Mayors Across country commit to buying EVs

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

2 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

Are you serious ?

Are things that bad that fascism would better?

Short answer: yes.  I've seen the slums, dealt with the unions, and lived through the public school indoctrination.  When the population gets stupid enough, there are two options:
1)  A failed state.
2)  A totalitarian state. 
Given a choice, the intelligent, useful person will take #2. 

Of course, I'd much prefer to live in a true constitutional republic where well-educated citizens willingly bear responsibility, but that ship sailed decades ago. 

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

We have segments of that now inside the USA. 

Take for example the behavior of the National Security Agency, where they have a division called the "Border Patrol."  These guys dress up in green outfits and strap the gigantic cannons onto their legs, then go set up roadblocks and every auto that comes in, they demand:  "Are you a U.S. Citizen?"  If you decline to answer, a right fundamentally guaranteed by the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, then they pull you out and make you "sit" right there on the side of the road until you "Answer."  And if you don't "Answer" the way they like, then they slap the handcuffs on you and transport you to their jail, and you sit there until they get tired of you. 

There is the famous case of a Border Patrol agent at a checkpoint that they set up I think it was on some road in New Hampshire, and along came a Member of Congress, this was on the 4th of July holiday with tons of traffic.  The Congressman, who was in his summer shirt and slacks and with his family, asked the man, "What is your authority for this?"  And the Guard patted his gigantic pistol and responded: "This is all the authority I need."    That response did not go over very big.  

 This is far worse than the fascism you found in Europe.  This is a mutant version of Fascism, a classic totalitarian State, being resisted I grant you by very brave souls.  My personal response would be to just start speaking French or German (or both) to these morons, given that there is no official language in the USA, and if they don't like it, I'll sue them, "See you in Court!"  But remember what the NSA is doing here: they hire these guys who developed a "C" grade average in high school, precisely because they do not want anyone bright working there.  It is basically the Storm Troopers of Star Wars, hired as "magnificent clones" to go do your bidding and not really think about it too much.  these are stupid people, but they do understand the concept of bullying with guns. Fascism?  You bet.  Here today. Right now.  Welcome to America. 

Basically. 

The alternative is for my vote to be diluted into irrelevance by a flood of foreigners.  Under that scenario, well-educated citizens are powerless, and the state collapses under the weight of poor, uneducated people looking for handouts.  Under a totalitarian state, at lease there's some semblance of order. 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

37 minutes ago, Meredith Poor said:

To answer your question obliquely: What does a 'Liberal' mean when they describe someone as a 'Trump Supporter'? What do they mean when they use the term 'Republicans' as a whole? Would you agree that these are code words for a set of attitudes or characteristics that conservatives might view as prejudicial?

If you have a point, make it directly. 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

58 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

That is a very interesting comment.  I find it not to be true in the case of the court system.  There, every participant is dumbed down; you end up with totally stupid judges (because most judges are attorneys who have failed in private practice, and as judge at least have a steady income from the State, plus some prestige, or they are former prosecutors),and stupid prosecutors (because it is discouraging work to be a prosecutor, dealing with that sea of flotsam that washes up in the court system) as the bright people end up leaving, not wanting to spend their lives doing that sort of work, and then there are the clerks, who have become progressively stupider, as the pool of applicants tends to get uniformly of lower grade, the brighter clerical workers getting better pay in industry. 

Ultimately, society falls apart.  An interesting indicator of this is a roadway bridge in Rhode Island, just north of Providence, on the Interstate. the bridge, made of concrete, is structurally compromised due to the use of road salt having eaten away at the internal re-bar and corroded everything.  So the road weight limit is now 26,000 lbs but has to be at no more than two axles.   The logical solution is to fix that bridge, probably by dismantling it and building a new one.  The proper service weight in Rhode Island is 95,000 lbs or possibly 105,000 lbs, I don't remember the details.  The Rhode Island bureaucrat solution is instead to just leave it as a decrepit bridge, and put a police team on it to go fine any vehicle, truck or bus, that goes over it with either three or more axles or is over that weight (basically, only an empty two-axle truck or bus can pass).  And the fine is $5,000.  And of course that sets up a cottage industry of lawyers to go defend against those huge fines. 

