led to EV stagnation - the attitude that renewable / non fossil fuel-based energy was somehow a liberal idiocy that should be insulted rather than adopted) we are now having to pay higher prices for gasoline because we still have to buy gasoline. That isn’t Biden’s fault, because the decisions leading up to still having to buy gasoline today began decades before his presidency, primarily with the party in opposition to Biden. Actions carry consequences, even when the purpose of the action is “owning liberals.” These things do not happen in a vacuum, and we are now paying the price for those moments of tribal victory.
Today’s situation is the equivalent of a kid refusing to do his homework for an entire semester and then claiming his mom made him fail his classes because she read his report card. It’s not only nonsensical, it’s juvenile and should be beneath American adults.
To the rest of your point, I do not see where a DIYer would be any more turned off by an EV than by any other modern car. Anything they can fix on a modern Lexus they can fix on a modern Tesla. Brake pads go on the same no matter what propulsion system the car has. Of course, there are jobs they won’t have to do anymore - no more oil changes, spark plug changes, exhaust work, fuel system maintenance, etc etc. But I doubt that being told that the chore list is smaller is much of a deterrent to anyone. It certainly isn’t to me. 
I do agree that some people still think the tech is too new, but that goes back to my point - had we started working on this tech when we should have, no one would think the tech too new, just as no one who wasn’t Amish in 1960 thought cars were too new of a technology, because cars had been under robust development for decades.
I think the main barrier to EV ownership other than price (which isn’t that big of a barrier because while they are more expensive up front, you also don’t pay as much to maintain/fuel them once you have them, and you can get EVs much cheaper than Tesla is charging) is range anxiety. People who live in first ring suburbs think they need a 300 mile range even though they never drive more than 50 miles in a day. And because while 300 mile range EVs exist, they’re very much more expensive than lesser-ranged ones, they go for the gas car just in case they suddenly find themselves on a cross country road trip.
2 Likes
My personal attitude is that they need to be proven and effective before they’re considered viable alternatives. As long as there is natural gas supplementing the grid (or vice versa, renewables supplementing a natural gas fed electrical grid)…I don’t see renewables as really all that…viable. I just see it as pie in the sky, one day we won’t need oil dreams. This is especially true for electric cars. Some folks seem to promote the idea that electricity is necessarily carbon free.
That being said, I’m all for putting solar panels on my house to supplement if it’s economically feasible. But I highly doubt that it is or it would’ve already taken off like hot cakes in my area. If it’s only economically viable if the government funds it (with my tax money) in order to combat climate change…that would be a hard pass for me.
1 Like
We have been working on both battery technology since the 70’s and really all along…
In industry and in academia, the technology has been progressing for more than 150 years. When I started at GM in the 70’s there were 2 EVs in our test garage. They had fairly sophisticated controls for the time and re-gen. But both with lead-acid batteries. Large format Ni-Cads were available but had been developed for military aircraft use so were far too expensive to use in the cars.
Additionally, high power DC and variable frequency AC drive controls had been in constant development for decades for industrial and locomotive use. All were required to make the EVs we have in the market today.
And don’t forget that EVs were WINNING the sales battles in 1901 over gasoline powered cars but they lost that battle by 1920 because the power grid was not far and wide enough to charge them.
1 Like
Tell that to the oil companies.
They have been proven. Companies like Exxon and Shell wouldn’t be investing heavily in renewable technologies if they weren’t viable. Solar farms are popping up all over the place…same with wind farms. The solar farm at Indianapolis generates enough power to cover over 1/3rd of it’s use. Germany has been investing in Solar and Wind for decades…and it’s paying off. You should do some research.
1 Like
I do not put that many miles on our cars but remember when gas prices spiked under bush it led to a suburban housing crash. I think that price in 2008 was $4.50 a gallon. The price of so many things is going nuts, and businesses cannot find employees and loosing bucks in the stock market, makes my head spin!
Well lobbyists have had a lot to do with forcing power companies to implement solar gardens and wind mills, not public demand. In the years ahead we will likely see the results of failure to upgrade the grid and turn low cost reliable energy into a high cost and undependable catastrophe.
Yup its so great everyone is running out to convert to electricity until they get the new revised power bill for heating their homes, minus the $15 discount for solar gardens.
A solution to a non existent problem. Let’s see, who is to gain from the production of batteries solar panels and the sale of the minerals? Look behind the curtain.
1 Like
Is that adjusted for inflation or something? Back in '08 or so when gas was close to $5 in the Seattle area you weren’t paying more than 3.30?
I disagree. The housing crash occurred because there were too many bad loans made and too many people that couldn’t afford them allowed to get them. That has nothing to do with the price of gas.
While we are on the subject of the price of gas, it’s up because the oil companies can make us pay it. While there is enough oil to supply America’s needs, there isn’t enough for the rest of the world. US oil companies, just like the rest of the world’s oil companies, will sell elsewhere if they can make more money. You want gas? Pay for it. It’s just like (legal) drugs. We pay a lot more for the same prescription drugs than overseas because the drug companies can make us pay more. Want to pay less? Find a program that allows that or get them from Canada or Mexico. I’m lucky in that respect. All my prescription drugs are generic and my health care plan pays for all of them.
4 Likes
I’d replace viable with currently profitable. The rest of what I said earlier, no need to repeat it. It’s there for your reading pleasure if you wish.
Yup. We bought our first house in '95 and we rode the market and traded up a few times until we bought our $400K+ McMansion in '08. Shortly after the market cratered and our house lost 30% of its value. Luckily we were never upside down on the mortgage, but more than one house on our street soon went vacant or turned into rental property. Many of the luxury cars parked in the driveways disappeared as well.
Shortly before, one of my best friends had done well in his career and was a VP at Washington Mutual. One day he came out of a meeting about their latest/greatest mortgage program and decided he could no longer be a part of that company. He went to his boss and asked to be laid off and went to work for Microsoft. I can tell you at that time, he was the only VP at WaMu that drove a 10 year old Accord to work.
Went by the local Mobil station 3 days ago and it was $3.95 , went by the following day and it was $4.45 . Highest we have ever seen it around here in upstate NY .