Young Americans want Chinese EVs!

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by Media_Truth, May 25, 2024.

  1. Media_Truth

    Media_Truth Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It’s disingenuous to just throw up some numbers with no backup.
     
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  2. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's disengenuous not to investigate those numbers. You could have easily verified the information with a few clicks of the mouse.
     
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  3. Media_Truth

    Media_Truth Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Interesting comment from a former naysayer of Chinese EVs, Economist Sue Helper, who has spent decades tracking globalization and auto manufacturing. Note: The Seagull is selling for under $10K in China.

    https://www.npr.org/2024/05/06/1248065838/cheap-chinese-evs-us-buy-byd-electric-vehicles

    But she recently took a Seagull for a test drive in a parking lot in Detroit. (They are not allowed on U.S. streets.)

    "It's impressive," she says. "It's cute."
     
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  4. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    Brandolini’s law mate Brandolini’s law
     
  5. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    The mantra of the denier.
     
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  6. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Typing a dollar amount and two words and pushing the search button is not a huge effort.
     
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2024
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  7. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    upload_2024-6-7_0-30-50.jpeg

    The reviewer ing of the data, analysis, synthesis and evaluation of the links takes time - no this little black duck does not play that game - you make a claim you verify it
     
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  8. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    Nope! Just not going to spend hours disproving bunkum off of pseudoscience websites
     
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  9. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ten seconds is not hours. You don't even know what data was posted, whether it concerned global warming or economics, and whether the information came from a model or compiled measurements.
     
  10. Melb_muser

    Melb_muser Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Plus his anti-union talk + a few other things. What's funny is I don't virulently disagree with many of the things he says. I just think he's dumb for saying them in public.

    Interestingly, I think that it's more than just his reputation. Tesla has slipped and China has risen to the fore. You mentioned BYD, a company that hardly registers in my mind until recently, yet just in the last 48 hours this little known company is beginning to hit headlines in Australia. I was looking forward to an interesting debate about the potential path of infiltration of byd, this conversation is moot. In a fell swoop it's all over. ( But let's see how how reliable they are.)

    https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/c...eft-to-rot-in-aussie-graveyard-045703745.html

    https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/byd-sets-new-sales-record-in-australia

    In Australia we have no affiliation towards Musk either way. So it's obviously more than just politics. The Tesla cars look a bit dated. And the self-driving part has been a continual disappointment. Sometimes very exciting but they have a long way to go.

    The potential for self-driving was the real differentiation, in my view that had cornered the market. It takes real ingenuity and vision and technological mastery to achieve. The rest of the stuff is fairly straightforward. Schlap in motors and a steering wheel, battery and off you go. ICE engines are precision instruments. Only the west and the most highly educated industrialized Asian countries can pull them off really. But a second rate electric car functions perfectly well. Sadly, we love our cheap **** in the West. I honestly thought the number one exception was the car, which we proudly demanded to be A+ quality. Not so it seems.
     
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  11. Melb_muser

    Melb_muser Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    @557

    You may not be particularly interested in this, but I thought I'd just spool it out while I'm thinking about it. And that's the subject of battery safety. Tesla has had a bit of bad press, but actually their batteries are remarkably safe on a per capita basis. I shudder to think about the quality control in the Chinese batteries and where this will lead.

    My interest comes from my significant knowledge of all things bike. I am a regular cyclist and I have an e-bike, so, of course being an attentive hobbyist I am up-to-date with all the e-bike news. I'm sure you might have even seen articles about apartments burning down and caused by ebike batteries. They are illegal to take on a plane for example. Now the major manufacturers: Yamaha, Bosch, Shimano manufacture every component of that battery in-house, or very closely monitored.. The reason? Safety. They absolutely don't want to leave anything to chance. Prior to this they were absolutely not experts on battery manufacturing. But they had to become that. So they have invested hugely in in-house and "out-house" safety testing and manufacturing to meet the most rigorous standards. These batteries are expensive! But all this engineering effort guarantees an exceptional level of design and safety.

    However, there has been a flood of cheap ebikes made elsewhere, in particular China. They are seductively powerful on paper but don't seem to last very long. Also:

    “According to anecdotal reporting from some fire departments, such as FDNY, many e-bikes fires have resulted from those made with low quality components (eg batteries made with inadequate quality control or products that have not been certified by an independent testing laboratory).”

    https://www.techradar.com/news/e-bike-fires-why-they-happen-and-how-you-can-prevent-them

    I think that's all I'll say. We'll see! I'm not going to prejudge the Chinese cars. But I'm not holding my breath either.
     
