I guess it depends on what you consider artifacts. 7% of every human who has ever lived is alive today. You can say many of the things people have owned are lost and some might be valuable to someone in the future. So much of our lives are online. I wonder how much of it will survive 100 years.
Hopefully not a lot. My guess is that onlyfans/pornhub and other assorted porn sites have been backup multiple times by multiple people. The rest of the internet is in the hands of the internet archive.
Europe has a lot of things that are not reflected in GDP: health outcomes, good food, nice places to live, etc. There’s a reason why it’s a top vacation destination. China is not really comparable as most people would choose to live in Europe over China.
The US is more comparable, and is a better place to invest than Europe. But “competitiveness” is usually a euphemism for “cut wages and benefits”. I am skeptical about this.
Biden is doing everything in his power to eliminate the argument that trump is worse/less responsible/more bellicose.
As a trans person, I still hope genocide joe wins for my own personal safety. but I’m also aware that safety provided by dems is tenuous at best. Especially if we decide to fry the planet over Taiwan and Crimea.
Just saying, it may be wise to engage in acts of patience given the risk of the current climate. Hold him accountable after we get over the current hurdle. Like, keep it in your back pocket. We should hold advantages where we can and come together. That’s all. A sorta strategic focus to eliminate issues one at a time without dividing energy or people. Because I think the larger opinion is the same, we just differ on what to focus on first.
As a fellow trans person, I don’t think Biden can guarantee my safety because I’m in a red state. He seems to be allowing red state anti-trans legislation without much pushback. At best he might not make the problem even worse, but he won’t protect us.
I have a pay-as-you-go insurance in Canada, and they explicitly say that they “… will not use the data to cancel or refuse an automobile insurance policy; to apply surcharges to your current or future automobile policy or for marketing purposes.”.
Apparently, they only use it to confirm the mileage. It does capture your GPS tracking, and will alert you of any issues, like a low car battery (which I’ve had a few times because I drive so little!).
Honestly, in this case, I don’t care. I drive too infrequently, and this saves our family thousands a year, so it’s a net benefit for me, and I choose to opt-in.
“thousands a year”? How? I thought driving in germany was expensive and I spend about 2 grand a year with most of that being gasoline. My car is decently powerful and I’m a young man, so I’d expect my insurange to be rather high in price. It’s also ‘Vollkasko’, meaning that all damage to my car is covered as well, regardless of how or why that damage occured
Between my wife and I, we used to pay a minimum of $150 and $200 per month for a single car. That was what we paid, even if we didn’t move it from the driveway.
With pay-as-you-go, we paid around $250 for last year, and it’ll be less this year.
Our previous insurance was by far the least expensive, so I know it could have been worse. But over the pandemic, where we didn’t drive much, it pissed me off to have to pay insurance and not even need it.
Then, when I started cycling more two years ago, I just stopped using the car for pretty much every trip that’s less than 30 km way.
…and I couldn’t be happier about it. The age of American/European imperialism is coming to an end after centuries of suffering imposed on poorer nations. Not that I have high hopes for China or anything, but it’s HARD to do worse than US or Western Europe…
Fair I retract my statement, but to be fair you do still come across as unconditionally celebrating the collapse of American domination without consideration of what replaces it.
American and Western domination of the world needs to stop but the culture in those places is a lot closer to realizing that and affecting change compared to China doing the same. Let it collapse from within not because a different emperor takes the throne.
Sure, the culture in Europe and America is just about to topple imperialism from within, that’s why we’re assisting to a process of radicalization towards the extreme right wing in all the western world. You have a half of the US voting for a rapist, racist felon (the other alternative being Genocide Joe). You have increasing extreme right wing in Europe, with Melon winning the elections, LePen getting high results, and growing extreme right wing parties such as Vox or AFD.
Imperialism isn’t something imposed by the people, it’s imposed by the elites. It’s a mechanism of elites to perpetuate and increase their power and wealth. It’s not an unintended consequence of capitalism, it’s its very nature. And sadly those elites won’t give up their power without extreme events taking place, look at countries that had revolutions and removed those elites such as the USSR or Cuba, and the conditions in which these revolutions happened. The empire won’t fall from within until the conditions aren’t right, and the conditions could, for example, be a decrease in power over the globe thanks to the elimination of a unique US-Europe hegemony in the globe to be substituted by something else, whatever it is. It’s not gonna be pretty, but reality right now isn’t pretty to most of human population.
Yes and my point is that a revolution within the US whether violent or otherwise is the proper path towards replacing American imperialism. China isn’t coming in to save us and they’re further behind in achieving those goals from within. The United States is not yet as bad as China in terms of enforcing monoculture and limiting radical ideas.
