Howdy pardners, and welcome back to The Autopian’s morning roundup of auto industry news! It’s Wednesday, Feb. 1, and we’re in a good mood because we’re coming off this site’s biggest readership month yet. Thank you for your continued support, we have some cool things to announce here soon and that’s all because of you fine people.
For now, let’s dive into today’s news: President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act could be a bigger effing deal than expected, Hyundai and Kia get back on track, Toyota’s top scientist fires back at EV evangelists and Americans aren’t doing great on the car repossession front.
The EV Tax Incentive Boom For Battery Manufacturing Could Be Even Bigger Than Predicted
We begin today with a scoop from Axios‘ Joann Muller, who reports that the tax breaks for automakers and battery manufacturers under the IRA might just be significantly more than even Congress initially anticipated. In case you’ve been living under a rock, the legislation passed last year resets and modernizes the EV and PHEV tax credits, adds credits for used cars for the first time, and incentivizes the production of both cars and batteries in this country because manufacturers that produce abroad won’t qualify for the credits. (It’s also been a giant, confounding mess on a lot of fronts, but hey, that’s the federal government for you.)
A big goal of the IRA is to build a homegrown battery and EV manufacturing infrastructure so that industry isn’t entirely ceded to China. And so far, early projections indicate the plan is working.
Axios reports the Congressional Budget Office projected the tax credits specifically for battery manufacturing would equal about $30.6 billion over 10 years; new research from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence indicates it could be more like $136 billion over 10 years, if not higher than that thanks to Tesla’s new battery plant plans. Hot damn.
This number seems to include both car companies and battery manufacturers building facilities in the U.S. to take advantage of the credits.
A few notable details from that story:
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Tesla’s Nevada plant, for example, will soon be able to produce 100 gigawatt-hours of battery cells, and that could grow to 500 gigawatt-hours in the future. At an annual production rate of 500 gigawatt-hours, the credits would be worth a staggering $17.5 billion per year.
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Ford expects more than $7 billion in tax breaks from 2023 to 2026, with CEO Jim Farley predicting a “large step-up in annual credits” starting in 2027 during a recent earnings call.
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GM chief financial officer Paul Jacobson told reporters that the automaker will earn about $300 million this year, with the credits eventually being worth $3,500 to $5,500 per vehicle.
Now, here’s where you might be saying, “We shouldn’t be subsidizing electric vehicles! The government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers, the market should sort all of that out!” Sure, in theory. But remember government intervention in energy markets is one of America’s proudest traditions and we already subsidize the oil and gas industry in a huge way, although that amount will be handily trumped by the EV subsidies if this latest research proves true.
A way to modernize America’s green energy operation and add manufacturing jobs, or a giant tax break gift to big corporations? How about both?
Hyundai And Kia Mount A Comeback
Last year was a pretty brutal one as automakers fought through the chip shortage and supply chain issues, but things are finally starting to improve on the production front. Case in point, according to Automotive News: Hyundai and Kia posted some sales wins on the back of EV demand and fleet sales. It’s not huge yet, but it’s something:
Also, good for Genesis here. That brand makes some really good stuff these days but it still feels kind of under the radar, even if it shouldn’t. Anyway, inventory is getting back on track, but the economy is squirrely and interest rates could go up a bit, which could put people off from actually buying all these new cars in stock. Fun times.
Toyota’s Scientist Hits Back At ‘EV-Only Extremists’ But That’s Not The Whole Story
On his way out the door, one gets the sense Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda is none too happy that his company’s been saddled with this anti-EV, anti-green image. And who can blame him? But Toyota’s later to the game on EVs than most rivals and its hydrogen push has gone absolutely nowhere.
Now, in Automotive News, the automaker’s chief scientist is hitting back against those who say “EVs are the only way forward in the global battle to cap carbon dioxide emissions.” I have some issues with this piece that I’ll explain, but first, Toyota’s Chief Scientist Gill Pratt at Davos last month:
Toyota’s chief scientist, Gill Pratt, argues that with lithium as scarce as it is, automakers can reduce carbon emissions more quickly through a multipronged approach to electrification that includes widespread deployment of hybrids, rather than by focusing exclusively on fully electric vehicles. His math acts as a rebuttal to those proposing bans on new vehicles that use any gasoline or diesel in the mission to slow global climate change.
