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Comment by psychlops | Hacker News Reader

Seems like an article like that should include California's unique and large tax credit for EV's which helps people "choose" by being subsidized by everyone else.

It would be a different story if people had to pay full sticker price.

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Oil and gas gets ~$5T/year in subsidies globally. There is no "full sticker price", all scales are tipped. Similarly, it would be different if everyone consuming fossil fuels had to pay the fully loaded costs.

https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidie...

https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/sen-wh...

Agree that it's gray, but the end consumer isn't seeing the benefit as directly as EV's. Given that they also consume fossil fuels for their electricity, it would be difficult to unwind full sticker price.

In the long run, it will benefit everyone else too. But that's without getting into all the ways that gas cars or cars in general are subsidized too.

Even after subsidies, EVs are still more expensive than gas-powered cards, so subsidies alone don't explain why EVs are gaining market share.

There's also the EV specific tax credits. New EV buyers which is what the article references are much higher income that average and are able to take better advantage.

To be clear, I'm not against EV's at all but think they can and should compete on equal footing.

Amusing you'd say that given the US goes to war and destabilize governments to prop up petroleum supply (e.g. Iraq).

How much did that war cost?

Way too much! But I'm not sure where you are going with that point. If suddenly lithium (batteries) were to become a necessary resource for the US, you can bet governments will be destabilized to prop up the lithium supply.

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