Tesla pushes U.S. to boost fuel economy penalties

https://www.autonews.com/regulation-safety/tesla-pushes-us-boost-fuel-economy-penalties

by ourmandave • 5 years ago

189 239 5 years ago

autonews.com

6d6b73• 5 years ago

How about we push penalties misleading advertising and deceptive marketing that Tesla is know for?

JumpCrisscross• 5 years ago

How about we push penalties misleading advertising and deceptive marketing that Tesla is know for?

Why are these issues in competition with one another?

rpmisms• 5 years ago

misleading advertising

They notoriously don't advertise. Are you referring to the after-savings price calculator on the sales pages?

spoonjim3• 5 years ago

Probably the lies of “autopilot” and “full self driving.”

lostgame2• 5 years ago

Tesla...doesn’t advertise?

I have never once seen an ad for Tesla.

the-dude3• 5 years ago

What do you think a product/brand website is?

gibolt3• 5 years ago

Have you seen that advertisements that traditional OEMs and dealers run? Have you visited a dealer?

kube-system• 5 years ago

Let's read how two different automakers introduce their driver assistance features:

https://www.cadillac.com/world-of-cadillac/innovation/super-...
Super Cruise is the first true hands-free driving-assistance feature for compatible roads

https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features, and full self-driving capabilities

Both are SAE J3016 level 2 systems. This engineering standard calls this literally "driver support features" and says they are not "automated driving features". Tesla is really stretching per the SAE spec.

https://www.sae.org/binaries/content/gallery/cm/articles/pre...

Tesla is literally the only automaker that does business in the US that advertises their assistance system this way.

H122• 5 years ago

Tesla are no angels, but it is nice to see an example where a large company has an inherent financial incentive to behave in an a broadly pro-society manner.

Would be nice to see more companies lobbying against pollution and other negative externalities.

seph-reed4• 5 years ago

I wonder if a carbon tax which subsidizes low emission alternatives could get across this way?

dreyfan• 5 years ago

You've just described Tesla's entire business model. They sell carbon credits to enable polluters to keep polluting.

gibolt3• 5 years ago

It absolutely would, and they've been pushing for that for ages. New taxes just aren't tenable in government right now, even if it means avoiding the worst of Climate Change which impacts everyone

G3rn0ti• 5 years ago

carbon tax?

No you want an emissions trading scheme instead of a carbon tax. Only this way the government can actually enforce strict upper limits on CO2 emissions („cap“) and allow economic subjects to sell their emission rights for profit („trade“). Compared to a carbon tax „cap and trade“ makes the regulation of carbon emissions more efficient both for all market participants and the government.

mhh__• 5 years ago

Taxation does seem to be the best way to let the market do what it thinks is the best way to achieve the goal you set.

Someone once retorted to me, "well won't some businesses go bust?" - to which I do not reply glibly since job losses are overreported but still important, but simply "That is the whole point".

bubleh3• 5 years ago

Only if it considers the total emissions required for making and using a particular vehicle. If I buy a 10 year old civic to drive for the next 5 years, I will be producing MUCH less emissions than what's released when building and using a brand new tesla. This will never happen though, because the virtue-signalling 'green' politicians and companies still have a bottom line which is MUCH more important for them than any real improvement.

ajsnigrutin2• 5 years ago

It would be also nice if they made a repairable car, and not fill the landfills...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-tVM9lz4h4

xedeon3• 5 years ago

Yeah, that video was primed for clickbait. The picture of the repair bill they showed was from 2019 for a completely different car. Both Rossman and Rich Rebuild’s channel are complicit.

There’s always more to the story.

https://twitter.com/petteri_bergius/status/14384521225263104...

5faulker• 5 years ago

They are no true sustainability advocate at this point, and this is an element of opportunism in this as well.

elif4• 5 years ago

that is not really different from Ferrari or McLaren or any other of the fastest cars on the planet.

EDIT: i'm being downvoted but these manufacturers build machines capable of extreme performance, and have interest in maintaining their reputation. If you think i'm exaggerating, there are repairs where you are required to ship your car to the McLaren or Ferrari factory. The Ferrari FXX is not allowed to leave the track ever.

aequitas• 5 years ago

Not to defend Tesla, and I don't know the details. But very likely that old replaced battery would remain with Tesla and they would scrap it for parts or otherwise recycle it into a "refurbished" part to be sold again. Might be they would ask more than $16000 for the repair if you decide to keep the old battery yourself.

Other companies apply this as well, it's an economics of scale thing. It's not worthwhile (ie: profitable) for them to have every technician in every service location educated to a high enough level to do low level troubleshooting on every model and every part, it's much cheaper to hire people that can swap out modules and ship those back to a central facility. There you have people that do nothing all day then troubleshoot all parts they have been specifically trained for, repair them and sell them as refurbished. A lot would probably still end up on the landfill. And whether the customer sees any discount in repairs due to this "optimisation" is debatable. But right now you hardly have a choice, I hope that will be changing.

cronix• 5 years ago

My father had this complaint about just about all cars manufactured post 1985(ish). Up until then, he, himself, could repair his own car for most issues with a basic set of tools that most people already had in their houses. Then they started putting computers and proprietary parts in, making it so that he had to take it to a dealership or repair shop who had the specialized multi-thousand dollar equipment to read the chips. Define "repairable." It was still repairable, just not by him.

slownews45• 5 years ago

What a total scam that kind of clickbait video is.

