Beijing
Biden's Real Reason for Pushing Electric Vehicles So Much. [Video clip —
No transcript or synopsis available.]
Wailing
and Gnashing at the DNC. When inflation ramped up after Biden took office, Treasury
secretary Janet Yellen told the people it was transitory. Sadly, prices increased
20 percent during Biden's term. This was a result of increased government grifts, gifts,
and giveaways like rebates for electric vehicles (E.V.s) and associated charging stations, even
though most people don't want to drive E.V.s. Ford will lose more than $5 billion on
E.V. sales this year. When car manufacturers raise prices on gas-powered vehicles to make up
for these losses, the inflationary cycle will continue. And the beat goes on. Democrats
will blame Biden for these policies, but they are the result of a dream that became a nightmare for
the elitists at the DNC.
It's not just electric cars: The supply of all cars greatly exceeds the demand.
New
Vehicle Inventory Swells With Stellantis Drowning In Unsold Cars. New vehicle
inventory in the U.S. has swelled in April and four Stellantis-owned brands are partly
responsible: Jeep, Ram, Dodge, and Chrysler. So, what's going on here? An
analysis from Cox Automotive reveals that the average days' supply of new vehicles in the U.S.
increased from 74 days to 76 days at the start of May. This means there's roughly
2.84 million vehicles in inventory across the country, an increase from the 2.74 million
available at the start of March and the 2.77 million available at the start of April.
This is also 961,000 units higher than a year ago. Both Jeep and Ram had at least twice the
industry average of supplies. Jeep's inventory has swelled 21% from the start of April while
Ram's inventory has increased by 14%. Dodge also had 151 days' worth of supply followed
by Lincoln with 144 days and Chrysler with 143 days.
The Editor says...
If you look around your city, using aerial photos provided by your favorite search engine, for example,
you may run across places where several acres of apparently new cars are neatly parked. Who
owns these
cars?
Why are they not parked in a dealership? Why are so many cars being produced without any demand
for them? Is it because the unionized factories can't shut down?
More about surplus cars:
[1]
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[11]
[12]
Electric
bus manufacturer Lion Electric suspends operations at Channahon plant. Lion Electric,
which manufactures electric buses, will suspend its operations at its Channahon facility, the
company announced in a press release Tuesday. The company announced the suspension of
operations at the plant as well as temporary layoffs of about 400 workers across the company, which
is based in Canada. The layoffs leave Lion Electric with about 300 workers.
From
the Moon to Broadband: How DEI Killed American Efficiency. The Electric Vehicle
(EV) charging station initiative, officially part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) passed
in November 2021, allocated $7.5 billion to deploy a national network of charging
stations over the next decade. What do we have at the end of Biden's term? A handful of
chargers built across a scattered nine states, nowhere near the promised numbers. In
contrast, Tesla has deployed 62,400 charging stalls over the last decade and is adding another
11,000. Experts point out that adding DEI requirements to the project has increased its costs by
up to 75%, a catastrophic inefficiency. This isn't hyperbole — by insisting that
states and private contractors jump through hoops to ensure every step is DEI-compliant, the
administration has actively sabotaged its own ability to achieve anything meaningful.
Britain
has a choice: amend the electric car mandate or let the industry go bust. Vauxhall
Motors last week announced the closure of its Luton van-making factory, which employs
1,100 people directly and many, many more across local and national supply chains. The
news shocked Luton, once a major hub of the UK's automotive industry. Vauxhall has operated
in this Bedfordshire town for almost 120 years. This is just the latest disturbing
industrial closure driven in large part by the overzealous net zero policies of successive UK
governments. Unless mainstream politicians are careful, this relentless pursuit of
environmental goals will seriously alienate millions of voters across our industrial
heartlands — in fact, it already has.
Retribution?
Biden Admin Hands $6.6B to Elon Musk Rival in Last Days in Office. The Biden
administration announced Tuesday a $6.6 billion loan extension to Rivian, an electric vehicle
manufacturer and notable rival of Tesla, the car company owned by Elon Musk. The announcement
comes less than a month after President-elect Donald Trump tapped Musk to lead the
soon-to-be-launched Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a Trump project aimed at
eliminating wasteful government programs. The $6.6 billion loan is earmarked for
constructing a $5 billion electric car factory in Georgia. Rivian initially launched the
project but paused it due to financial strains, the New York Post reported Wednesday.
Vivek Ramaswamy, DOGE's co-head, criticized the multi-billion-dollar loan in a post on X, accusing
the Biden administration of approving the grant in a bid to hurt Musk.
When
EVerything Green Starts to Turn Brown. In the United Kingdom, the ruling Labour party
is in a bit of a pickle. [...] For one thing, Labour's climate-related NetZero aspirations and
associated arbitrary goals are running against an immutable force known as 'reality.' For
example, their mandated EV sales targets for auto manufacturers to meet to avoid hefty penalties
for imperiling the earth do not match up with consumer demand. This, in turn, is
creating quite a conundrum for manufacturers who need something known as a 'profit' in order to stay
in business. Sales = 'profit' thing, and sales are sadly lagging behind the ambitious fever
dreams officially set by the British government. What EVs they can move off lots they have to
practically give away, thanks to incentives. Something has to give, and automaker Stellantis
has been in talks with Labour for months now, trying to work a compromise.
Rivian
gets $6.6 billion conditional loan approval to build Georgia EV plant. Rivian
said on Monday it has received conditional approval for a loan of up to $6.6 billion from the
U.S. Department of Energy to build the electric vehicle maker's production facility in
Georgia. The announcement comes ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump,
who is expected to undo many of the Biden administration's EV-friendly policies and
incentives. Operation of the Georgia plant, where Rivian plans to build future vehicles such
as its smaller, less expensive R2 SUVs and R3 crossovers, will begin in 2028, the California-based
startup said in a statement.
Eliminating
Biden's EV mandate. While Biden's EV mandate and lavish subsidies have wrought havoc
in the auto industry, it has also affected the dependability of the U.S. energy grid. Our
energy grid was once a source of affordable and reliable power. Historically, America's power
grid has been mostly supplied by coal, with natural gas and nuclear power as significant
contributors. All these energy sources are extremely reliable, affordable, and have the
ability to produce the enormous amount of energy necessary to support the U.S. economy. [...]
Under Biden, the federal government has mandated the retirement of reliable and conventional energy
plants while rewarding utilities with extravagant profits for the construction of so-called green
energy sources such as wind and solar. What's more, the push for green energy has been
advocated for by giant utility companies and green lobbyists. Unsurprisingly, this has led to
the destabilization of the energy grid and ever-rising energy prices as well as more frequent
blackouts and brownouts. Ironically, the EVs that Biden, Left-leaning ideologues, and green
lobbyists want to force Americans to drive require huge amounts of electricity from a grid they are
making less reliable.
Green
Nightmare: Hertz Accelerates Tesla Selloff as EV Fleet Depreciation Slams Rental
Giant. Rental car giant Hertz is dramatically expanding its electric vehicle selloff
program, with used Tesla Model 3s now available for under $20,000 as the company grapples with
mounting EV depreciation costs. Hertz's heavy investment in Tesla EVs has been a disaster
causing massive losses and the loss of its CEO. Inside EVs reports that Hertz's ambitious
electric vehicle program has hit another significant roadblock, with the company reporting an
89 percent increase in EV depreciation costs, amounting to $537 per vehicle per month.
The rental car company has committed to selling 30,000 electric vehicles from its fleet by the end
of 2024, marking a stark reversal from its earlier EV adoption strategy.
EV
Tax Credits Are On the Chopping Block. Reuters reported today that the incoming Trump
administration is discussing a rollback of EV tax credits. Both Tesla and Elon Musk are said
to be on board with the plan. [...] Musk hasn't said anything directly about the discussions but
earlier this summer he predicted that cutting the subsidies would devastate his competitors. [...]
Tesla currently has about half of the US EV market but, unlike nearly all of their competitors,
they are making money on every sale. In fact, their profit margins are the highest in the
industry even as their cars are priced below the average in the industry.
EV
chargers [have been] hit by [a] spate of cable thefts. Metal thieves have targeted dozens of
council-owned electric vehicle chargers across Sheffield. The city council said at one stage
just two of its 27 chargers were in use after being damaged by thieves stealing cabling. Joe
Otten, chair of the street scene committee, said it was believed the cables were being taken for
their scrap value, describing the incidents as "immensely frustrating". He said the authority
was working alongside South Yorkshire Police and using CCTV in a bid to crackdown on the thefts.
Another unstoppable lithium battery fire:
Fire
crews tackling blaze at waste recycling site. An MP has called for a "national
conversation" on lithium battery fires after a large blaze at a waste recycling site. Six
fire engines and aerial ladder platforms were sent to Wallace Way in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, at
02:30 GMT after a large fire. More than 60 emergency calls were made to report the fire and a
high-volume pump was set up, resulting in the closure of a junction between Cadwell Lane, Wilbury
Way and Woolgrove Road. There have been multiple waste site fires in Hitchin recently.
Labour MP Alistair Strathern hoped to spark conversation on the dangers of batteries fires, but
admitted it was too soon to tell the exact cause of this incident.
Electric
Vehicles: A Tale of Woe in the Absence of the Market Process. You don't need a
government agent to tell you what you want or when you want it. Milton Friedman explained
that "market processes" allow individuals to interact and exchange goods and services
voluntarily. The prices they charge in these exchanges guide production and consumption
decisions, ultimately leading to the most efficient resource allocations, maximized customer
satisfaction, and increased purchasing power, and this all occurs with minimal need for government
interference. When it comes to electric vehicles, the absence of a "market process" has
ignored consumers' wants and needs and allowed consumer demand to be misinterpreted. Demand
exists only when a consumer needs and/or wants a product and can afford it. However, when
government mandates and subsidies push EVs instead of more desirable vehicles, we can't tell if
manufacturers are producing the optimal number of electric vehicles.
Volkswagen
Cuts Costs Due to Poor Electric Vehicle Sales. Auto manufacturer Volkswagen (VW)
announced on Wednesday that it would be implementing further cost cutting measures in response to
consistently low sales of electric vehicles (EVs). [Advertisement] According to the
Daily Caller, Volkswagen's profits plummeted by 64% in the third quarter of 2024, which
resulted in the company's stock price tumbling to its lowest level since October of 2010. As
the largest automobile manufacturer in the world by overall sales, the company announced a series
of cost-cutting measures to combat this decline, including shuttering at least three of its
factories in Germany, reducing wages by 10%, and laying off thousands of employees.
[Advertisement] "We've not forgotten how to build great cars, but the costs, specifically in
our German operations and factories, are far from being competitive," said Chief Financial Officer
Arno Antlitz in a statement on Wednesday. "Things cannot continue as they are now."
Another
Lithium Ion Big Badda Battery Plant BOOM. Wednesday afternoon, a fire broke out at
Critical Mining Recovery, a 225,000 sq ft, reportedly about-a-year-old lithium battery recycling
facility in Fredericktown, Missouri. In an absolute miracle, no one at the plant was injured
or killed. [...] By early afternoon, the plumes of black, highly toxic smoke were so thick that the
local sheriff and fire department issued an immediate evacuation order for everyone in the area,
and people north of the site in the plume's path as it lifted were told to shelter in place.
And keep those houses buttoned up tight while not running things like air-conditioning that would
draw the air indoors from outside.
Electric
[Garbage Truck] Bursts into Flames in Central London. An electric bin lorry burst
into flames in central London on Monday morning, forcing roads in the West End to close.
Specialist crews were deployed to the fire after the £580,000 electric lorry caught
fire. The lithium battery-powered trucks were recently launched by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of
London, as part of a Westminster City council initiative to reduce carbon emissions. Oxford
Street and Duke Street were closed following the incident as firefighting operations and
investigations continued.
Fires,
Pollution and Slavery: EVs' Ugly Truth. The electric vehicle (EV) is heralded
as a cornerstone of the fight against climate change, with promises of a cleaner, greener
future. As recently as July, the Biden-Harris administration announced billions of dollars of
government support for EV manufacturing. However, a growing concern lies beneath the shiny
surface of electric cars and bikes: the safety risks of lithium-ion batteries, particularly their
propensity to catch fire. The rosy image of EVs as environmental saviors doesn't align with
their increasing reputation as flammable hazards. Lithium batteries are designed to store a
significant amount of energy in a compact space, which increases not only their efficiency but also
their risk profile. When these batteries overheat, short-circuit or suffer physical damage,
they can ignite and burn with alarming intensity. New York is particularly notorious for the
large number of E-bike fires. Entire shipments of cars on cargo ships have been burnt up in
the middle of ocean due to fires from EV batteries.
Researchers
say Arkansas may have 19M tons of lithium critical for battery power. A new study led
by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found a large amount of lithium reserves in southwestern
Arkansas that could help meet rising demand for lithium in electric vehicle car batteries.
USGS worked with the Arkansas Department of Energy and the Environment's Office of the State
Geologist to examine a geological unit known as the Smackover Formation to determine the amount of
lithium in brines that are co-produced during oil and gas exploration. The study estimated
that there are between 5 million and 19 million tons of lithium reserves present in the
formation. While that estimate was of the amount of lithium in place and didn't assess how
much of that is technically recoverable, if the reserves can be recovered commercially, the low-end
estimate of 5 million tons would be enough to meet the world's projected 2030 demand for
lithium batteries in electric vehicles nine times over.
The Editor says...
[#1] Lithium is not an energy source. Use extreme caution before investing in Arkansas lithim. Or Arkansas anything.
[#2] Lithium mined in Arkansas cannot be produced at a price that will compete with Lithium mined by ten-year-old slaves in Africa
or China.
Ford
Reports $1.2 Billion Loss On Electric Vehicles In Q3 Amid Struggling EV Market.
Ford Motor Company recorded a $1.2 billion loss on electric vehicles (EV) in the third quarter
of 2024, as announced in a press release Monday. The automaker's net income also dropped to
$0.9 billion, down by $300 million from the same period last year, primarily due to a
$1 billion EV-related charge. Ford's full-year earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT)
are expected to reach about $9 billion from its Ford Pro commercial vehicle division, while
its EV segment, Model e, is projected to close the year with a $5 billion loss.
'Why
did our parked electric car burst into flames?' A mother said her family was "lucky
to have got out safely" after their parked electric car exploded and engulfed their house in
flames. Georgina Bayliss from Spratton, Northamptonshire, said their Mercedes EQA had been
parked outside their house for several hours before the explosion. She said her younger son
had seen flames around the front of the house and thought the rest of the family and their five
dogs were still inside. Mercedes-Benz UK said it was carrying out an investigation.
Electric
police cars: another Harris/Biden boondoggle. Among the spectacularly bad ideas
politicians foist on Normal Americans are Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates. Worse is mandating
electric vehicles for police vehicles. As one might expect, early adopters of this idiocy are
California police departments: [...] Police cars [...] can easily exceed 100,000 miles in
18 months, and by then they're usually ready for the scrap heap. They have to be able to
run 24/7/365 with often inadequate maintenance, and they wear out tires in as little as
8,000 miles. They're constantly running, have enormous electric power drain, need full
force heat in winter, full force air conditioning in summer, and have to be refueled toward the end
of every shift unless call volume prevents it, then the next shift has to find time. Internal
combustion engined (ICE) vehicles can handle it. EVs can't. Few EVs, other than full
sized SUVs, are large enough for all the equipment police vehicles have to carry, to say nothing of
transporting prisoners.
Another
Week, Another EV Battery Catastrophe. Taiwan new outlets report that nine mothballed
electric buses spontaneously burst into fire Monday in a Taichung City bus lot. City fire
officials attributed the fire to the buses' lithium-ion batteries, which have a history of too
often just combusting without external cause. The buses were 9 of 50 such electric buses
housed on a lot owned by defunct electric bus maker Sifang Electric Bus Company. SEBC went
into bankruptcy last year due to overwhelming debt and financial losses, leaving its employees
unpaid. The bus fleet has been sitting in the lot abandoned for over a year. This all
raises the question of why, given the history of these EV batteries spontaneously combusting, the
buses were allowed to sit and deteriorate without someone in a position of authority demanding the
batteries be removed and safely disposed of? The likely answer, of course, is that properly
disposing of these massive batteries containing all sorts of toxic substances is a dangerous and
expensive process, and no one wanted to assume the financial responsibility.
Elite
Democrats tried to force electric cars on American drivers. Now the rebellion is
growing. A strong case can be made that the worst thing that ever happened to the
electric vehicle industry was Joe Biden. His strongarm tactics to force Americans to buy
battery-operated cars have only stiffened consumer resolve not to purchase them. EV sales had
been robust before Biden entered the White House, but the boomlet stalled as conservative voters
rebelled and even ridiculed EVs as "Biden cars". While EVs have become popular in blue states
like New York and California — where more than one-third of the sales have
occurred — Red Staters have turned a thumbs down to these cars of the future. That
hasn't been the only setback. Deloitte's Global Automotive Consumer Study recently found:
"Consumer interest in [traditional] Internal Combustion Engine vehicles is rebounding" due to
"affordability concerns" about $75,000 plug-in vehicles. Some 67 percent of consumers said
they prefer an internal combustion engine for their next vehicle purchase — up from
58 percent last year. Just 6 percent prefer pure EVs and 21 percent prefer hybrids.
Researchers
say Arkansas may have 19M tons of lithium critical for battery power. A new study led
by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found a large amount of lithium reserves in southwestern
Arkansas that could help meet rising demand for lithium in electric vehicle car batteries.
USGS worked with the Arkansas Department of Energy and the Environment's Office of the State
Geologist to examine a geological unit known as the Smackover Formation to determine the amount of
lithium in brines that are co-produced during oil and gas exploration. The study estimated
that there are between 5 million and 19 million tons of lithium reserves present in the
formation. While that estimate was of the amount of lithium in place and didn't assess how
much of that is technically recoverable, if the reserves can be recovered commercially, the low-end
estimate of 5 million tons would be enough to meet the world's projected 2030 demand for
lithium batteries in electric vehicles nine times over.
Stating
the Patently Obvious: Lithium Ion Batteries Fires Are a Problem. You know how
awfully fond I am of the lithium-ion battery stories. Sometimes, the ones I've covered have
been semitrailers full of them overturning and lighting off, or a warehouse full, or — more
menacing — a battery storage facility close to residential areas that suddenly goes thermal, and
evacuations ensue. [...] This morning, between a note from Global Travlr and a WattsUpWithThat
email about the same event, I thought I had my theme set and ready to go. But when
researching, I found something even more disturbing. Everything is all tied together by
battery fires.
California
police agencies going green with Teslas complain they're 'nearly unusable' as squad
cars. California police departments are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on
Teslas to comply with the state's zero-emissions mandate — only for some to find them
"nearly unusable" as squad cars. Multiple municipalities have started buying modified
electric cars since Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill in 2020 ordering that all vehicles sold in
California be zero-emission by 2035. The city of Irvine even spent a whopping $150,000 on just
one tricked-out Tesla Cybertruck, drawing the ire of taxpayers because it is not for regular patrol
but more to turn heads in anti-drug D.A.R.E. programs, according to LAist.
Green
Problems: How Many EVs Must You Sell to Reverse the Emissions of One EV Fire?
[Scroll down] To be clear, I don't care if a company wants to build them or someone
wants to buy them. My objection is to the regulatory strong-arming (EPA mileage rules) and
fiscal incentives (falsely marketed as free money), all of which ordinary Americans who can't
afford an EV or would find nothing practical must pay. EV use increases electricity demand,
which drives up costs for everyone (and if you share a grid with a neighboring state run by
lunatics), you get to pay for the added cost of their Environmental health issues and the actual
health issues. EVs burn. Increasingly. The number of fires rises to meet the
funding available encouraging virtue-signalers to buy these rolling time bombs. When they
burn, they burn hot and long and can't be put out. We are fortunate if they can be
contained. The fumes from a car fire are not friendly to the local environment, but EV car
fires are like chemical firebombs. A car with glass, polymers, plastics, glass, fabrics, and
electronics, plus the lithium battery pack and all the additional copper and rare earth
metals — and the lithium.
Experts
say it's possible for hackers to take control of EV features, even trigger battery
fires. In September, thousands pagers and walkie-talkies held by members of Hezbollah
exploded. The incident appears to have been the result of explosives hidden within the
batteries of the devices by Israel's intelligence service, Mossad, and the Israeli military, then
triggered remotely. While the devices appear to have been physically modified, the incident
highlights a security concern for electric vehicles. The vehicles have a number of safety
systems to prevent the battery from catching fire, and the battery packs in the vehicles are much
larger than any hand-held device. Those safety systems run on software that can be
hacked. When large lithium-ion battery packs catch fire, the result can be anywhere between a
smoldering fire lasting months or something more explosive. Roy Fridman, CEO and chief
revenue officer for C2A Security, an Israel-based cybersecurity company focused on the automotive
industry, said that one automaker told him that the software that controls a motor has
2 million lines of code. And that's just the motor.
My
electric car will be the death of me: Why can't it cope with cold weather? Ask
my friends and family and they'll tell you: I am an electric car bore. I'm not a
gushing enthusiast. [...] I fancied a Tesla as they seemed really cool. But there were no electric cars on
my employer's company car list. For those who don't drive a company car, this is the list of cars that are
made available to you through your work. For car lovers it's a borderline magical experience. Imagine,
you just tick a box and get a car! So I used all my powers of persuasion (I work in sales) to convince HR
that we really should have an environmentally friendly option to help us in our march towards net zero and battle
climate change. They duly agreed. Alas the allocated budget did not stretch to a Tesla, so I ended up
with a Kia e-Niro, surely the least cool of all EVs. I should have seen this first disappointment as a
portent of things to come.
