GM to go all EV by 2035

[DarinCT]

Haha, this just popped up today.

 

[DMC-81]

Haha, this just popped up today.

Love Will Ferrell. Hey "gm", that's pretty forceful for an aspiration. ?

 

[azjohn]

Love Will Ferrell. Hey "gm", that's pretty forceful for an aspiration. ?

I have liked all of Will Ferrells movies except 1. In the movie he played a guy whose wife was divorcing him, gets kicked out of the house and no where to go so he just lives on the front lawn. The movie started slow and never improved. It was a total waste of 2 hrs

 

[Quicksilver]

" @Quicksilver I find your posts on this topic very well written. I rarely find someone who brings out that side of the argument so well. Thank you. "

You are welcome Sir.
After this debacle of an election I have tried to be civil in my discourse with all people, even though I may disagree with their position. My team lost (for whatever reason) and we will all have to deal with the results be they good or bad.
I once owned an Alternative Energy business here in Alabama....this was in the early 1990's when solar energy was just starting to grow. Most systems were cobbled together by self-taught DYI guys but there were a few startup companies that were actually designing and installing systems. The equipment was expensive and bulky.
I had a deal with one of these companies in Atlanta to install any system I sold and to train the owners in use and maintenance. I wrote an article on Alternative Energy that was published in American Survival Guide magazine while I operated this business.
I ran the company for five years and did not sell a single system. I could not convince Joe Public that a 40k solar power system that would produce clean power for twenty years (and could be sold back to the local utility) was a better investment than a 40K Chevy Suburban that would depreciate the minute he drove it off the lot and continue to depreciate until it hit the junkyard.
This was when state and Federal subsidies were just coming into effect and paid down the cost of the systems by almost half.
Since I knew Big Oil received subsidies from the government I had no heartburn with Alternative Energy getting a level playing field. I lobbied my local Congress Critter to mandate net metering where the power company had to pay an independent producer the same rate they sold their power for. We never got it and the big power companies still make you jump through hoops to have a grid tied solar power system in this area.
It was a great tax write off and I paid for a new shop building and a tractor by writing it off as a loss for those years and I remained dedicated to promoting alternative energy. I always said that when China started producing solar panels and the cost went down to a dollar a watt solar energy would take off in this country.
There are several solar farms within 100 miles of our farm. I still have my demonstration system that I plan to use to charge my CT even though the solar panels and inverters are old.
While I embrace wind power I think it is being oversold and it is still heavily subsidized. They tried to build a wind farm on a ridge that is visible from our top pasture. Having been out west and seen the big wind farms out there I supported the project.
It was defeated when anti-wind environmentalists and local citizens opposed it and kept it from being built. My gut feeling was that the environmentalists were not against the wind turbines themselves they were just opposed to big business making money off of it. But I'm a cynic.
I am in no way opposed to EV's being built and sold if they can stand on their own merit (which Teslas do in my opinion).
What I am against is the government mandating that all ICE vehicles be banned by a certain date. That is just too much government overreach in my opinion.
You could use the argument that if the government can mandate the switch to all electric vehicles to protect the environment from Climate Change then you could use the same argument for mandatory population control since it is humans that are causing the problem.
In my opinion over population is a far greater threat to the planet than Climate Change (yes they are tied together) but everybody avoids that elephant in the room.
I do appreciate the fact that so far none of the responders have stooped to personal attacks and kept the debate civil.
Peace out fellow CT guys.

 

[GnarlyDudeLive]

" How is it that someone so old could be so incurious to their world? "

