
The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars - reddotX
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/guid/3870F370-E6CB-11E9-83E6-1366F1C3851C
======
TomMckenny
No it's about money and who gets it. Unless electric cars are going to
generate less revenue than petroleum based, which they won't, the pie is the
same size.

That manufacturing becomes more efficient is no surprise: it always has. The
question is whether they have fewer workers at the same compensation level,
fewer workers at a higher compensation level or the same number of workers
with fewer hours.

Owners are pushing for the first, labor wants anything except the first. And
while Keynes envisioned the last, that has clearly no been allowed to happen.
It is an archetype case of who benefits from technical improvements and forces
driving inequality.

~~~
Judgmentality
> No it's about money and who gets it. Unless electric cars are going to
> generate less revenue than petroleum based, which they won't, the pie is the
> same size.

Right now the margins on gasoline vehicles are _much_ better than electric
vehicles, partially due to the technology being relatively immature. The
internal combustion engine has more than 100 years and hundreds of billions of
dollars in R&D behind its infrastructure.

Apart from that, most dealerships (which is not the same as the automobile
manufacturer, but they are closely related) make most of their money from
maintenance and servicing vehicles. One of the big selling points of electric
vehicles is that they're simpler and cost less money to maintain.

A cursory analysis suggests your opening statement is actually wrong - there
will be less revenue if there is widespread shift towards electric vehicles.

~~~
swagasaurus-rex
You say that maintenance is a large part of the pie that will be lost to
electric.

Here's an unfounded but different perspective: Electric's reliability and
return on investment will only make the transportation industry that much more
profitable, and the amount of transportation will only increase as time goes
on. The total size of the pie will increase.

Maintenance will still be needed, especially on many generations of electric
transport not limited to cars or trucks.

~~~
Judgmentality
I am genuinely curious, when has a company deliberately making a stark pivot
in offering better reliability for a product line led to better sustained
profits? This is not a rhetorical question - I genuinely want people to
provide me with examples. I suspect it is very rare that this happens, but
hope I'm wrong.

~~~
Spooky23
Honda and Toyota are the reference models for this premise. They completely
owned multiple segments by offering a better quality product.

Hyundai is another more recent-ish example. Hyundai cars were absolute garbage
for a long time, they improved but the market didn’t know. So they their money
where their mouth was by offering a 100k warranty. (Audi did something similar
in the 80/90s).

I’d be cautious in assuming that electric cars will be better. Scheduled
maintenance is reduced, but there are plenty of quality and repair issues with
Tesla as evidenced by consumer reports. Unscheduled maintenance is still a
factor of assembly and engineering quality.

Also, from a cost POV, franchise laws aren’t going away right away. So the
price of that ICE maintenance dealer margin is going to be baked in, or the
dealers won’t move the cars.

------
bluedino
There are so many parts involved with a traditional engine and transmission.
Living in Michigan, there are lots of companies building these individual
parts. I know a guy who works at a place that builds springs for transmissions
([https://www.pjws.com/our-products/](https://www.pjws.com/our-products/))

Valvetrain parts, pistons, rings, crankshafts, starters, heads, oil pumps,
exhaust manifolds, mufflers, fuel injectors, sensors...none of this stuff is
needed on an electric car.

Hearing UAW members talk about the strike and concessions, they often say
things like "they need to guarantee our jobs"...they know electric is coming.

At the extreme you have factory workers who are just in denial. "How can
electricity have more power than gas?" You can show them a video of a Tesla
P100 racing a <insert_fast_car> and they will tell you to your face that it's
fake and they don't believe it.

~~~
noobermin
While I'm ignorant, why can't they just make other parts? If you have a lathe
and a machine shop, you can make other pieces of metal instead of the pieces
of metal you currently make.

