Honestly if they are just going to waste money in gradualist measures that don’t really help anyone, might as well spend it on the people that actually generate the funding the state uses. Most people in homeless+drugs situations need someone to make the right decision for them, but politically that’s totalitarian, so society votes against that.
Want to fix someone’s drug addiction that prevents them from getting a real job and securing a lease? Won’t do that with “let’s give them a blanket and see if tomorrow they choose to stop cold Turkey”. You need more of a “ok buddy, sorry, but we’re gonna take you into a recovery center and help you go through withdrawals and take the driver seat for you for a while”.
There's a shit-ton of money being spent on the Homeless Industrial Complex (locally), that to date has not made a significant difference.
This also presents a false dichotomy that the dollars that flow into programs like these are "stolen" from homeless people.
Electrification of transit is very much a chicken and egg scenario, and efforts like this can go a long way to balance that out -- it's a good investment but I worry about the ability to do it right.
As part of the settlement with the US over the emissions scandal, Volkswagen agreed to invest in developing Electrify America.
What they did was to subcontract with multiple vendors who could not agree on integrating their sloppy systems, so we ended up with unreliable EV charging stations running on different hardware and software managed by multiple companies with complete lack of oversight by the federal government who now wants to throw another $100M at it so the money can be stolen again.
From the actual Notice of Funding Opportunity[0], state and local governments have to apply for this money, which can cover both public and private chargers.
So one problem with this is that your government actually has to care about sustaining EV adoption, which a lot of them don't.
Do they do this for gas terminals? One got hit by a car near where I work a few weeks back. I doubt the government is paying to replace it; the gas station is. Why aren't ev owners paying for these?
Electric cars are already heavily subsidized and not properly taxed.
We live in a capitalist society. The chargers should make enough money to pay for themselves and repairs if there's damage. Or they should pay for insurance.
I mean, do they pay for my cancer I get from breathing Dino-bone-juice smoke filled air as someone in the middle class who doesn’t qualify for free healthcare? Because for all the harm we inflicted in the name of oil, sure can’t hurt to spend a little giving us another path forward.
Surely it's obvious to everyone how bad of an idea this is, right? You can't just preferentially subsidize the worst functioning utilities and expect this not to produce negative incentives. If you want to subsidize public charging, subsidize public charging, don't subsidize public charging utilities being broken.
Everyone here nitpicking the trees are missing the forest: EVs are necessary to reduce CO2 output, but consumers don't want them if charging is a pain in the ass. Resolving chicken vs egg problems for the good of the nation is exactly the proper role of a well functioning government.
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[ 22.6 ms ] story [ 228 ms ] threadWant to fix someone’s drug addiction that prevents them from getting a real job and securing a lease? Won’t do that with “let’s give them a blanket and see if tomorrow they choose to stop cold Turkey”. You need more of a “ok buddy, sorry, but we’re gonna take you into a recovery center and help you go through withdrawals and take the driver seat for you for a while”.
This also presents a false dichotomy that the dollars that flow into programs like these are "stolen" from homeless people.
Electrification of transit is very much a chicken and egg scenario, and efforts like this can go a long way to balance that out -- it's a good investment but I worry about the ability to do it right.
What they did was to subcontract with multiple vendors who could not agree on integrating their sloppy systems, so we ended up with unreliable EV charging stations running on different hardware and software managed by multiple companies with complete lack of oversight by the federal government who now wants to throw another $100M at it so the money can be stolen again.
So one problem with this is that your government actually has to care about sustaining EV adoption, which a lot of them don't.
[0] https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppI...
We live in a capitalist society. The chargers should make enough money to pay for themselves and repairs if there's damage. Or they should pay for insurance.