Open Thread April 5 2024 Guide to electric car misinformation
It’s more environmentally harmful to make an electric car than a gas car. “A guide to electric car misinformation (part 2),” HEATED.
It’s more environmentally harmful to make an electric car than a gas car. “A guide to electric car misinformation (part 2),” HEATED.
Why Some Billionaires Will Back Trump
NY Times – Paul Krugman – today
Will A.I. Boost Productivity? Companies Sure Hope So.
NY Times – April 1
Economists doubt that artificial intelligence is already visible in productivity data. Big companies, however, talk often about adopting it to improve efficiency.
It seems likely to me that such ‘productivity growth’ will boost revenue by lowering costs, while further reducing labor costs, increasing the wealth of the wealthy.
U.S. Job Growth Much Stronger Than Expected
NY Times – just in
Employers added 303,000 jobs in March, the 39th straight month of growth. The unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent.
Guide to electric car misinformation (part one)
correct me if i am wrong
it takes twenty years of driving to have EV break even with gas power greenhouse gas emissions (that is, EV emission are higher that gas for 200,000 miles.
it will take “only” two years of driving for EV to break even with gas in future, or so they say.
question: how many years if we drive less and slower in smaller car? if we count only city driving? do smaller, slower, shorter range EV;s need less exotic materials?
i like living in the country myself. but i don’t have to drive into the city to work. and all the people who want to live in the country and work in the city are turning the country into the city. i can’t imagine that they get much value out of country living during the week, maybe if they lived closer to work, they could drive out to the country on days they don’t have to be at work.
i know. the city is not very pleasant, and there are all those poor people next door.
did the 400 mile batteries cause less pollution than the 300 mile batteries? i may have read that wrong. no time to go back and check.
the short answer is it doest take 20 years for EVs to break even
cause while today’s batteries do have some dubious required minerals and related costs. its not like producing oil, shipping world wide, to be refined, ten shipped again, to a local distribution point (‘gas’ station’) doesnt have its own. oil spills any one? corrupting drinking water sources (lakes, rivers, atc). so far no one has really been be to say that we can actually clean up a lake,river, etc to where we can drink that water safely. and we mention the fuels spills (tankers, gas stations, etc). and its not like there hasnt been any misbehavior in how people have been treated by fossil fuel companies too? and its really to determine nation wide how much pollution from fossil fuel vehicles, because we only check that at best once every years. maybe. but i would think its a lot easier to track emissions from stationary fossil plants than from mobile fossil vehicles (and the fossil fuel plans)
Thank you. As an EV owner who put a lot of time and effort into researching my EV purchase I am, quite frankly, sick of the screeching harpies mindlessly repeating Big Oil talking points
Addressing just one pair of peed-panties: my particular EV is reputed to have not only the shortest range of EVs (110mi) but a bad reputation because of it. Funny thing is I’ve gone 150 miles and my complaint isn’t the range but the reporting accuracy of the range and/or anticipated range. Have read accounts of people going 170. That’s not reflected in the various heads-up displays in the car, on the car app, or the wall-charger
For some reason these people make me think of screen-doors on submarines …
dw
you are quite right. i misread the article. i thought i might have, but didn’t have a chance before to check myself. at least for my aging brain the rapid change of denominators made me lose track.
Speaking of Misinformation & Disinformation. . .
The Chinese government has built up the world’s largest known online disinformation operation and is using it to harass US residents, politicians, and businesses—at times threatening its targets with violence, a CNN review of court documents and public disclosures by social media companies has found.
The onslaught of attacks – often of a vile and deeply personal nature – is part of a well-organized, increasingly brazen Chinese government intimidation campaign targeting people in the United States, documents show.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/13/us/china-online-disinformation-invs/index.html
Are we sure it’s the Chinese? Or welcome them to the club? By my count in addition to our very own people, we are under mis & disinformation assault by Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and any number of their client states. Not to mention the christians, mormons, catholics and trump-sucking media monkeys …
Ten
I ahve lately noticed that when my leftist newsletters get all excited about some dumb thing Trump said, when I check it turns out that that is not exactly what he said. This does not mean I don’t think Trump is a lying psychopath, but I find it interesting that people hear what they expect to hear, whether they are right or left. even happens to me sometimes.
In other news …
Up to a Trillion Cicadas Are About to Emerge in the U.S.
NY Times – about an hour ago
Fred:
What country are they from and how will they get past the border patrol???
You waiting excitedly for Trump to tell us how Biden is responsible for this?
Looking forward to a bumper crop of “cicada killing warps”, some >2 inches long!
They sting a cicada in the tree bring them to ground to feed. A female will dig a tunnel and place a cicada for its larva to sustain itself on…..
I pin my hopes on the woofs.
New York college becomes 1st university with on-campus IBM quantum computer that is ‘scientifically useful’
Live Science – yesterday
(That would be RPI, my alma mater. Has always had a close relationship with Big Blue.)
But wait… there’s more…
Nvidia co-founder living eccentric off-grid lifestyle would have been worth $70B if he’d kept his shares | Tom’s Hardware
Sometimes, to Make an Electric Car Better, You’ve Got to Make It a Little Worse
NY Times – April 8
Ezra Dyer – Car and Driver magazine.
2024 Porsche 911 GT3 (caranddriver.com)
Starting at $184,550 … (Totally not electric-powered.)
“Sharp chassis reflexes, outrageous performance, expertly tuned flat-six engine.”