One country is disincentivizing or even blocking renewable energy production, rolling back climate protection measures, trying to revitalize the coal industry, slashing investment in scientific research of all kinds, demonizing higher education, and spending vast and rapidly increasing amounts of public funds to create direct, physical conflicts.

Another country is increasing their renewable energy generation capabilities dramatically each year, encouraging EV adoption, investing very heavily in scientific research, and also investing in military (although without initiating direct physical conflicts).

One of these two countries is riding on momentum, but the drag from waste and mismanagement of resources is increasingly slowing it. The other country is building momentum while reducing drag.

The difference in these approaches will be obvious in a decade, and in two decades one of the two countries will be just another chapter in a book about the rise and fall of empires.

I know EV purists will complain about the complexity of maintaining the gas engine, but this hits the perfect sweet spot for me - it doesn't weigh a million tons, it cost under 40k new, and the one weekend a month when I need to I can drive 300 miles each way on a single tank of gas.

Nothing will be done at Federal level.

But california is big enough to make things moving without any federal level law.

For example, what about this:

- no sales taxes on new EV sales

- free registration for 5 years

- free bridge tolls for 5 years

This will be paid by increasing gas taxes, sales taxes on ICE, and registration fees for ICE.

That might convince some of companies to start making EVs again.

https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/DENZA-Z9GT-to-start-Europes...

The petrol era is coming to an end. Our current administration might desperately want to remain a petrol state (for reasons that escape me), but it will only delay the inevitable. The EU is not much better either. The writing has been on the wall, and even since the Russian invasion into Ukraine not much has happened.

What is going on? Are we all insane, or is it just intense lobbying of yesterday's petrol industry?

I’ve worked in clean energy software and hardware since 2014. I’m currently looking for a new position, and recently some research firms came out of the woodwork offering to pay me a high consulting rate just to better understand the market. I wasn’t even looking for this, they just came to me. All they said was “interest in this area is increasing.”

P.S., if you’re looking for someone with deep domain knowledge and senior-level engineering skills for your clean energy project, I’m available. https://matthewgerring.com

Even if they tripled their sales for the last two weeks, it wouldn't be relavent to if their bet will ultimately pay off.

BYD was already selling a ton of cars when the oil prices were "low", of course there's some very creative accounting business moves you would expect from a Chinese company like BYD ( companies from other places have their own peculiarities too ).

Gas prices have been "sky high" for a week and people who are under financial stress just decided to ditch their cars and buy a brand new BYD? Are we children now? listening bedtime stories?

The concept of electric vehicle is technically superior to support the context and lifestyle a large majority of people have. It will "win" over time. There is no need to this bullshit simplistic feel-good articles.

Btw, the the market movements of people trying to get rid of their gas-guzzling SUVs when prices are high and trade them for a smaller and more economical car ( what they should have been doing in the first place.. ) already happened in the past many times, there is no news here. But these movements don't happen in a time span of a week or a couple weeks.

Sorry for the rant, but between AI's "Absolutely, you're entirely right!" and these bullshit articles.. I don't know.

To be clear: EV's will "win" and BYD has been selling a ton of cars because they are cheap and not terrible right out of the gate, also people don't have much disposable income.

Not if. When. You never 'win' in the UK, not in the long term

In reality, most working class Filipinos travel via public transit or ICE scooter.

I know they write this stuff to generate clicks but at least pretend to try.

That figure is highly misleading. Yes, 48% of new vehicle sales in Thailand are now EVs, but their share of total vehicles on the road is much smaller: I can't find recent figures, but it'll be far less than 10%. (Share of new sales was under 20% until late last year.)

The Philippines is even further behind, with share of new sales under 10%.

Of course total fleet composition will eventually converge on new sales, but given that the lifespans of cars are measured in decades, it takes longer than you'd think.