Are PHEVs a transitional technology? Or a long lasting use case?

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alozzy said:
LeftieBiker said:
The biggest problem with using PHEVs to get carbon out of the system is that it keeps a very big, booted foot in the door for ICE powertrains. Maybe hydrogen-burning PHEVs will arise to replace the gasoline-fueled ones, but since hydrogen is just a way to store energy (electricity in the best case), it seems more like ethanol - a way to avoid needed progress, rather than a way to implement it.

Couldn't agree more, this is why almost all ICE manufacturers have offered hybrids over recent years.

A revenue neutral carbon tax on gasoline, with revenues going towards solar/wind power projects, would accelerate the reduction of carbon emissions. With respect to EV subsidies, I think those could be reduced/eliminated - particularly for those who can afford an EV. With battery prices continuing to drop and newer, long range EVs with lots of tech, there should be plenty of moderately well off and rich people who will opt for an EV. Tesla has made EVs cool, which definitely helps the overall EV market.

Governments could still offer people an EV credit towards purchasing a new or used EV, but make that EV credit conditional on first scrapping an old ICE (which must be sold off for parts, or crushed). That would give lower income people an incentive to purchase an older LEAF, for instance.

I agree with a decent portion of this thinking. With PHEVs only presently working with available high carbon fuels, and true zero-carbon drop-in replacement affordable widely-distributed fuels not being ready for market, we seem to be headed toward BEV only. IMO things would be best clarified by ending the free ride that the polluters are getting (they do not pay for the damages they cause) and a good way to do this would be some form of tax on the increasingly deadly polluting activity. The "revenue neutral" wording you use, as to combining some taxes with subsidies toward perceived ameliorative (to the pollution damages) technologies and practices, seems like possibly a good way to conceptualize this. But what also needs understanding, IMO, is the impact of such taxes. Ironically, if and as they are instituted, since they would finally provide the price-signals, economy-wide, as to the damages, and since such price signals might send consumers moving in unexpected directions as they finally need to think deeper and act on the clarified evidence of the society-wide pollution problem, the price signals would provide incentive for phase-out of high-ghg-pollution-fuels, but at the same time might open the door more widely not only to ultra-lower-polluting BEVS, but also, perhaps, to ultra-low-polluting net-zero-carbon fuels. If they did open this door, ironically it might help open the door to keeping more ICVs and PHEVs on the table.

I'd talk more about H2 and FCV, especially since H2 can be produced as a net-zero-carbon fuel, and I like FCV conversion efficiencies that are superior to the usual combustion engines, but I have seen virtually no hard-hitting attempt to analyze whether it would be damaging (in some other less-discussed unanticipated way) to split off that many hydrogen atoms and create some unprecedented global hydrogen economy. Maybe it would not be damaging, but until improved precautionary principles are brought into practice, I am wary.
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
WetEV said:
Everybody breathes. Cleaner air benefits everyone.
The issue is whether subsidising the well-off is the most cost-effective way to achieve cleaner air.
Good question. If you consider it, you might realize that the answer depends on details that change with time.


The times changed years ago, the incentives, even if they were ever justified in their present form (I don't believe they were), mostly haven't.

In 2010-2013 or so it might have been justifiable to subsidise LEAF/Volt or similar, i.e. a price cap of no more than $45k with an income cap around the median U.S. level or a bit more, both reducing over time. It was never justifiable to be subsidising Fisker Karmas, Model Ss or similar, with no income caps at all.
 
GRA said:
The times changed years ago, the incentives, even if they were ever justified in their present form (I don't believe they were), mostly haven't.

In 2010-2013 or so it might have been justifiable to subsidise LEAF/Volt or similar, i.e. a price cap of no more than $45k with an income cap around the median U.S. level or a bit more, both reducing over time. It was never justifiable to be subsidising Fisker Karmas, Model Ss or similar, with no income caps at all.

So incentives reserved only for those unlikely to buy electric cars.

I'm sure that would have worked.

Right.
 
GRA said:
In 2010-2013 or so it might have been justifiable to subsidise LEAF/Volt or similar, i.e. a price cap of no more than $45k with an income cap around the median U.S. level or a bit more, both reducing over time. It was never justifiable to be subsidising Fisker Karmas, Model Ss or similar, with no income caps at all.
Because the well-off should NEVER drive an EV. it is obscene. :roll:
 
GRA has a point. There must be another way to encourage the affluent to buy EVs, without essentially giving them money that would otherwise have gotten someone with less income into one. I think that things like free HOV access and other convenience-related perks might have worked, and might still work.
 
WetEV said:
GRA said:
The times changed years ago, the incentives, even if they were ever justified in their present form (I don't believe they were), mostly haven't.

