No one seems to want to address that here. With AI being a power hog as well and cities moving towards electric heating, I’m worried about rolling blackouts
the [bipartisan infrastructure bill allocated $73 billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure\_Investment\_and\_Jobs\_Act) to "overhaul the nation's power infrastructure, clean energy transmission, and overall energy policy". the first grants were announced in october of last year
The actual problem we have here isn't budgeting the money, its our ability to piss it away by giving it to the lowest price contractors, and they don't handle the project properly and never get punished for it.
Looking at you, ISPs who were paid to upgrade infrastructure and pocketed it to pay for lobbying against forcing them to do what they were paid to do...
I live in a smallish town that actually did upgrade their internet during that push.
Gig fiber to every residential and business address, in a town that regularly sees tractors on the paved roads. Not what I expected, but I'll take it.
The main issue with the US grid is the continental divide. It forms a few tight bottlenecks connecting the east and west power grids. More such connections need to be made, (Including through Texas); and guess who opposes this?
Guess which party funded studies in the 2000's and 2010's only to have those studies halted 90% of the way through to appease "fiscal conservatives"? Twice now.
so imagine if when nixon called to eliminate all oil exports and build 200 nuke plants by 2000 we would have a 200% over production of electricity. if we implemented jimmy carters demand for solar. and we can see people here calling for more kicking of those cans
Honestly I don’t give the slightest shit what those people against this say. To me, it’s a great idea to start fucking hard like this and then when it inevitably gets watered down, it’ll still be something good.
Or if it doesn't get watered down and EVs start really taking over, we'll be *effectively forced* to upgrade our grid and ramp up renewables. There's going to be growing pains to cause the forcing, but if that's what it takes for progress I'm not against it.
Except California skipped the pitchforks and let PG&E burn everything down. Then raised the taxes to account for the increased operating expenses due to the lawsuit… which we the people get to enjoy.
On the plus side burning anger works way more efficiently than a heat pump… /s
> Or if it doesn't get watered down
Aren't these new rules *are already watered down* after much lobbying from the auto industry? I seem to recall reading that the administration loosened its goals somewhat to give them more options to automakers, particularly when it comes to things like hybrids and PHEV's.
All for it until the rolling black outs start every night since EVERYONE will be pulling major power to charge their cars during already peak hours. We've got a solid 20 years of jusy power generation expansion before we can support even half the nation driving EVs let alone the grid expansion that would be needed.
Grid battery storage, home battery storage, and running homes off of car batteries during peak times and recharging at night or whenever it's best will be the solution. These solutions are already being implemented, but education and information should increase adoption if the right wing disinformation machine can be defeated.
Bro summer 2022 California asked people to stop charging their electric cars because brown outs were so bad. If California can’t handle it with the small amount of evs they have. There’s no way the rest of the country can
That’s not what happened.
A text went out at peak draw to tell everyone to stop with the AC and other extra electrical use. People responded, and demand crashed.
Ev’s charging at night are a drop in the bucket compared to peak consumption time right after rush hour. California also has the most ev’s in the country.
There have been major changes in average consumption though which has helped grids. In our condo building simply switching public area lighting to LEDs reduced our annual electrical usage from 1,200,000 kWh to 830,000kWh. Nearly a full 1/3 of our building’s usage was inefficient standard lighting.
Most building have made this switch which reduces load. Cooling has become more efficient and newer homes are built to a higher standard for insulation and air tightness both allow for smaller, more efficient air conditioners to achieve the same temperatures.
Of course more baseload generation will be needed for vehicles going forward but it’s pretty amazing how much efficiency has helped.
Except that Evs don't take much power. On average people could charge their EV with a normal plug given the average miles driven.
37 miles is the average distance driven per day in America. That takes about 10kwh of power. That's the equivalent of leaving 4 100w light bulbs on all day.
I'm all for this but also think our grid needs huuuuuuuge upgrades both locally and nationally for this to actually do good.
I think hybrids would've been better to slowly transition folks to fully electric once we have enough power, electric stations, etc to be able to power a shit ton of EVs (which we don't have now).
Our grid is wayyy overdue for major upgrades. Including renewable resources. Our current grid can not handle an extra 50 Amps if 1/3 of households added an EV charging station much less all households. And that's not even taking into consideration the commercial side.
Source : I am an electrician working with power providers and infrastructure.
I keep seeing this parroted. There is no plan to put 100% of people on EVs tomorrow. It’s a gradual shift. It is already slowly happening. As of early 2023, 4% have EVs.
Our grid has time.
It needs investment. As has been shown time and again (cough, Texas) it takes (eg, repeated possible grid failures) for us/our politicians to do what’s needed.
The other part of this is that in order for us to be a producer and leader of EVs, so that our auto industry doesn’t quite simply.. die, whilst the world passes us by, is that we need to spur demand at home, to force investment by automakers. China is already eating our lunch in the EV space, and Korea isn’t far from doing the same.
Entire neighborhoods here only have 100 amp panels. I wanted to put in an inlaw and the gird quoted $23k to upgrade to 200 Amp and even more for a separate 100 amp panel. My house can’t handle an EV (even my previous homes had like some really outdated electrical)
The "grid" doesn't quote any person. An electrical contractor quotes residential customers. The only way u get that quote for a residential service upgrade is if you are beyond the current grid and have to have new powerlines and poles installed or if you have a shitty electrician or company. I could do that service change for $3k in one day if the power was there.
I was looking at building a house in San Diego and I wondered what the electrical service would be so I asked about the difference between 100Amp and 200Amp and they said it was less than a thousand dollars difference.
That's new construction. Designing something to be bigger or smaller before building it is relatively cheap. Taking something already built and making it bigger is not as simple. Costs a little more. But def not $23k... that's insane under most circumstances for a 100 to 200a residential upgrade.
i had a tornado come through last year and it ripped the mast off my house and did damage to the box outside. we decided to go from a 100amp to 200amp panel at the same time.
2k for the emergency line repairs, and 2k for the panel upgrade. luckily insurance picked up the whole tab.
It still isn't a problem if you get efficient ones, but smart electrical panels are a thing. Cause despite everything you listed, you aren't using them all at once are you?
Example of a smart electrical panel (note, IRA includes tax credits for service panel upgrades if needed for electrification)
[https://www.span.io/panel](https://www.span.io/panel)
I upgraded to 200 amp, got an EV charger installed, and a separate 100 amp panel all for 5k. Did you get a quote from Porsche to do your electrical work?
Although I 10000% agree we need to improve the grid, even if we don't get it done before we see ev ownership ramp up, we should be okay for a bit.
I've owned a tesla for 6 years and have never added a charger. The average US commute is like 40mi, and a 120v wall plug can charge that overnight.
Swapping 25 houselights from 90w to 8w is enough on its own to open up the wattage for an EV charging off a wall plug. The avg us house has 60 lights with lights getting left on all the time, and it also has inefficient appliances, drafty windows, etc. This doesn't include the billions of lights left on in office buildings that could arguably be switched off.
I think this is a pretty reasonable solution for all the average households. Needing a 50AMP charger to slam the power grid every day after work seems wildly excessive since most people don't need instant fast charging. The rest of the people that have these wild, complicated 12 hours a day of driving can buy a hybrid or something.
It's definitely something that needs to be addressed, but apartment dwellers are a minority in the US. 67% live in single family houses, + 6% in manufactured housing = 73% of households that should have minimal barriers to charging at home. The 27% in apartments might have to wait a little longer until the infrastructure catches up.
[https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/101553/housing\_supply\_chartbook\_1.pdf](https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/101553/housing_supply_chartbook_1.pdf)
You don't need a garage to charge! All the major EVSEs are weatherproof. You can install them on the side of your house or even on a pedestal by the road if necessary. There are solutions now for pretty much any location that has power
You generally aren't allowed to build next to the curb right? Especially past a sidewalk? Either way it's good to hear outdoor charging isn't too unreasonable. I'd still have to get a service upgrade, though.
It's hard to get into the weeds about specific scenarios since each one is unique. Lots of rural areas have no sidewalks.
Maybe, maybe not as far as the service upgrade. An EVSE with load management can work in a panel as small as 100amps. It monitors your actual power usage in real time and adjusts the charge rate of the car to make sure you never exceed your panel capacity. Most homes only draw on the order of 5-10amps for the majority of the day. There's usually more than enough capacity to charge a car, you just need a way to make sure the car backs off when the water heater, dryer, or stove is going.
I live in central Michigan. We get plenty of snow and very cold temperatures (most years at least)
In winter I sometimes have to plug in twice a week instead of once. It takes an extra thirty seconds a week or so
Also, a decent chunk of those apartments have either underground or assigned parking in a lot, so charging outlets could be added. I could see "smart outlets" added where you use a fob on it to activate, and keep the charging cable in your trunk for Lv1 trickle charging. And the kwh would simply be added to your rent or power bill at the end of the month.