I have 40 acres in NE Alabama where we raise our own animals and food. Climate affects just about every aspect of what we do. The fact that I can walk outside in a tee shirt in Feb. is not lost on me. Winters seem to be warmer than they were in my youth but that could be a function of declining memory not the climate. It could also be a normal cyclic function of the ever changing climate of earth. The fact is that the earths climate has been changing since it was formed and will continue to change.
The disagreement in question here is has industrial technology increased the temperature to the point that we must take drastic action to rectify the situation.
Therein lies the sticky wicket.
There are radicals that will use the Climate Change debate to further their own agendas and extort governments to kowtow to them.
I may not be the smartest person on this forum but I do have a degree and college education.
I also spent my last 15 years in the military as a Journalist and Public Affairs Specialist. I know how to do research and I know how the media can be manipulated to further an agenda. I have been a prolific reader all my life and I try to look at both sides of any given issue.
I also know that politicians will pander to anyone that will fund them and vote for them. They bend to whichever way the wind is blowing. That is the nature of the beast.
I am not incurious to this world. What I am is skeptical about the motives of people who want to control every aspect of other people's lives by forcing agendas on them.
Again let me ask.......what are you personally willing to give up right now to fight this supposed Climate Change? That question seems to have been conveniently dodged in the last few responses.
Are you willing to give up creature comforts and technology on the chance that it might make some sort of difference? If you are not then you may want to do some soul searching and decide if you are a hypocrite.
If you want to get serious about saving the planet how about controlling the population of humans since humans seem to be the generators of Climate Change. But if you try to throw that dog in the race you will be shouted down and tarred with numerous unflattering labels.
I put my money down on a CT because I like the look of it and I embrace the technology.
Saving the planet had nothing to do with me buying it.

Quicksilver is on my wavelength on so many things they wrote and I am not saying I am like him/her or he/she is like me. I agree a lot of political games and agendas are in play. If we humans are the largest problem and contributor to climate issues, its because we are simply to populous. There is no natural predator to keep us in check outside of viruses and diseases and we tend to outsmart most of them as well. Decreasing carbon emissions by 50% every 30 years gains no ground when the population doubles in the same time frame.

Like Quicksilver am buying the CT for the sole reason I believe its just better all around and has nothing to do with its green advantages. Not to be misunderstood, I am all for going green when its a better product without a ton of sacrifice. Example: Give me something that tastes (not kind of tastes) like a good beef steak, is safe, same price or within reason , AND happens to be more environmentally friendly and I will be all over it no questions asked.

I am a bit at odds with some of the far-green folks that want to keep this planet in a "frozen state" of evolution and promoting all life matters. Well it don't work that way. Every step you take your are crushing some life form. Every shower or bath you take, again your are killing life forms by the hundred thousands or even millions. Every plant you eat is still death to something we share our own DNA with to a large fraction. It's unavoidable. On the flip side, it does not matter what did die as something feeds off of every last tiny bit at the microbial level, absolutely zero goes to waste in earths lifeform cycle even if you don't agree with the end means. Folks are simply wearing blinders when preaching ethics.

Before humans started making an impact on this planet (again which I am in no way denying) it remained fluid and full of environmental change where the strong adapted and the weak perished for a billion years. You can argue its faster now due to humans but that does not change history. This planet will live on with or without humans on it, things will adapt, new species will come and go. Even if we pollute or damage this planet to the point of human extinction, the planet and what remains will divide, evolve and replace us and anything else that may have perished. The biomass on this planet goes so deep that it would be nearly impossible for a reboot not to be successful and flourish. The grim truth is that no matter what we do now or in the future at an eventual point our own star is going to finish earth off, end of story.

Ok, let see who I just stirred up. =)

 

[Crissa]

I don't want humanity extinct. Thats where I keep all my stuff, and most of my best friends.

-Crissa

 

[jerhenderson]

If someone is 66 years old, they would know the spring-time birds hatching, bees buzzing, trees flowering dates have shifted in that time frame. Important agricultural dates.

How is it that someone so old could be so incurious to their world?

-Crissa

sometimes purposeful ignorance....ie it challenges what they think or their place in the world..... sometimes not very observant...... and then there are other less polite reasons.

 

[jerhenderson]

The foreign enemies would be rubbing their hands in anticipation if our military went all EV: Brace for their Electro Magnetic Pulse weapons.

An EMP would disable any ICE vehicle built after 1960.... maybe even earlier.

