GM Electric Cars / China / UAW

[CharonPDX]

You sure? Here's how easy it is to brick a Tesla | VentureBeat

Yeah, I was floored by that - until I found out it wasn't true. At worst, it just needs to be plugged in for a while until the power management system resets.

 

[CharonPDX]

The hilarious part about electric cars is that they are the least "green" of any vehicles available. The reason? The source of the electricity to charge them.

Sorry, that idea has been debunked.

1. Even if the electric car were charged with electricity 100% generated by coal, the efficiencies of an electric over burning gasoline would make it (slightly) better for the environment. And as it is, people who tend to buy electric cars also tend to be the ones who self-select renewable power.

2. An EV can be "cleaned up" by the electric utility changing their power generation - a gas car will always be just as dirty unless you physically modify it to take different fuel. (Diesel has the benefit of being able to run on biodiesel.) So even if you DID have the electricity generated by just coal now, the car will get cleaner as energy generation changes to cleaner sources. (If you are a Portland General Electric customer, your energy has gotten progressively more "green" every year, even without choosing one of their "green" plans - and when Boardman coal plant closes in a few years, it will improve even more.)

3. The battery argument is also false. The components of modern batteries (Nickel Metal Hydride and Lithium Ion) are by and large recycled, and are fully recyclable. Yes, there is extra effort to manufacture the car, which makes the "manufacturing environmental cost" higher, but it is more than made up for over the life of the car. One study at the time the Prius was released said that the car's manufacturing released 50% more greenhouse gas than manufacturing an equivalent gas-only car, but that the difference was more than made up by the 100,000 kilometer mark. My Prius has 110,000 miles on it, so I have more than made up that difference. And the price difference was more than made up two years ago. (Yes, I've kept a spreadsheet.)

(And I am all for nuclear power, by the way. There are new reactor designs available that are far safer and produce far less nuclear waste than existing designs - we need to upgrade our infrastructure. Nuclear + Renewable is the way to go.)

 

[gunnails]

The hilarious part about electric cars is that they are the least "green" of any vehicles available. The reason? The source of the electricity to charge them.
Nationwide in the U.S.,...
Roughly 50% of them are coal powered.
Another 20% are natural gas powered. (<-this actually comes the closest to being "green")
Nuclear provides another 20%
The dams that local "green" fishermen love to hate provides the power for 6%.
1.1% are driven by petroleum anyway.

So, 3% of these "green" vehicles are being run on "green" power.

The enviro damage from battery making and disposal costs are more than enough to wipe that out.

The disconnect(s) in the liberal mind are often insurmountable.

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Yet none of the cost of charging an electric vehicle goes to the middle east. unlike gas or diesel powered vehicles.

That is an awesome graph, I'm going to steal it and post it somewhere else on the web.

 

[PhantomWorks]

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Yet none of the cost of charging an electric vehicle goes to the middle east. unlike gas or diesel powered vehicles.

No it goes to Exxon-Mobile... Or Shell.
American oil companies are THE only real reason why we are paying more and more for gas! Every time the gas goes up, independent on blamed reason it does, Exxon et al set new world records in profits... NOT a coincident.
But hey, you might be very wealthy and own tons of stocks in the oil industry that you partly sell off every quarter...

 

[gunnails]

No it goes to Exxon-Mobile... Or Shell.
American oil companies are THE only real reason why we are paying more and more for gas! Every time the gas goes up, independent on blamed reason it does, Exxon et al set new world records in profits... NOT a coincident.
But hey, you might be very wealthy and own tons of stocks in the oil industry that you partly sell off every quarter...

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Oil is a commodity, do the exon/mobil/shell even set the price or is it the futures market that determines the price?

Not arguing, I wish to learn.

I like cars, gas or electric, I own ICE cars, but I still think electric cars are cool and have certain advantages and disadvantages over gas cars.

My wife spends about $120 a month to commute in her $20,000 car, If we replaced it with a electric car then she would spend about $20 a month in electricity in a $40,000 car, so I don't see the payback for us as we like to replace her car every 4 to 5 years. Of course as gas prices rise the pay off could be sooner, maybe if gas got to the $6 to $7 range.

But I still like electric cars, full torque and horsepower completely through the power band.

 

[EZLivin]

I don't know what kind, but there will likely be an all-electric vehicle in our garage one day (hopefully sooner than later). The reason is I don't want to be limited to only one fuel type. Might have to consider natural gas too since the US has that in abundance (haven't researched it though).

I guess not everyone realizes about 85% of world oil production is from national oil companies (state-owned), not companies like Exxon-Mobile, Shell, etc. Pricing power is in the hands of the nationals. The price is bound to increase as the value of the $US decreases. What people also don't seem to realize is there is a price/demand balance that the nationals try to achieve. Too high and demand falls off. $100 has been the desired ceiling for the Saudis, but as the $US falls oil prices worldwide can do nothing but increase. Also, the cost of finding new supply only increases each year, so obvousely the price is going to march steadily higher. There are other factors at work too (antiquated and limited refinery capacity for example). There is a speculative aspect to short-term fuel price spikes, but that works to the downside as well as to the upside. Naturally nobody complains when spes drive prices lower than they should be (I sure don't). Btw, governments make more on gasoline (through taxation) than any other entity in the supply chain.

 

[rufus]

No it goes to Exxon-Mobile... Or Shell.
American oil companies are THE only real reason why we are paying more and more for gas! Every time the gas goes up, independent on blamed reason it does, Exxon et al set new world records in profits... NOT a coincident.
But hey, you might be very wealthy and own tons of stocks in the oil industry that you partly sell off every quarter...

<broken link removed>



The map above from API shows gasoline taxes by state (combined local, state and federal), which range from a low of 26.4 cents per gallon in Alaska to a high of of 66.1 cents per gallon in California, averaging 48.1 cents per gallon across all states.

How does that compare to oil company industry profits per gallon?

According to this post on Exxon Mobil’s Perspective Blog , “For every gallon of gasoline, diesel or finished products we manufactured and sold in the United States in the last three months of 2010, we earned a little more than 2 cents per gallon. That’s not a typo. Two cents.”

The chart below shows the difference graphically:



So the oil companies are bad because they find oil, then drill, pump, refine, transport, and sell it for a small profit ($0.02 per gallon) and that is somehow a bad thing. But the government does absolutely nothing and makes, on average, 24.05 times more "profit", and that's somehow good. :huh:

 

[EZLivin]

I just listened to this discussion on the current situation re: oil prices. It is the first 25 minutes, and was done this week. Excellent overview.

“$5 Dollar Gasoline, the Petro Business Cycle, and the Education of Bill O’Reilly”

Financial Sense Newshour | FINANCIAL SENSE