Summary
The incoming Trump administration plans extensive rollbacks on electric vehicle (EV) policies, including eliminating EV subsidies, blocking battery imports, canceling federal EV purchases, and reversing $7.5 billion in charging infrastructure funding.
EPA fuel efficiency standards will revert to 2019 levels, increasing vehicle emissions by 25%.
Trade tariffs, applied globally, will raise EV costs, while California’s stricter emissions rules face renewed opposition.
Public safety regulations, such as crash reporting for automated vehicles, are also set to be repealed.
These policies prioritize fossil fuels and U.S. auto manufacturing over EV adoption and environmental goals.
If only consumers could have battery quick-swapping technology. I imagine a world where gas stations are converted into battery storage facilities and where everyone all has the same, standardized battery type.
You pull in over a pit, a scanner locates the battery, a robot arm comes up to yank the installed battery and another arm installs a charged one. Done in 30 seconds.
It’s been experimented with over the years, including by Tesla. There are a whole bunch of mechanical and practical issues. Charger networks are expanding fast, and that approach is being left behind.
For race cars, though, it’s fine.
Pretty soon we won’t need humans at all! Well I say down with the machines! I say we bring back gas station attendants.
I for one would like my battery swap to be carried out by a high school dropout of dubious sobriety. You just pull in, wait awkwardly making angry furtive eye contact with the attendant. You can’t tell whether he’s angry, or his face graffiti just makes him appear so. Probably both. He eventually ambles over and preforms the swap. He wipes your windshield in the hopes of a tip. Leaving grimy streaks behind, an apt metaphor for his life past or present. You hand over a fiver over out of guilt more than any appreciation of a service rendered. You pull out.
Done in 30 minutes. It’s the American way.
There was a video of a system like that for Chinese taxis making the rounds not too long ago.
Would be sweet.