There was that lemon law lawyer as well trying to go after tesla - also a scam.

I think one difference - Tesla doesn't seem to rollover for these scams as much as others do. Ie, they went after that lawyer, who'd pulled the same stunt on LOTS of other car companies. And won.

And the whole Rich Rebuilds stuff - I used to follow him, but it just devolved into a Tesla gripe fest. Ironically, while folks like Rich says Tesla is not opening stuff up enough they are going to have regulators breathing down their neck for every fire they have (most are things like household not car electrical wiring when clueless homeowner runs a high resistance socket onto their house wiring).

With 500K vehicles, the last thing they need to be focusing on is making these type of clickbait folks happy (Rich Rebuilds etc).

In terms of making frankenstein battery packs the way Rich says they should be made.

1) The BMS for these things has pretty tight tolerance.

2) The swap certain cells out is a disaster waiting to happen.

"No, the "remove a cell" thing is not a "fix" either. The result is the same, it just takes longer. Removing a cell is literally creating an SoC imbalance on purpose and it's idiotic that people who don't understand the Tesla BMS push this."

https://twitter.com/wk057/status/1437607772959428608

"I can't believe this is being touted as a fix. You can't replace individual modules in an S/X pack. There's no way to match them well enough for a long term fix. Might last a few months, but will invariably die again. Have tried it a half-dozen times. Best run was about a year. "

So we have folks pushing straight scam repairs here on HN as a way to tarnish Tesla.

gonehome2• 5 years ago

Some of my favorite aspects of capitalism are when incentives align people toward things that are also in the public interest in addition to the private interest of the company.

Another historical example that comes to mind were some train companies lobbying to end segregation because they didn't want to run separate cars/routes for different groups.

Another thing that isn't really an example of this are the bodegas in DC (often run by immigrants) selling both trump and hillary hats (or whatever current political battle is going on) to the public - arguably that could incentivize divisiveness, but for some reason seeing those stands meeting demand without caring about tribalism makes me smile.

Tesla is kind of an outlier here though, in that Musk's motives were in the public interest more than the private interest at the start (accelerating adoption of alternative fuels) - so in this case the private interest is in service to the public one and not incidental.

[Edit]: I know it's poor form to complain about downvotes, but what I assume must be politically motivated downvotes on this are lame.

wizardforhire• 5 years ago

Yep. For all its evils and potential evils capitalism eventually trends towards net positive. We don’t have to like the way works but at least its something… and way better than the historical alternatives at scale.

dash2• 5 years ago

There's not much reason to expect this to happen systematically in the realm of regulation. As George Stigler put it, regulation is purchased by the industry for the benefit of the industry. This data fits that story.

H122• 5 years ago

I think that's an excellent question to ask oneself when starting a company:

"Will the financial interests of this business align with or oppose the public's?"

throwaway894345• 5 years ago

Generally I agree. I don't know why we expect companies to be angels either. Personally I'm okay with "fiduciary responsibility" and the role of government is to align incentives. Of course, morality and culture are still important (e.g., managers should still see themselves as providing good employment for their communities, etc), but without aligned incentives the former are swimming upstream.

bubleh3• 5 years ago

NHTSA issued a notice saying it could impose higher penalties for prior model years for automakers failing to meet fuel efficiency requirements.

Pretty sure buying an average used ICE car will net MUCH less emissions than what's required for building and using a brand new tesla.

devname• 5 years ago

ICE cars emit roughly their weight in CO2 every year. Within a few years the new Tesla is net negative. Compare your options.

kreeben4• 5 years ago

> it is nice to see an example where a large company has an inherent financial incentive to behave in an a broadly pro-society manner

I don't see how Tesla is "pro-society". Tesla batteries are very costly to the environment. For every x amount of batteries they need to blow up y amounts of mountain tops. We don't have infinite amount of those.

halfmatthalfcat3• 5 years ago

I think the goal with the Gigafactory and iterations on battery tech is to keep increasing energy density/efficiency so that the pros outweigh the cons.

The same could be said for solar as well. AFAIK panels are a net negative until their efficiency outweighs the cost of making them.

It's all a means to a noble end. Rather this than continuing to burn and release carbon?

mdasen• 5 years ago

https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/electric-car-range-and-cons...

I wonder if Tesla would be as into the government imposing penalties for exaggerating the range of their vehicles. Tesla seems to under-perform their range estimates pretty consistently across models while every other vehicle exceeds the estimate except for the Polestar. Sometimes Tesla is only under-performing the estimate by a small amount, but they're claiming 15.7% more range for their "Model 3 Long Range" than a "Mustang Mach-E CA Route 1" while only achieving 1 mile more in tested range.

Tesla has often also pushed its own estimates over EPA cycle estimates claiming that their estimates (which are more generous to their cars) are better. Should a car company be able to make public claims about range based on their own models?

As you noted, this is simply Tesla having a financial incentive. If competing manufacturers need to pay large penalties for prior years, it gives them less money to compete against Tesla.

In some ways, this doesn't provide a pro-society incentive. Penalizing past bad acts doesn't alter a car company's incentives for the future beyond proving that you're serious about enforcing rules. A better incentive could be to announce that you will penalize companies for past failures, but allow them to get that penalty rebated back to them if they exceed requirements going forward. In the first case, you're penalizing them and getting a small amount of money while taking from the companies resources that they could use to invest in electric vehicles (or lobby against fuel economy standards). In the second case, you're proving that you're serious by imposing the penalty, but also providing a very strong incentive to exceed targets going forward.

