Scoutmaster,

1) So, inflation? What's your point? Not sure where you're going with this. All money has a greater value in the past than in the future.

2) You're asking a question that's easy to answer. Add $7500 to the purchase price of the electric car and recalculate. If you bought a Model S for around $75k in 2013 (sans subsidy) they're worth about $30,000 today. A comparable Mercedes E550 that also cost $75k new is worth about $20k today. Assuming equal maintenance and insurance costs, the Tesla would still be cheaper to own due to lower depreciation and gas expense.

3) Present counter-evidence instead of attacking the source.

As for government agencies overseeing power -- they already do. Every state has some degree of authority over how power is managed, and the rest falls to FERC and DOE. Utilities are a mix of government-owned, private non-profit, coops, and privately held enterprises, and publicly traded companies. PG&E in California is a publicly traded, for-profit company. So is SCE.

Every public utility is regulated. You live in Utah and unless you're in Salt Lake, you have the "public" in utility to thank for being able to reply to this post. Because most utilities make little money on bringing power to rural parts of the country. In a non-regulated environment where free markets dictate the cost of electricity, the price of rural power would be sky high. And that's a product of necessity -- it's very hard to have "choice" with a utility.

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:

GM sold about 8 million cars last year.
Less than 3 million where sold in the US.

They would have to be dumb to not focus on their core audience, especially when they know the US will be in the same position in the near future.

This is a great point. GM needs to get ready for when China, India, and SE Asia starts passing environmental rules. And that will happen in the next decade. We don't think of Buick as being relevant here but it's huge in China.

Readying their lineup for future Asian urban air quality standards is a wise move.

The cars GM sells in the Asian markets are mostly built in those countries. Garbage Motors is just doing what they do best: marketing. Unfortunately it isn’t building quality cars and trucks instead.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:
I think most of the people vehemently apposed to Electric power are that way because they see it as the lefty tree huggers pushing it on them. No amount of facts or even the reality of actually driving one will ever change that. My concern is that if this is shown to be far superior in the future then the lefties have one more feather in their cap if we are giving them credit for it.

GM is just following the market and making a smart business decision. We tend to think we are the leaders of the world in most things but we are behind the EV curve as compared to all of GM’s target audience.

GM sold about 8 million cars last year.
Less than 3 million where sold in the US.

They would have to be dumb to not focus on their core audience, especially when they know the US will be in the same position in the near future.

I lived in Silicon Valley for close to 40 years, worked in high tech, also taught business in college, we studied Tesla every year. I had neighbors that worked in Tesla mgmt. My concern is that when stripping out all gov't incentives on both sides, electric vehicles are not economically or environmentally superior to gas vehicles. Plus, it is much easier/more efficient to store energy using carbon based energy than electric battery based energy. And as I have posted, I don't have confidence in the heavily gov't regulated electricity industry.

So if the majority of the market wants EV's, that's free enterprise/capitalism. And that's fine. But if the gov't tells me that I can't own a gas powered vehicle, and that same gov't controls the electricity market, I am concerned.

I agree with you on all counts but fossil fuel is heavily subsidized as well. In most articles you can find it’s close to 20 billion in direct payments per year. If you want to figure in the other areas that get government money because of fossil fuel such as environmental, military/wars the numbers although impossible to pinpoint are undeniably astronomical.

I tend to favor the free market myself but clearly the fossil fuel side of it is not free market because of the massive obvious and not so obvious subsidies. It’s not just the US headed this way. As an example Japan is pouring 20 billion a year just into battery technology alone. The reality is that’s the way the entire world is going so fighting it is futile and will put us behind the rest of the world. Arguing about subsidies since both forms of power get them is a little disingenuous.

quote:

Originally posted by caneau:
Scoutmaster,

1) So, inflation? What's your point? Not sure where you're going with this. All money has a greater value in the past than in the future. . . .

You asked re what present value means, I briefly described such. It is not related to market capitalization, which is set by supply-demand, other than someone's present value calcs of anticipated net cashflow may influence their demand for a stock.