Everyone knows that if the Good Democracy Imperialism of America goes down, the Bad Authoritarian Imperialism of China goes up. Only a Good Guy With Imperialism can stop a Bad Guy With Imperialism. Its called the White Man’s Burden, sweetie. We’re the only ones who can stem the tide of the savage hordes.
This is a stupid reductive parody of my point which is that with all its faults the US is closer to a radical change than China is. I’m interested in “workers of the world unite” not just “i want to be under new management”
Do you think China is closer than the US to a post-national egalitarian society?
Do you think China is closer than the US to a post-national egalitarian society?
Pick your metric. Gini Index? Purchasing Parity? Household debt? Home ownership rate? Union membership? Democratic participation rate? Waste per capita?
There are countries higher than China on all of these measures. But the US can’t come out ahead on a single one.
Ok, American exceptionalist. The legacy of ashes of the US is so far from whatever admittedly bad policy China has had, that even comparing both is ridiculous. In the future, the US will be gazed upon the same way we gaze upon nazi Germany right now. More than a million deaths and millions of lives ruined in the inhumane bombings of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Korea, hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of lives ruined from outright invasion of countries such as Iraq, supporting radical terrorist guerrillas all over the world such as in Afghanistan or Libya, destabilizing and organising coups against democratically elected leaders in countries like Chile (Allende) and Iran (Mosaddegh), banana republics in central America such as in Guatemala, support of fascist dictatorships like that of Pinochet or of Franco, constant militarism and refusing to lower military expenditure in the face of nuclear war against the USSR, sending nuclear missiles to Turkey and refusing to act upon even unilateral attempts during the Gorbachyov era to cool down the cold war… The list is absolutely ENDLESS, I haven’t even mentioned a quarter of all the examples that come to mind. China simply doesn’t have that history. Believing that the US isn’t doing worse than China means you’re absolutely blind to US and western European imperialism (I could bring equal lists of humanitarian crises started by UK, France, Spain, Italy and Belgium).
I know it’s not the fault of American citizens, hence I didn’t accuse them. Talking about American imperialism isn’t saying “American citizens suck”, I’m European myself and I’m fully aware of the actions of my government and the EU. The fact that I’m looking forwards to the end of western imperialism doesn’t mean I wish any evil on the citizens of the west since they’re not to blame for this system. I’m just saying it’s hard to beat US and European imperialism in being evil.
We’ll do the best we can against an extremely well funded and entrenched oligarchy, controlling what we read/see/hear as effectively as possible. Places like Lemmy are sort of a weakness in their systems.
We Americans also have ourselves to look at, as animals it is hard to invite change when our basic needs are mostly met, e.g. our toilets work and we can buy food. We can do better, but it’s a bit like climbing the walls of the maze vs running around within.
Again, I don’t blame the general populace. What you say of “Americans have ourselves to look at”, it’s not that easy. These things don’t happen in a vacuum, the context of Americans and Europeans (and Canadians and Aussies and even Russians) not looking inwards and realising imperialism, isn’t a consequence of lack of self-awareness that these countries have and the rest don’t. It’s just a consequence of the system we happen to live in, which propagandizes certain points of view, talking points, and controls media to serve the interests of capital. It’s hardly useful IMO to blame the majority for issues that could be solved “simply” by changing the ownership structure of media outlets, for example.
Idk what you mean by “group buy-in”, sorry, maybe it’s an idiom I’m not picking, I’m not a native speaker.
If you mean that people generally should believe in the change for the change to happen, then yes, I agree that’s a great starting point. That’s why we leftists organise, and try to create resilient communities that care for those around us, in order to make people have better lives and be more aware of the oppression they’re suffering, and when the material conditions are appropriate, to be there.
Most Americans are perfectly fine with it as long as their cell phone works and there’s food on the table.
The number of us that are horrified by what America’s done to get where it is is vanishingly small.
Almost half of this country is about to vote for a racist tyrannical idiot because he says the quiet part loud. A sizable number of people aren’t committed to voting against the Cheeto tyrant. And a number of the people that are committed to voting against him aren’t all that upset about the atrocities committed in their name, for shit as stupid as access to fucking tropical fruit.
Unfortunately, you’re a perfect example of the success of messaging being broadcast directly to deflate the sense of power and ability we all have, in spite of the walls confining us for tropical fruit.
Follow your thoughts to their conclusion, as designed: we’ve broken too much, and they’re too powerful, there’s nothing we can do.