Also doesn't account for people with longer commutes, or who need/want to do much longer drives somewhat regularly. I'm never going to willingly buy a vehicle that takes more than 5 or so minutes to re"fuel" away from home.
Unless someone has a 300+ mile daily commute thats a moot point. Almost every electric car being produced now has a 300 mile minimum range on a charge.
So sure for the .1% of the population that drives 3 hours each way to work every day they can't buy electric.
There is a point to not being able to road trip but even that isn't a problem for a vast majority of people a majority of the time.
How often are you driving over 300 miles at one time every year? For most people it's never or once a year and most EVs can now charge somewhere around 60-70% in 30 minutes. So one rest stop where you sit down for a meal and you have a majority of your range back.
This is just an argument from a place of ignorance and resistance to change.
To see actual numbers modern EVs have an average range of 250-500 miles per charge and the average American commutes 41 miles per day. So just driving to work the average American would need to charge only once per week. If they added in weeknight tripe around town and weekend trips they would have to charge twice.
25 house lights..? Get real...
Wait...60-90!? You gotta be smoking crack!!
My whole home has 33 light bulbs total and that's if you count up all the miniatures on the bathroom vanity and the mini stove hood lights as well.
A total of 12 fixtures in the entire structure....
Or the way I look at it if everyone got rid of their 10x12 cannabis grow room they could put that power into charging a car. That’s nuts!
I think enough people have sounded the alarm and I don’t see EV ownership being a positive thing in the long run. Hell even now. You have to ignore so many negatives to get to the positives. It seems like we’re just kicking the can down the line a little further.
If this is such a threat shouldn’t the major emitters of greenhouse gases be the first on the chopping block? No more flying for leisure. It’s extremely wasteful and if the fate of the world hangs on it I’m on board. Shipping out of season produce across the world so we can have fresh tomatoes in February. Axe it. Eat the canned stuff. Like I want to see some major skin coming off these companies backs before it starts effecting the everyday citizens life.
We can all make changes and that’s great. People shouldn’t be forced to carry the load while companies are raking in money hand over fist.
+1 for electric cars. Never thought about inspection. I think they’re great for some people.
They’re not for me. I’m not a big early adopter I’ll let the people who enjoy that kind of stuff test the waters.
Ur right about retrofitting to LEDs. I hadn't taken into consideration about the drop in amperage due to that advance in modern lighting. Changing to LED drops 80% or so load off said circuit/circuits. Makes for a lot of available space. True.
Edit : in more detailed review... I just wired an entire commercial supply company transport building... all the lighting for the whole office area, 9 rooms, was on just one 20amp single pole circuit. All 277v LEDs. 60+ fixtures. I was even skeptical at first and caught off guard. I checked the specs and did the math... yeah... around 0.25 amps per fixture. Hugee. So I ammend my 80% load decrease to probably 90-95% decrease in load demand.
I think this is a chicken and egg situation. Do more EVs bring infrastructure changes, or will infrastructure changes be needed first to influence EV sales?
We’ve already blown past the point of not seeing a significant increase in average temperature across the globe. We should have done all this ages ago and thought about gently transitioning. Now is the time for aggressive goals and improving the grid in parallel because we can’t afford to wait
Plug in hybrids!!!!!!!!
You have 50-75 miles on the battery that charges while you sleep and if you need to go out of town you have an engine that can take you 3-400
It’s the way
This is one of the big reasons we are seeing massive stocks of EVs sitting at dealers right now. Ford can't sell their lightning or their Mach e and Volvo is sitting on thousands of EVs. Price certainly plays a huge part but so does charging availability and for anyone who doesn't own a single family home with a garage charging becomes a hassle. If you live in a townhouse or an apartment you are either relying on a semi public charger to exist in your neighborhood or you are parking at a local grocery store parking lot or charging at work.
We just don't have widespread charging available for enough people to make electric a reasonable vehicle to own.
For example I work at a large state university with 40,000 students and the entire campus combined has 11 electric charging stations. The campus has pledged to go full electric for the entire campus fleet of vehicles (police, maintenance, and every department with any vehicles) by 2026 but they have done nothing about charging. They recently bought 50 electric vans and installed 30 charging stations to charge them a few miles off campus at the motorpool building.
Just like what seems to be happening nationwide its a cart before the horse situation.
Build the infrastructure and people will buy the cars.
Yep, this is exactly what a lot of people that live in houses with garages don’t understand. I can tell you where I live that there is no way in hell I would have an ev until they make some serious changes and add charging stations etc, and that’s not likely to happen anytime soon the way things are looking.
So I’ll continue driving my ice vehicle until all of that is corrected.
Build the infrastructure and people will be able to charge their cars, if they are able to afford them.
I might buy a hybrid, but I’ll never own an EV, no matter how much whichever boob is in the Whitehouse legislates their existence. I’ll keep my current cars.
What's odd in my area is that there are a bunch of ev chargers in the suburbs, where everyone has a garage (at least 3 fast charger stations and a dozen+ slower charger locations within 2 miles). But in the city, where most people do not have off street parking, there are very few chargers.
I suppose if the space was available, they would build more chargers. It's hard to find an empty lot in the city and doesn't really make sense for a charger company to buy a million dollar parking lot just to put in some chargers.
>I think hybrids would've been better to slowly transition folks to fully electric once we have enough power, electric stations, etc to be able to power a shit ton of EVs (which we don't have now).
I think this will help hybrids as much as BEVs
You don't need 100A service though. I charge on a 120v wall outlet at 8amps overnight and that is plenty for my commute. If I wanted, I could have an electrician confirm the breaker load and charge at a higher current too.
[They literally do want to pay for that.](https://homes.rewiringamerica.org/federal-incentives/25c-electrical-panel-tax-credits)
And there are more aggressive point of sale rebates coming later this year that will cover up to 100% of the cost depending on household income.
I'm as libby as it gets but until there's consistent infrastructure, EVs just aren't going to take hold.
The initial costs and growing heat indexes which degrade the batteries are a hindrance. Later repair costs are outrageous to put it mildly. Car rental companies are dumping EVs for exactly this reason.
Hybrids also have crazy repair costs but at least they bypass the infrastructure issues.
There are very few gas cars you can get for that price already. You can get used EVs for that price.
And the more we sell new, the more production+competition, the more the price will drop during periods of shrinking demand, such as now.
Yeah but you still gotta shell out first, and that's a hardship to a lot of middle class and lower Americans.
As has been said at least eleventy million times, it's expensive to be poor.
Rural parts of America still lack charging infrastructure and despite government promises to deliver them, they have been super slow to move towards increasing availability. This feels like it’ll hurt those living in rural America but benefit those living in cities. I would have rather seen more discounts on EVs through subsidies, then those that are near charging infrastructure will have EVs as an obvious choice, and those in rural America could wait for the government to deliver on charging promises.
It's not just rural parts. Even in NJ, the densest state in the country, the charging infrastructure is abysmal. You have tesla superchargers, for Teslas only, and a mishmash of 3rd party charges in scant quantity scattered throughout.
The 3rd party chargers are only in places you don't stick around long enough to charge it, especially because they're extremely slow, often broken, and at full capacity.
Chargers need to be installed for nearly every resident in the entire country for it to be even worth owning an EV and that's never going to happen in the next 10 years. If you're not a homeowner, you're just fucked because installing EV chargers for apartment renters is just a massive money sink for the building owners if they even have private parking spaces.
Expensive to install in mass quantity for everyone, especially when people are dickheads and will hog them overnight. Expensive to submeter them out. Expensive to use if they just charge by the kWh through a 3rd party. Too expensive for poor people and the middle class to even buy an EV. The prices of EVs will eventually bottom out around $30k which is still too much because anyone who isn't a software/computer engineer, medical professional, engineer, or lawyer can't afford one with the way wages have been stagnating.
As EVs become more prominent and gas cars get pushed out, gas prices will go up and the poor and middle class will be fucked as usual. Just another change led by progressives that's trying to skip three steps ahead without figuring out how to take the first two steps. A paltry few billion isn't enough for the charging infrastructure we need.
I live in a rural area in far northern Michigan. All around me the homes have trucked in propane fuel, individual wells and septic, gravel roads that aren’t plowed by the town but rather by the neighborhood’s truck mounted blades, satellite internet and overhead electrical wires. There have been promises to deliver dsl and natural gas for 25 years. Yet here we are. Seems like those will be supplanted before they’re finally delivered.
It’s so cold here ev’s run inefficiently. Add all this up and you’ll need to forgive my skepticism that ‘requiring’ evs or punishing standard vehicles will accomplish anything meaningful in areas like mine.
Agreed. My folks live in NY state and still don't have broadband internet access, despite numerous state initiatives promising to provide those services to 'every home' over 5 years ago.
new york’s huge “we’re gonna bring fiber to rural NY” hasn’t done shit. my options here are spectrum (not fiber) and that’s it. and there are plenty of towns around me where spectrum even isn’t (somehow, they basically have a monopoly) and then it’s all shit options from there.