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2024
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  12. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    Soooo - you don’t read and evaluate what you find on the internet?
     
  13. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why would you conclude that?
     
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  14. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    The mantra of the denier, again.
     
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  15. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    Denying what? Give me one good reason why I should spend one minute of my time on crap on a site that is rated as “strong pseudoscience” and has been caught out time and again misrepresenting actual science. Call me what you like but it will not change my mind
     
  16. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You have no idea on what the actual issue is?
     
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  17. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    I doubt you know what site is in play. You're just denying by knee-jerk.
     
  18. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    It is a huge risk for any prominent business person to take unpopular positions publicly. I don’t think Musk gives a crap though. Anyone who spends $40B to advance his beliefs on free speech isn’t particularly concerned about the money side of the equation. I kind of admire that. Most billionaires fly more under the radar trying to preserve their wealth at all costs. Saying what’s popular and safe.

    Some folks have a love affair with BYD and other Chinese companies. I don’t get it. It’s run by a CCP party member with ties to Xi. It’s highly subsidized by the CCP. It’s screwing their workers.


    https://www.reuters.com/business/au...ar-brunt-price-war-fallout-widens-2023-09-05/

    They blame Tesla for starting a price war, but it looks like Tesla is paying double the wages of Chinese car companies in China.

    When compared to other EV manufacturers BYD is bottom of the totem pole for human rights as well as environmental responsibility.


    https://leadthecharge.org/scorecards/

    upload_2024-6-7_17-29-7.jpeg
    upload_2024-6-7_17-29-48.jpeg


    Yep, it’s all about cheap ****. The climate “conscious” don’t care that BYD stinks on the environmental and human rights front. It’s very strange.

    It will be interesting to see what the quality is of the BYD stuff. I’d guess not great if they are paying such low wages.
     
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  19. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not when you think about the mentality of typical persons on the Left. They want their consumer symbols of being a "socially conscious" good person. But they don't want to personally have to pay lots more money.

    With this whole environmental "Global Warming" movement and push for electric cars at all costs, they've sort of pushed themselves back into a corner.
    This is something they HAVE TO have. It's too late to try to go back on it. But at the same time, all the more affluent progressives already have their electric cars, but unfortunately two-thirds of these progressive supporters do not have the financial means to so easily afford a new electric car.
    So the idea of a cheap car coming from China is the only way out, the only door remaining to them.

    Think about the irony. The MAJORITY of these progressives who support wanting the government to force electric cars on the population HAVE NOT individually decided to buy an electric vehicle themselves.

    If you ask them, they've convinced themselves that, somehow, only through government forcing the whole population to have electric cars will these electric cars become affordable for them to be able to buy one.
    Mostly a lot of unrealistic wishful thinking, if you ask me.

    Cognitive dissonance and a whole lot of hypocrisy.

    To point out a parallel, remember how under the Obamacare push a lot of them thought that by forcing everyone to buy health insurance, it would somehow make it cheaper?

    To many it may sound absurdly illogical, but this is the inclination of social collectivism. 'I cannot solve my individual problem, but can solve the problem as a collective group'
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2024
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  20. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks, I don’t know much about the bike fires. That’s a bit concerning. Do you know what voltage these bikes are running on? Myself and everyone I know uses 18-20 volt lithium ion batteries in cordless tools daily. We charge and discharge and slam them around in tool boxes and pickups and tractors and I’ve never heard of any burning or blowing up. Maybe it happens but it can’t be common because these cordless tools far outnumber e-bikes. By a wide margin. Either it’s a voltage difference or a quality control issue or maybe both.

    Of course the tools we are using are like Shimano. Reputable companies that can’t sell dangerous junk. Maybe the off brand tools do burn up. I’ll have to look into that.


    My biggest problem with cheap Chinese EV batteries and EVs from companies like CATL and others is the environmental impact they have.

    CATL gets large subsidies from the CCP.



    CATL is ramping up production in Indonesia.


    https://www.greencarcongress.com/2023/12/20231229-indonesia.html

    The increased EV production activity in Indonesia is ballooning coal based CO2 emissions.


    https://news.mongabay.com/2023/08/c...urn-even-more-fossil-fuel-for-green-tech/amp/


    The real kicker is we are also subsidizing Indonesia to reduce coal use for grid power.

    https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/indonesia/

    What is the JETP you ask?

    https://greennetwork.asia/news/what-is-just-energy-transition-partnerships/


    The US is chipping in.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/co...ln-move-indonesia-away-coal-power-2022-11-15/

    Are we starting to put it all together? Indonesia is taking $20B to get coal out of electricity generation. They take the $20B. To circumvent coal grid power they take money from China to build captive coal plants off grid to smelt and perform other operations for EV production. Indonesia ends up INCREASING coal emissions by 50%. But because it’s captive coal and off grid we still come through with $20B in incentives and subsidies.

