America's 'Transformative' Climate Bill Would Fund EV Purchases - While Penalizing China (buffalonews.com) 141
This week U.S. lawmakers drew closer to passing a $369 billion bill with wide-ranging climate provisions.
It helps U.S consumers buy electric vehicle chargers, rooftop solar panels, and fuel-efficient heat pumps. It extends energy-industry tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable energy sources -- and for carbon capture technology. In fact, most of its impact is accomplished through tax credits, reports the New York Times, "viewed as one of the least expensive ways to reduce carbon emissions.
"The benefits are worth four times their cost, according to calculations by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago." One example is ending an eligibility cap on the $7,500 tax credit for consumers buying electric vehicles: Currently, the credits are phased out after a manufacturer has sold 200,000 electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. Restoring the credits would be huge for Tesla and General Motors, which have used up their quotas, as well as companies like Ford Motor and Toyota that will soon lose access to the credits. The new tax credit, available through 2032, would make vehicles from those companies more affordable and address criticism that only rich people can afford electric cars...
As it exists, the 200,000-vehicle cap on tax credits would provide a competitive advantage to market newcomers like BYD of China that are expected to use electric vehicles to enter the U.S. market. They could have benefited from the credit while Tesla, the Texas-based company, could not. The Democratic climate legislation would flip that. As written, the bill appears to disqualify cars not made in North America from the credit. Cars made in North America by foreign companies like Mercedes-Benz, Toyota or Volvo would qualify, but imported models would not.
In fact, the 725-page legislation also includes "a strong dose of industrial policy," with several provisions that "appear designed to undermine China's hold over the electric vehicle supply chain... It favors companies that get their components and raw materials from the United States or its allies, while effectively excluding China." "I think it is absolutely a transformative bill," said Leah Stokes, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who specializes in energy and climate change...
Cars would qualify for the full credit only if their batteries were made with materials and components from the United States and countries with which it has trade agreements. The percentage of components that have to meet those restrictions to qualify for the credit would increase over time, under the bill. That provision is aimed at encouraging domestic development of businesses like lithium mining and refining.
It helps U.S consumers buy electric vehicle chargers, rooftop solar panels, and fuel-efficient heat pumps. It extends energy-industry tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable energy sources -- and for carbon capture technology. In fact, most of its impact is accomplished through tax credits, reports the New York Times, "viewed as one of the least expensive ways to reduce carbon emissions.
"The benefits are worth four times their cost, according to calculations by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago." One example is ending an eligibility cap on the $7,500 tax credit for consumers buying electric vehicles: Currently, the credits are phased out after a manufacturer has sold 200,000 electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. Restoring the credits would be huge for Tesla and General Motors, which have used up their quotas, as well as companies like Ford Motor and Toyota that will soon lose access to the credits. The new tax credit, available through 2032, would make vehicles from those companies more affordable and address criticism that only rich people can afford electric cars...
As it exists, the 200,000-vehicle cap on tax credits would provide a competitive advantage to market newcomers like BYD of China that are expected to use electric vehicles to enter the U.S. market. They could have benefited from the credit while Tesla, the Texas-based company, could not. The Democratic climate legislation would flip that. As written, the bill appears to disqualify cars not made in North America from the credit. Cars made in North America by foreign companies like Mercedes-Benz, Toyota or Volvo would qualify, but imported models would not.
In fact, the 725-page legislation also includes "a strong dose of industrial policy," with several provisions that "appear designed to undermine China's hold over the electric vehicle supply chain... It favors companies that get their components and raw materials from the United States or its allies, while effectively excluding China." "I think it is absolutely a transformative bill," said Leah Stokes, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who specializes in energy and climate change...
Cars would qualify for the full credit only if their batteries were made with materials and components from the United States and countries with which it has trade agreements. The percentage of components that have to meet those restrictions to qualify for the credit would increase over time, under the bill. That provision is aimed at encouraging domestic development of businesses like lithium mining and refining.
