It's become just another form of wealth transfer from the poor to the upper classes in the economy. Perks and incentives to earn "points" and cash-back by spending on credit cards are financed by those merchant fees, so the entire country is subsidizing them by paying hidden fees in the form of higher prices of goods and services. People who buy a lot with credit and can easily pay off their credit card bill every month come out ahead. People who can't or don't purchase much or who cannot always pay their bill in full get screwed. And card networks (Visa, Mastercard, etc) are leeches in the middle sucking blood from everyone.

Once you understand how the system is rigged, it's actually pretty disgusting.

There's a whole lot there, and I disagree with lots of it, but can't really be arsed to go through it all.

You yourself linked trans stuff and better Republican messaging. So whether you support Republicans or not, you are one of those people who identified this part of what Republicans did as being an important part of how they succeeded. And I therefore stand by my use of "you people". So by all means, disregard the part that talks about people who are invested in the future success of the GOP as being irrelevant to you; it's still relevant to the people who share that analysis with you, but are rooting for future GOP success.

As for the rest, your assertion that messing with people's children is any kind of a block to political success seems absolutely wrong to me. The GOP has supported the banning of books, has twiddled its thumbs while school kids die in numbers that would be politically suicidal in other countries due to gun laws, has a bunch of men with a track record of sexually assaulting children in power along with women who minimise it, has overturned child labour laws in some states, etc etc. The GOP has been messing with kids in terrible ways for decades, and it has not impeded its success.

The trans stuff was a vibe thing.

Those sound like they might cut costs and complexity, but it's clear that this system brings its own costs and complexities, so they don't seem massively compelling. I guess we probably need to see them scaled and in the wild to see if they are commercially viable vs the alternatives.

Working class people in the UK are not especially likely to require long (distance) commutes to work More than anyone else. Where on earth did you get that idea? They are more likely to have to rely on public transport, however, because lots of people can't afford a car in the first place.

There is no long UK drive that someone would do of a weekend that's any kind of issue in an EV. No-one is driving from Southend to Aberdeen. They might drive from London to Sheffield or similar, but that's completely fine in an EV.

Huh.

Every house is different, and I don't know anything about electricity beyond the basics, but at least for my house, what the electrician did was to split the supply for the EV off from the main feed with an external isolator switch near the incoming service (a small cable was then taken through the external wall to the consumer unit where the fuses are, required a small hole to be drilled in the outside wall). Probably depends on whether this is allowed, but it worked well for us. I guess another possibility would be a sub-panel. I understand Canadian codes are strict about breaker placement, conductor size, overcurrent protection etc, but I still think it may be possible.

Although obviously this is all theoretical because you're not buying an EV for decades if you can help it, right?

Erm..the first link you provided was about LMR batteries being available in 2028. That's exciting if it happens, but there's many a slip twixt cup and lip.

It just seems silly to me that people are so keen to deny the obvious: the Chinese successfully commercialised-at-industry-scale several important EV battery developments before anyone else, including LFP, sodium and semi-solid state.

Yup, I'm sure they haven't thought about this issue at all when considering putting computers in space.

Will you show your working? I'd be very curious to see it

For the record, I bought a longer 10m cable when I got my new car to replace the old 5m cable. It cost me 120 quid back then, but I see they can be picked up for 60 quid now. This is for a 7kW capable cable.

In the UK today, petrol is about 130p per litre, so 120 quid's worth is 92 litres. A UK spec Mercedes GLA (the equivalent of my car, an EQA) gets about 42mpg. That's 9.2 miles per litre, so enough for 850 miles. The typical UK car is driven 20 miles per day, so that's enough petrol for maybe six weeks at a push. Hence why I'm curious about your working. From what I can see, Canadian gas is about 134 cents per litre today, and I'd be amazed if you drove as little as 20 miles per day or got as much as 42mpg, so I can't see how this works for you. Looks like you can get a 10m cable for somewhere between 200 and 400 Canadian dollars, so that's also in line with UK pricing.

This is such a silly little story to tell yourself, about demand being saturated, when EVs are taking an increasing market share in European markets (and others, but the story you're commenting on is about Europe). And to claim yourself as working class when you've got a nickname here of dev and you're on Slashdot is just incredibly inauthentic.

I'm sure they have smart engineers and have thought lots of this through, and have robust and well-tested systems etc. But it still seems like it's inherently hard work for not much payoff. And even the geothermal stuff seems odd; what's so much better about this solution than standard geothermal solutions.

As always, framing matters hugely. And at the moment, sinij is having a lot of success in framing stories about renewables, EVs, etc as being a challenge.

You’d never know from these stories that actually, renewables and EVs continue to be booming market sectors that continue to have lots of popular and political backing, including in Europe. For example, EV sales in Europe are substantially up this year compared to last year (1.5m+ sales so far, share of new sales up by at least 3 percentage points); Spain has committed to 95% of domestic production being EVs by 2035; the UK is announcing the clear-down of its connection backlog this week which will substantially accelerate new renewables coming onto the national grid; Pakistan has gone from a standing start to a solar share greater than China’s in four years, leading to solar generation exceeding demand at points in some industrial regions for the first time ever; and on and on.

So much good stuff is happening out there.

With your solution, all a thief must do is unplug the receiver, or wrap it in tin foil, and theyâ(TM)re home free.

6 countries, of which only two have a car manufacturing industry of note... if the six were France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Czechia and some rando other, than that would be a bit different. Obvs Mertz is pushing as well, but differently and less stridently.

You're looking in the wrong place. What the Chinese have that gives them unique advantages is a better battery production system. They have lower costs to scale, innovate new battery designs (eg Blade, LFP) faster, lower costs to operate (short supply chains and local sourcing), etc etc.

Relative reductions are super and all, but the fact of the matter is that you will still die in fairly short order if you're shut in your car by a villain who runs a hose from the exhaust to your window and leave the engine running, because there's still plenty of nasties left in there. And obvs, as the other poster said, no-one's scrubbed any CO2 from the tailpipe ever.