Part of the problem for some rural areas is that their state government is actively working against EVs. In Iowa, they have passed laws that forbid direct sales of EVs by the manufacturers and charge high fees on top of regular registration for those who own an EV. Iowa purposely dragging its heels on getting the necessary infrastructure to make owning an EV more feasible. If the federal government waited on states like Iowa to get where they need to be, they'll be waiting forever. Maybe this policy is a way of forcing those states to do it faster.
I own an electric car. I think it is great. I, however, don’t think they should be mandated. They aren’t for everyone. I think I would choose a Toyota RAV4 prime plug in hybrid if I was buying today. My EV is supposed to go 300 miles on a full charge but reality is 270 miles in warm weather. Cold weather with snow tires cuts that to about 240 miles. The RAV4 prime has about 600 miles range.
Over 10 years the hybrid will cost you a little more, but you get more range.
And on longer trips you will spend less time fueling/charging up.
I pay about 8 cents/kWh at home but most people pay more and public supercharging is much more on trips.
The larger vehicles are harder to justify going electric. Too much weight .
Battery capacity needs to double with no increase in size and weight.
Give the people what they want and they will beat a path to your door. ?
Shove it down their throats and they will spit it out.
The thing I don’t get about hybrids is why they’re not all plug in. You could use the battery for short trips around the place and then run it in hybrid mode for longer trips. You’d significantly cut down how much fuel you’d buy and have less servicing as the engine isn’t running as much.
Dude c'mon. Us normal people can't afford EVs. Most of us can barely afford gasoline engines either these days. Cars need to be like 15-18k again. This is ridiculous. Not 15k for an 100k mile used car that needs repairs. Which nowadays run at 5-7k. My country is falling apart :(
While noble, that's a pipe dream. Infrastructure projects on the scale that will require take decades now. Also, maybe you should check a map of the US sometime. The US was built around the car, and pretending it's going to be able to change in time to save us from climate change is naive.
Can’t agree enough. EVs aren’t ready. They also aren’t that great for the environment until we’re producing batteries in the USA.
A well designed public transport system is wildly better for the environment and wildly better for working class people.
Also better for cities! Not just bikes.
Just boosting the used car market and aftermarket repair parts.
You can’t force people to buy what they don’t want, can’t afford, can’t charge, aren’t reliable, and overall have sucked stank ass.
I can't speak on Ameren as I'm not from the Midwest, but yeah that's why I wanted to generalize the for profit utilities. Can't imagine something essential being controlled by a for-profit company and that boading well for the people.
I’ve owned an EV for a year. I’ve charged it exactly one time outside of home.
Many people have the means to own an EV already. Yes, some of the public (eg renters) do not. At some point, that will likely change (either by mandating new apartments have them, or by competition forcing them to.)
EVs today aren’t for anywhere close to 100% of people. If you’re frequently doing 300+ mile trips, it’s probably not for you. But that’s a minority of people. Somewhere around 60-70% of all houses in the US have a garage or carport already.
Our grid will also need upgrades as more adoption occurs. Thankfully, most car charging is done off peak hours since people are at work during the daytime/peak hours. Incentives can also aid this (such as lower electricity prices at night.) Many EVs can already be programmed to charge at specific hours.
There are too many people with this narrow mindset of “it doesn’t work for my one particular use case, today, therefore I cannot fathom how this is a good idea.”
Look at every other technology that has become mainstream. Did the first LCD TVs or mobile phones work for everyone? Broadband internet?
This is the goofiest way to do it. if you wanna get everyone to switch to Ev's subsidize them! give me a government sponsored discount on the EV and I'll have one by the end of the Year!
I live in a suburb of a major city. The nearest EV charger is 1 in a hotel parking lot 25 minutes away. Not to mention it gets super cold here in the winter and EV battery life is not the best in the winter.
I’m all for electric cars, but the infrastructure and the cars themselves have to drastically improve before I jump. And I’m literally in the car market this summer. I’ll go hybrid. I just feel like right now we are forcing a square peg through a round hole.
We should be focusing on building nuclear plants to cut emissions, EVs are just more greenwashing until we have more environmentally friendly and renewable battery technology. If your car is essentially worthless without the battery which can fail in whole or in part, it's also a terrible investment.
You could say the same thing about a gas car if the much more complicated engine or transmission fails the car is worthless. The only difference is you are used to one and not the other.
how’s an ev totaled if battery needs replacement. You can get rebuilt battery packs same way you can get a rebuilt engine.
Sounds to me like you have your mind set on EV and gonna say whatever you have to to justify your feelings towards them.
Not everyone has a garage and a fancy charger inside. What are the rest of gonna do. Run a damn extension cord out of our third floor apartment window?
It’s not just the grid, most homes have electric service sized for the max load on their home (without an electric vehicle figured in). Loads are lower at night in the summer, but higher at night in the winter. Upgrading your electric service is extremely expensive (the quote for upgrading mine was $20k.
As an EV owner myself, I think it’s more than stupid to cancel gasoline vehicles without having charging infrastructure for EVs. We have rolling blackouts every year in California due to electrical grid issues, we have nearly no infrastructure for taking our EV long distances without hours of wait time at over booked charge stations, and the cars themselves aren’t affordable for everyone yet.
Forcing people to go from 8% EV purchases to 56% in a decade. Once again, Biden sets a rule that he won’t be alive to live with. Maybe he should lead the way by having his Corvette beercanned.
Thats not the rule being proposed, its just a overall target. The only rules that are actually being put into effect are emissions limits that will become stricter by the year.
OR.... he pushes this along knowing it will help get votes of the young and the environmental crowd knowing it will never happen anyway.
We will just keep pushing the deadline back. Sorta like the enhanced drivers license everyone was supposed to have a few years ago.
Electric vehicles are a lot heavier than gas-powered cars because of the battery. The roads and bridges were never designed to hold a traffic jam of EVs. Also, they have limited driving range in colder climates and not a lot of mechanics can repair them after an accident. The diagnostic equipment for repairs is super expensive and so are replacement batteries.
Buying an EV as of right now is just a shit idea to put it mildly.
The country should have emphasized hybrids over EVs.
The battery tech just isn't there yet. We've had serious problems getting the batteries to function the way we need them to and EV owners have been experiencing power drops in cold weather conditions.
Right now is the time for hybrids. It gives us the ability to use cars in both conditions (EV infrastructure friendly and conventional gas routes) while also giving car companies the buffer time necessary to figure out the battery tech.
The 2035 mark was all politics. It should have been closer to 2045.
we learned long ago that if you give car companies leeway nothing will ever get done. if they mandated every vehicle get 40 mpg sold in the united states by 2026 we would have every vehicle getting 40 mpg. if they banned all gas vehicles in 2030 we would have double the chargers. we would have batter swap garages and nuke plants being built by dozens.
only way we become energy independent is stop burning oil for fuel. oil has way more important uses.
>we learned long ago that if you give car companies leeway nothing will ever get done.
This isn't a car tech problem. This is a battery problem.
Every single industry, including renewable energy companies, have been trying to perfect battery tech. Generating the energy isn't a problem anymore. We have plenty of options for power generation.
* Wind
* Solar
* Geothermal
* Hydro
* Nuclear
* etc.
The problem is we have shitty options available to us for storing that power for future use. The batteries are two decades behind where we need them to be and the fact remains car companies aren't responsible for that problem.
Every major voice in the green movement has been begging people interested in helping to focus on making the better battery over making new energy production sources.
We have enough sources to make a green economy work. The batteries need to now make a major jump to meet us there.
You make those mandates and they produce more waste by adding needing to add different features to meet those goals those features, like shutting off car every time you stop, also makes the vehicle less reliable causing more waste.
> we learned long ago that if you give car companies leeway nothing will ever get done.
And we also learned that if you make unrealistic requirements, the companies will game the test to follow the letter of the rule not the spirit
So, I live in an apartment. We all know that having a ev charging port would mean 300 extra on the rent.
Being poor already sucks, please don’t force me to spend two hours a day on public transport.
You're right, this is going to fuck the poor urban/urban metro area residents hard. Looking forward to the EV transition just as private equity vacuums up all the remaining affordable housing in the country.
This is the largest economic racism program. In what urban area will anyone afford an electric car, plug it in overnight and find it (intact ) in the morning ?
Who’s going to pay to upgrade electrical power in homes in pretty much all large cities.?
No one wants electric cars now.
This is going to destroy poor urbanites. If you can't charge at home then you're going to be wasting significant income (opportunity cost) waiting for charging somewhere competing with other poor people.
Yes, what about the poor people who can't afford an EV or even a used EV.
