Saudi Arabia shouldn’t have bothered. Nobody except China is even trying to make a cost-competitive EV (in fact, every other country is trying to block the import of those cost-competitive EVs). Poorer countries are stuck with ICE because the “developed world” refuses to develop cheaper clean alternatives that poorer people can actually use. Instead, we get Rivians and Lucids and Teslas supporter by billions of dollars in incentives and subsidies and no reason to meaningfully drive costs down. All for the sake of profit at the cost of progress.
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I think you’re missing the context. China has shown that BEVs can be cost-competitive with ICE vehicles. This isn’t some far out claim, it’s the reality today. China has also been the primary driver behind the cost-competitiveness of solar, and produces the vast majority of the world’s solar panels. The developed world is lagging behind not because the technology isn’t there, but because they’re unwilling to invest in it.
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California has power rates at 34c/kWh off-peak and 43c/kWh peak. Europe isn’t unique. Peak Tesla charging rates hover around 60c/kWh.
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I very much agree with you with the Saudi thing, some people say, but what would they do with that power? And I say mine crypto, smelt aluminum and laugh in our faces at the 100 other ways of stabilizing electricity.
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It’s really hard to be optimistic and solutions-oriented at times…
Because the environment is just peachy, and they don’t have nearly enough money yet?
Of course, they don’t care about climate change. They are in a desert already.
How much can you actually make if they’re poor?
as long as the oil formation is free of charge, they could always sell at a profit
Pretty much what the tobacco industry did when rich countries started to reduce and control tobacco use. Asia, Africa and South America became major growth markets.
I think the general idea would be to
- Design a vehicle with as low a cost as possible. Maybe create a design challenge with a cash prize
- Have the international community (mostly the US but it’d be reasonable for other countries to be pressured for this) subsidize the cost of the vehicles so they are competitive with ICE vehicles.
- Infrastructure for charging and repairs. This is going to be incredibly expensive and we’d again have to look for subsidies to develop a power grid and charging stations, as well as creating local services to repair the vehicles.
The moral motivation for subsidies lies in the fact that the west in general is that the west has profited massively via wealth and resource extraction from Africa.
While I agree with your suggestion, the issues with car prices in general isn’t what you stated.
Every new technology has initial high cost then it will go down over time since manufacturers have the expertise and tools to manufacture.
Also, patents and corps greed plays a huge role. Why the heck a headlight costs over $2000? And guess what, it has 3 leds that you cannot replace if one fails.
My sister got into a fender-bender with her 2017 Nissan X-Trail and the dealer quoted $20k. The car price brand new is $26k. The insurance ate it up.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Little was known about theoil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy.
The ODSP plans to accelerate the development of supersonic air travel, which it notes uses three times more jet fuel than conventional planes, and partner with a carmaker to mass produce a cheap combustion engine vehicle.
The ODSP is overseen by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and involves its biggest organisations, such as the $700bn Public Investment Fund, the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, the petrochemicals firm Sabic, and the government’s most important ministries.
In publicly available information, the programme is largely presented as “removing barriers” to energy and transport in poorer countries and “increasing sustainability”, for example by providing gas cooking stoves to replace wood burning.
To achieve this, fossil fuel emission must fall rapidly and most oil and gas reserves must be kept in the ground, meaning climate policies, such as support for electric cars, pose a significant threat to the oil-rich state’s revenues.
The ODSP is additionally targeting bus, ride-sharing and delivery services, according to the presentation: “The goal is to support the deployment of ICE fleets across developing countries to capture the increasing gasoline/diesel demand.”
The original article contains 1,298 words, the summary contains 226 words. Saved 83%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
