4mo ago

China’s EV Boom Threatens to Push Gasoline Demand Off a Cliff

finance.yahoo.com /news/china-ev-boom-threatens-push-010516103.html

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15648896

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finance.yahoo.com /news/china-ev-boom-threatens-push-010516103.html

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China’s sales of electric vehicles and hybrids have in fact reached a tipping point. They’ve accounted for more than half of retail passenger vehicle sales
If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
- If you have cheap electricity and cheap batteries, people will buy EVs. Colour me surprised.
  Cheap EVs is part of it, and that part is subsidies from the government, but China has also increase the registration cost of pure ICE vehicles. Yeah, you can still buy them, but they'll cost you a lot of extra money to register them to be legal to drive on the roads in China. On top of this, in major congestion areas, you have to get entered in a lottery to even get a license plate (ability to register a car). The government in China continues to reduce the number of ICE license plates available, and increases EV license plates. (source)
  So its a lot more than just "cheap electricity and cheap batteries" in action in China causing this massive switch to EVs.
  
  And here I have to pay more to register my hybrid.
  
  The government in China continues to reduce the number of ICE license plates available, and increases EV license plates. (source)
  Afaik, they had (still have?) a massive air pollution issues in certain areas. This looks like attempt to alleviate these problems
  
  Exactly this. Green license plates (EV-exclusive) are also a bit of a status symbol in China.
  
  China doesn’t produce much oil domestically so it’s a good strategic move not to let their peoples lives become too intertwined with gasoline. We’ve seen the US how much it drives people’s politics if they 1. can get gas (goodbye Jimmie Carter) and 2. pay less for gas (goodbye Biden).
- Not if the batteries are cheap. I dont want a car whose batteries die after 1 year.
  Give me good batteries
  
  Some have crazy long warranties. (10+ years) Not sure if they apply in America.

I would love for this to happen, but it just seems to be another reason why Trump wants tariffs on foreign EVs--both Elon and the oil/car execs don't want clean, affordable vehicles! They only want us buying gas-guzzling tanks or deregulated, overpriced Teslas.
- I mean, I hate the guy but Tesla prices have dropped significantly over time and Tesla does a ton of battery R&D, which is good. And Tesla has done more for the EV charging infrastructure in the US than anyone else has. Even so, going forward I will never buy a Tesla, I'm hoping my next car will be an Aptera. More and more non-Tesla EVs are coming with the NACS port and can use the Tesla chargers, which is great. Non-Tesla chargers are few and far between. And generally pretty slow. But fuck Elon regardless.
  
  Tesla introduced the fad of using an app for charging which other idiots promptly copied making the charging infrastructure a fucking nightmare.
  Tesla introduced big screen few buttons which other car manufacturers copied, making a few model years of cars more dangerous than they have to be, thankfully manufacturers are rolling that shitty as trend back.
  Tesla continues to make cars with shit reliability, and dangerous UX with no buttons or turning shit to touch buttons that should be that, e.g. the turning indicators.
  In short fuck Tesla and Musk.
  
  Tesla only dropped their price when the federal rebate was limited to lower price EVs (so no more rebates for luxury vehicles, which makes perfect sense).
  He wants to go back to selling less quantity if higher priced (and much higher profit) cars. Just like the rest of the goddamn cars industry outside of China apparently.
- Maybe a silver lining is that this would free up these cars to be sold in other countries that have cities drowning in smog.. if cheaper EVs are available there it might dramatically improve the health of these cities and all their inhabitants..
  
  That's a good point. I guess that was pretty American of me to dismiss this entirely because of what's going on here.
- It's like they didn't learn a goddamn thing from the 70s and the better, cheaper, more fuel efficient cars imported from Japan.
  
  It’s more like the lessons of the 70s don’t apply to people like them.
- You do know we already have 100% EV tariffs from Biden, right? I don't think Trump even needs to extend them, but I could be wrong.

Can we also curb those big fat ugly SUVs in the rest of the world? They are not only more polluting but infinitely more dangerous.
- EVs are such a mess in North America. Unless I want a Tesla it feels like I can only get gigantic SUVs or expensive luxury cars.
  I just want to replace my Mazda 3 with an electric equivalent
  
  I don't know why everyone forgets one of the first EVS. Look at getting a Nissan leaf, they are awesome.
  