In 2010-2013 or so it might have been justifiable to subsidise LEAF/Volt or similar, i.e. a price cap of no more than $45k with an income cap around the median U.S. level or a bit more, both reducing over time. It was never justifiable to be subsidising Fisker Karmas, Model Ss or similar, with no income caps at all.

So incentives reserved only for those unlikely to buy electric cars.

I'm sure that would have worked.

Right.


Incentives for more mass-market consumers who would buy them, but need a little help to afford them. Unlike the case with the well-off, who can buy cars based on what's currently fashionable regardless of expense. There've been fads for Hummers, and remember all the Hollywood celebs vying to get the first New Beetle? These are not people who should be receiving handouts of tax money.

I'm against all direct to consumer subsidies, but if you're going to have them they should at least be targeted to people who actually need them. California has gone some way down this path by giving an increased subsidy to those with lower incomes, the problem is that they continue to give subsidies to those at much higher income levels, for more expensive cars.

This is money that would be far better spent incentivising the sale of more moderately priced cars to people with more moderate incomes, helping to drive the cost of those cars down (especially when combined with a regularly reducing price cap). There will always be a small market at the high end, for people buying cars primarily for prestige or image.
 
SageBrush said:
GRA said:
In 2010-2013 or so it might have been justifiable to subsidise LEAF/Volt or similar, i.e. a price cap of no more than $45k with an income cap around the median U.S. level or a bit more, both reducing over time. It was never justifiable to be subsidising Fisker Karmas, Model Ss or similar, with no income caps at all.
Because the well-off should NEVER drive an EV. it is obscene. :roll:


The well-off can afford to pay full freight, and will do so to have something that most people can't afford.
 
LeftieBiker said:
GRA has a point. There must be another way to encourage the affluent to buy EVs, without essentially giving them money that would otherwise have gotten someone with less income into one. I think that things like free HOV access and other convenience-related perks might have worked, and might still work.


Indeed. The HOT lanes formerly referred to as "Lexus Lanes" are often called "Tesla Lanes" now, and any perusal of the SO cars using them and HOV lanes shows a high % are Teslas. In fact, that's why California had to change the HOV stickers to a max. of 4 years, because the lanes were so clogged with SO vehicles they couldn't meet the federal avg. speed standard.

The well-off's time is worth more to them than to someone making a lot less, so a speedier commute is well worth an extra $7,500.

To be clear, I'm not a fan of allowing any SO vehicle into an HOV lane, as the benefit accrues to the individual rather than society - after all, a ZEV has its greatest efficiency and pollution advantage compared to a fossil-fueled ICE in bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go traffic, not in steady cruising. But if you are going to allow them, then access should be at reduced cost rather than free, because while they aren't emitting, they are adding to congestion in the HOV lane and on surface streets which makes the car poolers and bus riders trips that much slower. Same goes for congestion/ULEV zones.
 
But if you are going to allow them, then access should be at reduced cost rather than free, because while they aren't emitting, they are adding to congestion in the HOV lane and on surface streets which makes the car poolers and bus riders trios that much slower.

Remember, though, that these are the people whose time means everything, and to whom money means little or nothing. I don't see a modest fee keeping them out of the HOV lanes when they are alone.
 
LeftieBiker said:
GRA has a point. There must be another way to encourage the affluent to buy EVs, without essentially giving them money that would otherwise have gotten someone with less income into one. I think that things like free HOV access and other convenience-related perks might have worked, and might still work.
California and Norway did perks like that.

The US Federal government can't. States set those sorts of rules.

HOV access only works as long as the number of EVs is fairly small. After that, the HOV lanes are overcrowded and not much faster than the regular lanes.

GRA has other points as well. One is that things will need to change. The EV subsidy will need to be phased out and hopeful be replaced with a carbon/pollution tax on fuels. When? Sometime before BEVs/PHEVs are the majority of new cars, perhaps 10 years.
 
LeftieBiker said:
But if you are going to allow them, then access should be at reduced cost rather than free, because while they aren't emitting, they are adding to congestion in the HOV lane and on surface streets which makes the car poolers and bus riders trios that much slower.

Remember, though, that these are the people whose time means everything, and to whom money means little or nothing. I don't see a modest fee keeping them out of the HOV lanes when they are alone.


Which is why they still should have to pay something rather than having it be free. Although Teslas still predominate, on the rare occasions I drive the freeway during commute hours I am seeing an increasing number of less expensive PEVs in those lanes. As I've noted elsewhere, the Prius Prime currently ranks #2 in my traffic counts on surface streets after the Model 3, typically about 1/3rd as many, and I see similar ratios on the freeway. Bolt #s are up too.

If we're going to allow SO PHEVs to use those lanes, we need to ensure that those miles are electric, hence my call for modified toll transponders.
But I'd rather just eliminate HOT lanes entirely; I loathe them as privileged use of public goods by the wealthy.