Yeah I mean china is a shithole country but for some reason there is a narrative on Lemmy that it is this great place while in reality it barely holds together as this silver taped weird capitalistic corrupted monster
There is a reason Chinese gov is so shy about Taiwan and all the happenings Russia vs eu because they know damn well they are holding stability barely together and one wrong move would plunge it into chaos. They can’t afford ANY conflict. It all barely functions as it is due to aggressive capitalism and corruption
I know, their personal space station, Tiengong, is still only a third of the size of the one we share with other countries. The poor thing can barely manage a trade surplus of 230 billion with the US. And look who they count on for innovation in green energy… china, of all countries!
Is that how low the bar for tankie is nowadays for anti-communists? Acknowledging US and western-european imperialism? Go out of US/Europe and ask around.
As you can see from my words “not that I have high hopes for China, but it’s hard to be worse than the US”, I’m not advocating that “China good”. I’m just saying it’s hardly possible to bring more evil to the world than western Europe and the US have.
Are you sure it’s hard to be worse that the US? Try to say Tienanmen Square Massacre in China and see what happens.
It’s so ridiculous that if you find Chinese cheaters in a game just write those words in the chat and the cheater will be disconnected by the great firewall of china…
The 20th century of the US has plenty of cases of massacres against unions and miners, but yeah the modern US is more discreet about the way it kills people, like the black panthers or creating drug addictions from the CIA in black neighbourhoods.
But yeah the US tends to focus its murders in other soil, like in Vietnam, Korea or more recently Iraq
Oh yes, I forgot that the Tiananmenr square massacre happened yesterday!
This has to do with comparing models of imperialism to see which one is more harmful. The US and European one is more harmful to the rest of the world, so I wish for its end. It’s that simple.
Yes, I’m sure it’s hard to be worse than the US. I’m aware that the Chinese government has oppressive attitudes against its own citizens in terms of freedom of speech. Funnily enough, the Chinese government rates much higher in terms of perception by its own citizens than those in western countries.
And the tiananmen square protest is absolutely insignificant in comparison with the carpet bombing campaigns of the US in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Korea, that left literal MILLIONS of deaths.
Oh yeah, because the Vietcong didn’t massacre anyone? The Khmer rouge were also a bunch of saints. And China is not doing anything to the Uyghur population (or anyone that is not a Han Chinese).
Again, funny coming from the country in the world with most imprisoned population on earth (despite having 1/5th the population of China), in which the black population is extremely overrepresented.
Regardless of your opinion on the Vietcong and the Khmer Rouge, the US carpet bombing the entire fucking countries, including civilians and infrastructure, isn’t justified, or is it? Do you argue that the Uyghur oppression is justified because of the terrorist attacks committed by Uyghur radicals? Or can we condemn both the US bombing of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as well as the Uyghur oppression by the Chinese government, while being aware that the former caused millions of deaths and millions more of lives destroyed, and the latter isn’t comparable in magnitude unless you’re an Adrian Zenz dicksucker.
Do you realize how quickly you go and defend the US murdering literal millions of humans? I can condemn both countries for their actions, and look at the numbers and affirm: US imperialism is on a completely different order of magnitude of evil than Chinese government’s actions.
China is the largest car market in the world. Can you image how fucked we would all be if Chinese bureaucrats were as fossil fuel pilled as the assholes running DC?
America isn’t losing to China. America is losing to climate change.
Yup. I believe Dubas had highly overrated GM skills. Not any experience at the NHL level. It’ll be interesting to see what damage he does to the Penguin organization.
I thought this article had some interesting findings that are especially relevant after the latest polls from 538 and the Economist suggested that Trump had a slight edge this coming November. Since 2020:
Biden has mostly seen an increase in support from demographics typically associated with high-turnout voters such as those who are college educated, live in suburbia, women, and even some older and white voters.
Trump, in contrast, has generally seen an increase in demographics associated with low-turnout voters such as those with no college education and men. He has also slightly increased his support amongst black and Hispanic youths.
Hopefully, this means Trump’s increased support does not translate into actual votes on November 5th. For Trump to win another term would be a complete disaster not just for the United States, but also the world.
His voters have shown time and time again their eagerness to vote despite not being reliable voters. They'll come out when there's a high enough chance to hurt the people they hate.
America has a lot of warheads but its delivery systems are relatively behind Russian and Chinese systems. For instance, the current US land/silo based missiles are Minuteman 3s, which were first built in the 1970s. Even with upgrades, they are generally understood to be inferior to much more recent Russian Yars and Chinese Dong Feng missiles.
That said, increasing the number of warheads doesn’t really help in terms of that deficiency so the between the lines conclusion is that the new American missile systems have hit such snags that the military is considering making up the deficiency with numbers of warheads.
Does it really matter if the delivery system is inferior? Google says they have five thousand warheads. Even if 4900 get intercepted (98% success rate), 100 nukes will connect.
