I'm new to this board. And have no illusions of being well informed on EV's and Hybrids.

BUT if climate warming is an existential threat AND if BYD has a hybrid that can deliver a 1300 mile range on 16 gallons of gasoline (80mpg) it would seem to the world's benefit to have as many of these on the road replacing lower mpg vehicles as soon as possible. The greater good.

But here's where the rubber always meets the road. A superior BYD vehicle would displace local manufacture and local jobs. So, once again, it's a battle between what's best for the world and what's best for the local economy.

And we know which side always wins.

To this old engineer, the fastest way to reduce pollution from light ICE cars is to replace them with hybrids. Less gasoline, less CO2 emissions. Less new infrastructure needs re. expanding electricity supplies and charging stations. Far less needs for huge new battery materials - and the mines and extraction needed to produce them. These all consume fossile energy and generate CO2. Use what is installed and working today. Toyota sees this - why can't we?

Our policy makers have tried to jump directly from lower mileage ICE cars to pure EV's without logically thinking out the needed steps along the way. Hybrid vehicles should be receiving the bulk of the light vehicle incentives today.

Everyone would win except those who have tried to put the cart before the horse in terms of a logical transition plan.

As I admitted at the start I'm not well informed on this. But I do know that pure EV vehicles start out with a significant increase in CO2 emissions compared with ICE vehicles because of the energy used to produce them. This takes some years - studies differ depending on their assumptions - about how long it takes to make up this deficit before any actual reductions occur in CO2 emissions. How do hybrid vehicles compare on this metric with EV's? Folks don't want to seem to talk about this.

We need less "ready-fire" and more "ready aim fire" in combatting CO2 emissions from light vehicles.

An aside comment. Some years ago laws were passed to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from heavy duty vehicles and marine transportation by reducing the sulfur content of their fuels. So fuel suppliers did and those emissions dropped. And temperatures rose because those emissions adsorbed solar radiation and reduced temperatures.

There are almost always unintended consequences and misunderstood tradeoffs.

It's still happening.

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