I would like to see audited financial statements, with what constitutes a "subsidy" clearly described and separated in the reports; for oil firms, electricity firms, auto firms, to make sure the criteria for subsidies were consistent. Then a cost benefit analysis of just what those subsidies accomplished, ie, were consumers better of, yes or no. And do so maybe every 5 years for the past 50 years.

As I mentioned, the things I read re "oil subsidies" were published by very pro enviro entities pushing electricity. I have zero confidence in their analysis - confirmation bias, manipulate/present things to support what you want people to believe. Also as I mentioned, I am not confident a heavily regulated energy industry, if/when it gets all electric, will best serve the needs of the public.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

quote:

Originally posted by caneau:
Scoutmaster,

1) So, inflation? What's your point? Not sure where you're going with this. All money has a greater value in the past than in the future. . . .

You asked re what present value means, I briefly described such. It is not related to market capitalization, which is set by supply-demand, other than someone's present value calcs of anticipated net cashflow may influence their demand for a stock.

I would like to see audited financial statements, with what constitutes a "subsidy" clearly described and separated in the reports; for oil firms, electricity firms, auto firms, to make sure the criteria for subsidies were consistent. Then a cost benefit analysis of just what those subsidies accomplished, ie, were consumers better of, yes or no. And do so maybe every 5 years for the past 50 years.

As I mentioned, the things I read re "oil subsidies" were published by very pro enviro entities pushing electricity. I have zero confidence in their analysis - confirmation bias, manipulate/present things to support what you want people to believe. Also as I mentioned, I am not confident a heavily regulated energy industry, if/when it gets all electric, will best serve the needs of the public.

I'm well aware of what is present value versus future value of an investment. But you described inflation by claiming that "$1Billion 50 yrs ago is worth quite a bit more than $1B today". You're confusing macroeconomics with microeconomics.

As for what is a subsidy and corporate welfare, it usually falls into a few categories:
- Outright grants where the government forks over cash to keep a company afloat
- Low interest loans below a rate available in the marketplace
- Public Private Partnerships or PPPs where the government allows the private sector firm to keep some or all rights to R&D, products made, capacity created, etc.
- Tax write-offs, deferments, etc.
- Waiving of fees or other regulatory controls
- Exclusivity to certain markets especially if the goods or services are bought below market rates
- Subsidies for the consumer to purchase more of the product

Since most of these are publicly-traded companies, audit away for anything I've described above.

But I won't take you seriously until bring real evidence to the table instead of whining that a source mentions "justice" in their "About Us." That's an ad hominem attack and as someone who claims to be a former university professor, you should know better.

I've seen the $20 billion cited as the low estimate across multiple sources, with $600 billion on the high side. I don't believe the high estimate but I absolutely believe the low estimate cited in numerous places is a reasonable working figure. And it still appears to be many times higher than even the highest figures I've seen for electric car subsidies, which are somewhere around the $2 billion range per year.

quote:

Originally posted by caneau:
I've seen the $20 billion cited as the low estimate across multiple sources, with $600 billion on the high side. I don't believe the high estimate but I absolutely believe the low estimate cited in numerous places is a reasonable working figure. And it still appears to be many times higher than even the highest figures I've seen for electric car subsidies, which are somewhere around the $2 billion range per year.

The low estimate is straight out payments to fossil fuel companies with gasoline being 80% of the fossil fuel. The higher $600 billion number is an impossible number to pinpoint but it is figured as the total cost that fossil fuel puts on the U.S. That can mean anything from environmental costs to military costs associated with going to the Middle East and 100 things in between.

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:

quote:

Originally posted by caneau:
I've seen the $20 billion cited as the low estimate across multiple sources, with $600 billion on the high side. I don't believe the high estimate but I absolutely believe the low estimate cited in numerous places is a reasonable working figure. And it still appears to be many times higher than even the highest figures I've seen for electric car subsidies, which are somewhere around the $2 billion range per year.