Seems strange it needs that many pages... (Score:1)
to JUST do what it is SAID to do. What else does it do, and do we want it to do those things?
Re:Seems strange it needs that many pages... (Score:5, Insightful)
When did it become a bad thing to uncover and prosecute tax fraud and evasion?
It's about time the IRS got the resources it needs to properly do it's job which has been a longstanding problem with how much attention they can give the upper classes and corporations.
If you don't like your taxes they didn't write the laws. If you support your local police you should support the IRS as well, they're doing the same job.
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Re:Seems strange it needs that many pages... (Score:5, Informative)
It's got nothing to do with making political waves. The problem is the Republicans have been slashing the IRS budget every time they have power for a couple decades now, and fighting every effort to increase the budget when they're not in power.
Auditing rich people is *expensive*. It takes a lot of manpower to do the audit, and rich people have the means to fight it hard in court. It costs a lot of money to audit one rich person and collect a payment from them. The IRS just doesn't have the budget to do that. So they go after the little people with cases that are easy to prove and don't have the resources to fight.
It's an intentional strategy that serves as an unofficial tax cut for rich people. If you're rich, you're allowed to cheat on your taxes as long as you're not too obvious about it. It gets far less bad press attention than actual tax cuts do, so Republicans love it.
The funding here is so that the IRS can actually enforce taxes on rich people.
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So your attitude is we should never try to do anything, because the Republicans will always try to make things worse? That's a dark outlook.
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If you win the fight against a big time tax cheat, you just funded the cost of the trials plus your whole department for a year, as well as made others less likely to cheat in the future.
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The funds they collect from tax cheats go into general government revenue. They don't go directly into the IRS budget.
But yeah the general concept holds. Funding the audit department brings in far more revenue than it costs, which is why the Democrats are for it.
"fuel-efficient heat pumps" (Score:1)
That's great news, because it was really straining my budget putting all that $4/gal gasoline into my air conditioner.
Re:"fuel-efficient heat pumps" (Score:5, Insightful)
Heat pumps are more efficent though by around 2-4 times. You can get a lot more functional heating even if you are still burning natural gas to create electricity to power heatpumps rather than just burning the gas to create the heat.
Mandating every new central and split AC system installed can also be a heat pump is a no brainer move, it's just a couple extra parts.
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Dude (I'm assuming you're a dude), I work in the HVAC trade. I could go on at length over the various intricacies regarding heat pump systems. Here in central Florida, they're a pretty silly investment unless you have an extremely poorly insulated home, or like it incredibly hot in your house during our 2-3 day cold fronts that sometimes happen during our two months of so-called winter.
But no, my comment was intended as snark against the /. editors, for not recognizing that your standard residential air-s
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Don't know who this bill is for TBH. The $150k income cap means that most people who can actually afford EVs won't benefit from this, unless they're stupid or something. 150k income means roughly $6500/month take home pay after relatively typical payroll deductions. The traditional wisdom is you shouldn't be spending more than 20% of your take home pay on car expenses, which places you at about $1300/month, not counting insurance or anything else. After taking that into consideration you're probably looking
Re:"fuel-efficient heat pumps" (Score:5, Insightful)
> After taking that into consideration you're probably looking at maybe $60,000 worth of car there.
There are more EVs that cost less than $60,000 than EVs that cost more than $60,000... that's by MSRP, not counting incentives.
Also wtf $1300/mo for a $60K car what are you smoking. If you're leasing for 36 months that's like $70K worth of car, and if you're buying through a loan that's gonna be under $1000/mo easy.
=Smidge=
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Now add insurance and maintenance to that monthly figure. It varies, but on these things you want to err on the more conservative side.
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Okay?
I'm currently leasing my EV (MSRP ~$37K) for ~$340/month. Because it's a lease the insurance is extremely expensive as the dealer/financing company owns the vehicle and they want it protected; $155/mo. So this car is basically costing me say $500/mo just sitting in my driveway.