  Renault Megane E-tech Electric
  VW ID.3
  Volvo EX30
  And there's quite a lot more brands with EVs in that size bracket coming out in the near future
  
  Polestar
  
  I was so excited when I heard Mazda was making an electric vehicle. But what they made was a joke, not even 100 miles on a charge. I also want to replace my 3 with an electric of the same size.
  
  Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf come to mind.
  
  The mach-e is a great option. The pricing has come down enough to make it a comparable against the model Y. It's not as small as a model 3, but it definitely doesn't feel as big as it is.
- No they need to also be pushed off a cliff.
- No, they will be even cheaper and easier to run.

What's with the title?! Here's my alternative: China's EV boom makes a dent in fossil fuel consumption.
- It's Bloomberg. A rag for capitalists, by capitalists. Less fossil fuel use is bad for them because it hurts their portfolio.
  
  So they're trying to crash the oil stock?
- westoid media isn't allowed to admit China does anything good, so they have to frame everything negatively. Alternative possible headline would also be, "China's EV boom makes a dent in fossil fuel consumption, but at what cost?"
- The biggest threat China presents to fossil fuel consumption is future economic growth. Putting 1.4B people into ICE personal vehicles would be a nightmare.
  Their battery tech is going to spare the globe generations of future consumption. They're doing what Americans should have done 20 years ago, taking ICE engines off the market before they're built.
  
  Those OPEC Countries, who rely on ICE Engines like they're a future ATM Machine, are just maddening. They're a HIV Virus plague on the world and NASA Administration need to launch them into LEO orbit.

Primary reason I don't understand the call for "drill baby drill". We'll end up with oil and needing to sell it for much cheaper than anticipated because the demand is low.
- Ya I always hate when people say, "We'll always need oil!". I mean, maybe ya, but for every time we convert a car, or power plant, to electricity, or stop producing some plastic product, that reduces the overall demand. It's a good thing!
  
  We will for a long time, but the less we need the better. At some points we will replace plastics etc. But we don't have enough alternatives that make economic sense yet.
- As long as you have a cartel OPEC controlling the price you won't end up like that.
- Big manufacturing stands to benefit from this too.
  Lubrication and grease is a big fucking industry. Everyone needs it, from automobiles to machines binding beds together to bridges and, hell, everything, EV's even. The cheaper oil is, the cheaper that gets, and I know I'd love to walk away from a $35 oil change.

Sometimes China does good things.
- Often times. Most of the bad things you’ve heard were probably made up anti-China propaganda.
  
  Uyghur Genocide
  Violating the sovereignty of Taiwan
  Unprovoked attacks on boats in nearby international waters
  Lying about being communist.
  Which of these are made up?

Do it

don't give me hope.
- Give it to me, please.
  
  best I can do is tree fiddy

It's a nice graph, but it's only a projection and I've seen those go to shit before.

no it doesn't

This makes me wonder if China will be a geopolitical target for the oil nations like Russia and the Middle East. The Saud and Putin are both close enough to Trump that direct action seems likely.
- This makes me wonder if China will be a geopolitical target for the oil nations like Russia and the Middle East.
  Russia can't afford to stop selling oil to China. Its one of its few customers left to sell oil to.
  
  China is Saudi Arabia's largest customer. Saudi Arabia can't afford to piss off China.
- This makes me wonder if China will be a geopolitical target for the oil nations like Russia and the Middle East.
  More like the other way around. Without the demand from China, Russian oil industry, and their whole state is fucked.

That's very good for them. I'd also like to see them going less dependent on energy for production facilities they import from like Kazakhstan where they just burn coal. As the world's first, leading factory, they are able to set the trend for everyone else.

Russian tears

Ah yes, the graph shows the demand of gas increasing from 2022 to 2024 despite EV's becoming exceptionally cheap there in the last couple years, therefore the demand for gas will completely crash in the next couple of years, great projection.
- Not really though. The trend line would be flat or nearly flat on that graph up to 2024. And the rest is just a visual depiction of the IEA's prediction. Which is still pretty conservative.

Sure

Fuck China. Any news coming out of China is a lie. Grow up.
- Your opinion might change as gas becomes costly due to the loss of economies of scale.
- The ministry of truth said so.

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