I think that many automakers like Hyundai/Kia, Ford, BMW, Mercedes, GM, VW, and Renault/Nissan are looking to make major investments in electric vehicles. I would rather incentivize them about the future (and punish them about the past if they don't reform). Maybe set a standard like getting 50% of the penalty back if X% of their cars sold in 2025 are electric with an MPGe of 100+ and getting back the other half of the penalty if Y% of their cars sold in 2028 are electric (with MPGe over 100). That would give them a concrete incentive to create efficient and popular models.

It would also likely be palatable to them. GM has announced ambitious plans for its conversion to electric. If they're able to convert the majority of their car sales to electric in a short period of time, it seems less important to apply a retroactive penalty. If their plans are a green-washing campaign to keep getting sales for their ICE vehicles, they can say so-long to that cash. In the meantime, they can take out a loan to cover what they need for R&D if they're confident they'll meet their targets.

megablast• 5 years ago

Just raise taxes on fuel. It has the added benefit of actually saving lives too. The higher the cost of fuel, the less people are killed by cars.

bpodgursky2• 5 years ago

This is, for better or for worse, a directly regressive tax in a way that is politically toxic.

cortesoft4• 5 years ago

There is a really easy solution to that - tax carbon, and put 100% of the revenue into a single bucket, divide that by the number of citizens, and give each citizen that amount.

This means that it is a net positive for anyone who uses less than the average amount of carbon, and incentivizes everyone to use less. Poor people use way less than the average amount of carbon, so it will be a net positive for them.

gundmc• 5 years ago

That seems like it would be an extremely regressive tax and disproportionately affect lower income Americans, no?

exclusiv• 5 years ago

Yes it would and also inflation. Goods would cost more which would be another whammy. We should boost the tax credits for new EV purchases. And maybe extend to your first used EV purchase too.

kneel• 5 years ago

offset it with more tax credits for lower income

maerF0x0• 5 years ago

so? I say this to point out that if they're doing something that is to be deprecated there's nothing wrong with disincentivizing it, so long as we keep helping them get their needs met or towards self sufficiency.

For example nothing wrong with doubling tax on gas if we also improve public transit.

My main point is that regressive, nor disincentivizing the poor are wrong things to do if they're causing issues for society.

xxs• 5 years ago

EU has a min excise tax on gasoline of 0.359 euro per 1L, before VAT ($1.6 per gallon). Most countries have it way higher (Germany : 0.6545€, or ~ 0.78€ after VAT). Higher fuel taxes should incentivize public transport, smaller/more efficient engines, etc.

flaque• 5 years ago

The cost of not doing it would be much, much greater though, and disproportionately affect lower income folks

throwaway0a5e3• 5 years ago

That's the point. It exempts the poors who live in a shoebox apartment and take the bus and crushes the ones who are living far from their job and slogging out a crazy commute.

calaphos• 5 years ago

We had similar discussions in Germany on taxes on any CO2 emissions. There were proposals of redistributing some of the earnings to people with very low emissions, a bit similar to negative income tax rates in concept. Sadly never really went anywhere.

elif4• 5 years ago

Climate change also disproportionately affects lower income humans.

Perhaps we can subsidize the poor Americans with something other than a percentage of oil consumption.

The fundamental issue is incentive structures, not austerity.

mywittyname• 5 years ago

Sin taxes (those on alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, etc) also hit low income people harder. Yet, we still raise them because the positive effects on society outweigh the consequences.

We want people to find ways to reduce their fuel consumption, just as we want them to stop smoking. It's painful, but necessary, because the consequences of inaction are so high.

it_citizen3• 5 years ago

Implemented in the same spirit as this: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2307...

It would actually reduce inequalities because the revenues of the tax is redistributed directly to every individual. Since rich household polluting more than the poors, the 7 lowest deciles should actually be better off.

scatters3• 5 years ago

Actually, maybe not.

https://web.stanford.edu/~goulder/Papers/Published%20Papers/...

"We find that a carbon tax is inherently progressive, narrowing the income gap between rich and poor households. Beyond that, we find that it can potentially raise real incomes of low-income households."

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/550691-econom...

Avicebron• 5 years ago

true, less people able to afford a Tesla on the roads, maybe we can build a nice walking lane with the proceeds so the good folks doing the gardening at the presidio can make it to work.

koolba• 5 years ago

You could do the same thing about cigarettes and cheeseburgers too. The problem is that it’s inherently a regressive approach where the brunt is borne by the lowest income classes.

robocat• 5 years ago

Cigarettes is a great example where there are highly taxed in some countries, so the US has a population of foreign experiments that the US can study to see the effects on the poor.

In New Zealand a pack of 20 costs about NZD36. Minimum wage is NZD20 per hour here.

Or adjusting to match median per capita incomes, that is about USD40 for a pack.

Also see this list of world cigarette prices: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_price_rankings...

Edit: Disclaimer: when you are old enough to have close friends with smoking related cancers and emphysema etcetera, using dollars to represent the future cost to yourself seems more reasonable. It also breaks the social dynamic of handing cigarettes around and getting others addicted - when a single cigarette is expensive to you, you don’t just offer them to others.