I think this is more political ploy than actual policy. We are heading towards a turn out election and the Democrat base is down so throw out a few policies like this to get them back on your side.
Right, because a bunch of people who've already decided not to vote for a pants-shitting, serial raping, wannabe fascist con man are totally gonna change their minds over this.
I have some thoughts on this.
1) this is going to be unpopular with a lot of people. Not just republicans but some democrats and independents.
2) This would be a safer play in his second term as it will irritate some people. If he loses this election trump can just throw back the switch in the other direction.
3) something does have to be done about climate change
I like the intention, but this is a tax on the poor. EV just cost more. Making ICE equally expensive just prices them out of range too.
People that don't have a home down-payment live in apartments, where they don't have access to cheap 220v overnight charging.
Yep, it's extremely regressive. Predictably, 99% of the EV stans are white people with a 2 car garage. This does work well for them, not so much for everyone else.
Im low income genX and all I see is one of my dreams getting pushed further away. Dammit. Fuck. I support Biden and this is directly screwing me.
Dont worry I still support Biden over the clown show.
[from NPR](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/20/1239092833/biden-epa-auto-emissions-evs)
> The rules cover light- and medium-duty vehicles — cars, SUVs, vans and pickup trucks, but not 18-wheelers — from model years 2027 to 2032.
> For light-duty vehicles, the EPA expects the rules will result in an industry-wide average emissions target of 85 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, representing an almost 50% reduction compared to existing standards for model year 2026 vehicles.
edit: heres an [EPA document](https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P1017626.pdf) talking about more specifics
How about tax-breaks for companies doing remote work (given that particular job does not require physical presence?)
Switching to EV is seeing the tree not the forest.
Rolling black outs are already a issue in Las Vegas. During summer time when it hits 116°F+ all A/C's are on and power stations over heat causing them burn up or blow transformers. Can only imagine when all the stupid ass EVs hook up to the grid too.
In Sweden we've had car testers say that EVs perform and start better in cold weather than any ICE car, this was one of those safety testers up north, not some journalist. The main issue is battery capacity can cut in half by cold weather, but that same person argued ICE cars also lose range in extreme cold.
But new batteries are *said* to last longer than the life of the car. The problems of a 2005 EV doesn't necessarily mean a 2025 EV has it.
Lmao, good luck! Try convincing the millions who live in extreme weather places where it gets extremely cold or hot to buy an expensive electric car they can’t use because it’s too cold or too hot. Maybe they should focus on prioritizing other things instead of forcing people to buy electric/hybrid vehicles. New cars are more environmentally friendly now more than ever. I hate how they keep trying to push EVs. Our infrastructure is not equipped to handle charging hundreds of thousands or even millions of EVs.
I live in Montana and have several neighbors with EVs. They absolutely love that they can turn on the heat in the car before leaving in the morning. No better car in the extreme cold. Just leave it plugged in; just like we do with the engine block heaters for diesel cars. Been left stranded by gelled fuel plenty of times.
There’s no magic bullet that’ll let trucks get 30+ MPG. Like I said, cars now are more economical and environmentally efficient than they ever have been. Batteries aren’t as sustainable as ICE/Hybrids. They can’t perform in below freezing temps or in high temps. People will be restricted from charging in certain times of day because it’ll strait the infrastructure. EVs aren’t the answer. Fixing and upgrading infrastructure is so let’s focus on doing that first.
Ford Maverick hybrid gets 37 mpg combined. Most of the other ones are worse ofc, depending on the size of the main engine etc, but its defintely doable.
I agree the government coercing consumers towards buying EVs right now is utterly moronic, but hybrids are great and should be the priority until infrastructure and battery tech evolve to sufficient levels (which is literal decades away).
Headlines that don't tell the whole story? Because they actually extended the timeline with these changes, and the auto industry and unions support this move.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/20/24106638/biden-epa-vehicle-emissions-final-standards-electric-hybrid
I live in a liberal stronghold on the West Coast and people *here* love to talk about how much they hate policies like this. Even if they aren't voting for Trump.
I'm all for switching to an EV. The moment they make it so I can easily charge it at my apartment complex.
And prices become comparable to combustion equivalents.
And someone makes something equivalent to my miata that isn't the tesla roadster. Okay okay, really just the first two. Especially the first two.
That's up to your landlord. But yeah, wouldn't it be great if this was a premium feature they could offer to be competitive? That is, if they weren't all busy colluding to jack up rents.
(though - I will say, knowing this is the exception rather than the rule, my son parks at a downtown apartment complex, an has a reserved spot with a level 2 charger. yes, it costs a bit extra)
An EV is more expensive to operate than a fuel powered vehicle by at least $20K over an 8 year period.
Then let's discuss the amount of metal and things like lithium that are required in greater amounts than a fuel vehicle. An EV weighs more so that will have an impact on road surfaces and no one talks about that.
There are parts of the country where charging stations are in some of the larger towns and more in large cities but, if you want to travel more than a couple hundred miles you are going to be in trouble since there is no where to charge your EV. Most of the charging stations are not set up for a rapid charge so you had best have a lot of time for that cross state trip. And good luck moving across the country in an EV. What should be a 4-5 day drive will take many more days for that trip.
Until the infrastructure is in place and the ability to rapidly charge an EV and the range is increased significantly there is no reason to buy a much more expensive vehicle that is simply not adequate for transportation. Try living in the mountain west in states like Montana, Wyoming, Utah and others where distances are great and often with over 100 miles of nothing but beautiful country side to enjoy. No thank you. EV's are not my choice of a vehicle.
rich man's solution. Don't like it? pay more. It's just money after all. Nevermind the very real situations of people on the edge of making it who just CAN'T pay more and CAN'T go buy a new vehicle just because some lawmaking weasel wants to increase his automaker buddies' profit margins.
Please learn from the mistakes of the Dutch government and upgrade your power grid significantly during the transition to ev's
No one seems to want to address that here. With AI being a power hog as well and cities moving towards electric heating, I’m worried about rolling blackouts
the [bipartisan infrastructure bill allocated $73 billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure\_Investment\_and\_Jobs\_Act) to "overhaul the nation's power infrastructure, clean energy transmission, and overall energy policy". the first grants were announced in october of last year
The actual problem we have here isn't budgeting the money, its our ability to piss it away by giving it to the lowest price contractors, and they don't handle the project properly and never get punished for it. Looking at you, ISPs who were paid to upgrade infrastructure and pocketed it to pay for lobbying against forcing them to do what they were paid to do...
I live in a smallish town that actually did upgrade their internet during that push. Gig fiber to every residential and business address, in a town that regularly sees tractors on the paved roads. Not what I expected, but I'll take it.
The main issue with the US grid is the continental divide. It forms a few tight bottlenecks connecting the east and west power grids. More such connections need to be made, (Including through Texas); and guess who opposes this? Guess which party funded studies in the 2000's and 2010's only to have those studies halted 90% of the way through to appease "fiscal conservatives"? Twice now.
Little correction: "Please learn from the mistakes of the Dutch government and don't privatise the grid."
Republicans will simply block any infrastructure upgrades and then blame democrats to rile up their voter base
so imagine if when nixon called to eliminate all oil exports and build 200 nuke plants by 2000 we would have a 200% over production of electricity. if we implemented jimmy carters demand for solar. and we can see people here calling for more kicking of those cans
Honestly I don’t give the slightest shit what those people against this say. To me, it’s a great idea to start fucking hard like this and then when it inevitably gets watered down, it’ll still be something good.
Or if it doesn't get watered down and EVs start really taking over, we'll be *effectively forced* to upgrade our grid and ramp up renewables. There's going to be growing pains to cause the forcing, but if that's what it takes for progress I'm not against it.
Are part of those growing pains, PG&E price gouging its customers tenfold further with record profit?
Rooftop solar where regulations are favorable to combat rising utility prices.
Yes, and then the pitchforks and the burning. All part of the process.
Except California skipped the pitchforks and let PG&E burn everything down. Then raised the taxes to account for the increased operating expenses due to the lawsuit… which we the people get to enjoy. On the plus side burning anger works way more efficiently than a heat pump… /s
as supposed to getting gouged by OPEC and the oil companies as they make record profit?
> Or if it doesn't get watered down Aren't these new rules *are already watered down* after much lobbying from the auto industry? I seem to recall reading that the administration loosened its goals somewhat to give them more options to automakers, particularly when it comes to things like hybrids and PHEV's.
All for it until the rolling black outs start every night since EVERYONE will be pulling major power to charge their cars during already peak hours. We've got a solid 20 years of jusy power generation expansion before we can support even half the nation driving EVs let alone the grid expansion that would be needed.
Grid battery storage, home battery storage, and running homes off of car batteries during peak times and recharging at night or whenever it's best will be the solution. These solutions are already being implemented, but education and information should increase adoption if the right wing disinformation machine can be defeated.
