680
JD Vance gloats that allies are 'suffering more than US' from high gas prices
(www.thelondoneconomic.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2026
680 points (98.4% liked)
World News
54908 readers
2237 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Ironically investing in renewable energy and EVs is how Europe can increase its energy independence. It's not like they can pump that oil from their ground.
I imagine this war will speed up this conversion even more.
One of the biggest advantages to EVs is that they can can get their power from anywhere. And even if the current power generation is from fossil fuels, as that changes so does the overall carbon "usage" of the vehicles.
The difference is also striking when you just look at energy conversion from the fuel source in the vehicle. That EV is around 85% efficient overall at turning that electricity from the wall to movement. For a gas car, you're looking at between 12-30% of the energy in the fuel tank being converted.
Exactly this. Thanks for mentioning it, i was listing it for exactly that reason, but I guess most people probably still think the only benefit is being environment friendly when it is also let to energy independence.
This is great video explaining common misconceptions: https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM
The main difference is that a modern battery has an energy density of about 0.7 MJ/kg or 700 kJ/kg, whereas gasoline has an energy density of about 45.7 MJ/kg. So, you need to pack in a lot more batteries to allow an electric car to go a meaningful distance. And, you're hauling around all that extra weight all the time, even when the batteries are nearly empty.
The weight of the fuel tank is dwarfed by the weight of the engine, which can go from 100 (petrol kei car) to 300 (diesel) kg. The battery packs on modern EVs are still heavier, usually in the 200 - 400 kg range, but the difference isn't as stark as fuel density alone might suggest.
Apparently an average fuel tank can hold somewhere between 40 and 80 litres. So, that's up to (0.75 * 80 = 60) 60 kg of fuel, which can supply 2.74 GJ of energy. If you wanted 2.74 GJ of batteries in your car, it would weigh about 4000 kg. That's double the weight of an F150, or basically the weight of a F350, engine, fuel tank, wheels, etc. included.
Now, of course, nobody puts that much battery capacity into a car or truck.
The point is, it's not an apples to oranges comparison when you talk about the energy efficiency of an EV vs. a ICE car. ICE cars are inefficient, but carry around a very energy dense fuel source and can go hundreds, sometimes thousands of km without needing to stop. EVs have much more efficient engines, but have to drag around really heavy batteries that aren't very energy dense. Their range is very constrained because if you wanted to match the range of an ICE car you'd have to almost double the weight of the car in batteries alone.
Personally, I like mass transit and bikes. But, if I had to own a car I'd get an electric one. Still, I know that the major drawback to electric cars is that battery energy density sucks compared to gasoline.
Energy efficiency does matter because even if you are burning diesel to generate electricity, you can make power stations a lot more efficient than car engines. So shifting from ICE cars to EVs would reduce fuel use even in the absence of green electricity.
This is true, but like I said, the difference isn't huge. An ICE car's fuel + engine would be in the 100 - 400kg range, while an EV's batteries + motor would be in the 200 - 500kg range. An additional 10% or so of weight is bad, but is outweighed by the at least fourfold increase in efficiency.
'Contain', not 'can supply' 2.74 GJ of energy. At 20% efficiency, you'd need a 800kg battery to match.
This is what I've been saying as well. For ages now. However I was listening to pre election political debate with parties on TV and everybody just kept talking about oil, oil and oil. Nobody even mentioned alternatives or anything else at all. And we even have a prime minister coming straight from electric energy distributor. So I'm not putting too much fate here.
This is very good video to send to anyone who fell for it https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM
It addresses pretty much every argument thrown.
It's not ironic at all.
I was referring to what he said. He said that Europe has those problems because it prioritized renewable energy and EVs instead (what he implied) pumping oil (or that snake actually meant Europe getting its security by purchasing oil from Russia, which is the complete opposite of security)