ErikVandeWater• 5 years ago

Step 1. Send a $50 check to everyone who earned less than 30k last year or who is unemployed now at the beginning of every month

Step 2. Raise gas/burger/cigarette taxes

gibolt3• 5 years ago

The easiest approach is to remove the billions (nearing trillions) in annual fossil fuel subsidies. People fight against subsidies to clean energy, forgetting how much more flows into an industry that is killing us.

wang_li2• 5 years ago

forgetting how much more flows into an industry that is killing us.

It's not very much. People who write white papers for their think tank or who want to push a particular agenda like to say that not taxing something or someone is the same as subsidizing them. Which is definitely not true in reality. It should be simple enough to see that not taxing has a floor at $0.00, while subsidizing something has no limiting bound at all.

shiftpgdn• 5 years ago

This is a weak talking point. There are no direct subsidies to US oil and gas companies. None.

The subsidies people frequently talk about are “externalities.”

barbazoo2• 5 years ago

The higher the cost of fuel, the less people are killed by cars.

Not if your goal is to move from ICE to EV. Just because it's an EV, doesn't mean fewer people are "killed by cars".

paulgb• 5 years ago

EV are still susceptible to accidents (the way they're driven 'round here, I might even say more susceptible), but pollution from ICE also reduces lifetimes of people who have to breathe it in.

(e.g. this is probably a bit alarmist but: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/07/cars-k...)

ppeetteerr• 5 years ago

Agreed but only if we subsidize low income earners.

mrtksn2• 5 years ago

In Europe, fuel taxes are high. In Turkey, taxes are high but also the income is much lower.

As a result, in EU the cars tend to be much more smaller and economical than those in the USA. In Turkey, the cars are like the cars in EU but the engines are much less powerful and fuel economy is everything. In Turkey, the car that the average Joe would buy will have 1.0 to 1.6 engine. Anything larger is reserved for the rich.

However I would like to note that, not only the fuel taxes are high but also the car taxes are high. In fact, the taxes in Turkey are so high on the powerful and expensive cars that it started catching World Wide attention[0].

But I would be careful on overtaxing. In Turkey's case, cars are so expensive that it's like buying a house. People take very long term loans to buy these things, which greatly reduces the disposable income and the life quality. On the flip side, cars value don't depreciate as quickly as in the USA or EU. Cars in Turkey tend to be well maintained and very few clunkers would be on the road(unlike Eastern Europe) and once you get a car, you can actually upgrade it after few years much easily since the old one will hold it's value pretty well.

As a result, from environmental and safety perspective taxing high works but it comes at a great cost of life quality. I would prefer the EU approach. Taxes are still high but not excessive and goals of reducing emissions are achieved through regulation instead of tax pressure.

[0]"Why This $150,000 Porsche Costs $600,000 In Turkey?" https://jalopnik.com/why-this-150-000-porsche-costs-600-000-...

jakub_g2• 5 years ago

I knew Denmark had high taxes on cars but this is probably even higher!

baby2• 5 years ago

Also, public transport. Lived all my life without a driver license, at 30 I got one because I moved to the US

ecshafer• 5 years ago

I agree with this policy entirely, singapore has similar high taxes on cars. It is possible to build cities, and countries, in such a way that cars are mostly unnecessary. In a pedestrian first design, with bikes and public transportation, you do not need a car. Cars are dangerous (to pedestrians, and drivers and other drivers), environmentally harmful, wasteful, noisy things. Outside of some rural areas, and businesses, cars are not necessary, and should not be necessary day to day for 95%+ of people. Even with Buses a bus moves many more people more efficiently than a car. Autonomous trolleys, trains, buses are an easier problem than cars since you can have set routes. Electtric buses exist. Its really unfortunate so many societies are set up around the rich and cars.

hellbannedguy• 5 years ago

This will hit poor, and low middle class, the hardest.

We are barely getting by as it is.

The poor don't have the luxury of buying new fuel efficient, or electric cars. Our roads are not safe for motorcycles 365 days out of the year. They buy what will get them to work and back hopefully, at a price that won't put them further into debt.

My biggest fear with Global Warming is they make the poor pay for it in sneaky ways.

When smog checks were required in CA, they made it sound like the low income wouldn't be hit hard financially. It didn't turn out that way though. If your vechicle doesn't pass increasing harder smog tests every two years; you end up paying a lot. (I can work on my own vechicles, but thinking about buying a smoke machine because they are now failing for tiny holes where hydrocarbons might escape.)

jedberg4• 5 years ago

The assumption is that the tax money would be redistributed to low earners on a monthly basis, much like the child tax credit works now. That way the poor aren't affected and rich bear much of the burden, which makes sense since they also do most of the polluting.

baby2• 5 years ago

I don’t think so, public transport will flourish to meet the new demand.

loudmax• 5 years ago

A carbon tax would be the most efficient ways to reducing CO2 emissions. It's a far simpler system than trying to work out average average emissions for different fleets of vehicles, never mind trying to balance competing CO2 production coming from various industries, agriculture and transportation. Complicated laws make for loopholes and massive inefficiencies as technology and the economy changes. We should tax precisely the thing we want to reduce.

This is assuming you're actually on board with mainstream science and the problems associated with anthropogenic climate change. If you think climate change is a hoax or harmless, then yeah any carbon tax is a drain on the economy with no upside.

We are barely getting by as it is.

