unintended consequences! He's a stable genius.

But they hate Musk, so they bought a Toyota bZ4X. They weren’t the only ones. Toyota’s EV sales surged 139% in March.
https://electrek.co/2026/04/27/toyotas-ev-sales-surge-139-drivers-seek-gas-alternatives/

I do understand that another group of assholes will find a way to hold us hostage - likely the AI assholes - but wouldn't it be nice to make all of those oil politicians and executives irrelevant?

their power is reduced. Pun intended. We’re less held hostage to a magic liquid only they can provide. Electricity is produced locally relatively speaking. The price of it can be controlled by local and state utility regulators and not by nameless faceless commodity traders and producers on the other side of the planet.

since 2014/2015. It just freaking works. Heats/Cools/Powers my house, haven't bought a drop of gasoline since 2018.

The energy from our neighborhood fusion reactor just 8 light minutes away provided me with 88 kWh of electricity yesterday.

Quietly, cleanly, cheaply...

He showed charts of the move away from gas powered to electric cars. He also talked about the advances China has made in fast charging and easy battery replacement. He showed a video of some guy who hooked up an inverter to one of those new small solar panels and charged his car for just the cost of the components.


Then the issue will be one what to do with all the spent batteries.

They are probably ecstatic. A disruption to OPEC means their profit margins go through the roof.

At these prices they can actually invest in Venezuela and turn a profit.

If you step back and take a broader look at it, you could argue that the whole reason for this "little excursion" was to make those very oil executives happy by disrupting their competition.

Oil is used in far more ways than just to make passenger cars move around, and it unfortunately isn't going away any time soon regardless of how many EV passenger cars get sold. What you do not see yet are EV 18-wheel trucks, EV passenger jets, EV ocean liners, EV aircraft carriers, etc.--and you can't make plastics out of wind or solar energy.

...up the use of EV trucks will be more difficult than passenger cars until strides are made in charging, battery quality and capacity, and range--as well as battery recycling, etc.

The effort in Norway is very encouraging, but Norway is roughly the size of New Mexico with roughly the population of South Carolina. Transportation demands in the U.S. are vastly different.

Delivery times are a huge issue for the industry. Building out a network of tractors that can be charged and ready to carry cargo on to the next charging stop could alleviate the issue of long charging times impacting transit times, but that will heavily favor large carriers over independent operators unless they are able to organize effectively. Paradigm shifts are often difficult, but to make EV models work for the trucking industry it will require one.

Hydrogen fuel cells do also show a lot of promise as well.

Our biggest problem at the moment is that we have people in charge that do not want alternate fuel sources to prevail. That is something that needs to change--and it is something we thought was changing which makes it even harder to comprehend.

Coincidentally, much of the technology needed to push the EV field forward depends on things like lightweight plastics which require petroleum to produce.

Our dependence on carbon-based products will persist for quite a while....

Long term demand is being destroyed, and once destroyed will never come back. Each EV bought (new or used) means about 500-800 gallons of gasoline not burned in a year. Last year the world bought 20 million EVs, so 1 BILLION gallons of gasoline/diesel demand vanished. EV adoption outside the US is accelerating. Wind/Solar generation exceeded coal last year.

As to Class 8 trucks, yes, you don't see many in this country, but the story is quite different elsewhere. Also, they are being adopted for heavy mining and construction. Heavy electric vehicles can work quietly, without exhaust poisoning the air. Aircraft carriers and submarines are electric vehicles and have lots of batteries, with difference is they draw power from a nuclear reactor. Electric aviation is in the early stages. Electric ferries are popping up in Europe. Hybrid cargo ships are under construction.

Each year, batteries get better, cleaner, cheaper, and safer.

The future economic powerhouse will be an electrostate, not a petrostate.

..on the need for their products.

People in the plastic industry will tell you that oil is too valuable to burn as fuel. Using it as a feedstock for plastics is going to be their future--and one that may well be more profitable than the current model.

Batteries themselves have a number of drawbacks that engineering is overcoming, but we may well land on something different as many alternatives to current battery technology are rapidly being developed.

But we are still living in a world where we may well destroy the planet before we see the end of the oil industry.

Imagine that.

A lot of people are making the switch. And the people who already have made the swtich are generally very pleased with their cars.

Of course, the same jack holes are out there pushing the RW talking points about EVs;
They have a higher carbon footprint. They don't.
They are more expensive to charge than gas is. They aren't.
Home owners insurance goes up because of fire risk. It goes down because EVs catch fire at 1/60th the rate ICE vehicles do.
The electricity is produced with coal anyways... We're moving to clean energy in my home state and doing so quickly, 50% of the electricity in this state will have no carbon out put by 2030.

EVs have come a long way i just the last few years. They make sense for anyone with a garage IMO.

Thinking about EV, why do I need garage? Hadn't occurred to me. Thanks?

If you live in apartment complex, they may not have charging stations or nearby outside electrical outlets to charge the vehicle.

No apartment but have never had garage at any of my houses I've owned. Rare in my older neighborhood! Thanks

Some people in my hilly area of LA just park at the curb and run the cable from the house No sidewalks for them, so the car is basically right next to the property. I have seen people run it over sidewalks, they usually do some sort of cable ramp/protector.

