[HN Gopher] 9,000-pound electric Hummer shows we can't ignore ef...
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9,000-pound electric Hummer shows we can't ignore efficiency of EVs
Author : cwwc
Score : 177 points
Date : 2022-07-07 20:13 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aceee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aceee.org)
| occz wrote:
| SUVs should be banned, or taxed the point of economic non-
| viability. The fact that such a deadly category of vehicle, on
| top of being much less energy efficient, is being allowed to take
| over the market, is completely inane.
| parineum wrote:
| Think about all the things you own for which there is a more
| efficient or safer version.
| tayistay wrote:
| If anyone's wondering how they're deadly, it's that pedestrians
| tend to fare much worse when being hit by them vs a sedan.
| trident5000 wrote:
| Its not that insane that SUV's exist you're just extremely
| controlling and hyperbolic.
| balls187 wrote:
| I would be curious so see how the Hummer EV compares not based on
| national average, but in a markets where electricity is not
| produced via fossil fuels, and in a market where electricity is
| produced via fossil fuels.
|
| Engineering Explained covered this in part, in his video asking
| whether or not it is better for the environment to keep your
| current (presumably ICE) car, or buy a new EV.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IKCdnzl5k&t=24s
| trhway wrote:
| Moving the contractor's fleet of F-150 and the likes into EV is a
| good thing. With that background Hummers is just a noise not
| worth the bandwidth we are spending discussing it. Instead,
| muster some empathy and compassion for and have a pity on the
| guys who feel the need for such a car.
| mbgerring wrote:
| It's not good to do this analysis with figures from the entire
| U.S., which has a wildly variable mix of electricity sources
| depending on where you are and what time of day it is. This also
| obscures the difference between _unavoidable C02 emissions from
| burning gasoline_ with _emissions from industrial processes that
| may not emit carbon in the future._
|
| In general people are not careful readers, and in my opinion,
| headlines like this tend to feed cynicism and inaction.
|
| What I see here is enormous opportunity in decarbonizing the
| processes that lead to high lifecycle emissions for this and
| other vehicles.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| This is dependent on the area where it's driven. A 9K lb hummer
| EV driven exclusively in the PNW will find that most electricity
| is generated by renewables (mainly hydroelectric) power, but the
| same car driven in WV will have significantly higher CO2
| emissions...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Kind of a weird comparison considering the Malibu is 1/3 of the
| weight. It's certainly more efficient than a Chevy Malibu at
| moving 9,000lbs around.
|
| I'm not sure how Americans can undo the colossal car arms race...
| taxes based on weight? I believe there are actually tax _breaks_
| aimed at businesses with vehicles over a certain weight, which
| seems backwards.
| __derek__ wrote:
| > I'm not sure how Americans can undo the colossal car arms
| race... taxes based on weight?
|
| Yup. The Urban Institute recently proposed doing just that.[1]
|
| [1]: https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/us-could-taxing-heavy-
| cars-...
| cogman10 wrote:
| Taxes should be based on weight, particularly because road
| damage is primarily driven by vehicle weight. (by a cubed
| factor)
|
| We current subsidize, to a LARGE extent, goods shipped via semi
| truck. A large portion of the damage done to infrastructure is
| from shipping.
|
| The solution? Trains. Whatever we can do to get more goods
| shipped by rail or ships the better. Those are the most CO^2
| and infrastructure efficient ways to move goods. Even better if
| some day in the future we get those trains powered by
| electricity.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Yes, USA royally mixed up their incentives (unless their goal
| was "sell more diesel"...) by taxing the railroads too much
| and the semi-trucks too little (guess which industry
| represents a larger voting bloc)
|
| Shout-out to India, they have grade-separated electrified
| freight corridors, 5 lanes wide in some places, running
| double stacked container trains at 100kmh, no noise no
| pollution, it's a sight to behold
|
| https://youtu.be/l3Fx1A-dbYg
| cogman10 wrote:
| The goal was to "sell more cars"... which.. yeah, had the
| desired effect.
|
| We went from decently planned cities, good public transit,
| and a thriving rail industry in the 1940s to... what we
| have today. All because we prioritized cars and home
| ownership :(.
|
| It's depressing watching old TV/cartoons from that era.
| Midsize to largish cities had electric trolleys and
| elevated trains for commuters. While there were cars, they
| weren't necessities for pretty much anyone. It's why today
| the older larger cities seem to suck for cars, because
| that's not how people got around when they were built.
| CarbonCycles wrote:
| I don't understand the purpose of this article...it's making
| multiple comparisons but in a way that seems intentionally biased
| to incite discourse?
|
| It's also hard to ignore that electric motors provide almost near
| instantaneous torque on demand...talk about a major wooooooo
| factor that's hard to say no to.
| fma wrote:
| Yeah felt the same. Not sure who ACEEE is...are they getting
| paid by Tesla to write this hut piece since their cyber truck
| isn't out? Or Ford who doesn't have a large EV show truck?
|
| Theows away their credibility and I'm sure the blog post was
| vetted before going up.
|
| Someone who has $100k for a truck isn't going to go for a
| Malibu...they would have gotten an Escalade or another
| behemoth.
|
| The Hummer EV was created to dispel the myth that EVs can only
| for tree huggers. Different people have different lifestyles
| and if they are going for a more eco friendly vehicle than
| their gas equivalent that should be celebrated.
| tonymet wrote:
| Odd that they omit fabrication emissions of a 9000 lb vehicle,
| with tons of lithium, aluminum, steel, plastic and the implied
| water impact, from the emissions.
|
| If a tesla requires ~ 9 years to offset its fabrication, this
| beast needs 18.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| They're using optimistic numbers for gasoline and pessimistic
| numbers for electric.
|
| A gallon of gasoline emits about 11.8 kg of CO2 if you include
| refining. https://innovationorigins.com/en/producing-gasoline-
| and-dies...
|
| One kilowatt-hour of electricity currently emits about 372grams
| of CO2, a number that has dropped from 500 grams in 2012.
|
| A new Chevy Malibu gets 32.5mpg combined. Hummer EV gets 47mpge
| combined, or about 1.394 miles per kWh.
|
| 363gCO2 per mile for the Malibu, 267gCO2/mile for the Hummer.
|
| I don't think using hyper-specific region specific metrics makes
| a lot of sense considering the grid is all connected. (At least,
| the East Coast and Midwest, Texas doing its own thing, and then
| the west Coast.) in any case, the grid is getting lower emissions
| over time and could go MUCH lower than current (maybe half or
| less) over the full life of any new vehicle.
|
| Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles. And if
| everybody drove subcompacts or other hyper efficient gasoline
| cars then we'd have less of a problem anyway. But not everyone is
| doing that. And a lot of people don't want to. From a political
| economy standpoint then this is still a huge net win. Every new
| car and truck needs to at least have a plug in it within the next
| 5 to 10 years, and then we can start penalizing larger and
| heavier vehicles more directly.
|
| EDIT: what we should do is expand the EV tax credit. GM no longer
| qualifies as they used theirs up, like Tesla. Mostly just foreign
| EV makers qualify, which cannot be the real intention of
| lawmakers when they made the law.
|
| We can use the EV credit as a tool for improving efficiency.
| Instead of subsidizing per kWh of battery, we subsidize per mile
| of range. The first 50 miles of range (ie to be a plug in hybrid,
| but need at least 6.6kW charging speed) are incentivized at
| $100/mile of range. The next 200 miles of range $25/mile (under
| the condition of 100kW fast charging capability).
|
| That way car companies are incentivized (even more) to maximize
| miles per kWh. Small, hyper-efficient EVs will be
| disproportionately credited. For a given kWh of battery, you'll
| make more EV credit money as a carmaker putting it in a small,
| very efficient car than a big Hummer. But unless we renew the EV
| credit (and make it per kWh), there isn't this (additional)
| incentive.
