Comment by cataphract
14 hours ago
Do you think fuel efficiency or emission standards "slowed down innovation"? They brought a huge amount of innovation: lighter materials, better aerodynamics, higher compression ratios, direct injection, better mixture control, etc.
There will still be innovation; the solutions will just have satisfy the new parameters.
Yes, they definitely slowed down innovation and decreased consumer surplus compared to the counterfactual of just taxing the behaviour you don't like (like taxing fuel or emissions).
They tax the fuel as well, don’t you worry.
Sure, but they could have taxed it more and not have any official fuel efficiency standards.
(And compared to most of Europe or Singapore, US fuel is taxed very lightly, and their CAFE standards are especially stupid. Especially since their loopholes led to the replacement of practical station wagons with silly and dangerous SUVs. With a more car-agnostic fuel tax, this wouldn't have happened.)
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And then when EVs become viable they went - naaaah look at those efficient diesels!!
To a degree.
You can’t have infinitely improving standards for an infinite time, otherwise you end up with bullshit like Dieselgate, and ecotechnocrats forcing everyone to drive around in mobile inextinguishable incendiary devices.
ICE cars catch fire at a far higher rate than BEVs.
All ICE cars, or only those as old as the BEV fleet?
At least ICE car fires can be extinguished, and without special equipment.
Do ICE cars spontaneously erupt in flames while you’re sitting in it waiting for it charge?
Do ICE cars spontaneously erupt in flames after a relatively low speed impact and lock the occupants inside and immediately fill the cabin with fumes from a rapidly degradging lithium ion battery?
Do ICE cars spontaneously erupt in flames taking down whole RORO car transport vessels at sea?
Do ICE cars spontaneously erupt in flames in your garage at night and ignite your whole house, while you and your family are sleeping?
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I noticed this first hand: past year I was driving near home and a ICE car was burning in the shoulder of the road, with the firefighters working on it. It didn't reach even local news, in the following days I couldn't find anybody who have heard about it. A few months later an electric car catched fire around 100km away from my house, and the day after everyone was talking about it at workplace and how dangerous they are.
I don't know why it happens. Maybe a case of "if a dog bites a man, it's not important. If a man bites a dog, it gets newspaper cover". Maybe it is that an ICE car burning is extinguished in minutes, and then towed away, while an electric car burning is basically a two hours firework show.