The
Very Real Danger of Wet Electric Vehicles Catching Fire. In the run-up to Hurricane
Helene striking his state in late September, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned citizens to be
careful about allowing their electric vehicles (EVs) to become inundated with water because of the
possibility of fire. With more than 250,000 EVs registered in the state, DeSantis felt it
prudent to tell citizens that the vehicles they may have purchased to do their part to address
climate change weren't necessarily the best thing to have in Hurricane Alley.
The
EV Flame Out. It is now, or should be, common knowledge that electric
vehicles — cars, trucks, buses, bikes, scooters — under conditions of even
low humidity or water damage, are prone to catching fire, owing to the unstable nature of the
lithium-ion battery. As Chris Morrison writes at The Daily Skeptic, EVs are known to explode
"with the force of a bomb blasting super-heated jets of flame, melting and decomposing nearby
structural materials including metal and concrete, and sending vast amounts of toxic fumes into any
enclosed atmosphere." [Advertisement] [Tweet] Jammed into underground parking
garages or packed in ferries, EVs are harbingers of almost unimaginable disaster —
ecological and safety menaces to which the Net Zero fanatics among our political leadership are
comatosely indifferent. We have witnessed lethal battery explosions in South Korea and
elsewhere with significant loss of life.
The
electric vehicle doom loop gets absurd. As the electric vehicle (EV) market continues
to collapse into a smoking pile of melted metal and plastic politicians, and EV makers, are
finally, belatedly, taking notice. How could they do otherwise? Government hasn't yet
taken upon itself the power to force Americans to buy EVs or to destroy their internal combustion
engine (ICE) vehicles, but whenever the election is decided after November 5 — if
Trump's ahead, there will be many votes to "find" — that might change. [...] [Consumers]
don't want them in part because when EV batteries get wet, particularly from saltwater, they burst
into flames, and even explode, as unfortunate EV owners inundated by Hurricane Helene have
discovered. Cars, trucks and scooters have melted down.
It's
Been a Bad News Week for Lithium Ion Batteries. There are some lessons to be learned
here, but we've become so dependent on these things so quickly that I'm not sure what we pivot
to. I think probably breathing deeply and figuring out how to deal with the problems we have
on our hands right now would be a good thing before we proceed any further into this brave, new,
all-electric mandated world, no? What am I talking about? Lithium-ion
batteries (LIB) going boom in the worst places and what to do when that happens. On Thursday,
the 26th of September, on the freeway outside of the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California,
one of "those accidents" happened.
No
One Is Buying the New Fiat 500. Things aren't looking great for Stellantis.
Sales for the company's Dodge and Jeep brands in America are cratering, and its overseas brands
aren't doing much better. Adding to the bad news, Stellantis announced today it will extend
its suspension of production for the all-electric Fiat 500 until November 1 over low
demand. The company originally stopped production of the 500 on September 12, planning
to idle the car's Mirafiori, Italy plant for four weeks. Now, that stoppage has been extended
by another three weeks. The decision, Reuters reports, comes alongside a statement given to
trade unions claiming the electric car market in Europe is "in deep trouble."
The Editor says...
If I had a lot of extra cash, I would buy one of these cars, simply because nobody else wants one, then put it
in an oxygen-free container in a remote warehouse, wait about 50 years, and sell it as a rare antique.
Jeep
tells owners to stop charging Wrangler, Grand Cherokee EVs and park outdoors. As the
State of Michigan continues to push electric vehicles on Michiganders and the auto industry, Jeep
has issued the recall of nearly 200,000 plug-in SUV hybrids due to fire hazards, ABC 7 Detroit
reported. Along with the recall, Jeep is telling customers to stop charging their Wranglers
and Grand Cherokees built in the past two years, and to park outdoors and far away from flammable
things, as the cars can apparently catch fire while the ignition is off. In total, Stellantis,
the corporation which manufactures Jeeps and recently announced that it may lay off up to 50% of its
North American workforce, recalled 194,000 vehicles, 154,000 of which are in North America.
Jeep
announces recall for almost 200k plug-in SUVs that are at-risk of spontaneous
combustion. Electric vehicles are already an exaggerated hazard on the
road — weight and risk of fire — but now, a quality control problem is
exacerbating the latter of those factors. [...] The solutions offered by Jeep? Well, as you
read above, don't park your vehicle anywhere near a habitable structure, and don't have any charge
in the battery: "The company says the risk of fire is reduced when the battery charge is depleted."
Ummm... what? Is this a joke? How did these two "solutions" make it past the public
relations team? E.V.s are largely concentrated in urban areas, because they're largely
purchased by progressive individuals who live in big cities, so I'm not exactly sure where Jeep
expects these people to find a big open lot to park these fire hazards.
The
EV Graveyard. Last week, the House approved a resolution to block the Biden
administration's emissions rule that would require more than half of the automobiles sold in the
new-car market to be electric by 2032. The 215 representatives who voted for the bill, including
eight Democrats, are far more in tune with most of the country than the White House. The
"deplorables" and "bitter" clingers of the industrialized world are rejecting electric
vehicles. Nationwide, the inventory of unsold EVs had grown by nearly 350% over the first
half of 2024, creating "a 92-day supply — roughly three months' worth of EVs, and nearly
twice the industry average," says Axios, which is 54 days for gasoline-powered vehicles.
Ford, which lost nearly $73,000 on each EV it sold in the second quarter of 2023, continues to
yield to reality, now ditching its plans to build a large electric SUV. This "course change," says
Just the News, "comes amid lower-than-expected demand for electric vehicles." The company has
also "pushed back to 2027" plans for "another electric vehicle project for a pickup truck."
Cost
of driving electric car up to twice the price of petrol or diesel. ritain's public
charging network is so expensive that the cost of driving an electric car is now up to twice the
price of running a petrol or diesel vehicle. The UK has more than 12,500 rapid or ultra-rapid
charging stations — a 40 percent increase on a year ago — but data
shared with The Times shows they cost an average of 80 p per kilowatt hour (kWh), making the switch
to electric cars prohibitively expensive for motorists who do not have access to cheaper at-home
charging. Prices at rapid chargers have increased 5 percent over the past year, according to
ZapMap, which supplied the data. Over the same period, the wholesale cost of electricity has
fallen by 30 percent.
8
Democrats Join Republicans in House Resolution to Overturn Federal Electric Vehicle
Rule. The U.S. House of Representatives on Sept. 20 voted to overturn a Biden
administration rule that sets tougher emissions standards for car manufacturers. The joint
resolution that passed in a 215-191 vote — with eight Democrats in support and one
Republican in opposition — would nullify the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new
restrictions on emissions from cars, light trucks, pick-ups, and vans for model years 2027 to 2032.
Although the rule does not explicitly impose an electric vehicle (EV) mandate, it is expected
to force manufacturers to electrify more of their fleets to comply.
Congressional
Report: Biden-Harris Electric School Bus Program is 'Enriching' China. A new
congressional report claims that the Biden-Harris Administration's attempts to mandate electric
school buses in the United States is only benefiting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as the the
materials required for such vehicles come from China. According to Fox News, the 51-page
report by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations takes a closer
look at the White House's Clean School Bus Program (CSBP), first enacted in 2021. The program
appropriated $5 billion from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to force schools across
the country to replace conventional, gas-powered buses with "clean" electric school buses (ESBs).
"Costly subsidies for ESBs are a poor use of federal taxpayer money at a time when school budgets are
increasingly strained," the report states. "Currently, it is only the existence of massive
taxpayer-funded subsidies that enables ESBs to compete with diesel buses and low emission
buses in the market."
The
Electric Vehicle Transition That Isn't. Democrats hail electric vehicles as the
"future," but their autotopia keeps getting deferred. Ford and Stellantis this week joined a
conga line of auto makers rolling back EV investments amid flagging consumer demand. Has the
government ever subsidized a product that loses this much money? Ford announced Wednesday
that it will cancel production of an electric SUV and delay an electric pickup truck. As a
result, it expects to take a $1.9 billion write-down. Believe it or not, this may be
less costly than producing EVs that Americans don't want. Ford lost an astonishing $44,000 on
each EV it sold in the second quarter and expects to lose $5 billion on them this year.
Stellantis this week said it would delay investments to retool its shuttered plant in Belvidere,
Ill., for EV production. The stated reason: "it is critical that the business case for all
investments is aligned with market conditions and our ability to accommodate a wide range of
consumer demands." Imagine that — catering to consumer, rather than government,
demands. [Paywall]
Second-hand
electric car prices falling at faster and faster rate. Electric vehicles (EVs) are
losing value at an "unsustainable" rate as a slowdown in consumer demand sends used car prices
tumbling, leasing companies have warned. The British Vehicle Rental & Leasing Association
(BVRLA) warned that so-called fleet operators, such as car leasing firms and rental companies, are
having to swallow large losses when reselling EVs because of "accelerated, exceptional
depreciation". In most cases, these companies buy new cars and own them for three years before
selling them. Consumers who lease cars during these three-year periods effectively cover the
value of losses through monthly payments, which are calculated based on estimates of how much a
vehicle is expected to depreciate. But in the past two years, the typical amount of
"residual value" left over at the end of a car's lease has plunged from 60 [percent]
to 35 [percent], the BVRLA said.
Labour
to back away from 2030 petrol car ban. Ministers are planning to back away from a
total ban on the sale of new petrol-powered cars by allowing hybrid vehicles to remain on the
market until 2035. In its election manifesto, Labour vowed to scrap the sale of "new cars with
internal combustion engines" by 2030 as part of efforts to reach net zero. The language
suggested that new hybrids — such as Nissan's best-selling Qashqai which uses a petrol
or diesel engine in conjunction with a battery — would be covered by the ban. But
amid growing reluctance among drivers to buy electric vehicles and concerns about range, resale
value and the availability of charging points, as well as lobbying from the manufacturing industry,
the Government is now expected to make clear that hybrids will still be sold for an extra five
years after "pure" petrol and diesel cars.
Electric
vehicles contribute more to river pollution than other cars. Electric vehicles
pollute rivers more than other cars because of their weight, according to the chairman of the
Environment Agency. Road run-off from tyres contains pollution, including microplastics, that
contaminates the waterways in the UK. Nearly 20 percent of the pollution problem in England's
rivers is caused by the run-off from towns, cities and transport, according to a report from the
Environmental Audit Committee.
Volkswagen
Weighs First Plant Closure Ever As China Encroaches On EV Market. Volkswagen (VW) AG
is considering shuttering factories in Germany as European car companies struggle to compete with
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers. The company has not closed a German plant in its
entire 87-year history, but facing a slowdown in European car sales and stiff competition from
Chinese EV maker BYD it is now weighing its options, according to Bloomberg. Experts predict
the move would spark closures across the continent, with more than 30 European car factories
currently operating at unprofitable levels. "If even VW mulls closing factories in Germany,
given how hard that process will be, it means the seas have gotten very rough," Pierre-Olivier
Essig, a London-based equities analyst at AIR Capital, told Bloomberg. "The situation is very
alarming." [Tweet]
The Editor says...
The situation is only alarming if you didn't see it coming. And the only reason they didn't see this
coming is that they didn't think it through. Electric cars are a novelty item. Everybody who wants
one has already bought one. Above all, five minutes of research will show you there's no reason to avoid
hydrocarbons, because carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. The U.S. EPA says it is, but that should be your
first clue that it isn't!
Bloodbath
In the Auto Industry. Consumers don't want to buy EVs because they are expensive and
inconvenient, if not at times impossible, to charge. But government quotas try to force us to
buy EVs against our will: [...] The situation will only get worse, as the number of required EVs is
slated to continue rising until all cars are electric. In the meantime, auto companies and
dealers are losing enormous amounts of money. A number of manufacturers have scaled back
plans to convert their fleets to EVs in the face of stagnant sales.
The
elitism of electric cars. No invention has done more to liberate society than the
mass-produced car. It has become as democratised as such a complex piece of machinery can
be. Today, just £1,000 gets you a Vauxhall Corsa from the early 2010s. While it
won't be fast, exciting or luxurious, it will get you as far as your petrol money and dreams will
take you. Or, more likely, to work and back. Electric cars upend much of this, bringing
greater expense and requiring a host of well-documented sacrifices from drivers.
Unsurprisingly, most are unwilling to make the switch. This issue has become so pronounced
that manufacturers are now restricting sales of petrol and diesel models to avoid the gargantuan
government fines (£15,000 per car over quota) that will be imposed on brands if they don't
shift enough EVs. Such threats wouldn't be needed if the product were in demand. Yet
ministers still refuse to consider that motorists have good reason to be wary of electric cars.
Carmakers
Should Have Unplugged from EVs Long Ago. Let the spectacularly improvident electric
vehicle subsidy scam be a belated lesson about putting power-drunk government-knows-best autocrats
in the driver's seat. Consequentially, carmakers have jacked up prices of petroleum-fueled
cars and trucks that free market customers prefer to offset huge manufacturing losses —
despite taxpayer charities — for plug-in models that cost consumers more while offering
them less utility combined with no operating efficiencies and higher maintenance. Ford has
recently announced plans to take a $1.9 billion write-down in cancelling production of an
electric SUV and delaying an electric pickup truck after losing $44,000 on each EV it sold in the
second quarter and is expecting to lose $5 billion on them this year. Ford's huge losses
will only increase exponentially if newly ramped-up Democratically-endorsed DOT greenhouse gas
tailpipe emission standards prevail, requiring companies to produce nearly four electric trucks for
each gas-powered model by 2032. This is the second time Ford has delayed opening of a new
Tennessee EV truck factory, the largest in its 120-year history now tentatively rescheduled for a
2027 debut.
Kamala
Harris Won't Say Whether She Would Sign Her Own EV Mandate Bill. Vice President
Kamala Harris's campaign recently walked back Harris's position on EV mandates, stating she "does
not support an electric vehicle mandate." But the campaign is now shying away from questions about
whether Harris would sign or veto legislation she personally cosponsored in the Senate that would
implement a nationwide EV mandate. The campaign on Wednesday ignored several questions from
the Washington Free Beacon asking for it to clarify Harris's position on EV mandates.
That came one day after a Harris campaign official declined to comment late Tuesday to Axios
on whether she would even sign the so-called Zero-Emission Vehicles Act that she helped craft in
2019, creating the appearance that the Democratic candidate for president is running from the
issue. The Harris campaign's refusal to state a positive policy position —
instead, clarifying what her position is not — makes EV mandates the latest issue on
which Harris has essentially done a U-turn.
The
Trials and Tribulations of Traveling 500 Miles in an EV in One Day. Putting
aside my prejudice against New York City and the entire state of California, I just don't get
electric cars. Thanks to Julie Myhre-Nunes of Nerdwallet, I now understand why so many people
are opposed to buying them. She drove a Chevy Volt from San Jose to Las Vegas, a 500-mile
trip. Google Maps says the trip should take about 8 hours. Ms. Myhre-Nunes's
trip took 11.5 hours. There may be a lot of people on the fence about purchasing an EV
but I'm not one of them. I would love to get one if they can ever match a gas-powered car in
performance, range, and style (the Tesla is pretty snazzy). But the timeline looks to be about
10 years before they can solve some of the most pressing problems with EVs that make driving
one an exercise in blood pressure control.
A Thermal Runaway of Bad News for Rivian.
Because Rivian still has several billion dollars of investor cash to burn through, it's not at the
top of my EV Manufacturer Death Pool. (Lucid and VinFast will likely fail first.) But
Rivian is the largest and most over-hyped of the Tesla competitors, having seduced bad investments
from major corporations like Amazon and Volkswagen, and from credulous politicians like Georgia
Governor Brian Kemp. When Rivian fails, it will be the most spectacular of the overhyped EV
bubble companies to fully deflate. There has been an explosion of additional bad news for
Rivian in recent days - you might even call it a thermal runaway. Concurrent with this bad
news is a level of corporate reticence that makes me question how forthright Rivian is being about
its problems. Specifically, Rivian has suspended production of its much-hyped Amazon vans,
blaming the production shutdown on a "parts shortage," but refusing to specify what the part is.
In England:
Why
slowing demand for electric cars is forcing manufacturers to ration petrol models.
When the Government announced laws forcing carmakers to sell more electric vehicles (EVs),
ministers hailed it as a triumph that would put Britain at the vanguard of the clean energy
transition. Eight months later, however, and there are fears these ambitions are making hard
contact with reality. The zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which came into force in
January, requires 22 [percent] of new cars sold in the UK to be electric in 2024, rising annually
to 80 [percent] by 2030. It was designed to provide manufacturers with certainty they could
ramp up production of new EVs, while providing a steady stream of supply to the much bigger used
car market. Next to this carrot, there is also a stick: those who don't comply face fines
of £15,000 for every car that goes over their non-green quota. Yet there are fears that the
Government's drive to increase EV ownership is currently stalling, as motorists refuse to play ball.
Why
is it so hard to buy a petrol car? Is it really any surprise that car manufacturers
have started refusing to sell us petrol cars? According to Robert Forrester, chief executive
of dealership Vertu Motors, anyone trying to buy a petrol car at the moment is likely to be quoted
a delivery date into next year. As I wrote here last December, unless electric vehicles (EVs)
enjoyed a sudden rush of popularity, the inevitable result of the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV)
mandate would be that car manufacturers would be forced to withdraw from the UK market. The
reason was coming down the road at us like a three-ton electric SUV. Under ZEV, which began on 1
January this year, manufacturers are obliged to ensure that at least 22 percent of their sales
this year are pure electric models. If they fail to meet this threshold they will be fined
£15,000 for every petrol, diesel or hybrid car that they are over the limit.
The
electric car fiasco is proof that we're not a free country. You may be under the
pleasant impression that this is still a free country. If, for example, you wanted to buy a
petrol car — which is perfectly legal — surely you would be free to do
so. Well, not exactly. In some places, there is now a waiting list: if you order a
petrol car now, you will have to wait until February for delivery. The problem is not that
the manufacturers cannot make them fast enough. Instead, rationing has been imposed by the
Government, which has ruled that at least 22 percent of cars sold in Britain must be
electric. In order to avoid extortionate net-zero fines, the roll-out of petrol vehicles must
be delayed. Manufacturers are not refusing to sell electric cars out of malice. Sales
figures simply reflect consumer demand: petrol cars are cheaper and easier to maintain than
their electric counterparts, and so tend to sell better. But never mind what the people
want. Our personal decisions are only valid if they are in service of some broader political goal.
The
Cold, Hard, Kamala-Repelling Truth about Electric Vehicles. Kamala Harris has
flip-flopped on her E.V. stance. Her campaign staff, particularly communications official
Ammar Moussa, contends it's a "lie" that she supports E.V. mandates. However, then-senator
Harris was a co-sponsor of the Zero Emissions Vehicles Act of 2019, a bill that proposed to require
100% of new car sales to be E.V.s or otherwise be emissions-free by 2040. The key is
"emissions-free." Her flip-flop is proof that she will say or do anything to get elected.
It also illustrates that her environmentalist beliefs are to be subjugated to the appearance of
being more mainstream, therefore more electable, by throwing her leftist belief under the
bus. She will, if elected, pick that belief back up. She has said her values have not
changed. She is therefore one who lets her ideology override reality. Although E.V.s
themselves may be emissions-free, most of the electricity generated in North American has
greenhouse gas emissions associated with it.
Not
Persuaded by a Million-Mile Car. Atlantic writer Mateo Wong gushes about "a group of
people in a red Tesla driving through the Moroccan desert," when one exclaims, "Two million, Hans!"
Apparently, the 2014 Model S became the first electric car to drive 2 million kilometers,
or 1.24 million miles. It turns out that to achieve that milestone, the car needed
"several battery and motor replacements." I'm not sure that counts as a record. In fact,
almost any car might last that long with "several engine replacements." In fact, it is far from
setting any record. Guiness World Records lists several gas-powered cars that have topped a
million miles, with their original engines and drivetrains and without major repairs.
Recent
electric vehicle fire in Normal [Illinois] raises safety concerns. After nearly 60
electric vehicles went up in flames at Rivian's EV manufacturing plant in Normal, questions
remain. The fire destroyed high-priced EVs waiting to be shipped to customers. The
cause is still unknown. This incident follows a fire last month in which three Rivian Amazon
Electric Delivery Vans ignited at a fulfillment center in Texas. It is just another blow to
Rivian, which recently received $827 million in tax incentives from the state of Illinois to
expand operations.
Report:
Kamala Harris Claims She 'Does Not Support' Electric Car Mandates After Years of Backing
Them. Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign now claims she "does not
support" Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates after years of supporting such mandates as a Senator and in
her role in President Joe Biden's administration. According to The Spectator's Amber
Duke, Harris's campaign sent an email to supporters on Tuesday claiming "Vice President Harris does
not support an electric vehicle mandate." The statement comes after years of Harris
campaigning, championing, and supporting EV mandates that require automakers to produce and sell a
certain percentage of EVs to American consumers. [Tweet]
Canada
to impose 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, including Teslas. Canada, following the lead of
the United States and European Union, said on Monday it would impose a 100% tariff on imports of
Chinese electric vehicles and announced a 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminum from
China. The duties apply to all EVs shipped from China, which would include those made by
Tesla, a Canadian government official said.
FORD:
Flameout Of Renewable Delusions. [Scroll down] For starters, Ford is still
in the process of building out its West Tennessee "Tennessee Electric Vehicle Center", aka
BlueOval City. When announced in 2021, the TN campus Ford envisioned would contain not
only a new electric vehicle manufacturing plant but also an adjacent battery manufacturing facility
that would keep most of the EV production in-house. Ford talked a big game about job creation
and TN legislators, both local and state, bit on the deal, offering significant incentives for the
company to locate its next-gen operations there. Wednesday's news from Ford also contained
program plans that impacted the TN plant, as the debut date for a super-secret electric truck
(code-named: Project T3) scheduled to be built at the BlueOval City plant was delayed to
the latter part of 2027, instead of the expected 2025 roll-out. Ford has been reassuring local
officials and unions alike that they have every intention of building the vehicle there as agreed
to... eventually.