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| Also what is the purchase price difference between the these
| two cars (the malibu versus the hummer)? I'm not American so
| not really familiar with either but from what I know I assume
| the average person who would but the ev wouldn't be cross
| shopping for the malibu. It seems like a bit of a straw man to
| present the figures for these two cars. It would be better to
| have what the average model 3 buyer would have otherwise
| purchased.
| TylerE wrote:
| Wildly different.
|
| The Malibu is a cheap sedan.
|
| Base prive of the Hummer EV is 5x the Malibu ($23k vs $108k)
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Agreed. And the Model 3 (132mpge) and Model Y (124mpge) are
| FAR more efficient, using less than half the electricity per
| mile than the Hummer EV (47mpge).
|
| The one thing about a Hummer EV with a huge battery is it can
| be used for work requiring towing large payloads. With large
| tow jobs, the thing that matters most for range is the kWhs
| of the battery of the vehicle, so it's somewhat justified to
| have such a big and heavy vehicle.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Are we allowed to call these "coal vehicles" yet? They don't
| make nuclear power plants anymore - so not sure why everyone
| wants to run more coal plants.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Interesting comment that inspired me to look into the grams of
| carbon dioxide emitted when running biodiesel fuel:
|
| This page [1] says biodiesel emits 2,661 grams of carbon
| dioxide per gallon. Let's say a 1988 F250 gets 15 mpg => 2,661
| g/gal * 1/15 gal/mile = 177.4 gram CO2/mile.
|
| Pretty cool it's less than both the Chevy Malibu and Hummer but
| wonder how it compares to other petrol cars - it is just
| proportional to fuel economy but im not gonna run the numbers.
| In my head a pure gasser car would need to get above about
| 40mpg of petroleum fuel to emit less grams of CO2 than a 15mpg
| vehicle running pure biodiesel.
|
| TLDR biodiesel is what's up if you can't afford an ev (and
| still has its place if you can). Pure petroleum diesel still
| barely emits more co2 than gasoline anyway [2]
|
| Disclaimer: only comparing carbon dioxide and not other
| greenhouse gas emissions
|
| Edit: i'm seeing some numbers around that the average human
| exhalation per day is emits 1 kg of CO2, for reference. [3]
|
| [1]: https://impactful.ninja/the-carbon-footprint-of-biodiesel/
|
| [2]:
| https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/Gas%20_v%20_Diesel_%...
|
| [3]: https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/how-much-does-
| huma...
| ascar wrote:
| The thing with human exhalation is that this CO2 comes from
| the food we consume and gets captured again when food is
| produced thus having netzero influence on the actual CO2 in
| the atmosphere. Same basically applies to biodiesel. Of
| course that ignores energy spent to produce crops and other
| issues like fertilizer.
|
| The problem is the fossil fuel that is concentrated carbon
| from millions of years of plants and now just adds to the CO2
| in the atmosphere without a corresponding mechanism to take
| it out again.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| >Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles.
|
| this is the key point, if you are going to compare compare
| apples to apples. I mean you can always keep making EVs bigger
| and thus more inefficient till you have total cost &
| environmental toll parity with some smaller car.
|
| Though its unlikely that somebody who was going to buy a
| regular hummer was going to opt for a malibu & nevermind the
| price. a good starting point may be comparing cars with Total
| cost of ownership parity & that too when both cars are past
| initial production ramp.
|
| my cynical brain says the truth is much simpler, fossil
| industry they wants a stream of these type of articles so they
| can keep the illusion of 'just as bad' alive for buyers on the
| fence. that is until then next fossil friendly administration
| shows.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > my cynical brain says the truth is much simpler, fossil
| industry they wants a stream of these type of articles so
| they can keep the illusion of 'just as bad' alive for buyers
| on the fence.
|
| Yes that seems to be the takeaway from Transport Evolved on
| another recent "study" that compared EVs to ICE cars on tire
| particulate emissions.
|
| https://youtu.be/aar8njoGgNY
| [deleted]
| bee_rider wrote:
| And hypothetically the Hummer EV could go down to 0 kg, if the
| grid was entirely renewable. Clearly this won't happen, but
| that should be the goal.
| tiernano wrote:
| My electric provider in ireland say the power we get is 100%
| renewable. It can even depend on provider...
| rektide wrote:
| Dont forget that there's a lot of embodied energy in
| everything too.
|
| Even renewable capacity creates CO2 when it's made. So does
| the grid. So does maintaining these things. And so does
| drilling for oil, & shipping it around the world, processing
| it, and shipping it again.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >in any case, the grid is getting lower emissions over time and
| could go MUCH lower than current
|
| This is a key point so many people miss.
|
| Perfect World: We reduce our emissions.
|
| Good World: We transition our infrastructure to things that can
| be decarbonized in the future. That Hummer EV _could
| theoretically_ run on completely renewable energy (once other
| changes are made) the Malibu will never.
| bombcar wrote:
| If the stupid EV credit was _refundable_ I 'd have taken it
| into account when looking for a new vehicle; as it is it's
| pointless to me because my tax liability isn't high enough.
|
| Stupid.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| >Also, a Hummer EV is displacing other large vehicles.
|
| We can agree on that. But also, a 7000 lb Hummer would as well.
| cheschire wrote:
| If you're going to factor in the refining process for the fuel,
| wouldn't it make sense to factor in the refining and
| manufacturing process for the battery?
| dieortin wrote:
| That would be comparing two completely unrelated things.
|
| If you want to factor in manufacturing emissions, you would
| have to do so for both. Unlike the manufacturing process for
| the battery, fuel refining is not a one time thing, but part
| of the emissions associated with operating the vehicle.
| dpierce9 wrote:
| Not really because this about emissions per mile driven. It
| takes energy to refine and deliver energy (both electricity
| and gasoline) so it makes sense to take that into account
| when comparing total emissions (comparing local emissions
| just makes ICE vehicles look bad). If you included the
| battery pack you would need to include the drivetrain of the
| ICE vehicle to make it commensurate. At that point it is just
| a different analysis, a fine analysis to do of course, but a
| different one.
| kimbernator wrote:
| I think the only thing in question is the co2 cost associated
| with the creation and consumption of the fuel, not the
| storage of the fuel or the parts that consume it.
|
| But if https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-
| manufac... is a good benchmark, we can probably assume the
| battery's manufacturing process releases between 3120kg and
| 15,680kg of co2, though that does describe a tesla model 3
| battery and I don't know how similar it would be. For the
| sake of expedient math, I'll average them and say it emits
| 9,000kg of co2.
|
| If we assume a lifespan of 200k miles, no part replacements,
| and no change in co2 costs/mile for EVs, then the total
| emissions would be:
|
| ~68,200kg for the EV (341g/mile) + the battery = 77,200kg
| total
|
| ~177,800kg for the non-EV (889g/mile), not including the
| manufacturing emissions associated with the ICE
|
| Ultimately it's not an insignificant amount of co2, but in
| context it is actually pretty unimportant. It turns 341g/mile
| into 386g/mile. Of course, it's incorrect to assume an EV
| will have static "emissions" since they all come from the
| production of electricity, and given current trends it would
| be fair to assume those numbers will trend downwards.
| Gasoline, however, can probably be expected to have fairly
| static emissions over the life of the vehicle, likely
| actually getting worse as parts wear.
| Ntrails wrote:
| > _If we assume a lifespan of 200k miles, no part
| replacements, and no change in co2 costs /mile for EVs_
|
| I am under the impression that battery trains do not last
| anything like that long - am I misinformed?
|
| Doesn't change the maths much, but curious
| cbo100 wrote:
| Most EV manufacturers are offering around 8
| year/160,000-200,000km warranties on the batteries.
|
| So not 200,000miles. But definitely covering the average
| usage pattern.
|
| And not all will last that long, but the majority will.
| And potentially the worst case is just degradation - I.e.
| 200km range instead of 400km range, so still quite useful
| for a variety of use cases even outside of cars.
| splistud wrote:
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yes, it would, but that's part of making the overall car and
| it depends on lifetime. As EV batteries can now last 500,000
| miles (vs 250,000 miles for first generation long range EVs),
| that's not as big of an impact as many assume. (A lot of
| papers assume really low EV lifetimes, like just 100,000
| miles, and no secondary reuse of the battery and they assume
| really outdated and inefficient numbers for manufacturing the
| cells.)
| Brusco_RF wrote:
| Only tangentially related, but I wonder what the expected
| battery lifetime drops to when you factor in crashes. You
| mention that the cells might last 500,000 miles but is that
| really relevant if you're likely to have your car totaled
| before 200,000?
|
| Are there diminishing returns if you are a company working
| on a million mile battery since virtually no vehicles will
| make it that far?
|
| I am speaking as someone who has had three cars totaled
| before 100,000 miles (none of which were my fault!)