"Fuel" is under 4 cents per mile normally, since I charge at home and even get a discount from the utility if I do so at night. On occasion I've used a DCFC station which is significantly more expensive but I can't be assed to fi
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And what's the range on that? 200 miles?
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And don't say you only need less than 80 miles or some such because if that's the case, you're basically better off with a plug-in hybrid.
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If I charge it to 100% the guess-o-meter will read just over 300 miles. Of course I never charge over 80% unless I have to, and so far I've never actually had... not even for longer trips in the winter. Never been below 10% either for what that's worth.
My actual daily commute is almost exactly 10 miles round trip, though sometimes I travel for work so that can be 100+ miles for the day. No sweat, though.
And no, I absolutely would not be better off with a PHEV. If anything you have that completely back-asswa
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What make/model?
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Results are in.
At 100% SOC vehicle guesstimates 310 miles: https://i.imgur.com/QPQdOLw.jp... [imgur.com]
Drove 146 miles, identical route to and from. Second half of the trip was blasting the AC because it was 90+F and sunny outside. https://i.imgur.com/fANWCQm.jp... [imgur.com]
Post-trip, the vehicle is reporting 59% SOC with 178 miles remaining. https://i.imgur.com/k8eYtZS.jp... [imgur.com]
The discrepancies in the numbers (178+146 = 324, not 310) come from the climate control use plus somehow better than average efficiency... 5.3 mi/kwh. We
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I got a PHEV because it was $10k, and the only acceptable BEVs were about $80k when I got it.
Insurance is about $100/month for full coverage, registration is $65/year, electricity isn't even a blip on my utility bill, gas was about $200 last year.
(I keep full coverage because even though it's paid off it's now still worth about what I paid for it 6 years and 50k miles ago.)
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The longest range PHEVs are ~30 mile range though. So 50 miles you'd be burning gasoline. They also tend to have pathetically slow on-board chargers and no support for external chargers (DC charging) so they generally replenish electric range far slower than the pure EVs can.
You have a little bit of EV for most days, but also have to pay to maintain a ICE drivetrain. Also, efficiency wise you either manage to run it as all electric, in which case you waste energy carrying around an ICE drivetrain, or you
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A Hybrid battery would have a tenth of the capacity and would weigh about a tenth of the battery a credible PHEV. It's true that a PHEV will still have regen breaking, but it will have a way overweight battery for what they can use.
So a traditional hybrid would be more efficient than a PHEV that never gets plugged in, because it doesn't devote as much mass to a feature it can't take advantage of.
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A hybrid, regardless of plug in or not, does not have an ICE drive train.
It has a small gasoline engine, driving a generator driving the electric engine - via the battery.
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That's only true of the Chevy Volt.
Every other hybrid, plug-in or not, uses an electric transaxle. In the typical case it's got 2 electric motors-generators coupled to the engine with a planetary gear.
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Well, one, that's generally not true, most PHEVs do other things. One has one electric axle and one gas axle. Another design is to have the elecrtic motor/regen between the transmission and ICE engine, and the ICE engine can mechanically drive the overall assembly.
However, use whatever word you want, the ICE portion represents a significant weight to carry around for an EV, and a PHEV-scale battery is a pretty big weight to carry around for a mostly gas driven hybrid.
It may be a 'better than the alternati
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Correct.
And the ICE is not connected to the wheels. Simple concept.
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Yes, people keep repeating the idea that EVs are expensive luxury cars, when they're not. Anyone with an Acura or Camry can get an EV for a lower price. and anyone with a big-ass SUV or pickup can probably get two for the price.
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Also note that plug-in hybrids also count, you don't need a full EV to get credits. And that can mean EV full time for commuting and using petrol only for longer trips.
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> No, there are a lot more that cost more with obvious upgrades. You never configured a Tesla obviously.
The list I'm looking at [insideevs.com] has multiple trim levels for the same make and model. There are 107 vehicles on the list, 57 (53%) of which cost under $60K.