We also have street EV charging with the chargers attached to the light/telephone poles.

And, of course, there's always fast chargers. 20-30 minutes once or twice a week.

It makes it a no brainer IMO if you have a garage so you can charge at home off peak energy price times. It works for a lot of people without garages too, but being able to charge at home is just so much of a game changer.

And what's ignored in most of those threads is that people with EVs love them. Their satisfaction rate is extremely high and people like the performance and the fact that there's less maintenance. It's really a superior technology right now. Simpler and more robust design, less moving parts, more reliable.

that a LOT of EVs from 2022-2023 are coming off leases, so a lot of EVs will flood the zone, meaning for a while at least, prices will be very good. Once things start hitting $6+ a gallon, they will be in high demand.

I am an engineer by trade, so I just appreciate more robust design. EVs are more robust. They have less parts, less moving parts, and less assembly time. And the regenerative braking systems basically make brake pads and rotors last forever.

You now have a car that never needs an oil change and almost never needs brake work. And you've got a car with less vibration that wears on all the different parts. They're just simpler. In fact, because they're simpler, I think you've seen makers try to put too much gadgetry into them.

And on the used market, going to be interesting to see what very old EVs are like. Like the EV you give to your kid when they get their deriver's license and their younger sibling then inherits. I bet you're going to have Evs on the road with 300,000 miles, and the battery life is degraded to the point where the range is like 1/3 of its original, which actually might be ideal for parents of teenagers.

Garages make that easy. If you rent an apartment, it can be trickier, though depending on how much you drive (must people drive lass than 35 miles a day) any place you can access a 110v plug means you can charge.

While it does have an ICE, it powers a generator to supply voltage to the electric drive motor after the battery is depleted, which is around 50 miles depending on the temperature. I rarely drive over 50 miles per day so I rarely use any gas at all. The Volt charges overnight and is fully charged by morning using a 120v outlet. I could have a higher voltage charger to shorten the charge time but it really isn't necessary. The Volt as no range anxiety as you can switch to using the ICE at any time.

Why our domestic auto manufacturers are abandoning EV's is beyond rational thinking while China is leading the way. The world will be driving electric while we are stuck with our polluting gas powered vehicles. Unfortunately, Chevy quit making the Volt in 2019 due to poor sales. Chevy failed to properly promote the Volt so they killed it. I love my Volt and wish Chevy would bring something similar back. I bought it for $17k and could sell it for what I bought it for two and a half years ago. I have saved thousands of dollars in fuel costs.

The car keeps track of the age of the gas in the tank and forces me to use it before it gets too stale. My other car is a Toyota RAV4 PRIME (PHEV). It needs gas four or five times a year for road trips. All electric charging comes from rooftop solar.

With my closest gas station now selling regular for $5.75 a gallon, I appreciate electrification of the fleet even more.

for several years, it was our bridge from gasoline to BEVs.

I only burned fuel when I went on vacation, the rest of the time it was just electrons.

For many, the cost of an ev is equivalent to a yearly salary, and the monthly payments could be as much as a rent or mortgage payment (depending on where you live).

I bought my Volt for $17k. It had 45k miles on the odometer. I have driven it for two and a half years and have put just around 17k miles on it since. You can buy used Volts. They were made from 2011 to 2019. They are divided into Gen 1 and in 2016 there was a major update to Gen 2. Low mile Gen 1's can be very affordable as can early Gen 2's.

Last year, you could get a really nice 2-3 year old EV with low miles for less than half of retail. Since the oil spike, those prices are creeping back up, but there are still deals to be had.

And new prices are coming down. Used to be $40K to start, now it's $30K.

The prices are much better. You can find some very decent EV like the Chevy Bolt for under $20K.

When the right thing became the economically sensible thing,, it still wasn't enough. Then the orange enemy of the human race came along and suddenly doing the right and sensible thing also became a matter of self-defense.

some folks rich while diminishing national security, setting the US behind in technology, lowering energy costs, making energy more one dimensional than it should be, costing jobs in renewables, etc....all within the context of Venezuela and the middle east conflicts.

The WH's push toward petro doesn't make much sense unless you're a petro CEO

squeeze every last dime out of the oil and gas in the ground before allowing us to progress

(Repost)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221208539

https://futurism.com/science-energy/iran-war-solar-china

Why is gas (where I am) $6.43 a gallon?
I got my Prius on the freeway and set the cruise control @ 55.
People flew past me like I was parked.
conclusion?
Americans love to burn gas and will pay any price to drive fast!
Gas mileage drops fast over 50 mph. Every 5 mph over 50 mph costs more fuel.
Driving 70 mph instead of 60 mph can cost nearly $0.36 more per gallon.
The 55-65 mph range is the best for most cars.
Happy Motoring!

to refine the oil we drill. Building a refinery is massively expensive, and no one wants one in their neighborhood since they are colossal health hazards poisoning the soil, air and water.

Peak oil for china. That will be the turning point as a large population center reduces demand over time.

The infrastructure is not there imo, to be fully electric in USA. Maybe I am wrong.

Who knew we were dependent on Iran and the straights of Hormuz and fertilizer from Russia to grow food? If we had organic agriculture these would be irrelevant and it would be better for our health and the planet.