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > One kilowatt-hour of electricity currently emits about
| 372grams of CO2
|
| Energy emissions varies widely. 60% of the USA's power comes
| from coal, oil and gas [6]. 1 kWh of electricity produced from
| a coal burning power plant generates around 820-940 grams of
| CO2 emissions (down from 1130g [5]).
|
| Interestingly, the EIA considers _" electricity generation from
| biomass, hydro, solar, and wind to be carbon neutral"_ [3],
| which is bonkers. Biomass co-firing generates 740g CO2, non-
| cofiring 240g. [4]
|
| As emerging markets have more need for electricity, they are
| also ramping up more non-renewable power production facilities,
| because gas, oil and coal are cheaper/easier/more available.
| And more coal is being burned now due to higher gas prices. CO2
| emissions from energy generation are now higher than they've
| ever been. [1] [2]
|
| In many parts of the country, going to EV does not
| substantially reduce CO2 emissions nor save money. We have a
| long way to go until we can say that EV is always better for
| the environment than ICE.
|
| [1] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel [2]
| https://newatlas.com/environment/energy-related-co2-emission...
| [3] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 [4]
| https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and...
| [5] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-
| co2-i... [6] https://app.electricitymap.org/map
| legitster wrote:
| If I was worried about this offsetting purchases of Chevy
| Malibus, then maybe yeah? But they are still going to produce
| significantly less CO2 than their actual competition.
|
| In the long run, manufacturers making all of their halo cars
| ostentatious EVs is a good thing. Offroad car bros are not one
| wholesome lecture away from switching to a bicycle. Let's let car
| makers make electric cars cool and then focus on actually
| providing better sources of electricity.
| elil17 wrote:
| They aren't a wholesome lecture away, but they are a law, tax,
| or regulation away. Removing tax loopholes for large cars,
| tightening emissions standards, and perhaps adding extra
| licensing requirements for oversized vehicles could reduce the
| environmental hazard and the safety hazard these vehicles
| create.
| legitster wrote:
| I'm all for good incentives, but I fundamentally do not see
| the value in waging wars on things people like while there is
| so much other low hanging fruit.
| trident5000 wrote:
| You sound salty. Improve the power source emissions instead
| of trying to dictate what type of car people want to drive.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I doubt it because I don't think most status car buyers are
| particularly cost-sensitive and moreover passing said
| legislation is easier said than done (and regulations are
| likely to be overturned whenever the presidency changes
| parties). So far "sexy" has done a whole lot more to convert
| people to EVs than regulation (and I say this as a staunch
| proponent of carbon tax/pricing).
| echelon wrote:
| > but they are a law, tax, or regulation away
|
| We're closer to losing women's and gay rights than to setting
| new environmental laws and standards.
| j_walter wrote:
| Sure...when 60% of the grid is powered via fossil fuels. If that
| number hits 80% or 90% then what. How about Hummer EV vs. H2?
| What if someone pays for completely green energy from their
| electric company? Also...why not include the Hummer EV on your
| fancy graphs???
|
| Comparing with the H1 does nothing since that was a military
| vehicle that wasn't really meant to be for consumers. That is
| also a 20+ year old vehicle at this point.
| formvoltron wrote:
| Where is it 80 or 90% fossil?
| thehappypm wrote:
| West Virginia?
| Arnt wrote:
| Can't you choose power source in the US?
|
| Where I live, the city supplies the power network but I can
| choose between dozens of electricity providers. AIUI there are
| several for any taste or opinion. Running one of those cars
| without CO2 emissions would be as simple as picking a suitable
| provider and charging the battery for >15 minutes at a time (the
| statistical model that governs power allocation is based on
| 15-minute time units).
|
| Is the article author dense or is this kind of competitive
| electricity provision unknown in the US?
| piperswe wrote:
| In most areas of the US there is a monopoly on most utilities,
| with a few exceptions (e.g. Houston)
| thinkcontext wrote:
| You can in around a dozen states. Very few individuals opt to
| do so.
|
| https://www.electricchoice.com/
| 01100011 wrote:
| Remember, vehicles over 6,000 lbs qualify for immediate business
| tax deductions(vs depreciating it over many years) because
| they're treated as heavy equipment.
| https://nypost.com/2022/03/02/tax-deductions-of-the-rich-g-w...
| chmod600 wrote:
| Why isn't heavy equipment depreciated?
| occz wrote:
| That should probably be repealed.
| blinded wrote:
| lol saw one of these on the road a few weeks ago. to each their
| own but its so ugly
| andrepd wrote:
| Ugly I can live with. The problem is being more polluting and
| more deadly...
| mint2 wrote:
| " Comparing larger vehicles, the original Hummer H1 emits 889
| grams of CO2 per mile and the new Hummer EV causes 341 grams,
| demonstrating that behemoth EVs can still be worse for the
| environment than smaller, conventional vehicles"
|
| So 1/3 the emissions of a normal hummer... I don't think the
| normal hummer owner is going to ever switch to a sedan so that
| seems like a major improvement
| afavour wrote:
| Arguably that's why you need legislation to more strongly
| dissuade buying a ridiculous car like that via taxes or
| whatever. If you leave it to individual choice there will
| always be plenty of people who don't care about the costs
| they're imposing on others.
| bragr wrote:
| Relevant example from Finland:
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/44642/imported-1000-hp-
| henness...
| willcipriano wrote:
| Combine it with a similarly restrictive air travel regulation
| and I'm on board. Takes a lot of miles in a Hummer to equal a
| trip to Europe and back.
| nr2x wrote:
| Ugh, just skipped a conference in Australia for that reason
| - decided I'm only doing long-haul flights for things I *
| _really*_ care about.
| vvern wrote:
| Can we just properly price carbon emissions and be done with
| it?
| 7speter wrote:
| That's why we need legislators who actually legislate.
| [deleted]
| pmichaud wrote:
| This seems like a useless place to optimize. Like, what is
| the total pollution output of all Hummers or similar
| vehicles? A rounding error, I'm guessing. The only way to
| make dents is with systemic changes like for entire trucking
| industry, for example.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Lots of other benefits come from removing urban tanks from
| the roads. https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/suvs-other-
| large-vehicles-o...
| teakettle42 wrote:
| Sounds like a good reason to create protected "no turn on
| red" crosswalks.
|
| The state's monopoly on violence should be used
| judiciously and sparingly to secure our individual
| rights, not as a catch-all tool for coercing (or outright
| forcing) people into making the choices you want them to.
| rpmisms wrote:
| > The state's monopoly on violence should be used
| judiciously and sparingly to secure our individual
| rights, not as a catch-all tool for coercing (or outright
| forcing) people into making the choices you want them to.
|
| May I steal this, please? I know a few people who don't
| get my political philosophy, and I want to help them
| understand.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| > May I steal this, please?
|
| Of course. Glad it was cogent enough to be useful.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Succinct is probably the best word. You've essentially
| described the Non-Aggression Principle as it applies to
| government.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| How about securing my right not to get killed by a
| dangerously large vehicle?
| undersuit wrote:
| I think it's OK for the government to ban vehicles from
| their roads.
| [deleted]
| vimwizard wrote:
| Does the state really _own_ the road though?
| et-al wrote:
| Who else would pay for the maintenance for said roads?
| Dig1t wrote:
| This is very well stated and honestly completely sums up
| most of the political divide between left and right.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| If by individuals you mean white men, that is.
| piperswe wrote:
| Then the state should stop building roads. Until that
| happens, they're free to regulate what vehicles can drive
| on those roads.
| splistud wrote:
| beowulfey wrote:
| I live in a state with many "no right turn on red"
| intersections, and I can tell you for sure that people
| very often ignore those signs and do it anyway.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| A very funny quirk of human psychology is people drinking
| water shipped from Fiji in an Uber Black car on their way
| to a first class flight thinking "those hicks in hummers
| are really destroying the environment"
|
| We as humans only really internalize the things we see.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Piecemeal regulations that treat luxury and small business
| vehicles separately and ignore the rich's pastimes to crack
| down on the working man's daily bread are why nothing other
| than an evenhanded carbon tax could ever be applied in a
| democratic country.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Well could be done on all scales. A small Kia with a
| roofrack / towbar maybe for extra cargo / small trailer is
| probably big enough for most human A->B needs, even small
| scale moving house.
