[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by kyp275

There is already a $7,500 subsidy on EVs right now, and they're still in the realm of the rich and well-to-do (at least the ones that are capable of any range). Your vision is extremely optimistic, and I'm not sure you really grasp what's needed for EVs to replace ICE vehicles. There would need to be massive improvements in battery technology, and an overhaul of the entire US electric infrastructure. Plugging in a few recharge stations here and there is cute, it's a different story if you want to jack tens or hundreds of millions of EVs.

The longest journey begins with a single step. You want me to accept that you aren't against EVs? Then start by admitting that the process is already underway, and that it is fully feasible to do in 10-15 years. That infrastructure you talk about? It's happening, as you note with Tesla doing. And they aren't the only ones; many businesses are beginning to add them, as are parking garages. Sure, you won't have them in Wisconsin for awhile. But eventually the network will expand there.

When those "horseless carriages" first came out, people said the same thing about them, that they say about the electric car. Who will take a horseless carriage when you need to refill it every so often? There aren't many stations out there, and a horse is cheaper! The horse can also refill off of grass which is everywhere. Many people already ride horses, so why would they replace them with those gas cars?

We've been through this before. We'll go through it again.

For example, California can barely keep itself powered during the summer(and indeed failed to do so on many occasions, and had to resort to rolling blackouts). How do you think the region's energy grid will respond to the energy demand that are being supported by fossil fuels dumped onto its head?

California also deregulated it's energy industry, which led to those blackouts. up in Washington, we have energy hungry industries like Amazon.com and Microsoft, and yet we don't have blackouts. We also have been adding a lot of electric vehicles and charging systems. We have electric buses that take energy off lines above them, and a light rail system installed in the last few years. Our electric grid is working just fine, supplying all that power.

Oh, and we're also the home of coffee and coffeeshops, where everyone is plugged in.

It IS because you live there. Tesla is installing charging stations in very select regions to showcase the technology and where their potential costumers are (you won't see them building any charging stations in Wisconsin anytime soon). There are currently barely over 5,000 charging stations in the entire US, as opposed to over 110,000 gas stations. A gas station can also serve a significantly higher number of vehicles than a comparable charging station, as it takes only a few minutes to refuel a car as opposed to the hours it'd take to charge up a single EV.

Ignoring the fact that quick charging stations means you won't be charging a vehicle for hours, this is a matter of changing your point of view. You'd only even quick charge for longer trips, like every 100-200 miles or so. But for everyday things, you stop at the grocery store and charge while you shop. Or charge while you eat a restaurant or while you watch a movie. And, of course, you charge while you are at home. So, I'd say: why are you wasting time filling gas at a gas station? It takes at least five minutes(if your gas refill trip is on the way, and not a detour or a special trip), but electric car owners aren't spending that time at all.

Change your paradigm, and realize that you don't need to spend the time charging anymore That leaves you with more.

Try years and you'll be closer. The battery pack also don't last forever, and their replacement cost certainly is anything but cheap.

The battery pack lasts longer than the car. Interesting fun fact I heard awhile ago, so it might not be entirely true now, but... not one prius or civic hybrid needed to come into the shop to have it's battery pack replaced. I've had my 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid since I bought it in 2005. Never had a problem with my battery pack. Battery technology has come far. The only work I needed to do was an oil change and an air filter change since I got it, and I was easily able to wait years before doing that, with no harmful effects. Just recently, 8 years after buying it, I finally had a major expense to get the tires replaced, but that was it.

I'm sorry, but have you actually done the math or looked into it as a serious buyer? Because I just went through all the nitty-gritty details a few weeks back while helping my sister to decide between a Mazda 3 and a Volt. Even with the majority of the travel covered by the battery, it'd still take FIVE YEARS for the Volt to break even with the Mazda 3.

People, including my parents, told me I was crazy to spend so much extra on a hybrid in 2005. And then gas prices shot up. And I actually got mine for cheaper; my car was one a sales associate at the dealership had been driving, so I was able to get it for $19,000. Only a little bit more than a regular new car at the time, which has more than paid for itself given that I only give my car 12 gallons of gas or so once every 3-4 weeks. Those with Chevy Volts report going to the gas station maybe once or twice a year. Maybe once every 2 months at most.

And five years is standard on a car loan repayment cycle, and people, if they are trying to save money, keep the same car longer than 5 years. So I don't see why that is an issue. The care breaks even after 5 years, but then it starts to pay you back. I notice a lot of Americans tend to have trouble imagining the long-term benefits over the short-term gain. They'll take $10 today, instead of waiting to get $100 next week.

Europe have nearly three times the population of the US, in an area that roughly the same (4.0 vs 3.7 mil square mile), Japan's size speaks for itself, so is the size of its debt, at over twice its entire GDP.

I'm not against trains or public transportation, but don't accuse others of mindlessly saying things can't be done, while you're purposely ignoring just about every single obstacles that implementing such a system would face in the US.