Now to demonstrate just how incompetent this is, if your truck is 26,000 lbs and two axles, you can pass, but if it is 26,000 lbs and three or more axles, then you get the fine.  However, obviously there is less stress on that bridge with three axles than two, as the weight is better distributed, and less weight per axle.  So even the so-called solution of weight limitation cannot be intelligently applied, as the rule-making bureaucrats are too stupid to figure it out.  What you have is this massive incompetence, even worse than what you find is a massively bureaucratic society such as India. So what the trucking companies do is Order their drivers to only take a different route, and thus creating a cocoon or envelope of protection from the low-IQ bureaucrats (and their low-IQ enforcers) inside Rhode Island.

And to no surprise, Rhode Island is beyond flat broke, it is financially upside-down, basically bankrupt, with no realistic hope of any recovery.  And this is what happens when stupid people replicate themselves inside a complex society. 

It's been my experience that private organizations have mechanisms for replacing themselves.  E.g. bankruptcy can include the following actions:
1)  Selling assets off to more successful companies with more competent leadership
2)  Firing the management team and replacing them with more competent managers.
3)  Forcing all employees to re-apply to their jobs, eliminating the incompetents in the process

There's also "at will" employment clauses, which enable the company to eliminate anyone not pulling their weight.  Companies also sell off/disband entire departments/divisions when those departments/divisions are no longer profitable.  The system isn't perfect, but market competition and the temporary nature of private employment create significant turnover. 

Public institutions, on the other hand, have few such mechanisms.  Professors at public universities are tenured for life, public "servants" are nigh impossible to fire, public courts are not replaced by newer, more competent courts, etc.  Public institutions have limited means to jettison accumulated incompetence. 

There's one ray of hope for US public institutions: the US consists of 50 separate states, any one of which can fail individually.  It hasn't happened yet, but the more liberal states (CA, IL, etc.) are on their way.  If they can convince the federal government to bail them out, we're all doomed.  However, if the federal government leaves them to their fate, they'll be forced into bankruptcy.  That might allow them to shed incompetence.  I can't speak to the details, but I look forward to observing the outcome. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

45 minutes ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

if the federal government leaves them to their fate, they'll be forced into bankruptcy.  That might allow them to shed incompetence. 

It is not clear if an entire State has the Standing to b e a petitioner before a bankruptcy court. Setting that aside, you can still fire incompetent people inside State government, albeit it is difficult to do, and typically carries a large financial burden.  Let uds assume taht you end up having to pay two years' salary to dispose of the incompetent.  That is a hit, to be sure; but on the other hand, that person is not doing anything constructive anyway, and if allowed to just sit there in the bureaucracy, will continue to be a burden "forever," plus cause mayhem while being the incumbent.  So, ultimately, firing is the better option, and let the chips fall where they may. 

I predict Illinois will collapse first, and then New Jersey, then Connecticut, then either Rhode Island or California. If a bankruptcy court accepts the debtor petition, then it will open the floodgates and some dozen States will revolve through reorganization, including the disavoval of the pension obligations (and that should be interesting).  For example, most States such as Rhode Island and Connecticut at one time had these "visitors centers" along the Interstate,complete with staff, coffee, local sights brochures, and lavatories, so the public was not doing the bladder thing along the side of the road.  At this point ALL are closed, with chain link fencing shutting down the off-ramps. That last is presumably to keep the hookers and the vandals out of there. These centers are shut down because the State does not even have the funds to keep these minimal buildings open and staffed.  That tells you a lot. 

How these rich, industrious States managed to slide into decrepitude is mind-boggling.  Unbelievable stupidity. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

The alternative is for my vote to be diluted into irrelevance by a flood of foreigners.

It is diluted into irrelevance by your nest-door neighbors, who are all both stupid and uncomprehending. Just lovely. 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

 

1 minute ago, Jan van Eck said:

It is not clear if an entire State has the Standing to b e a petitioner before a bankruptcy court. Setting that aside, you can still fire incompetent people inside State government, albeit it is difficult to do, and typically carries a large financial burden.  Let uds assume taht you end up having to pay two years' salary to dispose of the incompetent.  That is a hit, to be sure; but on the other hand, that person is not doing anything constructive anyway, and if allowed to just sit there in the bureaucracy, will continue to be a burden "forever," plus cause mayhem while being the incumbent.  So, ultimately, firing is the better option, and let the chips fall where they may.  

If they can't stand before a bankruptcy court, would they at least privatize functions and lay off employees en masse?  Would that help them shed incompetence?