Okay, that's the problem. People need more equitable access to opportunity and a stronger safety net. Better public or charter schools, or more earned income tax credits or a higher minimum wage or maybe even straight up UBI. All of these are things that might address poverty more effectively than repealing smog laws.

lostmsu• 5 years ago

The poor don't have the luxury of buying new fuel efficient

You don't have to buy more fuel efficient car of the same size. You can just buy a smaller car.

lscotte2• 5 years ago

No, let's not do that. Taxes should exist purely to cover government costs, not to finance causes.

lotsofpulp• 5 years ago

The people of a country have an incentive to shape collective behavior that affects the collective, now and in the future. Straight taxes on the item causing problems is the least corruptible way to do it. Such as taxing fossil fuel.

The market will then allocate to which needs the remaining fossil fuel usage should go towards. Presumably, not to using pickup trucks and SUVs to take kids to soccer games and shop for groceries.

jakub_g2• 5 years ago

When Macron tried doing that in France pre-covid, people went on streets ("yellow vests"). 50€ more on fuel each month is a lot of money for many people who have to commute to work many kms from small towns.

it_citizen3• 5 years ago

The tax was implemented in an extremely unfair way. The bright side is that it has made it clear that the ecology transition should work hand in hand with an effort to reduce inequalities.

Here's a different implementation https://clcouncil.org/our-plan/

Regarding people living in isolated areas and forced to drive, Canada throws an additional 10% on top of the tax cut you get.

(Nitpick: Hollande and the Ayrault government implemented the tax. The yellow vests happened because Macron tried to raise that toothless tax)

invisible• 5 years ago

Perhaps instead we could levy a 0.05% or $300 income tax, whichever is less, and have a tax credit if you do not own a ICE vehicle to negate that.

speedgoose• 5 years ago

That's how we got the yellow vest protests. You cannot do that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests

paxys• 5 years ago

Tesla, which produces only electric vehicles, sells credits to other automakers to help them meet government vehicle emissions requirements, and says those credits are less valuable due to changes in rules made by former President Donald Trump's administration.

Funny that Elon Musk is strongly critical of big government and regulatory bodies right up to the moment where it is better for his profits.

FAA is bad for enforcing safety standards for rocket launches.

NTSB and state transportation departments are bad for wanting to ensure safety in self driving testing and rollout.

State health departments are bad for enforcing workplace covid mandates.

Democrats are bad for incentivizing union labor in auto production.

EPA is good for increasing the value of Tesla's emission credits. In fact they should be more strict!

Although I guess there's nothing more American than wanting socialism for yourself, rugged individualism for everyone else. Considering his pro-environment stance I wonder how he would feel about removing massive subsidies on the coal sector, which produces 40% of the electricity needed to power his cars.

einpoklum• 5 years ago

Judge people by their actions rather than their words. Talk is cheap etc.

Also - the whole credits scheme is a way for the US government to legitimize continued massive environmental pollution and resource waste.

Grazester• 5 years ago

Elon also called Biden "Sleepy Joe" over the weekend now his company that he is a big spokes man for and is actively involved in its running is making an appeal to the government.

Elon will be Elon...

aww_dang3• 5 years ago

Isn't it a bit of, "Don't hate the player, hate the game"?

The regulatory incentives are what they are. Democracy necessarily creates an incentive for lobbyists. Politicians and bureaucrats have similarly aligned incentives. Given these incentives, the outcome is almost entirely predetermined.

Too much focus is put on the sales pitch and the bill of goods while the deliverables are ignored. Narratives and elite promotions take on lives of their own in the minds of the public. Observe the incentives and watch who gets paid. There's a strong chance that everything else is just marketing fluff.

johnsimer3• 5 years ago

Being critical of certain regulatory bodies is not the same as "wanting socialism for yourself, rugged individualism for everyone else". Elon is a proponent of UBI, and every year for the past 20 years has worked on projects are intended to help all of humanity (green energy/transport, space travel, safe AI/human symbiosis). Not sure how that's wanting individualism for everyone else.

eibubuiduid2• 5 years ago

The way the US implements fuel economy rules are stupid. For example, a diesel motorcycle that gets 100 miles per gallon wouldn't meet standards.

Our fuel economy laws are the primary reason people have been moved from fuel efficient cars to much less efficient SUVs. It's very, very stupid.

Mikeb85• 5 years ago

When are they going to push for taxes/penalties on power generated by coal?

eibubuiduid2• 5 years ago

Environmental laws have to punish individuals directly so that people feel that something is being done.

For example, banning plastic grocery bags instead of plastic food packaging, even though food packaging is a significantly higher proportion of litter.

sschueller• 5 years ago

The issue with plastic bags is overblown and banning them doesn't solve the actual issue it just makes as all feel like we are doing something. Waste management is the problem. Sure excessive use of plastic should be prevented but what is more important is what happens after it has been used. Landfills are a horrible solution as trash is in the open and can migrate to water ways etc. Ideally all trash should be incinerated and the waste gases cleaned and captured. The heat can be used to generate power. The plastic should also be manufactured in such a way that it burns as clean as possible.

burkaman• 5 years ago

Can't always trust what Elon says, but allegedly he has lobbied Trump and Biden to institute a carbon tax https://electrek.co/2021/02/11/elon-musk-asked-biden-adminis...

dillondoyle3• 5 years ago

When Joe Manchin can no longer hold the Senate hostage and Dems have larger majorities ;)

But to be less flippant it does look like we are pushing with our European counterparts to build a framework with provisions to punish trade with countries that do not reduce coal power.