Just because you can find an expensive car and kit it out with the most expensive options does not mean there aren't cheaper vehicles available.
> Not easy. At $60K like OP stated, it WILL be over $1000, then add a lot more for insurance.
The average dura
Re: "fuel-efficient heat pumps" (Score:2)
Some tax credits carry over to another tax year if they exceed your tax liability. Sadly, not the EV tax credit. The solar PV tax credit and a few others apparently do. I wonder if the new bill fixes this flaw or not with the EV credit.
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Why would anyone change oil every 5000 miles? And how could that add up to nearly 1k per year?
Re: "fuel-efficient heat pumps" (Score:2)
Most cars that take gasoline have a manual with maintenance schedule that calls for changing the oil at set mileage intervals. 5000 is not unheard of. It doesn't cost anywhere near 1000/year, unless you are driving an insane amount of miles/year. Around here, an oil change service is between $50 - $100. You would have to drive 50 -100k miles/year to get to 1k/year oil change. A Tesla battery would be out of warranty in 1-2 years if you drove that many miles.
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An oil change is recommended every 35k kilometres, that is roughly 27k miles.
Or every 5 years, what ever happens more early.
Re: "fuel-efficient heat pumps" (Score:2)
I don't know what vehicle you drive. Every one I have had that took gas had between 5,000 - 7,500 miles as a recommended interval. AAA link below says this is average. Link says synthetic oil could last 15,000 miles, which is 24,000km. Still short of the 35,000 km you quote.
https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/how-often-should-you-change-engine-oil
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I was driving a Peugeot 307.
Your numbers make no sense in Europe.
Re: "fuel-efficient heat pumps" (Score:2)
And BTW 35,000km is not 27,000 miles. Closer to 22,000 miles .
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That is good enough for me :)
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> Insurance on a $60K Tesla is much more than on a $30K Corolla.
Okay, and? The insurance on a $30K Corolla is a lot more than on a $14K Chevy Spark. Not sure what the point you're trying to make is.
> The tires cost more. Brakes cost much more when they do go.
The tires cost the same as any other tire of the equivalent size. Tesla - or any EV - does not need anything special. If you want something special, that's on you...
A typical car should have the brakes services every 30K miles or so. Basically all
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The $150k income cap means that most people who can actually afford EVs won't benefit from this, unless they're stupid or something.
$150k is for single filers. It's $300k household income for married couples, so that probably covers most of suburbia. You've gotta be in that Goldilocks zone of income earners - ff you're too poor or too rich, you get nothing.
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150k income is meh in some places. After the tax man takes his cut, and the landlord takes his cut, there's really not much left to work with. I've already done the calculation because I'm about to make an obligatory move to one of said locations. It's no wonder so many people are homeless in blue states.
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150k income is meh in some places.
I'm assuming the politicians figure if you live in a spendy urban area you can just take the train, bus, or hop on one of those electric scooters that are littered all over the place. You only need a subsidized EV if you're a typical suburban dweller where it's 15 minutes drive to the nearest Walmart.
In Florida, a $150k/yr income would certainly be enough to buy your way into the suburban American dream. The catch is finding a job that pays $150k/yr, in Florida. Also, it's brutally hot and humid for most
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FWIW the place I'm moving to is Los Angeles. I've never really been there beyond LAX layovers and the occasional disneyland or knott's berry farm trip. But so far what I've found is that even if you live really close to where you work, public transportation is going to be an hour commute minimum, even if it's only a 15 minute car drive. Like it or not, LA just seems to be designed for cars. Other than NYC and DC, both of which have big sprawling metro railways, I'm not aware of any big US cities that aren't
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Like it or not, LA just seems to be designed for cars. Other than NYC and DC, both of which have big sprawling metro railways, I'm not aware of any big US cities that aren't designed for cars.
LA wasn't "designed for cars." It used to have an excellent tram system, which was ripped apart in the mid-20th century at the behest of of oil and auto companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It wasn't just a US thing though, London ripped out their light rail, as did Sydney and Brisbane, Australia. These cities are now attempting to rebuild light rail, at enormous expense and with varying success. It's a real tragedy.