Ford
kills electric SUV as EV division is on pace to lose $5.5 billion this year.
Ford Motor Company announced that it is recalibrating its EV strategy over concerns about
profitability, including scrapping an electric SUV. Ford is canceling plans to manufacture a
large, three-row electric SUV. Ford chief executive officer Jim Farley said, "We loved our
three-row crossover and I was so excited to show everyone the work we did. But there was just
no way it would ever meet our criteria of being profitable."
EVs'
impact on power systems and supply chains. Today, there are 30 [million] fully
electric vehicles on the market globally, which makes up less than 3% of the vehicle market.
New electric vehicle sales are already more than 15%, but "EV growth speed bumps" are starting to
appear.[...] Although government subsidies and support for EVs, battery and charging infrastructure
amount to billions, the sentiment in Europe and North America is changing, with subsidies slowly
drying up. Germany's slump in EV sales in the first half of 2024 is evidential of
this. EV auto manufacturers around the globe are in trouble it seems.
Kamala
made a fool of herself? Time for more climate hysteria!. Deception is rampant
in this field of endeavor. Electric vehicles, from cars to trucks and buses, falsely claim in
statements on their body panels that they are "Emission Free." Since when is generating
electricity emission-free? Greater minds than mine figured out that, due to their much
greater weight, bridges and similar structures would have to be seriously upgraded should E.V.s
become the majority of vehicles on the roads. This also implies that much more energy,
of any form, is needed for an E.V. to travel the same distance as a gas-powered vehicle. This
is basic Newtonian physics: force needed to overcome inertia. Nonetheless, the lure of
playing the climate hysteria card is particularly tempting to desperate office-seekers.
EVs
Are Losing Up to 50 Percent of Their Value in One Year. Electric vehicle
depreciation is something of a hot topic right now, and for good reason. On one hand, there
are some fantastic deals to be had on the secondhand market, but on the other of course, there's
the thorny issue of some EVs losing half of their value in a single year. Cars losing
you a chunk of cash the instant they're driven off the dealer lot is nothing new, especially at the
pricier end of the market. And if you intend to keep your shiny new EV for a long time, then
its worth after just a year or two matters far less. But what if you've experimented with
your first EV then decided its range or your local charging infrastructure isn't up to scratch, and
want to sell within the first year? If that's you, you'd better be prepared for a significant loss.
EV
drivers now face fines and legal trouble if someone trips on a public charging cable.
As if electric vehicles didn't come with enough inconveniences and downsides, now there's this, out
of England: ["]Electric car charging cables can cause serious damage to pedestrians if
left unattended and blocking the pavement and could result [in] the driver facing a hefty
fine. According to experts, drivers who own electric cars are being urged to check they are
not obstructing the pavement as it could cause risk to pedestrians.["]
Why
driving an electric car isn't green at all. [Scroll down] The reality is
that the misled environmentalists buying these cars are suckers for mega-corporate advertising,
ignorantly proud of their so-called low-carbon eco-cars. Apparently, they are unaware that
the manufacture of millions of electric car batteries requires huge mining operations to acquire
and refine large quantities of rare earth metals such as lithium, rhodium and cobalt; that these
metals have to be mined out of the ground using machinery which is powered by carbon-emitting
vehicles powered by diesel or petrol; and importantly, that the mining and refining processes can
cause significant and extensive pollution to land, air and water systems, for example in rural
China and Mongolia. Unlike the fake climate agenda, these are real environmental problems.
The
EV Scam: A Likely Reason for So Epic a Folly. Germany's leading car parts
supplier ZF has recently been forced to cut one-fifth to one-quarter of its workforce, owing in
part to Chinese competition and in part to "weak demand for electric vehicles." Other firms
like Bosch, Continental, and Webasto have also been forced to "restructure." Yet the CEOs of
these companies continue absurdly to believe in the future of "electromobility," since the European
Union plans to outlaw fossil fuel-powered vehicles as of 2035. The short-sightedness of EU
bureaucrats will lead inevitably to market implosion and an economic collapse, and the car-makers
have no option, it seems, but to comply with government fiat.
Kamala:
electric school bus bust. The electric vehicle (EV) doom loop is accelerating.
Even in its fading days, surrounded by the stench of EV demise, the Harris/Biden Administration
continues to cheerlead for EVs. The head cheerleader: Kamala Harris:
["]One of Kamala Harris's highest profile responsibilities as vice president has been
spearheading the federal government's billion-dollar efforts to deploy thousands of electric buses
across hundreds of school districts nationwide. But years into the program, only a small
fraction of those projects have been completed while dozens of school districts have withdrawn from
the program altogether. As part of the first tranche of Clean School Bus program funding two
years ago, Harris and EPA administrator Michael Regan unleashed nearly $1 billion in federal
rebates for 389 school districts across all 50 states to help deliver a total 2,463 electric
school buses.["] And how many of those EV buses are actually in service? That's
hard to know since 27 districts report 60 buses, but that includes EV buses and propane-propelled
buses. Every other district has wisely backed out.
Austin
Electric Busses Busted. Austin's leftwing political class always wants to be at the
forefront of any trendy ecofriendly or green initiative. That includes transitioning to an
all-electric bus fleet. How well is that working out for them? According to this piece
Dwight sent over, not so hot. [...] Mechanical problems should be an area where electrical vehicles
shine, as there's so many things that can go wrong in a diesel engine. The fact they're
less reliable is a big red flag.
'Green'
Energy Goes Very Wrong In Wild CCTV Video. Ebikes are one of the big new trends they
want us to use instead of our daily driver. Is there any downside? Sure there is.
When an electric battery fails, it fails in a big way. We've covered a number of stories
about buildings burned to the ground because of a faulty battery. It's hard for the average
person to gauge the level of risk of that kind of fire compared to, say, cooking fires or smoking.
[...] This (graphic) CCTV shows a man carrying a battery into an elevator. If he's like most
people, he brought it up to his apartment to charge it, and was bringing the newly-charged battery
to his bike so that he could hop on his bike and go. He never got that chance. The
battery failed in the elevator[,] to a degree that would stagger the imagination. [Tweet with
video clip — very graphic.]
Heads
should roll over the electric car fiasco. Profits at the German auto giant Mercedes
plunged on Friday as sales of its slick new range of electric vehicles (EVs) went into
freefall. Porsche abandoned its sales targets for battery-powered cars amid waning demand
from customers. Ford is losing nearly $50,000 (£39,000) on every EV it sells, while
Tesla's profits dropped 45 [percent]. Meanwhile, battery manufacturers such as Germany's Varta
are getting wiped out. Over the last few days, it has become clear that the EV industry is on
the brink of collapse. Hundreds of billions of euros, dollars and pounds have been pumped
into this industry by political leaders and the subsidy junkies that surround them — and
it is surely time they were held to account for the vast quantities of taxpayer cash that has been wasted.
California
Fire Shows How 'Green' Energy Really Isn't Green at All. An 18-wheeler overturned on
I-15 South Friday afternoon, causing a 75,000 lb load of lithium-ion batteries to spontaneously
combust (because of course it did). Emergency first responders were forced to shut down the
freeway, which serves as basically the only efficient ground artery between Las Vegas and Los
Angeles. The New York Times reports that Emergency responders were concerned about the fire
causing the release of a number of deadly toxic chemicals, including hydrogen cyanide, chlorine and
sulfur dioxide. A spokesman for San Bernardino County said, "These chemicals pose
significant health risks at elevated levels, with hydrogen cyanide and chlorine being particularly
dangerous even at low concentrations." Oh. But wait, lithium-ion batteries provide the
power for electric vehicles, don't they? They also provide all that vaunted stationary
storage that propaganda outlets like the New York Times are constantly hyping, don't they?
15
Freeway connecting California to Las Vegas reopens after fiery semi-truck accident caused days-long
closure. All northbound lanes on the 15 Freeway reopened between Barstow and Baker
early Sunday morning after a crash involving an overturned semi-truck resulted in a miles-long
traffic backup and stranded Las Vegas-bound drivers on Saturday. The crash happened around
8 a.m. on Friday after a truck hauling lithium-ion batteries caught fire near Baker, according
to the San Bernardino Fire Department. The hazardous fire prompted both sides of the freeway
to be shutdown while crews worked to contain the flames. "Due to the lithium-ion, water cannot
be added to the fire, the batteries must burn out on their own," the San Bernardino County Fire
Department said.
Ford's
EV Bloodbath Continues. The losses keep coming. As I reported here in February,
Ford Motor Co. lost $4.7 billion on its EV business in 2023, or about $64,731 for each EV it
sold. Today, the company reported that over the first two quarters, it has lost nearly
$2.5 billion on its Model e segment, meaning Ford's EV losses are on track to total
$5 billion in 2024. While the company's per-vehicle losses declined somewhat during the
second quarter, they are still stunning.
Ford's
Latest Pivot Shows That the EV Craze Has Fizzled Out. Not too long ago, the
automobile industry was all-in for electric vehicles (EVs). Falling in line with the Biden
administration's massive push for EVs and away from gas-powered cars, the Big Three and other
manufacturers doubled down on EV production. Part of the calculus was that car buyers would
opt for the tax breaks and incentives that the government offered EV customers. That siren
song didn't lure many customers in. Eventually, the EV fad died out noticeably, and auto
manufacturers are beginning to adjust to the market. Ford is the latest example of an
automaker that is distancing itself from the EV push. In April, I wrote about how Ford is
changing its strategy, backing away from EVs so that it can provide "customers with the right mix
of gas, hybrid, and electric vehicles based on demand today." The reason was simple:
Ford saw its EV sales plummet, while its hybrid sales grew dramatically. It was time for a
change, and Ford knew it.
Listen:
Morano on KTRH Houston radio: Texas schools blowing millions on EV buses thanks to Biden's
green push. Marc Morano of The Climate Depot says this is all part of the plan, with
a splash of election year scheming. "This is a political ploy using the Inflation Reduction
Act, which has pumped billions into these states for some push to these worthless net-zero goals,"
he says. "This is a massive boondoggle of waste, inefficiency, and expenses that will weigh
down Texas," he says. "There is little evidence this will be successful given the track
record around the country." "[Never mind] your child's education... they are trying to save
the planet here," Morano says.
The
Biden Crime Family's Fisker Adventure. Joe Biden, who doesn't remember he was vice
president or when, did learn and remember one thing: how to profit from green corruption.
Electric vehicle mandates and wasted taxpayer handouts have been standard operating procedure for
the Biden Administration, among them, to Fisker, an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer.
Fisker's products tended to run in the $100,000 dollar range. Past tense because Fisker
went bankrupt in July, taking some $529 million in taxpayer cash with them. [Tweet] One
would think sane government functionaries would see the EV writing on the wall: Americans
can't afford, don't want, and won't buy EVs. They've always been a niche product, toys for
the well off. Clearly, one of the things Biden learned, and remembered, is it pays to give
more than a half billion to green companies. Fisker Oceans, the only SUV model Fisker has
recently made, are now going for pennies on the dollar, but who is going to buy an EV that no
longer has any factory/dealer backing?
"Unsafe at any speed"
Electric
vehicles are downright dangerous. Over the past few weeks, several stories have come
out demonstrating yet again that electric vehicles (EV) are unsafe, unwanted, and downright
hazardous. On June 20, Renee Sanchez was excited to take her 2-year-old granddaughter to
the Phoenix Zoo. Early that morning, Sanchez strapped the toddler into the backseat of her
Model Y Tesla. After closing the rear door, Sanchez attempted to open the front door.
However, it would not open because the battery was dead. "I could not get in. My phone
key wouldn't open it. My card key wouldn't open it," Sanchez told a local news network.
In a panic, Sanchez called 911. Within minutes, thankfully, the fire department showed up.
"The first thing they said was, 'Uggh, it's a Tesla. We can't get in these cars,'" Sanchez
said. "And I said, 'I don't care if you have to cut my car in half. Just get her out.'"
Fortunately, the firefighters used an ax to break the back window. Then, they climbed in
and unstrapped the toddler, literally saving her life.
Fire
Blankets Required at EV Charging Stations. Electric vehicles are such a good idea,
they require massive (strategically targeted) subsidies and strongarming from the government to get
anyone to buy them. They are so safe that fire blankets are needed at EV charging stations:
["]The city of Milton [Georgia] will now place fire blankets at its non-residential electric
vehicle charging stations. ... Deputy Fire Chief and Fire Marshall Alex Fortner told the council the
measure was a "proactive attempt" to limit the damage if an electric vehicle catches on fire.
According to Fortner, cars with lithium-ion batteries can need up to 30,000 gallons of water if they
catch fire. That's 60 times as many as the average vehicle with a combustion engine.["]
What a great time to buy stock in whatever company makes fire blankets. The Biden Regime is
building 500,000 mostly unwanted charging stations at an estimated cost to us of $400,000,000,000.
The Editor says...
Hmmm. The writer might have something there. Whether the thousands of charging
stations are ever built or not, the fire blankets are likely to be purchased.
New
electric vehicle fee coming to Pennsylvania. Come 2025, electric vehicle drivers will
pay an annual registration fee in Pennsylvania. The legislation headed to Gov. Josh
Shapiro's desk will charge owners of battery-powered and plug-in hybrid vehicles $200 next year,
the first of an incremental scale that will reach $286 in 2030. Prime sponsor Sen. Greg
Rothman, R-Shippensburg, said the fee will help maintain Pennsylvania's roads and bridges —
some of the worst-rated in the nation — and shift some of the burden off the state's gas tax.
The Editor says...
If the state and federal governments would stop wasting money,
they would have plenty of tax revenue.
More
Bad News on the Electric Vehicle Front. Some of the largest automakers, such as
Mercedes Benz, admit they won't come close to hitting their EV sales estimates over the next few
years. And Tesla, the king of EVs, just announced its lowest quarterly profit over the past
two years. After the Tesla news broke, the company's shares cratered, leading to a
$138 billion decline in value. Even worse, Hyundai Motor North America is facing a
lawsuit that contends the auto manufacturer "has emphasized sales-volume growth in its Hyundai
branded EVs, leading the public to believe these increasing EV sales are occurring organically
because of the desirability of Hyundai EVs and customer demand for these vehicles." What's
more, the lawsuit, filed by Napleton Aurora Imports, a dealership based in the Chicago suburbs,
alleges Hyundai pressured dealerships to "artificially inflate" EV sales numbers; created a
perverse incentive system in which dealerships that "played ball" were rewarded while those who did
not were "punished," [...]
New
'crackpot' EV scheme emerges to steal power back from charging cars. From Andrew Bolt
at The Herald Sun comes the news that the self-imagined elites who fancy themselves "green" have a
new harebrained idea, and that is to steal power back from charging electric vehicles to
stabilize a compromised grid.
The Editor says...
This half-baked idea has numerous insurmountable flaws:
[#1] A battery charger is designed to charge batteries. A device that takes power
out of the battery and feeds it back to the A.C. power line is called an inverter.
They are two completely different designs. Unless there's much more in an EV charger than is
ostensibly necessary, no inverters have been deployed. [#2] Batteries dissipate a large
fraction of the power they absorb while charging. Not all of the energy that goes into the
battery comes back out, especially in cold weather. It would be far more efficient to have
large centralized battery banks build up a daily reserve, rather than hundreds of distributed
batteries around town. But if you're going to build a centralized power plant, you might as well
have it generate power by burning hydrocarbons and boiling water. [#3A] If residential
charging stations are the only ones involved in this scheme, the electricity that went into the
car's battery was purchased by the car's owner, and it is unlikely that the government will buy it
back at the same rate. [#3B] If public-access charging stations are included, it's a whole
new can of worms. The only reason to use a charger in a parking lot somewhere is if the car
doesn't have enough juice to make it back home. If the government steals what little power
remains in the car's battery, then the car is stranded until the government decides otherwise,
which could be several hours — or days! [#4] What will that stolen electricity
be used for? [#5] Why does the state government need to steal electricity from hundreds
of customers in the first place? Because the government presided over two disastrous plans:
Eliminating coal-fired power plants, and incentivizing electric car sales. The electricity shortage
is the government's fault, and the government has no feasible solution.
Washington
state is 'ground zero' for EV charging port thefts. As the Washington Utilities and
Transportation Commission considers updating policy regarding its involvement in electric vehicle
charging services, stakeholders have noted the ongoing issue of charging station copper wire
thefts. "We in the Pacific Northwest are right in ground zero of thieves and criminal gangs
who are cutting cable for copper and recycling it in the black market and so these public
infrastructure assets are at risk," Alliance for Transportation Electrification Executive Director
Phillip Jones told the commission at its July 2 meeting. The commission is currently
discussing a proposed update to its 2017 Policy and Interpretive Statement that, if revised, would
alter the extent of its involvement in EV charging services offered by investor-owned electric
companies; the commission regulates energy rates and approves rate changes requested by utilities.
Should
Electric Vehicles Be Illegal? Electric vehicle batteries, like the large batteries
used to store electricity from inept sources like wind and solar, are prone to burst into
flame. And those fires are hard to extinguish. Out of curiosity, I googled "battery
fire." Here is a sampling of news headlines from the last 36 hours: [List of links omitted
for brevity.] Where is the Consumer Products Safety Commission? Where is the Congressional
investigation? In what other context are products that spontaneously burst into flames
legally marketed? If electric vehicles, e-bikes and batteries for wind and solar
installations were not darlings of the "green" scam that controls government at most levels, would
they even be legal?
Alabama,
Iowa, And Idaho Lawmakers Revolt Against Biden EPA's Electric Vehicle Mandates. U.S.
Senators and Representatives have joined forces to demand the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
rescind its recent rule mandating the transition to electric or hydrogen-powered heavy-duty
vehicles. Led by Senators Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), along with
Congressman Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), this coalition of over 150 lawmakers has issued a stern
warning about the devastating impact this policy could have on the nation's economy and way of
life. The EPA's final rule, "Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty
Vehicles — Phase 3," was published on April 22, 2024. This regulation
effectively imposes a de facto electric mandate on trucks, tractors, buses, and semi-trucks,
requiring manufacturers to transition their fleets to zero-emission vehicles.
Electric
vehicles: the magical unibattery! I've been writing about electric vehicles since
2011, the heady days of the Chevy Volt, as Chevy's ads then proclaimed it: "The car we had to
build." What they meant was the Obamites were forking over taxpayer cash for electric vehicles
(EVs), and also threatening auto manufacturers to do their bidding, and of course, bailing out
everyone but Ford, which is why I've been driving Fords since. Obama, promoting a dead horse,
told auto workers when he left the White House he'd buy a Volt. As one might expect, this
promise, as with all Obama promises, had an expiration date. He never bought one. Years
before Obama left office, I predicted when he did GM would wait a decent interval and discontinue
Volt production, and that's what happened. They lost truckloads of cash on every Volt they
built. GM denied it, which is unsurprising in a publicly traded company not wanting to admit
they were throwing money, and shareholder dividends, away.
Dissatisfied
EV Owners Spell Doom for Electric Car Manufacturing. A recent consumer survey
revealed that 46% of US electric car owners wish to switch back to a gas-powered car. In an
industry already facing hurdles with charging stations, cost, and public skepticism, consumer
distaste over performance and a hefty price tag threatens to eviscerate future EV sales.
Despite subsidies and claims of world-saving environmental necessity, consumers are balking in
droves at lackluster EV performance in a declining economy. The comprehensive global survey,
released by consulting firm McKinsey and Co. earlier this month, offered insights into the
divergence between European and American EV drivers. Behind the obvious consumer concerns
over range, cost, and rechargeability are issues not considered by the survey that also may be
undermining consumer enthusiasm, such as increasing awareness of pollution in manufacturing,
plummeting resale prices, and aversion to regressive subsidization.
Tesla
auto deliveries beat expectations in second quarter. Electric carmaker Tesla saw its
shares surge on Tuesday after reporting auto deliveries that fell but topped analyst estimates,
while General Motors logged modestly higher second-quarter US sales. Tesla said it delivered
around 444,000 vehicles worldwide in the April-June period, exceeding consensus estimates compiled
by FactSet and sending its share price up around 9.0 percent. But deliveries were still
4.7 percent down from a year ago.
Blaze
at South Korea lithium battery plant kills 22 workers. A lithium battery factory in
South Korea was set on fire after multiple batteries exploded on Monday, killing 22 workers, most
of them Chinese nationals, fire officials said. The fire and a series of explosions ripped
through the factory run by primary battery manufacturer Aricell in Hwaseong, an industrial cluster
southwest of the capital Seoul. The victims likely succumbed to extremely toxic gas within
seconds of the blaze getting out of control, the officials said. It was unclear what caused
the explosions and the fire was largely extinguished in about six hours.
Oakland
port area fire at lithium battery plant contained. A small fire that kicked up
considerable black smoke at the Port of Oakland on Sunday [5/12/2024] has already been contained,
according to a spokesperson for the Oakland Fire Department. The fire started inside a
lithium battery plant when a pile of batteries caught fire Sunday mid-afternoon. The small
blaze does not pose a risk to nearby structures, authorities said. A single fire engine is
still on scene dousing lingering flames with water. No broader health threats are reported
from the lithium plant at this time.