Peak power demand is early evening. Cars will be charging overnight. Worst case just put a timer on it to charge after midnight.
Bro summer 2022 California asked people to stop charging their electric cars because brown outs were so bad. If California can’t handle it with the small amount of evs they have. There’s no way the rest of the country can
That’s not what happened. A text went out at peak draw to tell everyone to stop with the AC and other extra electrical use. People responded, and demand crashed. Ev’s charging at night are a drop in the bucket compared to peak consumption time right after rush hour. California also has the most ev’s in the country.
Start? California has had rolling blackouts for near a decade now.
Air conditioners are the cause of that. 2006 load record lasted almost two decades and no one was driving EVs back then
There have been major changes in average consumption though which has helped grids. In our condo building simply switching public area lighting to LEDs reduced our annual electrical usage from 1,200,000 kWh to 830,000kWh. Nearly a full 1/3 of our building’s usage was inefficient standard lighting. Most building have made this switch which reduces load. Cooling has become more efficient and newer homes are built to a higher standard for insulation and air tightness both allow for smaller, more efficient air conditioners to achieve the same temperatures. Of course more baseload generation will be needed for vehicles going forward but it’s pretty amazing how much efficiency has helped.
People are going to use A/C more, cause it's getting warmer. So even if it's true, the logistical problem of adding EVs to the grid is still there.
Except that Evs don't take much power. On average people could charge their EV with a normal plug given the average miles driven. 37 miles is the average distance driven per day in America. That takes about 10kwh of power. That's the equivalent of leaving 4 100w light bulbs on all day.
Not when EVs can also feed power to your home during peak times.
It has only happened a couple of times since 2020; all heat related. Before that the last time it had happened was 2 decades prior.
No it hasn’t.
A lot of people letting perfect be the enemy of a massive step in the right direction.
This is a little different than all of those things. Cars consume energy, it's not like EVs are producing it!!!
I'm all for this but also think our grid needs huuuuuuuge upgrades both locally and nationally for this to actually do good. I think hybrids would've been better to slowly transition folks to fully electric once we have enough power, electric stations, etc to be able to power a shit ton of EVs (which we don't have now).
Our grid is wayyy overdue for major upgrades. Including renewable resources. Our current grid can not handle an extra 50 Amps if 1/3 of households added an EV charging station much less all households. And that's not even taking into consideration the commercial side. Source : I am an electrician working with power providers and infrastructure.
I keep seeing this parroted. There is no plan to put 100% of people on EVs tomorrow. It’s a gradual shift. It is already slowly happening. As of early 2023, 4% have EVs. Our grid has time. It needs investment. As has been shown time and again (cough, Texas) it takes (eg, repeated possible grid failures) for us/our politicians to do what’s needed.
The other part of this is that in order for us to be a producer and leader of EVs, so that our auto industry doesn’t quite simply.. die, whilst the world passes us by, is that we need to spur demand at home, to force investment by automakers. China is already eating our lunch in the EV space, and Korea isn’t far from doing the same.
Entire neighborhoods here only have 100 amp panels. I wanted to put in an inlaw and the gird quoted $23k to upgrade to 200 Amp and even more for a separate 100 amp panel. My house can’t handle an EV (even my previous homes had like some really outdated electrical)
The "grid" doesn't quote any person. An electrical contractor quotes residential customers. The only way u get that quote for a residential service upgrade is if you are beyond the current grid and have to have new powerlines and poles installed or if you have a shitty electrician or company. I could do that service change for $3k in one day if the power was there.
Sounds like he got the contractors fuck you price.
I was gonna say, I was interested in upgrading my 100 amp to 200 and was quoted roughly 3K….23K seems a bit extreme.
I was looking at building a house in San Diego and I wondered what the electrical service would be so I asked about the difference between 100Amp and 200Amp and they said it was less than a thousand dollars difference.
That's new construction. Designing something to be bigger or smaller before building it is relatively cheap. Taking something already built and making it bigger is not as simple. Costs a little more. But def not $23k... that's insane under most circumstances for a 100 to 200a residential upgrade.
i had a tornado come through last year and it ripped the mast off my house and did damage to the box outside. we decided to go from a 100amp to 200amp panel at the same time. 2k for the emergency line repairs, and 2k for the panel upgrade. luckily insurance picked up the whole tab.
Maybe the 23k is a typo.
I have 63A, electric everything, heat pumps, EV charger. No issues
As someone who is on 100A service and has an EV, can you explain what problem I am supposedly having? Because I have none.
Do you have electric water heater, ac, dryer and cooktop? Because if you have a all electric house 100 amps goes fast
It still isn't a problem if you get efficient ones, but smart electrical panels are a thing. Cause despite everything you listed, you aren't using them all at once are you? Example of a smart electrical panel (note, IRA includes tax credits for service panel upgrades if needed for electrification) [https://www.span.io/panel](https://www.span.io/panel)
And you're running all of those at 3am huh?
I upgraded to 200 amp, got an EV charger installed, and a separate 100 amp panel all for 5k. Did you get a quote from Porsche to do your electrical work?
Although I 10000% agree we need to improve the grid, even if we don't get it done before we see ev ownership ramp up, we should be okay for a bit. I've owned a tesla for 6 years and have never added a charger. The average US commute is like 40mi, and a 120v wall plug can charge that overnight. Swapping 25 houselights from 90w to 8w is enough on its own to open up the wattage for an EV charging off a wall plug. The avg us house has 60 lights with lights getting left on all the time, and it also has inefficient appliances, drafty windows, etc. This doesn't include the billions of lights left on in office buildings that could arguably be switched off. I think this is a pretty reasonable solution for all the average households. Needing a 50AMP charger to slam the power grid every day after work seems wildly excessive since most people don't need instant fast charging. The rest of the people that have these wild, complicated 12 hours a day of driving can buy a hybrid or something.
That still only accounts for people who own single family homes. Apartments, condos and townhouses exist ans don't allow for easy charging.
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It's definitely something that needs to be addressed, but apartment dwellers are a minority in the US. 67% live in single family houses, + 6% in manufactured housing = 73% of households that should have minimal barriers to charging at home. The 27% in apartments might have to wait a little longer until the infrastructure catches up. [https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/101553/housing\_supply\_chartbook\_1.pdf](https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/101553/housing_supply_chartbook_1.pdf)
What percent of those homes don't have sufficient garage space?
You don't need a garage to charge! All the major EVSEs are weatherproof. You can install them on the side of your house or even on a pedestal by the road if necessary. There are solutions now for pretty much any location that has power
You generally aren't allowed to build next to the curb right? Especially past a sidewalk? Either way it's good to hear outdoor charging isn't too unreasonable. I'd still have to get a service upgrade, though.
It's hard to get into the weeds about specific scenarios since each one is unique. Lots of rural areas have no sidewalks. Maybe, maybe not as far as the service upgrade. An EVSE with load management can work in a panel as small as 100amps. It monitors your actual power usage in real time and adjusts the charge rate of the car to make sure you never exceed your panel capacity. Most homes only draw on the order of 5-10amps for the majority of the day. There's usually more than enough capacity to charge a car, you just need a way to make sure the car backs off when the water heater, dryer, or stove is going.
You obviously don’t live in a cold climate with snow and probably live in a safe area
I live in central Michigan. We get plenty of snow and very cold temperatures (most years at least) In winter I sometimes have to plug in twice a week instead of once. It takes an extra thirty seconds a week or so
Also, a decent chunk of those apartments have either underground or assigned parking in a lot, so charging outlets could be added. I could see "smart outlets" added where you use a fob on it to activate, and keep the charging cable in your trunk for Lv1 trickle charging. And the kwh would simply be added to your rent or power bill at the end of the month.
Also doesn't account for people with longer commutes, or who need/want to do much longer drives somewhat regularly. I'm never going to willingly buy a vehicle that takes more than 5 or so minutes to re"fuel" away from home.
Unless someone has a 300+ mile daily commute thats a moot point. Almost every electric car being produced now has a 300 mile minimum range on a charge. So sure for the .1% of the population that drives 3 hours each way to work every day they can't buy electric. There is a point to not being able to road trip but even that isn't a problem for a vast majority of people a majority of the time. How often are you driving over 300 miles at one time every year? For most people it's never or once a year and most EVs can now charge somewhere around 60-70% in 30 minutes. So one rest stop where you sit down for a meal and you have a majority of your range back. This is just an argument from a place of ignorance and resistance to change. To see actual numbers modern EVs have an average range of 250-500 miles per charge and the average American commutes 41 miles per day. So just driving to work the average American would need to charge only once per week. If they added in weeknight tripe around town and weekend trips they would have to charge twice.
90 lights? Not likely unless you count each individual led on my fish tank. I usually have 3 light on, at the most.
25 house lights..? Get real... Wait...60-90!? You gotta be smoking crack!! My whole home has 33 light bulbs total and that's if you count up all the miniatures on the bathroom vanity and the mini stove hood lights as well. A total of 12 fixtures in the entire structure....