~~~
bluedino
Why can't a software company just make other software? Why did WordPerfect go
out of business when they could have just made games, and OS, or a web
browser?

~~~
jayd16
Pretty sure the devs there did just go to other companies and make other
software.

------
tlb
In the 70s, there was a widely promoted theory that Detroit had invented
carburetors that would make cars get 100 MPG, but they were suppressed by some
Big Oil - Big Auto conspiracy. (It was partly promoted by people selling
aftermarket carburetors that claimed to, but never did, improve mileage. Some
of them used magnets to straighten out the fuel molecules, or something.)

But here you can see actual evidence of a similar phenomenon. Slowing down
emissions reductions for short-term incentives.

Ouch, my poor planet.

------
Aloha
I'm skeptical that the labor differential is as big as this article implies
frankly. This strike is pretty straightforward in cause, GM wants to pay less,
and wants their employees to cover more of their healthcare costs, the Union
isnt okay with this.

Working in an auto plant is hard, backbreaking work that will leave you
physically broken by retirement - and while the transition to electric cars
may slightly reduce the amount of labor needed, it won't change how hard or
backbreaking the work is.

~~~
dugditches
>Working in an auto plant is hard, backbreaking work that will leave you
physically broken by retirement

Maybe 80 years ago. These fellas workin the forges and lifting those blocks
certainly went home more sore than someone operating a pneumatic driver all
day.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bT6txm4RpA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bT6txm4RpA)

There is so many ergonomic and Health/Safety stuff now.

Maybe it's hyperbole, but I wouldn't call auto assembly factory work
'backbreaking' by any stretch.

~~~
Aloha
there is more that goes into cars than just vehicle assembly, for example,
stamping and casting plants (and yes, GM still stamps and casts it's own body
components) - its still highly repetitive motions - so while its better now,
its still not an easy job, and will wear your body out.

------
pkaye
I was watching this Youtube video of Audi electric motor production.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zttC2x9nMEw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zttC2x9nMEw)
Pretty crazy how much of the motor construction can be automated. There is
just no way around it. Union or not, a lot of jobs will disappear. If GM and
Ford don't do it then one of the hundred electric car companies around the
world will progress in that direction.

~~~
js2
The tasks the humans are doing seem somewhat arbitrary. e.g. we see both
robots and humans inserting and tightening bolts. I wonder why humans are
involved in those steps.

~~~
Mathnerd314
Something about ensuring the right pressure / tightness presumably. There are
machines that do really sensitive tightening on the market today, but only
relatively recently, so the poor human probably has a job only thanks to some
ROI analysis that concluded waiting a few years to buy a used machine was more
profitable.

------
ericmay
As a society we need to make sure we are taking care of people when their
industry is destroyed. The whole “learn 2 code” thing that was directed toward
coal workers was exactly the wrong thing to do. If we want those coal plants
to shut down we should have offered to pay off the workers until they reached
retirement age. If you “take away” someone’s job for the sake of progress,
then you’ll make enemies of progress and leave people behind and cause
generations of anything ranging from hatred to apathy to loathing.

Here in this case I don’t think it’s quite the same, but this sort of thing is
NOT going to go away, and we need to figure it out. Just retraining of “find
another job” isn’t good enough.

~~~
Thriptic
As I have said in a number of these types of threads, saying we will pay
people off / implement UBI as a solution to reduced participation in the labor
force dramatically underestimates the complexity of the problems of automation
/ globalization / de-industrialization. Most people want to work; they derive
self-esteem from their labor and for being a provider; and status is awarded
by society depending on the type of job you work and your position in an
entity (eg CEO, foreman, etc). Being unemployed / on benefits in America is
strongly looked down on and stigmatized. People don't want "hand outs" or
"charity", they want to do something to generate value. While I agree that we
will ultimately have to pursue some sort of UBI or payoff solution,
implementing it requires a complete cultural shift in the way we think about
work which will likely be a difficult uphill battle. People go all in on
retraining (even though it obviously can't work for everyone) because
retraining fits well into American culture without controversy.

~~~
jdnenej
There is unlimited meaningful work available that doesn't generate much real
profit. You can easily perform music on the street which others enjoy but you
won't make a lot of money. You can easily learn crafts to create things for
your friends and family that they will appreciate but not pay for. You can
easily get in to competitive sport without having to be part of the very top %
who get paid for it.

We just need to realise that life happyness and meaningful work doesn't mean
generating profits for some ceo.