2 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

How these rich, industrious States managed to slide into decrepitude is mind-boggling.  Unbelievable stupidity. 

Agreed.  I cannot fathom how people accomplish so little with so much. 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

2 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

It is diluted into irrelevance by your nest-door neighbors, who are all both stupid and uncomprehending. Just lovely. 

My neighbors have never been the brightest, but at least most of them believed in the idea of America, freedom, and some personal responsibility.  They were frustrating, but I could communicate with them, trust them, and work towards a common goal.  By contrast, I can't work with a flood of immigrants who don't understand the American Idea, have no intention of assimilating into the culture, don't respect the law, and cling to dangerous ideas that made their home country fail.  Those are two very different forms of dilution. 

There's also the matter of ratios: as long as America's stupidity was internally generated, it was somewhat manageable.  When we started importing stupidity in addition to the stupidity we generated, the sum total became too much to manage.  Now it's out of control in roughly half the states, and the future of the country is in doubt. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

4 minutes ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

If they can't stand before a bankruptcy court, would they at least privatize functions and lay off employees en masse?  Would that help them shed incompetence?

Yes. 

But in the short term, I suspect those fired employees would have to be paid nonetheless, so there might not be enough funds to pay private contractors  (and if they see a bankruptcy looming, would be likely uninterested in getting involved.  You see the problems.) 

Private industry is also having its serious problems with incompetence.  If you have been following the saga of the Boeing 737 Max 8, note that now that airplane is not going to be flying until at least next year.  The reason is that Boeing apparently has been sub-contracting out all that computer engineering work, then pressing their contractors to lower costs more, so that work has been going to these code writers in India being paid $9 an hour, who have no concept of how an airplane actually flies.  The people at Boeing itself, the serious engineers, command salaries of $40 to $50 an hour, and the managers inside Boeing have declared that airplane design (and building) is "mature" so the senior engineers inside Boeing are no longer needed (!).  Aside from the code problems that led to two crashes, pilots are now reporting other, buried code problems that these incompetent coders have buried inside the software, and apparently there is now also a hardware chip in there that "stalls"  when overloaded with too many commands, input streams, and that has its own disastrous control problems as a result.  

Now all this got started with two parallel developments:  (1) making airplanes without direct mechanical links to the control surfaces, a design known generally as "fly by wire," and (2) having the computers that control plight surfaces and everything else designed and coded by less and less competent people - basically, dumb people hired in India.  The result:  one hundred billion in aircraft production totally stalled  (and, of course, lots of future lawsuits). If the vaunted Boeing company can screw it up so badly, what hope is left for the other players in industry?  Answer: not much. 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

26 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Yes. 

 But in the short term, I suspect those fired employees would have to be paid nonetheless, so there might not be enough funds to pay private contractors  (and if they see a bankruptcy looming, would be likely uninterested in getting involved.  You see the problems.)

I suppose that's why competent people are fleeing these states en-masse.  That raises another question: once competent people flee a state, is there any hope for the eventual revival of that state?  E.g. once the state has hit rock-bottom, could wealthy investors from other states begin buying up the land, influencing the politics, and setting the state on a more profitable course? 

28 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Private industry is also having its serious problems with incompetence.  If you have been following the saga of the Boeing 737 Max 8, note that now that airplane is not going to be flying until at least next year.  The reason is that Boeing apparently has been sub-contracting out all that computer engineering work, then pressing their contractors to lower costs more, so that work has been going to these code writers in India being paid $9 an hour, who have no concept of how an airplane actually flies.  The people at Boeing itself, the serious engineers, command salaries of $40 to $50 an hour, and the managers inside Boeing have declared that airplane design (and building) is "mature" so the senior engineers inside Boeing are no longer needed (!).  Aside from the code problems that led to two crashes, pilots are now reporting other, buried code problems that these incompetent coders have buried inside the software, and apparently there is now also a hardware chip in there that "stalls"  when overloaded with too many commands, input streams, and that has its own disastrous control problems as a result.  

Now all this got started with two parallel developments:  (1) making airplanes without direct mechanical links to the control surfaces, a design known generally as "fly by wire," and (2) having the computers that control plight surfaces and everything else designed and coded by less and less competent people - basically, dumb people hired in India.  The result:  one hundred billion in aircraft production totally stalled  (and, of course, lots of future lawsuits). If the vaunted Boeing company can screw it up so badly, what hope is left for the other players in industry?  Answer: not much.  

