Haiti is the fire place on Earth.
Hell is the fire place down below
Hades is the guy that lives in the fire place.
A $10,000 subsidy on a sub $30k EV/HEV would take a ton of ICE cars off the roads.
Median US income is ~$32k, shocking number don’t have $1,000 in savings, even more shocking number of subprime credit scores.
So we give subsidies to people with sufficient incomes to buy $80,000 EV’s while the “poor” are left to buy ~5 year old cars, 100k+ miles, for $15k to $20k…beautiful.
100% nuts, top to bottom. Actually, more than nuts…Evil…the subsidy is just cash in the pockets of the auto makers…they don’t want to build $30k cars, they all want to build $80k EV’s. Look at the 2024 lineup, lots of EV’s, the bulk $45k to $65k+…that’s a small pool of buyers…someone isn’t going to make their sales numbers.
But, the Yugo was actually a Fiat 128, manufactured under license by the factory in Yugoslavia. That model was being phased-out by Fiat around the same time that the essentially-same Yugo was introduced to the US market.
What about the Trabant?? A design saddled with a smokey 2 stroke engine and horrible reliability. On the plus side, it was slow and cost more than a Mini.
Yup! The Trabant was surely the worst… ever.
In addition to the factors that you mentioned, it had body panels made from a cross between cardboard and plastic, which formed incredibly toxic smoke when these cars caught fire.
One source said it was made from used industrial cotton shop towels soaked in resin. The chemicals in the old shop towel was the suspected source of the toxic fumes… and the resin, of course!
On one of my tours at the car museum I volunteer for, I had a lady whose mother was an East German midwife. She confirmed the story that upon the child’s birth, they registered the birth and for a Trabant since the offices were beside one another.
I’ve seen (and smelled) the museum car run… It smokes like it is trying to kill every mosquito in the county!
A little research exposed the cost of the car a currency converted $1750 at the same time a Mini cost $1650. I think we all would chose the Mini!
I am working on lithium production projects in southern Arkansas, google it. A small pilot plant is already running. We’ll see how much production ramps up over the next several years.
I did google it and here is the link for all to view…
Please do not get insulted but it is a “Pilot Project” – a pilot project is an initial small-scale implementation that is used to prove the viability of a project idea.
If the idea is not feasible or environmentally safe, the “pilot light goes out…”
There are also proven reserves of lithium in the state of Maine, but due to Maine having the strictest mining regulations in the country, open pit mining is restricted to a 3-acre pit (about the size of my back yard…) and to have a viable open pit mine for lithium would require hundreds of acres to dig deep enough to reach the lithium and thousands of more acres to dump the tailings…
I just feel like this effort to push EV production so far and so fast is like taking a cross-country road trip in a car, bought off the internet, with bald tires (all different sizes), a flashing engine light, no-spare, no-jack, with only one cable from a set of jumpers, and a missing oil dip stick…
I’m just saying we are not ready, where is all that electrical power going to come from. Our electrical grid cannot support it. Biden told power power companies to cut climate pollution by 90 percent or shut the plants down.
There are only two nuclear reactors now under construction in the U.S., at Plant Vogtle in Georgia; but they are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, and no one wants a nuclear power plant in their back yard.
Heck, in my neck of the woods, our local power company wanted to put in a powerline over the James River back in 2007 and it took years as it was fought out in court, “Eyesore, Dangerous, Environmental disaster, and on and on…” the Battle Cry was, “Not in my back yard…” It was finally finished in 2019 --after 12-years…
The relative rarity of Lithium makes for an interesting read. Most Lithium atoms found on Earth began their life far away, formed by supernovae, pulsars and black holes.
Why are you certain that the Maine lithium reserves can’t be mined using brine wells like the Arkansas project?
OTOH the project managers may already be certain that the project is viable. Pilot plants work out the correct method for recovery at significantly lower expense than building a full scale concentration facility. Changes are much less expensive in a Pilot plant. Why would they start the project if the lithium reserves aren’t there? Also, it appears that the facility likely already recovers bromine and that lithium recovery is a new way to use the brine.
It’s not me, it the good people of Maine, they have been burnt so many time by “promises” that they have enacted some really serious environmental laws, perhaps it a ground water issue, or run off issue, or containment pond issue, issue after issue, etc…
As for the Pilot Project that you work for, I do not know if it is really a viable solution or not… I do not know if the backers are getting money from outside, like government grants, tax incentives, etc… But remember recent news…
There is the disgraced Silicon Valley superstar Elizabeth Holmes who is now in federal prison in Texas to begin serving a 11-year term for defrauding investors with her once high-flying blood-testing company Theranos. That also started out as a Pilot Project…
President Obama backed a Pilot Project on an electric car battery company which filed files for bankruptcy protection, amazingly, after all the corporate heads received their mega-bonuses… That Pilot Project stated out with a 120 million dollar grant, then they quickly received over a half billion dollars in taxpayer-guaranteed loans… And when it was all said and done, the bonuses still got paid and the taxpayer paid off the loans.
Really, I hope it all works out and that your Pilot Project is the Real Thing… But, I remain skeptical…