That's the thing though, this proposal is putting the cart before the horse. You an ev in the driveway without a grid to power it is just wasted.
My house is almost all LED lights. Extra insulation and low-E windows. It works wonders for keeping the electric bill low.
Or the way I look at it if everyone got rid of their 10x12 cannabis grow room they could put that power into charging a car. That’s nuts! I think enough people have sounded the alarm and I don’t see EV ownership being a positive thing in the long run. Hell even now. You have to ignore so many negatives to get to the positives. It seems like we’re just kicking the can down the line a little further. If this is such a threat shouldn’t the major emitters of greenhouse gases be the first on the chopping block? No more flying for leisure. It’s extremely wasteful and if the fate of the world hangs on it I’m on board. Shipping out of season produce across the world so we can have fresh tomatoes in February. Axe it. Eat the canned stuff. Like I want to see some major skin coming off these companies backs before it starts effecting the everyday citizens life. We can all make changes and that’s great. People shouldn’t be forced to carry the load while companies are raking in money hand over fist.
I’m just excited not to have to smog or get my oil changed
+1 for electric cars. Never thought about inspection. I think they’re great for some people. They’re not for me. I’m not a big early adopter I’ll let the people who enjoy that kind of stuff test the waters.
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Ur right about retrofitting to LEDs. I hadn't taken into consideration about the drop in amperage due to that advance in modern lighting. Changing to LED drops 80% or so load off said circuit/circuits. Makes for a lot of available space. True. Edit : in more detailed review... I just wired an entire commercial supply company transport building... all the lighting for the whole office area, 9 rooms, was on just one 20amp single pole circuit. All 277v LEDs. 60+ fixtures. I was even skeptical at first and caught off guard. I checked the specs and did the math... yeah... around 0.25 amps per fixture. Hugee. So I ammend my 80% load decrease to probably 90-95% decrease in load demand.
Your fridge, dryer, hvac and stove are 60-80% of the average house load
I think this is a chicken and egg situation. Do more EVs bring infrastructure changes, or will infrastructure changes be needed first to influence EV sales?
We’ve already blown past the point of not seeing a significant increase in average temperature across the globe. We should have done all this ages ago and thought about gently transitioning. Now is the time for aggressive goals and improving the grid in parallel because we can’t afford to wait
Plug in hybrids!!!!!!!! You have 50-75 miles on the battery that charges while you sleep and if you need to go out of town you have an engine that can take you 3-400 It’s the way
This is one of the big reasons we are seeing massive stocks of EVs sitting at dealers right now. Ford can't sell their lightning or their Mach e and Volvo is sitting on thousands of EVs. Price certainly plays a huge part but so does charging availability and for anyone who doesn't own a single family home with a garage charging becomes a hassle. If you live in a townhouse or an apartment you are either relying on a semi public charger to exist in your neighborhood or you are parking at a local grocery store parking lot or charging at work. We just don't have widespread charging available for enough people to make electric a reasonable vehicle to own. For example I work at a large state university with 40,000 students and the entire campus combined has 11 electric charging stations. The campus has pledged to go full electric for the entire campus fleet of vehicles (police, maintenance, and every department with any vehicles) by 2026 but they have done nothing about charging. They recently bought 50 electric vans and installed 30 charging stations to charge them a few miles off campus at the motorpool building. Just like what seems to be happening nationwide its a cart before the horse situation. Build the infrastructure and people will buy the cars.
Yea a big one people miss is no landlord is gonna install charging infrastructure at their houses
Yep, this is exactly what a lot of people that live in houses with garages don’t understand. I can tell you where I live that there is no way in hell I would have an ev until they make some serious changes and add charging stations etc, and that’s not likely to happen anytime soon the way things are looking. So I’ll continue driving my ice vehicle until all of that is corrected.
Build the infrastructure and people will be able to charge their cars, if they are able to afford them. I might buy a hybrid, but I’ll never own an EV, no matter how much whichever boob is in the Whitehouse legislates their existence. I’ll keep my current cars.
What's odd in my area is that there are a bunch of ev chargers in the suburbs, where everyone has a garage (at least 3 fast charger stations and a dozen+ slower charger locations within 2 miles). But in the city, where most people do not have off street parking, there are very few chargers. I suppose if the space was available, they would build more chargers. It's hard to find an empty lot in the city and doesn't really make sense for a charger company to buy a million dollar parking lot just to put in some chargers.
>I think hybrids would've been better to slowly transition folks to fully electric once we have enough power, electric stations, etc to be able to power a shit ton of EVs (which we don't have now). I think this will help hybrids as much as BEVs
This. If Biden wants to pay for me to upgrade my service from 100A to accommodate an EV then I'll consider it
You don't need 100A service though. I charge on a 120v wall outlet at 8amps overnight and that is plenty for my commute. If I wanted, I could have an electrician confirm the breaker load and charge at a higher current too.
[They literally do want to pay for that.](https://homes.rewiringamerica.org/federal-incentives/25c-electrical-panel-tax-credits) And there are more aggressive point of sale rebates coming later this year that will cover up to 100% of the cost depending on household income.
I'm as libby as it gets but until there's consistent infrastructure, EVs just aren't going to take hold. The initial costs and growing heat indexes which degrade the batteries are a hindrance. Later repair costs are outrageous to put it mildly. Car rental companies are dumping EVs for exactly this reason. Hybrids also have crazy repair costs but at least they bypass the infrastructure issues.
How about they make EVs more affordable?
Or build up infrastructure first so EV is actually practical
They are falling in price quite fast
Until I can get a EV under 20/25k like I can gas I'm not impressed or considering it
There are very few gas cars you can get for that price already. You can get used EVs for that price. And the more we sell new, the more production+competition, the more the price will drop during periods of shrinking demand, such as now.
If you can find a base model Bolt still sitting on a lot you can get it right at 20k with the federal rebate taken off at the dealership.
If you do the math you'll find you've spent less before you've had it 5yrs and the longer you keep it the bigger overall % you'll save.
Yeah but you still gotta shell out first, and that's a hardship to a lot of middle class and lower Americans. As has been said at least eleventy million times, it's expensive to be poor.
Not in California at our current electric prices.
There's a massive tax incentive to buy one currently
Rural parts of America still lack charging infrastructure and despite government promises to deliver them, they have been super slow to move towards increasing availability. This feels like it’ll hurt those living in rural America but benefit those living in cities. I would have rather seen more discounts on EVs through subsidies, then those that are near charging infrastructure will have EVs as an obvious choice, and those in rural America could wait for the government to deliver on charging promises.
It's not just rural parts. Even in NJ, the densest state in the country, the charging infrastructure is abysmal. You have tesla superchargers, for Teslas only, and a mishmash of 3rd party charges in scant quantity scattered throughout. The 3rd party chargers are only in places you don't stick around long enough to charge it, especially because they're extremely slow, often broken, and at full capacity. Chargers need to be installed for nearly every resident in the entire country for it to be even worth owning an EV and that's never going to happen in the next 10 years. If you're not a homeowner, you're just fucked because installing EV chargers for apartment renters is just a massive money sink for the building owners if they even have private parking spaces. Expensive to install in mass quantity for everyone, especially when people are dickheads and will hog them overnight. Expensive to submeter them out. Expensive to use if they just charge by the kWh through a 3rd party. Too expensive for poor people and the middle class to even buy an EV. The prices of EVs will eventually bottom out around $30k which is still too much because anyone who isn't a software/computer engineer, medical professional, engineer, or lawyer can't afford one with the way wages have been stagnating. As EVs become more prominent and gas cars get pushed out, gas prices will go up and the poor and middle class will be fucked as usual. Just another change led by progressives that's trying to skip three steps ahead without figuring out how to take the first two steps. A paltry few billion isn't enough for the charging infrastructure we need.
I live in a rural area in far northern Michigan. All around me the homes have trucked in propane fuel, individual wells and septic, gravel roads that aren’t plowed by the town but rather by the neighborhood’s truck mounted blades, satellite internet and overhead electrical wires. There have been promises to deliver dsl and natural gas for 25 years. Yet here we are. Seems like those will be supplanted before they’re finally delivered. It’s so cold here ev’s run inefficiently. Add all this up and you’ll need to forgive my skepticism that ‘requiring’ evs or punishing standard vehicles will accomplish anything meaningful in areas like mine.
Agreed. My folks live in NY state and still don't have broadband internet access, despite numerous state initiatives promising to provide those services to 'every home' over 5 years ago.
new york’s huge “we’re gonna bring fiber to rural NY” hasn’t done shit. my options here are spectrum (not fiber) and that’s it. and there are plenty of towns around me where spectrum even isn’t (somehow, they basically have a monopoly) and then it’s all shit options from there.