Also, besides the launch silos, there’s the bombers and the nuclear subs, which are enough to end the world by themselves
Nuclear war planning isn’t as simple as applying a rate of interception or failure to your stock of warheads. You have to plan for eventualities like what happens if you’re subject to a first strike - can you ensure that enough of your own warheads will survive to retaliate? If not, or if your opponent thinks not then your opponent is much more likely to try a first strike.
Modern missiles aren’t just faster or harder to shoot down, they’re also more survivable. Have you noticed that while the Russians and Chinese parade their missiles on big ass trucks, the US doesn’t seem to have any? That’s because there isn’t a road or rail mobile variant of the Minuteman 3. So those MM3s have been sitting in silos only for decades, more than enough time for opponent satellites to pinpoint exactly where they are. On the other hand, a Russian or Chinese missile can drive around their own road or rail systems and be untraceable unless you have real time satellite footage that just happens to catch them moving.
So if your missiles can’t move, you can only protect them by hardening their emplacements and silos. Unfortunately, most American silos are about as old as the missiles in them and were designed to withstand much lesser yields of warheads. Maybe some could be brought up to a newer standard, but building of that scale would also paradoxically tip your opponent off to which missile sites to target first.
Therefore, if you’re in a position where you aren’t convinced your own missiles will survive a first strike, your only move to maintain deterence is new missiles or more missiles (or both). Contracts were passed out for new missile designs around 2017 but it seems like nothing has come to fruition. Therefore the only other option is to build more warheads so that they can be fired from planes and other systems instead.
This leads on to the next point which is that warheads are not all necessarily sitting on missiles read to go at all times. Most of the time they’re in central stockpiles that are easier to guard and maintain and are only parcelled out to units in times of heightened nuclear tension. A modern nuclear power has more platforms that can deliver nukes than actual nukes themselves - the whole point of a nuclear triad (ICBMs, planes, subs) is to ensure maximal redundancy so that no one type of attack can destroy all delivery systems.
Hence, a nuclear war planner has to figure out how many ICBMs and warheads are likely to survive a first strike, then figure out how many warheads are needed to put on planes and ships and subs for a counter strike. If the US military is thimking it needs more warheads, then one major reason could be that it’s realized it’s delivery platforms are not as survivable as predicted.
Do they need them to be good, or just to have a lot? Look at Hamas breaching the vaunted Iron Dome by sheer number of projectiles. Likewise, I heard Ukraine overwhelmed Russian S-300/400 with a simultaneous launch of something like a dozen ATACMS
ICBMs are notoriously difficult to intercept. Nobody realistically has an interception system able to take down enough of them to matter. The problem with old ICBMs is that they’re less survivable if the enemy strikes you first so you need even more warheads and delivery systems to compensate.
Russia has more nukes. It also has weaker conventional armed forces and a history of nuclear sabor rattling, hence the US and its allies being nervous about a degraded MAD system.
With MAD, the idea is to be in the position that any adversary knows that if they attack you, they will be utterly annihilated. There should be no scenario under which an adversary sees a nuclear attack as advantageous. The US has aging systems and both China and Russia have been developing new capabilities. Numbers alone may not keep up, especially if a large number of missiles are disabled via nukes or other means.
5000 nukes will annihilate everyone. Earth wouldn’t recover for centuries.
Now, yes, delivery systems determine if the nukes can actually be used, but having more than 5000 nukes is just a hat on a hat. As long as they’re 5000 functional nukes there’s just no reason to have more.
Again, it’s not a matter of numbers. It’s a matter of maintaining a credible MAD threat so that any adversaries does not see nuclear war as a viable option. Nuclear weapons are meant to be brandished credibly as a response, not used.
Recently, Mr. Lawrence said, customers have been snapping up used Teslas for a little over $20,000, after applying a $4,000 federal tax credit.
Oh, so you mean used electric cars.
Carmakers including Tesla, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the owner of Jeep, have announced plans for electric vehicles that would sell new for as little as $25,000.
Oh, so you mean not yet, but maybe affordable soon.
New cars have always been expensive and out of reach for most, which is why the average new car buyer is well into their 50s.
I don’t see how people can logically make an argument about the necessity of switching to EVs for the environment while also demanding that everyone gets a brand new car. Scrapping a bunch of perfectly good cars to build new ones is not going to help out our climate issue.
I’m not seeing “cash for clunkers” types of arguments here - I’ve always seen EV adoption as more about market share of new cars rather than share of the entire fleet.
Of course the former leads to the latter, eventually.
KIt’s too early for a “cash for clunkers” type of thing. That will be more effective when EVs are the typical new car and we want to retire older used gasoline cars a little faster. I do hope to see it soon,but to it this soon
Regardless of where you fall on EVs or new car pricing, the Aveo was hot garbage and there’s a reason why they only cost $10k. This is the same reason why you don’t see any of them on the road anymore.
