United States Senator Chuck Schumer on Thursday submitted a bold plan to remove millions of gasoline-powered vehicles from the road and replace those with all-electric or hybrid new vehicles built in the U.S. As proposed, this would be a $454 million trade-in program to motivate Americans to trade in gasoline-powered vehicles, reminiscent of the 2009 Cash For Clunkers program, but on a much larger scale. The desired end game of this would be to have all clean vehicles on the highway by 2040.
In an October 24 opinion piece in the New York Times, Senator Schumer wrote, “How would the plan work? First, it would give you a large discount on an American-made electric vehicle when you trade in a gas-powered car. Lower-income Americans could get an even bigger discount on a new vehicle or a discount on a used electric vehicle. In total, these discounts should result in 63 million fewer gas-powered cars on the road by 2030 and put America on a path to having 100% of new car sales be clean.”
The proposed plan is being supported by environmentalists, car manufacturers, and the United Auto Workers Union.
The House Minority Leader thinks that the time is right and that Americans won’t have problems with the issues that shadow electric cars such as range anxiety and high prices. In a recent study by Volvo, 58% of drivers are concerned about range and availability of charging stations. Schumer does address this in his opinion piece, “This would be accomplished by providing grants to states and cities to build charging stations, with a particular emphasis on low-income, rural and other underserved communities.”
Furthermore, the Senator states another benefit of his plan, “The plan aims to establish the United States as the global leader in electric vehicle and battery manufacturing by providing grants to retool existing manufacturing plants in the United States and build new ones in this country that specialize in those technologies.”
The Senator does not address the environmental effects of manufacturing these batteries and lighter-weight materials to offset the weight of the batteries. A 2013 report from a group of MIT researchers calculated that global mining of two rare-earth metals, neodymium and dysprosium, would need to increase 700% and 2600%, respectively, over the next 25 years to keep pace with various green-tech plans.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.