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I have an $18k used EV, which I expect to last ten years with very little maintenance. I'd say that's pretty attainable for people making less than $150k/year, since I am one. Especially since this bill would have made it a $14k EV (since it has a tax break even for used cars).
It's called the Inflation Reduction Act (Score:3, Insightful)
But experts say it will not help with inflation at all, and instead it reads like a government spending spree bill handing money out to green initiatives?
WTF?
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But experts say it will not help with inflation at all, and instead it reads like a government spending spree bill handing money out to green initiatives?
[citation needed -- from a reputable source]
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https://budgetmodel.wharton.up... [upenn.edu]
"The Act would very slightly increase inflation until 2024 and decrease inflation thereafter. These point estimates are statistically indistinguishable from zero, thereby indicating low confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation."
Oof.
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But experts say it will not help with inflation at all, and instead it reads like a government spending spree bill handing money out to green initiatives?
WTF?
Unlike the government spending spree bill handing over $280 billion [thehill.com] to a few multi-billon dollar international companies.
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All the economists that I know of teach that this sort of massive government spending activity creates more inflation, not less. An odd strategy to say the least.
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instead it reads like a government spending spree bill handing money out to green initiatives
And you would be wrong because it's self-funded with sources "including $313 billion from a 15% corporate minimum tax. They said that would affect around 200 of the country’s largest corporations, with profits exceeding $1 billion, that currently pay under the current 21% corporate rate." [apnews.com] Naturally, a lot of big businesses *cough*Amazon*cough* are against this.
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This is the dumbest hot take I've read in quite some time.
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This is fairly uncontroversial economic truth. Corporate taxes are a disincentive to corporate activity, to simplify a complex issue.
It's a hot take because you have over simplified it. Yes, onerous taxes can reduce economic activity to the point where it is counterproductive. However, 15% isn't even close to that level and to say that 0% tax is good idea (without addressing the _many_ issues in personal finance tax dodging) is absurd in the extreme. You can't even get Republicans to agree on taxing unrealized gains at the same rate that you can barrow against them.
So yeah, it was a really dumb hot take.
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However, 15% isn't even close to that level and to say that 0% tax is good idea (without addressing the _many_ issues in personal finance tax dodging) is absurd in the extreme.
It's so "absurd" that it's being put into practice already at the state level around the country:
https://poole.ncsu.edu/thought... [ncsu.edu]
Here's an OpEd by the not-exactly-conservative Washington Post laying out a case for a zero percent federal corporate tax rate, from way back in 2018:
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Here's another OpEd, t
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it reads like a government spending spree bill
The secret is in redefining words and terms.
The important part is to call it "inflation reduction" act. Whether or not it reduces inflation is obviously irrelevant. Just like we are not in a recession now, because definitions are shifting as necessary.
If it builds out our power grid (Score:2)
The way you reduce inflation is you either crush people who work for a living so they can't spend very much money thereby reducing demand because they have to tighten their belts or you make more stuff for everybody to buy. Companies have figured out that instead of making more
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>The way you reduce inflation is you either crush people who work for a living so they can't spend very much money thereby reducing demand because they have to tighten their belts or you make more stuff for everybody to buy.
Which economists argue that increasing economic activity is a way to fight inflation?
I'm 0 for 3 on this (Score:1)
I can't afford a BEV regardless of the credit, so I won't be needing a charger.
I can't install a PV system because local building codes don't allow them on manufactured housing.
I already replaced my central air conditioner with the least expensive unit I could buy from my wholesaler, last year.
It'd be really nice if the other party could drop their "culture war" bullshit, so politics could actually be a referendum on whether or not we collectively feel this is how our tax dollars should be used. Because as
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You can afford central air conditioning, but you can't afford a BEV? That doesn't sound right. (The Nissan Leaf is $20 btw).