There were a lot of good ones on the road that were sub $14 that still exist and are good for 200,000+ miles. I just pointed out one of the absolute cheapest.
True, but at the time you could get a Toyota Echo or a Honda Fit or a Ford Fiesta or even a Nissan Versa which are all small cars that no longer exist.
Those were priced higher and comparable to the compacts like the Corolla, Civic, and Sentra.
I think there just wasn’t enough demand since people would rather pay a little more to get a little more car than they need for those rare times when a lot of cargo space was needed. Additionally, tiny CUVs like the RAV4 have increased in popularity quite a bit and still get great fuel economy, further reducing demand for the sub-compacts. These cars were also marketed toward young people like college students who have a harder time affording a new car these days and would rather buy a good used one for much cheaper.
You’re not wrong about any of that, much to my dismay. I was just pointing out that those cars did exist and car companies can make them. The market and regulatory conditions just don’t make it profitable.
If most of the people buying cars are in their 60s they’re going to want economic cars with high seats because their knees and backs can’t take getting into something lower. (I can say that because my knees and back already hurt, but I’m too stubborn to stop driving my compact manual car.)
Why don’t we stop subsidizing fossil fuel companies to the tune of $1Trillion Anually, and instead put all of that money towards subsidizing purchases and further R&D of electric vehicles? Oil and Gas corporations could enjoy the competition of the free market, and we the people could get access to new EVs for under $10k out of pocket - it would be a win-win!
We need to push new EVs, because there are not enough used ones. What do you think a used car starts as? Be happy every time someone buys a new EV, because there’s another used one in 3+ years.
I got a new EV, because I needed a vehicle, and my pattern is to buy new and drive into the ground
And if you buy a used car you will eventually need to replace a ton of parts. Honestly, unless the used EV that you buy is a Leaf, many EV batteries will last 200k miles and still have 85-90% of their range left.
If it’s even possible. I’ve personally swapped the main battery pack on a Gen 1 Prius. Not easy, but more tedious than technical. Lifting the assembled unit was a hell of a chore but a coulple strapping dudes managed it. Reconditioned cells are available in a lot of places. I’ve had a Nissan Leaf and would get another one, but even finding a battery, let alone any info on swapping it was pretty much impossible.
but even finding a battery, let alone any info on swapping it was pretty much impossible.
The second generation(2018 on) had a defect in their battery packs that caused a lot of them to need full replacements right after Nissan announced they weren’t making Leafs anymore, so any extra batteries that might exist were used in Warranty repairs for that
I mean, you eventually need to replace the motor in an ICE car, but most people won’t… they’ll buy another vehicle instead. Most EVs lose a minimal amount of range over time… around 10% over 200k miles. Battery replacements are expensive, but not much more than replacing an engine on an ICE vehicle, unless you do all the labor yourself, and no one should be kidding themselves into believing they will actually replace a battery before they’d replace the vehicle… much like a car whose engine shits the bed. And the amount of savings you have in fuel and maintenance offsets the difference significantly, especially if you get to the 200k mark without trading up for a newer vehicle. Not to mention that there are Teslas on the road with over a million miles on them. You may not be as lucky, but 500k without replacing batteries is not uncommon.
I’ve driven a used Tesla for the last 4 years and have 110k miles on it. It’s still humming like the day it came off the line. It’s quieter, faster, has more torque and power, and I get more compliments on it than I ever did on the ford trucks, vw coupes, or Buick sedans I ever drove. I’ve only replaced tires, windshield wipers, wiper fluid, and the 12v battery and haven’t had any maintenance issues. I drive a lot, all over the country, and save around $2k a year in fuel costs compared to when I drove a Buick. I travel all around the country and have few problems finding charging stations (mostly when way off the grid… like Great Basin national park off-the-grid… but still found a charger) and have never been stranded or ran out of mileage on a given drive. A few pigtails and I can charge at any RV park or campground nationwide.
There is far too much misinformation about EVs and concerns with range or charging infrastructure or whatever the oil companies want you to be afraid of, and the savings in fuel costs outweigh any inconveniences I’ve experienced 10 times over.
Take the leap and you’ll never look back. I’ll never buy another ICE vehicle again. It feels like throwing money away.
I get that Elon is a bipolar asshole at times, but the mission to provide the infrastructure for a more sustainable future is what we need and the user experience is far better than reported.
I’ve wanted to get an EV for years now. Just don’t have the infrastructure in my area yet and out of my price range. But I didn’t consider buying used. It’s great to hear that I shouldn’t concern myself with replacing the battery.