Agreed about clueless managers hiring/outsourcing incompetent tech people.  I'm seeing this in the graduate programs of public universities, where desperate foreign students will do/say anything to make themselves look good.  This leads to mountains of incompetence & corruption.  It also drives potentially competent people out of the field, which will have disastrous consequences for companies that hire from these universities. 

On the other hand, I've seen effective responses to this phenomenon:
1)  In a few short years, I watched a private, liberal arts university stand up an entire engineering college.  They did this with the support of industry engineers who were struggling to find competent graduates at the state's reputable engineering university. 
2)  I worked for reputable medical device manufacturer who pulled the foreign laborers/outsourcing stunt.  By the time I arrived, the company's culture was a toxic mess, relations between labor and management had broken down, the manufacturing systems were hopelessly inefficient, new product designs were sketchy, and the FDA was bearing down on them - just as the FAA is probably bearing down on Boeing.  Tired of criminally high costs, wealthy customers bankrolled medical device startups.  The startups poached the most competent employees, further stripping incumbents of expertise.  Last I checked, this incumbent was losing market share to lean startups who could undercut their prices by 75%. 
3)  SpaceX leapfrogged the moribund space launch industry.  At this point, the incumbents have no hope of catching up.
4)  Tesla forced an EV revolution in the automotive industry.  Incumbent US auto manufacturers are laying off tens of thousands of employees to free up resources.  They're also retreating from the less-profitable small car segments. 

Those are just the ones I'm aware of.  There's plenty of incompetence in industry and education, but market forces slowly weed that out.  My question is, "What happens to Boeing?"  Maybe they'll learn something from this experience and resume hiring competence.  Maybe they'll even support US higher education to ensure a supply of competent, ethical employees.  If their organization is too corrupt to recover, is there a smaller competitor that could grow into their business segments?

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

8 minutes ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

I suppose that's why competent people are fleeing these states en-masse.  That raises another question: once competent people flee a state, is there any hope for the eventual revival of that state?  E.g. once the state has hit rock-bottom, could wealthy investors from other states begin buying up the land, influencing the politics, and setting the state on a more profitable course? 

I don't think so.  To illustrate, I invite you to study the current situation in the Kaliningrad Oblast - a former part of Prussia that Russia took over by force at the end of WWII and now treats as an integral part of Russia itself,  The Kaliningrad is today a total wasteland, a sea of contamination and as a practical matter uninhabitable.  Would you live there?  Of course not.  And the competent people have left.  The remainder become a hopeless drag.  It is not redeemable, and at this point neither Germanyh nor Poland wants that territory back. 

The costs of remediation would be astronomical, nobody has that kind of money, and even if you cleaned it up, nobody wants to go live there.  So, it is consigned to the ash-heap of history, just so much rubble. 

Now take some bankrupt State such as Rhode Island or Connecticut. The entrepreneurs move out. The industry shuts down.  The wealth flees.  Meanwhile very poor Spanish-speaking people from the island of Puerto Rico arrive and settle in, displaced by the unrepaired destruction of the Island.  Those people have few skills and no language skills.  They can contribute little.  Do you seriously think that wealthy investors are going to move in, when they will have to pay giant taxes to support the social services for all the hundreds of thousands of very poor Puerto Rican migrants?  Nope, nobody is going to do that.Even if you bought up all the land, what are you going to do with it?  No matter what you do, those migrants are not capable of filling any labor queues.  So, other than Greenwich and Darien down in Fairfield, or at Newport RI, there is really nothing to salvage.  I don't see it.  Once bust, it stays bust, the business model being Gary, Indiana, or Flint, Michigan. 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

I don't think so.  To illustrate, I invite you to study the current situation in the Kaliningrad Oblast - a former part of Prussia that Russia took over by force at the end of WWII and now treats as an integral part of Russia itself,  The Kaliningrad is today a total wasteland, a sea of contamination and as a practical matter uninhabitable.  Would you live there?  Of course not.  And the competent people have left.  The remainder become a hopeless drag.  It is not redeemable, and at this point neither Germanyh nor Poland wants that territory back.  

The costs of remediation would be astronomical, nobody has that kind of money, and even if you cleaned it up, nobody wants to go live there.  So, it is consigned to the ash-heap of history, just so much rubble.  

