If EVs are the future, then the future is a long way off

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an internal combustion of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here. EVs get no love. Gas demand surges ab [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an internal combustion of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - EVs [get no love](. - Gas [demand surges]( above. - Historians [fail]( an econ test. - This [fund manager]( beat the rest. [Electric Avenue]( Do you love your car? I love mine. To a Tesla owner, this would seem pathetic: It’s a 10-year-old down-market German crossover that’s just the right size for Manhattan driving and just the right vintage for me [not to flip out]( over the nicks and dings that appear like stigmata every time I park on the street. It is not, alas, electric — parking garages in NYC have little interest in using their extortionate monthly fees to install charging stations. How extortionate, you ask? “Paying for one month of parking in New York City would get you almost two years of parking in Tulsa,” the New York Times [noted]( last fall. But would I love a Tesla? Liam Denning is [skeptical](: “Recent headlines about Americans ‘falling out of love’ with EVs are misplaced: US drivers were hardly amorous to begin with as evidenced by the overwhelming dominance of internal combustion engines.” You know who does love EVs? The Chinese, which is why BYD Co. Ltd. surpassed Tesla in deliveries this year. As a China-based hedge funder [tells]( Danny Lee at Bloomberg’s Big Take: “It’s no longer about the size and legacy of auto companies; it’s about the speed at which they can innovate and iterate. BYD began preparing long ago to be able to do this faster than anyone thought possible, and now the rest of the industry has to race to catch up.” Liam cites an additional factor for Chinese dominance: cost. “China already has EV models [priced cheaper]( than internal combustion counterparts,” he writes. “That is exactly what an EV revolution needs. … Rather than serving up something Mad Max might buy amid a mid-life crisis — for the better part of $100,000 — how about a reasonably affordable electric minivan?” What the EV revolution doesn’t need, or at least won’t get anytime soon, are cars that drive themselves. “Elon Musk, who had [claimed that driverless cars]( would arrive this year, just got pulled over by federal regulators,” writes Stephen Mihm. Concluding that safety features in Tesla Inc.’s Autopilot system [didn’t work as designed](, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is pushing the automaker to recall all its vehicles. “It's debatable whether Tesla and [Chief Executive Officer Musk](bbg://people/profile/1954518) can fix the problem, which has more to do with human drivers putting too much faith in the technology,” Stephen adds. “You can’t blame them, really. Visionaries like Musk have been promoting the idea of a driverless car for almost a hundred years. And yet, it never arrives.” As for the flying cars we were promised ([according to]( Peter Thiel at least), it [seems]( they have come and gone. If you need more proof that the plug-in future hasn’t arrived, consider [global demand for gasoline](, which is back to pre-pandemic levels. “The surge past the 2019 peak is particularly significant because it came against three notable headwinds: gasoline prices have been high, particularly in local currencies outside the US dollar world; work-from-home remains far more prevalent than before the pandemic; and Chinese economic growth has slowed,” writes Javier Blas. Perhaps New York could do its small bit for the planet, one parking garage at a time. [Unfair]( The copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by the New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft dives deep into a murky territory: the doctrine of fair use. Or put more cynically: How much can I get away with cribbing from another source? I’ve been a journalist for more than three decades (disclosure: two were at the NYT) and I still learned a lot from Noah Feldman’s [explanation]( of why the newspaper is likely to win the suit. Large language models pore over millions of articles, books and other printed matter to develop their impressive “intelligence,” and the Times [contends]( that millions of articles it published “were used to train automated chatbots that now compete with the news outlet as a source of reliable information.” Noah points out four principles of fair use, as codified in the Copyright Act of 1976 — this summary of which [runs]( to 135 pages — and you can decide which seems most relevant: - Educational and nonprofit uses are more likely to be found to be fair use. - Creative work gets more copyright protection than technical writing or news. - The amount of the work that has been copied matters, as does the centrality to the copied work of the material that’s been copied. - Courts consider whether the copying will harm the present or future market for the work copied. Surprise! It’s not the second principle but the fourth that Noah thinks holds the key. Given the evaporation of the lines separating social media, search engines and the traditional press, the Times has a pretty strong case that Microsoft and OpenAI will harm its bottom line. “Symbolically, the case promises a clash of the titans: labor-intensive human newsgathering against pushbutton information produced by artificial intelligence,” Noah writes. “But legally, the case represents something different: a classic instance of the lag between established law and emerging technology.” Telltale Charts One would think that after nearly a century, economists and historians would have come to some agreement about the causes and effects of the Great Depression. But as Aaron Brown [points out](, that’s not the case, at least according to a [recent paper]( “comparing the wildly different causes given for the Great Depression between college American history and economics textbooks.” Which discipline has the better grasp of history? Not the historians, argues Aaron: “It’s the nature of the history textbook explanations that concerns me. They are all conventional wisdom of people at the time that are not merely wrong, they’re not coherent or logical theories, and have no empirical support.” One solution, Aaron suggests, is that history textbooks could say the Great Depression is unexplained, or its causes “too complex and controversial to cover.” Too controversial? Not sure today’s students [grasp that concept](. Think small — really small. That philosophy, [writes]( Matt Winkler,  is responsible for the success of America’s top fund manager: Fidelity’s Adam Benjamin, who took the title for the second time in three years. “Since the beginning of the century, when he started following the industry that makes silicon and germanium, whose units are measured in a billionth of a meter, or a nanometer, Adam Benjamin has helped investors profit from the smartest part of the world,” writes Matt. Benjamin had a down 2022, but his Select Semiconductors Portfolio produced an 80% total return in 2023, leaving the competition in his silicon dust. Further Reading More thinking small: a [dream house]( of less than 2,000 square feet. — Erin Lowry Are the authoritarians [coming]( for us all? — Mark Champion You’ve probably never heard of the Bureau of Industry and Security, but it’s [taking on]( China. — Bloomberg’s editorial board Tesla may be struggling, but Elon Musk [could send]( Britain into space. — Matthew Brooker Hindsight Capital [made a killing]( off Bitcoin this year. — John Authers ICYMI Biden has a [real problem]( with my generation. Do you [have your tickets]( to the bond carnival? Not surprising: The war in Israel and Gaza was Google’s [most-searched]( news event in 2023. Quite surprising: The most-searched person was [Damar Hamlin](. Kickers Christmas [comes late]( to Foula.  Shohei Ohtani’s [mystery dog]( is named Decoy. You’ll be [drinking]( your Waldorf salads next year. This Alabama mom [delivered two babies](, from two uteruses, in two days. Taylor Swift [ate here](. And 28 other places in NYC. Notes: Please send $28 smash burgers and feedback to Tobin Harshaw at [tharshaw@bloomberg.net](mailto:jkarl9@bloomberg.net). [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. 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