~~~
pseudoramble
I agree with you. I also feel the same way about people studying a "worthless"
degree at a university. I think it should be much more heavily encouraged to
let us develop deeper thinkers, artists, and others. We should learn to
celebrate that not everything needs to be economically/financially driven.

> We just need to realise that life happyness and meaningful work doesn't mean
> generating profits for some ceo.

I believe that's GP's point in a nutshell. The thing is for the USA "just need
to realize" is a major cultural shift. Not to say it's insurmountable by any
means, but making people just realize something is very tricky IMO.

~~~
pnutjam
People realize it, just not he old ones with the money.

~~~
plutonic
This reminds me of Scott's post over at Slate Star Codex about Moloch [0]. The
issue here isn't so much about _realizing_ the futility in pegging one's
happiness to one's profitability. The issue is that for any one person to
forgo this standard (s)he would be required to give up the status conferred on
being a profit-generating American. This is against his/her interest. Thus,
most Americans would rather work harder and be more productive/profitable and
maintain their status, than attempt to achieve a more authentic happiness, and
risk being perceived as a failure by others. To actually alter this standard
would require changing the cultural norms around status and profitability
either from the top-down, or from outside entirely.

[0] [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-
moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

~~~
danaris
That's a fairly privileged take on it.

Most Americans don't continue to work for status—they continue to work to eat.

~~~
plutonic
> Most Americans don't continue to work for status—they continue to work to
> eat.

I was speaking with regards to American society under UBI, not the current
day.

------
e12e
Is it? I found this linked from uaw.org:

[https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-why-i-
strike-201...](https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-why-i-
strike-20190920-zn2bfvka7nh7dadzm6je74etpi-story.html)

~~~
bob_theslob646
>We made sacrifices, froze our pensions, halved our pay and gave up benefits
to save GM, the automotive industry, and the U.S. economy.

These people think they saved the U.S economy? What are they smoking. They
still us the government 11.3 billion dollars from the government bailing them
out.[1]

>GM also chose to rip away our health care coverage in the dead of night,
effective immediately and without warning.

This is a crucial topic that must be addressed. Should companies be
responsible for employee health care? I do not know the answer, but that seems
to be the trend.( Cut full time workers, hire part time works to avoid having
to pay for healthcare.)
[1]([https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/entities/233-general...](https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/entities/233-general-
motors))

~~~
war1025
> These people think they saved the U.S economy? What are they smoking

That's like saying the poor bastard that ended up in Normandy during WWII
didn't help win the war.

Obviously they didn't do it single-handedly, but they did make sacrifices that
kept the automakers from going completely under. The auto industry might not
be very important to people on the coasts, but it's a big deal in Michigan.

The people made real concessions and now that GM is posting record profits,
they don't see why they should be conceding further. And they have a union
behind them. So they are raising a fuss. Because they can.

------
blunte
One person’s right to keep a job is not greater than humanity’s right to
reasonable progress.

It’s cases like these that give unions a bad name.

~~~
kennywinker
Even coming from a place of no empathy for displaced workers lives, if we hang
these people out to dry we will pay the price down the line.

If america had invested in a social safety net for the past 30-40 years, we
might be in a different place. People would be ok with change because they'd
know that society was going to have their back while they find a new career.

~~~
refurb
I don’t understand the comment “if American had invested in a social safety
net”. Half of govt expenditures are for the social safety net.

