Californians Have Bought More Than 1.5 Million Electric Vehicles (arstechnica.com) 128
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: California is far and away the country's largest adopter of plug-in electric vehicles. Because of the state's ability to regulate its own air quality and spurred on by a large economy and plenty of affluent residents, the EV has gained plenty of traction in the Golden State. So much so that last month, California met its goal of having more than 1.5 million clean vehicles on the road two years ahead of schedule. California's Air Resources Board (CARB) began its Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program in 1990 with the intent of ameliorating the state's severe smog problem. By the early years of this century, air quality had improved to the point where CARB could begin using the ZEV regulations to help drive down climate emissions. It has accomplished that with goals that are more ambitious than the ones adopted by the US Environmental Protection Agency at the federal level and despite political interference from the previous administration, which wanted pollution to continue almost unabated.
A number of other states -- Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington -- have adopted CARB's ZEV program within their own borders. But none are as far down the road to EV adoption; in the first three months of this year, 21.1 percent of all new light-duty vehicles bought in California were zero-emissions vehicles. That's a 153-percent increase year on year, according to the nonprofit Veloz. Battery EVs made up the vast majority, with 95,946 sold. Unsurprisingly, Tesla was most well-represented on the sales list, with the Model Y accounting for 33,205 units by itself. (The Model 3 was next, at 19,989 sold in Q1 2023.) BMW was the best of the rest of the OEMs in total sales numbers thanks to healthy plug-in hybrid EV sales.
Los Angeles County was responsible for the highest number of new EVs added to the roads, with 36,670 registered in Q1. Orange County was next, at 15,289 new ZEVs registered, followed by Santa Clara County (11,428 new ZEVs registered). Cumulatively, that brings California to 1,523,966 ZEVs deployed by the end of Q1 2023; for context, there were just 773 ZEVs in total sold before 2011. The state had hoped to reach that milestone by the end of 2025. More than two-thirds of those 1.5 million ZEVs are BEVS -- 1,051,456, according to the California Energy Commission, with most of the remaining cars being plug-in hybrid EVs. The data shows that the hydrogen fuel cell revolution is not really accelerating, though -- only 15,432 have been registered in the state.
A number of other states -- Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington -- have adopted CARB's ZEV program within their own borders. But none are as far down the road to EV adoption; in the first three months of this year, 21.1 percent of all new light-duty vehicles bought in California were zero-emissions vehicles. That's a 153-percent increase year on year, according to the nonprofit Veloz. Battery EVs made up the vast majority, with 95,946 sold. Unsurprisingly, Tesla was most well-represented on the sales list, with the Model Y accounting for 33,205 units by itself. (The Model 3 was next, at 19,989 sold in Q1 2023.) BMW was the best of the rest of the OEMs in total sales numbers thanks to healthy plug-in hybrid EV sales.
Los Angeles County was responsible for the highest number of new EVs added to the roads, with 36,670 registered in Q1. Orange County was next, at 15,289 new ZEVs registered, followed by Santa Clara County (11,428 new ZEVs registered). Cumulatively, that brings California to 1,523,966 ZEVs deployed by the end of Q1 2023; for context, there were just 773 ZEVs in total sold before 2011. The state had hoped to reach that milestone by the end of 2025. More than two-thirds of those 1.5 million ZEVs are BEVS -- 1,051,456, according to the California Energy Commission, with most of the remaining cars being plug-in hybrid EVs. The data shows that the hydrogen fuel cell revolution is not really accelerating, though -- only 15,432 have been registered in the state.
Gotta start somewhere (Score:2)
Gotta start somewhere; California seems like a good place. They can work out the details of large-scale adoption.
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I got federal tax rebates from my plug-in hybrid, 2020. CA didn't provide any. So at the state level it's not bribing people. My guess is that they're not compensating for population, so being the most populous state of course it has the most EVs. Tying this to California seems odd. I would like to see per-capita numbers instead though.
Re:Gotta start somewhere (Score:5, Informative)
States with the most electric vehicles registered per 100,000 people:
California (5,694)
Washington (4,279)
Oregon (4,013)
Vermont (3,470)
Hawaii (3,295)
Colorado (2,868)
Maryland (2,817)
Massachusetts (2,742)
Arizona (2,589)
Virginia (2,580)
https://www.usnews.com/news/be... [usnews.com]
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For a little context...
California has over 28 million registered operating vehicles
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Your context is missing context... how does that help clarify anything in the parent's statement?
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1.5 million against 28 million is spitting in the ocean and claiming to raise sea level
1.5 out of 28 is 5% that would absolutely cause a raise in sea level.
