Automakers Want Trump to Keep Federal E.V. Regulations in Place
www.nytimes.com
Donald J. Trump promised to erase Biden tailpipe rules that are designed to get carmakers to produce E.V.s. But Detroit wants to keep them.
  • Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world
    38·
    12 days ago

    Ah so they don’t want to lose the money they have invested in ev research, development and capital expenditure. Not because they want to save the environment but because money

    • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      18·
      12 days ago

      Of course. It just happens that their greed serves a good purpose today, but tomorrow it can turn so don’t hold your breath

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          12 days ago

          *If I lived with a roommate as unstable narcissistic as capitalism, I’d have moved out a long time ago.

      • Salvo@aussie.zoneEnglish
        74·
        12 days ago

        The more electronics in a product, the easier it is to build in Engineered Obsolescence.

        One good thing about traditional ICE engines is that they were relatively simple. If something stops working, it can be bypassed.

        Modern ICE and EVs use CANBus and FSB/DAS, which means that the manufacturer has infinitely more control over the vehicle than a vehicle with disparate components that are individually powered and controlled.

        This is more of an “old vehicle vs new vehicle” argument, and as EVs mature, the aftermarket replacement parts (such as the OpenInverter project) will be more accessible.

        The Automotive industry is seeing the EV boom as an opportunity to fight Right To Repair with the argument that a giant Lithium bomb under each vehicle is too dangerous for lay-mechanics to work on.

    • zurohki@aussie.zoneEnglish
      12·
      12 days ago

      They also don’t want to have Chinese EVs come in and eat their lunch. Tariffs can hold them off for a while, but only for as long as it takes for BYD to build American factories. Making their own EVs is something they’ll have to do and they’d like to have the government support them through it.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
      12·
      12 days ago

      Well yeah. That’s the entire point of tax incentives and all that. We want them to do something so we make it in their financial best interest for it to happen.

      In this case, we made it so their interests were best served by spending an ass load of money on research and development to make EVs more broadly producible. If you yoink the rule that made them do that away, it’s not that they’ve wasted or lost that investment, but producers who weren’t bound by those rules are at a comparative advantage because they weren’t set back by the rules, and now they can continue to sell cheaper, dirtier cars for less than the bigger companies can sell clean or dirty cars.

      It’s to the advantage of Tesla because reducing the sales of electric vehicles while there’s rising consumer demand makes it easier for them to sell cars at the same price with less competition.
      It’s worse for the environment but “giving a shit about the planet” isn’t on the table in the current political environment. The most we can hope for is “the interests of a large company are tangentially aligned with those of the environment for once” and just run with it.