Nice
EV You Got There — Can You Afford to Insure It? Electric vehicles can be a
pain to insure. Fixing the problem would give reluctant buyers one less thing to worry
about. You can still get insurance for any vehicle in any state but, at a time when motorists
already are moaning about expensive coverage, EVs could add to the burden. They are often
more expensive than gas-powered cars and typically cost more to repair, which leads to larger
claims. In the U.S., the average severity of a claim for a repairable EV was $6,066 in the
first quarter, nearly 30% higher than for internal-combustion-engine (ICE) vehicles, according to
Mitchell, which provides software and data to auto insurers and the collision-repair industry.
Tesla
battery dies without warning, trapping toddler inside during sweltering Arizona summer.
Let me start out by alleviating any distress because the baby girl was just fine (toxic masculinity to
the rescue!), but this story points out what could have been another very deadly design flaw of electric
vehicles. On Wednesday, a local outlet in the Phoenix area reported on a scary turn of events which
culminated in a 20-month-old little girl becoming trapped in a hot car in the heat of the day with her
frantic grandmother on the outside, before firefighters showed up and freed the toddler.
Electric
Vehicle Regret: New Survey Says Nearly Half Want Gas Guzzlers Back. In a recent
survey conducted by McKinsey, it has been uncovered that the United States is facing a significant
hurdle in the electrification of its vehicle fleets. The survey encompassed over 30,000
respondents across 15 countries, with 46% of electric vehicle (EV) drivers in the US
expressing a desire to switch back to vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. The
primary reasons cited for this shift back to gas-powered vehicles include the challenges associated
with public charging infrastructure, high total costs of ownership, and limitations on driving
patterns for long-distance journeys. Australia, a country known for its extensive travel
distances, topped the dissatisfaction charts, with 49% of EV owners considering a return to
gas-powered vehicles.
Fisker
files for bankruptcy protection, the second electric vehicle maker to do so in the past
year. Electric vehicle maker Fisker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the
second electric startup to do so in the last year as even industry leaders struggle to lure more
buyers beyond the early adapters of the technology. Fisker Group Inc. said in a filing with
the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware that its estimated assets are between $500 million and
$1 billion. It estimated liabilities are between $100 million and
$500 million, with between 200 and 999 creditors.
Demand
Power Charges Are the Achilles Heel of a Nationwide EV Fast Charging Network. A
reliable and convenient network of public fast electric vehicle chargers is a prerequisite to
achieve the Biden administration's greenhouse gas regulations that require nearly 72% of U.S. light
duty new vehicle sales be fully electric (BEV) or partial plug-in electric (PHEV), by 2032.
The vast majority of EV owners now charge at home but this is likely to change with greater EV
adoption since many live in a condo, an apartment, or have street parking. Home charging is
simply not a possibility. Many older homes lack sufficient amperage in its electrical
service, often requiring thousands of dollars of upgrade besides the cost of a level II
charger. Factors that impact DCFC profitability include low utilization percentages (due to
the high percentage of home charging and that EVs represent less than 1% of the total US vehicle
fleet) and also high operating costs from demand power
charges. Demand power is typically the highest electricity usage during a 15 minute
period in a billing cycle and utilities charge a premium for it.
Industry
groups sue over Biden regulation requiring electric school buses, trucks. A coalition
of industry groups have filed a lawsuit challenging a Biden administration rule. A dozen
groups joined together to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for the Biden administration's
new rule, finalized earlier this year, with requires model 2027 trucks to meet strict emissions
standards that critics say are meant to push out diesel and gas vehicles and to replace them with
electric vehicles. The EPA's "Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty
Vehicles — Phase 3" is the rule in question. "The new standards will be
applicable to HD vocational vehicles (such as delivery trucks, refuse haulers, public utility
trucks, transit, shuttle, school buses, etc.) and tractors (such as day cabs and sleeper cabs on
tractor-trailer trucks)," EPA said. Critics argue the rules are so strict that the only
option will be to go electric, part of a nationwide effort by the Biden administration to push
Americans into electric vehicles. However, currently the electric grid could not handle a
wholesale transition of to electric vehicles, posing a major infrastructure problem.
And
Down Goes Fisker. [Scroll down] The company had declared bankruptcy in
2013, victim of both the 2008 financial crisis and a massive recall thanks to a faulty battery -
kind of a critical component in an EV — in their earlier model. A hurricane swamping 300 of
their Karmas in inventory was pretty devastating, too. A major part of what sank Fisker this
go-round was trying to introduce its Ocean SUV. Again, the roll-out was plagued with technical
problems that led to severe delivery issues, among other eventually fatal missteps. It turns
out that "outsourcing" the manufacturing of your vehicles — Fisker said he wanted to be the
"Apple of the auto industry" — can be no bueno.
Is
an electric vehicle collapse inevitable? [Scroll down] A famous aphorism
observes if the federal government were put in charge of the Sahara Desert, in no time at all there
would be a sand shortage. Here's why we have a charging station shortage: ["]But
internal memos from the Department of Transportation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon,
as well as interviews with those who are responsible for overseeing the implementation of the
electric vehicle charging station project, say the delay is in large part a result of the White
House's diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. 'These requirements are screwing
everything up,' said one senior Department of Transportation staffer who spoke on the condition of
anonymity. 'It's all a mess.'["] How is DEI — didn't earn
it — screwing things up? At least 40% of the money has to go to "underserved
communities," which is brilliant because those are the communities least able to afford, or want,
an EV, so they have no use for EV chargers.
The Editor says...
Oh but they do have one use for electric car chargers: There's more copper to steal!
More
Bad News — There Isn't Enough Copper for EVs, Forget The Rest of It. Past
installments of Why Net-zero is Impossible focused on inadequate access to rare earth metals and
the hypocritical offshoring of emissions to places that extract them. Vermont, for example,
would need to cover most of its picturesque landscape to meet its "climate goals" while it is, at
the same time, sequestering a third of that space as protected from development. Their plan
is to make others sacrifice their space. To emit elsewhere, then claim to be clean and
green. A Climate cult gated community safe space with sprawling vistas because they are
buying dirty green energy from outside the state. None of that matters. We'll never get
there from here, so they should stop lying to you and wasting your money. Not only is there
not enough known copper, but even if there were, it could not possibly be mined in time to reach
even the least offensive of the target dates proposed.
Three
Reasons There's Something Sinister With the Big Push for Electric Vehicles. They're
trying to manufacture your consent for a scam of almost unimaginable proportions. Below are
three reasons why something sinister is going on with the big push for EVs. [...]
[#1] EVs Are Not Green: The central premise for EVs is they help to save the
planet from carbon because they use electricity instead of gas. It's astounding so few think to
ask, what generates the electricity that powers EVs? Hydrocarbons generate over 60% of the electricity
in the US. That means there's an excellent chance that oil, coal, or gas is behind the electricity
charging an EV. [...]
[#2] EVs Can't Compete Without Government Support: For many years, governments
have heavily subsidized EVs through rebates, sales tax exemptions, loans, grants, tax credits, and other
means. According to the Wall Street Journal, US taxpayers will subsidize EVs by at least
$393 billion in the coming years — more than the GDP of Hong Kong. [...]
[#3] EVs Are About Controlling You: EVs are spying machines. They collect
an unimaginable amount of data on you, which governments can access easily. Analysts estimate that
cars generate about 25 gigabytes of data every hour.
The Editor says...
Twenty-five gigabytes per hour sounds a little high. That's about seven megabytes per second.
It just doesn't take that much data to describe what the car is doing, where it is, and how fast it's going.
I used to work at an automated TV station, in which every program and commercial that wasn't a live event
played out of a video server. A typical one-hour show (in the 720p format) was stored in the server
in the form of a 15-gigabyte file. Maybe 16 g-bytes in some cases. The idea that an
automobile generates almost twice that amount of data per hour is a little bit (ahem) far-fetched.
The
Latest On The Federal War Against Internal Combustion Vehicles. I'm old enough to
remember a time when there were serious environmental concerns with internal combustion engine
vehicles. [...] But gradually that all got cleaned up. Today the bona fide serious
environmental concerns about internal combustion engines are far in the past. But the war to
eliminate them — supposedly on environmental grounds — is just ramping
up. The Biden Administration is all in with the plan to get rid of the ICE car.
Why? It seems to have something to do with the non-existent "climate crisis." Meanwhile,
Congress has passed no legislation authorizing the executive agencies to force ICE vehicles off the
market. Nor is the Administration honest enough to admit that they are engaged in outlawing
the vehicles that 90+% of the people drive. Instead we get massive and thoroughly dishonest
regulations effectively forcing the approaching end of the ICE vehicle without ever directly saying so.
Manufacturing
electric vehicle reality. Within the last year, Normals have made their opinion of
Electric Vehicles (EVs) unmistakably clear: they don't want them, can't afford them, and won't buy
them. Economic reality has reared its ugly head and cost Ford billions in EV losses in 2023
and projects $5 billion in losses for 2024, $132,000 for each EV made. Even for a
corporation like Ford, that's real money, and they're cutting EV production plans in half.
Chevy is "pausing" their EV plans, and with the possible exception of Tesla, other EV makers are in
dire financial straits. EVs are too expensive to insure, which is driving up rates for ICE
vehicles. Minor damage can total an EV, and Hertz has all but abandoned its huge investment
in EVs because no one wants to rent them. They're flooding the used market, but no one wants
to buy a used EV either. Only about the top 7% of Americans in income buy new EVs, which now
average well over $60,000. The average age of EVs is now 3.8 years, a decline from the
past. Americans who intend to buy EVs pretty much already have.
Rental
EVs: Such a Painful Experience, It Hertz. It was cutting-edge,
green-as-all-get-out, ahead of the curve, and wicked cool for bragging rights while it lasted,
which wasn't very long. Rental car giant Hertz is still dealing with the aftermath of its
badly executed 2021 decision to go all-in on an Electric Vehicle fleet. [...] Part of the problem
with rental EVs are things we've discussed over and over again here but compounded by the fact that
you're in an unfamiliar place, often with deadlines to be somewhere. Maybe you have a flight
to catch at a certain time or a meeting you're leaving directly for after you pick up the
car. Bad enough that Hertz never built a charging infrastructure at their own offices — you
don't have time to hunt down a charging station in a strange city, nor does anyone really want to
be wandering the streets at zero-dark-thirty praying they find one.
Americans
remain sour on electric vehicles. When asked why they would not purchase an EV, the
major reasons cited by Americans also remain almost unchanged over the past year. In 2023,
60 percent of Americans said a major reason they are unwilling to buy an EV was "the cost of a
new electric vehicle is too high." This year, 59 percent said the same thing. In
2023, 39 percent said a major reason was EVs take "too long to charge." This year,
38 percent named this as a major reason. Among the other major reasons, 47 percent
say "the range on an electric vehicle is not far enough," 39 percent say they simply "prefer a
gas engine vehicle," and 38 percent say they "don't know of any charging stations nearby."
Although many on the far Left probably balk at these reasons, they would be wise to at least try
to understand the trepidation most Americans have towards EVs.
Biden
admin to distribute almost $900 million to replacing gas school buses with
electric. The Biden administration is set to distribute nearly $900 million in
federal grants to schools nationwide as part of an initiative to replace gas-powered school buses
with electric models, promoting cleaner energy and decarbonization. This program is part of
the Biden administration's broader efforts to upgrade the infrastructure at public schools and
reduce pollution from outdated school buses. The Environmental Protection (EPA) Agency's 2023
Clean School Bus Program aims to help school districts purchase over 3,400 clean school buses, with
92% being electric, supporting the transition to zero-emission vehicles.
EV
Mandates and Copper Mining Bans Are Mutually Exclusive. As global governments push
for a rapid transition to electric vehicles and to wind and solar power, they are creating a demand
for copper that threatens to undermine the very goals they seek to achieve. According to a
recent International Energy Forum report, electrifying the global vehicle fleet would require the
opening of 55% more new copper mines than are already needed, and twice the total amount of copper
that has ever been mined throughout human history over the next three decades. Global demand
for copper is expected to double by 2035.
The
Cancellation of Liberty. Supply chain disruptions were one aspect of the post-COVID
chaos the world was subjected to. Politicians were gobsmacked to learn that shutting down the
global economy caused markets to function erratically. They believed that markets operate at
their pleasure. [...] We live in an era in which American government has been grown into a monster
that devours the treasure and liberty of its people. If the government is of, by, and for the
people, political factions have trained the monster to consume itself. Sadly, many subscribe
to the notion that no problem, existent or imagined, is too big or small for the government to
solve. An analyst at a conservative news outlet seemed disappointed that Secretary of
Commerce Pete Buttigieg, didn't snap his fingers to solve the supply chain crisis. The supply
chain crisis was a result of poor government policy. Why would anyone look to the government
to solve it?
Still
Want To Buy An EV? You Better Watch This First. If your dream is to own a car that
can instantly turn into a flame-thrower, then go for it. [Video clip]
The
Wheels on an Electric Bus Need to Be Chocked and Other Things I Learned Today.
[Scroll down] Buses are heavy, so it does make sense. Some state regs are just for
inspections or some if the bus is parked on a grade or out of the bus yard with the driver gone.
Even parking a school bus, particularly an expensive green electric one, is no longer as
simple as "park," parking brake, and turning off the key. Apparently, if you forget to throw
chocks around the wheels, these buggers will roll on you. And that's just for starters.
Infrastructure
to support a 'zero emissions' electric trucking fleet comes with a $1 trillion price
tag. "We're facing an unfunded, $1 trillion mandate that carries enormous
consequences for the American consumer." At least that's what Chris Spear, American Trucking
Associations President and CEO has to say about one D.C. diktat coming down from on high in
particular, and that is the one mandating that the American trucking industry bend to EPA rules
requiring all electric fleets and production lines. [...] And to make sure this is abundantly
clear, this $1 trillion price tag isn't the total cost of a transition to "full
electrification" of the trucking fleet in operation throughout the nation, this is just the cost
for the necessary infrastructure (charging stations and chargers, grid network updates, etc.) [...]
I don't know about you, but this Build Back Better Democrat economy has me about tapped
out — insurance rates keep increasing for a service that doesn't benefit me at all,
grocery prices are through the roof, utility prices keep surging, taxes are exorbitant and
tyrannical, and the purchasing power of my dollar is waning into obscurity.
Electric
car drivers face astronomical costs to replace tyres. Electric car buyers should be
aware of the "astronomical" costs required to regularly replace short-lived tyres, owners have
warned. Car lover Jim Bassett managed just 7,500 miles in his brand new Volkswagen ID.3
before being quoted more than £300 to replace the rear rubber. The 80-year-old stumped
up the cash after being told it was common practice for tyres on his rear-wheel model to degrade
rapidly due to the weight of the vehicle.
E-bike
battery fires [are] up 70 [percent] in 2023. The number of e-bike battery fires, like
the fire depicted in the footage above in Sutton, south London, has risen by 70 percent in a
year, figures reveal. Campaigners and insurers are calling for a crackdown on e-bike makers
with tough new rules on batteries to protect public safety. Fire crews responded to
70 percent more electric bike fires across the country in 2023 than the previous year.
In 2022, there were 158 fires linked to electric bikes — a number that had risen to 270
in 2023.
The Editor says...
The British press has the gift of redundancy. The headline above made a statement,
which was then essentially repeated in the first, third and fourth sentences.
Probably more, but that's as far as I read.
Houston
Storm Reveals Downside of Forced Electrification. We live in a world with more and
more devices that require charging. Nothing shows the downside of that better than the recent
storm that hit Houston, where thousands of residents still lack power. Houstonians with
electric stoves can't cook, those with electric water heaters lack hot water — and those
with electric cars can't charge them. The range of an electric vehicle without electricity is
zero. But President Joe Biden's Environmental Protection Agency and Department of
Transportation are requiring that, by 2032, 70% of new cars and 25% of new trucks sold will be
electric. Imagine the state that Houston would be in if the number of EVs on the road today
met those standards.
New
study: Pedestrians three times as likely to be hit by an EV driver than a regular
driver. According to a new study out of the United Kingdom, drivers behind the wheel
of electric vehicles/hybrid-electric ("E-HE") vehicles prove to be more than twice as likely to hit
a pedestrian than drivers behind the wheel of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles,
overall. But, when in urban settings, E-HE vehicles were "three times more dangerous"
than ICE vehicles. [...] Just today I wrote an essay on a fire at a lithium battery storage
facility in the border community of Otay Mesa in California — it's been burning for
nine days, with no end in sight, consuming millions of gallons of water, and spewing noxious
(and deadly) fumes into the air. E.V.s release 1,850 [times] more particle pollution than ICE
vehicles, largely due to the extra weight, and therefore extra stress on brakes and tires. In
another report released yesterday by Brian Sussman at WND, we learned that the E.V.s "possess the
potential to stretch the grid to the breaking point." (Well isn't that just swell.) The
entire mining industry for the rare earth minerals required to power E.V.s relies on human slavery,
much of it child slavery, and leaves utter wastelands in the environment: [Tweet]
The
Real Carbon Footprint of Electric Cars: Part 1. The real carbon footprint of
electric cars is far greater than we have been told, even greater than the carbon footprint of
gasoline cars. This is because the current method of calculating their carbon footprint
doesn't consider all the steps needed to build, fuel, and operate an electric car. All these
steps have enormous carbon footprints. As proof, we will review the carbon footprint of
surface mining, seafloor mining, generating electricity, distributing electricity, building an
electric car, installing electric charging stations, and environmental consequences. Keep in
mind that all the above will be ongoing for many years. For instance, opening new surface
mines and maintaining old surface mines will continue for many years.
What
happened to the electric car revolution? China is often characterised as a copycat
when it comes to industry and technology but in one way it has proved to be a pioneer. It was
China which saw the first boom in electric cars — and it was China that was the first to
suffer when demand for them collapsed. The vast graveyards of unsold vehicles found in
Hangzhou and other Chinese cities are the result of a huge, subsidised push to manufacture electric
vehicles, demand for which has never caught up with supply. Ride-share services bought the
vehicles — in a rerun of the great cycle-share fiasco of 2018, which led to piles of
unused and unwanted bikes. But private buyers have been notably less keen. Where China
leads, the rest of the world seems doomed to follow. With China's manufacturers struggling to
sell their electric cars at home, last year they started shipping them in large numbers to
Europe — where many are now accumulating in ports at Rotterdam and Antwerp. The
window in which to sell them may prove small, as the EU is considering measures to prevent the
'dumping' of cheap Chinese cars in Europe.
About
those 'all electric' 'zero emissions' fire trucks. They have diesel engines.
When Albuquerque announced plans to acquire a new fire engine, New Mexico's governor lauded the
"zero emissions" technology while a fire department spokesman called it "all electric" and KRQE 13
gushed about the "fully electric" fire truck. San Diego's NBC 7 reported on what it called
that city's first "all electric fire apparatus." When the electric fire engine debuted in Portland,
NBC's KGW 8 quoted a fire department spokesman lauding the "monumental" "zero emissions"
vehicle. When an electric fire truck came to Gilbert, Arizona, FOX 10 quoted the fire chief
saying that "There's no cancer coming out of the tail pipe and I say it that way because diesel
particulates are a contributor for cancers." Viewers could be forgiven for thinking that the
new fire trucks were all electric and zero emissions. They'd be wrong. All the fire
trucks also have a diesel engine and a tailpipe releases those "cancer-causing particulates."
Biden's
Climate Agenda Is Running Headfirst Into A Wall Of His Own Making. President Joe
Biden's administration unveiled tariffs this week aimed at boosting domestic production of green
energy technology, but the move could end up hamstringing his larger climate goals. The
tariffs announced on Tuesday quadruple levies for Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) to 100% and raise
rates for certain Chinese green energy and EV components like minerals and batteries. Biden
has made the transition to green energy and EVs a key part of his climate agenda, but hiking
tariffs on those products to help U.S. manufacturing could jack up prices on the already costly
products, slowing adoption by struggling Americans, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF.
The risks posed by hiking levies on green technology expose the inherent tension between Biden's
climate agenda and his efforts to protect American industry, which often struggles to compete with
cheap foreign labor. Items on his climate agenda typically raise costs, and requiring
companies to comply could make them uncompetitive on the world stage.
Fire
breaks out at a lithium battery storage facility, firefighters contain the blaze, then it sparks
itself again. As long as lithium ion battery plants spontaneously combust and spew
clouds of poisonous chemicals into the air, I don't ever want to hear a progressive
Democrat — voter, pundit, or politician — lecture me on the wildfires and
"climate change" crises they swear are caused by my use of modest personal amenities. [...] In
fact, the blaze was entirely predictable, because this was a warehouse of lithium-ion batteries,
and lithium is highly flammable. That's like saying no one could ever predict that a
neighborhood meth lab might explode, or improperly stored ammonium nitrate at a fertilizer plant
would also be a combustion hazard — when you're dealing with extremely volatile
compounds, there's great risk involved, notwithstanding any propaganda that aims to diminish a
particular fire hazard because there's a "clean" energy communistic political agenda at play.
The
EV battery 'catch-22'. While setting aggressive goals for electric vehicle market
share, the Biden administration also wants tariffs and or restrictions on the importation of
vehicles and the minerals needed for their batteries — creating heightened concerns over
supply chains in what can be described as a "Catch-22" situation. Solutions to some of the
problems include battery recycling and increased domestic mining, however, the U.S. is currently
limited in its capacity for both. Federal funds are spurring new recycling plant projects,
but questions remain on whether there will be enough used material to meet projected needs.
Enviromoonbat
Conundrum: Lithium From Fracking. Great news for enviromoonbats: a new source
has been found for the lithium that is required in massive quantities for the glorified golf carts
they want to force us into. Now the bad news: it comes from fracking wastewater. [...]
