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Senshi

@ Senshi @lemmy.world

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55
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Why Americans aren’t buying more EVs

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  • Id2 is the actual successor. It's planned to be the first VW "affordable" EV with a starting price below 25000 euros when it releases in 2025. At least they now try to target the budget market, but I'd never recommend a VW. They have done so much bad quality cars since the late 90s...

  • Europe gives China a taste of its own trade medicine: Europe is using the threat of tariffs to press Chinese electric car makers to set up in the EU and share know-how.

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  • You're correct. I got caught up in explaining the overall concept. 😅

    My personal interpretation is that the Chinese companies are now feeling the competitive pressure after their golden years and are scrambling to get their products on larger markets, while said market ( better affordable EV) still promises some margins.

  • Europe gives China a taste of its own trade medicine: Europe is using the threat of tariffs to press Chinese electric car makers to set up in the EU and share know-how.

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  • Everyone wants cheap cars, but that's not what this is about. This is about fair and competitive markets and products.

    China heavily subsidizes their car industry. Actually everyone had been doing that, but currently China is doing it more.

    Subsidies become a problem when they don't serve to make necessities affordable in-country, but are used to boost sales in foreign countries, while hurting their local industry.

    Now you might conclude that "why don't we just subsidize or own manufacturers more as well so cars get as cheap as China's?"

    Well, where do you think the money for subsidies comes from? Taxes. So in the end, it's just another scheme to make the general public pay for things that only part of the population needs, and it reduces pressure on manufacturers to innovate, leading to stale products. Which is a big reason why Western car companies are not competitive: the West has done exactly what China is doing now. We have subsidized the car industry massively in order to push or products into the global market. Those subsidies were considered worth it, because it created a trade surplus, effectively meaning wealth is transferred from the global market to mostly the car industry leaders, and a bit of it trickling down to workers as well.

    After a while, the subsidies lead to corruption, inefficiency and lack of innovation, and the bubble bursts. That's how you get histories like Detroit. Equivalents exist in almost any Western country.

    A means to protect against subsidized products ruining the local markets is to impose tarrifs. The US has many of those, not only against China, but also against EU companies, especially in the car market. See chicken tax. American car manufacturers were so far behind after decades of heavy subsidies they couldn't even compete with European cars ( and apparently still can't, given that the chicken tax and similar tariffs still exist). In the end, tariffs run the same risk as subsidies: over time, a protected market means the industry can get lazy and keep selling the same, because competition is forced out of the market. Tariffs and subsidies are never a viable long term solution. Both can only serve strategic purposes: either providing actual essentials to ones population or nurture change ( eg subsidized regenerative energy build up) that only exist for a limited time. Tarrifs can be used to protect strategically important industry: e.g. military or technological cutting edge tech where you don't mind paying extra for the privilege of maintaining in-country know how and manufacturing abilities.

  • SpaceX's Starlink May Be Keeping the Ozone From Healing, Research Finds

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  • Laying even 10 times the cable should not be more difficult when you have 60 times the total population (335mio in US vs 5.6mio in Finland) and hence more resources.

    And sure, Alaska definitely it's expensive and inefficient to service, having a pop density of about 0.5 inhabitants per km². But unlike Northern Finland, most of Northern Alaska is in fact entirely void of human life and more akin to a desert. There really mostly are a handful of oil industry clusters and native communities. And still, the extremely low pop density means it's only 730 000 people living in Alaska. That is 0.2% of the entire population of the USA. If you were to completely ignore and not service Alaska, you should have a an even easier time providing service to the vast majority of the US population in all the main states. I think it's pretty clear this is a political failure and not a matter of financial resources or natural obstacles.

  • SpaceX's Starlink May Be Keeping the Ozone From Healing, Research Finds

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  • You are absolutely correct that distribution matters. However, Finland has an even more uneven population distribution than the US. 75% of the population lives in the costal cities, with 30% of the entire population living in the capital region( density of 193 persons/km²). The entire rest of the country is not empty dessert ( which would require no services), but very sparsely populated rural woodlands, down to 2 people per km².

    Density still is an overall useful quantifier given that extra knowledge, as providing services for a small population of only 5.6mio inhabitants is not easy either. Sure, providing coverage for the 75% in the cities is fairly easy. But that still leaves 1.5mio rural residents, which require huge investments in cable to supply with broadband. And due to the vast distances, you definitely cannot cover them with wireless alone, if you were thinking that.

  • With GPL, you're programming Freedom. With MIT, you're programming for free.

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  • That is actually a really bad rule, though you probably are only joking.

    There are many examples of short, but very valuable code. Just think about anything math or physics related.

    A totally new or even just a very efficient implementation of an already existing algorithm can be gigantic if others need to build upon it.

    And many licenses are verbose not because they are complicated in intent, but merely because they need extensive legalese prose to cover against many possible avenues of attack.

  • With GPL, you're programming Freedom. With MIT, you're programming for free.

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  • SpaceX's Starlink May Be Keeping the Ozone From Healing, Research Finds

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  • Finland is not a small country compared to its population density and distribution.