Americans Have A Car Repo Problem, Again
Now, more Americans are falling behind on their car payments than during the financial crisis. In December, the percentage of subprime auto borrowers who were at least 60 days late on their bills rose to 5.67%, up from a seven-year low of 2.58% in April 2021, according to Fitch Ratings. That compares to 5.04% in January 2009, the peak during the Great Recession.
Higher interest rates are making it even more difficult to make the monthly payments. The average new auto loan rate was 8.02% in December, up from 5.15% a year earlier, according to Cox Automotive. The rate can be much higher for subprime borrowers.
I know the easy thing to say is “Don’t buy above your budget,” and nobody should. But that can be incredibly hard to do with skyrocketing inflation and the occasional crisis that may upend your ability to pay bills.
It doesn’t help that America’s car-centric infrastructure means most people need a car to get to work, leading to stories of people like this poor 2013 Honda Fit owner who’s hiding her car from creditors, or the guy with a 26% interest rate on a 2013 Dodge Journey. We’re all feeling the sting these days.
The Flush: What Are Your Thoughts On Toyota’s Chief Scientist’s EV Pushback?
Is a mixed powertrain lineup the best way forward right now? In the near future? In the distant future?
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The Toyota scientist isn’t wrong. Hybrids and PHEVs are excellent solutions for here and now and they reduce carbon emissions. We won’t be able to just wave a magic wand and change everything to EV overnight and we really aren’t fully aware of the unintended consequences that will accompany them yet.
I’m really not sure why we’ve seemingly just forgotten that hybrids exist in favor of pushing EVs…and while I do think Toyota is way behind the electrification 8 ball and that their grouchy/deeply cynical and self serving attitude towards it is pretty cringe, I don’t think branding them as an environmentally hostile company is fair seeing as they pretty much single handedly made hybrids a thing in the first place.
I agree with the Toyota scientist for a couple reasons- We are 100% making a mistake if we replace every ICE car with a battery powered car. What we need are less cars on the road, period. We need infrastructure that makes us less reliant on a car, be it battery or ICE.
If we spent the kind of federal money on mass transit that we’re spending on batteries, I’d bet that pretty much anywhere with a population of over 50,000 could drop it’s emissions overnight without having to buy a single electric car. The solution isn’t to drive the same amount with a different kind of fuel, it’s to drive less period. To be less dependent on cars.
So we drive less, we replace our cars with hybrids that allow you to drive on battery power for most regular driving, we take the bus more often, we design our new neighborhoods to be walkable, we all win. We spend less time white knuckling it through traffic or driving in shitty weather or having to ignore our kids because DADDY IS DRIVING and life gets maybe a little less stressful.
We could do this. We won’t, but we could.
The elephant in the room is Nickel, Cobalt & Lithium. The majority of Cobalt is mined in central Africa with more than 4/5 of the mines belonging to the PRC which has an abysmal environmental record. I’ve seen the Sudbury Nickel mine in Canada and it’s a moonscape that was used by NASA to test vehicles.
Fossil fuels power the mining, shipping, trucking and a lot of the manufacturing of the materials necessary for battery production. The electrical grid in so many areas is simply not ready for an influx of EV’s, (let alone a ban on natural gas appliances), and if electric production can marginally increase it will certainly be because of the increase use of coal and other fossil fuels. Then there’s the occasional battery fire that requires thousands of gallons of water to extinguish which is a disaster in the southwest where one can get penalized for watering their grass.
So the Tesla Nevada plant that has been being worked on for the better part of a decade now is going to be touted as a result of this 2023 policy? Seems to me like we don’t need this at all and it was quite possible to make these plants without the need of subsidies.
I think, ultimately, Toyota is right. It logically makes sense that we can’t just switch over immediately, as such, you need to transition over time. I don’t like Hybrids due to there being two complete systems worth of stuff packed into one vehicle, but it makes sense that this is part of the plan. Evolution takes time, and the gasoline automobile didn’t just immediately be the thing. You can see horse drawn buggies in cities up to the 30’s, I believe.
Remember, patience is a virtue.
Wow, these comments today! I guess February is gonna be a long (metaphorically speaking), cranky month.
Hang in there Autopians, winter is almost over!
We’re not even halfway through winter. And if you live in Ohio winter weather doesn’t end until May. I think we can see who the glass half full person is here and thanks for trying to cheer us up.