Would be more accurate to say “if America had expanded the social safety net”.

~~~
kennywinker
I suppose so. I don't know how much the US spends, or how that compares to
other countries, but I do know that from where I'm standing (Canada) it sure
does not look like much of a safety net. e.g. gap in employment + health
crisis = homeless? yikes!

------
mateo411
This is probably tone deaf, but instead of giving the auto workers more money
or open more factories, what if they gave them stock grants? If you gave them
stock, they workers wouldn't want to open factories that would cause GM to
lose money. It would keep the worker and the management incentives aligned.

~~~
cagenut
Not sure if you're being clever or just defined socialism by accident.

~~~
hanniabu
Why is it that anytime a discussion about massive companies paying workers
more comes up, that somehow somebody thinks this is socialism. Employees
deserve to be fairly compensated.

~~~
shadowgovt
Probably because "employees deserve to be fairly compensated" is a concept
from communism (not socialism, but Americans get the two confused all the
time) as soon as you divorce "fairly" from "what the employer and employee
agree to in a free labor market."

That's not a bad thing, but it's how the definitions and philosophies flow.

~~~
chadcmulligan
The capitalists have a way better marketing arm than the communists to, which
contributes to the argument

------
Animats
It's not clear that electric cars will take less labor to build. Tesla's
experience is that their cars take far more labor to build than Ford or Toyota
or VW needs to build a car.[1] Even the battery pack operation is surprisingly
labor-intensive.

Automobile engine building, on the other hand, has been mostly automated since
the 1950s.

[11
[https://www.autonews.com/article/20170611/OEM01/170619951/te...](https://www.autonews.com/article/20170611/OEM01/170619951/tesla-
s-real-capacity-problem-too-many-people)

~~~
jcampbell1
I used to work at Ford Plant and provide data for something called the Harbour
report which is about manufacturing productivity. Engine and transmission had
about 10 hours of direct labor per car, and final assembly was roughly 18
hours. In the transition to electric cars, one could expect a 30% haircut
across the board including engineering. Tesla probably isn’t that efficient
because the automation isn’t yet reliable.

I’d have to ask someone, but I’d bet Tesla is running like 30% off standard.
It takes 180 days for workers to work-harden, and years to get the automation
optimized. Robots are cheap and easy to buy, but tooling at the end of the
robot to do something like install a seat takes a long time to design and
make.

------
seltzered_
Related: “Autoworker union anxiety about EV-related (and smaller, more fuel-
efficient car-related) job loss has been a thing for the better part of a
decade... but it's been widely ignored, probably because it is so politically
awkward ”

[https://mobile.twitter.com/Tweetermeyer/status/1177562016539...](https://mobile.twitter.com/Tweetermeyer/status/1177562016539496448)

------
noobermin
It's ironic they mention Germany because Germany's system has very strong
unions, with labor representation on their boards, but as they said, the pivot
is happening there and there isn't the same anxiety there apparently. It's not
like working together isn't possible with people not losing their jobs.

~~~
refurb
For whatever reason unions in Europe seem much more on board with “what’s good
for the company” versus “what good for the union”. Apparently union reps sit
on the board which I’m sure helps.

------
tmp20191006cars
I'm skeptical of several of the claims in this. Is 125 less parts "far fewer"?
Have they really already automated electric car assembly better than gasoline
vehicles, even though we've been doing that all my life? Are they really
striking because they fear being replaced by robots, or is it for higher
wages?

History is full of labor transitions. Nobody makes wagon wheels anymore.
Noboby cuts pins from wire. Certainly the job opportunities in auto
manufacturing are waning, but new jobs are popping up in battery tech, solar,
etc. Change is never easy.

~~~
chillacy
The industrial revolution of the past century featured mass riots which killed
people. In response the government created entirely new and untested social
programs like universal high school and labor union-friendly laws.

So yes, change is never easy, and this next revolution is projected to be
faster and larger in scope. One could expect similar social unrest and new
laws.

------
brownbat
China has over ten different companies making EVs under $14,000.

If EVs were more like commodity electronics products and less niche, if there
were broad competition, things could change faster than anyone expects.

There are a lot of entrenched stakeholders in the US though. UAW, dealerships,
policy will control the outcome more than technology for a while.

