Biden Administration Is Said to Slow Early Stage of Shift to Electric Cars::The change to planned rules was an election-year concession to labor unions and auto executives, according to people familiar with the plan.
Biden Administration Is Said to Slow Early Stage of Shift to Electric Cars::The change to planned rules was an election-year concession to labor unions and auto executives, according to people familiar with the plan.
They are too expensive. But only because auto manufacturers are only making midsized and larger suvs or luxury cars. The average price of an EV has dropped over 50% in China since 2015. That would have been tough for us to match, mostly because of batteries, but we could have made much more progress than we have.
The electric grid isn’t nearly as unprepared as people say. Sure, we need to build out more charging stations, but the grid as a whole far exceeds current needs. In fact, nationwide electrical usage is actually trending down in the US because of efficiency gains. Better building codes, heat pumps, LED lighting, if it uses electricity newer stuff is more efficient. If we had sold 8 times as many EVs in 2023 than we did, electricity usage would have stayed about flat.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/02/02/the-us-added-1-2-million-evs-to-the-grid-last-year-electricity-use-went-down/
Here’s the story as I understand it. US automakers want to make expensive premium cars because those sell for high margins. The big breakthrough in the EV market over the past few years has been China EV makers figuring out how to make cheap and “good-enough” EVs, which are catching on in many places across the world. This is clearly the direction in which the market has to move (whether via Chinese or non-Chinese automakers) to spur mass EV adoption. In the US, however, the established automakers can rely on protectionism to block imports, this keeping the US market limited to big expensive cars that remain using ICEs.
It’s really just a matter of time till Chinese manufacturers set up in Mexico and the US will have to accept Chinese EVs because of NAFTA. The US also has lots of range anxiety about EVs that I don’t see as much in other markets. Being 120v and sprawling with limited government willingness to build infrastructure, with no requirements for rentals to add chargers makes a perfect storm for that fear.
They just announced that’s the plan actually
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas-byd-plans-new-electric-vehicle-plant-mexico-says-nikkei-2024-02-13/
Japan did it. Korea did it. China is doing it.
You sound informed, more so than I. The heat pump thing confuses me, and I’ve seen it a lot lately.
I was under the impression that the vast majority of homes were using a heat pump system. Seems like a no-brainer? Is this not so?
EDIT: My HVAC is labelled a “heat pump” and no one around here had natural gas.