“Toyota’s chief scientist, Gill Pratt, argues that with lithium as scarce as it is…”
Lithium is NOT scarce. The first phase of the Thatcher Pass mine will barely scratch the surface (no pun intended) of the lithium reserve in that area. Lithium may not be as abundant (cheap) as Toyota wants it to be today, but when extraction at Thatcher Pass and other locations ramp up in a few years there will be enough lithium to go around.
As mentioned by another commenter here, lithium can be recycled from spent batteries. I seem to recall that most of the lead in lead-acid batteries sold today is recycled. Even though the recycling processes for lithium batteries will be different from lead-acid batteries, there is a successful business model for recycling automotive batteries in place today.
EVs are not convenient to Toyota’s consumer product plans, which is what I think Gill Pratt’s saying.
You’re right. They backed hydrogen and are now in the unenviable position of being behind in the electric car push. But they could shift production to more Primes and probably position themselves really well for the transition we’re still in and invest in more EVs. If they work on more efficient or large-scale battery recycling or new battery chemistries and find a way to jump into EVs strong, it could work out for them. They can afford it.
I love being able to read nuance, so thank you for that. There is far too little of that on the internet anymore, it’s always a “right or wrong” scenario, and if you don’t agree, GTFO.
I can’t say Toyota is wrong, but with hindsight being 20/20, the original Prius/Insight duo should have started the broader push to hybrids and plug-in hybrids 20 years ago. Now we’re scrambling.
We can’t suddenly implement a “one size fits all” sort of solution right now, because there is no one solution we’ve found yet. Commuters need BEVs, travelers need PHEVs, trucking needs hydrogen/synthetic, aerospace needs more than I know. The key takeaway is that we’re late, and we need to start NOW. There is no more time for defending pure ICE (and don’t take that to mean I think ICE is going away overnight, only that future development needs to focus on a post ICE landscape).
Government funding of batteries will reduce innovation. The money will flow only to consensus ideas, and science is not consensus.
Is it a running joke I’ve missed out on that the “Row of Cars at a Car Dealership” photo has been used weekly or better on this site?
Also stands out to (triggers?) me because it is the Doug Smith Jeep dealer in American Fork, Utah that had my Wrangler for 16+ weeks for warranty work and returned it with paint damage, incomplete repairs, and new electrical gremlins from their negligence. This place epitomizes sleazy, condescending service managers.
We run on a tight budget around here. That means we get our money’s worth out of all the pics.
I like the mixed powertrain lineup approach. I’m all about the buyer having choices.
If you’re after a powerful car with a massive weight reduction over standard ICE and aren’t concerned about supercar top speeds(just rapid acceleration), a hybrid powertrain is perfect. A small power-dense battery that can make like 500-600 peak horsepower in a 20-30 lb package, coupled with a switched reluctance electric drive, with a tiny 500cc or less gasoline engine making 50 or so horsepower continuous, set up as a series hybrid, would be perfect for such a car. You could easily cut 200 lbs off of a standard 4-cylinder car by downsizing the engine and deleting the transmission, increase fuel efficiency, and if the car was well-streamlined, the engine would provide enough power to maintain 120-ish mph on flat ground. In turn, you could have an ultralight, ultra aero car that gets 80+ mpg in normal use, and if the weight is kept to slightly less than Miata levels, could be capable of 0-60 mph in under 3 seconds, corner like its on rails due to its low mass and the ability to package the heaviest components near the center of the car down low, and would be stupid cheap to build in volume.
Such a thing as described above could be the next Miata, or the next Toyota MR2. Is anyone in the industry considering such? I doubt it.
Barring that kind of build, I’d prefer to stick with either pure EV or pure ICE. Hybrids do increase complexity over either.
But having the option to buy a pure ICE, pure EV, plug-in hybrid, or just an ICE hybrid, allows a broader market appeal. None of these powertrains are perfect for everyone. I don’t want to see manufacturers do away with V8s or larger engines either.
I agree with Gill. Unfortunately, it seems the public in general lacks the patience or critical thinking skills to understand why. Different crowd here, of course, but I mean in general terms. They want the bombastic, sweeping, fast, easy solutions without regard to the bigger picture. One thing I respect about Toyota as a company in particular is that their Kaizen philosophy, one of continuous improvement, inherently encourages efficiency and parsimony.