Fracking provides clean and cheap natural gas, but possibly due to its effectiveness, it is haram
in the liberal religion. Nuclear energy provides affordable electricity without allegedly
harmful carbon emissions. Liberals oppose it, because it too is haram. Whether our
moonbat overlords will exploit the Marcellus Shale is doubtful.
Hertz's
used EVs prove to be 'glitchy, damaged nightmares' for new owners. Allow me to
provide a brief timeline of events, for context's sake. In 2021, Hertz announced that by
2024, 25% of its rental fleet would consist of electric vehicles; with this in mind, the company
also announced that it would be purchasing 100,000 Teslas by 2022. In November of 2023, news
emerged that Hertz was nowhere near attaining its ambitious goals, and the onboarding of E.V.s into
the fleet would be slower than originally planned, because of astronomical repairs costs and price
cuts in the E.V. industry. In January of this year, it looked like Hertz had reneged
altogether when the company started selling off its E.V.s in a fire sale, with the intention of
purchasing... more gas-powered vehicles. By March, the CEO who was largely responsible for
the debacle resigned in disgrace.
Mercedes
and Volkswagen ditch their EV ambitions! Well, the initial slow drip of auto
manufacturers walking away from their foolish EV promises has now turned into a flood. Almost
every week, you read of yet another automaker desperately backtracking on their electrification
plans as the market dries up and sales plummet. The latest car makers to cave and back away
from these mad electrification plans are Volkswagen and Mercedes, who have hedged their bets with
more hybrids, allowing production of internal combustion engines to continue. [Video clip]
Electric
Cars Are Driven the Least While Costing the Most. When comparing how people use
gasoline, hybrid, and electric vehicles, 3-year-old gas cars are driven 12,813 miles a year
while EVs are driven 20 percent less, or 10,256 miles. Plug-in hybrids are driven
12,199 miles, or 4.8 percent less than gasoline cars, while standard hybrids are driven
12,471 miles, or 2.7 percent less than gasoline models. "Range anxiety and charging
infrastructure are top-of-mind for EV drivers, and those factors likely limit how far owners will
drive them," said Karl Brauer, iSeeCars Executive Analyst. "Hybrids and plug-in hybrids, where
all-electric battery range is limited but range anxiety isn't a factor, are driven only slightly
less than gasoline cars, as reflected in their similar yearly mileage."
What
has Biden accomplished in his presidency? Devastation. Biden and his sycophants
in the media sing his praises on a daily basis, pretending he has been an effective
president. In fact, all he has accomplished is desecration on every level. [...] The
administration and its propagandists in the media pretend that wind and solar are viable.
They are not. They can only provide 4% of what is needed. EVs are proving to be a
disaster as well. There are not now, nor will there likely be any time soon, enough
electricity to charge the EVs the left demands we buy. Green energy is a pipe dream and/or a
plot to keep us imprisoned in 15 minute cities, no cars allowed. That is their ultimate
plan: We will own nothing and like it. They want travel restricted for all but
themselves, the self-appointed elites. They are working on restricting meat, for us, but not
for them, of course.
EV
charging stations become prime target for copper thieves. [Scroll down]
"Pretty inconvenient" basically sums up the entire E.V. experience. They don't work when it's
too "cold," and in fact you can't even charge them if the temperatures get low enough, like they
did in Chicago this past winter; they don't work when it gets too hot, and become a "thermal
runaway" spontaneous combustion risk; optimal performance only occurs in a limited temperature
range, outside of which means "precipitous decline" in the vehicle's performance; they're not
intuitive designs, which leads to more wrecks (proportionally) than gas cars; repairs costs are
higher, and given the higher rate of collision (again, proportionally), insurance costs are
increased; if the stars align, charging takes around a half-hour, which is far longer than the
5-minute-fill-up of an gas car; charging stations are few and far between, and far too often
they're out of order; and now, you might pull in for a charge and the cables could just be... gone?
The
Costs and Logistics of Plugging In EVs Are About to Become Supercharged. U.S. Energy
Secretary Jennifer Granholm gave Americans an unintended glimpse of the future during her road trip
this summer touting the wonders of electric vehicles. Far from spotlighting the promise of
EVs, her public relations misadventure in Georgia involved one of her staff in a gasoline-powered
vehicle blocking off a coveted charger in advance of her arrival, leading to frayed tempers and a
local EV owner calling the cops. It was an illustration of the challenges drivers could face
as governments push the public to embrace plug-in vehicles. Hyped as technological marvels,
EVs are boobytrapped with a host of inconveniences and tradeoffs. By now many people have
heard about range anxiety, exploding lithium-ion batteries, and the environmental destruction
caused by global mining for battery minerals.
Trucking
industry firm finds a transition to 'electric' semis hikes operating costs as much as
114%. What would it look like for you and your family to pay even more than what
you're already paying at the grocery store check-out line? (Grocery prices have increased more than
30% since Joe Biden took office.) What about at the gas pump? Anything you buy online that is
then shipped to your home? Now, the cost-of-living crisis is already a debilitating burden
for countless Americans, but as bad as it is now, it's fixing to get a whole lot worse if the
forced transition to electric vehicles continues; those mandates and regulations don't just apply
to personal vehicles, but also the 18-wheelers that transport so much of what we consumers buy.
Because[,] according to a new report out from Ryder, a leading trucking industry firm, "transitioning"
these diesel trucks to electric semis raises operating costs by as much as 114%.
The
electric car carnage has only just begun. Rewind only a couple of years, and electric
cars were the future. Yet this week, it has emerged that Ford will have to dramatically limit
the supply of petrol cars to avoid paying huge fines for not selling enough of them. The fear
must now be that the electric car carnage has only just begun — with Net Zero turning
into a sledgehammer for the deindustrialisation of the West, and China the only clear winner.
As with so much of the legislation passed during the last five years, setting a quota for the
percentage of EVs companies had to sell probably seemed like a good idea at the time.
Manufacturers now have to ensure that 22 [percent] of the cars they shift off the forecourt are
battery powered, rising steadily to 80 [percent] by the end of this decade, and 100 [percent]
by 2035. If they don't hit their quota, the senior executives will get ten years hard labour in
Siberia (well, actually it is a fine of up to £15,000 per vehicle, but it nonetheless feels
extremely draconian). Like Soviet planners in the 1950s, the architects of this legislation
presumably assumed that all you had to do was set a target and everything would fall into place.
$7.5 Billion
for Seven EV Chargers. Capitalists countries are conspicuously wealthier than
socialist countries because the free market allocates resources vastly more efficiently than
coercive bureauweenies. For example: ["]The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,
signed by Biden in November 2021, allocated $7.5 billion for EV charging, the Washington
Post writes. Of this amount, $5 billion went to states as "formula funding" for the
National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program to establish a network of fast chargers along
major highways. Today, there's seven chargers with a total of just 38 parking
spots.["] Total value to taxpayers: virtually nil.
California
Will Make Everyone Pay For EVs Whether They Own One or Not. California Democrats are
frustrated by many of their consumers. No matter how much they plead, whine, and cajole,
people simply aren't buying electric vehicles in the numbers the state is demanding. And
progress in getting charging stations up and running is far behind schedule. Also, all of the
electrical power being flushed into these systems is expensive. But don't worry about any of
that. Gavin Newsom and the Democrats have a plan to address all of these woes. In order
to subsidize the cost of electric vehicles and encourage more people to buy them, they're going to
tack on a monthly subsidy charge to everyone's utility bills. That's right... people who
either don't want or can't afford an electric vehicle will be paying for the costs imposed by the
minority of people who do. They will also be subsidizing conversions to electrical household
appliances like stoves.
Middle-Class
Californians Set To Pay Electricity Premium As State Makes Electric Car Push.
Millions of middle-class California households are poised to pay an extra $24 per month for
electricity, regardless of how much electricity they use. Regulators are hoping this utility
billing policy will rescue their agenda to move everyone to electric cars and appliances by
redistributing the massive costs of the state's electric grid so utilities can lower their usage
rates. But critics say the income-based premium will likely further hike utility costs for
millions of Californians — nearly one-fifth of whom are already behind in paying their
bills after household electricity rates almost doubled in the last decade — and likely
won't do much to cut the state's sky-high electricity rates. The premiums are supposed to
subsidize lower-income household electricity costs, which will be reduced by 5 cents to
7 cents per kilowatt hour, in a bid to make charging EVs and using electric heaters and
appliances cheaper.
Concerns
Mount Over Exploding Electric Vehicles. [Scroll down] EV battery
explosions can occur very quickly, triggering the release of highly toxic gases. When they
roar into thermal overdrive, they create very high temperatures and are very difficult to
extinguish. The explosion can occur after almost any collision, or be due to a fault in the
initial manufacture. The fire often takes hours to control and it can reignited days after it
was thought to be out. With Net Zero fanatics desperate to drive ICE cars off the road in
short order, EVs are the only mass private transport solution offered. Many of the issues,
including safety, that make them an inferior product compared to petrol-powered combustion cars are
often ignored.
How
to lose billions on EVs. Ford has possibly, belatedly, realized EVs aren't going to
be the future. As the average EV costs more than $60,000, they're too expensive for most
Americans. The wealthy who buy EVs as greenie street cred have already bought all they want,
depleting the market, and the EV charging doom loop is eternal. Without a massive charging
network across the country, widespread EV ownership is impossible. But without widespread EV
ownership there's no reason, financial or practical, to build chargers. Neither EVs nor
chargers are profitable without huge government subsidies, in effect, forcing people who don't want
and can't afford EVs to subsidize them for the virtue-signaling wealthy. Driving the doom
loop are wind and solar mandates, which include forcing the closure of reliable coal and natural
gas electric generation plants, with no plans to replace them with anything reliable. We
don't have enough generation capacity now, and should the public be forced into EVs, that problem
will dramatically, immediately worsen, forcing rolling blackouts across America.
New
Analysis Shows Just How Bad Electric Trucks Are For Business. Converting America's
medium- and heavy-duty trucks to electric vehicles (EV) in accordance with goals from the Biden
administration would add massive costs to commercial trucking, according to a new analysis released
Wednesday. The cost to switch over to light-duty EVs like a transit van would equate to a 5%
increase in costs per year while switching over medium- and heavy-duty trucks would add up to 114%
in costs per year to already struggling businesses, according to a report from transportation and
logistics company Ryder Systems. The Biden administration, in an effort to facilitate a
transition to EVs, finalized new emission standards in March that would require a huge number of
heavy-duty vehicles to be electric or zero-emission by 2032 and has created a plan to roll out
charging infrastructure across the country.
As
If You Needed Another Reason to Stay Away From Electric Vehicles. If you
search the site for EVs or Electric Vehicles, you'll find every reason not to buy one, and
thankfully, we're not the only ones pointing it out. EV sales are lousy in the US, which has
to be why Democrat states are looking to ban gas-powered cars. They want you on an EV bus, a
bicycle, walking, or better yet — living on an urban heat island confined to
quarters. If you live under that yoke, here's a reminder of why you need to make a change
politically — if you still can. EVs have a short shelf life compared to other
vehicles. Whatever the battery warranty is, that's it. It's over. No one is going
to buy it used; it is almost worthless as a trade-in. Given how much shorter this life span
can be compared to a more affordable combustion engine vehicle (assuming you didn't crash your EV
and have to scrap it sooner), you will need another car. If you are an EV-tard, that'll mean
another whole-vehicle carbon footprint before its time and a repeat of what you just went
through. If you buy a used EV and the car is over five years old (Don't do it!), You can
expect to spend two to three times its value to replace the battery pack, which has been losing
range rapidly since you bought it. You might get a few years out of it. In other words,
never buy a used EV. Just don't do it.
EV
Hell continues: Crash victims might have to be "left to die", Hertz dumps another 10,000
cars. [Scroll down] Hertz, meanwhile, has realized that dumping 20,000
electric cars in January was not enough, and it has to offload another 10,000 electric cars, which
now amounts to half its EV fleet. And then comes the news that there might be a secondhand
"timebomb" coming at the eight year mark when most EV battery warranties run out and cars will
become "impossible to sell". As if that's not enough, this week the fire and rescue experts
in NSW are warning in the politest possible way, that they might have to do a "tactical
disengagement" of a car accident victim, which means leaving them to die in an EV fire if the
battery looks likely to explode. They say that first responders need more training, as if
this can be solved with a certificate, but the dark truth is that they're talking about training
the firemen and the truck drivers to recognize when they have to abandon the rescue.
EVs
Are 63 Percent More Expensive Per 1,000 Miles Driven Annually Compared to Gas-Powered
Cars: Study. A recent study has found that electric vehicles (EVs) cost
63.6 percent more per 1,000 miles driven each year compared to gas-powered cars due to
the combination of their higher prices and lower average usage. Conducted by car research
website iSeeCars, this study revealed that EVs are driven 20 percent less than traditional,
internal-combustion vehicles. Although hybrids and plug-in hybrids were also both found to be
driven less than gas-powered cars, the difference in usage was much smaller, coming in at just 2.7
and 4.8 percent respectively. According to the calculations provided in the report, EVs
cost an average of $5,108 per 1,000 miles driven annually, compared to $4,351 for plug-in
hybrids, $3,056 for hybrids, and $3,123 for gas-powered cars.
Red
state taxpayers at risk of becoming latest victims of electric vehicle gambles.
Taxpayers could be on the hook if electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Rivian fails to resume
progress on its multi-billion dollar Georgia plant. Rivian announced on March 7 that it
would be pausing construction on its $5 billion manufacturing plant that is supposed to be
built just east of Atlanta, Georgia, worrying lawmakers and taxpayers in the state that the plant
may never be built. However, local authorities had given the company up to $1.5 billion
in subsidies and tax incentives with the expectation that Rivian would bring in jobs and tax
revenue. Despite the pause, Rivian has ensured Georgia officials that it is not abandoning
the project and that it remains committed to complying with both environmental regulations and the
contractual agreements that were previously agreed to.
Tesla Running
Low on Charge. Elon's big grift is in trouble. His electric vehicle (EV)
operation — which allowed car manufacturers to "offset" their carbon footprints by
purchasing "credits" from Elon in lieu of making EVs themselves — had been priced with
the expectation that the government would make a "market" for battery powered vehicles. But
Tesla's stock just lost about 40 percent of its value. The reason why is both ironic and
delicious. The de facto EV production mandates (only EVs qualify as so-called "zero
emissions" vehicles, never mind the "emissions" they cause would be "emitted" elsewhere) that made
Tesla the highest-valued vehicle manufacturer on the planet served to prod the manufacture of
battery powered devices by every other vehicle manufacturer. Once other vehicle
manufacturers began manufacturing their own devices they no longer needed to pay Tesla for "credit"
to "offset" the "zero emissions" vehicles they hadn't been manufacturing.
One
Of The Biggest Energy Policy Blunders We've Ever Made. Energy experts in the US are
warning about numerous potential issues for electric vehicles, including affordability, range,
weather, infrastructure, and economic concerns, even as the government and car companies
increasingly push them on Americans[.] Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA operations officer and host
of the podcast "The Wright Report," told Fox News Digital that American society has shifted to EVs
largely because some people are "just so hell-bent on making sure that this transition happens,
even if that means wrecking the economy, in terms of electricity, its reliability, the grid,
getting brownouts or blackouts or economic wreckage by people who otherwise can't afford these new
vehicles." "That cost is being shouldered by buyers and car companies by raising the price
of gas-powered vehicles, [which] is basically just a direct wealth transfer, just paying for EV
subsidies and that will grow over time, if we continue to keep this regime in place," Brent
Bennett, a policy director for Life:Powered, an initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation,
told Fox News Digital.
Washing away the
Climate Lunatics. Another political disaster has befallen the western European
governments that had rolled over like poodles in front of the climate change alarmists: once they
had fully committed themselves to the boondoggle of electric vehicles (EV's), and forced the
powerful automobile industries of Germany, France, and Italy into conversion of gas powered
vehicles to EV's, sales of EV's plummeted after the customary faddish start, just as much cheaper
Chinese EV's flooded into Europe. Germany and Italy forced the European Union into delaying
its ill-considered ban on internal combustion engine vehicles past 2035. Those who jubilantly
imagined that Europe would commit industrial suicide by destroying its own automobile industry,
will have to revise their plans. There are now thousands of cheap Chinese EV's parked at the
main ports of Europe with no buyers in sight.
EVs
could become impossible to sell on because battery guarantees won't last. Money Mail
can today reveal a timebomb looming in the second-hand market for electric vehicles (EVs). Our
investigation found that many EVs could become almost impossible to resell because of their limited
battery life. Experts said that the average EV battery guarantee lasts just eight
years. After this time, the battery may lose power more quickly and so reduce mileage between
charges. Many EVs will lose up to 12 per cent of their charge capacity by six years.
Some may lose even more. Yet the cost of replacing an EV battery is astonishingly high, our
research found.
EV Battery
Timebomb. The upshot would appear to be that the secondhand EV market is already
dying on its feet. Battery degradation starts from an EV being new anyway. Fast
charging accelerates the loss of an EV's battery. And all those people without a garage and
trying to charge their EVs outside will find the range reduced anyway.
Governments
Cannot Change the Automobile Market. [Scroll down] Conversely, what
finally killed electric cars were three developments that catapulted the internal combustion engine
into the hearts and pocketbooks of Americans. Ford's introduction of the mass-production
assembly line for the Model T allowed his cars to sell for half the price of electrics. Less
well-remembered is the Reeves brothers' invention of the muffler, which made noise levels
acceptable. And most important and unsung, Charles Kettering figured out how to get the best
of both technologies under one hood, by putting a lead-acid battery and electric starter in
gas-powered cars. By 1919 virtually all cars had electric starters, even cheap Model
Ts — no more hand cranking. That combined the ease and convenience of electric
cars with the range, speed, and flexibility of gas cars. Improvement of highways in the 1920s
further expanded travel distances and helped bury the electric car market, as did discoveries of
large oil fields that made gasoline affordable and available everywhere.
Canada's
first electric fire truck was in service less than a month before it needed repairs.
Vancouver's brand-new, $1.8-million fire truck was in service for less than a month before it was
sidelined for repairs. CTV News has learned the all-electric Rosenbauer RTX has a leaky water
tank. Vancouver Fire Rescue Services spokesperson Matthew Trudeau confirms the repair work
involves the vehicle's water tank, but none of the electrical or battery systems, and the cost of
the work is covered by the manufacturer, Rosenbauer. Trudeau says the vehicle was in service
from Dec. 4, 2023, to Jan. 2, 2024, and has been out of service ever since.
Where did he get $45 million?
Inslee
rolls out $45 million in subsidies for electric vehicles. One strategy for state
officials looking to transition Washington's transportation sector to electric vehicles is by
subsidizing them with taxpayer dollars. This week, Gov. Jay Inslee announced
$45 million in subsidies through a Department of Commerce grant program for families deemed
"low-income" to purchase an EV. "Washingtonians really get it when it comes to electric
vehicles," Inslee said at a Wednesday news conference in Tukwila. The program provides up to
$9,000 for families to lease an EV, or $5,000 to purchase one. The grant program allows them
to purchase either new or used EVs. The funding would be available to those who make 300% of
the federal poverty level or less.
The Editor says...
Why would anyone encourage a "low-income" car buyer to get a $50,000 (or more) electric car?
This isn't a good time to be in debt and the car will probably depreciate faster than such a buyer
can pay it off.
With
more than half the market share, Tesla's difficulties show the entire EV market is in
trouble. Tesla has certainly seen better days. In 2023, Tesla sold 55% of the
EVs in America, far ahead of the second-place EV seller, Ford, which sold 6% of the total EVs
sold. This makes Tesla a barometer by which much of the entire market can be measured.
Experts say that some of Tesla's difficulties are a result of how Tesla is run, but some of the
problems are systemic to the industry as a whole. On Tuesday, Tesla reported a 9% drop in
revenue in the first quarter, which was the largest drop the company had seen since 2012. Net
income dropped 55% to $1.13 billion from a year ago, which was an even bigger drop than was
seen during the 2020 pandemic. It was also below analysts' consensus estimates, according to
the Wall Street Journal.
Ford
lost $132,000 on each electric vehicle it sold in the first quarter 2024. Ford
announced Wednesday losses of $1.32 billion on its Ford Model-e sector, which represents the
company's electric vehicle business. With 10,000 units sold, the company lost $132,000 on
each EV it sold. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the company sold 34,000 units in its Model-e
business, which produced $1.57 billion in losses, or roughly $46,176 on each EV sold. "The
company expects EV costs to improve going forward, but be offset by top-line pressure," the company
said in a press release. The company's other sectors, which includes its Ford Pro fleet business
and Ford Blue gas-powered and hybrid vehicle business, made up for the losses on its EV lines.
10
reasons not to buy an electric car. [#2] They're more expensive than you think.
If you're thinking about buying an electric car ... you have to look at the full costs. The
first thing you're gonna do is [ask], "What's the payment? Oh, ok, I think I can afford that,
especially with all these incentives." [But these incentives] are now only for 12 cars,
that's it. Because they kept changing their regulations and they're gonna make them even
stricter. Right now we have 12 cars that qualify, and not all the Teslas even qualify, only
the high-performance versions do. [...] The insurance is twice as much or close to twice as much
[as] a regular gasoline-powered car. The tires wear out quicker because these are heavier,
they're low-rolling resistant and run-flat tires. They're not $100 a tire, they're $400 a
tire, and they wear out about every 10,000 miles. Of course, no one talks about that ...
but it's important that you look at all the true cost of owning a vehicle.
