Poll: Auto Accident Fatalities and Injuries

[Neto]

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None of us have the capability to drill our own oil and refine it into gasoline in our backyards and farms.
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Actually, when I was a child, a farmer in our congregation DID refine his own oil, and sold it as well (but maybe not gasoline - I just remember the oil). (His main business was a dairy operation.)

[Soloist]

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None of us have the capability to drill our own oil and refine it into gasoline in our backyards and farms.
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Actually, when I was a child, a farmer in our congregation DID refine his own oil, and sold it as well (but maybe not gasoline - I just remember the oil). (His main business was a dairy operation.)

I have a friend who produced his bio fuel he ran his truck on. He averaged about 1$ cheaper then diesel but he wasn’t producing the chemicals, just collecting waste oil and buying the specialty chems.

[Josh]

In California it already costs more to drive an electric car than just drive a hybrid gasoline car. Kind of a ridiculous situation.

[Ken]

In California it already costs more to drive an electric car than just drive a hybrid gasoline car. Kind of a ridiculous situation.

Why is it ridiculous?

We actually subsidize gasoline in many many ways that we don't do for electrical production. From wars in the middle east to mineral leasing on public lands. The price of gasoline should probably be more like $10 per gallon if we were not subsidizing it. And the price of gasoline also doesn't account for all the externalities that it causes from smog and particulate pollution, respiratory diseases and so forth. And that is before even thinking about carbon. Properly priced, gasoline would be at least $10 per gallon or more.

But even in California you can put up a solar array and recharge your car that way and not buy electricity. You can't put in your own oil well and gasoline refinery so you are stuck being addicted to OPEC, Exxon, and BP if you drive a gasoline car.

I'm always surprised when independent off-the-grid types want to retain gasoline dependence. When going electric makes one far more self-sufficient and independent of multinational corporations and foreign countries.

[Josh]

Going electric puts one at the mercy of power outages. This is already a huge problem in California - when it gets hot, my in laws have to endure rolling blackouts once the sun goes down.

[ohio jones]

And the price of gasoline also doesn't account for all the externalities that it causes from smog and particulate pollution, respiratory diseases and so forth.

Similarly, the promoters of electric power typically neglect the negative effects of producing batteries, solar arrays, and grid power.

But that's getting a bit off topic from the subject of the thread.

[Ken]

And the price of gasoline also doesn't account for all the externalities that it causes from smog and particulate pollution, respiratory diseases and so forth.

Similarly, the promoters of electric power typically neglect the negative effects of producing batteries, solar arrays, and grid power.

But that's getting a bit off topic from the subject of the thread.

Well yes, EV versus ICE cars isn't so much a safety issue but as Robert points out, self-driving cars potentially are. And self-driving cars almost certainly means EVs since no company to my knowledge is developing self-driving gasoline cars. They are all EV companies like Tesla that are moving into the self-driving space. So adoption of self-driving cars in the US almost certainly means adoption of EVs.

But I would argue that electrical rates do incorporate more externalities than gasoline prices. For example, RZehr here is pointing out that his electric prices in OR are going up due to the wildfire damage caused by the electric companies in WA. And a major aspect of the high electrical prices in CA that Josh points out is due to the enormous wildfire costs that were caused by Pacific Power over the past several years. Take away all the wildfires in the west caused by powerlines and electricity would be a lot cheaper. All of those environmental externalities are built into the price of electricity.

The equivalent for gasoline would be using a gas tax to pay for all the oil wars in the middle east and military buildup there from the Iraq wars to the current mess in Yemen. And make no mistake, the Iraq war was about oil. We don't invade countries like the Congo simply because they have dictators and harbor terrorists. If we paid for all of our middle east wars and military buildup with a gas tax, the price of gasoline would probably be $25/gallon.

[Josh]

“Self driving” (which so far only Mercedes in the U.S. market has brought a fully self driving car) is no different in an EV than a gasoline or hybrid car; modern cars have electronically controlled accelerator pedals, brakes, and even steering now. Self driving is just a very expensive boondoggle so it’s only been marketed on equally expensive and pricy EVs.

A typical cheap car like a Nissan Rogue SL has features including lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control, emergency braking, and various warnings if following too closely. You can basically take a nap whilst driving one if you rest your hand gently on the steering wheel to avoid the warning where the car complains you aren’t holding the wheel.

[Josh]

The equivalent for gasoline would be using a gas tax to pay for all the oil wars in the middle east and military buildup there from the Iraq wars to the current mess in Yemen. And make no mistake, the Iraq war was about oil. We don't invade countries like the Congo simply because they have dictators and harbor terrorists. If we paid for all of our middle east wars and military buildup with a gas tax, the price of gasoline would probably be $25/gallon.

Are you aware America is a net exporter of natural gas/petroleum? It is ridiculous to claim random wars (which have not provided America with cheap oil) have anything to do with gasoline prices.

[Ken]

Are you aware America is a net exporter of natural gas/petroleum? It is ridiculous to claim random wars (which have not provided America with cheap oil) have anything to do with gasoline prices.

I did not claim the Iraq war was about gasoline prices. I claimed it was about oil and geopolitical control over middle east oil. The biggest war hawk in the Bush government was Dick Cheney who was former CEO of the oil services company Haliburton. How many tens of billions of dollars did Haliburton make in Iraq?

Anyway, you don't need to believe me:

General John Abizaid, CENTCOM commander from 2003 to 2007, said of the Iraq war: "first of all I think it's really important to understand the dynamics that are going on in the Middle East, and of course it's about oil, it's very much about oil and we can't really deny that".

Or

Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said of the Iraq war: "People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are. They talk about America's national interest. What the hell do you think they're talking about? We're not there for figs."

Were it not for Iraqi oil it is unlikely that Saddam Hussein and Iraq would have been on anyone's radar much less a target for US invasion and occupation. The fact that the occupation turned south into an insurrection almost immediately and the war ultimately became a fiasco says nothing about why the US invaded in the first place.

Also, US energy independence has nothing to do with the price of gasoline. The world market in oil determines the price of US gasoline. There are no state-run oil companies in the US. They are all multinational corporations who sell oil and gasoline at world prices. If OPEC cuts back production, prices go up across the US even though we don't buy all that much oil from OPEC. In 2018 the US government estimated the annual military cost of defending the world's oil supplies at $81 billion per year or 16% of the annual Pentagon budget: https://secureenergy.org/wp-content/upl ... .-2018.pdf None of it paid for in gas taxes. And that doesn't count wars.

The point is, if you are going to compare gas and electricity as sources of automobile fuel. Compare the total cost of each in terms of dollars, lives, pollution, and other ancillary factors like health care. Electricity is likely to look like a bargain. Even in California.