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EV's, Gas/Oil, and The Future- another swerve split from- JT Hints Boosting Canada’s Military Spending

Here's what legacy automakers should (and do) fear:


But you'll say, we'll never allow those in Canada or the US. Maybe. We'll see:


But the Canadian market is not very significant globally. And that car would be 3x the price with tariffs and Canadian safety standards. But this isn't true in a lot of the developing world. This will cost the same as so many gas cars. But won't have the expensive fuel bill. EVs like this, in the developing world, have two impacts. First, they steal sales from legacy automakers, shrinking their revenue, manufacturing efficiency, etc. Next, they reduce demand for imported oil, improving the trade balance of those countries and further tying them to China. So much of the discussion is focused on Chinese EVs coming to Europe and North America. That misses the point.
and where pray tell will all these happy campers find electrical outlets for their cars. In much of Africa they are still making charcoal to use as a heat and cooking source because there is no power to their homes. Sorry, no power to their street. Sorry again, no power, except for a diesel powered generator that is operating only during limited hours for their entire village. Also, with a gross income of less than a few dollars a day, even a 10000 dollar vehicle is beyond their reach. As for the Chinese price, it will be like their bank loans for development: great rates until they have to committed and then they will foreclose.
 
Here's what legacy automakers should (and do) fear:


But you'll say, we'll never allow those in Canada or the US. Maybe. We'll see:


But the Canadian market is not very significant globally. And that car would be 3x the price with tariffs and Canadian safety standards. But this isn't true in a lot of the developing world. This will cost the same as so many gas cars. But won't have the expensive fuel bill. EVs like this, in the developing world, have two impacts. First, they steal sales from legacy automakers, shrinking their revenue, manufacturing efficiency, etc. Next, they reduce demand for imported oil, improving the trade balance of those countries and further tying them to China. So much of the discussion is focused on Chinese EVs coming to Europe and North America. That misses the point.
The electrical grind in the developing world is a lot less stable than the ability to find fuel…

A lot of small towns in Africa and the ME have diesel generators for power if they aren’t near a river for hydro.

In order to make EV’s viable for the developing world there is a lot infrastructure needed for that.
 
A forum full of military guys who have presumably deployed and yet don't understand how creative people can get in the developing world or can't imagine somebody else deploying "Adapt and overcome". Disappointing.

They charge where and when they can. There will be some dude selling charging minutes from a wall outlet in those countries. I posted this before. Watch it and make note of how charging is handled:


Just because pampered westerners can't imagine life without 24/7 power doesn't mean the rest of the world will suddenly stop developing in ways they see fit. The singular mistake in all these discussions is imagining they have to develop exactly like we did. It's wrong. And we already have examples of them skipping stages. Most famously, largely skipping landlines and going to mobile phones.
 
They didn't skip Landlines, they just did not have the infrastructure. The wait time for one was roughly 5-10 years, full of bureaucratic crap and lot's of corruption and theft. Cellular phones and small solar is a gift from the gods for developing countries for sure.
 
Well aware. When I was a kid in the 80s, we used to call my grandmother's neighbour in India, before my grandparents got a landline. In the late 90s getting a landline was still difficult. By the early 2000s, every one of our relatives had cellphones. It was a remarkable change to see, because they went from difficult to get landlines to everybody having a cellphone in about 5-7 years.

Also, can we please stop using Sub-Saharan Africa as the benchmark for the Developing world. There's a lot more to the developing world. Y'all are acting like India, Southeast Asia and Latin America don't exist. And that's exactly the markets Chinese EV makers are targeting. Can't wait to hear the next ignorant strawman where Venezuela == all of Latin America.
 
Sincerely hope none of you guys were GOFOs. The failure of imagination here is, well, disappointing. I was expecting a bit more worldliness. Not a bunch of folks who think every African lives in a mud hut. It's like some of you think UNICEF or World Vision commercials are universal documentaries of the developing world.
 