I actually kinda misread “The Morning Dump” as “The Morning Bump”. Maybe a bump-starting metaphor? Maybe a metaphor involving jump-starting? The last one could be “The Turnover”.
Honestly I still really like The Morning Dump and The Flush, but some ideas to keep throwing around.
Wait, does that Hyundai Kona come with a bike on top?
Nope. It comes with coffee beans sprinkled throughout the interior.
I think Toyota’s right, hybrids, and plug in hybrids should have been the next big push for the next 20 years while ev battery processes and infrastructure ramps up.
I have a 2000 EV(Ranger) and a 2017 EV(Bolt), the difference in 17 years is staggering, it’s very much like have a 2000 cell phone and a 2017 smartphone, but the 2017 also had a recall because batteries were catching fire, so again like a Galaxy Note 7 versus the reliable old Nokia 3310(man those were sweet, charge lasted for days, could run over it with your car and it kept going).
But the roll out of hybrids was not…exciting or S3XY, and Elon showed up, so everybody looked at the Prius and looked at the Model S and said, “I want the one go fast make women like me”. And then the trucks started and we have Battery EVs that worse MPGe than a Prius.
But I guess if people bought cars that made sense we’d all be driving Manual Honda Insights getting 80mpg the last 14 years.
If we bought cars that made sense we’d all have spent the last 35 years driving 1988 Citroen AX Diesels getting 100mpg on biodiesel and being really, really careful to never be in a crash.
I guess the crash avoidance care in itself would also help to reduce emissions!
The push to hybrids should have been 20 years ago, and as intense as we’re trying to push BEVs now.
According to the text under the photo, the Mach-E can only be charged by professional drivers? That’s kinda weird.
I think it might be the skinny jeans that we are cautioned not to attempt.
PHEVs would be near-ideal, at least in the near-term, though I understand people worrying about dual powertrains. For commutes and the like, they use little to no gas. Longer trips, they save gas. They use far less lithium and give people the range they want. Instead of the common two-car household with one gas and one electric, both could operate locally on electric and travel on gas.
Lithium scarcity is likely to be remedied by new chemistries. Efficient carbon batteries would be great, especially if they could harness carbon that would otherwise be released by other processes. Battery recycling is also likely to become more efficient, which will help us reuse lithium or whatever we use to make the next batteries.
The other thing that will help is improving efficiency. If you can get more range out of a battery that uses less material, you’ll not only reduce the need for battery material, but reduce weight on tires/roads, which is a further win.
I’d love to say that we’ll be improving public transit, too, reducing the number of people who need commuter vehicles, but that doesn’t look to be in the cards. Which is unfortunate. You want to reduce emissions, reducing traffic would help. And it would free up space for those of us who want to drive.
Exactly! I drive about 30 km each way to work. If I had an average PHEV, I would not use any gas MOST days. Maybe 1-2 days a month, I take a trip that would use the gas engine. This would use a whole lot less Li than buying a Tesla with an 80 kwh battery.
Except that lithium is not actually scarce.
Valid point. Lithium is artificially scarce at the moment due to the demand and the mining operations, but, at least in the foreseeable future, we certainly aren’t going to use it up. And the larger mining operations getting going means we’re likely to see supply grow at least as fast as demand for a bit, assuming they don’t intentionally throttle production.
That said, there are enough people pushing against at least some of the lithium mining that we could still stand to diversify our battery materials.
If the goal is to reduce CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels then ban the fossil fuels.
The global vehicle fleet should use whatever technology best fits that goal, whether it’s EVs, ICEs (running synthetic or biofuels) or a hybrid of the two, depending on usage and current technology. Legislating a technical solution backs us in to a corner of EVs for all, which just can’t work with likely future technology.
I guess hydrogen could be a solution, but it’s got logistical and practical shortcomings that EVs and green fuelled ICEs don’t have, but without a significant benefit over either.
We just need to change the fuel to get ICE carbon emissions to zero. There is plenty more we could do to get better economy, some technology, some user education (so much fuel wasted with unintentional inefficient driving) and some focus on maybe not having stupidly heavy vehicles mostly moving a single occupant.
In summary: governments should legislate the effect they want, engineers should find the technical solutions that work.
Yours,
A former ICE engineer now working on future EVs.
The US annual oil subsides are about $20 billion, that’s more per year than the battery investment. Batteries can also be recycled to make new batteries, when oil is burned it’s gone.