 

[jerhenderson]

" everything you said went into the trash when you said you think global warming is a hoax. think what you want; you just don't understand the evidence that proves it. "

" ...on a question of scientific veracity, your opinion has no worth, use or purpose... "

I've been on this earth for 66 years and without fail every 20 years or so another lot of Chicken Littles come out of the woodwork to tell us the earth is doomed for whatever reason.
I distinctly remember reading an article in Popular Science back in the late 60's or early 70's that predicted another ice age soon. The article even told how we would be living in nuclear powered underground cities connected by tunnels under the ice. Food would be grown in huge underground chambers using hydroponics and artificial light.
Later came Acid Rain, the hole in the ozone and the prediction that we would be running out of petroleum by this century. The last time I looked the world was still here.
Scientific research is driven by grants that the researchers depend on for their jobs........and he who pays for the grants dictate what results they want to see. And this is driven by the agendas of who is providing that money. For every "researcher or scientist" that you can find to support Global Warming I can find one that opposes it. If you don't understand that then you don't understand the evidence that proves it.
The EPA has been infiltrated by rabid environmentalists that are determined to control policy and dictate regulations that affect jobs and lives........what they can't get by legislation they get by regulation. And unlike elected officials these appointed bureaucrats almost never get fired or held accountable when their policy has an adverse impact on the economy or how people live their lives. And they don't care how it adversely affects the working man as long as it serves their twisted purpose. Once a regulation is adopted it is almost impossible to rescind it or modify it.
I want clean air and water as much as anybody and when the EPA was formed and did the mission it was created for, we got cleaner water and air. Love Canal, Times Beach, Missouri and other Superfund sites got cleaned up and industry was held accountable.
I worked in the Hazardous Waste industry for a government contractor and a private company.....I am well versed in how the EPA and state environmental laws and regulations work and have been involved in many small and major environmental projects to include the destruction of the US Army's Chemical Weapons Stockpile in Anniston, Alabama.
I remember when Birmingham, Alabama was referred to as "Smoke City" by me and my fellow truckers. The steel industry created a pall of smoke that covered the low lying city most of the time in the 1950's and 60's. Kudos to the EPA for fixing that.
What happened, and what always happens to any Federal agency, is what we military guys call "Mission Creep". Mission Creep occurs when an organization is afraid they will lose funding and personnel unless they come up with more ways to justify their existence.
These Federal agencies are ran like little fiefdoms by their director (usually an appointed political toady) who constantly demands a bigger budget and more manpower in order to complete the missions they keep taking on.
When was the last time any Federal agency was reduced in size or scope? I blame this on both political parties and the career politicians that keep allowing those agencies to expand. We need term limits for Congressmen and Senators and we need them now.
That is the evidence I understand having been associated with the military for 34 years and working for a military contractor for six.
If you want a classic example of EPA stupidity look at the lowly gas can. They have made it an ordeal just to put fuel in the tank of a vehicle.
The diesel shop we take our Dodge truck to for service makes stupid money deleting the overly complicated and unreliable emission equipment now mandated on diesel engines by the EPA. And it is not just John Q. Public having this crap deleted. They do it for city, county and state vehicles too.
The Global Warming hoax is designed to milk prosperous countries of money to give to Third World countries that are ran by corrupt leaders who allow their resources to be sold to the highest bidder. They get rich and their people suffer. Where do you think a lot of the exotic metals needed for EV's come from?
As fond as I am of Tesla and Elon Musk they are gaming the system by selling the carbon credits they receive for producing EV's. Who do you think came up with that scheme? Hint........it is a three letter Federal agency. Would Tesla have been able to stay afloat without doing that? A couple of articles I read said it would have been hard pressed to do so.
Our newly elected POTUS has already put thousands of people working on or associated with the Keystone Pipeline out of work. He did it as a stab in the eye to the former President without any consideration for those hard working Americans that depend on those jobs to put food on the table. He did it to pander to his radical environmental base and if just few of the objectives of that idiotic "New Green Deal" are enacted there will be a Depression that will make the one last century look like a walk in the park. Kiss all those electric vehicles goodbye because nobody will be able to afford them. Just like the small automobile companies that folded back in the 1920's and 30's when the economy fails again startup EV companies will go tits up.
Now tell me in your own words exactly what you are willing to give up to stop the dreaded Global Warming. Air conditioning, reliable electric power at the flip of a switch, modern medicine, cheap food shipped from all over the world to a supermarket near you, all these modern devices we use to post stuff like this on a world wide web. What exactly would you personally be willing to forgo if it would save old Mother Earth? My guess is not much because it is always easier to expect the other guy to make the sacrifice (especially if your side gets to mandate it) than to actually do without yourself.
Don't presume to tell me my opinion belongs in the trash can unless you are willing to toss yours right in there beside it.

