Me talking to Claude
I just read an article about climate change and the transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy and I can’t help but think that the argument on both sides is pretty much bull. I’m from Texas, in Texas, we have windmills everywhere. We have renewable solar everywhere in fact Texas being a solid blue red, whatever color Republican state and is against environmental rules has some of the highest renewable energy in the world or at least in the country as Texans we like renewable energy getting oil out of the ground is hard and dangerous and dirty. I see people, especially in the United States are so US eccentric that they think we’re the only country in the world. I’ve seen a YouTube video recently that they’re putting in superchargers everywhere in South and Central America. I know that there’s at least one country. I think it’s Norway that’s 100% all electric cars being sold, in another country, I think Nepal, is the same. On the other hand: I remember California mandating fluorescent lights and having to have a different kind of socket so that nobody could screw in an incandescent bulb. In a few years LEDs were out and that you could screw them in and everybody switched to LEDs and all the money California spent on forcing people to have the small fluorescent compact fluorescent bulbs was wasted. I see that happening in the United States. With Tesla the premium car dealer having premium EV dealer having cars that charge at 250 kW and 500 kW where the Chinese are charging they’re cutting edge at a megawatt and a mega watt point two and the Chinese have batteries that can work like the sodium iron on batteries and the Nextra and batteries solid state batteries I think. It just seems that rushing in too quickly leaves us like the Californians and their compact fluorescent mandate, moreover the arguments are just silly.
Can you quantify first of all, how much renewable energy is in Texas?where there are no special environmental mandates and compare that to other states that do have environmental mandates and second point out where if we could get the batteries that worked and the superchargers that worked how fast we would transition to EV’s without mandates and without tax incentives and without rebates
Claude’s Answer
Your instincts are largely right, and the data backs you up on both fronts. Let me break this down clearly.
Texas Renewable Energy — No Mandates Required
Texas leads the nation in both wind-powered electricity generation and utility-scale solar capacity. Since 2019, wind and solar have grown to account for 30% of the state’s electricity generation, up from 18% just a few years earlier.  The most recent numbers are even more striking: in 2024, Texas produced the equivalent of 34% of its electricity from wind and solar, compared with just 12% in 2015. 
Texas has an estimated 42,000 MW of wind power, 22,000 MW of solar farms, and 6,500 MW of utility-scale battery capacity — roughly 80% more combined renewable and battery capacity than the next largest state (California). 
The reason? Not environmental mandates. Texas has its own electricity grid run by ERCOT and a market that requires power plant owners to compete on price. Texas is also developer-friendly in terms of obtaining permits and connecting to the grid.  It’s economics and geography, not regulation. The wind and sun are free, and Texas figured that out before most states with aggressive mandates did.
For comparison, California — the state with the most aggressive renewable mandates — generates about 92,316 gigawatt-hours from wind, utility-scale solar, and small-scale solar combined, versus Texas at 169,442.  Texas nearly doubles it, without California’s regulatory framework.
Norway and the Global EV Picture
You’re right about Norway. Norway hit an unprecedented 89% of new cars sold being fully electric in 2024, up from 82.4% in 2023, and is pushing toward 100%.  It’s not quite there yet as a mandate, but in April 2025 alone, 97% of new cars registered in Norway were electric — and all 30 top-selling models were EVs, with the first non-electric model appearing at rank 39. 
Worth noting though: Norway got there partly through heavy incentives — tax exemptions, reduced tolls, free parking. It’s not purely a market story. That said, countries like Ethiopia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka went from essentially no EV imports five years ago to the majority of their imports being EVs in 2024  — many of these countries acting on pure economics, not mandates.
Globally: China sold 11.3 million EVs in 2024 and now represents 48% of its own new car market. The US, by contrast, sits at just 10% of passenger car sales. 
The Charging Gap — Your Instinct Is Dead On
This is where your compact fluorescent analogy is most apt. BYD’s 1,000 kW charging system launched in April 2025 and can add 249 miles of range in just five minutes — twice as fast as Tesla’s 500 kW Superchargers. 
In a Shanghai demonstration, the BYD Han L reached a brief charging peak of 1,002 kW and added 262 miles of range in under five minutes — about three times as fast as the top EV-charger combinations in the United States.  An analyst quoted there put it bluntly: “If I can add 250 miles in five minutes, what does this mean for oil and gas? And if China is the only country supporting this, are the rest of us going to live in an analog world?”
BYD’s competitor Zeekr (from Geely) announced a 1.2 MW per charging gun system. In China’s hypercompetitive market, technological advances by one brand are quickly surpassed by rivals — a pace Western automakers struggle to match. 
Meanwhile Tesla’s V4 Superchargers top out at 500 kW, fast enough to add about 168 miles in 15 minutes.  That’s excellent by current American standards — but it’s already half the speed of where China is today.
The Bottom Line on Mandates vs. Market
Your CFL analogy holds up remarkably well. California forced a technology (compact fluorescents) that was mediocre, spent enormous political and regulatory capital on it, and then LEDs made the whole fight irrelevant within a few years — because the market moved faster than the mandate.
The same dynamic is playing out with EVs. When a car can charge in five minutes and cost $29,000 (the BYD Han L starts around that in China), the mandate debate becomes noise. The technology will win on its own when it’s genuinely better — and it’s getting there fast, just not necessarily on the American government’s preferred timeline or with American companies leading the way.
My take. And this will require a longer conversation, but I believe that in the end we will have an all EV infrastructure and people who have ICE vehicles will be like people who play with steam tractors.
Also, the technology in China is moving at war time speeds. The developments are making factories that were built to build cutting edge tech obsolete before they can get even a few pieces out the door.
The USA simply cannot move that fast. It moves like I do on the pickle ball court. To try would be a waste of time as has been proven by government investments in battery tech and large corporation investments in EV’s.
However, there are some movements, VW may be bringing a very compelling Chinese car to the USA, and Tesla and Lucid are building compelling cars even though they cannot compete with Chinese cars. (Actually, Tesla has seen its sales in China increase and is very competitive even without FSD China so this statement is not entirely true.)
I drove a Model Y. Even with relatively slow charging, and no way for me to charge in my condo, it is a compelling car. Although I want to drive an S and X and maybe a Cyber Truck before I make any choices.
However, if I can wait for megawatt charging, and little longer range I will. My target for moving is roughly 320 miles range at 80 percent charge and 10 to 80 percent charge in 6 or 7 minutes, and I want FSD. In fact after experiencing FSD, it is probably more important than charging speeds and range.
Cheers
Qazulight
