A number of electric vehicle, battery factories are being canceled

> Given the chaos, how does any industry make long term investments any more?

You could invest at the whims of the current administration and then invest further in supporting the autocracy.

That's how they do it in Russia.

I've heard the most prosperous times for the US are when the president's party is different from the congressional majority. Few laws get passed, so things stay stable for businesses.

You can make investments if you have a long term outlook. Odds are the president will be different in 4 years. Odds are the democrats take the house in 2 years (there is a small chance they take the senate too, though that seems unlikely). There is a 25% change Trump isn't even alive in 4 years just because of age, and the farther beyond that you look the less likely it is he lives.

Which is to say you have to invest for something knowing things will change and not knowing how. As always. This might even be a good time to invest if you have cash - prices are down and interest rates are up.

they don't

Donald Trump has advocated for tariffs for 40 years. Agree with them or not, they were quite predictable, not chaos.

Doesn't even need to be a new administration.

Many people online are saying (or trying to convince themselves) that the tariffs are part of some smart negotiating strategy, and that they will be rescinded once other countries feel the pain (or when citizens revolt). So large companies will hold out on doing any major investment, lest they be holding the bag.

The administration's general instability and flip-floppiness makes it impossible to make any long-term business decisions. Having a leader who can't be trusted to change their mind on a moment's notice does damage regardless of the policies.

That's quite likely to happen given how American politics tend to go left to right then back almost every election. I suppose some companies (but not all) will prefer to lose some money now rather than to take the risk of investing in large factories in the USA and lose whole factories, along with all money they invested into it, later.

The tariffs are going to be used as leverage in negotiations in the following months. If countries sign on to trump's new trade agreements, it likely won't make sense to rescind them.

Stephan Miran, Trumps top economic advisor, laid out exactly what they are doing in an essay he wrote back in November[1]. For better or worse, this is what they seem to be moving forward with, and the document spells out things like unilateral tariffs and expecting a lot of potential market volatility, before offering trade terms that seek to devalue the USD in return for protection and favorable trade agreements.

In short, they are trying to force a global trade restructuring that will increase US manufacturing strength and weaken US financial strength - all while trying to keep reserve currency status.

[1]https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...

Sorry, but let's be clear about something. Capital has an overwhelming say in the direction of the American government. If they want to push us in a direction, they can simply buy that direction.

They bought this one, and now they are crying about it.

So the answer to your question is: go invest in a congress person. Buy stability. Or else remain flexible, don't invest, go out of business, whatever.

I think what they mean is: these plans were made in another time so they might harm the company financially (or be extremely lopsided) given the "new mandate" (may change again too) from the Trump admin.

Just a measure to take a step back and assess the whole picture I'm assuming.

Electric cars are a new phenomenon. You don’t need to be a genius to figure that the old stock will be gasoline and diesel.

My Californian Fiat 500e is the most reliable car I've ever owned.

On the other hand, my friend's Model 3 has some recall or problem roughly every six months.

So, I guess it depends on which EV you buy, but I'm pretty sure the most reliable EVs are more reliable than the most reliable ICEs, simply because they have fewer moving parts (quite literally).

Unreliable ?

Unreliable what? How?

> It is an indication of US mismanagement that concentrated people can't be served with recharging infrastructure while distributed suburbanites in mcmansions can easily be served.

No, it is an indication of good management for lower prices for all. Maybe an indication of lack of foresight, but electronics don't last forever, planning for EVs in 1960 would have been stupid - the fuse boxes (probably not modern breakers) would be worn out and replaced without every charging a single EV. Even today there have been a number of EV charger fires because outlets we thought were safe for EV currents for decades turn out to be marginal when put to that use and so again planning ahead would have put in the wrong thing.

Suburban houses have plenty of power because you might use the dryer, stove and AC at the same time and so need that much power - but in fact nobody every uses all their power so there is enough spare power to every house for an EV. An apartment can better rely on not everyone does all that at the same time and so they can build with much less extra power and in turn save costs for everyone.

Even in suburban locations, any one house has enough power, but the whole neighborhood might not and power companies are doing expensive upgrades to fix that. Not to mention power plants may not have enough spare capacity. (there are also commonly incentives to charge off peak thus using power when there is spare capacity in the system)

> It is an indication of US mismanagement that concentrated people can't be served with recharging infrastructure while distributed suburbanites in mcmansions can easily be served.

Um, not really. Almost all houses have 240V lines. It's non-trivial to add a ton of 240V connections into some basement that's barely wired for power.

If it was as non-trivial to do in apartment complexes as it is in houses, this wouldn't be an issue.