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$20? I'll buy your EV for $20. Unless you mean a Nissan-branded solar energy collector based on chlorophyll technology, in which case, no thanks.
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I missed a k
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You can afford central air conditioning, but you can't afford a BEV? That doesn't sound right. (The Nissan Leaf is $20 btw).
I'm guessing you skipped over the part where I mentioned I bought it wholesale. I work in the HVAC trade, so I only had to pay for the equipment and materials costs out of pocket; I installed the system myself.
Ironically, there's also quite a few direct-to-homeowner HVAC retailers on the internet that are more than happy to sell HVAC equipment to anybody. Their prices generally are pretty close to what I pay wholesale, so if you want a good idea of how much of that installation bid truly goes towards labo
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The next question, why are you so poor
Struggled in school, didn't have rich parents, didn't invest in Bitcoin back when it first was announced, didn't have any rich relatives kick the bucket and leave me a fortune, take your pick. I take solace in the fact that Florida's median single earner income is approximately $29.1k/yr, and by that standard I'm still doing better than literally millions of Florida's other residents.
and bad at managing money?
It's the avocado toast. I really need to give that up, then I'll be able to manage my money [getyarn.io].
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$30k a year should be enough to get a $27k car, though.
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I was led to believe that one shouldn't buy a car whose sticker price is above a third of one's annual income.
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Who led you to believe that?
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Well maybe you should stop buying such expensive doorbells.
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He lives in a mobile home. A BEV is at least (using your example) an order of magnitude more expensive than an AC for his double-wide. Cheaper ones, like he describes, can be around $1.5k.
Nah, I just need to get off the avocado toast and then I can buy a real house and a Tesla. Or so I've been told...
Doesn't penalize China. (Score:3)
Nothing about this penalizes China, it simply does not reward subsidy money to countries without trade agreements. Yes, this means China does not get subsidy money but that is not a penalty.
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It basically excludes Chinese companies and US companies/products that use a lot of Chinese parts or materials.
Exclusion from a benefit is absolutely a form of punishment... think of it as not getting any dessert while all the other kids are allowed to. This is a fairly heavy thumb on the scales that puts China at a disadvantage, without being a direct "punishment" such as sanctions or tariffs that might readily invoke retaliation.
=Smidge=
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It basically excludes Chinese companies and US companies/products that use a lot of Chinese parts or materials.
China is far the only nation that is excluded.
Exclusion from a benefit is absolutely a form of punishment.
I disagree on the basis that there are a LOT of countries that we don't have trade agreements with. This should encourage them to make a trade agreement with the US.
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> China is far the only nation that is excluded.
And?
> I disagree on the basis that there are a LOT of countries that we don't have trade agreements with.
And most of them don't because there ain't much trade happening. China is a MAJOR player in global trade, and to exclude them - even without explicitly naming them - is notable. Sometimes there's just as much meaning in what's not said, y'know?
=Smidge=
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And?
And therefore calling it a penalty is a misnomer.
And most of them don't because there ain't much trade happening. China is a MAJOR player in global trade, and to exclude them - even without explicitly naming them - is notable.
Notable, yes. Penalty, no.
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Sometimes there's just as much meaning in what's not said, y'know?
The implication here is you no longer care about definitions but rather interpretations of intentions which drastically changes the scope of the matter. I could easily say that it penalizes authoritarian nations who not only violate human rights on a daily basis but they take pleasure in doing so. This is a bias interpretation but if we're leaving definitions behind then it has equal merit to your interpretation which I'm not interested in because it's wrong.
It's always something... (Score:1)
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So the real reason for this bill is that so chinese automakers can finally get their foot in the door of the US car market?
It actually would be kind of neat to see cars like the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV [wikipedia.org] made available in the USA. I've been saying for a long time that the USA lacks an affordable EV for people who are on limited budgets.
Sadly, I don't think this bill actually has anything to do with that. It's just giving people who otherwise can already afford an EV, a tax rebate.
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It actually would be kind of neat to see cars like the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV [wikipedia.org] made available in the USA.