[https://wattev2buy.com/china-ev-price-list-rank-chinese-
elec...](https://wattev2buy.com/china-ev-price-list-rank-chinese-electric-
cars-by-range-and-price/)

~~~
clomond
While this is technically true, many of the EVs sold at that price in China
(especially at the lower end) more closely resemble fully encased modern golf
carts then the actual "Electric Cars" many would expect. On top of this, very,
very poor quality production and low quality/longevity of some Chinese EV
batteries has meant that, even still "You get what you pay for."

It was this poor level of quality that made the Chinese government try to
entice competition within the space by pulling back EV subsidies.

Links that are somewhat related:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/china-
sca...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/china-scales-back-
subsidies-for-electric-cars-to-spur-innovation)
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/china-
sca...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/china-scales-back-
subsidies-for-electric-cars-to-spur-innovation)

------
remotecool
unions stifle innovation and prevent advancements in technology. They keep
factories full of multiple workers doing the job of one person.

The taxicab unions wanted to keep a medallion system in place and have pushed
Uber and Lyft out of many cities, which will result in higher fares and less
efficiency with the routes.

It reminds me of the record industry, trying to prevent things like Napster
and the digital music revolution, because they didn't want to switch over from
physical media.

------
heisenbit
The US auto industry is on two non sustainable paths. The first is internal
combustion engines. The second is building fewer but more expensive cars.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
The second part is difficult because pretty much all cars last longer than
they used to. People will grumble about plastic body panels and cheap
interiors but overall the average car simply lasts longer than they would in
the heyday of the Big 3. Even with a growing population, better built cars are
creating less demand. There are other factors, such as ride sharing, remote
work, and online socializing, but none of them point to the solution being to
build more cars. Perhaps making less expensive entry level cars would get some
non-owners to take the plunge but the durability of existing cars makes buying
a new entry level model less desirable.

~~~
refurb
Related to that, reliability is way up. Back in the 1980’s it wasn’t unusual
at all to have your car breakdown every year or so and leave you stranded on
the side of the road.

Nowadays I’ll go months before seeing someone stranded on the side of the
road.

It’s actually quite amazing.

------
myrandomcomment
On a personal note, I will not buy another gas car. My wife drove a Model X
the other day (hates it). Now looking at an iPace. I will keep my Boxster
until I can buy the same thing with an electric motor. Need a car for my
daughter soon and only looking at crash test ratings + EV. Gas is dead if you
are middle class. I feel the infection point will be when you can get an EV
for 20K. Next year, solar and power walls are planned (tried this year but
just not enough sun, but so close).

From an auto worker standpoint the writing is on the wall. EVs have less
parts, less complexity and that means less people and more robots. We as a
nation, heck as a planet, need to think about how we are going to live when
the manual labor need drops year over year. This is going to hurt China the
most I think. I know at my last employer we started with production lines in
China, but with in 5 years we moved to Malaysia due to lower cost and the fact
that we figured out how to make the assembly less complex and needed less
manual labor.

~~~
dlp211
The death of gas vehicles has been greatly exaggerated.

~~~
clomond
*The death of gas vehicles TODAY has been greatly exaggerated. Their upcoming doom, and expiry notice - has not.

------
_iyig
Related previous discussion: "Chevy Volt discontinued: Chevrolet's last Volt
rolls off the assembly line"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19236245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19236245)

Sounds like many HN users liked the Volt. Thread also has some insights into
the political nature of the Volt's disappearance.

------
danmg
Saying that "none of this is anyone’s fault" and blaming this on new
technology is entirely disingenuous.

This is 100% GM's fault because they learned nothing after the government
bailed them out in 2009. They continued to scrimp on labor and build quality,
and that resulted in horrible cars that no one wants. And their response?
Scrimp even more on labor.

