Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "DW REV - Cars & Mobility" channel.

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  4.  @willmont8258  ”People don’t want them” That’s all a result of oil industry propaganda. Americans have been spoon fed a massive amount of disinformation about EVs and it has resulted in a market shift that affected every state, barring California. In short, American consumers have been consistently lied to by the oil industry. At the heart of it are a few basic lies that have been peddled for more than a decade and some of them are now out of date. 1) Range anxiety. My cousin lives in a semi rural town in South Australia. He drives a Model Y. South Australia is about 30% larger than Texas. You think he has range anxiety? 2) Electric cars catch fire. No, they don’t. Do some research and you will find fire department data that shows ICE vehicles are actually about ten times more likely to catch fire than EVs. 3) Electric cars take hours to charge. Not any more. My cousin’s Model Y will charge to about 80% in about 20 minutes on a Tesla Supercharger. 4) EV batteries have a high rate of failure. No, they don’t. I drive a 14 year-old Toyota hybrid and the battery is still passing its service checks. I have no concerns about it and neither does Toyota. Now, if you want to see some examples of absolute lies and disinformation, do a YouTube search for videos with titles like ‘Toyota CEO say no more EVs!’ or ‘Toyota CEO says EVs are finished.’ Then watch the video. At no point does this ever come up because he never said it. These days, sadly, it seems Americans will believe just about anything. If you want to keep driving your 1990 Chevy pick up, so be it. You might think the system still works so why change but I’m sure a lot of people thought the same thing about the horse and cart. But the world will slowly leave you behind.
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  13. Concerns over charging infrastructure and range anxiety are basically a non-argument. Few motorists drive more than 30 kms per day and they can charge their cars at home overnight on off-peak rates. Can't do that with ICE. Even then, this is early days. Does anyone think that petrol stations and oil refineries just sprung up overnight 120 years ago? Of course not. In fact, the requirements for EV charging stations will be lower than for ICE vehicles because people will be charging at home. I have seen a large charging area in the carpark at my local shopping centre. People charging their cars while they go off and shop. Can't do that with ICE. For longer trips, all that's needed is a charging station every 20-30 kms on main highways and one in any small town. My cousin has a Tesla and regularly drives long distances in it (>800 kms). He has even charged his car at his hotel. Range anxiety and lack of charging infrastructure are oil industry propaganda talking points. They don't really even apply any more. The shift to EVs will be driven by economics. EVs might cost more at the moment but once they reach parity - probably this year - it's game over for ICE. EVs cost about a fifth of what ICE cars cost to run. There are Tesla Model 3s with 500 kms on them that have never had a service. If an EV costs $10,000 more, you will recoup most of that in about four years in savings from fuel. If your house has solar panels it will basically cost you nothing to run. That's what the oil industry is scared of. They should be.
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  16.  @philipgrandidge5411  "reduce pollution in china?they are not planning for peak coal until 2030 and coal provides the electric to build their evs" This has changed. Peak coal has passed. What has happened has been an enormous uptake of renewable energy at a staggering rate. In 2023, 50% of the world's solar panels were installed in China. The result is two fold. First of all, a noticeable improvement in air quality in major cities, notably Shanghai. Some of that relates to the huge uptake of EVs. You might not care about the environment but why would anyone want breathe noxious fumes? That's a spin off. The second one is the huge reduction in demand for coal fired power generation. What isn't usually reported in the West is that the majority of those coal fired power stations were built to replace older, less efficient installations. But with the move to renewables, the flow of permits issued has reduced to barely a trickle. Such has been the uptake of things like solar that it is now thought in circles outside China than some of those new coal power stations may never actually turn a wheel. Google the Global Energy Monitor article: 'China continues to lead the world in wind and solar, with twice as much capacity under construction as the rest of the world combined'. While you're at it, have a look at this article: 'Managing the decline of coal in a decarbonizing China' There have been massive job cuts across that sector. The decade old claim about China's reliance on coal doesn't really hold any more. Even the nuclear sector is under pressure, with some plants running at only 60% capacity, making them barely viable. To be clear, they are doing this for economic reasons. Renewables are far cheaper an much more quickly deployed and any power station and they are decentralised. You can put them just about anywhere. Chinese EVs are being increasingly built with green energy.