Have we
passed peak electric car? This week I got rid of my electric car. As a car, it
was a pleasure to drive. I also enjoyed the fact that it disconcerted at least some of my
liberal friends who would not naturally associate me with such a "progressive" consumer
choice. But the downsides, as increasing numbers of people are realising, began to outweigh
the advantages. The reasons are familiar. The overclaiming by the manufacturers on
range in normal traffic conditions, the problems of finding chargers outside London. On top
of all this, the favourable tax treatment of electric vehicles is gradually being withdrawn, right
down to the discounts on residents' parking spaces. At the end of last year, Germany
abandoned, almost without warning, the €4,500 subsidy to electric cars. It was therefore
no surprise to read that in March the sales there fell by 29 percent compared to the same
month a year ago. More general evidence that the electric market is contracting is shown by
the fact that Tesla, the biggest seller in many countries, announced that it is laying off 14,000
workers, 10 percent of its labour force.
EV
News More #Sadz Than Happy. Of course, that makes me happy, but that's neither here
nor there. I'm only happy because I love to see something being shoved down our collective
throats rejected and fail so spectacularly -- worldwide, no less - that the frustration and teeth
gnashing of those who would rule our every waking moment is palpable. [...] No one has forty
minutes to sit while a vehicle only charges enough to go less than 100 miles. [...]
Canadians, whose lunatic Prime Minister has been on a NetZero tear (besides everything else he's
been doing to ruin the country), are in a state of rebellion as far as EV mandates for the Frozen
Tundra of the Canadian North. They're just saying "no" and in droves, which is driving the
Green Fidelito bonkers.
The
West's electric car giants now risk destroying themselves. For an industry built on
the quiet purr of its expensive technology, the sound of the electric car market screeching to a
halt is too loud not to be heard. The ensuing pile-up threatens to turn into a battle for
survival — the car industry's equivalent of the Hunger Games that some of the biggest
names may not walk away from. The dynamics are very simple. It is a classic case of
supply greatly exceeding demand, in this instance brought about by politicians and regulators
determined to impose arbitrary deadlines on carmakers regardless of whether they are realistic and
without any consideration for the wider fallout. It is further evidence, if any was needed,
of the wrong-headed pursuit of net zero at all costs. Almost eight in 10 new electric cars
are now being sold at a discount as demand stalls — a sharp increase on just over half a
year ago. And while a similar proportion of petrol cars are experiencing price cuts, electric
vehicle (EV) prices are being cut more sharply.
The
EU's war on cars is destroying its economic foundations. In a fit of self-loathing,
the European Union has begun to destroy the economic engine that pays its bills. Some of this
is well known, but some is not, and it will astonish you. Only nine of the EU's 27 member
states are net budget contributors, and Germany pays the most — around €25 [billion]
(£22 [billion]) in 2021. Without the generosity of the Bundesrepublik, the European
Commission would struggle to keep the lights on at the Berlaymont. In turn, that wealth comes
from its manufacturing industry. Specifically, from strong global demand for the German vehicles
which account for almost three-fifths of Europe's car exports. [...] But what is little known is how
specific and vindictive the EU has become in its attack on the car. For this is not actually a
war on the combustion engine, so much as a war on personal mobility. The EU has relaxed its
dogmatic insistence on alternative hydrocarbons for maritime and aviation — but not for
road vehicles.
Biden's
EV mandate: a dictatorial attack on the American driver and the US grid. The EPA has
finalized new pollution standards so restrictive that in order to comply, car manufacturers will
have to sell 56% EVs by 2032, plus at least 13% plug-in hybrid or other partially electric cars, as
well as more fuel-efficient gasoline-powered cars. EPA's pollution standards, which
constitute a de facto mandate of >50% EVs, are a revision of earlier, even stricter standards,
which would have mandated >67% EVs — but don't be fooled. This rule is still an
existential threat to driving in America and to the American grid.
Tesla
In Turmoil: The EV Meltdown In 10 Charts. In 2014, Tony Seba, an author and lecturer
in "entrepreneurship, disruption, and clean energy" at Stanford University, declared, "By 2025,
gasoline engine cars will be unable to compete with electric vehicles." He continued, claiming that
internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles "are toast." In a 14-page presentation called "Clean
Disruption of Energy and Transportation," that was subtitled, "How Silicon Valley is making oil,
nuclear, natural gas, coal, electric utilities and conventional cars obsolete — by
2030," Seba claimed "solar, wind, electric vehicles, and autonomous (self-driving) cars will
disrupt and sweep away the energy industry as we know it." He also declared that "Transportation
will never be the same again" and that "energy and transportation as we know it today will be
history by 2030." A decade later, Seba's predictions look rather, um, optimistic.
Could
EVs Compete In A True Free Market? It seems we've reached "peak EV," with sales in
trouble and assembly line workers losing their jobs. The hard truth is electric vehicle sales
would have never reached the level they have if the government had not trespassed into private
matters. The EV troubles are all around. Sales are slowing. Unsold cars have
piled up in lots. Surveys plainly indicate that fewer Americans want them. In response
to dramatically slowing sales, Ford announced last fall that it was delaying $12 billion in EV
investments. Which should surprise no one, considering that the company lost nearly $73,000
on each EV it sold in the second quarter of 2023. At roughly the same time, General Motors
walked away from its EV strategy. Mercedes was excited about its new EVs just a few months
back but learned that customers weren't thrilled about about them. Earlier this year Hertz
decided it would dump as many as 20,000 of its EVs. Now Tesla is laying off 10% of its global
workforce, meaning around 14,000 former employees will be looking for new jobs.
Tesla
Halts All Cybertruck Deliveries After Video Goes Viral Showing How Accelerator Pedal Gets Stuck At
Full Throttle. Tesla has reportedly paused all Cybertruck deliveries as customers
have complained of a potentially fatal flaw with the electric vehicle's accelerator pedal.
According to mulitple reports on social media, including in the Cybertruck Owners' Club forum,
customers of the once-highly coveted stainless steel Tesla truck have received messages from
dealerships notifying them that their delivery appointments had been cancelled. Many of the
notices reportedly said that the latest shipments of the Cybertruck won't become available until after
April 20 due to "unexpected delays," as earlier reported by the Daily Mail. [Video clip]
More
Than Two Dozen AGs Sue Biden Administration Over EV Mandate. A coalition of 25
attorneys general led by Kentucky's Russell Coleman filed a lawsuit against an economy-commandeering
Biden administration electric vehicle mandate Thursday. In March, the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) announced new emissions demands for carmakers to reduce "fleetwide average carbon
emissions" by 56 percent in eight years. The regulations would require car manufacturers
to sell more electric vehicles. Daren Bakst, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's
Center on Energy and Environment, called the new emissions rules "one of the most extreme rules ever
finalized by a federal agency."
Is
the global EV bubble bursting? Elon Musk's announcement that Tesla will lay off ten
percent of its workforce shocked many but it may be inline with figures that suggest the global
demand for electronic vehicles is slumping across the world. In the first quarter of 2024,
the two biggest manufacturers of electronic vehicles, Tesla and its Chinese rival BYD reported
dramatic sales drops compared against the same time last year. BYD cut prices on its vehicles
across China accompanied with a catchy slogan: 'Electricity is cheaper than oil,' in order to help
stem the tide.
How
Green Energy [and] EVs Actually Endanger America. Consider some inescapable
self-inflicted scenarios from hell that government "experts" never warned you about regarding
utopian visions of carbon-free vehicles powered by friendly breezes and sunbeams. So, imagine
it's one of those warm, beautiful days when the first news breaks about a big hurricane or tropical
storm heading your way. You immediately begin thinking about stocking up on food supplies
that don't require refrigeration and charging up your electric plug-in to get out of town in a
hurry if necessary[,] just like, it seems, everyone else is doing. Or maybe, with no warning,
"poof," all power goes off because the grid is down for suspicious reasons no one fully
understands or can inform you about. As it turns out, a foreign adversary cyberattack
precludes either of those previous options, plus an added problem. Along with knocking out
all power transformers, the malign hackers also took remote control of both autonomous and
operator-controlled electric vehicles, jamming exit highways with colossal human and metal crash
wreckage. In both cases, it's already too late.
Report:
Tesla to lay off 10% of its global workforce. Tesla will lay off more than 10% of its
global workforce, an internal memo seen by Reuters on Monday shows, as it grapples with falling
sales and an intensifying price war for electric vehicles. The world's largest automaker by
market value had 140,473 employees globally as of December 2023, its latest annual report
shows. The memo did not say how many jobs would be affected. Some staff in California
and Texas have already been notified of layoffs, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters,
declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject.
Richard
Hammond makes feelings clear on electric vehicles and predicts most cars will be petrol by
2050. Richard Hammond has predicted that the majority of cars will be petrol by 2050,
despite plans to massively expand electric vehicle sales in the coming years. The former Top
Gear host is one of the most well-known automotive experts and has frequently given his opinion on
the future of vehicles. [Video clip]
Even
Senate Democrats Are Starting to Reject Biden's Radical Environmental Agenda. Even
some Senate Democrats are rejecting parts of Joe Biden's radical environmental agenda. The
Senate passed a resolution on Wednesday voting down an important aspect of the Biden
administration's efforts to force the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). In a 53-47 vote,
Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Jon Tester of
Montana joined Republicans in blocking a rule aimed at reducing the number of gas-powered cars on
America's roads. Independent Sen. Krysten Sinema also supported the measure.
Ford
backs away from electric vehicles: Americans just don't want EV's. The fantasy
of battery powered vehicles that also fix the weather was foisted upon the people by Big
Government. But all the regulatory wands in the world, and even billions in free gifts don't
make a market appear when the product is a dog. EV's are meant to be storming the market on
their way to domination. But in the UK the market share of EV's rose only $3.8% [sic] last
month but the whole car market grew by 10% — so EV's are in danger of becoming a
shrinking part of the UK car fleet. Plug-in hybrids saw a 37 [percent] increase.
The EV experiment has gone so very wrong. Last year Ford was the number 2 EV brand in the
US, but it was hit with the $4.5 billion dollar black hole of fiscal carnage, losing $38,000 on
every single EV. Obviously, something had to change, and now months later, Ford is abandoning
plans to bring in two new EV models, and retool their EV manufacturing plants. Instead, it is
shifting to hybrid vehicles — copying the Toyota plan.
Biden's
Electric Vehicle 'Mandate' Might Just Be A Surprise Gift To China. The Biden
administration has put in place regulations that would require many Americans to adopt electric
vehicles (EV) in the coming years despite U.S. companies struggling to produce the products,
leading some experts to wonder if vehicles from China will be needed to meet current goals.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized emission standards in late March for light-duty
vehicles that would effectively require 67% of new models sold to be electric or hybrid by the end
of 2032 in hopes of speeding up an EV transition to reduce carbon emissions. The regulations
are in spite of sluggish American EV demand that has led to both concerning losses and slowdowns in
production for automakers, with both Tesla and Rivian missing production expectations for the first
quarter of 2024.
Electric
vehicles. Apart from the real and insurmountable problems all EVs have, Rivian's
price structure is deadly. The average EV price is $67,000. The cheapest Rivian model starts
at $70,000, which means a reasonably well-equipped Rivian approaches $100,000. Not many Americans,
unless they're buying one for greenie street cred, and have all the conventionally powered vehicles
they need, can afford that. Rivian isn't alone: ["]Fisker's stock plunged this
week as investors worry about the company's ability to survive amid a cash crunch. The auto
company also said it would slash 15% of its workforce.["] In its original
incarnation, Fisker went bankrupt in 2013, disappearing the 529 million the Obama
Administration "loaned" it, even though they knew Fisker was going under. Fisker, in its
former and current incarnations, made luxury vehicles most Americans couldn't remotely
afford. It appears Fisker is days, not months, from going under again. General Motors
has "postponed" its EV production plans, and 50% of Buick dealers have opted for buy-outs —
they're going out of business — rather than invest in the equipment and training necessary
to sell and service EVs.
GM
Doesn't Tell the Truth About Electric Vehicles. Dollar for dollar, subsidizing EVs
for Americans is a subsidy to the rest of the world to use more fossil energy and cause more
emissions, a reality that can't escape political notice forever. Take Norway, portrayed in GM
ads as EV heaven. As a Morgan Stanley research note first observed two years ago, Norway has
seen no decline in oil consumption related to EVs, though users receive thousands of dollars in
annually recurring subsidies and EVs accounted at the time for 64% of new-car sales. The
reason is increased use and ownership of gas-powered cars, especially for trips that EVs aren't
suited for.
About
That Inevitable Transition to Electric Vehicles.... [Scroll down] But
there's a big difference between "slower growth," which is where EV sales have been for the last
year or so, and "the end of the EV," which seems unlikely in the extreme. So what is the
truth? What happens to EV sales in a market as big and as varied as the United States, with
our widely different needs and wants, complicated by various federal and state mandates and
incentives? Would you believe that, even with Presidentish Joe Biden's Green New Deal Lite
money and EPA mandates, EV adoption might top out at less than 30% of the new car market? Or
that it could be as low as just 13%? The U.S Energy Information Administration published a study
in 2023 looking at EV adoption rates, and maybe this chart will shock you as it did me.
Electric
cars are out and petrol is in, just as it should be. If you fancy a new petrol car,
best buy it now, before it is too late. It surely won't be long before car manufacturers
start to admit that their UK sales operations are in serious trouble, leading some to start
withdrawing from the UK market altogether. Why? Because since January car-makers have
been under the zero emission vehicle mandate (ZEV), to make sure that at least 22 percent of the
vehicles they sell are pure battery models — a proportion that will rise steadily until
it reaches 80 percent by 2030. If they fail to reach the target they could be fined £15,000
for every extra non-compliant vehicle they sell. The trouble is, the proportion of sales made up
by electric vehicles in March was only 15.2 percent, and it going in the wrong direction. In
March 2023, it was 16.2 percent. It isn't hard to work out what is going to happen.
Unless there is a sudden pick up in interest in electric cars, manufacturers are going to find themselves
in an impossible situation.
Behind
EV Push, a Wealth Transfer From Red to Blue Regions. President Joe Biden's new EV
mandates will likely prove to be a sizable wealth transfer from rural red regions of America to
urban blue sections, and to wealthy Democrats who reside in them, according to reports. On
March 20, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its tailpipe emissions rules for
the auto industry starting in 2027. These rules are the strictest in history and will
effectively force carmakers to have one-third of new car sales be plug-in electric vehicles (EVs)
by 2027 and more than two-thirds by 2032. This represents a dramatic increase from current EV
sales, which were about 8 percent of the new car market in 2023. Climate activists
cheered the EPA's move, with the Environmental Defense Fund calling it "a day to celebrate American
achievement." But critics say that the measures will be particularly punitive for huge
segments of the U.S. population who don't want, can't use, or can't afford EVs. If carmakers
go along with President Biden's plan to shift their fleets to EVs, the cost of remaining gas-fired
cars and trucks will likely escalate as demand dwarfs supply.
Planes,
Trains and Automobiles ... and Trucks. The Biden administration has announced in
recent weeks new stringent emissions requirements for virtually the entire American transportation
system. The Environmental Protection Agency will mandate by the year 2035 that virtually
every car made and sold in America must be an EV. No more gas cars. The New York Times
comically declared that motorists don't have to worry because this "is not a ban on
gasoline-powered vehicles." Sure it isn't. Today less than 2% of cars use the electric
power grid for fuel. So soon we will see 50 times more demand for electricity from
autos. Then the EPA announced new rules for trains in California to go electric —
even as the Association of American Railroads has declared the mandate infeasible. But
wait. The climate change lobby is just getting started. There is now a new scheme to
mandate that the long-haul trucking industry convert to electric battery operation from diesel
fuel. This is a technological and financial nightmare for our trucking industry.
Planes,
Trains and Automobiles ... and Trucks. The Biden administration has announced in
recent weeks new stringent emissions requirements for virtually the entire American transportation
system. The Environmental Protection Agency will mandate by the year 2035 that virtually
every car made and sold in America must be an EV. No more gas cars. The New York Times
comically declared that motorists don't have to worry because this "is not a ban on
gasoline-powered vehicles." Sure it isn't. Today less than 2% of cars use the electric
power grid for fuel. So soon we will see 50 times more demand for electricity from
autos. Then the EPA announced new rules for trains in California to go electric —
even as the Association of American Railroads has declared the mandate infeasible. But
wait. The climate change lobby is just getting started. There is now a new scheme to
mandate that the long-haul trucking industry convert to electric battery operation from diesel
fuel. This is a technological and financial nightmare for our trucking industry.
Tesla
Stock Taking a Beating As Electric Vehicle Demand Plummets. Tesla, Inc. stock took a
hit Tuesday as the electric vehicle maker posted sales numbers showing their first year-over-year
quarterly decline since 2020. As of this writing, the stock is down five percent for the day,
and it's tumbled 34 percent over the last six months. The sales drop comes amidst
increasing competition and a lowered customer appetite for EVs. [...] As Joe Biden and governors
like California's Gavin Newsom try to shove electric cars down our throats, it's become
increasingly clear that the general public isn't eager to jump aboard just yet. They're
expensive, can fail in cold weather, and aren't good for people who drive long distances because
they need recharging. For certain people, they're perfect for their lifestyle, but for
others, they are definitely not ready for prime time.
Trump's
First Job In 2025: Reverse Biden's EV Mandate. Should Donald Trump be elected this
fall, he should waste no time in reversing Joe Biden's electric vehicle mandate. Biden not
only overstepped his authority, he set the country directly on a course that will bring nothing but
trouble. Acting like the authoritarian that the Democrats and media claim that Donald Trump
is, Biden, with a pen and maybe a phone, has ordered through his Environmental Protection Agency to
issue a rule that will require Americans to replace their internal-combustion engine automobiles
with battery-powered cars. The rule doesn't require Americans to buy electric vehicles, nor
does it directly outlaw the sale of automobiles that run on gasoline. But in effect, it is a
mandate and a ban. Forcing the country into EVs is an egregious abuse of power by executive
edict. Biden's rule has been referred to, for good reason, as "a "crackdown on cars," a
"bloodbath" for consumers, and an example of chutzpah.
Biden
EPA's Electric Truck Mandate Is Truly Insane. In their continuing quest to electrify
the U.S. automotive fleet against the clear will of the American people, the zealots in the Biden
administration rolled out their new requirements related to heavy trucks on Good Friday.
Amazingly, they did it in a way that will make the mandates even more expensive than the trillions
of dollars their passenger car mandates will cost the American economy. That's quite an
accomplishment. Biden's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is mandating that 60% of urban
delivery trucks and 25% of heavy rig sales become electric by 2032. Never mind the overwhelming
challenges achieving this goal faces in terms of infrastructure, manufacturing, and supply chains
for equipment and critical energy minerals, the dogma of the global church of climate alarmism
orders its true believers to "do something," and this is the something the EPA bureaucrats are
choosing to do.
China's
Abandoned, Obsolete Electric Cars Are Piling Up in Cities. On the outskirts of the
Chinese city of Hangzhou, a small dilapidated temple overlooks a graveyard of sorts: a series of
fields where hundreds upon hundreds of electric cars have been abandoned among weeds and
garbage. Similar pools of unwanted battery-powered vehicles have sprouted up in at least half
a dozen cities across China, though a few have been cleaned up. In Hangzhou, some cars have
been left for so long that plants are sprouting from their trunks. Others were discarded in
such a hurry that fluffy toys still sit on their dashboards. The scenes recall the aftermath
of the nation's bike-sharing crash in 2018, when tens of millions of bicycles ended up in rivers,
ditches and disused parking lots after the rise and fall of startups backed by big tech such as Ofo
and Mobike.
Corruption
Is Treason. When you look into it, it isn't because human activity can destroy the
planet, but it does coincide quite nicely with the goals of the globalist/communists to maximize
control over human activity. The absurdity of their arguments, I thought, would keep them
from achieving their goals, but I was mistaken. The absurdity of their arguments only meant
they had to enlist the governments and international organizations who rule over the people and
buying off politicians and scientists is much easier to accomplish than convincing people that
electric vehicles, powered by coal-fired power plants, somehow achieve zero emissions. The
one true clean energy is natural gas, but they are against that, too. Why? That's the
question they are never able to answer.
Does this mean it's okay to mock Pete Buttigieg?
Pete
Buttigieg mocks Americans who don't want electric cars. Secretary of Transportation
Pete Buttigieg made fun of Americans who don't want to buy electric cars, claiming they're the same
as people didn't want to adapt to cell phones in the 2000s. It comes as at least eight states
run by Democrats like Buttigieg are planning to ban non-electric vehicles by 2032. Buttigieg
was speaking on Fox News Tuesday afternoon when he was asked about a downturn in sales of Teslas
and electric vehicles despite Biden's administration pushing them.
Pete
Buttigieg Hates Your Car, but Mostly He Thinks You're an Idiot. America's eminently
mockable Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, went on national TV on Tuesday to mock Americans
who find that electric cars don't suit their transportation needs. "Sometimes, when these
debates happen," the failed former mayor of South Bend, Ind. told Fox News, "I feel like it's the
early 2000s and I'm talking to some people who think that we can just have landline phones
forever." Spoiler: Nobody was saying that in the early 2000s. Even before the
iPhone came out in 2007 and changed phones forever, Americans were snapping up Nokias and
Blackberries and wondering if we still needed our landlines at all. As early as 2005, 69% of
Americans already owned cell phones, which was pretty much the entire adult population.
Six percent of households had even given up their landlines.
Pete
Buttigieg Given Brutal Reality Check After Using Faulty Analogy to Mock Americans.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg this week used a faulty analogy on Fox News to taunt
Americans for refusing to buy overpriced, environmentally damaging electric vehicles. But
Americans on social media gave the inept and elitist Buttigieg a brutal reality check
afterward. Buttigieg was a guest on "America's Newsroom" with John Roberts and Sandra Smith
when he embarrassed himself. Roberts opened by telling Buttigieg about the collapsing Tesla
sales and auto companies laying off large chunks of their workforces at electric plants. He
then pivoted to asking why the Biden regime continued to try to shove EVs down everyone's
throats. Buttigieg responded by spinning EV statistics before mocking Americans resistant to
EVs being stuck in the past, comparing the situation to people who resisted the cell phone
revolution in the early 2000s and wanted landline phones forever instead.