Sincerely hope none of you guys were GOFOs. The failure of imagination here is, well, disappointing. I was expecting a bit more worldliness. Not a bunch of folks who think every African lives in a mud hut. It's like some of you think UNICEF or World Vision commercials are universal documentaries of the developing world.
Since your profile is blank, I'd cool my jets talking down to people, it's getting old and really doesn't help discussion.

- Milnet.ca Staff
 
Well aware. When I was a kid in the 80s, we used to call my grandmother's neighbour in India, before my grandparents got a landline. In the late 90s getting a landline was still difficult. By the early 2000s, every one of our relatives had cellphones. It was a remarkable change to see, because they went from difficult to get landlines to everybody having a cellphone in about 5-7 years.

Also, can we please stop using Sub-Saharan Africa as the benchmark for the Developing world. There's a lot more to the developing world. Y'all are acting like India, Southeast Asia and Latin America don't exist. And that's exactly the markets Chinese EV makers are targeting. Can't wait to hear the next ignorant strawman where Venezuela == all of Latin America.
Venezuela used to be the shining star of South America with the highest literacy rates in the continent, they have entered a Bolivarian nightmare. I am well acquainted with the complexities of South America. My wife is Malay-Indian, so fairly acquainted with that region as well. Africa, Egypt and Morocco are African, but even they really don't identify as such. Kenya and Mali are very different beasts as well. Africa is likley the most complex place on earth.
 
A forum full of military guys who have presumably deployed and yet don't understand how creative people can get in the developing world or can't imagine somebody else deploying "Adapt and overcome". Disappointing.

They charge where and when they can. There will be some dude selling charging minutes from a wall outlet in those countries. I posted this before. Watch it and make note of how charging is handled:

Some of us must have missed the “Hope is an acceptable COA” training you received.

Sincerely hope none of you guys were GOFOs. The failure of imagination here is, well, disappointing. I was expecting a bit more worldliness. Not a bunch of folks who think every African lives in a mud hut. It's like some of you think UNICEF or World Vision commercials are universal documentaries of the developing world.

Why the snark? Frankly, you should know better.

Many of us who have deployed in some “non-1st world” locations appreciate that there is a spectrum of services. Personally, although I declined the invitation, I saw how those with privilege like Dostum who invited a number of us into his house in Kabul to share some dates during Eid Al Fitr could have had a Tesla Model S if he had wished and charged it 24/7 with his compound’s multiple-unit standby genset, but that was not the reality for the great majority of Afghans for whom even an electric scooter like your saying keep the Indian population on the forefront of environmentally optimized mass transit. The majority of people were doing their best to survive with abysmally low family income. Your optimistic examples of how a country can proactively lead the globe by adopting mass electrification seems to be based on personal experience visiting family in India. Is there an example you can provide operationally, not on personal family visits, where you saw a society making significant efforts to integrate electrification into personal transport?
 
There isn't much point to discussing energy policy using examples and anecdotes. The arithmetic will determine how far nations can go, and how much new consumption micro-solutions can cover. If their grids are maxed out and they can't afford new generation and/or transmission and/or can't build out at a rate to match demand, they'll hit walls. It doesn't mean they'll fail, but they will be fragile. It isn't a status contest; there's no value in being defensive about how they do it. There is value in being realistic and looking at every part of the picture, including politics and economics and corruption.

If EV demand picks up for a while and then stalls due to lagging electrification or other causes, EV producers are likely to face problems adapting to sudden slumps. We already have evidence of this.
 
Scooters are far more viable to much of the developing world, from initial purchase cost, running costs, storage and from a EV perspective, the battery draw on the electrical system is far less per unit than a EV car.

China is seeing a major issue with EV Scooter fires in building during overnight recharging. This is going to be an issue in developing countries as well.
 
China is seeing a major issue with EV Scooter fires in building during overnight recharging. This is going to be an issue in developing countries as well.