This is still less than the $45 billion increase in the military budget making it $858 billion last year.
I think all of the subsidies should be ended. Especially all of the government interventions used to secure oil supplies. Tired of paying for it. If all subsidies for everything were killed off and externalities accounted for, renewable energy and EVs would come out far ahead, and we’d all see the wisdom in doing a lot more with a lot less, instead of wasting non-renewable resources.
The EV initiative isn’t wholly noble, “powers” jumped on it to reduce the strength of the Middle East & Russia, but they didn’t think it through and it pushed some dependence on China. They are trying to solve that but China is way ahead with their reach into EV resources in Africa, Asia, and South American. Even a Chinese mega company is the largest investor in the Nevada Thackler Pass mine which hasn’t been given the green light yet, and no article about GM’s investment in that mine mentioned either point. Interesting that the Pope said keep your greedy plundering hands out of Africa, well China already started that 15 yrs ago, and the US just realized they are behind and said last month they are going to focus on Africa prentending to have good intentions.
I agree with Toyota, battery EV’s are not the long term solution, there are not enough resources to meet the 2035ish goals. Instead of wars involving oil it will be EV resources.
Its a transition, electric cars are expensive and the infrastructure is not there. I shouldn’t have to make Plan A, B and C when I road trip in my electric car, in case one of the charging stations is down, I will be screwed big time if I am in the middle of nowhere. Hybrids for people that doesn’t have the ability to charge their cars at home, PHEV for big cars that doesn’t make sense to make them full electric today (Big batteries use a lot of resources, looking at you Hummer EV) and BEV for small to medium vehicles for daily purposes
We drive BEV as commuters, we own a PHEV minivan for road trips and daily errands for the kids, and gas cars just as “collection”, barely driven anywhere since I don’t like spending money on gas
I don’t like paying money to you in the form of tax breaks for your car.
We pay for a lot of things in our taxes we may not personally find beneficial. That’s part of how society functions.
Drew, some folks cannot comprehend the idea that a person would be in favor of something that doesn’t directly benefit them.
You’re getting tax breaks every time you fill up, as well.
Buy an EV and he’ll be paying money to you!
Ok? I don’t have kids, I’m more than happy to pay for schools through my taxes.
When things get better for everyone, you and I are still included in “everyone”
I don’t like subsidizing the fuel that you pour into your lifted Super Duty so you can tailgate me at 80MPH, getting single-digit MPG.
ICE cars were expensive when they came out. Electric cars are in their infancy. The Leaf and Bolt exist but suck for road trips. Tesla makes a car at the average US new car price and is no problem to road trip anywhere except the most desolate places in the US.
As for not enough materials. Battery chemistry has been changing as has mining technology. Batteries are also recyclable and you can recapture over 90% of the materials used in them for new batteries.
The problem with hybrids is that even if we doubled our fleet average MPG to about 50, it’s still not nearly enough. It’s not about reducing emissions, and it’s not even about zero emissions at this point. We quite actually need negative net carbon. So, finding a way to get cars to pure electric is the only viable way forward, and I haven’t seen any unbiased proof that it can’t work. It’s just going to take a hell of an effort
yeah too bad sacrifice has become unAmerican, we’ll just F250 ourselves into extinction
This reminds me of a great early segment on the old Colbert Report, but I haven’t been able to find it in YEARS; I think it was “The Word.” He was discussing oil usage, especially in this country. At the end of the segment he said he had the American Solution. “We can’t solve the oil crisis until we use every last drop.” Then something about how he leaves his 5 Hummers running non-stop to help.
If folks could tighten their belts on casual jetsetting, that would do a heck of a lot more for CO2 emissions than trying to eke out another 0.5% reduction of tailpipe emissions. I’m not saying we shouldn’t, but let’s look hard in the mirror. And ALL the contributors.
A friend of mine is a flight attendant for private flights.
She went on one this last week that was, no shit, Vancouver to Toronto so that the couple aboard the plane could have dinner and see a show or something, then they flew back that same night.
Its ludicrous what the average person is expected to do to sacrifice when we’ve got twatwaffles doing shit like that.
This is what gets me going too.
One cross country flight puts out more CO2 than all my cars do in a year, and I’m the one who’s supposed to reduce my living standards.