If you have any way to charge at home, it’s a huge money saver and convenience. You’ll only get about 3 miles per hour off a normal 120v wall outlet, so maybe 20-30 miles over night. If you commute more than around 200 miles a week, you’ll have to have supplementary charging once a week or so.
If you can install a 240v charger, you’ll get between 25-35 miles per hour of charge, so you’ll easily get a full charge over night. It’s usually around $500 for the equipment and $500ish for the install, depending on the area, but it makes up for it over time. Imagine never having to factor time in to stop for gas on the way to work in the morning.
If you don’t have access to a wall plug and can’t install your own 240v charger, it may not be the right decision for you. If it is manageable for you, it’ll be a huge convenience and a big money saver.
Bought mine for around 40k 4 years ago and have saved around 8k in fuel costs… but I drive a lot.
Infrastructure needs depend on how the car is used. I have a basic level 1 charger (120v/15a household outlet) and so far have used public chargers zero times. There has only been one time where I didn’t have enough charge for back to back trips to the next major city over, and had to rely on our second (ICE) car. Could have been avoided with a better charger. I have been hitting ~700 miles per month. One thing to keep in mind is that you just need enough charge to get to your destination and back. Going to the gas station is a big hassle so you are used to always filling up from empty. With the EV, my house is my refill station, so I just connect the cord every time I park. Even after a long trip where the car is near empty, charging slowly for 2 hours is enough for a quick errand. I’ll admit that I would have some charging anxiety if I only had the EV with no backup, but practically speaking it just doesn’t become an issue. Just keep enough charge to make it to the nearest hospital, and get a level 2 charger (240v/>=32amp) for almost 4x the charging rate.
And for the Europeans in the audience, we have 240V and 15A in a normal wall socket for twice the charging speed of our American friends but half the speed of their level 2.
While it was an easier choice for me due to good infrastructure, I haven’t needed it. The key is charging at home, if you can do that.
I installed a level 2 charger at home - electrician cost was similar to adding an electric stove circuit. I have the car configured to charge to 80% by default to maximize battery health, and plug-in when I get down to 50%. My typical “overnight” charging takes 2 hours. If going on a trip, I just override to 100% the night before and wake up to a full charge. Maybe I haven’ gone on many road trips yet, but I only used one public charger so far, and it was over 100 miles away
I rented a Chevy Bolt once and it came with a charging cable that would plug into a regular 110V outlet. I never tried it, but online it says that chafing method is about 7.5 hours. The Bolt’s battery was 250 miles, so only useful around town if there’s zero infrastructure in the area. But within those parameters, still useful if you can charge at home.
The idea that replacing an EV battery costs as much as the car itself is total rubbish. Sure, batteries aren’t cheap, but they’re not going to bankrupt you. Modern EV batteries last a long time, often more than a decade, and are covered by solid warranties. Plus, battery prices are dropping fast as technology gets better. Scaremongering about battery costs is just plain wrong and stops people from going green, which is the last thing we need
You’re not wrong, but in fairness the headline says EVs are becoming affordable, not that they are affordable.
he’s right; brand new ev’s go for about $10k outside the unites states; they’re already affordable but big tariffs are being employed to discourage buying them.
curiously, even the 100% american tariff still makes these ev’s more affordable than anything in that article and i’m wondering what’s going to happen once they start building them in mexico (ie nafta).
they’re selling out so fast that australia hasn’t gotten many yet.
interestingly australia might be the only western country to get them since they have a free trade agreement with china while the united states and europe are putting extremely hefty tariffs on them to protect their own respective automotive industries.
Not only that, most of those cars coming available are from Hertz — they’re rental cars. But not just any rental cars… most are from Hertz’s Uber fleet.
So these are EVs with over 100,000 miles on them, worn out back seats and blistered rear armrests that have been driven by employees using a fleet lease vehicle. And migrating the cars’ software ownership to an unlocked non-fleet private owner state has proven to be… difficult.
Uswd cars have gotten crazy expensive relative to new in the past few years. If the difference between new and used is only like $1k new can make sense.
I’d be fine with that. But wanting me to install an app now on my phone to get the discounts I always got for being a safe driver pisses me the fuck off.
I paid too much for my EV, but am glad to see the prices come down for future buyers. When the price is competitive with ICE vehicles, I think we’ll see rapid adoption.
and they’re winning. the bonkers high tariffs on brand new $10k EV’S have guaranteed that americans and western europeans will never get affordable EV’s and only the rich will have them.
When the price is competitive with ICE vehicles, I think we’ll see rapid adoption.
they already cost $10k outside the united states so the price is already beyond competitive; the real barrier to adoption will be once/if the united states removes the 100% tariff they’ve placed on chinese ev’s.
you should watch the video reviews on those cars; they blow american cars out of the water and it makes sense why our automakers would do everything in their power to prevent us from getting access to them.
