Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp
California cut their consumption by 3 billion gallons since 2002, and is expected to eliminate at least another 1 billion by 2020. i dunno, i'm just always encountered by people who claim it's too difficult for them to use less gasoline.
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According to sources like the EPA , the country could use 1 billion gallons a year less by making sure vehicle tires are inflated properly. That could happen overnight and is far easier than say, spending tens of thousands on EVs, yet that seems to be difficult to accomplish.
1 billion by tomorrow or 1 billion by 2020. Many people can't use less gasoline or other fuel, they need to go to work, shop for food and so on.
If we really want to lower fuel consumption, the answer isn't EVs, that just shunts the fuel use to some other part of the use chain, the fuels are still used. The solar power so often claimed to be "the" solution isn't happening by 2020 or by the time horizon doomsday for environmental collapse is claimed to be irreversible. We are decades away from that making up enough supply to meet the demands of even a significant portion of EV if everyone had them.
The solution to lower fuel use is making it possible to use less fuel by reducing the distances need to travel to accomplish what everyone needs to accomplish, not by changing the way you get there.
You only have to look at new delivery systems being proposed and actually worked on by the likes of Google and Amazon to see that the real genius isn't Musk and EVs, it is behind being able to buy something and have it delivered or working and not having to commute as much as practical.
The ugly little problem is always taxes. Everyone drive an EV? Right until they get taxed heavily to make up for reduced taxes coming from fuel sales. The thing often overlooked is that people aren't as accepting of taxes when they use an EV because like solar panels on your roof, everyone expects someone else to help pay for it. Remove the subsidies watch how fast these nifty "green" initiatives go kerplunk. There is only so much tax money to go around.
There are some people that will see new taxes as an offset for fuel taxes. Most will not because things like subsidies are easy to give , nearly impossible to take away.
The fuel providers will simply raise the prices of their fuels, they are driven by shareholder demands so thinking using less fuel is going to hurt them doesn't flow. Notice the price of a litre of gasoline in Europe? It isn't like they can't get fuel there and it isn't that it costs that much more to get it either. The price is higher because people pay it. The same thing will happen here.
Tax hikes and new taxes are just on the horizon. There is no way out of it when it comes to reducing fuels used by consumers. You want proof? Look at the price of water where water conservation took hold. Prices shot up like crazy because people used less water and those were municipal water districts, not private entities.
There is no free ride but things like EV and solar have been marketed as just that, a free ride that other subsidize. Try changing that.
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