I'd also prohibit SO ZEV use of HOV lanes, giving those cars other perks (congestion/ULEV zones, maybe reduced parking fees etc.). One possible method, for areas with 4 or more lanes abreast, would be a ZEV lane in addition to the HOV lane, usable by SO cars running ZE (transponders as above). It may be too early for that given the relatively small % of the commute fleet that can run ZEV, but there are places in California where it might be worth trying as an experiment, to see what effect it had on both sales and traffic flow. Naturally, there will be fierce resistance to this.
 
LeftieBiker said:
GRA has a point. There must be another way to encourage the affluent to buy EVs, without essentially giving them money that would otherwise have gotten someone with less income into one. I think that things like free HOV access and other convenience-related perks might have worked, and might still work.

But that is the point: the benefit to society that accrues from an ICE replacement is not dependent on WHO drives the EV. Rich driver or poor driver, it is one less ICE on the road.

You class warfare folks are missing the forest for the trees. You are so intent on punishing the rich you miss the social value which underlies the subsidy in the first place. 'Rich' people bought the Tesla Model S with a tax credit, which lead to the Model 3, which will lead to the Model 2. The same thing is happening to European manufacturers.

I think it is great.
 
SageBrush said:
But that is the point: the benefit to society that accrues from an ICE replacement is not dependent on WHO drives the EV. Rich driver or poor driver, it is one less ICE on the road.

The subsidy required to sell the EV is less at the higher end of the market.
 
This "class warfare" guy understands that with limited funds it makes more tactical sense to subsidize financially those purchases that are contingent on the buyer getting financial assistance, while finding other ways - ways that don't deplete the limited funding - to incentivize affluent buyers who don't need the extra money. Sagebrush's argument is too simplistic in that it assumes no difference in the total number of EVs put into service whether the affluent receive a financial incentive or not. If you do it right, with non-monetary incentives for the rich, and financial incentives for the working classes, then you end up with more EVs on the road than if you just throw a set amount of money in the air, metaphorically, and let it land where it will.
 
^^^ +1. Every $7,500 going to someone who doesn't need it to buy a PEV could instead be 2 x $3,750, 3 x $2,500 or 5 x $1,500 to someone who does, and who doesn't have the income to qualify for the full fed. credit in any case. If you are going to have subsidies they should decrease, not increase, as the buyer's income rises.

I assume the point of subsidies is to get as many people into PEVs as possible, to achieve the largest, fastest reduction in emissions at the lowest cost. The most cost-effective way to accomplish that isn't by subsidising a few people at the top end to buy cars beyond the ability of the mass-market buyer to afford. We needed more LEAFs and Volts and fewer Model S/X.
 
GRA said:
^^^ +1. Every $7,500 going to someone who doesn't need it to buy a PEV could instead be 2 x $3,750, 3 x $2,500 or 5 x $1,500 to someone who does, and who doesn't have the income to qualify for the full fed. credit in any case. If you are going to have subsidies they should decrease, not increase, as the buyer's income rises.

I assume the point of subsidies is to get as many people into PEVs as possible, to achieve the largest, fastest reduction in emissions at the lowest cost. The most cost-effective way to accomplish that isn't by subsidising a few people at the top end to buy cars beyond the ability of the mass-market buyer to afford. We needed more LEAFs and Volts and fewer Model S/X.

The LEAF and the Volt both received $7,500 subsidies and few people in the US bought them, financial means notwithstanding. YOU should understand this dynamic better than most, since you continue to drive an ICE despite the subsidy to get you into a car with some inconvenience. Since $7,500 was not enough, how does $3,500 sound to you ?

Your presumptions have failed the reality test. All you have left is resentment towards those with more money and hackneyed rationalizations.
 
LeftieBiker said:
This "class warfare" guy understands that with limited funds it makes more tactical sense to subsidize financially those purchases that are contingent on the buyer getting financial assistance, while finding other ways - ways that don't deplete the limited funding - to incentivize affluent buyers who don't need the extra money. Sagebrush's argument is too simplistic in that it assumes no difference in the total number of EVs put into service whether the affluent receive a financial incentive or not. If you do it right, with non-monetary incentives for the rich, and financial incentives for the working classes, then you end up with more EVs on the road than if you just throw a set amount of money in the air, metaphorically, and let it land where it will.

It probably wasn't possible to significantly change the number of EVs on the road, at least counting by the sum of total battery capacity. Oh, perhaps GRA is partly right, and we might have a larger number of PHEVs and/or smaller battery BEVs than the current mix of BEVs and PHEVs. That would have required more incentives and mandates, more money and more rules, not less. PHEVs are already subsidized at a higher percentage than the average BEV.