That pressure + China's public marketing to become the new hegemonic power seems to have moved the needle. China just announced they won't fund new coal development which is a positive step forward, just not the giant marathon miles forward we need immediately.

danans• 5 years ago

It appears that the underlying question is over whether fuel economy fines should be inflation-adjusted. From https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-autos-emissions-idUSK...:

  The decision - announced eight days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office - follows a U.S. appeals court ruling in August that overturned the Trump administration’s 2019 decision to suspend a regulation that more than doubled penalties for automakers failing to meet fuel efficiency requirements.

  Congress in 2015 ordered federal agencies to adjust civil penalties to account for inflation. In response, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued rules to raise fines to $14 from $5.50 for every 0.1 mile per gallon new cars and trucks consume in excess of required standards.

  Automakers protested that 2016 hike, saying it could increase industry compliance costs by $1 billion annually.

That's $1B out of Tesla's pocket, since they are a major recipient of fuel economy credits (the other side of the fuel economy penalties).

You can see the status of all current penalties and credits here: https://one.nhtsa.gov/cafe_pic/cafe_pic_home.htm

beerandt3• 5 years ago

I'm sure this includes minimums for miles/kwh for electrics, right?

boplicity• 5 years ago

That's really a separate issue, which has to do with a combination of enough zero carbon electricity generation, distribution, and storage.

Though, I do wonder: Are there egregiously ineffecient electric vehicles currently on the market?

StillBored• 5 years ago

To lazy to find it, but there are some youtube videos of a car reviewer doing cross country trips in tesla's to review the difficulty. They are generally favirable, while pointing out some of the possible issues (broken chargers!) that might cause problems. A year or so after the first one, he did the exact same road trip along the northern US to compare how well it worked in cold weather to determine how much effect it would have. (answer enough to be inconvenient but he also changed to a more optimal charging method to compensate). All that is to say, in the end he published how much it cost him for this road trip, per mile in charging fees and it ended up being something like 15% cheaper than driving a similar family sedan (30MPG IIRC) and buying gas.

Two which, I would like to point out that gas taxes to pay for the roads he was driving on where likely more than 15% in most of the states he drove through. It might have been slightly more carbon friendly, but i'm a little tired of people with electric cars being given quantity discounts (if you will) buying from power generation mixes that are >50% carbon while those of us cooling our inefficient houses and powering our piggy computers are on tiered pricing models that rape us for excess consumption.

beerandt3• 5 years ago

being given quantity discounts

It's way more than that. Imagine trying to open a gas station without being required to provide restrooms, handicapped spaces, environmental permitting, and all the other headaches that come with opening any other business location, let alone the requirements that are gas station specific.

Especially since time to charge basically guarantees the occupants will be getting out of the car, which isn't the case for 5 min fill-ups at gas stations.

miloignis• 5 years ago

I believe that there's often a yearly fee for electric vehicles meant to counteract that - there is a >$200 one in Georgia, where I live, and I believe that's far over the equivalent one would pay through a gas tax if one had an ICE vehicle. In addition, I believe the vehicles hardest on the road are commercial trucks, not standard sedans. Put together, I believe the electric vehicle owners here end up subsidizing the roads for commercial truck ICEs, which seems very backwards.

LeifCarrotson• 5 years ago

Electrics like Tesla and others blow far past the most stringent fuel economy minimums. The Model 3 sedan gets close to 140 MPG equivalent! You might expect the heavy, larger Model S to perform more poorly, and you'd be right...it only gets 93 mpg.

It's a simple matter of economics; even a big battery pack contains fewer kWh than a gas tank so electric cars essentially must be streamlined. Even the Cybertruck with its huge battery and utilitarian aesthetic is aerodynamic: It looks more like a crossover SUV than a conventional pickup truck, with its streamlined windshield, sail pillars, and automatic tonneau cover. This isn't for aesthetic reasons, it's because these changes are required to reach the desired range numbers. Low-rolling-resistance tires are standard on electrics not because they're cheap for electric vehicle manufacturers, but because they're cheaper than installing larger batteries. Meanwhile, before it even hits the torque converter or transmission, a gasoline engine only turns 25-30% of that chemical energy into useful work. Conversely, an electric motor turns 90-95% of the energy in the battery into useful work.

An electric vehicle that couldn't make the 27.5 mpg CAFE minimum would be pathetic and would not be a viable product.

mike_d4• 5 years ago

MPG equivalent externalizes fuel production, which when charging your car at night - is primarily done by burning coal.

If you burned gasoline to make magic wizard juice and then powered your car off of that, it does not make the car any better for the environment.

beerandt3• 5 years ago

far past the most stringent fuel economy minimums.

Only because the efficiency of generating and transmitting electricity isn't included.

Electricity generation is generally only ~30% efficient. Transmission and grid for on-demand power slightly reduces efficiency further, while non-on-demand sources like solar and wind result in higher than apparent grid inefficiencies, since the grid investment tied to it is also only as efficient as the power source.

Solar efficiency is 20%, and lower when you factor in grid inefficiencies due to its variability.

Yes, the cost of solar already reflects these inefficiencies (land use, etc), but so does the costs of other fuels.

