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Comment by throwawaygh | Hacker News Reader

This.

The short term temporary solution is pressure on OPEC+ and jump-starting Shale (no small task).

The long term permanent solution is EVs and massive investment in renewable base load power generation.

There is no way to pressure OPEC without military force. They know this is the sunset phase of petroleum, and they want every dollar they can get per barrel of oil before the death spiral accelerates [1]. Shale will, of course, take considerable time to start back up.

Better to lean hard into electric mobility; in the short term, mandate employers allow remote work if the role supports such a config. This prioritizes oil for uses where it must be used (moving atoms versus bits), and is the only practical short term action that would be effective for managing the oil demand run rate.

We had the 70s oil embargo, we've had numerous oil price spikes since then that cause outsized diversion of productivity to acquiring energy for consumption [2], it's time to get off of oil. No more bandaids.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-cha...

Yea exactly, main reason I have a fully electric car. It’s nice not caring about random bullshit that goes on in the Middle East affecting the cost of my commuting. My home has electric heat as well (in addition to oil) should oil become too expensive.

If Opec has already hit peak oil then no amount of pressure can pull blood from a stone.

A better short term and long term solution is to prioritize EV micromobility such as E-Bikes and Scooters for short trips. This may mean reconfiguring roadways and investing money differently. Half of trips are 3 miles or shorter, which is perfect and easy E-Bike/EV scooter distance. Micro-mobility is massively cheaper than car travel which makes it a great solution. Long term transition to EV cars should def be a priority for longer trips though.

Used cars are up over 30% in these numbers. That's bananas.

With the price of cars going nuts, that could be good for EVs.

> With the price of cars going nuts

The price of used cars is going nuts far more than new cars, so I don't think the increase in car prices is good news for sellers of a class of new cars that is already at a premium.

New cars are pretty bad too. I've been shopping for one all week, and one dealer yesterday had a mystery $1800 charge added to the price. When I asked what that was he explained, "our inventory is currently very low so we're adding this charge to make up for lost inventory". That's right - there was an $1800 "there aren't a lot of cars right now so you'll pay whatever we charge you" charge on the quote.

Be happy that's all it is. The idea of "negotiating" a car price has died in this economy. You let the car sales-person decide just how badly you're going to have to bend over for them - or they find someone else. You should see the markups people paid for a RAV4 prime (a kind of nice soccer mom subcompact SUV). I saw 20000$ markups in some places.

Dealerships and car sales people have always been scum - but an economy like this turbocharges their virility.

> I saw 20000$ markups in some places.

I'll call BS on this. Sounds completely made up.

Just to check I looked at prices on the rav primes. Holy cow… 44k is about the median I saw used. Some upwards of 63k!!!!

These popular all around great cars are getting inflated to hell

Your long term part is quite inflationary as well. If it wouldn’t be more expensive everybody would already driving evs

EVs cost half the cost per mile as an internal combustion vehicle [1], even less as renewables generation increases driving down the price of power.

EVs do have a higher upfront cost, but lower total cost of ownership. Issue green bonds to subsidize the capital cost for borrowers, and increase the tax on internal combustion vehicles sales. EV supply is currently manufacturing constrained; provide incentives to rapidly scale EV and battery manufacturing.

[1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1190-june...

> EVs do have a higher upfront cost

For now. Because they are new. But there's every reason to believe this is temporary. Electric cars are way simpler to manufacture. Far fewer moving parts. Literally.

Right, you use the green bonds financing to negate the EV/ICE price delta and capital carrying cost of that price delta until manufacturing learning curve reaches the point where the financial engineering isn't necessary.

I suspect it's going to be quite a while before they reach price parity. Even with the current high capital costs supply isn't matching demand. We have to build a lot of battery factories and that isn't going to happen overnight.

I don't follow. It's already WAY cheaper to drive EVs over the life of the vehicle. The amortization schedule is different, for now. In the long run that will change: manufacturing EVs is way cheaper and simpler than ICE cars.

By 2024 every major car manufacturer will have a solid lineup of EVs and mega manufacturing capacity. EV Corollas will be the normal lowest-end car purchase by 2030, and with a tiny fraction of the operating costs.

The long term permanent solution is public transportation.

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