12mo ago

Biden Administration Is Said to Slow Early Stage of Shift to Electric Cars

www.nytimes.com Biden Administration Is Said to Slow Early Stage of Shift to Electric Cars

The change to planned rules was an election-year concession to labor unions and auto executives, according to people familiar with the plan.

Biden Administration Is Said to Slow Early Stage of Shift to Electric Cars::The change to planned rules was an election-year concession to labor unions and auto executives, according to people familiar with the plan.

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I’m not in the know on this. How might one play devil’s advocate? Aren’t they still considered to be too expensive for most people? The electric grid ready?
- They are too expensive. But only because auto manufacturers are only making midsized and larger suvs or luxury cars. The average price of an EV has dropped over 50% in China since 2015. That would have been tough for us to match, mostly because of batteries, but we could have made much more progress than we have.
  The electric grid isn't nearly as unprepared as people say. Sure, we need to build out more charging stations, but the grid as a whole far exceeds current needs. In fact, nationwide electrical usage is actually trending down in the US because of efficiency gains. Better building codes, heat pumps, LED lighting, if it uses electricity newer stuff is more efficient. If we had sold 8 times as many EVs in 2023 than we did, electricity usage would have stayed about flat.
  https://cleantechnica.com/2024/02/02/the-us-added-1-2-million-evs-to-the-grid-last-year-electricity-use-went-down/
  
  Here's the story as I understand it. US automakers want to make expensive premium cars because those sell for high margins. The big breakthrough in the EV market over the past few years has been China EV makers figuring out how to make cheap and "good-enough" EVs, which are catching on in many places across the world. This is clearly the direction in which the market has to move (whether via Chinese or non-Chinese automakers) to spur mass EV adoption. In the US, however, the established automakers can rely on protectionism to block imports, this keeping the US market limited to big expensive cars that remain using ICEs.
  
  As a renter, I have no way to charge an electric car nightly. The availability of charging infrastructure outside of private homes will be more and more of an issue, unless battery tech significantly improves to be at parity with gas (e.g. I spend 10 minutes at a public charger as if I were filling a gas car).
  
  You sound informed, more so than I. The heat pump thing confuses me, and I've seen it a lot lately.
  I was under the impression that the vast majority of homes were using a heat pump system. Seems like a no-brainer? Is this not so?
  EDIT: My HVAC is labelled a "heat pump" and no one around here had natural gas.
  
  A increasing percentage of new construction gets heat pumps. Some replacement HVAC units make the switch, but there is still a large portion of people who won't because of misinformation and/or stubbornness.
  But, unfortunately, most existing residential systems do not use heat pumps, under 20% in the US I believe.
  
  No.
  Typical gas / coal plants are ~40% efficient. That means that if you do natural gas -> electricity -> heat pump, you only have 40% of the energy available to you. Yes, Heat-pumps then multiply that 40% energy out into "energy movement" rather than heating, but its a huge efficiency break.
  If you instead run a pipe from the central source of natural gas and then burn the natural gas inside of a home, you have something like 95% efficiency (5% lost in the chimney).
  Its only in the most recent decades have heat pumps actually become more efficient than burning natural gas inside of homes, because you have to factor the inefficiency of the power plant in your conversion. So today we're finally in a position where modern, advanced, efficient heat pumps are worthwhile. But go back just 20 years ago and the math still pointed towards burning fuel inside of our homes as the most efficient solution.
  
  Nope. Burning gas and direct electric heat of some sort are still the most prevalent forms of heating in the US, and often have separate cooling systems.
  New building almost all use heat pumps because they are a no brainer, but a house built 60yr before the technology existed may still be using a very old heat source. Many people do not have the 20k+ to retrofit their current home with heat pump technology even if it can save hundreds/month on their power/gas bill,so here we are.
  On the plus side, it is one of the lowest hanging fruits to reduce your bills long term, along with sealing drafts, insulation and replacing your water heater, so many people who have the means are opting to do all of the above.
- The electric grid will be ready when it needs to be ready. Power companies aren't going to just leave EVs on the table, even if they have to beg for money to upgrade.
  There's a post around here somewhere about a Chinese (BYD) EV for $15,000. I didn't look at it, but that's going to be entry level with few bells/whistles. Still, that's cheaper than any US ICE vehicle I know of.
  
  The electric grid will be ready when it needs to be ready
  Indeed. If the grid could not expand and would be overloaded, it works also be impossible to add more houses, offices or businesses. But it's no problem building those and connecting them to the grid, but EV would blow every fuse.
  