EVs make up a very small slice of the new car market and virtually none of the
truck market. What we're witnessing is a form of kabuki theater, where it
looks like GM's hands are tied and the only path forward is to build cars
entirely in China. Mind you, this is at the same time that most foreign owned
companies build and assemble their cars in domestic US facilities.

~~~
spo81rty
EV is a small part of the market today. But it's growing fast. As someone who
owns an electric car, my next car will definitely be one and I wouldn't buy
anything else.

These union deals last 4 years. So the manufacturers have to think about labor
and planning long term.

~~~
danmg
Being optimistic, EVs will never have more than a 30% market share because
they're incompatible with a large portion of people's lifestyles. They will
find an audience with people exclusively commute and have the facilities to
charge at home. At the moment, there's some cachet to having a Tesla but the
reality of owning one is represented in the deprecation rate.

The energy density of battery technology will never reach that of petroleum.
Just bolting on bigger and bigger batteries to try to overcome that has its
own engineering, safety and environmental problems.

~~~
magicalhippo
> The energy density of battery technology will never reach that of petroleum.

Not anytime soon at least. But that's besides the point. They don't have to do
that, they just have to be good enough.

~~~
danmg
For people who can use an EV, and for people who are willing to accept that a
single vehicle can't do everything.

Most people don't want to keep multiple vehicles to cover all their bases.
Just look at the number of pickup trucks sold in the US. How many of those
people are hauling stuff or using it for work? While there are landscapers,
tradesmen and laborers who do that, the vast majority of them are essentially
commuter cars. People often get them, among other reasons, because they might
come in handy if they need to move stuff. These are the same people who will
never accept an EV because it doesn't have the overall utility of their other
vehicle.

------
gurumeditations
This is why people like Peter Thiel have compounds on island nations like New
Zealand. Economists say we’re in the midst of a long and painful transition
between the old manufacturing economy and... something. The question is, are
we going to inch closer to an ideal socialist utopia where everyone has more
or less everything because production is so cheap (like in Star Trek), or
towards a capitalist dystopia where the Thiels of the world hoard everything
in a progressively smaller elite fraction of the population.

I’d be very interested to see what China does. 1+ billion people. Do they
leave them without jobs? Legally mandate manufacturing to include vast human
employment? 100s of millions of people without a purpose will not end well.
Just look at the Middle East. People will fight hardest when the stakes are so
low. We’ve already got Trump in the US, BJ in the U.K. What will we get next
as human labor becomes less and less necessary?

------
dtornabene
Yeah, uh ctrl-f "buybacks" as in, stock buybacks. This has very little to do
with electric cars, but I'm not sure you're going to get that from MarketWatch

------
linksnapzz
Article is dumb enough to barely qualify as clickbait.

GM (and almost everyone else) has structural overcapacity and fixed-cost
issues that would be challenging to deal with, even if the market for electric
cars went to zero this evening.

Losing money is losing money, and you can go bankrupt just as easily (even if
you're losing less money per unit) making electric as you can making ICE
vehicles.

------
punnerud
The reduction in parts and need for workers on EV’s is nothing compared to
when Bus2Bus transition (without stops) will come.

------
Waterluvian
Do electric cars really have far fewer parts? Will this mean they'll become
far more reliable and require less maintenance? I know expensive Teslas
apparently are like this but what about the budget cars to be?

~~~
danans
Yes, and if anything the budget electric cars may be more reliable because of
no gimmicky features like gull wing doors.

------
jaspergilley
Caution: creative destruction at work. You can choose to take advantage of its
benefits, or you can choose to fight it.

------
darawk
Where are all those people arguing that unions don't impede progress now?

------
w1nst0nsm1th
Side note/joke...

If worldwide governments don't want to deal with a popular revolution in the
next decade because of the huge change in employment due to major technology
shift, they will have to pay for an universal revenue comprising a monthly
Steam susbscription plan.

Better keep people busy if we don't want them to revolt and bear arms or vote
for suckers like Trump and the likes.

------
woodandsteel
The article is right. There is a huge technological transition from ice's to
electrics that is starting to happen. It is going to turn everything upside
down, but the US, except for Tesla, is way behind. And the Trump
administration is simply clueless.

------
ecf
Just fire them.

It’s painfully obvious they’re attempting to hold back progress that would be
beneficial for the entire world.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments or shallow dismissals here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
LeoPanthera
I'm usually on board with HN moderation but I have to disagree here.

They're literally refusing to do their jobs, for a reason analogous to
farriers striking because the automobile is taking away their jobs because no-
one needs horseshoes anymore.

