Futurology

"The average sticker price for a new car in the US is more than $50,000, up from about $40,000 in 2020,.............with S&P Global Mobility predicting the proportion of $1,000-a-month loans will double over the course of the year to 40 per cent."

Meanwhile, Chinese carmakers like BYD are selling decent salons & SUVs for $25,000 or less. With home charging costing ~0.25–0.30 kWh/mile, electricity ≈ $0.17/kWh, that means $0.04–$0.06 per mile. Gas at $3.10/gal costs twice that per mile.

The fossil fuel industry and legacy gas-car makers think they can string this out for years to come, but I wonder if it's the opposite. Affordability is the political buzzword of the mid-2020s, and gasoline is on the wrong side of it. Most people would have several thousand extra dollars in their pocket every year if they chose Chinese EVs.

Rising prices push US car ownership costs to breaking point: Automobile affordability strains household finances in a country where the vast majority rely on vehicles for transportation

"In China, BYD is currently building 4,000 1.5MW charging stations across the country, with plans to roll out 20,000 by the end of this year.

Although not quite as ambitious, a BYD spokesperson for the European side of the business told me that the company is targeting 2,000 1.5mW Flash Charging stations across Europe before 2026 comes to a close."

I'm fascinated by the economics of this. How does BYD make money on this? Do they run the chargers at a profit? How much will this work out per km for drivers compared to diesel or gasoline?

People think of BYD as a budget car marker, but this to support its luxury brand Denza. The Denza Z9 GT EV has a range of 1,036 km (644 miles) on these chargers. I'm guessing having the best charagers is going to be seen as premium/luxury too.

'Ready in 5, full in 9' — this Chinese EV charges to 70% in only 5 minutes, has a 644-mile range, and it's coming to Europe in April

Ryan Burge, a Professor of Practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at WashU, says fewer Americans are getting more conservative as they age. People born between 1940 and 1954 still are, but among people born from 1955 to 1979, there's no change in political outlook as they age. For those born in 1980 or later, it looks like they are becoming more liberal as they age.

I take this as a hopeful sign. I don't think anyone on the political right has any idea how to organize the new world AI is quickly taking us to.

In a few years, driving jobs and unskilled work will be gone to cheap robots. AI is poised to be able to do more and more white-collar work. At some point, the choice will be the chaos of collapse if we insist the old free-market economy is the only way to do things, or figuring out how everyone lives, gets fed, and gets healthcare in a world where most people won't have jobs.

The fact that more people will be left-leaning and liberal than conservative in this world is a hopeful sign that they won't choose collapse and clinging to the old order.

Ryan Burge

Research data in Graph form

Deanonymizing online accounts isn't new. Speech patterns & unique combinations of identifiers have been able to do it for a while. What's different now is that AI can do this at scale, and its getting better at it. What's also true is that most people are underestimating the danger they are in.

If you don't fear being identified and monitored by the government via Palantir (you should), then you should at least fear cyber-attackers and criminals being able to do the same. If you think the latter sounds far-fetched, consider that Big Tech is insisting AI has no boundaries or regulations. If you don't think criminals won't take advantage of that situation, then you're a fool.

Research - Large-scale online deanonymization with LLMs, 24 pages PDF

"BYD also claims to have addressed the well-known issue of lithium iron phosphate cells losing performance in cold temperatures. After the cells were stored for 24 hours at –30 degrees Celsius and therefore completely frozen, charging from 20 to 97 per cent reportedly took just twelve minutes."

As the US sabotages the globe's fossil fuel infrastructure at the behest of Israel, China continues to build the future that will replace it. One by one, the naysayers' objections to EVs melt away. Can't do cold climates, they said - fixed. Can't cope with long journeys, they said - fixed.

As Napoleon once famously observed, 'never interrupt your enemy while they're making a mistake'. China must be thinking that, as the US helps hand it total dominance of the 21st century energy infrastructure.

10–97% in nine minutes: BYD presents second generation of Blade Battery

The Straits of Hormuz, through which 20% of global fossil fuels supply needs to flow, are closed; perhaps for months. It's not just gasoline prices that are about to sharply rise. LNG supplies are just as affected. In many places, notably Europe, this will sharply increase electricity prices. Renewables and EVs were booming before; now they'll have even more advantages. It's not just that they'll be cheaper; they'll also come to be seen as a hedge against global instability and conflict.

China, the major global producer of solar/batteries/EVs, will have even more incentive to abandon fossil fuels. The rest of the world will have even more incentive to buy from them.

There's still a contingent of people who think renewables/EVs are 'woke' or for 'do-gooders'; they're about to get a practical lesson in economics and cold hard cash, when they see other people paying a fraction of what they are to power their cars and homes.

"Healthier Comforts has rolled out an animal-free egg white protein powder in the US, which features The Every Company’s precision-fermented OvoPro ingredient, the company has confirmed to Green Queen."

Precision fermentation is a biotechnology that uses genetically engineered microorganisms (yeast, fungi, or bacteria) as cell factories to produce specific, high value functional ingredients like proteins, fats, and enzymes. It creates identical, sustainable alternatives to animal derived products with 96% less land and 87% less water.

I'm glad to see this tech taking off as it could have huge impacts on the environment while reducing costs for food and no killing and suffering of animals for things like eggs or milk.