Featured Are you a gas 'superuser'? U.S. state wants to get you to stop

The superchargers played little role for the realtor I know. He drove 75-200 miles a day but charged 95% of the time at home. In his case, the free supercharging was a nice plus, but didn't have a big effect.

 

It is best to solve the problem without judgement. I know some environmentalists and politicians want to simply apply blame. If the problem is ghg or oil use, I find it counter productive to try to tell people they should be in a smaller vehicle or are traveling too far. This is really personal choice. Higher fuel taxes could be part of the solution but I'm sure the OPEC and Russia involved lower supply is giving people a strong signal. PHEVs and BEVs use much less oil and produce much lower ghg in most of the US. The authors want to incentivize people in this group to buy them. The problem until now has been choice, with vary few Trucks and SUVs in that market. The truck market will soon have many BEV choices (Rivian, Ford, GM, and Tesla) but none of the makers will be able to produce enough to meet demand for the next few years. Similarly the phev and bev SUVs are starting to arrive but again nobody is making enough to meet demand. Here I disagree with the authors on incentives, but perhaps the federal government should stop subsidizing california where a large percentage end up and shift to lower incentives in the places where these superusers live. The large consumers of gasoline are not in california where very high gas prices have been disincentivising them.

 

I guess at the end of the day I'm mildly anti-tax and strongly anti-incentive.

Make a useful regulation along the lines of "no commercial plate renewals for gas burners after $date" and let them raise their own prices to pay the cost of compliance.

 

same with business flying. pre pandemic, our daughter used to spend her days flying all over to meet face to face with buyers, attend conventions/trade shows/seminars.

somehow, they managed to get it all done on zoom the past two years. now, employers are pushing to get everyone back out on the road.

 

Yeah, that's what I don't get. Why are those employers opting to waste money, time, and resources on traveling when there are perfectly suitable alternatives. I do understand that certain aspects of business require a face-to-face meeting, but there are so many aspects of many businesses physical gathering is not necessary.

Pre-pandemic, I was attending at least several face-to-face conferences with huge travel expenses. We managed to conduct all the conferences virtually in the last 2+ years. I could attend far more conferences virtually otherwise not possible due to constraints of travel costs and arrangements. I hope the way we conduct meeting and conference stays even after all the dangers of a pandemic is over. One thing is for sure, I will never fly again.

 

Somebody with budget authority disagrees with your assessment. In a more general sense, many companies are in land-grab mode. They are cashing in on pent-up demand and trying to get all the turf they can before the money spigot runs dry. If somebody thinks they can be more competitive in your meeting room vs. on your screen, well there you go.

I'm already back up to about 2-3 work trips a month, and I'm going after every gig I can get before the recession hits.

 

Then you are in a cut-throat for-profit business. This supports my notion that our economy thrives based on those wasteful gatherings. I on the other hand am in a non-profit sector... albeit in an extremely competitive field.

 

LOL

Bob Wilson

 

Are you laughing at half a million academic scientists in the US who compete for very limited funds and grants?

 

Retired (I.e. permanently unemployable,) YES!

A happy guy who converted his 401k into TSLA stock and drives a 2019 Tesla with 65,000 miles, my smug is an EPA superfund site.

Today I write notes to improve Tesla ownership. Applied but sometimes obscure engineering tricks given directly to user forums.

I appreciate the difficult tasks academic research involves. It takes a special OCD and commitment that is seldom fully appreciated. But we each have to live in our age and career appropriate challenges.

Bob Wilson

 

If you were in a non-profit, then you would not have had a 401K. You know?

 

Fortunately I was never qualified for that life. Just a high school graduate with some college…<grins.>

It is better to be underestimated than degrees without understanding. I met too many of those in GE.

Bob Wilson

 

I agree. I don't know your field, but I gather those with higher degrees and working at GE are certainly not academic scientists in the non-profit sector.

 

Try having a masters in history and not being a teacher, or one of the 50 trillion marine biologists or a psych major or a graphics artist, etc etc etc

 

Can go back to school and get a degree in philosophy. Then BS all day.

 

The Tundra hybrid is out. The new Tacoma should be coming out in the next couple years. Maybe a hybrid for it, but getting Toyota's newer engines alone should greatly help its low economy numbers.

And if we followed those plans for mail service and electricity, parts of the countryside would still be without.

The ones running businesses are extroverts.

 

Just one, Steve Deller, who after he returned to normal did interesting work in software validation or proof. Steve had worked for a notorious company and was fired for his effort. He came to GE with severe physiological problems that were eventually resolved. He was much better when we last worked together. As for the others ... slogans and noise having nothing to do with what they actually practiced.

Bob Wilson

ps. I was an operating system programmer who was (is) as comfortable with hardware diagrams as any code ... sometimes having to decode the binary. My 'briar patch' is where code meets the hardware.

 

Agree with this. I think there is a big difference between driving a lot, and driving an inefficient vehicle (for the use case).

For someone driving lots of distance, a switch to hybrid (or PHEV) would likely make more sense than EV in most cases, as frequent public charging will likely be a concern, depending on the area, and vehicle budget, etc. Long range EVs can still be expensive.

For an inefficient vehicle causing high fuel use (such as commuting solo in a truck or SUV), then a discussion around a more practical EV may make sense, but again there may be other purposes for the large vehicle (such as >3 kids, etc).

Also, the article seems oddly very superficial and simplistic, with no real meat to it…

 

Same here. For the past 20 years, I have lived in a suburb of Toronto, and averaged 35-37k km per year of driving, as I am about 40km (~1 hour) from the office as a commute, but spent most of my days on the road visiting clients all around the city.

Since 2018/2019, my role has been more national in scope, so my job shifted to 50% virtual, and my driving decreased. When the pandemic hit, it became 100% virtual (since software sales really doesn’t need in-person meetings..), and has been that way ever since, aside from one or two outings for business per year for team meetings, etc.

In 2020 I drove only 9k (and mostly in Jan/Feb). In 2021 I drove 12k; in the first 3.5 months of 2022, I have only driven 2300km (LOL). I went from filling my PIP every 5 days before to every ~4-6 weeks now. It is not uncommon for the Prius to sit for a week (since we often use the Leaf to get groceries and errands), so I end up taking the Prius out just to warm it up over concern my 12v may die on me or something (still original from 2014). At least in a way the PIP is “appreciating” in value since the mileage looks a lot more reasonable for its age now, and the body is still in great shape. If only those 2023’s would hurry up and get here…

 

It appears the study ignores commercial users and is more focused on 1000 gallon+ crowd which will be the 40,000 mile plus club and private individuals who tow a lot.

I doubt much useful will come of this as I was once a traveling crafter, (not commercial) my usuage and economy were as high as I could get considering the sheer amount of stuff I had to move an EV wouldn’t have helped and my 30mpg 5mt 2wd suburban was about as efficient as you could manage when loaded without a trailer (a 40mpg Maverick exists but it can carry the payload needed)

Upfront cost, Fixed costs and repairs become critical to minimize and you can’t do so with a new vehicle.