And most batteries aren't getting anywhere near the efficiency on the label either. All that heat coming off the battery when charging (especially using a supercharger) isn't free energy either.

yawaworht19782• 5 years ago

Another instance of Musk not believing in the free market.

The other instances is when the companies take government money and contracts.

It appears he only wants to keep governments out when it suits him, like exploiting employees.

adamsvystun• 5 years ago

I disagree. Fuel emissions are an externality [1]. And for the free market to function, externalities should be appropriately (dis)incentivised.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/externality.asp

Diederich• 5 years ago

"free market" isn't a binary thing. There's a spectrum between free market and regulation. Many spectrums.

johnsimer3• 5 years ago

I'm not aware of Elon ever saying he's 100% free-market

"A carbon tax is needed to correct the unpriced externality & market will do the rest. The consequences of slow action are serious. In my opinion, we need to convert >80% of the global road, sea & air fleet to renewables by 2050." - Elon Musk, June 25, 2020. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1276221517932552192
[regarding supporting government breakup of monopolies/oligopolies]: ". . . I’m definitely against any monopolies/oligopolies where there is a low forcing function for improving customer happiness or an unpriced externality that consumes a common good (eg emissions)." - Elon Musk, May 15, 2020. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1261155900569640962

pyronik19• 5 years ago

I think its just fighting fire with fire, The big automakers were pushing to get all kinds of subsidies from the U.S. government for unionized labor....which excludes Tesla.... this just seems like Musk fighting fire with fire.

Dopameaner• 5 years ago

I dont understand why people get so defensive when it comes EV vs Fuel vehicles. My friend who is an asian immigrant working in Idaho, experienced quite a bit of friction when he announced that he bought a Tesla.

Their major argument constituted how the tax benefits paid by US citizens were going for a Tesla owner (in this case being an immigrant.)

gibbonsrcool• 5 years ago

A lot of people get their opinions from a chain of misinformation that starts from groups who are incentivized to keep the status quo.

Even so, there are a lot more high leverage ways to spend tax money on reducing carbon than car rebates. Car rebates are a way to buy votes. I think it's pretty obvious that $7500 could be spent in way that reduces much more CO2 and doesn't benefit people that are already pretty well off.

kevstev• 5 years ago

The rebates are more directly intended to spur an EV auto industry, preferably dominated globally by US auto makers though? And I think you could argue that they did a pretty good job of this- at the very least they seem to have fast forwarded EV market share by 5-10 years, allowing at least Tesla to bootstrap itself and spurring the big auto makers into the EV game in a real way. The way things were going until 2005ish, GM would create a lot of headlines by putting a battery into some golf cart that could barely handle a trip to the mall and back and then put up its hands and say "See this just isn't practical and this is the best our MIT engineers can do vaguely waves at its ICE car lineup"

And through that lens, when it certainly felt that EVs were really going nowhere aside from a few prototypes that were completely uncompetitive, or a niche for really rich people, these subsidies have essentially launched a legit EV industry that can stand on its own, and the amount of carbon reduction that will lead to seems astoundingly cheap for the price paid. I guess you can always second guess what would have happened in the absence of these incentives, but to me they seem to have legitimately pushed forward the EV market quite a bit. Without these incentives and Tesla, I personally feel that the big automakers would have continued to pay lip service for another decade or two, maybe even three, until peripheral advances in battery technology made EVs too competitive to ignore.

dillondoyle3• 5 years ago

That's sad. Immigrants do pay taxes, for instance car registration directly I assume.

The politics on immigrants of color right now is so gross. The Biden administration has to be severely inhumane and the other side cheers on literal whipping of black Haitians who clearly need our support.

I also don't understand why businesses don't use their power more to try and open up & increase 'correct immigration' that politicians claim they support.

We keep hearing about not having enough employees right? Social Security is going bankrupt because there aren't enough workers paying in. There are studies that show undocumented migrants are net contributors in terms of public resources they consume vs. what they pay back. I genuenly believe the color of the skin of most of the migrants plays a large roll in this, including right now Asians who are experiencing a lot of hate, kind of like Arabs post 9-11.

Adding a couple hundred thousand a year won't cut it. Why not a million a year?

reducesuffering• 5 years ago

literal whipping

They were "literal" reins, not whips, and nothing yet indicates any "whipping" was happening. The reins are standard horseback riding tools and were used for that purpose. The Whitehouse just spoke with press after their evaluation of the details. They say CBP won't be using horses anymore. That's it, because it was bad optics.

CountDrewku• 5 years ago

Probably because it seems there's an air of superiority of being better than others for choosing an EV. There are studies that prove owners of hybrids/EV's want their card badges to flaunt they're driving them.

If it were just hey I got this cool EV and I really like it I think people would be less stand-offish. Instead it feels more like "Hey I bought an EV and you're a bad person who wants to kill our planet if you don't get one. I don't care that you do things like bike to work and walk places. If you have a ICE car you're bad, conform now!"

I don't want one, they don't currently meet my needs and I don't live in an urban area that has charging stations everywhere. When I say that I typically get shit on by a bunch of EV enthusiasts in online forums. So, my default response has been tainted by these encounters and I assume most EV owners are this way. I realize I'm not being fair though. I have the same problem with Vegans as well.

lscotte2• 5 years ago

Tesla shouldn't get a say. They don't produce cars that use fuel so this is purely and obviously self serving.

ajross3• 5 years ago

Tesla shouldn't get a say.