what am I willing to do to stop the fact of global warming? I'll buy an EV to start and I don't care what that does to fossil fuel jobs.... they'll be hired into renewable industries eventually. the environment is more important than profit. I'm prepared to significantly change my lifestyle because as the saying goes, I'm not leaving the planet to my grandchildren..... I'm borrowing it from them. Maybe you don't care about the world your descendants will face, but I do.

 

[Dids]

An EMP would disable any ICE vehicle built after 1960.... maybe even earlier.

This emp thing keeps cropping up and I think its because people envision it as a easy or small weapon that can be secretly deployed. It is not! Nor is it particularly effective and would not be a good strategy to use to take out a vehicle.
Non nuclear emp requires a tremendous amount of energy, that energy must be quickly available so the bomb would either need a big bank of capacitors or provide the energy through chemical explosion(this is the method normally used as it is small enough to mount inside a missle). Once you go to the expense of making a bomb why not just blow up the vehicle?
I think the military can use electric vehicles as easily or easier than ICE. Indeed Navy ships are electric vehicles.

 

[LoPro]

Haha, this just popped up today.

I’m a Ferrell fan, but we Norwegians do mostly buy *American* EVs though ... That’s Teslas. The GM brand has little standing here I think. The Bolt was briefly sold as an Opel.

We tried to make an EV of our own called Think in the 90s which Ford bought and closed down I think.

 

[azjohn]

As far as Global Warming it is nothing new, in the 5 Billion years Earth has been around there have been multiple heating and cooling cycles including the dinosaur extinction event. I think what we have been doing for the last 100 yrs has some influence but a lot less than what the pro Global Warming groups think

 

[Crissa]

This emp thing keeps cropping up...

Basically it's a bank of capacitors or some destroys-itself battery and a coil, like a slinky. Charge the coil then stretch it to exand or contract the area. But the amount you can put in a man-mobile unit would be a field like you get from a MRI, but you really want to vary the field quickly, so it resonates many components quickly.

But that means that the targets can also hardne themselves as well, since it's a human-sized object, and can then have human-sized sinks to absorb or dissipate the energy.

As far as Global Warming it is nothing new, in the 5 Billion years Earth has been around there have been...

Modern Humans have only been on the planet a hundred thousand, and civilization only ten thousand. Just because the planet has changed climates a million or billion years ago doesn't mean it would be habitable for us. Why wouldn't we want to make sure the planet remains habitable? We can do that. So we should.

-Crissa

 

[Dids]

As far as Global Warming it is nothing new, in the 5 Billion years Earth has been around there have been multiple heating and cooling cycles including the dinosaur extinction event. I think what we have been doing for the last 100 yrs has some influence but a lot less than what the pro Global Warming groups think

So if you can see a dinosaur extinction event coming you would prefer to call it nature and do nothing?

 

[Diehard]

I think what we have been doing for the last 100 yrs has some influence but a lot less than what the pro Global Warming groups think

Regardless of the dispute over the size of the hammer we are using to bang on nature’s thermostat, health and energy security concerns are enough reasons for us to change course. I doubt any of these are the reasons GM is doing it. They are seeing EVs as a more sustainable business model in long run. I think they this time they may stick with it even if the person in the office changes in 4 years. Will Ferrell put my doubts to rest. Economy as a whole will like it in a few years too. There will be battery and grid problems to solve and all of that means new jobs. Probably not as stable as the old one’s but better paying. DOE’s office of energy efficiency has increased funding for R&D by 20% to $2.85 billion. Look at all the jobs Tesla has created. That $1.1 billion for Texas giga factory puts food on the table for construction workers and M3s in the driveway for engineers. My point is focusing on overall impact of a course of action sometimes make the reasons for it irrelevant. The key word is overall. There is always someone that suffers during any change.