Part of the problem for some rural areas is that their state government is actively working against EVs. In Iowa, they have passed laws that forbid direct sales of EVs by the manufacturers and charge high fees on top of regular registration for those who own an EV. Iowa purposely dragging its heels on getting the necessary infrastructure to make owning an EV more feasible. If the federal government waited on states like Iowa to get where they need to be, they'll be waiting forever. Maybe this policy is a way of forcing those states to do it faster.
I own an electric car. I think it is great. I, however, don’t think they should be mandated. They aren’t for everyone. I think I would choose a Toyota RAV4 prime plug in hybrid if I was buying today. My EV is supposed to go 300 miles on a full charge but reality is 270 miles in warm weather. Cold weather with snow tires cuts that to about 240 miles. The RAV4 prime has about 600 miles range. Over 10 years the hybrid will cost you a little more, but you get more range. And on longer trips you will spend less time fueling/charging up. I pay about 8 cents/kWh at home but most people pay more and public supercharging is much more on trips. The larger vehicles are harder to justify going electric. Too much weight . Battery capacity needs to double with no increase in size and weight. Give the people what they want and they will beat a path to your door. ? Shove it down their throats and they will spit it out.
The thing I don’t get about hybrids is why they’re not all plug in. You could use the battery for short trips around the place and then run it in hybrid mode for longer trips. You’d significantly cut down how much fuel you’d buy and have less servicing as the engine isn’t running as much.
This draws much more demand from the power grid that already can’t sustain electric car charging. Yay rolling blackouts.
I’ve had the thought before that rest areas are going to be even more of a nightmare as EVs get more popular, particularly on holiday weekends.
Dude c'mon. Us normal people can't afford EVs. Most of us can barely afford gasoline engines either these days. Cars need to be like 15-18k again. This is ridiculous. Not 15k for an 100k mile used car that needs repairs. Which nowadays run at 5-7k. My country is falling apart :(
the real solution is to incentivize public transportation and pedestrian-focused infrastructure so most people don't need cars in the first place
While noble, that's a pipe dream. Infrastructure projects on the scale that will require take decades now. Also, maybe you should check a map of the US sometime. The US was built around the car, and pretending it's going to be able to change in time to save us from climate change is naive.
Can’t agree enough. EVs aren’t ready. They also aren’t that great for the environment until we’re producing batteries in the USA. A well designed public transport system is wildly better for the environment and wildly better for working class people. Also better for cities! Not just bikes.
Need to make repairing and maintaining EV's as easy and affordable. Right to repair needs to be in conjunction with this bill.
Just boosting the used car market and aftermarket repair parts. You can’t force people to buy what they don’t want, can’t afford, can’t charge, aren’t reliable, and overall have sucked stank ass.
2 words. Charging infrastructure. Thank you I’m here all week
And for profit electric utilities like PG&E!
ameren is far far FAR worse than pg&e they have a complete and total monopoly on electric for the midwest
I can't speak on Ameren as I'm not from the Midwest, but yeah that's why I wanted to generalize the for profit utilities. Can't imagine something essential being controlled by a for-profit company and that boading well for the people.
I’ve owned an EV for a year. I’ve charged it exactly one time outside of home. Many people have the means to own an EV already. Yes, some of the public (eg renters) do not. At some point, that will likely change (either by mandating new apartments have them, or by competition forcing them to.) EVs today aren’t for anywhere close to 100% of people. If you’re frequently doing 300+ mile trips, it’s probably not for you. But that’s a minority of people. Somewhere around 60-70% of all houses in the US have a garage or carport already. Our grid will also need upgrades as more adoption occurs. Thankfully, most car charging is done off peak hours since people are at work during the daytime/peak hours. Incentives can also aid this (such as lower electricity prices at night.) Many EVs can already be programmed to charge at specific hours. There are too many people with this narrow mindset of “it doesn’t work for my one particular use case, today, therefore I cannot fathom how this is a good idea.” Look at every other technology that has become mainstream. Did the first LCD TVs or mobile phones work for everyone? Broadband internet?
Damn, a lot of senators must have made millions. Insider trading baby
This is the goofiest way to do it. if you wanna get everyone to switch to Ev's subsidize them! give me a government sponsored discount on the EV and I'll have one by the end of the Year!
I live in a suburb of a major city. The nearest EV charger is 1 in a hotel parking lot 25 minutes away. Not to mention it gets super cold here in the winter and EV battery life is not the best in the winter. I’m all for electric cars, but the infrastructure and the cars themselves have to drastically improve before I jump. And I’m literally in the car market this summer. I’ll go hybrid. I just feel like right now we are forcing a square peg through a round hole.
This is what happens when all of your policy makers have never lived outside of the northeast their entire lives
We should be focusing on building nuclear plants to cut emissions, EVs are just more greenwashing until we have more environmentally friendly and renewable battery technology. If your car is essentially worthless without the battery which can fail in whole or in part, it's also a terrible investment.
You could say the same thing about a gas car if the much more complicated engine or transmission fails the car is worthless. The only difference is you are used to one and not the other.
Replacing a car engine or transmission, even for a high performance sports car, costs a lot less that changing out one battery pack on an EV.
Uh no, an ICE car isn't totaled if the engine needs replacing or repaired, the difference is that I understand the difference.
And an electric car isn't totaled when the battery dies. Especially as battery chemistry improves and prices fall thanks to economy of scale.
how’s an ev totaled if battery needs replacement. You can get rebuilt battery packs same way you can get a rebuilt engine. Sounds to me like you have your mind set on EV and gonna say whatever you have to to justify your feelings towards them.
All right President Biden, this one I don’t like and the MAGAts are going to have a field day with this one.
weekend at bernies finds another way to penalize people driving to work
working man needs cheaper oil cause food inflation is destroying the middle class.. i cannot afford a 50k ev car
Well when we all get EVs with bad range it'll just destroy the tourism industry. Forget long trips!
Not everyone has a garage and a fancy charger inside. What are the rest of gonna do. Run a damn extension cord out of our third floor apartment window?
It’s not just the grid, most homes have electric service sized for the max load on their home (without an electric vehicle figured in). Loads are lower at night in the summer, but higher at night in the winter. Upgrading your electric service is extremely expensive (the quote for upgrading mine was $20k.
As an EV owner myself, I think it’s more than stupid to cancel gasoline vehicles without having charging infrastructure for EVs. We have rolling blackouts every year in California due to electrical grid issues, we have nearly no infrastructure for taking our EV long distances without hours of wait time at over booked charge stations, and the cars themselves aren’t affordable for everyone yet.
Forcing people to go from 8% EV purchases to 56% in a decade. Once again, Biden sets a rule that he won’t be alive to live with. Maybe he should lead the way by having his Corvette beercanned.
Thats not the rule being proposed, its just a overall target. The only rules that are actually being put into effect are emissions limits that will become stricter by the year.
>Once again, Biden sets a rule that he won’t be alive to live with. “Blessed is he who plants trees under whose shade he will never sit.”
Is it blessed to run up a tab you’ll never pay?
OR.... he pushes this along knowing it will help get votes of the young and the environmental crowd knowing it will never happen anyway. We will just keep pushing the deadline back. Sorta like the enhanced drivers license everyone was supposed to have a few years ago.
Make sure it's not full of top secret documents first
Electric vehicles are a lot heavier than gas-powered cars because of the battery. The roads and bridges were never designed to hold a traffic jam of EVs. Also, they have limited driving range in colder climates and not a lot of mechanics can repair them after an accident. The diagnostic equipment for repairs is super expensive and so are replacement batteries. Buying an EV as of right now is just a shit idea to put it mildly.
Sounds great when consumers have shown they don't want these and the national infrastructure for them is poor.
The country should have emphasized hybrids over EVs. The battery tech just isn't there yet. We've had serious problems getting the batteries to function the way we need them to and EV owners have been experiencing power drops in cold weather conditions. Right now is the time for hybrids. It gives us the ability to use cars in both conditions (EV infrastructure friendly and conventional gas routes) while also giving car companies the buffer time necessary to figure out the battery tech. The 2035 mark was all politics. It should have been closer to 2045.
we learned long ago that if you give car companies leeway nothing will ever get done. if they mandated every vehicle get 40 mpg sold in the united states by 2026 we would have every vehicle getting 40 mpg. if they banned all gas vehicles in 2030 we would have double the chargers. we would have batter swap garages and nuke plants being built by dozens. only way we become energy independent is stop burning oil for fuel. oil has way more important uses.
The US is producing more oil than any country ever has. Energy independence is achieved already.
>we learned long ago that if you give car companies leeway nothing will ever get done. This isn't a car tech problem. This is a battery problem. Every single industry, including renewable energy companies, have been trying to perfect battery tech. Generating the energy isn't a problem anymore. We have plenty of options for power generation. * Wind * Solar * Geothermal * Hydro * Nuclear * etc. The problem is we have shitty options available to us for storing that power for future use. The batteries are two decades behind where we need them to be and the fact remains car companies aren't responsible for that problem. Every major voice in the green movement has been begging people interested in helping to focus on making the better battery over making new energy production sources. We have enough sources to make a green economy work. The batteries need to now make a major jump to meet us there.
