So many posts about, will you still buy without EV credit [WARNING: NO POLITICS]

[JeffVA]

I have to challenge your mention of the alleged veracity of the Landman video clip. A counterargument to that, courtesy of the very entertaining and informative Rollie Williams, is linked below. Draw your own conclusions . . .

You are wrong Benjamin. If it COULD have replaced oil it already would have.
Literally everything you are doing at this very moment relies on crude Oil. Phone, TV, A/C, your house. Tell me something that doesn't and I'll prove you wrong

 

[GaRailroader]

Willing to admit it or not, everyone on this forum benefits either directly or indirectly from fossil fuel subsidies. Of course people don’t have to be honest about it, but they should at least try to be honest with themselves. Would there be a broad based benefit to EV subsidies? Maybe, but not to same scale.

Huh? Subsidies are paid for by taxpayers. There is no free lunch. Some taxpayers are going to benefit more from subsidies than the portion of their taxes that go to subsidies while others will get less benefit from the subsidies then they pay in to the subsidies.

 

[GaRailroader]

But your research on fossil fuel subsidies goes only as deep as a biased website. You keep citing the internet statistic that the US Government subsidizes fossil fuel to the tune of $760B and back the claim from a biased website. What you don't point to is that figure is an estimate that includes elements of the US Defense budget, the concept of environmental damage impacts, and health costs. All of which are intangible cost elements that are simply biased academic theory.

In the other thread on this topic I posted real, unbiased data the Federal Government actually spends on fossil fuel subsidies and renewable energy GFY 2016 - 2022). The real fossil fuel subsidies are around $4B annually and the renewable subsidies are $15B.

The Feds pull in about $35B in fuel tax revenue annually from about 134B gallons of gasoline at 18.4 cents/gal, and 45B gallons of diesel fuel at 24.4 cents/gal.

Your number of $760B in subsidies equals some $5 per gallon. $10 gasoline conveniently tips the scales to EV cost competively when purchase price is calculated into total operating costs for EV. One can then consider the $760B number is possibly backed into by such biased media sites.

So the fuel taxes are used to support road maintenance so not really relevant to subsidy discussions. I thought Steve from Aptera's owner club did a good analysis on EV versus fossil fuel subsidies.

 

[Benjamin Nead]

You are wrong Benjamin. If it COULD have replaced oil it already would have.
Literally everything you are doing at this very moment relies on crude Oil. Phone, TV, A/C, your house. Tell me something that doesn't and I'll prove you wrong

Here's the deal on this. I'm perfectly fine with petroleum being used to make durable plastic goods. The very truck you now are spending a great deal of time and energy here today on multiple threads publicly talking yourself out of (because your specific trim level is going to cost you more without the rebate, etc) has a large amount of durable plastic exterior parts.

I've owned a plastic panel car ('95 Saturn) and I think they're very good from a durability perspective. In fact, a life cycle analysis Slate has conducted indicates that there's a lower carbon footprint doing it this way than with conventional steel (ie: mining, manufacturing and processing of the metal, stamping it, painting it, etc.) Also, both steel and polycarbonate plastics (ie: Slate panels) can be recycled and used again to make something else years later.

Additionally, electric cars have a lot of durable plastic found in things (or "thangs") like electrical insulator parts and battery casings. And, until someone comes up with a better non-petroleum-based material that is more cost effective and/or more durable, I'll continue to advocate for plastics to be used in these sort of manufacturing applications.

What I don't appreciate is all sorts of non-durable single-use plastics we consumers are forced to buy in the way of extraneous packaging. I completely understand why it's used in some modern day food safety and medicinal applications. However, a lot of extraneous single-use plastic is forced on us ("free" bags at the grocery store, etc.) and there are alternatives that could be utilized for some of these applications, especially the stuff that isn't recyleable. I'd rather buy my organic strawberrys in pressed paper cartons I can throw into the composter than, say, those clear plastic clamshells I have to drive over to the recycling center at the end of the month. But I digress.

But here's the good news: depending on which statistical sources you access, all plastic products - from durables to disposables - accounts for just 6% to 8% of worldwide petroleum use. So, while I'm sure Billy Bob's character will wax on endlessly about plastic being in "every f*ckin' thang," and you soak it up like a dry sponge placed on a wet floor, it's a distraction and actually off topic to what I thought was the original conversation here.

So, here's where we get back on topic: the inverse of that 6% or 8% means that over 90% of petroleum and petroleum byproducts are refined to be used as transportation fuel. Do I think that's wasteful and stupid. Of course I do. So should you and any other reasonable thinking person who isn't making a fast buck off that market.

The other statistic worth noting is that something like 37% of carbon pollution - the component that contributes to global climate warming - is a result of burning fossil fuels in internal combustion engines used for ground-based travel.

So, do I think we can do this driving around thing (or thang, if you prefer,) with electricity and batteries from a grid composed almost exclusively of renewables? Yes, I do.

I'm not going to attempt to explain how that might play out differently where you live compared to where I do. That in itself is a complex topic, and this message is already too long. But if you want to "prove I'm wrong", all I ask is you don't go off on wild tangents not related to direct petroleum consumption in ground transportation, or by channeling Billy Bob's "every f*ckin' thang" speech as a feeble stand in for intelligent energy policy. Thanks in advance.

 

[E90400K]

So, here's where we get back on topic: the inverse of that 6% or 8% means that over 90% of petroleum and petroleum byproducts are refined to be used as transportation fuel. Do I think that's wasteful and stupid. Of course I do. So should you and any other reasonable thinking person who isn't making a fast buck off that market.

What you may not understand is the production of the petroleum products you like that make durable plastic goods, in a very narrow range, are not separable from the petroleum products you don't like, which are transportation fuels. While the refinery process that makes petrochemicals is highly complex, in the US from a barrel of crude 43% percent is turned into gasoline, 28% into diesel and other distillate fuels, and 10% is made into jet fuel. 13% of the barrel is made into "other" petroleum chemicals, which is where the good plastic you like comes from. According to the U.S. EIA, for 2023, 66.6% of crude oil was used for transportation fuel, not 90%.

So, the problem you have is the good plastics you like only come along with the creation of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels. The ratios are very narrowly fixed based on mostly the refinery infrastructure in place and the quality of the crude oil being processed. That means a refinery can't just decide to convert the barrel of crude into 100% of the "other" petroleum products you like that make the plastics you like.

The problem for the EV cost comparison to ICEV is inexpensive gasoline. You'd like gasoline to become really expensive (you've said gasoline should really cost over $10/gal. because it is subsidized by $760B annually), which then makes ICEV unaffordable as compared to EV. But gasoline is going to remain inexpensive (at a raw price before taxes) because the distillation ratio is mostly fixed at 43%. And it's worse if you like to fly on commercial aircraft because to get the jet fuel necessary to fly, you get that 43% of gasoline from a barrel of crude.

 

[E90400K]

So the fuel taxes are used to support road maintenance so not really relevant to subsidy discussions. I thought Steve from Aptera's owner club did a good analysis on EV versus fossil fuel subsidies.

For arguments sake, let's use Aptera's number of $20B and assume all $20B subsidizes gasoline (he correctly points out it doesn't). The US consumes about 135B gallons of gasoline annually. Divide $20B by 135B gallons and that is just 14.8-cents per gallon. Using an average of 12,000 annually driven miles in a 25.4 MPG vehicle, that is an increase of just $70 in a person's annual transportation fuel bill. I doubt $70 per year is going to factor into a person's decision to switch from ICEV to EV. Using the 66.6% of crude oil turned into transportation fuel (I stated in my post above), that annual cost increase is then just $47.