Looking forwards, much the same. There are not enough privileges to hand out to the "rich", HOV access gets useless when too many cars are already in the HOV lanes. Funding for tax rebates will get harder with rising numbers of EVs. Eventually we will need to switch from subsidies for EVs to taxes on carbon fuels... if that ever becomes politically possible.

What past subsidies have done is to make the current market for EVs clear to see. Even with current battery prices, you are going to see things like the Mercedes-Benz EQS, just announced, selling with or without subsidies, perks or mandates. BEVs are just better cars.

The future EV market is moving down. As battery prices fall, the affordable EV with nicer driving becomes the average car, then economy EV with nicer driving, and cheaper than gasoline. Lower income people mostly buy used cars (80+%). To move them to the front of the line needs incentives large enough make EVs compete with 25 year old Civics and Corollas.
 
What about me? I've been driving a four wheeled EV for 8 years, and two wheeled ones for close to twenty. It's quite true that financial incentives don't work well in the Early Adopter phases, but we're now at the point where people are looking less for excuses to not buy EVs, and more for shortcomings to be remedied so that they can buy them. One of those shortcomings is the price premium, even though now much of it is illusory. The rich don't feel that as much, aside from those people who are rich because they suck up all the available money wherever and whenever they can. That subset of the affluent isn't one that we should be targeting with subsidies, at least not unless the subsidies get an order of magnitude bigger.

Wet slipped in.
 
SageBrush said:
GRA said:
^^^ +1. Every $7,500 going to someone who doesn't need it to buy a PEV could instead be 2 x $3,750, 3 x $2,500 or 5 x $1,500 to someone who does, and who doesn't have the income to qualify for the full fed. credit in any case. If you are going to have subsidies they should decrease, not increase, as the buyer's income rises.

I assume the point of subsidies is to get as many people into PEVs as possible, to achieve the largest, fastest reduction in emissions at the lowest cost. The most cost-effective way to accomplish that isn't by subsidising a few people at the top end to buy cars beyond the ability of the mass-market buyer to afford. We needed more LEAFs and Volts and fewer Model S/X.

The LEAF and the Volt both received $7,500 subsidies and few people in the US bought them, financial means notwithstanding. YOU should understand this dynamic better than most, since you continue to drive an ICE despite the subsidy to get you into a car with some inconvenience. Since $7,500 was not enough, how does $3,500 sound to you ?

Your presumptions have failed the reality test. All you have left is resentment towards those with more money and hackneyed rationalizations.


If $7,500 a wasn't enough, that suggests a few things. The cars were still too expensive, the non-financial incentives were lacking, and/or the advertising was inadequate in explaining the benefits. I can understand the LEAF not seeming worth the money, given its short range as well as the almost total lack of public charging infrastructure at the time.

The Volt strikes me as a case where it simply had too much AER, seriously boosting its price given the very high battery cost/kWh at the time, making the price comparison with an HEV or ICE non-competitive. Along with a different body type (CUV), giving it say 20 vice 35 miles AER would have helped close the price gap. That along with $7,500, or even $3,750 would have made the car more competitive.

Of course, another approach would have been to impose an income limit, and use the money saved to boost the subsidy even higher, to $10,000 or $11,250. But those levels are just an indication of why I dislike customer subsidies in the first place, and using the money for something else such as building a charging network would IMO have been more valuable. That's one thing that Tesla got right

If the cars were simply too expensive to compete and didn't provide any perceived advantage to more than a tiny niche of buyers at the time, which was arguably the case, then it was too early to try and we should have done something else, like more incentives for HEVs. Of course, higher fuel prices would have had the biggest effect.

As for my own understanding failing to get me into a PEV, it's not just some inconvenience, it's a whole lot of it for no benefit, given my highly atypical use case. Plus the lack until recently of a car that net most of my major requirements. I've said before that if an AWD PHEV CUV with a smallish battery pack had been available in 2066 or 17, I would have gone for it despite my wanting to go full ZEV. But neither GM or anyone else built that car. The RAV4 Prime comes closest, but it's too big and I don't vwabt to pay for size I don't need. Now, while I've considered getting something like a Niro PHEV despite its lack of AWD and being a bit short of cargo space, I figure I'm too close to being able to buy a ZEV that will meet my needs. It makes more financial sense to wait for a few more years, when I expect both the cars and, just as important to me, the infrastructure will finally be available.

As to resentment towards those with more money, nah. I could pay cash for a Model Y if it met my needs and I wanted one, but I simply don't consider any car worth that much of my life.
 
GRA said:
I've said before that if an AWD PHEV CUV with a smallish battery pack had been available in 2016 or 17, I would have gone for it despite my wanting to go full ZEV. But neither GM or anyone else built that car.
Mitsubishi did, the Outlander PHEV. It had been out since 2013 and the US got it in 2017.
 
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