I got my EV used, and in three years I’ve already saved more on gas than I paid for it.
EVs are so much cheaper to maintain and operate; no gas, no oil changes, no transmission, no sparkplugs or timing belts. If the sale prices are close, the total cost of ownership will be massively in favor of the EV.
That is completely false, and I might add, very stupid.
Gas in America is crazy cheap compared to everywhere else due to government subsidy.
America ALREADY USES electricity EVERYWHERE.
Like we use a whole lot of it without the EVs. I mean really just a huge amount, and there is no realistic way to make it cost more for one specific usage.
In short, what you said was dumb and you should feel really bad about it.
It is not dumb and I don’t feel bad for asking a question. I am looking to get an EV and asked some people that have had one for a while about the recharge costs and 2 of 3 had no idea.
You can do the math yourself by taking your price per kwh and multiplying that by the battery capacity. The Tesla models range from 60 to 100 kwh, and my electricity is about 12 cents per kwh. So it costs between $7-12 to fully charge your car.
If you can afford an EV, that’s not an amount of money that changes your spending habits.
And at current gasoline prices, it costs about $130 to fully fill up my truck. People are so set in their ways they don’t even flinch at this.
And this is why I do so as seldom as possible these days, and only use it to move large objects. The rest of my life happens on two wheels whenever it is physically possible. (My RXB250L achieves about 60 MPG. My Honda Metropolitan gets 117…)
I happen to live next to a free charger provided by the state, and not far from a free fast charger provided by the dealership, so it’s essentially free for me.
Electricity here usually costs about $0.12 per kwh, which can charge the car for 4-5 miles of range. That’s $0.84 to go 28 miles.
Most people charge at home just by plugging the car into an outlet, so I have no idea how that would be taxed. With EVs we pay the road tax during vehicle registration, which is an extra $100 each year.
My utility company alleges that they charge a different – and higher, no surprise – rate for EV charging. I concur that I have absolutely no idea how they would know, unless you were dumb enough to volunteer to them that’s what you were doing and allowed them to install the charger themselves with its own attached meter. Especially if you’re using an L1 charger, plugging in your car would be indistinguishable from any other constant load like a heater.
It does require maintenance, but you don’t have to worry about the engine, transmission, turbos and other related moving parts. Your maintenance is basically brakes, tyres and other simple and cheap wear and tear parts.
Drawback is EVs tend to run through tires faster, and you should be careful selecting tires because they can have a drastic effect on range (the better ones obviously being far more expensive). Also, road noise from cheap tires is much more noticeable without several thousand controlled explosions per minute happening three feet from your face.
That’s a myth. EVs have EV specific tyres. Just like trucks have truck specific tyres. No one would drive trucks if you were forced to use small car tyres on them.
Anyone who’s owned an EV and a comparable ICE vehicle knows this isn’t a myth at all lmao. They weigh more, and all that instant torque at 0 RPM means that you’re almost guaranteed to go through tires faster.
Yes, it very much is. I’ve owned 2 EVs for 6 years at this point, they absolutely go through tires faster than my ICE vehicles, even on the factory tires. Go to any EV owner forum, and you’re almost guaranteed to see complaints about tire wear. It’s very, very much a thing.
Now, it’s not necessarily inherent to EVs, because it’s down to weight and torque output, so a big heavy truck with lots of torque can also burn through tires plenty quick. But still, EVs are much heavier than an equivalent ICE.
Take a look at 2 vehicles from Kia that are dimensionally almost identical, the Telluride and EV9. The Telluride weighs 4,522lbs in its maxed out AWD trim, while the base FWD trim of the EV9 weighs 5093lbs, and the AWD version is over 1200lbs heavier than the equivalent Telluride at 5,732lbs.
If you’ve got a pretty typical midsized modern vehicle around 3000lbs, go ahead and drive the next set of tires with 700-800lbs of sandbags in your car and see how your tires hold up.
Not to mention there are already a number of studies showing that total PM emissions from EVs are only marginally better than ICE cars, if at all, despite having zero tailpipe and reduced PM from braking due to regen. Now, try and guess where all that additional particulate is coming from…
Is this specific to cars¿? I have an EV scooter (more powerful than a moped and without pedals) and I have not observed higher tyre wear. But then again my scooter isnt much much heavier than its petrol counterpart. Cars on the other hand do see a drastic increase in weight when going from ICE to EV
Nope. I mean I’ve replaced the tires once and windshield wipers a couple times, refilled the wiper fluid, but that’s about it. The thing that powers the car is a sealed electric motor, not too unlike the kind you’d find in a washing machine; it works for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles without service. It’s just magnets and wires inside, no explosions or soot to gum up the works.
