Is America's EV Revolution Stalling?

economist.com

> Ford’s electric division is losing about $62,000 for every vehicle it sells, in contrast to a net profit of $2,500 apiece for the company’s petrol cars

Given a middle of the road cost of carbon, every ICE car that Ford ships is costing the country more money than Ford makes.

Average car emits 4.2 metric tonnes per year times a social cost of carbon of about 200 dollars (estimates range from about 50 to 450)

Sad to see a magazine called "The Economist" missing the point so badly that it's left lamely wishing for legacy automakers to make profit from doing the right thing rather than doing some basic economics.

How is losing $62,000 a year per unit "basic economics" or a sustainable way for any company to run? Just because you don't like the externalities doesn't mean every company producing them ought to go bankrupt. What if we applied these same rules to the software industry? Meta should operate at a loss until they cease to exist. Any company that has ever done anything bad should just hand over all it's assets to the government and then fold, in whatever world you seem to be describing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com