| HPsquared wrote:
| The high cost does this automatically, a Hummer EV is over
| $100k.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| The US has huge variety of terrain, climate and road quality.
| Hummer has it's use cases.
| afavour wrote:
| I always see replies like this in conversations about
| vehicles in the US and it baffles me a little. Yes, of
| course there are appropriate situations in which someone
| might own a Hummer. But are we really trying to claim that
| even 10% of Hummers out there today are used in those
| situations? They're very obvious status symbols.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > They're very obvious status symbols.
|
| Vast majority of people with a truck or off-road vehicle
| have one for work - they're working vehicles.
| krallja wrote:
| Vast minority*
| finfinfin wrote:
| This definitely does not mean what you think it means.
| Owning a large car for work doesn't mean it's utilized as
| such. I know people who own trucks and large SUVs for
| work - but it's "just in case" not because they need
| additional space on a daily or even weekly basis.
| btilly wrote:
| We're talking about Hummers here, right?
|
| https://www.motorbiscuit.com/why-hummers-arent-good-for-
| off-...
|
| If their owners wanted to actually go off road, they'd
| have bought something else. They really have no purpose
| other than to mark you as a person with more money than
| sense.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Ok let's diligence this:
|
| There are about 60m trucks on the road in the US [0]
|
| There are 6m construction/mining workers, 6m installation
| workers, and 4m building maintenance workers. [1]
|
| Using that definition, at most, 25% of trucks are used
| for work.
|
| If you want to be _extremely_ generous, there are also
| 13m transportation drivers (being _very_ generous because
| that 60m does not include big rigs) and 8m factory
| workers (again, unlikely to use trucks for work).
|
| Using that frankly incorrect definition, you still get
| only 62% of trucks being used for work.
|
| So no, under _NO_ circumstances are the "vast majority"
| of trucks in the US used for work.
|
| [0]https://www.bts.gov/content/number-us-aircraft-
| vehicles-vess...
|
| [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > There are 6m construction/mining workers, 6m
| installation workers, and 4m building maintenance
| workers.
|
| What's this random collection of jobs and why do you
| think they're the only people who use a truck for work?
|
| Have you ever met for example a farmer? Crazy concept for
| people in tech, I know.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| So you must not be familiar with NAICS codes. They are a
| mutually exclusive completely exhaustive categorization
| of jobs, as defined by the US government.
|
| Here's the other ones:
|
| 11-0000 Management Occupations
|
| 13-0000 Business and Financial Operations Occupations
|
| 15-0000 Computer and Mathematical Occupations
|
| 17-0000 Architecture and Engineering Occupations
|
| 19-0000 Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations
|
| 21-0000 Community and Social Service Occupations
|
| 23-0000 Legal Occupations
|
| 25-0000 Educational Instruction and Library Occupations
|
| 27-0000 Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media
| Occupations
|
| 29-0000 Healthcare Practitioners and Technical
| Occupations
|
| 31-0000 Healthcare Support Occupations
|
| 33-0000 Protective Service Occupations
|
| 35-0000 Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations
|
| 37-0000 Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance
| Occupations
|
| 39-0000 Personal Care and Service Occupations
|
| 41-0000 Sales and Related Occupations
|
| 43-0000 Office and Administrative Support Occupations
|
| 45-0000 Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations
|
| 47-0000 Construction and Extraction Occupations
|
| 49-0000 Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations
|
| 51-0000 Production Occupations
|
| 53-0000 Transportation and Material Moving Occupations
|
| Sure, maybe the 500k farming, fishing, and Forestry
| workers should be added to the list, but I'm curious as
| to what else you think should be.
|
| EDIT: HN is banning me so this doesn't turn into a
| flamewar, but I'll leave you with this:
|
| I am trying not to personally attack you, but I think
| you're kind of dipping into ad hominen attacks because
| you regret making statement that is not supported by
| data.
|
| If you want to know why I think they shouldn't be
| included (and why I think you're _really_ over your skis
| here), it 's because the reality of farm work in the US
| is as follows:
|
| 1) The majority of the <1m US farm workers do the
| following job [0] [1]:
|
| _Manually plant, cultivate, and harvest vegetables,
| fruits, nuts, horticultural specialties, and field crops.
| Use hand tools, such as shovels, trowels, hoes, tampers,
| pruning hooks, shears, and knives._
|
| It is not clear to me that this requires a truck
| (especially not one for each worker).
|
| 2) The average wage of farmworkers is $15/hour [1] and
| the average cost of a used F-150 in the US is $40k ($30k
| pre-pandemic) [2], so it's not immediately clear to me
| that this group of people own a large number of pick-ups.
|
| Ultimately though, for someone to work at a large tech
| company, make their identity publicly available _and_ to
| be so aggressive on a forum like this seems like a weird
| risk to take. If you want to delete all of this stuff and
| just move on, I 'm ok with that.
|
| [0]https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes452092.htm
| [1]https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-
| labor/#wag... [2]
| https://pickuptrucktalk.com/2021/07/used-pickup-truck-
| prices...
| chrisseaton wrote:
| The fact that you don't even think of 'farmers' when you
| think of truck user makes it clear you've got a warped
| suburban idea of what people use trucks for.
| zeraynor wrote:
| Given the vast majority of the population reside in
| urban/suburban areas perhaps you have a warped rural idea
| of what people use trucks for.
| [deleted]
| bonzini wrote:
| A Suzuki Jimny would probably be more effective for 99% of
| Hummer owners that actually use it off-road, and in turn
| that is probably a very small minority of the total.
| 7speter wrote:
| Yes the vehicle that's too heavy to cross a not
| insignificant percentage of bridges within the U.S. has its
| use cases.
| nr2x wrote:
| It makes sense to rent them near such places as speciality
| items, but you don't need for the grocery run.
| nr2x wrote:
| I think the premise of the article is a bit silly - not
| everything is "average-able". The US is huge, and many places
| (like SV) do have 100% renewable energy so the electric is
| carbon free. This is like saying that if Portugal had a 100%
| clean grid that cars in Poland powered by coal plants meant
| that Portuguese EV's were not truly "environmental".
| lbrito wrote:
| Here's an alternative: don't allow the normal hummer owner to
| get a new one because they're terrible for everyone else.
|
| That's one of the reasons what governments were made for.
| mint2 wrote:
| Unfortunately half of our government is against any common
| sense regulations or rules. Mass shootings are becoming a
| daily occurrence that happens in no other first world country
| but instead the gop has spent the last decades trying to
| weaken what little gun regulations there are. Enough of The
| public seems totally okay with that, and would absolutely go
| batshit if they perceived someone as wanting to ban trucks.
|
| Tell me in that climate how the government does it's job?
| People keep electing government officials who are expressly
| against what you're suggesting.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Some historical fun, around 2008 there were various articles
| analyzing whether a Gas-powered Hummer H2 had less embodied co2
| emissions than a Toyota Prius:
| https://slate.com/technology/2008/03/is-it-possible-that-a-h...
| (google and you'll find a number of other articles)
| tonymet wrote:
| Passenger transit emissions are about 10% of CO2 overall, so
| you're not going to make much of a dent
| elahieh wrote:
| I'm amused by the "grams per mile" emissions measure - if you're
| going to mix SI and imperial, why not "ounces per kilometre"?
| xbar wrote:
| I am going to play this game for the next week. Thanks!
| melling wrote:
| Two steps forward, one step back. It's like people complaining a
| decade ago that the electricity was from coal, which is now 20%
| of US electricity. Although, globally we're still at 40% coal
| power generation.
|
| What's important is that the technology is developed, improved,
| then improved again until it finally becomes a viable technology.
| semenko wrote:
| Carbon costs per-vehicle can be calculated based on your local
| grid power source, duration of ownership, and more:
| https://www.carboncounter.com/ -- be sure to click the
| "Customize" tab
|
| If your annual driving distance is low (<5,000 miles) and your
| grid is relatively dirty (e.g. the midwest [SRMW] grid), a range
| of EVs have more CO2 emissions/mile than conventional internal
| combustion vehicles.