Biden's
Next EV Mandate Is Out and It's Going to Break America. Say goodbye to the trucking
industry as we know it, and goodbye to the American economy, too. You might have missed it on
Good Friday — which you can be sure was no accident — when the Biden EPA
released its new tailpipe rules for semi-trucks, but the new rules will destroy how we move goods
around the country. It seems like only two weeks ago that I told you about Presidentish
Biden's new EPA regulations, coming into effect starting in 2027, that will force two-thirds of new
car buyers into electric vehicles whether they want one or not. The tailpipe rules will
effectively outlaw most gas and diesel engines by requiring a near-impossible 52% reduction in
emissions. On the Good Friday News Dump, the EPA announced similar restrictions on
semi-trucks, again starting in just three years, and the changes will require one of those
"fundamental transformations" the Left is so fond of.
Everything
in the name of climate change. Years ago, Fidel Castro would often say everything we
do is in the name of the revolution. It was his way of justifying stupid decisions such as
destroying the private sector, expropriating private property, and shutting down newspapers.
Everything was done in the name of the revolution. Well, Fidel has a new disciple. His
name is Joe Biden, who apparently will do anything in the name of climate change. The latest
is electric trucks, those big machines who transport everything from coast to coast. [...] Do we
have enough charging stations or batteries that can go a lot of miles? I don't know, but
shouldn't we figure that out first? We remind you that electric trucks go about
170 miles on a charge. They will require bigger and heavier batteries, which means they
must carry lighter loads to avoid damaging roads.
The
Biden Democrats are coming for your car and pickup truck. Energy policies imposed by
executive orders and burdensome regulations are on track to ruin the American economy. In
three years, Biden has driven up gasoline prices by 50%. The Democrats plan to practically
eliminate the production of gas-driven automobiles in the next ten years. Ask any electrical
engineer if our power grid can support all those EVs and you will get a quick "you got to be crazy"
response. Any auto worker in Michigan who votes for the Democrats in November is
suicidal. These are the worst economic policies since Jimmy Carter.
Biden's
electric road to nowhere. More than two years after President Joe Biden pledged to
build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations throughout the United States only seven are
operational across four states. The Washington Post reported Friday on the sluggish pace the
allocated $7.5 billion in infrastructure funds have been put to use. The bulk of the
funds, $5 billion, are to go toward building fast chargers along major interstates —
what's being called the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure or NEVI program. To satisfy
the federal program's requirements, chargers must be built at least every 50 miles over major
highway routes and be operational 97 percent of the time. They also must take credit
card payments and certain components must be made domestically. Additionally, states must
submit proposals to the Biden administration for approval, solicit bids for construction and then
can award the funds. So after the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was passed in
November 2021, only seven charging stations are operational.
Joe
Biden had $7.5 billion to spend on 500,000 EV charging stations. He has built ...
seven. Way back in 2021, Joe Biden vowed to spend $7.5 billion of our taxpayer
dollars to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations. The greenie future was just
around the corner, he assured, soon everyone would be driving an electric vehicle, and the future
was so bright, we'd have to wear shades. Now that his term is ending, how's that going? [...]
Seems his call to leave it to him to turn our economy green isn't working out quite like he thought
it would work out. It's like the shovel-ready jobs promised by President Obama early in his
term that he eventually admitted never quite panned out like he thought it would? Now Joe
Biden has "toppped" that Obama failure with his electric vehicle charging stations scheme, making
his promises even more empty than Obama's.
Biden
admin cracks down on gas-powered trucks and tractors despite electric vehicle infrastructure
fears. The White House finalized new emissions standards intended to sharply reduce
pollution caused by new trucks and tractors Friday — with a leading industry group
warning of "the most challenging, costly and potentially disruptive heavy-duty emissions rule in
history." The Environmental Protection Agency said in its announcement that it had modified the
timeline of the new mandate due to concerns about a lack of electric vehicle charging stations
along the nation's highways.
The Editor says...
If you make a living as a truck driver, you are probably paid by the mile. In that case, you earn
little or no income while waiting for your electric truck to recharge. Do you drive a thousand
miles a day? Those days will come to an end, thanks to the socialist Democrats.
Ford
Slashes Electric Vehicle Jobs As Democrats' Dreams of an EV Utopia Short Circuit. One
of the most dangerous places to be is between liberals and the implementation of one of their
harebrained ideas. Whether or not it will actually work is not the point; they believe it
will, and that's all that matters. If it only affected them, no one would care, but it always
affects the rest of us who don't want anything to do with it. A perfect example of this is
their love of electric vehicles (EVs) and the notion that if they can just fit this square peg in a
round hole and force them on the American people, nirvana will ensue. But for American
automakers, EVs continue to be a losing proposition. [Tweet]
Ford
to trim workforce at plant that builds its F-150 Lightning as sales of electric vehicles
slow. Ford will drastically cut the number of hourly workers at its factory that
builds the Ford F-150 Lightning as sales of electric vehicles slow, according to a media
report. Ford began the year by cutting production of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup
after weaker-than-expected electric vehicle sales growth. While EV sales are growing in the
U.S., the pace is falling well short of the industry's ambitious timetable and many consumers are
turning to hybrid vehicles instead.
Also posted
under green jobs.
Eight
States Plan to Ban the Sale of Gas-Powered Vehicles. The Gateway Pundit reported last
week that Joe Biden issued the most radical environmental rules in American history to phase out
gasoline-powered vehicles and force customers to drive ineffective electric cars. Now, a new
report has revealed the effort to finish off the gas-powered car is well-underway in eight
states. As The Daily Mail reported Tuesday, the rules being adopted in these states specify
that only zero-emission vehicles, which include electric vehicles and certain plug-in hybrids, can
be sold beginning with the 2035 model year. This is known as the Advanced Clean Cars II
rule. The eight states that have pledged to force their constituents to drive environmentally
damaging electric vehicles are California, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New
York, Oregon, and Washington. The District of Columbia has also signed off.
Going
electric requires electricity. Who knew? Lo and behold, when you push people to
electrify everything in their lives — cars, cookers, heating systems — while
bribing them to go all-electric with lavish government subsidies, it turns out they use more
electricity. Who would have thought? I guess this is why we need all those brainiac
experts to analyse the ultra-complicated technical details of environmental policy. One such
expert worries in the [New York] Times: 'The numbers we're seeing are pretty crazy.'
America's paper of record warns that in the past year the nation's utilities have nearly doubled
their estimates of how much more power they'll need to provide in the next five years, during which
an extra California's worth of demand will be dumped on the US grid.
8 states
are planning to BAN the sale of gas-powered cars entirely. At least eight states are
planning to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars in the next decade — and others are
considering joining them. Only zero-emission vehicles can be sold in participating states
beginning from the 2035 model year, according to the Advanced Clean Cars II legislation. The
rule, which was first adopted by California, means that automakers and dealerships would be banned
from selling new gas cars in these states from that point onwards. Americans will not be
forced to take their gas-powered cars off the road, however, and will still be able to buy used and
secondhand gas vehicles.
The
Electric Vehicle Bubble Bursts. In Fact, it Explodes. Trying to "save the
planet" by buying an electric vehicle (EV) is like deciding to make a unicorn by buying a
thoroughbred horse and soldering a narwhal's horn to its forehead: a costly, even cruel way to
accomplish nothing at all. It's highly debatable whether, even if every car owner in the West
could afford to switch over to EVs, it would have much impact on our climate at all —
not when the hungry half of the world is unapologetically burning coal. According to the
Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air's 2024 report: "China approved 114 gigawatts (GW) of
coal power capacity in 2023, up 10% from a year earlier. Construction started on 70 GW of new
coal plants last year, up from 54 GW a year earlier." Right there, China blotted out every
arguable improvement that pricey, environmentally toxic EVs might have offered. But at least
Red China's getting rich selling us rare earth elements to make those EV batteries.
The
Norwegian Illusion: EVs Are Not More Energy Efficient. In our last letter, we
predicted that global energy demand would consistently exceed expectations for the next twenty
years. Never before have so many people been simultaneously in their period of
energy-intensive economic development. Our essay focused broadly on total energy demand and
specifically avoided oil consumption. Our choice was deliberate: we wanted to highlight the
critical drivers of total energy demand and avoid getting distracted by the debate on EV
penetration. Today's essay focuses on oil and explains why we believe demand will surprise
the upside for years to come. Our research shows that EVs will struggle to achieve widespread
adoption despite massive subsidies and the growing threat of outright internal combustion engine
(ICE) bans. After carefully studying the history of energy, we have yet to find an example
where a new technology with inferior energy efficiency has replaced an existing, more efficient
one. Despite claims to the contrary, our research suggests EVs are less energy efficient than
internal combustion engine automobiles. As a result, they will fail to gain widespread adoption.
Want
to Rent a Lemon? How About 100,000 of Them? Hertz just fired its CEO for one
single, awful business decision. He is taking the fall for Hertz's decision — on
his watch — to buy 100,000 electric vehicles from Tesla, all for the American
fleet. To say the decision was a flop is putting it mildly. Hertz has about 3,000
domestic locations, and a fleet of about 430,000 cars, SUVs, and minivans. Each location
obviously ranges widely from high volume to low, so this estimate won't be exact, but that works
out to about 35 E.V.s per location. When announced a few years ago, this decision that almost
a quarter of their cars would be E.V.s looked either "bold" or "reckless," depending on your point
of view. With the advantage of hindsight, we now know "reckless" was the right call.
Here
Comes the EV Bloodbath Trump Warned Us About. Donald Trump was right. It's
going to be a bloodbath when China's BYD starts selling its "fun-to-drive" Seagull EV in this
country at a price not even Tesla can match. The five-door hatchback doesn't have the best
range or fanciest amenities. But what it does have is a top price under $14,000, good safety
features, aggressive looks, and plenty of financial backing from Beijing. BYD's specialties
are batteries and high-tech manufacturing, and they're using both to aggressively expand overseas
production and deliveries. An improved version for South American markets, called the Dolphin
Mini, is already on sale, starting at $21,990. "What we've seen over time is automotive
manufacturers eventually enter all the markets that matter... Ultimately the Chinese will come to
the U.S.," Marin Gjaja — chief operating officer for Ford's EV unit — told
CNBC in an interview last week.
The
Electric Car Fiasco. Donald Trump's anodyne if overexcited comment that the U.S. auto
industry would face a "bloodbath" if he's not elected and doesn't impose 50% or 100% tariffs on
cars produced predictable results. "Don't outsmart yourself," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii)
posted, and Joe Biden's campaign promptly charged Trump with promising a "bloodbath" if he loses,
without saying that he used a common metaphor and was talking about the auto industry. That's
a subject Team Biden is understandably touchy about, given the conspicuous fiasco of its electric
vehicle policies. It's summed up in a lengthy Wall Street Journal report on how a "dramatic
societal shift to electric cars" had "overlooked an important constituency: the consumer."
Evidence is plentiful. Manufacturers have been cutting prices as dealers' lots filled up with
unsold electrics. Ford is halving its output of electric F-150 trucks in its Dearborn,
Michigan, plant. General Motors dealers are pressing the company to reverse its strategy, cut
EV production and build hybrids instead. Tesla CEO Elon Musk warned of "notably lower" EV production.
Carney:
Electric Vehicles Are Pushing Up Auto Insurance Prices. The Biden administration's
push for electric vehicles (EVs) is exacerbating the country's inflationary woes by driving up
the price of auto insurance, Breitbart Economics Editor John Carney said in a Thursday interview
with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. Kudlow noted that the Biden administration's new
environmental rule aimed at eliminating gas-powered vehicles is "inflationary" in practice.
"You wipe out gas-powered cars and stick EVs in, that is inflationary. You get nothing but
higher prices for everything across the board," he said.
When
You Can't Get the Enviro Whackos in Maine to Bite on EVs, Your Green Grift's Got Big Problems.
The New England states, particularly those wild-eyed, unpredictable Mainers, are always ripe for a
good "save the world" scheme. I know certain parties felt this was destined to be yet
another. The Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) met yesterday for a long-awaited — and
highly controversial — final round of arguments and vote on a state-wide electric vehicle
mandate. The proposed regulation was modeled on California's draconian ICE to EV statute.
[...] What's interesting is that the genesis of this mandate drive for the whole state was spurred
by activists and a progressive governor — Janet Mills — jumping on a measly 150-person signature
petition. It made perfect sense because it provided the radical Democrat in the governor's mansion
a way to circumvent the state legislature, which contains enough Republican members to be troublesome.
The Editor says...
It's all very trendy these days for writers to use double-dash characters or hyphens to surround brief
explanatory or parenthetical terms, when commas would suffice. The Editor has neither the time
nor the inclination to correct everybody's sloppy punctuation.
The
Biggest Issue With Joe Biden's EV Mandate Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With EVs. The
issue that should concern everyone is not the Joe Biden administration and their ideology around
climate change, or the EPA, or even the viability of EVs themselves. The issue that should
draw the biggest concern is how the regulation originates; what is the impetus; who are the
beneficiaries? The regulation itself did not originate in the EPA, nor was it created from an
origination process amid climate ideologues in the administration. Everything starts with
BlackRock positioning their assets. From that empirical point, all political activity then
takes place, which includes the regulations to support the BlackRock objective. A massive,
multinational investment firm is in control of political outcomes in the USA. That should be
the emphasis, not necessarily the regulation that flows as an outcome of that control, and
certainly not the debate over whether EVs are a viable alternative to combustion engines.
Grid-Draining
Electron Guzzlers And The End Of Driving. In perfect Democratic Party form, the Biden
administration has dropped another government burden on the private sector. Two days ago, the
White House rolled out "the toughest-ever" automobile emissions standards. The objective, of
course, is to force Americans to buy the cars that the ruling class wants them to drive.
There's a big problem here, though — the grid won't be up to the task of keeping tens of
millions of electric vehicles charged. The headline from a Bloomberg story last week summed
up the plan: "Biden Set to Crack Down on Auto Emissions to Accelerate EV Sales." Rules decreed
by the Environmental Protection Agency are intended to "propel electric vehicle sales well beyond
current levels," says Bloomberg. "The EPA has projected that to meet proposed mandates, electric
models would need to make up roughly two-thirds of car and light truck sales in 2032 —
up from less than a tenth last year."
Biden
administration finalizes rule expected to require significant shift to EVs. The Biden
administration finalized a rule Wednesday that's expected to make a significant amount of the new
car market electric or hybrid. Under the rule, 56 percent of the new vehicles on the
market in 2032 could be battery electric, while an additional 13 percent could be plug-in
hybrids. Under this scenario, just 29 percent of cars would be gas-powered, while an
additional 3 percent would be other hybrids. Only 16 percent of new vehicle sales
were electric and hybrid cars last year. The rule is a cornerstone of the Biden
administration's climate agenda; the cars and other light-duty vehicles it regulates currently make
up about 17 percent of U.S. planet-warming emissions. The rule also regulates
medium-duty vehicles, including vans and pickup trucks.
New
Biden regulation will make gas cars effectively illegal by 2030. I have a friend who
frequently says that, if you control CO2 outputs, you control everything. Let me
explain: Every aspect of modern life is dependent on hydrocarbons and, when hydrocarbons are
burned for energy, they produce CO2. By demonizing CO2, you demonize hydrocarbons, which
means... ta-dah!... you get to block hydrocarbons and control everything. We're getting a
glimpse of that with Joe Biden's new energy emission rules, which will effectively make it
impossible to build a gas-powered car in a few years, forcing people into costly, dangerous,
unreliable, and dirty electric vehicles. [...] This regulation comes just as Americans are making
it increasingly clear that they do not want to buy electric vehicles. Instead, they're
turning to hybrids. This makes perfect sense because electric vehicles are gimmicks at best
and cons at worst.
EPA
Rolls Out USA Auto Mandates Forcing EVs to Make Up Two-Thirds of Passenger Vehicles.
The backstory is so transparently corrupt it requires an explanation, so we'll go down the full
rabbit hole and explain how China knew — to a demonstrable certainty — their
multi-billion dollar investment in Mexican EV plants would be useful. Always remember, there
are trillions at stake. First, who was installed in the Biden White House in charge of all
personnel and staffing? Catherine Russell. Who is Catherine Russell? She's the
wife of Tom Donilon, a long-time aid and advisor to Joe Biden who served in the Obama White
House. After serving as Obama's National Security Advisor (prior to Susan Rice), Tom Donilon
then went on to become "Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute." His job was literally
to "leverage the firm's expertise and generate proprietary research to provide insights on the
global economy, markets, geopolitics and long-term asset allocation." In essence, the Donilon
family represented the interests of Blackrock in the White House.
[The]
EV Market [is] Imploding, So Biden Is About to Mandate Them. Story after story has
come out about the implosion in the EV market. As with many luxury goods, the market can
quickly expand and just as quickly top out, as the latent market demand gets filled. This is
what happened with electric vehicles, which appeal greatly to a small cross-section of the market,
but not so much to the general car buyer. [...] All you really need to know is that the market is
more than saturated and the big automakers are crying uncle, having lost billions trying to fill a
demand that only exists in the fevered imaginations of the environmentalists. [Tweet]
Our
Ancestors Had The Stamp Act. Now We Have Forced EVs. The Stamp Act of 1765 was
the first time the British levied a direct tax on the colonists. Regardless of the reason
behind it, the action blatantly taxed all paper documents and created serious strain between the
crown and the colonists... numerous other actions that eventually culminated in the American
Revolution. There are parallels from then to now. The current resident of the White
House has decreed that Americans must be forced to buy electric vehicles by 2032. Forced is
the operative word. This week the EPA is expected to finalize rules on gas vehicle tailpipe
emissions. The goal is to force us all to buy electric by 2032 — only 8 years
away. The rules will push the price of EVs AND gas vehicles much higher. It is just
another Biden administration forced EVs ruling.
The
Left's Love Affair With Mandates. The hype over EV's is sinking fast, like enthusiasm
for COVID jabs. But our government is truly in love with mandates "for the public good" that
don't work. [...] Now, EVs completely untested for life cycle compatibility to our transportation
needs are forced onto us from both federal and state mandates, but the public's appetite is waning
fast, because people are waking up to the realities of their limited range, lack of reliability in
poor weather conditions, risk of fire, practicality of charging, rapid depreciation, cost of
repairs, etc. Time will tell if, like the shot mandate, the will of the people will be heard
by federal and state governments and EV mandates will be rolled back or eliminated
completely. But what will be the long-term effect of the EV push that we don't know
yet? What will become of those vehicles that were enthusiastically built that can't be
sold? What of the used EVs that have no resale value? Scrap? Recycle?
How? What of the massive expansion in lithium mines and poisonous leach fields scarring the
earth? Will these sites become the newest uninhabitable Chernobyls?
Hertz
CEO Out After Big EV Bet Goes Bust. CEO Stephen Scherr's barely two-year ride with
Hertz came to a screeching halt on Friday. In his wake, he leaves a company still working to
recover from a big bet on electric vehicles gone bad. It will do so under new CEO Gil West,
whose previous posts include executive roles at Delta Air Lines and the Cruise unit of General
Motors. Scherr, who came on board in February 2022 after 30 years at Goldman Sachs,
ushered the company through its emergence from bankruptcy. Hertz's EV push began in the
previous year, with a splashy move to order 100,000 Tesla Model 3 vehicles. After taking the
reins of the Estero, Florida-headquartered company, Scherr doubled down on the green vision,
committing to purchased another 65,000 EVs from Polestar, a Swedish company.
EVerything
Not Coming Up Roses for EVs This Spring. Regardless of whatever cash Biden and other
countries throw at consumers with subsidies and incentives, people have made their choices pretty
clear. It's a small minority interested in EVs and for whom that vehicle works great.
More power to them. [...] The more people learn about EVs, the better decisions they can make about
whether an electric is the car for them. In most instances, that decision is a "no."
Accelerating
the electric vehicle doom loop. EV cheerleading never stops. They're
inevitable! We'll have 500,000 chargers coast to coast any minute now (the federal government
has built approximately two)! By 2030, 50% — or more — of all vehicles on the
road will be EVs! EVs will save the planet! [...] In real reality, Americans have rejected
EVs. GM is "postponing" EV production, Ford has cut future production in half, America soon
will have about 50% fewer Buick dealers, bought out because they refused to sell EVs, and Hertz is
dramatically reducing its EV fleet. Americans wisely won't rent them.
Time
to Put Team E.V. on Defense. With pretty much every E.V. startup company not named
Tesla in a death spiral, and with legacy automakers backing off of their bold electric vehicle
commitments due to widespread consumer rejection that is causing multi-billion dollar losses, it
seems we have won the battle against "the E.V. transition." We haven't. [...] So, what might we
do to put Team E.V. on defense? We do to the electric vehicle marketplace what we've learned
from them — we regulate, ban, fine, tax, etc. [...] In the spirit of the emissions
mandates and other dictates that have been imposed on legacy auto manufacturers, I might recommend
that we impose the following on electric vehicles:
• Mandate an end to dangerous lithium-based batteries by the year 2030.
• Ban E.V.s from parking garages due to the risk of runaway thermal fires.
• Ban E.V.s from bridges due to their weight.
• Assess an annual 4-figure road tax on E.V.s since they don't pay gasoline road taxes.