China and Singapore believe there may be an issue, but India confirms it is not an issue with EVM magnetic fields, but rather due to unauthorized modifications of batteries by Chinese and Singaporean e-scooter users.

 
@ytz the cellular adoption by most less developed countries was simple economics - it takes a lot less effort to plop down towers than it does to run land line. Also in many countries those cellular networks aren’t always the most reliable.

Very few countries think long term strategy regardless if it’s a democratic country running from election cycle to election cycle, or a theocracy or a dictatorship. While you are correct that many fuel importers would benefit by reducing their need for fossil fuels, they don’t want to beggar their countries to build significant infrastructure to replace it - as the long run benefits aren’t their priority.
 
Those economics are exactly why EV two and three wheelers are taking off in Asia. This is a point I've made here a few times. And it's been roundly dismissed by a bunch of people who don't understand how critical two and three wheelers are in so many of these countries.

Here's the Bloomberg NEF EV outlook. And you'll see that while global car and light truck sales are at 18% electric, for two and three wheelers it's at 47% globally. Our perception in Canada, at ~11% is not at all in line with actual global reality. And that's because they minimum viable product for a developing country is an electric moped with 10 kWh. In Canada, it's maybe a Kona Electric with 50 kWh. There's world of difference in affordability between 10 and 50 kWh. And there's a big difference in the power necessary to charge.
 
Maybe an issue is the climate belt. The countries where EVs are prevalent aren't the ones that have to deal with -10 to -40 degree winters or snow and slush on the roads. Three wheelers that buzz around India and other places wouldn't pass the safety regulations in effect in North America and Europe. Then there's the current cost of hydro power in the north. We're talking apples and oranges here.

The folks that you've been dealing with on this forum understand the issues quite well. They also understand the practicalities.

🍻
 
Those economics are exactly why EV two and three wheelers are taking off in Asia.

….and…you conflate many here’s points that it may not be as applicable for Canada, as many dismissing the place of electric 2 and 3-wheelers…in Asia

This is a point I've made here a few times. And it's been roundly dismissed by a bunch of people who don't understand how critical two and three wheelers are in so many of these countries.

Perhaps you can quote even just a single member here who has stated that there isn’t a place for wide implementation of electric 2- and 3-wheelers in Asia….

We’ll wait…while dreaming of electric TukTuks in downtown Montreal in January…
 
When all these conversations eventually devolve down to how somebody in a mud hut in Africa won't be able to charge their Tesla Model 3, I'd say the point is being lost and doesn't speak to the apparent wisdom that is being asserted. It's not just Asia using two and three wheelers. Heck the largest three wheeler dealer in India originates in Italy. And there's a lot more people and places in the world that look like the crazy streets of Mumbai or Jakarta than there are that look like Edmonton. And if it's not a three wheeler, well a $10k BYD EV is quite competitive in Latin America too. Which was the original point in all these discussions.
 
Actually for most of us, the original point was EVs vs oil/gas (and other energy tech, like hydrogen) in Canada. Electro-tuk-tuks and scooters in India, other parts of Asia, Africa, South America, have their place.

What do you want from the crowd here? Endorsement the e-scooters and 3-wheelers are the clear path ahead for personal transport in Canada? Or just an admission that Canada is backwards when it comes to embracing EVs?
 
Actually for most of us, the original point was EVs vs oil/gas (and other energy tech, like hydrogen) in Canada. Electro-tuk-tuks and scooters in India, other parts of Asia, Africa, South America, have their place.

What do you want from the crowd here? Endorsement the e-scooters and 3-wheelers are the clear path ahead for personal transport in Canada? Or just an admission that Canada is backwards when it comes to embracing EVs?
Frankly, now that I'm retired I'd enjoy getting up early to park a lawn chair at the side of the freeway to watch the 2- and 3-wheelers dodge the F150s during morning rush hour.
 
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