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  27. @ Ha! Evolve or die. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen? When you say ‘the government’, which government are you talking about? The Federal government? The state government? There are not many states in the US who are particularly committed to that course of action. Scandinavian countries are doing it with the cooperation of the manufacturers. As a result they are providing options for motorists. Why can’t the United States do the same thing? And by the way, the oil industry would have you believe that this is some lefty feel good crap. But if you ask people why they will give you their reasons. And who are you or anyone else to criticise them for the choices they make as consumers? It’s their money. What ever happened to the idea that the customer is always right? Apart from the environmental spiel, EVs are much cheaper to run. I think the cost of operating one is about a quarter or a fifth of an ICE equivalent. And who doesn’t want to use their spare cash for other things besides fuel and servicing costs? China, China, China! (furious finger pointing) I’ve got news for you: ALL governments sponsor car manufacturers in those countries where they are actually made. They do it with tax breaks and fleet buys, among other things. And maybe it comes to US $10,000 per car and maybe it doesn’t but stop pretending that this is cheating or unfair to American manufacturers. Remember what happened in 2008 when the Federal government had to throw General Motors a lifeline? You would have thought they would have learnt by now, wouldn’t you? GM in other countries didn’t seem to suffer as much. The point, of course, is that US manufacturers have enjoyed a certain amount of government protection for a long time. If American manufacturers can’t stay in business after that then they deserve to die and it won’t be any more China’s fault than Japan or South Korea or Germany if it happens.
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  29. @ Well, since you only need to do it every two or three hundred kilometres, it doesn’t matter. Anyone with a brain is going to stop for food, drink, a stretch and a pee anyway. But remember that every time you get into your car in the morning, it’s full. You don’t have to go and fill it up because you’re a bit short. It’s always full because you left it on charge over night. So having to stop every now an again to charge probably isn’t as common as going for fuel in an ICE car anyway. In fact, if the vast majority of your driving is in the city, you probably almost never need to stop and charge. It’s a non-argument. Mate, you can’t win this. I’ve been seeing this for so long now I can argue in my sleep. I know of no one who owns an EV that has any intention of going back to ICE. I have another cousin with a Model 3, a mate with a Model 3, another mate with a Model X and another cousin with an MG 4. Those are just the ones I can think of. I’m sure there are others. All of them rave about their cars. None is going back. They have no service intervals, cost very little to run and they are effectively always full. The only trouble with EVs in Australia is that they are too expensive because our chicken sh1t government is beholden to the fossil fuel industry. But this was never about any of these silly oil industry shibboleths. It was about the reason the US industry is terrified of Chinese cars. The message is simple. This isn’t 1968 anymore. You’re not buying seven litres of Detroit iron in your Corvette. This is 2024 and the world has changed. The motor industry has to change with it. Evolve or die.
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  30. @ ”You love telling everyone else in the world what they should drive.” Do I? You must tell me more about myself some time. This is not about me, Charlie Brown. Apparently you can’t read. I actually said that if you want to keep driving your 1990 Chevy pick up, then so be it. I also added that the rest of the world is moving on and leaving you behind but it’s your choice. ”Stop telling the rest of us what we can drive.” I don’t believe this. Stop playing the victim. I have already pointed out that a lot of customers are making their own choices about what they drive and for their own reasons. Isn’t that what capitalism is? What I’m saying is that the world is moving on and fossil fuels are no longer the future for practical reasons as much as anything else. How do you not understand this? Oh, that’s right: you’re the victim. This is not an ideological battle. Well, not the ideological battle you want it to be. It’s an economic one as much as anything else. ”And 20 minutes vs 5 minutes, and that doesn’t include the wait in line for the charger.” Given people charge their cars at home, having to charge at a public point is a pretty rare event. Most shopping centres have rows of chargers so people charge while they do their shopping. How many ICE vehicles can do that? How many ICE vehicles are effectively always full? Mate, give up. You can’t win this. All these arguments are at least ten years old and a lot has changed. Most no longer even apply anymore. You obviously have ZERO experience of EVs or you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying. This is clickbait headline stuff. It takes about ten minutes of research to debunk all of it. You might as well be saying the earth is flat.