~~~
toomuchtodo
They’re striking because they believe they should be paid more considering GM
is making billions in profits. Concessions were made when the economy was in
trouble, and the union wants those concessions reversed. Why is this
unreasonable?

I understand that labor unions aren’t well understood in America, but this is
what they’re for: to get a better deal from a corporation for their labor. The
alternative is what used to happens centuries ago: violent civil unrest over
labor conflicts. No one wants that.

“Just fire them” is a grossly inaccurate solution for a complex problem.

~~~
kennywinker
Agree, up to: "what used to happens centuries ago: dragging business owners
into the street and beating them to death"

This seems like a mischaracterization. The history of worker/owner conflict
has a lot more dead workers than owners.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Fair enough. I should’ve said “violent civil unrest” to encompass the long
history of worker/employer conflict. It’s hard to distill complex issues into
a sentence or two.

------
Erudite_Genius
Right now, electric cars are a stupid choice. Half the range, 50x the refuel
time, and triple the cost of any gasoline-powered alternative.

The day you can buy a $15,000 car that gets 1,000 miles of range that takes 5
minutes to charge at every currently existing gas station will be the day the
gasoline-powered car goes extinct.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Right now, gas cars are a stupid choice. You have to plan your trips around
refuelling, instead of leaving the house every day with 100% charge. The
running costs mean that over the lifetime of the car, it will cost you far
more than an EV. Not to mention the cost and inconvenience of replacing the
oil and brake pads - and this is all before we get to the gross emissions from
your tailpipe.

------
sprash
Can somebody explain to me why we need to switch to electric cars when we have
Fischer-Tropsch to produce fuel literally out of thin air?

We could keep all the existing infrastructure while having zero CO2 impact. I
think digging up loads of Lithium and Cobalt and plastering the country with
charging stations is neither more sustainable nor less environmentally
harmful.

~~~
kennywinker
I'm not intimately familiar with Fischer-Tropsch, but reading the list of
existing plants on the wikipedia page
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer–Tropsch_process#Commer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer–Tropsch_process#Commercialization)

Virtually all of them are producing synthetic fuel using other fossil fuels.
E.g. natural gas or coal. One is using pulp/paper waste, and the other is
using a combination of natural gas and landfill gas.

So while the process promises to convert "a mixture of carbon monoxide and
hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons" it does not seem that anybody is doing
that.

You are totally right that there is nothing wrong with liquid hydrocarbon
fuels, as long as they are sourced from clean energy, but the fact that nobody
is doing it even at a small scale seems to indicate to me that it's not (yet?)
viable for some reason.

~~~
sprash
> Virtually all of them are producing synthetic fuel using other fossil fuels.

Recently a plant was demonstrated by DLR in Spain that produced Fuel from air
directly only with solar power:

[https://www.dlr.de/content/en/articles/news/2019/02/20190613...](https://www.dlr.de/content/en/articles/news/2019/02/20190613_solar-
fuel-breakthrough.html)

Edit: apparently this converts H2O and liquid CO2 to a "synthesis gas" CO + H
which then can easily transformed into any fuel you want via Fische-Tropsch.
So the only step that is missing is liquefying CO2 which can be done via
conventional solar power using electricity.

As far as I see it we have all pieces to the puzzle. Electric cars don't make
sense anymore and are actually more harmful to the environment because of all
the exotic materials used and the losses from transport of electrical power
across the whole country. Also keep in mind that much of the electricity is
still produced using coal.