Now take some bankrupt State such as Rhode Island or Connecticut. The entrepreneurs move out. The industry shuts down.  The wealth flees.  Meanwhile very poor Spanish-speaking people from the island of Puerto Rico arrive and settle in, displaced by the unrepaired destruction of the Island.  Those people have few skills and no language skills.  They can contribute little.  Do you seriously think that wealthy investors are going to move in, when they will have to pay giant taxes to support the social services for all the hundreds of thousands of very poor Puerto Rican migrants?  Nope, nobody is going to do that.Even if you bought up all the land, what are you going to do with it?  No matter what you do, those migrants are not capable of filling any labor queues.  So, other than Greenwich and Darien down in Fairfield, or at Newport RI, there is really nothing to salvage.  I don't see it.  Once bust, it stays bust, the business model being Gary, Indiana, or Flint, Michigan.  

Sounds lovely. 

In limited cases, I've seen "gentrification" of neighborhoods.  How does that phenomenon contrast with what we're discussing? 

[Okie + 83]

12 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Sorry, Okie, at an IQ of 83 the respondent is not bright enough for any of that.  You put a man with that IQ on the roadside picking up trash and he will get run over.  "Fixing trails"?  Not likely.  That requires cognitive thinking, not plausible at IQ 83.  Remember that at 83 the Army will refuse to induct you, you are not capable of even simple tasks such as cleaning out the cooking pots in the kitchen.  And that comprises some 10% of the society.  

The further problem is that even people with this low IQ go out there are reproduce.  They do not have the skills to raise a child and so social welfare has to take the child away  (already a cruel thing to do) and send out for adoption, but unfortunately the child will inherit the gene pattern of the parents and is not going to end up functional either.  So you get this perpetuation of the really stupid, and the payment levels for work done, if any, has nothing to do with it.  I have no solution for any of this, particularly as any plausible work assignment will require immense levels of supervision.  It is a real problem.  

So much misinformation, so little time.  Intellectual disability (formerly called mental retardation) is an IQ below 70, not 83, which would still be low average intelligence.  Generally, scores between 70 and 79 are classified as "borderline intellectual functioning."

See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK332877/ds

Intellectual Disability in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 5th Edition (DSM-V)

Even people below that can have what is known as adaptive functioning traits (meaning that they can function outside their home somewhat independently).  So, IQ scores, alone, do not determine whether or not someone is capable of working and doing at least specific vocational preparation (SVP) one (SVP 1) or two (SVP 2) jobs (also known as unskilled work).  This is defined by the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), and is used by vocational experts to place people in all sorts of jobs, at least currently.  Jobs classified in this category determine how long a typical person will take to learn the job to become proficient at it.  SVP 1 would be a short demonstration, and SVP 2 would be up to 30 days of training.

See DOT: http://www.govtusa.com/dot/

So, yes, even people with an IQ of 82 and below can learn how to do simple, unskilled work.  If they cannot, they would probably be classified as disabled under U.S. law.

[Okie + 83]

10 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

It is not clear if an entire State has the Standing to b e a petitioner before a bankruptcy court. Setting that aside, you can still fire incompetent people inside State government, albeit it is difficult to do, and typically carries a large financial burden.  Let uds assume taht you end up having to pay two years' salary to dispose of the incompetent.  That is a hit, to be sure; but on the other hand, that person is not doing anything constructive anyway, and if allowed to just sit there in the bureaucracy, will continue to be a burden "forever," plus cause mayhem while being the incumbent.  So, ultimately, firing is the better option, and let the chips fall where they may. 

I predict Illinois will collapse first, and then New Jersey, then Connecticut, then either Rhode Island or California. If a bankruptcy court accepts the debtor petition, then it will open the floodgates and some dozen States will revolve through reorganization, including the disavoval of the pension obligations (and that should be interesting).  For example, most States such as Rhode Island and Connecticut at one time had these "visitors centers" along the Interstate,complete with staff, coffee, local sights brochures, and lavatories, so the public was not doing the bladder thing along the side of the road.  At this point ALL are closed, with chain link fencing shutting down the off-ramps. That last is presumably to keep the hookers and the vandals out of there. These centers are shut down because the State does not even have the funds to keep these minimal buildings open and staffed.  That tells you a lot. 

How these rich, industrious States managed to slide into decrepitude is mind-boggling.  Unbelievable stupidity. 

