I recently moved to California. Before i moved, people asked me “why are you moving there, its so bad?”. Now that I’m here, i understand it less. The state is beautiful. There is so much to do.

I know the cost of living is high, and people think the gun control laws are ridiculous (I actually think they are reasonable, for the most part). There is a guy I work with here that says “the policies are dumb” but can’t give me a solid answer on what is so bad about it.

So, what is it that California does (policy-wise) that people hate so much?

  • zer0nix@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Are the poor buying new cars? With a greater supply of evs, the poor will buy used evs which require less maintenance, other than new batteries that can be financed.

    EDIT: to be fair, you used to be able to buy a used foreign car for $500 (foreign for reliability) and even the cheapest ev (with actual usable range) costs 10 times as much, mostly because of the battery. The fuel costs are lower but the up front costs are higher.

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I don’t know much about this topic, but it can generally be said that cutting off the supply of new anything necessarily reduces its availability in the secondhand market and that this will also produce an increase in price.

    • mintyfrog@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I agree with your edit. Those below the poverty line shouldn’t/can’t finance an EV battery. Combustion cars can be purchased for ~$500 and are usually fixable for only a few hundred dollars with enough time and tools. Most engine problems are more expensive in labor than in parts, so almost anyone can fix for cheap with YouTube tutorials. If all else fails, junk yards are full of parts, including engines and transmissions.

      Even if EVs may have better reliability, when it comes time to sell it, someone in poverty can’t afford to buy and fix it. The raw materials in the battery are worth too much, and the batteries don’t last forever.

      People may not have (or have access to) banking, financing, etc and shouldn’t need to finance everything in their life. Financing is like a tax on the poor.

      Hopefully these things change in the future, public transit improves, we make combustion cars cleaner, or batteries get cheaper, but right now it’s the poorest that will be paying most for this environmental crisis.