If I had to guess, the rich and powerful (i.e. politicians) aren’t saying boo about flying because they love to do it. I’m sure the luxury of being able to go nearly anywhere you want within hours is intoxicating. Meanwhile, the rest of us better get a good grip on our bootstraps. Frankly, I blame any groups pushing for environmental standards for not carrying this cause instead of attacking the equivalent of a straw man until the stuffing is knocked out. I’ll go on the record right now: fuck flying, ban it, deal with it.
Per person-mile, the flight may emit less CO2 than an automobile. It all depends on the details, specifically the number of passengers in the car and the car’s fuel economy. But safe to say that commercial air travel isn’t significantly worse, and can be better. See https://terrapass.com/blog/carbon-footprint-of-driving-vs-flying-whats-best-for-the-earth#:~:text=A%20good%20point%20of%20reference,1.26%20tons%20of%20carbon%20emissions for some discussion. Private jets (or really any significantly-less-than-full flights) would likely be worse.
Easy. Either crack down on the passenger jet emissions or find a way to mandate their excessive (yes, I said it) use. The other big polluters are cruise ships (ugh) and shipping barges, although those may be subject to more stringent regulations in the near future. It never ceases to amaze me that people and our bureaucrats want to see how much blood they can extract from a stone when there’s golden calves full of the stuff, ready to squeeze.
I want to add that fossil fuels have to be eliminated from every sector. We can’t fix one instead of another. The right time to start was 30 years ago, and with how rapidly we’re running out of time, we can’t really afford to drag our feet in any one sector.
That is the ideal end game, no doubt, but shouldn’t we staunch the bleeding from the sucking chest wound before worrying about a cut on our finger?
I agree with you somewhat. However there is a not-insignificant carbon cost for current battery material mining and processing. I’m super hopeful that some of the newest battery tech that’s come around in the last year or so is going to help that, however for now we’re “stuck” with some nasty consequences with the needed metals.
Climate Change is going to need a lot of work to overcome, and that’s just in the transportation industry. There absolutely should be work on multiple fronts for now, at least until we figure out the best way forward. BEVs work well (mostly) for commuter needs, but trucking, aviation, and other industrial industries need to figure out what works well for their needs, and hop to it!
There’s not an insignificant carbon cost for drilling, pumping, transporting, refining, pumping, transporting and delivering the fuel that we pour into our cars every single day.
It’s been proven that while EV’s may have slightly higher carbon costs up front, carbon costs increase for ICE’s over time while they are minimized over time for EVs.
I would rather support the EV industry than the cruise missile or aircraft carrier industry and we have been subsidizing the old and gas industries for 1 1/2 centuries, so it is EV time.
Yep. We continually increase our bloated military budgets. The increased projection of 136 billion over 10 years is dwarfed by a single year of defense spending. At least this could lead to lower emissions.
Once again, the Dems do the people’s work, while the other side bitches and moans about M&Ms, Dr. Suess, and Jewish Space Lasers.
Don’t forget the Xbox!!!
you mean Dems rob from Peter to pay Paul….and then stand there doe eyed when it does not work out very well.
Can you cite an example?
:cricket noise:
:cricket noise:
The Dems champion a fuckton of policies I am not in favor of.
The GOP have gone full GQP with their climate change denial, election denial, religious fascism, etc.
The choice is clear.
Independent?
What MTG doesn’t know about the Jewish Space Lasers is that the whole system runs off a Coleco Adam in Torch’s basement.
Why aren’t my M&Ms sexy anymore?! I have not laughed so hard in ages as when I hear Carlson’s rant on the formerly hot green M&M. Mars’ response to replace them all with Maya Rudolph, a half-black/half-Jewish woman, is just *chef’s kiss*.
I lost it when Cucky advocated his viewers to suntan their nutsack.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tucker-carlson-testicle-tanning-fox-nation-bro-science-urologist-2022-10
I cannot believe that his viewers don’t see him as a caricature of themselves. I would feel absolutely ashamed if that was the face (literally and figuratively) of my political identity.
It’s not D vs R, it’s insider vs outsider. Insiders get the money, the rest of us get expensive EVs we can’t afford.
Don’t forget the many cancer deaths caused by solar farms and wind generators. /s
Couldn’t think of a new flush name, so just getting rid of it entirely?
The toilet joke never bothered me. Sure it’s a bit childish but it is much more fun than publications that take themselves too seriously.
I see what you’re doing, adding the flush in late. Well in my own defense, it wasn’t posted when I made this comment.