The low estimate is straight out payments to fossil fuel companies with gasoline being 80% of the fossil fuel. The higher $600 billion number is an impossible number to pinpoint but it is figured as the total cost that fossil fuel puts on the U.S. That can mean anything from environmental costs to military costs associated with going to the Middle East and 100 things in between.

Thanks.

In any form that's a staggering amount of money we give to incredibly profitable businesses.

Curious.

I wasn't thinking inflation re present/future value. I was thinking return on investment, which is a variable in time value calculations (not inflation). Seems you assumed inflation.

Some people say $20 Billion, some say $600 Billion?? I would like to see where the difference in the numbers comes from. The info I would like to see is not included in GAAP audited statements.

I worked for earth science firms in Silicon Valley, know very well the dynamics of such. A firm says their priority is "climate-justice-politics", and you fully trust their data? I question if they have a bias in the data, and such is an ad hominem attack? So if I question something like Biden/Kamala/Pelosi integrity (both Kamala and Pelosi are from the Bay Area, where I spent ~40 years), that is also an ad hominem attack??

quote:

Originally posted by caneau:
Thanks.

In any form that's a staggering amount of money we give to incredibly profitable businesses.

Yeah it's pretty insane actually. There are plenty of reasons to not like electric or believe it's better for the environment but subsidies shouldn't be one of them.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
Curious.

I wasn't thinking inflation re present/future value. I was thinking return on investment, which is a variable in time value calculations (not inflation). Seems you assumed inflation.

Some people say $20 Billion, some say $600 Billion?? I would like to see where the difference in the numbers comes from. The info I would like to see is not included in GAAP audited statements.

I worked for earth science firms in Silicon Valley, know very well the dynamics of such. A firm says their priority is "climate-justice-politics", and you fully trust their data? I question if they have a bias in the data, and such is an ad hominem attack? So if I question something like Biden/Kamala/Pelosi integrity (both Kamala and Pelosi are from the Bay Area, where I spent ~40 years), that is also an ad hominem attack??

What you said and what you were thinking are apparently two different things. You defined inflation as opposed to the present versus future value of an investment. I get what you're saying now, you weren't clear earlier on.

Regardless, you keep on making baseless arguments based on logical fallacies and your emotions. Come back when you have a better figure than the $20 billion I cited. And yes, attacking a person -- even Ms. Nancy -- and not their argument is, by definition, an ad hominem attack. Even if we often question her humanity

Caneau,

I don't know your background. In the past 45 years I have seen, first hand, various matters of corruption in business/gov't connections, with related legal consequences for the bad guys at times (and at times a free pass). In general, I don't trust politicians, much of the media, at face value, unless and until I get some independent backup information. And as I mentioned, I have worked in the natural resource/earth science/environmental industry, I know some of the dynamics.

So if my not swallowing the story line is an emotional, logical fallacy; and my questioning the the integrity of the report/reporter is an ad hominem attack, so be it. Have a nice evening.

My background doesn't matter, neither does yours -- and that's the point.

quote:

Originally posted by caneau:
My background doesn't matter, neither does yours -- and that's the point.

Actually, they do. We all bring different experience and skills to the table for these conversations (notice I did not use the term debate or argument). As I noted previously, I'm not opposed to any new developments in vehicle technology, but I need to be won over to it via objective reasoning and empirical evidence that what's being proposed 'is' tangible, and I can see the future developments materializing on the horizon. At current, based on everything I know today, I just can't get there on EV's being the future of transportation yet. As always, I'll continue to read and watch as developments occur, and perhaps one day I'll get there. But none of that make me emotional, or irrational, or anti-anything. Relax a bit and try and see things through the eyes of those of us who hold a slightly different opinion on the topic rather than getting so passionate about the issue.

Saw this little tidbit go by. Seems very appropriate for this discussion.

Gasoline is becoming worthless

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/...hless-210636353.html

If a wagon maker had said in 1910 that it would be making no horse drawn carriages by 1930, you would have reacted the same way.

GM might be wrong, but maybe not. I do think it is a matter of just when, not if.

I am all for it (and I did not read all 7 pages)
IF,, I can have one of these instead of a gas engine car,,,,,


and yes, sarcasm