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I got federal tax rebates from my plug-in hybrid, 2020. CA didn't provide any. So at the state level it's not bribing people. My guess is that they're not compensating for population, so being the most populous state of course it has the most EVs. Tying this to California seems odd. I would like to see per-capita numbers instead though.
I bought a PHEV in California in 2021. I got the $7.5k federal credit and a $1.5k state rebate (directly to the dealer). I didn't income qualify for the $1k CVRP (which increases to $6.5k for low-income people) or the local utility $1k rebate or the $550 for a home charging station, but I did get the carpool sticker. For most BEVs, there is an additional $1k for the CVRP and $500 for the local utility rebate. California has not been skimpy on EV incentives.
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I must have forgotten it. Not really anxious to pull out old tax returns. Definitely there was no utility incentive, and I can't get a home charging station which seems pointless anyway since I can plug it into the wall. I skipped the carpool sticker.
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I got federal tax rebates from my plug-in hybrid, 2020. CA didn't provide any. So at the state level it's not bribing people.
Time is money, so they actually are, at least for a little while longer, in the form of carpool lane stickers. That program used to be a good enough reason by itself for some people to buy an EV, at least up until they got so many EVs in the carpool lanes that they could no longer meet the federal carpool lane speed requirements, and started converting them all to toll-based express lanes.
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EV's have always been popular with Silly Valley Tech Bros who can easily afford them.
What I'm personally waiting for is a reasonably priced long-range EV. A vehicle with a 300-mile range that costs $30,000 would work, but it seems that most of them still cost at least $10,000 more than that if you want that kind of range.
Re:Gotta start somewhere (Score:5, Informative)
EV's have always been popular with Silly Valley Tech Bros who can easily afford them.
What I'm personally waiting for is a reasonably priced long-range EV. A vehicle with a 300-mile range that costs $30,000 would work, but it seems that most of them still cost at least $10,000 more than that if you want that kind of range.
The following EVs aren't exactly at your specs, but they're close: Chevy Bolt, $25.6k, 259 miles. Hyundai Kona, $33.5k, 258 miles. Not quite 300 miles, but the base model Tesla and competitors aren't either. The Bolt qualifies for the $7.5k federal credit and maybe state and local rebates, which means it would only cost $18k and is cheaper than most entry-level gas sub-compacts. If you income qualify in California, you would get another $7.5k state rebate, bringing the cost down to around $10.5k. I think that's pretty affordable. You may be wary of the range, but cost would not be an issue.
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Where does the electricity come from? (Score:2)
Burning coal is worse than burning petrol.
Rich Californians buy electric cars because they can then use the car pool lanes on the freeway. Worth every penny.
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Almost no electricity in California is from coal: https://app.electricitymaps.co... [electricitymaps.com]
Re: Where does the electricity come from? (Score:2)
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California is one of those rare areas on the planet where both wind and solar are commercially viable. As a point of comparison, California invested something like 1/10th into wind and solar compared to Germany, and is getting at least three times the electricity.
With weather-related intermittent power sources like wind and solar, your location is probably the single most important factor in what's viable. Most of the landmass on the planet that is populated, neither wind nor solar are viable. US is excepti
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Burning coal is worse than burning petrol.
Agreed, which is why California uses almost zero coal. The only coal power (about 3% of our use in 2021) was from imports from other states that still use coal.
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Yes, but not in US. There was a major case of this happening in China a bit earlier, where corona-induced slump in sales and lack of rebound due to poor economy caused several regional governments to issue massive stacking credits on top of central government ones. There was also a significant pullout of foreign partners out of those 50-50 deals that international car companies need to enter the market, so a lot of these joint ventures ended undercapitalized and conducting effectively fire sales of massive
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Considering I've literally seen wechat videos of it? I don't see a reason to believe that many random Chinese posting them have a grand conspiracy to build massive props to build an elaborate hoax.
Do you?
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The bolt may be rated at 259 miles, but you take a drive like that.
I dare you
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The model Y long range (330 miles) is like 45 - 7,500 federal tax credit.
So for 38, that's a lot of car nowadays. There are not so many cars at 30k anymore, though good job finding some.
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and the bolt is being discontinued
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/26... [npr.org]
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You could buy a used Model 3 and get that.
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...And have Elon turn off features because you're not the original buyer
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Are you allowing for adjustment for inflation while you're waiting? For example, if you set the $30,000 goal ten years ago, that would be equivalent to $38,870 today. In other words, if it costs $30,000 today, it would have been a $23,154 car ten years ago. So, the prices might drop relative to inflation, but never actually go down in raw numbers.