    It’s a win for China. They get a bunch of raw materials processed with coal while keeping the CO2 emissions off their balance sheet. It’s a win for Indonesia. They get money from China, the US, Japan, etc. to actually INCREASE coal use by 50%. The JETP wins. They get to show a reduction in grid power in Indonesia from coal. The US wins. We get to puff out our chests by showing how great the JETP is.

    Oh wait. There is one loser. The environment. Coal emissions increase as we’ve seen above.

    Rainforests get destroyed. Local inhabitants are displaced and negatively impacted by pollution and lack of resources. Oceans are polluted. Local erosion increases.


    https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/i...environment-and-human-rights-report-says/amp/

    https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/...tion-nickel-mines-clearing-indonesian-forests

    https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/r...g-takes-its-toll-on-indonesias-spice-islands/

    They say to make an omelette you must crack some eggs. :)

    But man, with all that going on I just can’t understand people’s complete adoration for China and cheap Chinese EVs. I suppose they just don’t know what’s really going on. That makes one ask…..why don’t they?

    Cheap **** always comes with a cost somewhere. I’ll bet the cheap e-bikes have a sordid environmental and human rights history just like cheap Chinese EVs.
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2024
  21. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    You’re not wrong. There’s definitely a disconnect between what they say they want and what they do. A lot of virtue signaling.

    Most of these folks don’t know where energy they use comes from or how it’s really used. They will virtue signal by saying they walked to the store instead of driving. But they utilized more fossils fuel walking than if they drive their ICE car in many cases. If reducing emissions was the goal they could be more effective by driving to the store and buying less foods full of fossil fuel inputs.

    But stuff like that never crosses their minds because they live in a world not based on reality. Instead they exist in a non reality created for them by those they see as their betters—authorities to appeal to. They are so out of touch they don’t realize walking requires energy inputs!

    How can you expect such folks to be logical about EVs or any other aspect of climate/climate change? Or health insurance? Or authoritarianism?
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2024
  22. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The latest argument I'm hearing from them goes something like this. "30% of the electric power being generated comes from renewable sources, so that's still better than the 0% in gas-powered cars"
    Of course this doesn't even count the efficiency loss of having to first convert those fossil fuels into electric power, and then transmitting that electric power over a long distance, and then lastly some efficiency loss again in the electric motor.
    And doing all this to reduce total fossil fuel emissions by only 30% at what cost?

    And most of these progressives seem to wishfully think the country will soon get to 100% renewable generation eventually, so they should start forcing the electric cars on society now. That sounds like the cart coming before the horse, to me.

    (And what are the electric power prices going to actually be at that point, when it eventually becomes 100% renewable? I suspect it's going to end up being significantly more expensive than the fuel used in current cars.

    Not only that but electric cars are currently being subsidized because they do not have to pay fuel taxes. If everyone were to switch to electric cars, they would start having to somehow place an additional tax to fund maintaining roads)
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2024
  23. 557

    557 Well-Known Member

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    True, they never figure in the inefficiency of generating the power for EVs.

    Any cost is justified—until you mention nuclear. Then it’s too damn expensive. Saving the planet just doesn’t justify THAT cost.
     
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  24. Media_Truth

    Media_Truth Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good to know that you’ve got it all figured out - everything that all those “Liberals” are thinking.

    First of all, I have more Republican friends and acquaintances who own EVs than liberal friends. Secondly, I know of NO government initiative forcing you to buy an EV. Thirdly, some of us just prefer an EV because of their better performance, efficiency and value.

    Regarding China, I find it interesting that 20-30 years ago, all these Western nations- US, Germany, and Japan were capitalizing mightily on selling cars in China. For many years, Volkswagen was the leading car seller in China, making billions and billions in profit. And now they’re all screaming “ Bloody Murder”.
     
  25. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's because you are ignorant about the topic and uninformed by your news sources.

    Or you're just being disingenuous and playing semantics, around exactly what the word "forcing" means. I hope the latter is not the case.


    Here are just two examples of that happening: The Left is making cars more expensive to pay for forcing people to buy electric cars
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2024

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