The Upside-Down Logic of Electric SUVs | Hacker News Reader

The Upside-Down Logic of Electric SUVs

wsj.com

4 pointsBostonian5 comments

"Buyers aren’t drawn to the electric Mustang or Ford’s new F-150 Lightning pickup to solve climate change. These are exciting, high-tech gadgets in their own right. And that’s fine. Even so, customers’ appetite might slacken if they were told the truth. Ford leaked this week for the benefit of the investment community plans to lay off thousands of workers to fatten the profits of its conventional vehicles. This extra cash is needed to support electric vehicles that lose money despite taxpayer rebates plus hidden subsidies via our convoluted fuel-economy and trade regulations.

Ford’s leak may be a turning point. Conventional vehicles will be starved for investment from here on out, even as auto makers throw money at big-battery EVs for luxury buyers.

This trade-off could actually lead to worse emissions than otherwise (though still a rounding error in total global emissions) considering that most nonrich consumers will likely opt for gasoline-powered cars for decades to come. It also represents a gamble with the industry’s finances, which depend on large, government-protected profits from standard SUVs and pickups. If these vehicles start looking shabby and out of date due to lack of investment, the industry is in deep straits. As Ford CEO Jim Farley said in March, “we need them to be more profitable to fund” Ford’s $50 billion in spending on mostly high-end EVs, which have the least chance of being net reducers of CO2."

Holman Jenkins is primarily concerned with downplaying climate change effects and ridiculing any attempt to address climate change. Look at his WSJ archives and you will find hundreds of columns that all say basically the same thing: environmentalists are stupid and wrong, climate science is wrong (or, “inaccurate”), renewable energy advocates are wrong. I recommend this survey of WSJ opinion page (and more generally, News Corporation publications like Fox and New York Post) talking points about climate change:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/01/if-you-cant-deny-it-d...

> These large-battery, long-range vehicles would have to be driven many tens of thousands of miles before they rack up enough mileage and save enough gasoline to compensate for the emissions created to produce their batteries.

This still seems like a net positive to me? The average lifespan of an ICE car is 200,000 miles. Electric vehicles supposedly last even longer.

I'd love for the auto industry to focus on small and cheap PEVs, because I like cars that don't cost a lot of money. But for someone who wants to drop $50k on a truck -- even if the carbon break even point for an F150 Lightning turns out to be some high figure like 100,000 miles, isn't the environmental impact over the lifetime of the vehicle still better than its fossil fuel equivalent?

Even the Model T dropped >60% in its first 15 years. Pretty weak argument here if the focus is solely about the cars coming off the line today.

https://www.fordmodelt.net/model-t-ford-prices.htm

So, what does one who needs a off-road capable/large storage vehicle do? I do not drive to commute. I have a large dog, bicycles, camping gear, ski gear, etc. that are the things that accompany me and my passengers during trips. By this logic, these consumers (who might have more disposable income) should not move to make a climate difference earlier (where they may and probably do drive thousands of kilometres per year!

Nuance. These clickbait articles really miss this. I wish we had better editors.

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