You make a fair point. But then again Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Obviously they get a say. Everyone gets a say. Even (hell, especially) for things that are "self serving". The government serves us all. We regulate for the benefit of society, not the industry being regulated!

Taywee• 5 years ago

Of course it's self serving. Why would any company lobby for anything that doesn't benefit itself?

jjtheblunt3• 5 years ago

Isn't Tesla's "angle" that they sell clean-air ev credits to ICE vendors, which are being devalued by the delay?

lkbm• 5 years ago

Only companies being fined should get a say in what the fine is? That is the opposite of how you address self-serving behavior.

kevin_thibedeau• 5 years ago

They need to just stop classifying cars as trucks.

yawaworht19782• 5 years ago

They don't push for stricter marketing regulations or more oversight regarding fsd.

I have seen mentions of repairs here, just read a report from insurance companies recently. Tesla's or electric vehicles do not burn more often than other cars. The repairs are 10 percent more expensive and some of the repairs require electricians(not necessarily from Tesla). Conclusion was, if something breaks, it's really expensive, like some high voltage cables can easy cost 7k. I think Tesla gets too much negative press on this matter.

Bostonian• 5 years ago

Trying to increase profits by having the government outlaw your competitors is unethical.

johnsimer3• 5 years ago

Not moving as fast as you can to greenify your cars as an automaker is unethical.

jjtheblunt3• 5 years ago

I think that's not their complaint; I think they started selling EV credits that Tesla earns from the government to internal combustion engine companies (GM, Ford, etc.).

Then the government changed the story by instituting a delay, which devalued what they had earned under the original rules.

I believe they are proposing that changing the rules on them, because they did the work to be in compliance, is effectively punishing them financially for that work, indirectly.

mike_d4• 5 years ago

That is like wanting the government to step in because you bought a bunch of beanie babies and they went down in value.

ProAm• 5 years ago

It's because without government subsidies in one form or another Tesla isn't profitable (not SolarCity, nor SpaceX)

AcerbicZero• 5 years ago

A company wants to use regulation to harm their competitors?! How shocking.

Sarcasm aside the only surprising part about this misuse of regulation is how blatantly obvious the motivations are.

For what it’s worth I am not opposed to fuel efficiency standards, but it seems to make a lot more sense to just use the existing lever and raise gas taxes, instead of trying to circumvent them by applying pressure to the market directly.

SECProto• 5 years ago

it seems to make a lot more sense to just use the existing lever and raise gas taxes, instead of trying to circumvent them by applying pressure to the market directly.

Note that the "fuel economy penalties" and regulations that Tesla is pushing for were an existing lever. The penalties were law from 2016, the Trump administration revoked the increase in early January of this year. [1]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-autos-emissions-idUSK...

persedes• 5 years ago

yeah, reading the article was a TIL for me too, Tesla is selling credits so other auto makers can meet emission standards. They're suing because the increased standards (and fines) that were delayed by the former administration made those less valuable.

Alex3917• 5 years ago

Their competitors want to use regulation to harm Tesla, not the other way around. Their competitors are the ones who are unfairly making money by stealing from the public.

dr_orpheus2• 5 years ago

Yes, I assumed that is was a push to drive consumers to more electric cars by increasing the fuel economy penalties, not that they were making money directly from it. I did not realize that Tesla could sell credits to other companies to offset those penalties.

annexrichmond2• 5 years ago

raise gas taxes

yet another way to drive income inequality

it_citizen3• 5 years ago

All depends on how the revenues of the tax is distributed. Redistributed equally, the tax would help to reduce them:

See: https://clcouncil.org/our-plan/ or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Canada

01100011• 5 years ago

So I just assumed the lease on a Chevy Bolt so I could cheaply try an electric out for a year. So far so good. The biggest issue, and not a big one since I can charge at home, is that 80% of the chargers around are Tesla Superchargers.

If Tesla wants to help the environment and boost EV adoption overall, they'll make their supercharger network available to other brands. I hear it is coming, but as far as I know I can't do it yet, even with an adapter.

I totally understand Tesla prioritizing its customers with a better/faster charging experience, but building a private charging network makes me think they really don't give a shit about anything but Tesla.

bradlys2• 5 years ago

but building a private charging network makes me think they really don't give a shit about anything but Tesla.

duh? They're not a company for public good. They're a company to make money.

We live in a capitalist society. How is that a surprise?

DarmokJalad17012• 5 years ago

They offered it to other OEMs before in exchange for support for upkeep/expansion and none of them took them up on it.

makerofspoons• 5 years ago

I'm a Bolt driver with the opposite experience- every charger around me is a ChargePoint, EVGo, or Electrify America. This isn't generally true across the country of course, but I generally drive in the Denver/Boulder, Colorado area which is somewhere I would expect considerable EV infrastructure. Some do have a single Tesla connector among a set of several J1772 connectors, although most commonly I see several J1772 connectors and one for Nissan Leafs.

johnnyApplePRNG• 5 years ago

Great initiative... but if you really want Biden and his administration to listen to you, you probably shouldn't make fun of him on your twitter account with 60 million+ followers. [0]

[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2021/09/20/elon-mus...

brocklobsta• 5 years ago

Ahhh the old crony capitalist "regulate the competition" mantra. Et tu Elon?

Tesla pushes U.S. to boost fuel economy penalties

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