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The technology to make batteries that do that doesn't exist outside of "it'll change the world"
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https://www.notateslaapp.com/n... [notateslaapp.com]
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Because in current economic climate, average people cannot afford cars nearly as much as they could in the past.
While rich still have enough income to maintain their purchasing levels.
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Except that there's not much left to drop. We're seeing a massive demand slum globally in the wake of recession driven by demographic crisis in most developed and many developing countries, coupled with covid money printing. Many of the vehicular discounts have in fact been seen across the world, with PRC of all places leading the pack. We've seen up to 60% discounts in China on new cars, because after covid there are massive unsold fleets coupled with lack of demand.
There much of demand was generated by la
Re: Gotta start somewhere (Score:2)
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Actually, China is the biggest user of electric cars. By far.
Wait - hybrids count as zero emissions? (Score:2)
BMW was the best of the rest of the OEMs in total sales numbers thanks to healthy plug-in hybrid EV sales.
Do they count only when they plug in, rather than when they use their engines?
Re: Wait - hybrids count as zero emissions? (Score:2)
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I believe they count plug-ins because depending on battery size and daily mileage needs plug-ins can offer an almost BEV like experience.
Yes, I had a friend who said that they buy gas for their plug-in hybrid roughly once a year.
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For me, it's about once a month. At the height of the pandemic, I was getting 3 months on a tank.
But I've only got about a 20 mile electric range, that's enough unless I'm going across town.
It's great as a transitional car, I'm still going full electric next time. And the way this car is holding up, that's probably several years away.
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Yes, I expect it depends on whether you take trips, or just use it for short commutes and grocery runs.
When I got the Tesla, I was thinking, no range worries, we'll use my wife's car if we take thousand mile trips, and we won't need charge stops. Turns out, though, I discovered I actually like the planned regular stops on long trips. We preferentially use the Tesla on longer trips, and my wife's car for just small bopping around town.
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For people who use them correctly, they're great, providing emissions-free well over 80% of all driving in most cases. Unfortunately studies have shown that many plug-in hybrid owners never plug them in. This has been particularly a problem for corporate fleet vehicles, where tax credits pushed the PHEVs, but drivers get reimbursed for gas but not electricity if they charge at home, so they never do. There are also many PHEV owners who just view them as fancy hybrids and don't bother plugging them in.
The
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It's hard to find a mild hybrid in the USA. Most of them are either full-hybrid but non plug-in, or plug-in. They have many more mild hybrid options in other countries.
Non-plug-in full hybrids should never have existed, what a waste.
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Yeah it'd be pretty dumb to buy one if you can't charge it at home. I can't, so I'm sticking with ICE for now.
But I had a PHEV Volvo rental and found it a bit annoying to deal with. It's probably fine if you only go homework and plug in at the end of the day. But having to look for and mess with chargers at every stop I made just to keep the battery topped up was a pain in the ass and despite mostly making trips within EV-only range, at the end of the rental I saved barely anything over a reasonably efficie
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Massachusetts electricity prices are similar. EVs are still a huge win here. My Model 3 gets about 4 miles per kWh so if electricity is .22/kWh and gas is $3.50/gallon, then that's the same price as a car getting 63mpg.
Check my math: 3.50 / (.22 / 4)
Even if it's only 3 miles per kWh, that's over 47mpg equivalent.
But your point is valid in that the psychology of plugging in a PHEV in California might be to skip it due to the electricity costs, even if the math says otherwise.
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In fact they are so high that buying gasoline might be cheaper than charging at home.
Even at our incredibly high electric rates, it's still cheaper to plug in at home, and that's assuming you don't switch to an overnight charging plan that has cheaper rates. And even looking at the cheapest gas I could find in California:
$0.43/kwh at 4 miles/kwh gets $0.108/mi, vs.$3.89/gal at 35mpg gets $0.111/mi. And this is a best case in favor of gas.
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My mom and a friend both have PHEVs, and they both put in a tank about twice a year. Most people drive their car locally 98% of the time, and take a few longer trips here and there.
I think it's a transitory technology, but still a very effective one at reducing gas usage.
Tracks with high median income (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the top states for EV sales track with median income which is natural, EV's are still in luxury car price ranges, those same states likely also had high sales of Lexus, MB, Cadillac, etc.
If the planned output of batteries does come online in the next 5-8ish years then EV's can hit price parity with ICE and the market will really start to shift.
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There are very affordable EVs now. Anyone buying a new Civic can get an EV or plug-in hybrid Anyone buying an Acura certainly can and save some money. Anyone driving a tricked out Ford F150 that they use to commute to work and who is bitching about how expensive EVs are is a hypocrite.
