If the target, set by the government, is to be protectionist, then EVERYTHING in terms of investment needs to be canceled, because it does't make sense to invest when the internal market is going to be controlled by means of tariffs.
Given the chaos, how does any industry make long term investments any more? All financial plans could be flipped upside down for any reason at any time.
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.
What's worse is lets say it takes you 3-4 years to get your factory online. A new admin comes in and rescinds all the tariffs. Now your new factory and all it's debt need to compete with the pre-tariff prices.
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(or trying to convince themselves) that the tariffs are part of some smart negotiating strategy, and that they will be rescinded once other countries feel the pain (or when citizens revolt).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.
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.
> “The Respected Comrade’s brilliant economic agenda is an all-encompassing plan to revive our economy by unleashing Chosun energy, implementing tariffs to level the playing field, and bringing trillions of won in historic investments to our country’s manufacturing sector,” minister Paek Sông-Ryông said.
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).
I've only visited NYC, but I think if I lived there I wouldn't want to drive a car at all. The public transportation and walkability are excellent. Is my impression a common misunderstanding?
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.
Like apartment buildings with parking. Why the hell aren't there funding projects to provide recharging for these highly concentrated housing where electrifying/reducing emissions has compounded benefits, where you need far less wiring to provide recharging for a far larger number of cars than an equivalent amount of suburban housing?
It speaks to how money is directed for infrastructure and utilities by the government.
> 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.
In NYC you can probably get by with the ~40 miles range of 120V charging, but this doesn't really negate your point about poor charging infrastructure.
Charging is an issue for almost everyone I know. If I could get my utility company PG&E to upgrade my power, I could consider it, but we're told we have to wait years. So we have no way to charge, and there are not enough chargers around here are.
I know a bunch of people who charge on standard 120V/15A. That'll let you add 40 miles of range overnight. It's not as good as 240V/50A that'll fully charge your car in 4 hours, but it is enough that they only rarely have to visit local fast chargers.
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.
I don’t know where you live, but I charge my EV using two phase 240V outlet (same as the ones used by washing machine) and it takes about 8 hours to charge from 30% to full, which is more than enough for 99% of my use cases
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.
This is a problem that an administration could easily solve given enough motivation, so it is fundamentally a problem with US administrations. Provide high incentives to provide easy access to charging infrastructure from federal funding. This is simply not an issue in many other countries that actually place value on modern infrastructure, or an issue that is quickly rectifying itself, except in the US.
But that doesn't put money into oil profits and hurts their bottom line.
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.
I charge every night on standard power. I only ever charge using fast chargers when I’m over 100 miles away from home and want to drive back same day - this barely ever happens.
I briefly owned a Smart EV, a decade ago or so, and handily recharged it from 110 overnight. But obviously with a larger vehicle, longer range, larger battery capacity, charging it from low to full must be quite the consumption of energy.
It would be nice if somehow we could move to lighter cars where the same range would require half the battery capacity, therefore half the charging resources to go from low to full.
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)
I seriously doubt you need to "upgrade" anything, just plug in the car.
Unless you're trying to have the highest grade fast charging at home, your existing electrical connection is almost certainly adequate. But since a car at home can charge overnight, you almost certainly don't need any kind of fast charging...
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.
This is why I keep saying it's good to put PV cells onto cars *despite* that being a suboptimal place for the cells and the car bodies not being big enough to generate 100% of what they need.
Putting them there makes the necessary grid upgrades much smaller than they otherwise would be.
A car and get maybe 200 watts in the best conditions - not enough to be significant. Even if parked in the sun all day you won't get much range from that.
Now a semi truck might actually get significant added range.
“China is at 50 percent EV penetration already,” Ricardo C. Rodriguez, the chief financial officer and treasurer of Aspen Aerogels, said on the call, saying the shift to China was a “no-brainer.” “In North America and Europe, we continue to dabble in this 10 percent to 15 percent level. So, you do start wondering, right, is that progress?”
All this "trade war" stuff to "combat" china would be like some kind of battle where your soldiers all do seppuku and call it victory.
Like the 49% tariff in south east asia to "combat" china influence. Really? You jack up the price by almost 50% and they'll like you more and not look elsewhere? How does this work?