  With how Cheap solar energy and battery storage has been getting, as far as I'm concerned there's no reason that major developed countries can't start programs to install cheap solar panels on willing peoples yards/roofs/whatever, along with a battery storage container/wall to offset the strain of an EV
  If the only thing standing in the way of something is "money", then it's a problem that humans are intentionally KEEPING a problem.
  
  Solar/battery is not cheaper than natural-gas peaker plants yet, even today with all the cheapest Chinese panels with Chinese battery packs.
  And natural gas home-heating is comparable to a natural-gas peaker feeding a heat pump in overall emissions. (!!!!), because capturing near 100% of the heating energy from natural gas is easier than turning natural gas to heat, turning heat into electricity, and then running electrical losses to a home.
- These complaints about EVs being too expensive are way out of date, now that China is pumping out hordes of cheap EVs that consumers like.
  Even if the US doesn't want to let in Chinese auto imports, the question remains: why are Chinese automakers able to bring down prices, but not US automakers? You can point to Chinese government subsidies, but the US also does industrial policy these days. One of Biden's favourite talking points is how much money his government is putting into supporting US green manufacturing through the IRA.
  
  why are Chinese automakers able to bring down prices
  Because their economy is entering a deflationary spiral built off of 25%+ youth unemployment.
  Yes, unemployment lowers labor costs severely. That's.... not a good thing or a strategy we'd want to replicate.
  The other thing the Chinese do:
  Take over swaths of Africa to obtain cheap rare-earth metals. Use even cheaper African labor to extract Cobalt and other metals.
  Ignore environmental regulations. Lithium is obtained by pouring sulfuric acid into mountains, and then draining the acid out the bottom which now contains Lithium. Its simply a very destructive process full of possible issues where the acid will contaminate the natural environment. China doesn't give a care.
  Have huge amounts of unemployment to drive down labor costs lower and lower.
  Create an export-driven economy, artificially deflating the Yuan to lower your currency. Yes, this lowers costs. But it also makes it harder to import goods.
  There's a few things we should learn from the Chinese. They have invented incredibly efficient electronic lines in Shenzhen for example. But the bulk of Chinese policies that cause a decline in prices are... horrific. We should never do what the Chinese do on a grand policy scale.
  Import-driven vs Export-driven economies have naturally different tradeoffs. Export-driven economies have lower costs but difficulty buying foreign goods. Import-driven economies have higher costs but easier time buying whatever we want from around the world. The most important question: is there a market out there in the world where someone is willing to buy our stuff? I... don't think so. So the only manufacturing we need in the USA is what we can't buy from elsewhere... or what we chose to make here (like cars, weapons, and some semiconductors).
- Too expensive
  Charging infrastructure is terrible for road-trips. Many families can only afford 2 or 3 cars at best, and being forced into a 1-hour wait every 250 miles even in the best case is terrible.
  Terrible trailer performance. EVs "secret" is hyper-efficiency with lightweight loads like typical driving. Its a good thing if our daily drive were replaced with EV. However, the range drops dramatically more than ICE/Diesel when under load: mountain / hill territory, drag from trailers, and rolling-resistance from higher weights all worsen EVs. Meanwhile, ICE actually increases in efficiency in these high-load circumstances. Trailers, Trucks, RVs will likely be ICE or at most Hybrid for the foreseeable future.
  Terrible hotel infrastructure. Again for road-trips, but most vacation spots (beach houses, mountain lodges, hunting lodges, vacations at lakes, ski resorts etc. etc.) do NOT have enough chargers. So you can't even charge at night when you get there.
  EVs are perfect for the daily drive, even on 110V outlets.
  As long as you have a habit to plug in every night, even a 110V outlet provides like 40mi+ of range on a typical EV sedan. In practice, this means that every day you're leaving the house with a full charge.
  If you need more range than 40mi daily, you'll have to upgrade to an L2 charger at home (220V outlet). These beefier chargers can provide over 120mi of range every night for the typical EV.
  So in practice, an EV in these circumstances acts like a car that you never need to go to a gas station. Because your home garage / home-charger is a fuel-station.
- Practically, the biggest obstacle to overcoming EV suppression is Tesla. They are mainly profitable through sales of carbon credits via various emissions offset schemes, which they sell to other manufacturers such that they can show required carbon offsets by just paying some money. A whole lot easier than upending their business model to actually produce EV's, and creates a positive feedback loop where Tesla retains position as only significant EV game in town. The EV development happening right now is targeting China, not the US.
- Too expensive, not enough charging stations, and potential grid issues. I knew these ICE bans were unlikely to take effect as nobody seems in a hurry to build out the infrastructure needed for massive adoption.
  
  They will continue to not build infrastructure and in five years we'll see this exact headline again. Self fulfilling excuses.

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