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  43.  @willmont8258  "You don't know what you are talking about. The Chinese government picks up about $10,000 of the costs per unit." Bullshit. The Chinese government picks up about $1,000 per car (cute that you added another zero) and then pays the owner a similar amount. But that double dipping is about to stop. Legacy car manufacturers in China will be gone by 2030. "GM getting money was not to reduce what the buyer was paying for the car, it was to keep the company from going under." Because GM was not making cars that people wanted to buy. That's capitalism: evolve or die. "In your EV you get in and drive, until your batteries go dead, then you need to stop for much longer than a gas car, and you need to find a charging station before you are out of juice. Not so easy while on the road, and you will travel a longer distance to find a charger." I've already been over this. The people I know with EVs charge their cars at home. They never go to charging stations. How do you not get this? When they travel, they use the app to find the nearest charging station and the Tesla app even tells you if there's a queue. Not very different for petrol vehicles, except that you can't walk away from your car when you're filling up your gas guzzler. If you can't understand that this is a simple change of mindset, then you're probably to dumb to be allowed to drive a car on a public road. "I get in my gas car all the time and just drive, and I can drive much longer than you and get refueled in minutes most everywhere there is a road. You can't do the same for charging." Yep. You're too dumb to be driving. Fuck, you're thick headed. I told you, you charge your car at home overnight. That way, when you get in the next day, it's full. No need to go to a charging station. There are EVs now with ranges approaching 1,000kms. Don't believe me? Look it up. Do the fucking research. "That example I gave destroys your argument." I've countered it five or six times now but you're just too dumb to see it. Either that or your reading and comprehension is lower than third grade... "They told me they had to stop and recharge in an out of the way place because there are few charging stations on the route, and it is a major highway." And I told you you're full of shit. You never gave any indication of distances or ranges of either vehicle. I think we can discount this as a hoax. I just don't believe you. "You have your EV, so you should be very happy, but you are not." Since you know so much about me, you should know that I don't own an EV. I own a hybrid but I'm looking at a Polestar to replace it. I told you that already. You must tell me more about myself some time. LOL!! "The proof is that you feel the need to argue with someone who wants a gas car." No, the comedy here is that you have absolutely no idea what you're dealing with. The market is changing. It 2030, the world will see EV sales of around 70 million. They have been increasing at a rate of about 60% per year on average. In that time, dozens of legacy manufacturers are going to go broke. Think of all those names like Chrysler (or whatever they're called now), BMW, Mercedes Benz, Honda, Mazda, maybe even Toyota. They will either vanish completely or be acquired by Chinese manufacturers. The secret is in the planning. Where American and other Western manufacturers wanted to make a lot of money quickly, the Chinese simply invested in the long term. Companies like BYD, who are completely vertically integrated, now outsell all other manufacturers in China by several times. 55% of cars sold in China are electric. In ten years fossil fuel cars will be almost impossible to find (like the fossils who want them in 2035). This has nothing to do with the guvmint and everything to do with economics. "Again, are you one who thinks we are all going to die from "climate change"?" You're an idiot, aren't you? Where have I mentioned climate change? I haven't. You're having this argument with yourself, aren't you petal? "Even in places away from civilization, people can carry extra gas in cans or extra fuel tanks. And you can transport gas in cans to where you need it. Can't do that with EVs. When it goes dead, either you need another battery, or a very long charging cable." With EV ranges now approaching 1,000 kms, that's a lot less of a problem that it ever was before. My cousin, who has a Model Y, lives in a semi rural community in South Australia. That state is 30% larger than Texas and has a much smaller population. According to you, he should be suffering from range anxiety. He's not. There is a family from Sydney who drove a Nissan Leaf from Sydney to Perth, across the Nullarbor Plain. That's probably the most desolate road on the planet. That's 4,000 kms son, almost the distance from LA to New York. And with almost nothing in between (by comparison). All they had to do was plan their stops, which anyone with brain does anyway. That was least 5 years ago and everything, from range performance to charging stations, has improved since then. In 2035, your gas guzzlers will no longer exist. This won't be because of any laws, there will no longer be a need for them. There are Tesla Model 3s that have traveled half a million kilometres and have never had a service. Their batteries are within 10% of new. Did you get that? 500,000 kilometres without a service. The only things they've changed are the tyres. Show me one petrol vehicle that has done that. EVs are the future and your Chevy pickup truck, with its 1930s-tech V8, is dead. So is the market for it. You need to do some serious research son. You don't have the remotest idea what's in front of you. The future is coming faster than you're capable of understanding and it doesn't give a flying fuck about you and your pickup truck. This will be like being hit by a freight train. You won't know until it's too late. Evolve or die.
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