Since the motor also works as a regenerative brake, you need to service the brake pads much less often. And since the 12v cabin battery is kept constantly tended and never used for cranking, it also lasts many years longer.
So yes, still some maintenance, but you save a ton of time and money long term.
And since the 12v cabin battery is kept constantly tended and never used for cranking, it also lasts many years longer.
Ehh, this isn’t necessarily true for most EVs at this point, at least from my experience. Since they don’t have to put up with cranking loads, they tend to be far smaller than one in an ICE. This means that all the “idle” stuff that’s running when the HV contactors aren’t closed and the DC-DC charging circuit isn’t active drains the battery much more quickly, and draining them below ~70% is what starts to degrade them rapidly.
I’ve personally never had an 12v battery in an EV last more than about 5 years, while I’ve had batteries in my ICE cars do double that before they showed any signs of trouble.
One other slight issue I’ve noticed is that a marginal 12v battery makes the car absolutely lose its shit. I can’t even tell you the number of people I’ve seen on forums who think their car completely shit the bed due to the number of faults and such it’ll report, even though it’s still driving somewhat normally.
My 12v has a 10 year warranty, so if it did die after five years at least it would be free to replace.
I always turn the car on to use the accessories since ‘idling’ doesn’t really use any extra power, keeps the battery tended, and lets me use the AC/heater.
Rotate/change the tires about as often as you normally would. That’s just about it. They have far less moving parts that get far less hot and don’t have tiny explosions in them almost ever.
Most of the complexity in a combustion vehicle is in the engine and transmission, both things that an EV hasn’t got. A lot of mechanical compromises are made to allow converting gasoline explosions into forward momentum.
An EV will still require brakes and tires, and eventually it’ll need replacement suspension components and probably wheel bearings just the same as any other car. And at some point it will surely need a coolant flush if the battery pack is liquid cooled, which it probably is.
But it will not require engine oil changes, air filter replacements, spark plugs, transmission flushes, a replacement clutch, or transmission rebuild; nor will it ever need a belt replacement, pulleys, tensioners, or idlers; nor a timing belt replacement, emissions system repairs, and thieves will never steal its catalytic converter.
An EV will, however, eventually require a battery pack replacement. Which is guaranteed not to be cheap.
Modern cars in general are cheaper to operate. Have had a hybrid for 7 or 8 years. Other than annual oil changes and one change of tires, it has been zero maintenance. Still on the original brake pads thanks to regen braking (which EVs also benefit from, but the extra weight forces more frequent use of friction brakes.)
Does anyone who speaks more than one language, or is social with people who know more than one language, actually think that your first language is just stuck in there?
I know the stereotype of people from the USA is that they only speak one language, but they should at least know someone who’s first language isn’t English, right? Or do most only socialize with people who are very similar to them?
I'm natively German but nowadays I consume almost everything in English and barely ever speak German, which causes me to slowly forget my native language. I can feel my vocabulary getting more and more limited and I often have to think hard for certain words that I know immediately in English. So yeah, if you don't use a language, native or otherwise, then you'll slowly unlearn it over time. Shouldn't be too surprising, it's like this with a lot of mentally related skills, like math for example. I couldn't do most of the shit I've learnt in school at some point because I never really had a use for it and consequently forgot all about it.
The vast majority of my social circle is bilingual, with French being the language they spoke at home growing up and English because it’s the more common language in my area.
I know plenty of people who have moved to quasi-exclusively anglophone areas, working jobs in English, who have found themselves surprised to start losing their French. The idea can seem absurd when you’re in a situation where you get to speak your first language on a regular basis.
The article is really mainly about how language ties in to identity, and IMO was a really interesting read. This is something monolingual anglophones can sometimes have a bit of a blind spot for; when your language is so dominant, it can be hard to see how it’s intertwined with culture and identity. Many people I’ve talked to, even if mostly sympathetic, have struggled with the idea of French being important to my sense of self. Language can be just seen as a tool when you speak the “default” language of an area. I’ve been asked “Why do you bother keeping French alive here? Wouldn’t it just be easier for everyone if we’d do everything in English?” Note, plenty of francophones in the 1940s and '50s did switch to English out of social pressure, shaming, prejudices, economic prospects, not bothering to teach their kids French. I know so many unilingual anglophones with French last names who can’t have a full conversation with their grandparents because neither of them can fully speak the other’s language.
Sorry if that became a bit of a ramble, but the stuff the article explores is very interesting and very relevant to my experience as a member of a linguistic minority. I mostly wanted to clarify to anyone reading your comment that it pertains more to the headline than the content of the article.
nytimes.com
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