Burning gas is so extremely bad that even throwing away your old ICE car and buying a new electric car is better than driving the ICE car until it „falls apart“. This was the research finding in Switzerland, but this result was so unwelcome that the research got hidden away. https://www.republik.ch/2025/06/11/amtliche-selbstzensur
oh wow I didn’t know that!
would make sense to give more a lot incentives for EV buying if so!
Socialize losses, privatize gains. I don’t want my tax money incentivizing some rich asshole to buy an EV. Nobody that needs help buying a car can even consider an EV, their too expensive. The cheapest ev u can buy in USA is 30k, the cheapest ICE is 22k. And people that need help buying cars can’t afford either. Only middle class + people are buying these things, and they don’t need poor people’s tax money to subsidize their purchase from a private corp. I’m all for evs but let’s be honest the people buying them DONT need help buying them. Id rather see my tax money go toward renewable infrastructure or research on batteries and such! We can’t keep relying on the private industry to fund research, in technology or in medicine or any science imo. But that’s just my angry fist wagging opinion as somebody who refuses to spend more than 3k on a car because I’m not made of money. I’m not exactly poor, I’m a home owner under 30 and make around 60-70k a year depending on OT and bonuses. But if I went and got a loan on a Chevy bolt for 30k I would not be able to make my mortgage payments even with subsidies, so why should somebody who makes more get help buying a new car? Horseshit
This isn’t exactly correct or truthful. A new EV Bolt is only $4k more than a new Camry, and that difference is quickly made up from the gas saving, especially when gas is $4+ a gallon.
And when you want to accelerate adoption of something, you incentivize it. The US already spends $40+ billion in direct subsidies for oil (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/5-hidden-ways-the-government-rigs-the-market-in-favor-of-fossil-fuels/) Imagine instead of giving that to oil companies, you used that to accelerate the development of EV’s and their roll out.
There’s more reason to incentives than to “help people who can’t afford new”
- the faster we develop an EV market, the sooner and cheaper used EVs will be available
- the incentives get us to price parity sooner, so encourage people who don’t want to spend extra, whether they can or not
- the faster market transition encourages investment in chargers. If you couldn’t be confident in a fast growing market why would you invest in chargers?
- the faster market transition encourages and supports legacy manufacturers investing in new technology
EVs are inevitable, but we need to be encouraging a faster transition for environmental reasons. But the incentives were at least as much about trying to save legacy manufacturers as they were about encouraging consumers down that path.
Note that as soon as the US stopped incentives, legacy manufacturers withdrew from the EV market. Some were just reaching price parity, such as Chevy Equinox, but the few remaining choices will never have the volume to be profitable. Now they’re heavily protected, at the cost of less choice and much higher prices for all Americans, but that can’t last forever and they appear to be digging their own graves
While I agree with you, roll back of regulations has also contributed. For example the hemi was going to get killed but now their coming back, diesel emissions have lightened up, and epa no longer cares about the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and repealed it. There has been a LOT of factors this administration has changed that made EV less appealing and shifted us back to high pollution combustion and shitty refrigerants. I’m not convinced ev subsidies are the way forward, we need better renewable infrastructure to properly fuel our EVs and i think that should be funded by our tax dollars rather than hoping that if more people have evs more private corps will build the infrastructure for it. That’s like encouraging building trains without any tracks to ride on! Plus renewable infrastructure isn’t just for evs, that will help make all our homes greener too!
I don’t want my tax money incentivizing some rich asshole to buy an EV
I mean… why not? I’d like if every rich guy had an EV instead of ICE. Less pollution is less pollution
Energy grid wouldn’t survive quick mass EV adoption most likely. Heck, how would you even charge a car if you don’t own a house - ideally parking places would have a slow charger where you could recharge car during night for cheap.
We’re blessed that it can survive the datacenters though
Seem like the greatest solution, these EV can also act as battery storage for renewables.
That’s tricky though. Would you deplete it during night to have it empty in the morning? Wear expensive battery? Plus, I assume, car is disconnected from grid for most of the day (i.e. when you are at work).
But you park it at work there could be slow AC charger, to slowly charge it when you are away.
Placing solar on rooftop of car also seem as good idea
“solar-powered cars” have been tried many times because it’s a great headline, but the math never works. Cars simply don’t have enough surface area to capture a lot of solar power. The amount of energy is low enough to not be worthwhile, except in the most extreme edge cases.
You don’t have to charge 100% using solar
No, I don’t think so
Everytime you bring it up, you get a whole lot of people with gasoline powered cars getting very angry. Sure batteries are not ‘perfect’, but they are a whole lot better in almost every way compared to gasoline powered vehicles.
The anger is less about how bad EV’s are and more about being expected to buy a hilariously expensive EV when someone has a perfectly functional car. Make them cheaper and people will buy them, because other than the environmental aspect EV’s just require less maintenance overall, making them cheaper to run.
I’d rather spend $100k converting an old ICE car to electric than give the auto industry another dime. The surveillance crap is literally a life or death decision for me. I have a 20y/o ice car I’ll likely have to convert, so no one try your dumb “new car math” with me.
If any fuckers want to make what I’m doing illegal, people will die.
Yes THERE is the issue that everyone seems to forget about new cars. I have a project car that I’m thinking will become an EV when it needs an engine because it will be so much easier to deal with. And it won’t call home to the feds every day.
Old muscle cars converted to EV I think are so cool. There was a show that converted an old K10 truck and hid the batteries in the bed tool box.
A 80s station wagon, a Country Squire, or 70s luxury cruiser like a Cadillac or Lincoln would be awesome.EVs, or just newer cars in general, are just so boring and cramped. Not to mention all the connection and surveillance concerns.
Boring, cramped, and almost impossible to see out of.
I think Ford straight-up sells an electric motor swap that will fit right in their older cars.
I have a weird little 4x4 that would be amazing if it were electric. I wouldn’t have to worry about getting in a situation where the engine is tilted too much and it’s simultaneously starving for fuel and oil.
I’d also like to know why Harley acted so ashamed of the Livewire. Probably one of the coolest things they’ve done up to the Pan America.