So much misinformation, so little time.  I was a bankruptcy lawyer when I was in private practice.  The answer is no, states cannot file for bankruptcy; and it is very clear.  Municipalities qualify under Chapter 9 (municipal) or Chapter 11 (corporate reorganization).  In order for states to be allowed to file for bankruptcy, congress would have to pass a new law, which would have to signed by the President.

A case in point, a specific statute had to be passed to allow Puerto Rico to file for bankruptcy protection.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/03/news/economy/puerto-rico-wants-to-file-for-bankruptcy/

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

13 hours ago, Okie said:

So much misinformation, so little time.  I was a bankruptcy lawyer when I was in private practice.  The answer is no, states cannot file for bankruptcy; and it is very clear.

Okie, I was very careful to state:  "It is not clear if a State has the Standing to be a petitioner..."  "If a bankruptcy court accepts the debtor's petition..."  

A State can file a Petition in Bankruptcy, along with anybody else and everybody else.  Then it is up to the Judge if that Court is going to accept the petition.  I can foresee various arguments.  As the Supreme Court has qualified corporations as people, apparently, then why not use the same logic for States?  You get into these equal-protection arguments.  Sure, it is far afield, but hey, strange things do happen. 

If a bankruptcy judge accepts a Petition from a State Government, where in effect that State Government throws up its hands and declares, "We have no hope of sorting out our big mess, the claims against the State far exceed our ability to ever pay, so we declare ourselves bankrupt and out the State into the Receivership of the Court,"  Then what is the Judge going to do?  There is at least an outside possibility that a Judge might say, "OK, you guys are out, and from here on in the Court appoints Mr. Jacobs as Receiver, he runs things and files his reports to the Court for administration."  I can hear the howls of protest, but that just might happen. 

The other possibility is that some basket-case State simply resigns its State Charter, claiming dissolution.  That would pass the buck off to the Federal Government, and the Feds would have to take it over as in effect a frontier "Territory," as a dis-incorporated State.  I can see that happening in a place like New Jersey or Illinois. they don't have any money, they have no hope of ever paying their looming unfunded pension obligations, so what is left?  Disincorporation, It becomes a frontier.  The US Marshals and Wyatt Earp and the Territorial Commissioner take over.  Sounds strange, but strange things happen.

The idea that the Federal Govt is going to socialize the immense liabilities of these bankrupt States is a non-starter; you are going to get far too much resistance to the Feds paying for the debts of California.  That is not going to happen.  And the reality is that those pensions are not going to be paid.  It is hopeless.  So, when the nut cracks, some new solution will come along, either via some creative Bankruptcy Judge  (a long shot) or a walk-away state government (another long shot).  Raising taxes to pay for past obligations  promised?  Impossible. 

Edited July 2, 2019 by Jan van Eck

[fozzir + 68]

On 6/28/2019 at 6:51 PM, Brian W said:

Mayors from across the area are committing to purchasing for additional than two,100 electrical autos — together with university buses — by 2020 to fill out close by governing administration fleets.

The pledge was made by 127 cities across 38 states who have banded jointly to assortment a getting bloc, recognised as the Climate Mayors Electrical powered Car or truck Buying Collaborative, in get to get enhanced pricing on the vehicles.

https://trulytimes.com/mayors-across-country-commit-to-buying-electric-vehicles.html

Heck ya, if it saves tax $ do it, plus Elon will love it. I'm sure he'll come out with a ambulance or utility van. Shoot, he already has a cop car!

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

On 6/30/2019 at 11:31 AM, James Regan said:

Not a new concept but was phased out as it was to expensive seems to be getting a second chance but the underlying fundamentals are still apparent that’s it’s just to expensive to supply, maintain and implement efficiently at this point in time, once wind farms make the electricity and non fossil fuels are used to fabricate these EVs I will be onboard.

At this point it’s an expensive option which is not ready, we should be considering GNV before we go directly to EVs.

That is incorrect. BEVs in the $30k to $40k price range tend to have a much lower total cost of ownership and higher reliability.

This is especially true if the cars are driven more than the average commute.

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

On 6/30/2019 at 5:34 PM, Danlxyz said:

Islandboy posted some articles on the Peak Oil Barrel website about how some commercial electric vehicles were holding up after 10 years. My take on it was not very well. It seems many were not heavy duty enough. However that might not be unusual. It takes awhile to work out bugs etc.

http://peakoilbarrel.com/electric-commercial-vehicles-a-ten-year-update-part-1/

 

BEV trucks are coming along. There has been a sea change in tech over the last decade.