"The choice is... between using Chinese imports as part of the solution and protecting domestic industry even at the expense of a delayed or aborted transport decarbonisation. The latter, unfortunately, is the path the US is going down."
You'd think there would be a market niche for low-cost EV's, but Tesla correctly understood the potential EVs had as performance cars and luxury cars. and since that's where the biggest profits are, other manufacturers followed. Then came manufacturers trying to one-up each other with range, so now EVs in the US are expensive, with most of that cost coming from batteries much larger than most of us probably need.
For most people, a car is just an appliance, a means to get from A to B. Where's the Electric Econobox for these people? China makes such cars by the millions, but it seems we'll never see them.
At the same time, a flood of cheap EVs with limited range might hurt the EV transition in the long run, acting to reinforce a notion of EVs as "cheap with limited range" and discouraging overall EV adoption. This was the impression - of EVs as glorified golf carts - that Tesla was pushing against in the first place.
Tesla's success shows just how outdated that 60's-car-commercial bullshit is: Your car as an expression of personality, of freedom, of power and sex. Start with styling that's iPhone-simple and then NEVER update it, because nobody really cares. Your white Model 3 is as indistinguishable from other Model 3's as your iPhone is from other iPhones, but it does the job it needs to do, quietly and comfortably, that's all that matters. And Detroit, run by "Car Guys" (even when they're women) are just as baffled now as when the VW Beetle was selling by the millions. People who truly love cars just can't get that most people don't.
"Subsidies should require low carbon footprints, in effect reserving access to European carmakers."
This seems to me to say the entire PRC should be deemed insufficiently green, a status assigned indefinitely no less and the PRC's situation as still-developing nation is irrelevant: The green transition requires developing countries to limit their economic growth and attendant development to pay for the world's green transition. Any historical contributions to atmospheric carbon dioxide are immaterial, the question aimed at the PRC is, what have you done to me lately?
And this is ventured in this context: "Tariffs should be used to offset unequal production subsidies only, and the incoming carbon tariff should be promptly extended to cars (to remove cost advantages from carbon-intensive energy)." It seems to me the tacit assumption is the role of SOEs and state banks are said subsidies. The conclusion seems to be tariffs should pay for Germany's transition to EVs, as hoped for so long as it is profitable.
Not clear whether this is cited to promote desirable clarity in thinking? Or an equally tacit criticism of such thinking?
"The choice is... between using Chinese imports as part of the solution and protecting domestic industry even at the expense of a delayed or aborted transport decarbonisation. The latter, unfortunately, is the path the US is going down."
You'd think there would be a market niche for low-cost EV's, but Tesla correctly understood the potential EVs had as performance cars and luxury cars. and since that's where the biggest profits are, other manufacturers followed. Then came manufacturers trying to one-up each other with range, so now EVs in the US are expensive, with most of that cost coming from batteries much larger than most of us probably need.
For most people, a car is just an appliance, a means to get from A to B. Where's the Electric Econobox for these people? China makes such cars by the millions, but it seems we'll never see them.
At the same time, a flood of cheap EVs with limited range might hurt the EV transition in the long run, acting to reinforce a notion of EVs as "cheap with limited range" and discouraging overall EV adoption. This was the impression - of EVs as glorified golf carts - that Tesla was pushing against in the first place.
Tesla's success shows just how outdated that 60's-car-commercial bullshit is: Your car as an expression of personality, of freedom, of power and sex. Start with styling that's iPhone-simple and then NEVER update it, because nobody really cares. Your white Model 3 is as indistinguishable from other Model 3's as your iPhone is from other iPhones, but it does the job it needs to do, quietly and comfortably, that's all that matters. And Detroit, run by "Car Guys" (even when they're women) are just as baffled now as when the VW Beetle was selling by the millions. People who truly love cars just can't get that most people don't.
"Subsidies should require low carbon footprints, in effect reserving access to European carmakers."
This seems to me to say the entire PRC should be deemed insufficiently green, a status assigned indefinitely no less and the PRC's situation as still-developing nation is irrelevant: The green transition requires developing countries to limit their economic growth and attendant development to pay for the world's green transition. Any historical contributions to atmospheric carbon dioxide are immaterial, the question aimed at the PRC is, what have you done to me lately?
And this is ventured in this context: "Tariffs should be used to offset unequal production subsidies only, and the incoming carbon tariff should be promptly extended to cars (to remove cost advantages from carbon-intensive energy)." It seems to me the tacit assumption is the role of SOEs and state banks are said subsidies. The conclusion seems to be tariffs should pay for Germany's transition to EVs, as hoped for so long as it is profitable.
Not clear whether this is cited to promote desirable clarity in thinking? Or an equally tacit criticism of such thinking?