That's a cool little car, thanks for the link. It's unlikely it will come to my country either, unfortunately. And we don't even have a domestic auto industry to protect anymore.
"Transformative"! New and Improved! Oooh shiny! (Score:1)
There is nothing, and I mean nothing, "transformative" about yet more corporate welfare handed out by Congress to big donors. This is business as usual, folks. More flat-out market manipulation. This isn't policy, it's a hand-out.
I do wonder when we will all wake up. If there is a genuine market for something, the government needs to do nothing except get out of the private sector's way. Government "investment" like this is a pure drag on the economy. It puts a bullet through the head of the market and forc
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Sometimes the market needs a bit of a push. Like emissions standards. Auto makers bitched and moaned about California setting tougher pollution laws. Then almost as if by magic, auto makers found their cars meeting the standards.
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"Sometimes the market needs a bit of a push" -- and sometimes big business just needs a bit of the ol' payola. Yeah, we get it. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. What's a couple hundred billion between friends?
You don't understand the free market (Score:2)
Free market doesn't mean no Govt interference. It actually means lots of companies competing ie low barrier to enter the market.
Take the Google/Apple duopoly. No free market there. For capitalism to exist in that market, the Govt should intervene.
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Lithium shortage (Score:1)
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Why is there still no EV under $30k for the masses?
The Nissan Leaf is $20k with a federal subsidy [nissanusa.com].
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Why is there still no EV under $30k for the masses?
The Nissan Leaf is $20k with a federal subsidy [nissanusa.com].
Unfortunately that is quite far away from what the vast majority of the North American market is looking for when they are deciding on a vehicle.
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From what I read...the USA has lithium available to be mined:
https://www.usgs.gov/data/lithium-deposits-united-states
https://feeco.com/a-look-at-us-lithium-production/
And some solar energy sites even talk about it while gently touching on touchy topics. Here's an example:
https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/lithium-mining-in-the-united-states
But there is opposition forming:
https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/court-fights-raise-caution-flags-on-green-energy-push
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07112021/
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For my fathers driving habits bits that would not even last a year. For me it would have been 5 when I still used to drive.
it acutally increases MSRP by $7500 (Score:1)
Hope it goes through! (Score:4, Insightful)
Trade war pitched as fighting climate change (Score:2)
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with targeted sanctions in the case of wrongdoing, unfair trade rules, IP theft, or other shenanigans. So yeah, China should be made to suffer. But a blanket rule like this, attacking ALL non-Americans... well... xenophobia, isolationism, and protectionism have never worked out for the best before. How the hell do they think it's going to be all hunky dory now? Hell, asians of all persuasions... not just Chinese... are still being attacked in the streets at the instigation of the p
Solar panels are "easy" to manufacture. (Score:2)
I wouldn't worry about it. China will either keep its costs low and help the world transition to green energy, or their costs will increase and the panel factories will go somewhere else.
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"Why are they not investing in hydrogen?"
Because "the hydrogen economy" is a scam set up by the fossil fuel industry to maintain control of fuel production and distribution, all while not having to give up their established fossil fuel investments because they'd make that hydrogen from natural gas anyway? Completely negating the environmental benefits of course.
Or maybe because hydrogen is so inefficient an energy storage medium that if we did, somehow, produce it entirely through renewable energy, we'd nee
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30% efficiency loss, storage still not solved. Hydrogen is only good for HGVs and planes.
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EVs are not so viable, except for short distances.
I love how people ignore objective reality because they think they can rationally logic their way around it.
News for you bucko, people mostly drive short distances, and electric car range is multiple times what people drive on average in a day. And DC fast charging will charge your car in half an hour every hundred miles, a break you ought to be taking anyway for the safety of other road users.
EVs are completely viable except for a few niche usecases.
I'm su
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Naive. Politics is not about logic. Politics is about directing money to your buddies. They don't care about China, they just care about who gets the money domestically. The China part is just lipstick on the pig to fool the general electorate.