|
| (This is a project from the MIT Tranick lab /
| http://trancik.mit.edu/)
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Is the midwest grid particularly dirty? I'm pretty sure Iowa is
| like ~60% wind and a good chunk of Illinois is nuclear.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| SERC Midwest (parts of IL and MO) is the dirtiest in the
| lower 48. EPA EGRID has the data.
|
| https://www.epa.gov/egrid
|
| or there's a map
|
| https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/plug-in-or-gas-up-
| why...
| thinkcontext wrote:
| Related data on CO2 intensity on grids, this shows a map based
| on EPA data. It shows what the equivalent CO2 emissions would
| be between an average EV compared to a gas car. The worst in
| the lower 48 is SERC Midwest (parts of IL and MO) at around
| 42mpg, the best is upstate NY at 255mpg.
|
| https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/plug-in-or-gas-up-why...
| barbazoo wrote:
| > If your annual driving distance is low and your grid is
| relatively dirty, a range of EVs have more CO2 emissions/mile
| than conventional internal combustion vehicles.
|
| Right now. I'm sure you know but the beauty of this is that
| those cars' emissions can be reduced without changing anything
| about the car simply by changing the fuel used to generate
| electricity which can (and has to) happen in the future.
| mountainriver wrote:
| Yes this is a key point lost on many when I hear this
| argument. It doesn't mean to not buy an EV, it's still a
| great idea, we just need to do more work on our power sources
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Within a decade from when my Volt was manufactured to when
| I sold it, the carbon emissions per kWh dropped from
| 500g/kWh to 372g/kWh. Gasoline emissions have not dropped
| and might even be getting worse as we have to reach further
| to get nonconventional oil from tar sands, etc.
| acchow wrote:
| Those cars' emissions can also be made worse over time
| without changing anything about the car simply by changing
| the fuel used to generate electricity....
|
| Such as Germany currently decommissioning nuclear plants...
| dieortin wrote:
| The most dirty a grid can be is just the same as an ICE
| car, and even then the EV would still be way more
| efficient.
| barbazoo wrote:
| That didn't stop Germany from reducing its oil, coal and
| gas consumption though. Those reduced over time or at least
| stayed the same while renewables steadily increased.
|
| Source:
| https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-
| energy-c...
| Dig1t wrote:
| I think it's misguided to regulate like this, there's a natural
| incentive for efficiency in electric vehicles (more range, better
| battery life, consumers want this). People buying a mega car like
| this very likely COULD want it for a practical use case, trucks
| are tools as well as transportation and many people legitimately
| use their trucks for actual work in the US. I think the real
| problem here is the efficiency of the local grid.
|
| If I buy an array of solar panels and use it to charge my car, it
| doesn't matter at all how efficient my car is, grams of CO2
| emitted is basically 0.
|
| We should really focus on regulating and improving the efficiency
| of grids across the US, investing in renewables and nuclear. This
| is the biggest benefit of electric vehicles anyway, the fact that
| it pushes the burden of efficiency from every consumer who owns a
| car to the much smaller set of infrastructure providers.
| colordrops wrote:
| Totally agree. I and two other friends have Teslas and enough
| solar to cover our charging needs, and I don't believe I'm some
| crazy anomaly.
|
| Also, all else being equal, an large electric vehicle at least
| has the potential to use low-CO2 energy, and the grid provides
| a better place to optimize CO2 output and renewable usage.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > If I buy an array of solar panels and use it to charge my
| car, it doesn't matter at all how efficient my car is, grams of
| CO2 emitted is basically 0.
|
| There are metrics which relate the amount of CO2 emitted to
| manufacture a panel vs the total amount of electricity it goes
| on to generate, and they are not 0. They're significantly lower
| than coal fire power plants, but not zero... and can vary
| greatly depending on where in the world you actually install
| that panel.
|
| > improving the efficiency of grids across the US
|
| What is currently inefficient about them?
|
| > the much smaller set of infrastructure providers
|
| Who all hold government granted monopolies on their
| infrastructure. I'm not absurdly hopeful this will
| automatically turn into a win for the consumer.
| Dig1t wrote:
| >There are metrics which relate the amount of CO2 emitted to
| manufacture a panel vs the total amount of electricity it
| goes on to generate, and they are not 0
|
| Yes, fair enough. Making pretty much _anything_ contributes
| to CO2 in some way and this argument easily devolves into one
| where we're saying we should just limit all human activity,
| and I'd say that that way of thinking is regressive. If you
| can generate your own electricity this pushes the burden of
| emissions to the manufacturer of the panels, which is a good
| thing because panels are tech that improves over time.
|
| > What is currently inefficient about them?
|
| Yeah I misspoke, what I meant to say is we should focus on
| reducing the emissions that they create while generating
| electricity. i.e. improving efficiency if you consider
| CO2/Watt generated to be your units. This is done by
| switching to renewables + nuclear.
|
| >Who all hold government granted monopolies on their
| infrastructure. I'm not absurdly hopeful this will
| automatically turn into a win for the consumer.
|
| This I disagree with, I think a smaller number of government-
| granted monopolies are much easier to control/regulate than
| every single US consumer.
| xbar wrote:
| Seems like a market problem.
| bl_valance wrote:
| The shear weight of EVs compared to combustion engine vehicles
| scare me as a pedestrian/motorcyclist. I think this one is like
| twice the weight of the H3/H2.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| On the one hand - bad for an EV. On the other hand - yes a big
| giant EV truck may be less efficient than a sedan.
|
| The thing is Americans just do not buy sedans.
|
| We can hem & haw and browbeat consumers, but if they want to buy
| big trucks.. better EV flavored ones than V8 coal rolling
| polluters.
|
| The more form factors are available in EV flavor, and the more
| price points they can hit.. the better.
| CalRobert wrote:
| If they want to buy big trucks, we need to consider those
| trucks' negative externalities. A bigger, faster, heavier, and
| more deadly vehicle, imposes costs on everyone around it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is the point. You are showing you are in a position to
| impose costs on everyone around you, especially with a
| Hummer.
| xerxex wrote:
| People are selfish.
|
| I keep hearing communism is a nice idea but fails in
| practice.
|
| Well, unchecked capitalism is a nice idea until the world
| collapses.
| lliamander wrote:
| akomtu wrote:
| Capitalism is well suitable to people at their current
| level, which is about developing a strong ego with
| intelligence and clear boundaries. Communism was
| appropriate in the past, when people had weak notion of
| self, is not appropriate now, and will be appropriate in
| the future when people want to give more and take less. "I
| think my nature was always one that strove to yield itself
| to the great whole of which it was such a small part - and
| by yielding itself, to draw back into it the sustenance of
| life." - a pretty good allegory on the essense of communism
| done right.
| albatross13 wrote:
| > and will be appropriate in the future when people want
| to give more and take less
|
| ..5000 years later...
|
| > people still suck > lol guys communism will work
| eventually just trust me bro, it's not the system it's
| the people that make up the system
| akomtu wrote:
| Way more than 5000 years. People don't change that
| quickly.
| albatross13 wrote:
| Lol, touche. I hope for all our sake that you are
| eventually correct, though I fear we'll be extinct before
| that's ever the case
| lliamander wrote:
| Aren't those negative externalities already factored into
| things like the cost of fuel and liability insurance?
| my_usernam3 wrote:
| And registration! I have a large truck for only occasional
| dirt bike trips and I pay up A LOT of money to the
| government for it.
| lvass wrote:
| I too only buy food that reached my town via horseback. Who
| cares about how useful trucks are when they could kill
| people?
| plankers wrote:
| nobody here is talking about freight vehicles
| lvass wrote:
| What are pick-ups used for, then? In my country they're
| mostly owned by farmers.
| [deleted]
| corrral wrote:
| They're popular in the US:
|
| 1) As status symbols (because they're expensive, and
| because their "truck = freedom" advertising has been very
| successful) that still read as blue-collar / "red";
|
| and,
|
| 2) Explicitly because of their size--they're perceived
| (pretty accurately) as being far more likely to "win" a
| crash than a smaller car, and they also put you up high,
| so you have better visibility. Not sure if the latter
| actually translates to more safety, but it's certainly
| _perceived_ to. This is also a big reason SUVs sell well.
| There may be some related "I like to intimidate other
| drivers" factor here, too (not my uncharitable guess, as
| I've heard it seriously expressed by truck owners, and
| I'm also not saying this is extremely common--but it's
| common enough that I've encountered it several times).
