CAFE standards... rolled back

[alwaysFlOoReD]

People are working hard to address that, too.

I really hope that comes to bear fruit that the ordinary human can afford. I'll probably be long dead before that happens tho.

 

[sgtsandman]

I really hope that comes to bear fruit that the ordinary human can afford. I'll probably be long dead before that happens tho.

They will need to figure out a way to make money off of it first and not just the initial sale. Otherwise, even if they get it to work, it will never see the light of day.

 

[Li'l Work Truck]

They will need to figure out a way to make money off of it first and not just the initial sale. Otherwise, even if they get it to work, it will never see the light of day.

I really hope that comes to bear fruit that the ordinary human can afford. I'll probably be long dead before that happens tho.

I would like to see more open source technologies that could allow more people to continue research. Everything seems to be squirreled away. I guess when you're fighting Big Oil, though, that's not the right move.

 

[Bill]

to me a scam is forcing me to pay for some else's pleasure/benefit.

just exactly where did the EV rebate/incentive money come from?

an EV is a good choice for daily commutes, but notice the word "choice"

any guess on who is paying for the electric power grid improvements needed for lots of EVs?

That's not the definition of a scam. I agree on the incentives, and I feel the same way about the cash for clunkers incentives used to bail out the auto industry in 2008. But, I call that corruption.

 

[Bill]

I still think that EV is the future because there is a finite amount of carbon base fuel. Gasoline and deisel are not going to disappear any time soon but the sooner we get to EV the better, IMO.

ICE vehicles aren't going to go away. I think we will see mix of vehicle types in the future with EVs being used for commuting and shopping. Regarding carbon-based fuel, synthetic gasoline is one potential solution. Since the carbon will always be around, it is extracted from the air, biomass, or any other carbon source and used to make a fuel that is chemically the same as gasoline.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Well, we already have a source of fuel that any large landowner can grow... Alcohol. But there is probably regulations limiting the sale of such to the public...

 

[JohnnyO]

I wouldn't call it a scam. I think efficiency is a good think to have. The problem with this, and so much other legislation that is passed, is that the people passing the stuff are far from being subject matter experts on the stuff they vote on, and thus, are unable to to foresee potential unintended consequences. In the case of CAFE standards, the unintended consequence has been a shift away from vehicles that could easily attain 40 to 50 mpg. Whereas, 65 mpg is difficult unless it is a small hybrid. Consumer preference for something like the latter isn't great. The end result is, instead of people commuting in smaller and mid-size vehicles that could get 40 mpg, we no have people driving pickups and SUVs that get less than about 25 mpg on the highway. Many of them are closer to 20 mpg.

Actually a lot of the regulations aren't voted on at all by Congress, they are enacted by activists who insert themselves into government to push their particular agenda. Also these people tend to be in and be educated in the northeast Boston-to-D.C. corridor where EV's and mass transit make sense and have no concept that that won't work for much of the country.
I've been telling people for years about proposed legislation called the REINS Act that would require a vote in Congress for any regulation with a cost of over $100 million. Without that, any deregulation Trump does can be undone by the next Democrat administration.
Also, apparently the required mpg a vehicle has to achieve is partly based on it's "footprint" so it would be impossible for a truck the size of the original Ranger with an ICE engine to get that much mpg. This is another reason why vehicles are getting bigger.
I'm not opposed to EV's, for some people they make sense like if you live someplace where it takes an hour to drive 5 miles, but I disagree with subsidies and forcing them on everyone.
Europe's focus has been on fuel economy and somewhat less on emissions and crash protection.
Photo I took of a pickup truck in Italy. You think that's going to pass current U.S. crash and emissions standards? Not a chance.

 

[JohnnyO]

Well, we already have a source of fuel that any large landowner can grow... Alcohol. But there is probably regulations limiting the sale of such to the public...

Revenooers!!!
It's like, I'm OCD about keeping my vehicles clean. In the summer I hook up two rain barrels to the downspouts on the back of my house and with a cheap electric pump from Harbor Freight that's how I wash our rides. Saves me about $25 a month on my water bill. But there are parts of the country where they make it illegal to collect rainwater.

 

[pjtoledo]

Well, we already have a source of fuel that any large landowner can grow... Alcohol. But there is probably regulations limiting the sale of such to the public...

in addition to the rust belt, I'm also right in the middle of the corn belt.
20 years ago they built a bunch of alcohol processing factories ( giant legal stills ) that since have mostly been shut down, at least in this region.
not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but those shutdowns occurred right about the time government subsidies ended.

Brazil had gone the alcohol route, should be some good info there.

on a side note, back in the 80's & 90's I drove a couple VW diesels that could get into the 50's for mileage.
back then the government was throwing incentives ( ahem, my money ) at electric and other research while telling us diesel owners to eff off.

 

[19Walt93]

in addition to the rust belt, I'm also right in the middle of the corn belt.
20 years ago they built a bunch of alcohol processing factories ( giant legal stills ) that since have mostly been shut down, at least in this region.
not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but those shutdowns occurred right about the time government subsidies ended.

Brazil had gone the alcohol route, should be some good info there.

on a side note, back in the 80's & 90's I drove a couple VW diesels that could get into the 50's for mileage.
back then the government was throwing incentives ( ahem, my money ) at electric and other research while telling us diesel owners to eff off.

Brazil has a lot of sugar car so they can make alcohol much cheaper than we can.
VW should have been banned from ever selling cars in the U.S. after the emissions defeat they built into their diesels was discovered. If the ECM saw steering input the emissions equipment was disabled so they had good power and got good mileage. If the car was on an EPA chassis dyno to measure emissions everything functioned just fine. Sometimes products don't perform as expected, that's just a mistake. They deliberately designed a cheat into their cars because when they were in compliance the cars ran lousy and didn't get good mileage.

 

[JohnnyO]

not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but those shutdowns occurred right about the time government subsidies ended.

Exactly. Without subsidies it's not profitable to use corn to make ethanol to put in gas because it takes more energy to produce said corn than it contributes back in energy.

 

[00t444e]

A scam is a dishonest transaction. What you are describing is something you don't like. Fuel efficiency is real tangible thing. So are EVs. There's nothing wrong with either one. There is something wrong with how both have been implemented in that a group of people who mandated these changes have a poor understanding of fuel economy and physics, and they don't understand that, while and EV is great for someone commuting around town, they aren't well-suited for people who make frequent extended trips. People who make frequent trips want good fuel economy. They are likely not going to want an EV. These mandates ended up causing a backlash. Instead of attempting to force everyone to buy an EV, if they marketed them as a great way commute and run around town, that type of urbanite who doesn't do anything other than drive to work and go to Target on the weekends would have been stepping on each other to buy them.

I don't think you are understanding what I am saying. There is nothing wrong with fuel efficiency or electric vehicles as long as that is what the consumers want. The government making fuel efficiency and EV regulations is absolutely a scam, they have no Constitutional authority to do that. There should be zero government mandate for fuel efficiency.

 

[don4331]

Just because it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it produces than it provides back doesn't necessarily make it uneconomical:

If the energy source/quantity for the production source is significantly less expensive than what the customer is willing to pay for the final product, then you can make a profit.​

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Issue 1 is people (companies) are greedy - they can't necessarily see beyond the next quarterly report (end of subsidies) so don't spend the extra capital to make a solution that is viable long term.​

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Issue 2 is when the competitor's product can be produced/imported for less, it becomes unecomonical. And Big Oil plays games - they won't fight gov't (subsidies) but as soon as they end, they reduce prices (profits) to drive the competition out. Then, they can jack prices up after.​