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An Ioniq 5 starts at $42k
Model 3 $40k
Model Y $46k
F150 Lighting starts $40k
And thats before any options, range packs etc
A 2023 Civic still starts at $25k to say nothing of recently used.
Yes, this is all changing quickly, especially as more used EV's hit the market and the track record for used EV reveals itself more (whereas the Civic has a decades long superp track record).
For the middle to upper middle class, yes, they can consider an EV fairly, for sure, they can already consider cars north of $40k but fo
Re:Tracks with high median income (Score:4, Informative)
You listed two Teslas and Ioniq, those are top end luxury EVs. And you probably haven't seen the $90K F150s :-)
Chevy Bolt, $26K, Nissan Leaf, $28K, Kia plugin hybrid, $27K, Subaru Crosstrek, $25K.
Yeah, they sound more expensive than they used to be - but all auto prices have zoomed in the last couple of years.
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In Europe we have even more affordable options. VW has been doing some aggressive offers on its ID.3 range, and we have Chinese brands like MG that offer really good value for money and very nice cars.
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> the Ioniq 5 would be an example of a volume car
> and Model 3 would be premium
I wouldn't exactly call the Model 3 "premium" considering its (lack of) fit and finish. Sorry, not sorry, but nothing that costs in the class of an actual 3-series should have the interior, rattles, leaks, and panel gaps that the model 3 has. And I've had the maga types insist to me the the Ioniq 5 is an almost-unknown low-volume "libtard car" versus anything mass-market or volume. Never mind the fact that I see the thin
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The average new car costs almost $50k so all the EVs you listed are below that: https://www.caranddriver.com/n... [caranddriver.com]
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> F150 Lighting starts $40k
And the plain old non-electric F-series starts at $34K for the base trim and can easily be configured past $100K, well into Model S, Supra, and M3 territory. That same dinosaur-burning F-series is, and has for many years been, the best selling "car" in the US for more years I can remember. This "working class hero" crap you're selling is... well... a load of steaming dingos' kidneys..
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F150 Lighting starts $40k
Try $60k. At $40k I might switch to a lightning, and I'm not even a truck guy.
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Till then, not interested.
I don't want a family truckster, give me something FUN to drive and enjoy.
Oh and I need range too...
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Too many seats and look like family cars.
Looking for a true sports car type vehicle....something long the lines of the original Tesla roadster.
Re: Tracks with high median income (Score:2)
I wish Honda would have made the "Sports EV" concept they teased on the E platform.
https://www.driving.co.uk/news... [driving.co.uk]
Re: Tracks with high median income (Score:2)
If also drive the hell out of an Alpha Ace, but that has no chance of actual production. https://youtu.be/7Mkpiknn4QA [youtu.be]
A race? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Wow, what a load of blatantly partisan garbage (Score:4, Informative)
Horseshit.
When the truth fits... (Score:2)
This is the most hilarious "no shit Sherlock" post I've read in a while:
Trump clearly wants pollution, if money can be made from
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Trump is a bad person..
Check:
Trump: "If Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her."
...who wants pollution!
Check:
Trump: “We Have Ended the War on Beautiful, Clean Coal”
Electricity is more expensive than gas in CA (Score:2)
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Palo Alto, CA:
Ave gas price = $4.69/gal / 30 mpg = $0.16/mile
Ave elec price = $0.19/kwh / 3.5 mi per kWh = $0.05/mile
Even in the most expensive areas of CA, they have off-peak tariffs (or solar panels on their roof) that can make charging your car even more affordable. Even in San Diego, where the average electric rate is $0.36/kwh, that is still $0.10/mile.
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Biggest issue going forward, is the for-profit power companies in the state (basically the entire state) have gotten together a proposal that effectively kills rooftop solar. Fixed fees, reduced payment for power generated, etc, makes the break even point on purchasing solar unattractive now, and raises electric rates significantly for most people. The cost of batteries for homes with solar makes it even worse. You'd probably never recover the cost during the life of the batteries. Expect the cost per m
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But I guess you are right that you are still ahead until electricity hits $0.60/kwh
taxpayers (Score:2)
Taxpayers in California and all of USA who could not afford EVs have subsidized billions of dollars of EVs for well-to-do Californians, with no discernible effect whatsoever on global warming or world GHG levels.
No surprise. (Score:2)
Good luck getting people in Texas to adopt.
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I'll just leave this LA Times editorial here: https://www.latimes.com/opinio... [latimes.com]
There are plenty of problems with public charging infrastructure, even in EV-friendly California. It doesn't affect the affluent as much because they generally have a garage that can have a Level 2 charger installed.