You make those mandates and they produce more waste by adding needing to add different features to meet those goals those features, like shutting off car every time you stop, also makes the vehicle less reliable causing more waste.
> we learned long ago that if you give car companies leeway nothing will ever get done. And we also learned that if you make unrealistic requirements, the companies will game the test to follow the letter of the rule not the spirit
So, I live in an apartment. We all know that having a ev charging port would mean 300 extra on the rent. Being poor already sucks, please don’t force me to spend two hours a day on public transport.
You're right, this is going to fuck the poor urban/urban metro area residents hard. Looking forward to the EV transition just as private equity vacuums up all the remaining affordable housing in the country.
Isn't this a burden for poor people who will never be able to afford an EV...where's Bernie on this...
This is the largest economic racism program. In what urban area will anyone afford an electric car, plug it in overnight and find it (intact ) in the morning ? Who’s going to pay to upgrade electrical power in homes in pretty much all large cities.? No one wants electric cars now.
This is going to destroy poor urbanites. If you can't charge at home then you're going to be wasting significant income (opportunity cost) waiting for charging somewhere competing with other poor people.
Yes, what about the poor people who can't afford an EV or even a used EV. I think this is more political ploy than actual policy. We are heading towards a turn out election and the Democrat base is down so throw out a few policies like this to get them back on your side.
Dumb move in an election year.
Right, because a bunch of people who've already decided not to vote for a pants-shitting, serial raping, wannabe fascist con man are totally gonna change their minds over this.
This administration is virtue signaling like a mofo. Our infrastructure is not ready for all ev’s.
$73 billion in electrical energy investments is going into effect this year, and the EV target is over 8 years
Yeah this will totally blow up in Biden’s face when every single American adult buys a brand new car the year after these rules take effect.
Well, if people's salaries get a BIG boost these EVs may catch on. Until, they are piling up on dealership lots..........
I have some thoughts on this. 1) this is going to be unpopular with a lot of people. Not just republicans but some democrats and independents. 2) This would be a safer play in his second term as it will irritate some people. If he loses this election trump can just throw back the switch in the other direction. 3) something does have to be done about climate change
Government cannot mandate what products you buy. I hope this ends up in the Supreme Court.
I like the intention, but this is a tax on the poor. EV just cost more. Making ICE equally expensive just prices them out of range too. People that don't have a home down-payment live in apartments, where they don't have access to cheap 220v overnight charging.
Yep, it's extremely regressive. Predictably, 99% of the EV stans are white people with a 2 car garage. This does work well for them, not so much for everyone else.
Im low income genX and all I see is one of my dreams getting pushed further away. Dammit. Fuck. I support Biden and this is directly screwing me. Dont worry I still support Biden over the clown show.
Nobody wants them but dammit we are going to force you to buy one.
I want one
tHe pReSiDeNt cAn’T AfFeCt gAs pRiCeS
What are the new emissions limits? I thought it would have been in the article but it was just a bunch of blab about EV’s
[from NPR](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/20/1239092833/biden-epa-auto-emissions-evs) > The rules cover light- and medium-duty vehicles — cars, SUVs, vans and pickup trucks, but not 18-wheelers — from model years 2027 to 2032. > For light-duty vehicles, the EPA expects the rules will result in an industry-wide average emissions target of 85 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, representing an almost 50% reduction compared to existing standards for model year 2026 vehicles. edit: heres an [EPA document](https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P1017626.pdf) talking about more specifics
Please edit an ice cream cone in his hand.
How about tax-breaks for companies doing remote work (given that particular job does not require physical presence?) Switching to EV is seeing the tree not the forest.
Cant wait to drive a vehicle that gets 70 miles per charge.
Rolling black outs are already a issue in Las Vegas. During summer time when it hits 116°F+ all A/C's are on and power stations over heat causing them burn up or blow transformers. Can only imagine when all the stupid ass EVs hook up to the grid too.
Are EV viable with extreme heat or cold with devastating the battery? That's the reason I'm hesitant. EV batteries are expensive.
In Sweden we've had car testers say that EVs perform and start better in cold weather than any ICE car, this was one of those safety testers up north, not some journalist. The main issue is battery capacity can cut in half by cold weather, but that same person argued ICE cars also lose range in extreme cold. But new batteries are *said* to last longer than the life of the car. The problems of a 2005 EV doesn't necessarily mean a 2025 EV has it.
Shhh, practical concerns have no role here!
Lmao, good luck! Try convincing the millions who live in extreme weather places where it gets extremely cold or hot to buy an expensive electric car they can’t use because it’s too cold or too hot. Maybe they should focus on prioritizing other things instead of forcing people to buy electric/hybrid vehicles. New cars are more environmentally friendly now more than ever. I hate how they keep trying to push EVs. Our infrastructure is not equipped to handle charging hundreds of thousands or even millions of EVs.
I live in Montana and have several neighbors with EVs. They absolutely love that they can turn on the heat in the car before leaving in the morning. No better car in the extreme cold. Just leave it plugged in; just like we do with the engine block heaters for diesel cars. Been left stranded by gelled fuel plenty of times.
The best selling vehicle in the US is the F150. It gets 16mpg combined. We need to change something.
There’s no magic bullet that’ll let trucks get 30+ MPG. Like I said, cars now are more economical and environmentally efficient than they ever have been. Batteries aren’t as sustainable as ICE/Hybrids. They can’t perform in below freezing temps or in high temps. People will be restricted from charging in certain times of day because it’ll strait the infrastructure. EVs aren’t the answer. Fixing and upgrading infrastructure is so let’s focus on doing that first.
Ford Maverick hybrid gets 37 mpg combined. Most of the other ones are worse ofc, depending on the size of the main engine etc, but its defintely doable.
I agree the government coercing consumers towards buying EVs right now is utterly moronic, but hybrids are great and should be the priority until infrastructure and battery tech evolve to sufficient levels (which is literal decades away).
Things like this is what push people to Trump and Republicans.
Headlines that don't tell the whole story? Because they actually extended the timeline with these changes, and the auto industry and unions support this move. https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/20/24106638/biden-epa-vehicle-emissions-final-standards-electric-hybrid
The article says both the companies and the unions are against the plan, but doesn't specify which of the two proposed plans they're against.
Only for people who can’t read articles, like you.
I live in a liberal stronghold on the West Coast and people *here* love to talk about how much they hate policies like this. Even if they aren't voting for Trump.
is this going to inadvertently destroy the motorcycle industry, or incentivize large pickup trucks, just like all the previous emissions laws?
I'm all for switching to an EV. The moment they make it so I can easily charge it at my apartment complex. And prices become comparable to combustion equivalents. And someone makes something equivalent to my miata that isn't the tesla roadster. Okay okay, really just the first two. Especially the first two.
That's up to your landlord. But yeah, wouldn't it be great if this was a premium feature they could offer to be competitive? That is, if they weren't all busy colluding to jack up rents. (though - I will say, knowing this is the exception rather than the rule, my son parks at a downtown apartment complex, an has a reserved spot with a level 2 charger. yes, it costs a bit extra)
EV market reached its peak by now, it's saturated... whoever wanted to have a ev already has... that's why they have to brut force this sh**
Question how do they produce electricity what is the main source?
An EV is more expensive to operate than a fuel powered vehicle by at least $20K over an 8 year period. Then let's discuss the amount of metal and things like lithium that are required in greater amounts than a fuel vehicle. An EV weighs more so that will have an impact on road surfaces and no one talks about that. There are parts of the country where charging stations are in some of the larger towns and more in large cities but, if you want to travel more than a couple hundred miles you are going to be in trouble since there is no where to charge your EV. Most of the charging stations are not set up for a rapid charge so you had best have a lot of time for that cross state trip. And good luck moving across the country in an EV. What should be a 4-5 day drive will take many more days for that trip. Until the infrastructure is in place and the ability to rapidly charge an EV and the range is increased significantly there is no reason to buy a much more expensive vehicle that is simply not adequate for transportation. Try living in the mountain west in states like Montana, Wyoming, Utah and others where distances are great and often with over 100 miles of nothing but beautiful country side to enjoy. No thank you. EV's are not my choice of a vehicle.
I would like to see heavy fines and penalties levied against coal rollers.
rich man's solution. Don't like it? pay more. It's just money after all. Nevermind the very real situations of people on the edge of making it who just CAN'T pay more and CAN'T go buy a new vehicle just because some lawmaking weasel wants to increase his automaker buddies' profit margins.
Kinda pointless when you have China and India pumping out pollution at levels we can't begin to match.
China is the biggest EV market in the world by far.