The USA had a great opportunity to recognize the competition with China and invest more to win the competition (as it did with USSR). Instead, they decided that, as the top dog, the "best" option was to play protectionism and try to block China. This is the path of economic destruction for the US.
Just got back from China, it's insane. EVs with green plates literally everywhere, not just in T1 cities like Shenzhen but even in smaller ones. The infrastructure’s on another level compared to the US.
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.
It's just self-imposed sanctions in addition to severing ties with American allies.
On top of this, Russia has no sanctions, and we know that the US will cancel Russian sanctions too.
Again, it doesn't matter if Trump is some manchurian candidate. His behavior is 100% in line with him, and the behavior and policies are what do the damage to the USA.
Trump pretty much cancelled subsidies, so at least in the US this is the largest reason.
Thanks to Trump and to a lesser extent all other presidents of the US, 4C here we come my 2100 :( If not for Trump we would probably still hit 3.5C. 1.5 is a forlorn dream, and probably was a dream when it was decided upon.
I have been using RCP 8.5 for all of my long-term decision making (where to move and buy a house, how sustainably I plan to live).
Based off the downvotes I receive on here I think I'm too much of a collapsenik for the average HN poster, but one benefit of being neurotic is that by the time people finally start reckoning with the current state of collapse, I have already made peace with it. The downside is that I become miserable to talk to.
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.
Readit News
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
Just a measure to take a step back and assess the whole picture I'm assuming.
Dead Comment
Europe was 20% in 2023 and 25% in 2024. I think they're past the dabble phase.
For March:
BEV registrations up from 48,388 in 2024, to 69,313 in 2025.
PHEV registrations up from 24,517 in 2024, to 33,815 in 2025.
1. https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/
Dabbling it's not.
EVs are expensive and unreliable for the time being
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).
Like apartment buildings with parking. Why the hell aren't there funding projects to provide recharging for these highly concentrated housing where electrifying/reducing emissions has compounded benefits, where you need far less wiring to provide recharging for a far larger number of cars than an equivalent amount of suburban housing?
It speaks to how money is directed for infrastructure and utilities by the government.
It's basically madness.
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)
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.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMmUoZh3Hq4
But that doesn't put money into oil profits and hurts their bottom line.
It only makes more sense if you want to make the grid greener & have price arbitrage based on the time of day.
I’m sure there are problems with this (feel free to point them out).
It would be nice if somehow we could move to lighter cars where the same range would require half the battery capacity, therefore half the charging resources to go from low to full.
Charging it from low to high generally uses the same energy as five charges of 1/5th the capacity.
It has 240v AC, which I use to charge.
I seriously doubt you need to "upgrade" anything, just plug in the car.
Unless you're trying to have the highest grade fast charging at home, your existing electrical connection is almost certainly adequate. But since a car at home can charge overnight, you almost certainly don't need any kind of fast charging...
Putting them there makes the necessary grid upgrades much smaller than they otherwise would be.
Now a semi truck might actually get significant added range.
What an absurd own-goal. BYD will eat the world.
All this "trade war" stuff to "combat" china would be like some kind of battle where your soldiers all do seppuku and call it victory.
Like the 49% tariff in south east asia to "combat" china influence. Really? You jack up the price by almost 50% and they'll like you more and not look elsewhere? How does this work?
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
On top of this, Russia has no sanctions, and we know that the US will cancel Russian sanctions too.
Again, it doesn't matter if Trump is some manchurian candidate. His behavior is 100% in line with him, and the behavior and policies are what do the damage to the USA.
Thanks to Trump and to a lesser extent all other presidents of the US, 4C here we come my 2100 :( If not for Trump we would probably still hit 3.5C. 1.5 is a forlorn dream, and probably was a dream when it was decided upon.
Based off the downvotes I receive on here I think I'm too much of a collapsenik for the average HN poster, but one benefit of being neurotic is that by the time people finally start reckoning with the current state of collapse, I have already made peace with it. The downside is that I become miserable to talk to.
I'm more ambivalent about CO2 than just about anybody, but I'd go to war over that concentration.
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).
Dead Comment