If most of your driving is confined to, say the SoCal metro-plex or Bay Area and you can charge at home every night you're not nearly as inconvenienced as an apartment-dweller that has to compete for a public charger.
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...and there are zero issues with public charging.
As an EV user in California, I nearly spit out my coffee all over my screen reading that.
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Good luck getting people in Texas to adopt.
Adoption is more of an individual choice than a state choice when you get down to it, and though we may label states as blue or red, the fact is that even in the deepest blue states there are still large populations of Republicans, and even in the deepest red states there are still large populations of Democrats. Not enough to win an election, but still plenty to vote with their wallet.
According to 538 [fivethirtyeight.com], California leans has a partisan lean to the Left of roughly 25%, whereas Texas has a partisan lean to the
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I mean, I'm 100% sure that the transition both started earlier and has had more traction in California than it did in Texas, but it's gaining traction here too. I'm seeing more and more Teslas on the road every day, and even saw my first Rivian a few weeks back. I'm sure I'm driving by some of the more "boring" EVs that I'm less familiar with (e.g. Chevy Bolt) too, but I can't use the car maker's logo from a distance to know if it's an EV or not.
We're thinking about our own next vehicle at the moment and ga
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I drive 40 min to work at 70Mph, then walk 5-8 miles in a factory every day, then drive 40 min back
so fuck you
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I drive 40 min to work at 70Mph, then walk 5-8 miles in a factory every day, then drive 40 min back
so fuck you
Just think how much fitter you'd be walking 93 more miles every day!!
Re: So they will all still die of heart disease (Score:1)
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You were lucky! When I was 'lad...
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I'm calling bullshit on this one. Everybody knows that you're supposed to drink bleach, not acid.
Re: So they will all still die of heart disease (Score:2)
No you inject the bleach, then you drink the acid to counteract the effects of injecting bleach.
Then you snort bicarbonate of soda to counteract the effects of drinking acid. Then you...
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The actual event I was referencing was a few kids actually drinking bleach because that was a tiktok challenge for a short while before it got banned. Not the manufactured controversy about what Trump said about bleach.
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Re: So they will all still die of heart disease (Score:2)
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move where? to a 2 bedroom shithole apartment in the middle of the ghetto that cost more than my house?
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You first, fatty.
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But an equally large portion of the country has offices and housing spread out over larger distances, so a car becomes a necessity.
There is a misconception here. Cars were not invented so that offices and housing could be spread out over larger distances.
Cars were invented, and allowed people to travel further for the same amount of time. It then allowed offices (or work in general) and housing to be spread out over larger distance. It is almost the same thing, but not quite.
There was a study (sorry, no time to find the link atm, but you can google it I am sure) that showed that the human brain is "made" to find ~1h hour of commute per
Re: So they will all still die of heart disease (Score:2)
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Can't wait to see what happens to all those used lithium batteries which will require replacing in this time period. Will they be recycled,
Yes.
Electric cars have enough lithium to be worth the cost of recycling.
If you're worried about lithium-battery waste, it's your phones and cameras and tablets and iPods and the dozen other tiny rechargeable electronic trinkets you have. For those, it's probably not worth the trouble of taking the batteries out to recycle them.
...Of course, we will see how CA hits into a brick wall, when tensions with China heat up so much they embargo lithium exports to the US, and for now, China is the only game in town in that department.
Nope. Dominant, but not the only refiner.
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Nope, it's well worth taking the entire device to an e-waste facility to be broken apart and recycled. The lithium batteries get recycled (the problem most recyclers have is they don't have enough raw materials - used cells - to process economically. So t
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This is either some C-grade trolling or legit unadulterated copium.
There are already 10 year old Tesla's still going with 10-20% battery degredation, and that's a decade old battery tech. The stuff that will be coming out of the couple dozen or so battery and EV plants in the US alone? "A phone with no buttons? Just screen?. Pfft a toy for rich people, it'll never work"
All new tech and paradigm shifts will have their growing pains but these are 2018 talking points and in 2023 you are really sounding like
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"A phone with no buttons? Just screen?. Pfft a toy for rich people, it'll never work"
I fairness, in 1994 all cellphones were pretty much toys for rich people, even the ones with buttons rather than just a screen.
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Just bought an EV. If the battery doesn't still hold 80% charge after 8 years of use they will consider it a fault and replace it free of charge. Actually, if it's like when we picked the car up it will be full of charge, but I digress.
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Fair cop.
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...including the cost of time for biannual maintenance visits...
The what?