| For that last part, see again: status symbol.
|
| Some portion of the population owns trucks for the same
| reasons people own trucks in other rich countries, but
| that's not the reason they're unusually popular here.
| It's largely a form of class & political signaling ("I'm
| in your tribe, and also not poor") coupled with some
| tragedy-of-the-commons personal/family safety concerns.
|
| [EDIT] 3) Aspirational purchases and poor cost/benefit
| analysis. Think: the lettuce you buy then don't eat
| before it goes bad. "I really want to get into [x
| activity that is easier with a truck] and I need to buy a
| vehicle of some kind, so I should get a truck" -> buys
| truck -> does not actually use truck-specific
| functionality anywhere near enough to justify purchase
| vs. use of paid services or rentals.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Around here they're used to drop kids off at elementary
| schools.
| rascul wrote:
| I use mine to transport tools and building materials.
| albatross13 wrote:
| tell me you've never been outside of a city without
| saying you've never been outside of a city, lmao.
| kube-system wrote:
| I grew up in rural America. Nobody used their Sierra
| Denali for farm work, unless it was to take horses to a
| horse show. Most use their personal trucks for recreation
| or utility... towing the camper to the camp site, or
| getting some mulch at Lowes. 1.3% of Americans work in
| Agriculture.
| rascul wrote:
| Farmer I sometimes do some work for pulls the cattle
| trailer with his Lincoln Mark LT. It's getting old
| though, not sure what he'll replace it with but he's on
| the list for the Cybertruck.
| albatross13 wrote:
| 1.3% of americans use their sierra denali for farm work,
| that's just plain fact.
|
| source: i grew up, and live in, rural america.
| afavour wrote:
| No one is saying pickup trucks are _never_ used to haul
| large items. They're saying _the vast majority of pickup
| trucks purchased_ are not used for that purpose and even
| when they are it's a couple of times a year, a situation
| where renting a truck ought to make a lot more logical
| sense.
| albatross13 wrote:
| I'll go talk to some farmers and ranchers and get their
| take on renting a truck for work. I'm betting they'll see
| the economic sense in that.
| yonaguska wrote:
| While I generally agree with you, I live in a large
| metropolitan city, and there are just as many trucks
| being used for work as there are vanity trucks. The work
| trucks actually tend to the smaller side, think Chevy
| s10s and the most common working vehicle is actually a
| cargo van, mostly Ford transit connects. And then there
| are tons and tons of lifted wranglers and trucks that
| never see a day of work. It's laughable, as I grew up in
| a more rural area and never saw that. Excepting of course
| the redneck coal rollers with hanging nuts and all. But
| those were not that common. And I don't think I've ever
| seen a Hummer actually used on a job site.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Insurers aren't properly internalizing the liability costs
| and therefore are pricing premiums too low for the risk these
| vehicles create. Maybe judgements need to be higher for
| deaths and injuries caused by overweight vehicles? I don't
| have enough context to say. If they're significantly more
| dangerous, it should be priced accordingly (based on claims
| data).
| thfuran wrote:
| They don't really care about a lot of the externalities,
| like more land used per parking spot, more energy used by
| transportation, increased road wear from heavier vehicles,
| etc.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I don't have any data myself, but it is a common argument
| in the United States that automobile drivers enjoy
| ridiculously little legal liability for injuring or killing
| pedestrians and cyclists in all but the grossest cases of
| recklessness or negligence.
| belligeront wrote:
| Here is a recent case where a driver of a Jeep swerved
| into the oncoming lane to at high speed try to hit a
| bicyclist. They were only given a misdemeanor.
|
| This person should not be allowed to drive a motor
| vehicle. There is almost no consequences for motorists
| who repeatedly violate the law and risk others' lives. We
| should be much more aggressive about taking away people's
| drivers licenses who demonstrate that they are incapable
| of public safety.
|
| https://jalopnik.com/jeep-driver-gets-misdemeanor-after-
| tryi...
| lliamander wrote:
| They would certainly be leaving a lot of money on the table
| if that were true.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Right, if big vehicles are more dangerous, where is that
| uninternalized cost being squeezed out if not the vehicle
| owner's premium.
| slg wrote:
| Who says more dangerous equals more expensive? Killing a
| victim can often be cheaper than the medical costs
| required to treat a severely injured person.
| kube-system wrote:
| Or more commonly, someone who drives a compact car drunk
| habitually through a dangerous neighborhood is higher
| risk than a high-income person with a good driving record
| who drives a heavy car in a quiet suburb.
|
| The people who cause the most insurance losses are often
| people who really don't have their lives together.
| They're driving cheap pieces of junk and wrecking them
| frequently.
| lliamander wrote:
| > Killing a victim can often be cheaper than the medical
| costs required to treat a severely injured person.
|
| Maybe, but I am rather skeptical of this claim being true
| under _most_ circumstances.
|
| And even if it is true that the payout from insurance is
| bigger in the case of injury than death, there's
| potentially lost revenue if the insured goes to jail.
| slg wrote:
| >there's potentially lost revenue if the insured goes to
| jail.
|
| It is surprisingly hard to end up in jail after killing
| someone with your car in the US. As long as you weren't
| drunk, weren't doing something crazy like going 40mph
| over the speed limit, and didn't flee the scene, the most
| you are generally looking at is a misdemeanor if you are
| charged with anything at all.
| YokoZar wrote:
| Likely the victim's medical or comprehensive insurance -
| most states only require very small liability limit
| policies that won't really cover much in a big crash.
|
| California, for instance only requires ~30k injury
| coverage and ~5k property damage, not even enough to
| replace a cheap used car when totaled these days.
| kube-system wrote:
| Weight is a confounding factor if an accident _does_
| happen, but the biggest risk that insurers deal with is the
| driver and the environment in which they operate their
| vehicle.
|
| Attributes like weight or type about a vehicle have
| relatively vanishing impact on risk in reality.
| https://www.iihs.org/ratings/insurance-losses-by-make-and-
| mo...
| Swizec wrote:
| If those externalities were priced correctly, people would
| stop buying big cars. That's why they're not.
|
| This is the sort of things governments can be good at if they
| choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do it for
| us. And it won't be pretty.
| lliamander wrote:
| > If those externalities were priced correctly, people
| would stop buying big cars.
|
| That isn't what it means to "price externalities
| correctly". Pricing them correctly means that the price
| covers the cost of the externality. That doesn't stop
| people who are willing and able to pay the price from doing
| so.
|
| > This is the sort of things governments can be good at if
| they choose. Otherwise gas/energy prices will eventually do
| it for us. And it won't be pretty.
|
| This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to sort
| out. Rising energy prices would naturally create the market
| pressure needed to find alternatives. It's the kind of
| problem firms would see coming a long way off and prepare
| for.
| Swizec wrote:
| > Pricing them correctly means that the price covers the
| cost of the externality
|
| My argument is that current fuel and energy prices do not
| cover all externalities. And I'm suggesting that maybe
| they should.
|
| > This is exactly the sort of thing you want a market to
| sort out.
|
| Yes and that doesn't work very well when fuel, roads, and
| the car industry are heavily subsidized in an effort to
| make car culture more affordable.
|
| Part of the problem is that knowing the true price of
| relevant externalities is currently difficult or
| impossible. We'll find out eventually one way or another.
| Through the price of habitable real estate and lower crop
| yields if nothing else.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Not only only we not pricing in those externalities, the
| current regulations are structured in a way that actively
| incentivizes bigger vehicles, above and beyond consumer
| preferences:
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/small-cars-are-getting-huge-
| ar...
| greenthrow wrote:
| The ubiquity of SUVs is a phenomenon of the last 30 years. I
| remember when it started taking off in the 90s. It's not an
| eternal thing that can't be changed.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Sure, but the idea that we are going to both legislate away
| ICE and legislate away SUVs in one go.. and not get destroyed
| in the voting both next cycle is... dubious.
|
| If you live in norther climates there are some advantages to
| SUVs/crossovers in terms of ground clearance. Winter, even
| with AWD and winter tires can be a problem in my sedan when I
| bottom out at every poorly plowed intersection.
|
| Sedans are also a PITA as soon as you want to haul both
| people AND stuff at once. Or anything with a dimension wider
| than 3 feet.