This isn't some grand scheme of mismanagement to screw over New Yorkers.

That's what I do. And I still don't even bother to charge most nights. If you live in a relatively urban area and don't do a lot of driving that is more than adequate.

I did that for years, just using an average power plug (now I moved to a house that already had a fast charger installed). The car, a PHEV, came with the recharger and charged fully overnight. The car only goes around 40km on EV alone, but that's more than enough for my daily needs. And it's almost "free", we did not notice any change in the electric bill after buying the car!

Or, if we are getting fancy, 240V/20A, which can be run with just a single 12/2 Romex, provides around 3x the "range" per hour, since there is some fixed overhead losses to heat the battery pack, turn electronics on, etc.

In new-ish (but not new enough to have EV charger prewiring) construction, garages sometimes have a dedicated 20A receptacle circuit for a garage freezer. If its a dedicated circuit with one outlet, you can rewire the 120V/20A to 240V/20A to get 3.8kW vs 1.4kW on a 120V/15A. The cost to do this (to code) would be about $150, or $50 if you don't care about GFCI. Could also buy a used, cheap, hardwired EVSE rather than making it an outlet.

Unfortunately, a lot of people here who live in apartments have to wait for any electricity to be added to the parking lot at all, even 120V is generally unavailable. It's definitely restricting adoption.

Technically not two-phase, it is just both sides of the single phase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMmUoZh3Hq4

IT need not be federal. Your state can do more than the federal government - some of the most effective changes are things the constitution doesn't give the federal government power over. Require 50 amp capability to every parking spot for example is something only the states can do (possibly you can limit this to residential). For that matter states could just build good transit systems, while there are federal subsidies most states are big enough to go alone and pay for it out of the savings from their road budget.

On-site battery storage is the standard for DC fast charging installations. It's already cheaper.

Compromise. I love driving tiny cars, but once in a while I need to haul a large load (you can't rent a truck for this in many cases - I've tried: normally it isn't allowed in the contract even when it is there are restrictions. All that assumes you can find something for rent when you need it. So I drive a large truck. (well once a week I drive a large truck, most of the time I bike)

> charging it from low to full must be quite the consumption of energy

Charging it from low to high generally uses the same energy as five charges of 1/5th the capacity.

Depends on range. My PEHV only has 30 miles of range, sometimes my morning errands use that and it would be nice for a 1 hour charge over lunch for the afternoon errands. (most days 30 miles is plenty). Or better yet just mandate 70 miles minimum range which will get most daily errands.

That was the point of TPP which the US withdrew from in 2018.

There's this weird idea many Americans have, as if they're 80% of the world and nobody can live without them.

They don't travel abroad, can't point to other countries on a map... The level of international awareness is staggeringly low.

These policies only make sense under that common delusion

The adoption of electric scooters is phenomenal. It's like Vietnam but all electric.

Here in Sweden, 63% of new cars sold are electrical or PHEV. Still, unfortunately we still see a lot of fossil fueled cars on the roads... you immediately notice them because they're so damn noisy - and when you get used to the silence of EVs , it's hard to not notice them and be a bit disgusted.

At that level of CO2, your brain is fucked even if you're otherwise ok.

I'm more ambivalent about CO2 than just about anybody, but I'd go to war over that concentration.

Although I'm fairly optimistic about carbon, I think we need pessemists to get any stuff like this done.

And we need a diverse set of baseline estimates — yours and worse, not just mine and better — so some of us survive whatever nonsense the next 75 years brings.

(I'm also a pessimist about many other things besides carbon).

The best invention against climate change is the bicycle. Few resources to produce (often 10% of the weight of the user, a car easily weighs 2000% of it's 1.3 average passengers), low requirements for infrastructure and with a folding bike you can take it with you anywhere. Personal transport is the segment that fails to do its bit against climate change and electric cars are still cars that need wide road, parking, electric infrastructure etc.

EVs are not the solution, they just shift the emissions elsewhere and perpetuate a car-based society which is a much larger issue. Policies like NYCs congestion pricing and light rail are infinitely more impactful.

Which company? BYD, NIO or maybe Wuling?

Please stop with the hyperbole. It's unproductive. Switching everyone to BEVs would require a massive investment in infrastructure. Given the speeds at which EVs charge, at least every other parking spot at the stop would need a charger to make it viable for the average consumer.

Assuming at least a quarter of those are actually charging at the same time, supplying that amount of power requires a massive upgrade to wiring and delivery to all road stops. We would need high voltage lines and a mini substation running to every stop along the road. Not to mention the massive upgrade in power generation capacity.