My argument was that it can be done. Are their obstacles? Sure, but they can be overcome. And many parts of Europe are equivalent to the US, in terms of people per square mile. France, for instance, has a lot of rural areas. We have a lot of people squeezed into cities, where mass transit can really shine if done well.

Kaiji, Kaijo, Kaijo, are you serious? Did you not read the multiple posts by other people after mine that pointed out your mistake? I don't know where you're from, or even what scale you're using, as you're neither using short OR long scale. But, as multiple posts have already pointed out that the number being used is these reports is in SHORT SCALE

Regardless of what kind of scale you want to use, those are the actual IRS numbers. The top 1% of tax returns consist of 1.4 million tax returns. Full stop. Averaging the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of those 1.4 million tax returns, gives a $380,000 figure. Those are the only numbers I took off that. This is simple math, dude. 1,400,000 times 380,000. There are no tricks involved in those figures. Everyone here can do the math themselves, even if you want to argue that somehow 2+2=3. This isn't my math, though, this is the IRS. So you're essentially arguing against the IRS itself. I suggest you take your math wizardy to them, since they will obviously see how wrong they are, and how right you are. I'm sure the government, too, will recognize your incredible insight that they are using different scales when calculating their financial system. Dude, you can save the entire US government overnight!

The rich really are damn rich. Of course, the only skewing of that number, is that most of that wealth is in the hands of the few. Even in that 1%, most of the wealth is concentrated into 0.01%.

By the way, something else you may want to consider, is that the rich are hiding at least $21 trillion in offshore accounts. If we managed to tax those, we could wipe out the deficit easily, too. And those numbers are extremely conservative.

Look, dude, your argument was that even if we taxed the rich at 100%, we couldn't cover the deficit. Even if took your $518 billion from the 1%, if we expanded that out to the top 10% (which would still be considered rich), we could still easily cover the deficit with a 100% tax rate. Your next argument should logically be: "but we won't tax them at 100%!" which is true. Instead of trying to argue that 2+2=3.

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

The reason people drive over biking and frequently public transportation is about time, and frequently that's what working class Americans lack because they are saddled down with all kinds of responsibilities from work to children to buying food, etc. I know people that have very limited free time, and basically spend all day working. If you want them to spend even more time traveling, then well, it's possible, but it's not good for their mental health.

That's a bigger issue with income distribution, with the super-wealthy taking all the cash, and forcing people to spend more time working. It used to be that a man could work his 40 hour a week job and easily support his wife and two children. Now, both parents must work.

But beside that, while it does vary as to where you live, it is very possible and doesn't add that much time. Of the several jobs I had in Arizona and Washington, I didn't spend more than 45 minutes commuting (and in most cases, 30 mins or less), with combination bicycle/bus route. Sometimes I just did bus, and sometimes just bicycle, too. And this is commuting into Seattle, a heavy metropolitan area, from a suburb 20 miles away.

Originally Posted by Solace

Remember though, the biggest problem with electric cars is FOSSIL materials. There are a lot of things that aren't fuel that we rely on fossil material for, and that includes things like rubber and plastics. So even though you aren't burning oil in a combustible engine, oil still makes up a large percent of the car. On top of that, when it does come to fuel, where do you think a lot of that electricity comes from? We aren't exactly harnessing lightning and funneling 1.21 gigawatts into your flux capacitor, and we're a long way from Mr. Fusion.

Of course we use oil for more than gas. But eventually we'll use other materials for cars that don't use so much oil, either. And if we heavily reduce our oil use, the amount that we have still in the ground, will last us thousands of years.

Simply put, if you're digging it out of the earth to use it, it's a finite resource. You won't run out of wind, sun, wave, or geothermal anytime soon, but you will run out of rocks and dead animals to burn, turn into chemicals, and turn into plastic wrap. And people tend to forget a fundamental law of physics: it takes energy to make energy. And we're getting increasingly less energy than we spend to get it.

I think you underestimate just how much nature is creating everyday, and how much energy the Earth has. If we were to cover a small fraction of the Sahara desert with solar panels, we would produce enough energy to power the entire planet. There is a TON of solar power coming in, so energy expenditure isn't a problem when you take that into account. The main problem is the losses from energy transmission, which is why it is better to produce energy closest to the point at which you use it. That's why putting solar panels on your house is the best bet, because even though it is expensive, most solar installations these days pay for themselves in anywhere from 3 to 10 years, depending your level of sunlight and the type of panels. After that, it is pure, free energy, and also ups the value of your home, so technically you earn more (and you can earn money if you can feed the excess energy back into the grid).

Science is also making headway on converting things from one form or another. Plasma incineration, whereupon you take garbage and incinerate it in a process called "plasma gassification" turns garbage into syngas, an energy source. And once you fully harness either the sun's solar power, or build a fusion generator, you'll have enough power to make something like the replicator from Star Trek possible.

Also, there are asteroids and other planes out there for mining. In short, if we run out of stuff here on Earth, then we deserve to die off. Because if in the thousand years it will take for that to happen, if we haven't managed to create better energy sources, or get off this planet, then we truly suck as a human species.