|
| SUVs do offer benefits in terms of semi-regular things
| normies do like moving your kids in/out of college 4x/year
| with the semester system, taking your family on road trips
| instead of flying (which is way more polluting!), hauling
| large dogs, Costco runs, etc.
|
| People with various sorts of outdoors enthusiasm also may use
| them to haul, roof rack or tow more outdoorsy gear.
|
| Not everything other people prefer is because they are bad
| people who are evil and need to be stopped.
|
| I'd be curious how exactly you'd legislate away SUVs now that
| the genie is out of the bottle. What's an SUV, whats a cross
| over, whats a commercial vehicle, etc. If you go by weight,
| plenty of sedans violate worse than small SUVs.. In fact if
| you go by weight class you may ban EVs and allow ICE!
| yonaguska wrote:
| I'm the moron that used to do Costco runs on a motorcycle.
| And that usually included balancing toilet rolls and a
| pizza on the tank.
| tootie wrote:
| This is the thing that drives me nuts. Remember the anti-SUV
| mania of the 90s? It completely failed and SUV consumption
| skyrocketed and people stopped buying minivans and station
| wagons. The absolute least, smallest, simplest thing an
| ordinary consumer can do to decrease emissions is to just buy a
| smaller car and people just did the opposite. You're right that
| our only choice is to meet consumers where they are it just
| makes it such an uphill battle. Everyone complains that elected
| leaders and corporations are not doing anything to fight
| climate and it's almost entirely because people are telling
| them not to.
| jrapdx3 wrote:
| Yeah, that's how I remember it too. Back then I wondered why
| some people I knew bought SUVs even though they were only
| needing to commute to/from work.
|
| In the early 2000's my own situation changed, I was needing
| to haul relatively heavy/bulky items. I acquired a Honda
| Pilot because of its rated 1300 lb payload, better than a
| small pickup. After a while that need ended, but I kept the
| Pilot and still drive it. However since then it's used <3000
| mi/year, a good thing with price of fuel being what it is
| now.
|
| The Pilot was/is built on the same platform as the Honda
| minivan, albeit with slightly modified drive train. Pilot and
| minivan have essentially identical mileage ratings. So with
| these models switching from minivan to "SUV" makes no
| difference in fuel usage.
|
| Can't disagree that old-style "station wagons" were more
| fuel-efficient than minivans and similar size vehicles.
| However, station-wagons seem to have disappeared from the
| scene at least to my observation. Out of fashion I suppose.
| And from the fuel usage point of view that's unfortunate.
|
| EVs are the future but expense factors will keep ICE in the
| picture for some years to come. Do you suppose the current
| increased fuel prices will inspire a resurgence of smaller
| vehicles for routine transportation? In the interim that
| would be a good thing.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Exactly - its minivan to SUV swaps mostly. And its the same
| vehicle under the hood. Increased safety standards, crumple
| zones and side curtain air bags add some girth..
|
| Station wagons I think also partially fell out of fashion
| because you can't do a 3 row wagon safely anymore as
| there's no way the rear facing vomit seats are going to
| survive modern safety tests.
|
| Also don't forget how ginormous modern kids seats are in
| cars, and how many more years kids are legally supposed to
| sit in safety seats compared to when we grew up. Few sedans
| are comfortably able to take 2 of these kid seats and still
| leave you with room for much cargo or a 3rd adult (grandma
| or grandpa) at the same time.
|
| The market for 7 seaters (of which 4-5 may be occupied at
| any one time) is fairly large.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| It is of the same flavor of why many of my smartest leftiest
| friends don't understand why we lose elections if we are so
| smart and tell people how wrong they are if they don't vote
| for us? Don't they understand? Maybe we just need to educate
| them more!
|
| Simply put, you need to meet the voters were they are.
|
| Companies know this and meet consumers where they are.
|
| Why do people buy SUVs? Because the generation that grew up
| embarrassed by their parents minivans never wanted to buy a
| minivan! So now companies sell the former minivan cohort SUVs
| instead, which are basically the same thing.
|
| Occasionally the Germans ship us a sexy sports wagon, but
| they can't call it that here and have to call them hatches or
| "cross turismo" etc.. haha.
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is not because of some innate character of Americans, it
| is because of specific state policies and subsidies. Fuel
| prices and registration fees are only slightly higher in
| California but that small economic nudge is enough to knock
| trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling vehicles in
| that state. The Model 3, Camry, Civic, and Corolla all outsell
| any pickup truck in California.
| jjulius wrote:
| >Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher
| in California but that small economic nudge is enough to
| knock trucks completely out of the ranks of best-selling
| vehicles in that state.
|
| I'd be cautious about blaming it all on fuel prices. I'd
| argue that the increased wealth of California residents
| relative to the rest of the country also plays a part in why
| a vehicle that is too expensive for most people made it so
| high on that list in California.
| thfuran wrote:
| Trucks aren't especially cheap.
| jjulius wrote:
| 2022 Ford F-150 XL: $30,870[0]
|
| Tesla Model 3: $46,990[1]
|
| [0]https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/?intcmp=vhp-
| attribut...
|
| [1]https://www.tesla.com/model3/design
| jeffbee wrote:
| Not sure what you were trying to cherry-pick there, but
| in general trucks cost more than cars, and this has been
| the case for decades. The recent new record highs for
| average new light vehicle price has been largely driven
| by a continued shift toward trucks and away from cars.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1168-j
| anu...
| botdan wrote:
| That price is for a V6 (not ecoboost), single-cab, short-
| bed F-150 that doesn't even have power locks or windows.
| Those trucks aren't generally sold to consumers.
| Minimally, you're looking at at least $35,515 for an XL
| Super Cab, but more than likely you're looking at a
| minimum cost of $41,755 for an XLT. KBB's data [1]
| reported that the average cost in 2018 for an F-150 was
| $47,174 before fees.
|
| [1] https://www.kbb.com/reviews/pricing-your-next-
| ford-f-150-it-...
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| That would seriously depend on 'what part' of California you
| are talking about. In the cities and down south where parking
| and traffic are huge factors, you bet. But the farther north
| you go the more trucks and large SUVs you will see on the
| road. California is far too big to be treated as a single
| entity when it comes to anything.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Arguments that the empty part of California is huge and
| therefore important baffle me. 99% of Californians live
| south of Yuba City. 90% of them live south of Lodi. Half of
| them live south of Ventura.
|
| Yes the incredibly empty "Empty Quarter" of the state is
| large, and empty. As in nobody lives there. The best-
| selling vehicle in Modoc County may or may not be a truck,
| but the fact is of no interest.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In the cities and down south where parking and traffic
| are huge factors
|
| Really, INME, just "in the cities" (with maybe also the
| coastal mountain areas between the coastal cities). The
| inland rural south is no different than the inland rural
| north in this respect, AFAICT.
|
| But the population is largely in the cities.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| My observation is that in many countries people want to drive
| big cars but only in US non-negligible fraction of population
| can afford it: combination of 5th highest median income in
| the world, low (relative to the EU) fuel (and electricity)
| prices and availability of parking for large cars. A state
| can counter this by higher taxes, but looks like support for
| this is not broad enough.
| [deleted]
| rascul wrote:
| > Fuel prices and registration fees are only slightly higher
| in California
|
| I'm not sure what the prices and fees are in California, but
| for comparison, in Mississippi it costs me about $45/year for
| registration and today I paid $4.17 for fuel. If I recall
| correctly, vehicles newer than 20 years old can cost
| significantly more to register here, but I don't have
| anything that new.
