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Comment by txsoftwaredev | Hacker News Reader

The only reason that gas prices are this high in the US is a direct result of the democrat party. They LOVE high gas prices. The elite brag how they aren't concerned as their expensive Tesla doesn't use gas. They believe that the same people that can't afford these high gas prices are going to go out and buy a 60k dollar EV. They believe that everyone can switch to driving an EV and the power grid will some how be able to handle it.

There is no reason the US should not be completely energy independent. There is plenty of oil to drill, if the democrats would allow it.

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To believe that there is a single, easily-distillable "reason" to a very complex, country-wide (or wider) economic concern, should be an indicator to re-examine one's own depth of understanding on said issue.

Their are plenty of EVs that cost less than $60k. And plenty of used hybrids that cost a fraction of that.

High oil prices do push consumers to choose more efficient vehicles. They also benefit the US by sending way less money to countries that want to harm us - especially Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc.

The median US household income is around 60k. The average consumer in the US cannot afford an EV as well as the cost to maintain one. Not to mention the very limited charging options available for travel.

Once EVs are produced in the same volumes as combustion cars today then the price for an EV will be the same, and probably lower as EV cars are much simpler and contain less components. Right now there is probably also some markup added just because the manufacturer can charge more for an EV (status, more demand than production capacity etc).

The charging time will likely also go down further which could allow for the batteries to become smaller for most use cases and thus the price come down even more.

And on top of that, if energy prices continue to stay high, the SUV/Truck era might slowly die away and smaller/lighter/aerodynamic cars with better mileage will become the norm. Less metal and smaller motor needed means cheaper car.

That's understandable but forcing it by inflated gas prices is not an approach I can support.

Have you been to any southern ormidwestern towns? Plenty of guys druve $50k+ pickups to sit at a desk for 8 hours

The cost to maintain an electric vehicle is paltry compared to a gas /diesel vehicle. There are downsides, but maintenance isn't one of them.

That's almost 4x what I spent for my car. That's not even close to a reasonable price.

High gas prices will be used as a talking piece against the Democrats if they continue through the mid-term elections… not sure your point of view makes a lot of sense.

Biden has blocked oil contracts in the US but supported other countries to produce oil, it is very clear the democratic parties plan. There is no reason for oil prices to be this high. It's clearly by design.

Has that actually happened though? In his first year in office, Biden approved more oil permits than Trump. Biden's continued to approve more permits recently. Obviously many of his supporters (including myself) don't like this. However the reality is that Biden has done more than Trump did to keep oil prices low, he just got hit with an unlucky set of geopolitical events.

https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/new-da...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/biden-cancels-offs...

And the Keystone Pipeline was shutdown by executive order.

So gas prices went up because a pipeline that didn’t exist still doesn’t exist? How does that make any sense?

The point is that the Biden administration has options to increase oil supply but refuses.

But that’s not really what’s happening. The administration prevented the creation of the Keystone XL pipeline which everyone has known is a terrible idea for years. Meanwhile, they’re pursing alternate options to increase oil supply.

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