    Finland has 18 inhabitants per km².

    USA have 35 inhabitants per km².

  • Suggest me a secure chat platform for my family

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  • What's your source on the reverify thing? I use matrix a lot, and this hasn't been an issue I ever experienced anymore since they introduced cross-signing a couple years ago.

    Same goes for the common clients such as element. It has been clunky in the past, but after the past major overhauls ( also years ago now) everything has been silky smooth for me, if not better than others. The one thing left I prefer from Signal is the one-time photo share.

    Matrix is great, clients are great too, only the server part still is annoyingly complicated and messy. Would only recommend that for tinkerers, on that case it's a great path to learning about the complexity of addressing lots of security concerns that others gloss over.

    Edit: to add - there's a reason why the French government and the German military decided to build their secure internal IM infrastructure on Matrix. Obviously they are hosting their own private network, but if the concept is good enough for European government and military, it is an indicator for quality especially in terms of security and privacy.

  • Trump Sounds Alarm For Americans Paying Off Porn Stars: ‘IF THIS CAN HAPPEN TO ME, IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE!’

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  • That alone sadly is not even the issue. Only when stealing from the government comes in, you can expect to actually get prosecuted.

    Trying to pawn off the expenses on your company balance and committing tax fraud, then paying off people to not tell about your tax fraud, that's what gets you.

  • Why Is the World Ignoring a Looming Genocide in Sudan?

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  • Don't forget Yemen. I know, it's a measly 350 000 dead so far, which apparently rate much less than Israel-Palestine conflict losses.

  • Saw The Eclipse And Aurora? Now Comes A Third Once-In-A-Lifetime Event

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  • It was unusual in how far south it was visible in many regions of the world. It's been roughly 50 years since the last time that happened. Obviously the subjective impact depends a lot on where you live. Some see it every year, others only will get the chance when the Sun explodes and strips away our magnetosphere entirely. Which hopefully will not become a centennial event.

  • Ford cancels EV battery orders as losses widen to $130,000 per vehicle sold

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  • Absolutely true, but that still does not make phev the universal solution to climate friendly transportation :) .

    It's more of an awkward stop gap measure. It's expensive and complex to make and maintain (!) and only really profitable for manufacturers due to subsidies as well.

  • Ford cancels EV battery orders as losses widen to $130,000 per vehicle sold

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  • That makes no sense. The electric motors are an entirely different, separate system from the ICE. As such, using the e-drive will not heat up or spin the pistons in the ICE at all.

    The ICE is only connected to a generator to charge the battery while driving, thus providing extra charge for more range and/or peak torque/speed.

  • Ford cancels EV battery orders as losses widen to $130,000 per vehicle sold

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  • I wasn't talking about auto stop/start at all?

    It also has no bearing on what I was talking about. Start/stop automatic triggers when the vehicle is stopped, but only if the engine is warm already. This is exactly for the same reason as I pointed out above: starting a cold engine is bad. Starting an engine that is already close to its operating temperature takes very little effort and puts very little strain on the system.

  • Ford cancels EV battery orders as losses widen to $130,000 per vehicle sold

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  • Even if used "properly", plug-in hybrids are a bad idea:

    They are more complex than either a pure ICE or electric vehicle would be.

    When used properly, the ICE plug-in will only activate during high load phases, e.g. highway travel. However, the engine at that point will be effectively cold-starting. Not only is thus the least efficient phase of generating energy from fuel, it also means the engine oil is not warm and fluid yet. This necessitates more expensive, less durable low viscosity engine oil. Also, engines deteriorate much quicker during irregular usage, especially during cold starts.

    There's really no upside except getting government subsidies whenever the lobbies manage to get their Plugin-Hybrid qualified for it.

  • Germany may introduce conscription for all 18-year-olds

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  • Maybe we should turn this idea around? I know tons of healthy rich old people that have nothing better to do than bicker and complain, how about we force them to do a free full year of community service? Why is their time and energy considered more valuable than the youths'?

    And maybe it would humble those wealthy nepo pieces of shit, and likely resolve the social issues that people complain about.

  • Germany may introduce conscription for all 18-year-olds

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  • Currently, just barely under half of Germany's population is overweight.

    That's only ten percent less than the USA, which sits at 57%.

    And yes, it causes massive health problems, staining the healthcare system.

  • A conversation with my wife

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  • I'll still use the opportunity to voice my opinion clearly on this: Yes, forced circumcision on infants is only a very small step above the also still common practice of female genetic mutilations at birth/infancy. It does not matter what reasons you claim, only medical necessity should matter. Society should protect its infants from any religion or tradition demanding body modifications of infants.

    Leave people's bodies alone until they can decide on their own what to do when there is zero proven medical benefit to doing it before without their informed consent.

    The common "improved hygiene" argument is nonsensical. You know what improves hygiene? Washing, and teaching kids how to wash themselves.

    Otherwise you could cut off ears using the same logic. No ears, no need to wash behind the ears.