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| > We can hem & haw and browbeat consumers, but if they want to
| buy big trucks.. better EV flavored ones than V8 coal rolling
| polluters.
|
| Yes, or perhaps regulate these tanks that are a disaster for
| human life in all the years past 2150 (i.e., a time people born
| in the next twenty years will live to experience)...
|
| I mean, I can't just bring a gigantic 500 kilo suitcase on an
| airplane. There's costs associated to the airplane and other
| passengers, and thus doing this is priced such that nobody does
| this for fun or mere convenience, but rather only very rarely
| out of necessity. In fact, only on the rare occasion when the
| costs are worth paying because the value is equal or higher
| than the price.
|
| There's rules & conditions to using certain services and
| infrastructure like an airplane. Roads aren't any different, we
| just happen to accept rules & conditions that are ridiculously
| imbalanced, aren't pricing in the costs, and are disastrous on
| a whole range of categories: from climate change, to
| environmental pollution, to human health and safety, congestion
| and geopolitical issues around oil dependence.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Personally know a few people who drives trucks solely because
| they have wider seats so they fit comfortably in the vehicle.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Very few people are buying this exact monstrosity at $100K
| price point.
|
| I am mostly trying to drive home a point I think a lot of
| perfectionists miss..
|
| A lot of people drive gas vehicles. A lot of people drive big
| trucks. The more form factors that EVs come in, the more gas
| vehicle drivers can be converted to EVs, which is a net win.
| I am not sure we are going to magically regulate and
| legislate away everything al at once in one Great Leap
| Forward of banning ICE, mandating smaller vehicles, changing
| land use and road design all in one go.
|
| I am simply putting forward the opinion that every EV Hummer
| sold to a former gas Hummer buyer, is a net good. Every F150
| Lightning/EV Silverado/Rivian sold to a former F150/Silverado
| V8 buyer is good. Every Tesla Model 3 sold to a former
| Camry/Accord buyer is good. Every VW ID4 sold to a former
| CRV/RAV4 buyer is good. Every Chevy Bolt sold to a former
| Honda Fit/Chevy Sonic buyer is good. Etc etc etc.
|
| Look at the list of top vehicles sold in America. Most of
| them don't have EV versions available or affordable today.
| The more we can convert the merrier.
|
| I don't think you are going to convert a lot of Chevy
| Suburban buyers into a Polestar 2, or BMW X5 buyer into a
| Tesla Model Y, or a Toyota Highlander into a Chevy Bolt. You
| could get some of them into a BMW iX or Mercedes EQS SUV or
| Rivian R1S, etc.
|
| Some vehicle bloat is also crash safety regulatory driven as
| you see how much crumple zone growth cars have experienced if
| you compare say a BMW 3 series from 1990/2000/2010/2020.
| rascul wrote:
| > The thing is Americans just do not buy sedans.
|
| I see more sedans on the road than any other type of vehicle.
| Crossovers I see almost as much, though.
| jjulius wrote:
| >Nationally, 80% of the top 10 sellers are either trucks or
| SUVs (Honda Civic and Toyota Camry are the exceptions).
|
| https://www.edmunds.com/most-popular-cars/
| rascul wrote:
| Those statistics are for new vehicle registrations. There
| are a lot more vehicles on the road than that.
| jjulius wrote:
| Right! But the quote you responded to was, "Americans
| just do not buy sedans". In the context of that quote, it
| appears that you were using your anecdotal observations
| to suggest that Americans _do_ buy more sedans than
| trucks.
| rascul wrote:
| You have a point there. I guess I didn't quite realize
| what I was replying to.
| jjulius wrote:
| All good, just wanted to make sure I was understanding ya
| correctly.
| abeppu wrote:
| I'm more confused by how this seems to be a recent
| phenomenon. A decade ago non-trucks and light trucks were
| on roughly even footing, but after about 2015 the
| distribution shifts meaningfully towards light trucks. What
| made Americans want trucks more?
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-
| truck-...
| kube-system wrote:
| "Light truck" is a problematic term in the US -- it can
| be defined in multiple ways, often exacerbated by
| automakers desire to get around fuel economy
| requirements.
|
| Assuming that "light truck" in this context includes
| SUVs, that may correlated with the introduction of sub-
| compact SUVs into the US which have been extremely
| popular with drivers who are intimidated by driving large
| vehicles and like the confidence of sitting higher than
| in a traditional car. Many of these are basically just
| hatchbacks with some stying tweaks a couple inches of
| extra height.
|
| So it may not necessarily be "Americans wanting trucks"
| that you're seeing in that data, but instead "Automakers
| styling their vehicles slightly differently, calling it
| an SUV, and avoiding fines for violating CAFE standards"
| twobitshifter wrote:
| > The CO2 calculations are based on the national average, but
| electric grid emissions vary considerably across the country.
|
| Keep this in mind. If you live in VT you're at 0. If you live in
| TX or FL maybe don't bother.
| https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/excel/electr...
| legitster wrote:
| But it's a shared market for power - this feels like arguing
| about which side the bucket you are drawing water from.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| It's not a shared market, only a shared _grid_ --through the
| magic of accounting, you can purchase renewable energy even
| if the actual electrons came from a fossil fuel plant.
| smileysteve wrote:
| But not really; if your local regional plant is nuclear and
| is consistently the contributor to the lesser sized coal
| plant in the next region, then the emissions for your bev are
| less than the coal region.
|
| And given how often Nuclear does provide greater base load
| than smaller coal plants; if your most local plant is
| nuclear, your emissions are less.
| sophacles wrote:
| Sorta but not really. If you model the grid as a
| superconductor, sure, but the transmission lines we use do
| have resistance and therefore a maximum capacity and the
| father from generation you are, the more losses are incurred
| to get the power to you. So you end up actually getting power
| from the generating capacity close to you and occasionally
| get power from further away (or your local generation sends
| excess further than normal).
|
| If you have 2 buckets connected at the bottom by a small
| hose, and you take from the left bucket at a high enough
| rate, the buckets will be at an unequal level and at some
| point either you stop taking and the water eventually seeks
| its own level again or your take rate becomes that of the
| connecting hose. (this extension of your bucket analogy, like
| all water/electricity analogies, breaks in a lot of ways but
| it gets the idea across at least).
| datadata wrote:
| In addition to location mattering as others have pointed out,
| time also matters a lot. Charge up during the day, you might
| be using solar. At night, that isn't likely anymore.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Well, not for Texas.
| greenthrow wrote:
| Yes and no. It's a shared grid (except most of Texas) but for
| the most part your power is still coming from local sources.
| The sharing is to balance out extremes, not for constantly
| moving power from Vermont to Georgia. That would be extremely
| inefficient.
|
| That's why we can speak regionally.
| formvoltron wrote:
| Maine 20% fossil I believe. Or just buy some panels.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Is panel production energy intensive or toxic these days?
| thinkcontext wrote:
| Energy used in manufacture is paid back early in the
| panel's life. This article from 2018 gives a range of 1-4
| years, things will have only improved since then. Most
| panels come with a warranty of 20 years at 90% of original
| output, so they come out way ahead.
|
| Its disappointing to see this myth repeated over and over
| again, you should examine the political motivations of the
| sources that are telling you how dirty panels are. There
| are externalities to their manufacture but any who tries to
| convince you they are worse than fossil fuels is being
| deceptive.
|
| https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/03/solar-power-can-pay-
| eas...
| prescriptivist wrote:
| OP is talking about CO2 emissions. 20% of Maines electricity
| generation is fossil but the vast majority of that is natural
| gas, which they get from New Brunswick (as does NH).
| elif wrote:
| Using average CO2 per watt for grid power is incredibly
| deceptive.
|
| (Sensible) electric car owners charge their vehicles over night,
| not at "average time" due to EV-specific utility rates available
| in 28 states.
|
| Overnight CO2 emissions have significantly higher concentration
| of renewable and nuclear power than peak demand power.
| jbdoug wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the base load (which what you're drawing from
| off of peak hours) is largely produced by fossil fuel
| generation because those sources don't have the variability of
| renewables (I don't think a lot of solar is being produced at
| night...).
| elif wrote:
| Solar is a terrible reference for renewable as the US has 4x
| as much wind and hydro power as solar, which makes up barely
| 1% of generation. Nuclear makes up 9.6%.
|
| These 3 are clear base load because they don't turn off.
| jbdoug wrote:
| Yeah it seems like, in Boston at least, grid carbon
| intensity peaks between 12 and 8pm and is at its lowest
| around 4am. It's probably on a case by case basis though --
| if you live in an area that still burns a lot of coal, your
| base load is likely to be pretty dirty (though of course in
| that case it probably doesn't matter when you charge your
| car, unless there happens to be a lot of solar as well).
| elif wrote:
| My state (ga) has 25% nuclear and a peak load of 70 units
| compared to 30 overnight.
|
| So napkin math says half of my car energy is nuclear.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Regulators must indeed consider EV efficiency and manufacturing
| emissions, but most importantly the national average of CO2 per
| kWh must be pushed much closer to zero for developed nations too.
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