• Assess a painful "scrapping fee" on the sale of every E.V. since they have such
a short life span compared to I.C.E. cars.
• In the spirit of cigarette warnings, mandate a giant warning label on the hood of every
E.V. advising that foreign slaves and child labor were used to source the rare earth minerals in the car.
• Impose a state level E.V. supplemental sales tax that is exactly equal to any federal
incentive amount applied to the sale of an E.V.
• Mandate petroleum-free tires on E.V.s to ensure the cars are truly net-zero,
and that they don't release toxic emissions.
Proof
Electric Cars Are A Scam And The Media Is Lying To You. We all know the wheels are
starting to fall off the electric battery car bandwagon. Lamestream media has long said we're
all going to make electric cars. Well, guess what? They are falling off the electric
car bandwagon. Now there's a new bandwagon called hybrid and they're all jumping on the
hybrid bandwagon now Consumer Reports just picked the top 10 picks for 2024 and they were of course
mainly hybrid! With the wheels falling of of EV's the news is that we are having a new hybrid
bandwagon. [...] They have got expensive batteries — especially the plug-in ones and
General Repair on them is super expensive because you got a gasoline motor you got an electric
motor and they've got computers that decide when to run this when to run that. And when they
break good luck finding someone who even knows how to fix the stupid things they are complex.
A lot of people have older used cars and they're going to find out well maybe hybrid wasn't such a
smart move.
Do
Only Suckers Buy EVs? The latest evidence that electric vehicles are nothing more
than environmental snake oil can be found in a recent Wall Street Journal article pointing out that
these "clean" cars are actually more polluting than their gasoline-powered brethren.
By polluting, we mean actual pollution, not carbon dioxide emissions — which is not
pollution but plant food. The Journal was highlighting a study from 2022 that, naturally, was
ignored by the mainstream press at the time. What the study found was that "brakes and tires
on EVs release 1,850 times more particle pollution compared to modern tailpipes."
Why? Because EVs are as much as 30% heavier than gas-powered cars, which means more stress on
their "regenerative" brakes and much faster tire wear.
EVs
have one third less range than advertised, magazine test finds. Electric cars have up
to a third less range in reality than advertised, an investigation has found. Official
figures for how many miles an electric car can drive after one charge are based on a standardised
test, done in warm conditions. However, What Car magazine discovered that under real-world
conditions, including at colder temperatures, cars perform much worse. The magazine parked a
dozen cars outside overnight to mimic how motorists use vehicles in the real world. Testers
then drove them over a 60-mile loop on a test track in Bedfordshire until their batteries ran
completely flat. Steve Huntingford, the magazine's editor, said its test schedule was a
better representation of real-world EV range than official testing methods.
Driver
of £80k Jaguar I-Pace reveals moment he realised electric vehicle had gone
rogue. A driver who was trapped behind the wheel of an out-of-control Jaguar I-Pace
has revealed to MailOnline how he cheated death as his car accelerated up to 100mph on the busy M62
motorway without brakes. Nathan Owen, 31, was on his way back from his first day at a new job
when his 2019 electric car started malfunctioning, sparking a huge police operation to bring his
car to a stop after 35 minutes of hell. But he told how his car had also gone rogue on
the motorway in December, this time reaching up to 120mph. He claims Jaguar handed him his
car back 24 hours after he had taken it in to be looked at.
The Editor says...
If the car was going 120 mph, there were more issues than just the brakes. I've never driven an electric car, but
isn't there an OFF switch, a STOP button, an "ignition" switch with a key in it, a fuse box, or
some way to turn the car off? If there are a dozen things that could go wrong with an electric car, there should
be a dozen ways to stop it.
Then a little light goes on, and The Editor continues...
Electric cars are a microcosm of a much larger problem in the world today, which is the unwarranted confidence everyone
seems to have in computer-based technology, and other electronics, which can fail at any time. Examples include
• The global positioning system (GPS)
• Computerized vote tabulation
• "Smart" electric meters
• "Smart" thermostats
• "Smart" appliances
• Anything connected to the internet
• The internet itself
• Cars without keys
• Digital currency
• Automatic bank drafts to pay monthly bills
• QR codes on "smart phones" instead of airline boarding passes, movie tickets, or other credentials
• Solar power
• Self-driving cars
In the event any of these utilities lets you down due to a component failure or computer malfunction,
you will probably be greatly surprised, because everyone assumes (to some degree) that all these things
are mature technologies and the bugs have all been driven out. But the consumer usually pays a
high price for these failures: If you think you have $10,000 in the bank, but their computer says you
have $10, your once-friendly banker will hide behind the computer and insist that you have ten bucks.
Bankers and cops believe whatever their computers say. Digital currency depends on a lot of unrelated people
agreeing on a lot of facts and presuppositions. Electric cars apparently have dozens of ways to fail, and
each failure comes as a costly surprise.
Is
the Bell Tolling for EV Mania? Electric vehicles have been all the rage among politicians
at least since President Barack Obama's first term in office, but they've never really caught on
among the unwashed masses, who actually want their cars to deliver them to their destinations in comfort
in a timely fashion, toting everything and everyone they might want to take along, without blowing up
while parked and burning down their residences in the process. [...] Electric cars predated the first
gasoline- and diesel-powered private vehicles, all without government support, subsidies, or tax credits,
by the way, and they couldn't compete. They still can't compete. Yet now, in a vain quest to
manage the climate, the government is putting its thumb on the scale to mandate and incentivize them
with various types of support and regulations.
More
Hidden Risks of EVs. An EV will likely not exceed five digits on the odometer because
the cost to replace the battery in the typical 10-year span of a battery life will exceed the
vehicle's resale value, therefore making it economically impractical. Other authors have all
cited valid facts about the impracticality of charging these things on long trips, the stress they
will add to a fragile electric grid, the lack of enthusiasm in this country for adding additional
reliable energy power plants, etc. None of this has made me want to rush right out and buy an
EV, but just for the sake of developing a more complete picture, let's peel another layer off the
onion. It should come as no surprise that insurance costs are also higher, not only because
of their higher sticker price but because of the cost of specialty parts (including batteries), the
lack of a specially-trained workforce to fix them, and the possibility that even a younger vehicle
may be totaled if there was a damaged battery simply because of the cost of the battery.
Police
are forced to ram [a] £80,000 electric Jaguar I-Pace to stop it as it raced down the busy M62
motorway without brakes. Police were forced to ram an out-of-control electric car
after a 'horrifying fault' left the eco-vehicle tearing down the busy M62 without any brakes.
Cop cars swarmed the motorway to save a driver after their runaway £80,000 Jaguar I-Pace
suffered an 'electrical fault'. Officers from Merseyside Police and Greater Manchester Police
used specialist tactics to ram the vehicle and block it between a number of police vehicles, to
eventually bring the car to a stop.
EVs
Emit More Particulate Matter Than Gas-Powered Vehicles, According to Report. Here's
something the Biden administration and CA Gov. Gavin Newsom haven't talked about: electric
cars actually emit more soot and particulate matter than their gas-powered counterparts —
because of their tires. At least, that's what a Wall Street Journal opinion piece which [was published]
Sunday concluded with this jaw-dropping headline: ["]Electric Cars Emit More Soot["]
Electric
vehicle owners report 80% more problems than with conventional cars and trucks, Consumer Reports
says. Electric vehicles have proved far less reliable, on average, than
gasoline-powered cars, trucks and SUVs, according to the latest survey by Consumer Reports, which
found that EVs from the 2021 through 2023 model years encountered nearly 80% more problems than did
vehicles propelled by internal combustion engines. Consumer Reports said EV owners most
frequently reported troubles with battery and charging systems as well as flaws in how the
vehicles' body panels and interior parts fit together. The magazine and website noted that EV
manufacturers are still learning to construct completely new power systems, and it suggested that
as they do, the overall reliability of electric vehicles should improve.
Nissan
EV Cars to Lose Functionality Due to 2G Switch-Off. Charging problems and battery
lifespan have already 'flattened the curve' when it comes to EV take-up in the rush to Net Zero
with the 2035 ICE vehicle ban looming on the horizon. If you're still thinking about the
positives and the negatives, Nissan has inadvertently come up with a solution to help make your
mind up. When the 2G network is switched off, owners of older EV Nissans will discover that
the app which helps control remote functionality will stop working on August 1st 2024.
That's because these cars use only 2G technology.
Nearly
two thousand electric buses worth £800 million face urgent recall over fears they could see
burst into flames. Safety watchdogs have ordered the recall of almost 2,000 electric
buses over fears they can catch fire if left unattended. The Driver and Vehicle Standards
Agency has warned operators who use the Alexander Dennis Enviro200 and Enviro400 single and double
decker buses of the critical safety issue. The buses are currently operational across the UK,
with more than 600 in London and a further 100 in Manchester.
Southern
California bus factory shuts, 425 jobs lost, latest victim of green-vehicle slump. In
an era when clean public transportation has seemingly huge support, how can the makers of
low-emission buses fail? The latest casualty is a Southern California factory where
environmentally friendly buses were made. It's being shut down by its Wisconsin-based
owners. REV Group — which makes everything from RVs to fire trucks —
decided in January to exit the mass transit business, announcing the closure of its ENC bus
business and its plant in Jurupa Valley. State documents show 425 jobs will be lost after the
business winds down after completing outstanding orders. Now, you probably don't know ENC,
but you've likely ridden in one of their products. Their legacy product was the ubiquitous
airport shuttle. The manufacturer then evolved into manufacturing mass-transit buses.
Mercedes-Benz
Walks Back on Huge Electric Vehicle Commitment amid Slowing Demand. Mercedes-Benz on
Thursday walked back plans to have an all-electric line-up by 2030 as consumers decline to adopt
electric vehicles (EV) at the rate automakers expected. The company has changed its
expectations to have only 50% of its sales be EVs by 2030, announcing that it will be updating its
current line-up featuring the internal combustion engine into the next decade, according to
Mercedes-Benz in its fourth quarter report. EV sales grew 21% year-over-year in 2023, but
total car sales remained relatively the same, bucking hopes that EVs would fuel growth as the
automaker pushes electric models.
Green
Crime: An Electric Car, Wind & Solar Crime Wave. Biden's Inflation Increase Act
intends to spend $7.5 billion taxpayer money to build charging stations for electric car
owners. Two years later, no EV chargers were built. And that's good. The modern
sheen of the electric car is running into the medieval state of American cities. Seattle
began installing dozens of EV chargers only for thieves to show up and raid at least eight of the
charging cables for copper requiring thousands of dollars worth of repairs. In response, the
city is planning to put the chargers high up on poles that can only be lowered by an app.
This will cost even more money and in an environment in which brazen copper thieves toppled an
FM radio tower in Oklahoma, isn't likely to deter the criminals. EV owners who suffered
from copper theft while leaving their cars to be charged in public places were told by the Seattle
Police Department to "stay with the vehicle if you can while it's being charged," Considering that
it can take an electric car hours to charge, that's gonna be a wait.
The
case for EV freedom. EVs have generated excitement because they have some performance
advantages and no tailpipe emissions. However, EVs aren't currently cost-effective for most
uses and face scalability issues with America's inadequate grid and small-scale production of key
EV materials. Good EV policy should unleash whatever potential EVs have to be a
cost-effective, scalable alternative to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, but not harm
consumers or the grid by imposing EVs before they are truly cost-effective and scalable.
Electric
Vehicles Are a Rich Man's Dream. [Scroll down] Since carbon dioxide is a
benefit to the planet, none of these programs makes any sense. Electric vehicles are supposed
to save the planet, but this is very unrealistic. These vehicles are very expensive, must
stop every couple of hours and be recharged, and have many technical problems. These vehicles
with batteries are much heavier than a vehicle with an internal combustion engine and are thus
unsafe on the highway. Some cars parked on the coast and covered with sea water have caught fire.
EV
Bubble Popping: US backs away from forced EV sales targets. History shall
record the ignominious boom and bust of a car genre forced on citizens so they could produce better
weather. Things are so bad, Joe Biden has even put the brakes on his aggressive EV scheme,
stepping away from the 2030 deadline. "It's just a delay" of course. The plan would
have forced car manufacturers to sell 3 EV's for every 2 cars with a combustion engine by 2030. If
customers didn't volunteer to buy enough EV's, companies would be forced to jack up prices of the
cars everyone wants in order to cross-subsidize the discounted sales of the unpopular EV's.
Car dealers were appalled and said so. EV sales growing in some places but falling in
others. The shift has been so fast the full length of the supply chain is in turmoil.
The price of lithium has fallen 90% from it's peak, nickel has halved. Ford has sacked
1,400 people. GM has cut its workforce by 1,000. Hertz is selling one third of it's
electric fleet and cancelling $3 billion dollars worth of forward orders. A month ago,
the biggest political party in the EU decided it would rather drop the ban on petrol and diesel
cars. Meanwhile EV drivers in China are learning the same awful lessons the US learned a
month ago. EV batteries don't go as far during freezing cold weather and are extremely hard
to charge.
Electric
car charger pulled over fears hackers could use it to attack National Grid. An
electric vehicle charger has been pulled from sale amid warnings that foreign hackers could use it
as a "weapon" to cause electricity blackouts. The Office for Product Safety and Standards,
the consumer safety regulator, has told charger company Wallbox that its Copper SB electric car
charger does not comply with cyber security laws. That means it cannot be sold because it
cannot be properly secured against hackers. Critics say continued sales of the Copper SB
charger, which sells for around £500, risks letting hostile nations disrupt the UK's critical
national infrastructure. Wallbox has sold close to 40,000 electric car chargers in Britain,
although it is not known how many of these are the affected model. Copper SB chargers already
installed in homes are not being recalled. Ken Munro, of Pen Test Partners, a cyber security
company, said: "The electric vehicle charging industry has inadvertently created a weapon that
hostile foreign powers and others could use to destabilise our power grid. A lack of
appropriate cyber security has left us all exposed to blackouts."
We
bought an electric car, and it was a total disaster. Recently, the Bays family took
delivery of a new electric Nissan Leaf N-Connecta. It should have been a joyous experience,
but soon turned into a nightmare. The nightmare began when we decided it would be nice to
take a half-term trip to our native North East to visit friends and family. A journey that
would normally have taken five and a half hours in our old petrol car ended up taking over eight
hours in the new EV. When we left home in the morning, we had 165 miles of charge
available which should have got us to Nottingham, but we ended up having to stop early at Derby.
Believe it or not, this was the least of our worries and the start of our travel nightmares.
New
Mexico's Martin Heinrich Embraced a Struggling Electric Bus Industry. Campaign Cash from
Lobbyists Followed. When Senator Martin Heinrich's chief of staff Joe Britton left
his role, the New Mexico Democrat heaped praise on his former right-hand man, saying Britton would
"continue to make a difference in the lives of everyone he meets." In the years following his
departure, Britton did make a difference — to Heinrich's campaign coffers. After
leaving Heinrich's office, Britton launched both a green energy lobbying shop and an electric
vehicle trade association, through which he has routinely lobbied the Senate on energy policies
that would benefit his clients. Heinrich in at least one case co-sponsored a bill that
Britton lobbied the upper chamber to pass, federal disclosures show. That bill, the
Bidirectional Act, would have propped up an electric bus industry that has since suffered
significant setbacks. One industry leader, Proterra, declared bankruptcy last year, while
others have struggled to turn a profit.
Heavier
EVs are tearing up California roadways — but paying nothing for road maintenance.
Larger electric vehicles (EVs) are causing California's roads to experience even more wear and
tear — and these cars contribute little to nothing to road taxes that could fix these
roads. "Can it be true that California, in pursuit of reduced emissions from internal
combustion engine vehicles, has mandated that heavier EV cars and trucks tear up the states'
roads?" asked Ronald Stein, engineer and senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland
Institute and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. California has almost
400,000 miles of roadways used by the more than 31 million motor vehicles in the
state. Those roadways are heavily dependent on road taxes from fuels that contribute more
than $8.8 billion annually, the same gas tax revenues that also fund many environmental
programs and the high speed rail project.
Biden
Pulls The Plug On EVs. When President Joe Biden issued regulations that he and his
side of the political aisle hoped would eventually lead to electric vehicles replacing automobiles
that burn gasoline and diesel fuel, it was regarded as a glorious moment. The backtracking,
however, has begun, a welcome development we didn't believe was possible from the man who once
irresponsibly promised "to end fossil fuel." Unfortunately, it's being done for the wrong
reasons. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the "administration intends to
relax elements of one of its most ambitious strategies to combat climate change, limits on tailpipe
emissions that are designed to get Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles."
The Times calls it a "concession to automakers and labor unions." We would have preferred a
concession to science and the limits a president should have on the lives of everyday folks.
For now, though, we take what we can get: Biden is merely giving the industry more time to
meet the targets that he, not Congress through the constitutional lawmaking process, set.
Electric
vehicles are so unpopular, entire mines are shutting down. A slowdown in the growth
of electric vehicle (EV) demand has led to entire mines being shut down as the supply of rare earth
minerals essential for EV components exceeds demand, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Mines around the world are ceasing operations or halting construction projects in response to the
falling demand, such as a $1.3 billion plant in North Carolina operated by Albemarle. which
announced that it was deferring spending on the project amid the market turmoil, according to the
WSJ[.] The total market share of EVs rose from 3.1% in January 2023 to 3.6% in
December 2023, while the share of U.S. vehicle inventory grew from 2.8% to 5.7% in that same
time frame as demand fails to keep up with supply. Over the last few years, global mineral
producers have ramped up mining operations in an attempt to capitalize on the emerging EV market,
but consumers have declined to adopt EVs at the rate producers were expecting, leading to rare
minerals flooding the market and driving down prices, according to the WSJ.
Biden
Quietly Scraps Key Climate Policy After Realizing How Insane It Really Is. Joe Biden
is starting to ride back his committments on forcing the transition to electric vehicles (EVs).
According to a report from The New York Times, Biden's administration is giving up on its targets
for production of EVs in an apparent "concession" to automakers and labor unions. The plan is
also said to be an election ploy as Democrats fear losing the support of automakers and labor unions: [...]
The
Great Reset Didn't Work: The Case of EVs. We are living through one of
history's longest and most excruciating versions of "We told you so". When in March 2020, the
world's governments decided to "shut down" the world's economies and throttle any and all social
activity, and deny kids schooling plus cancel worship services and holidays, there was no end to
the warnings of the terrible collateral damage, even if most of them were censored. Every bit
of the warnings proved true. You see it in every story in the news. It's behind every
headline. It's in countless family tragedies. It's in the loss of trust. It's in
the upheaval in industry and demographics. The fingerprints of lockdowns are deeply embedded
in every aspect of our lives, in ways obvious and not so much. Actually, the results have
been even worse than critics predicted, simply because the chaos lasted such a long time.
Report:
Desperate Car Dealers [are] Slashing EV Prices to Try and Boost Sales. Psssst.
Wanna' buy a new electric vehicle (EV)? No, me neither, but some people do and they're being
greeted by desperate car dealers willing to slash prices by anything up to a quarter in an effort
to shift stock. This Is Money reports the average discount on a new EV in the UK has
increased by 204 per cent since last January, citing market analysis by What Car? as dealerships
are going to extraordinary lengths to stimulate sluggish sales.
The
Great Electric Vehicle Con. [Scroll down] First, the empirical evidence
shows that luxury E.V.s depreciate faster than vehicles powered by internal combustion
engines. Second, Ford Motor Company recently revealed that it incurred a loss of
$4.7 billion on its electric vehicles. On the other hand, auto firms that have refused
to embrace E.V.s have outperformed those that promote E.V.s. This past week, for instance,
Toyota, which has stressed hybrid vehicles instead of E.V.s, reported healthy profits. At the
same time, electric models sit on dealership lots. This trend mirrors the fact that more and
more European governments have begun to retreat from their "hard promises" to wean their economies
off fossil fuels as green energy policies have proven to be economic and financial failures.
Another
Biden Fiasco — Electric Buses. The Biden administration continues to push
electric buses despite problems showing up around the country as range, reliability and expenses
are turning out to be much different than advertised idling many of them. EV buses cost
multiple times more than their diesel counterparts, and their performance is marred by expensive
and frequent repairs, charging equipment costs and much lower range than existing buses.
Cities and school districts are left holding the bag, even as the Biden administration uses
celebrity spokespeople like Vice President Kamala Harris and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to
pitch Americans on them.
The
great electric car lie is a monstrous deception against the British public. The great
electric car revolution is stalling, and the net-zero panjandrums are desperate to find somebody to
blame. It must be the fault of fake news, they intimate, or disinformation campaigns, or of
nit-picking journalists and their gullible readers, or because Elon Musk has embraced Right-wing
ideas: what other possible reasons could there be for consumers refusing to do their duty?
Electric vehicles' (EVs) share of the UK market has remained stuck at 16 percent for two years,
and 10 out of 11 private buyers are still opting for combustion engines. But instead of
seeking to understand the real reasons why even the environmentally conscious continue to patronise
petrol-powered cars, green activists are resorting to deranged conspiracy theories.
Some — speaking to a House of Lords committee — even singled out a nuanced
article by Rowan Atkinson for having harmed their cause: the actor disclosed that he felt
"duped" by electric vehicles, and questioned the claims made by advocates. There is nothing
zealots loath more than an apostate.
Bombshell
decision by watchdog rules that electric cars cannot be described as 'zero
emissions'. A bombshell decision by the UK's advertising watchdog has ruled that car
makers cannot describe electric vehicles as being 'zero emissions'. Both MG and BMW have
received a slap on the wrist from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after the pair ran ads
last year which suggested that their electric models do not produce emissions during the
manufacturing process. The ASA also ruled that the ads made it appear that the vehicles did
not produce emissions when they're being charged by non-renewable electricity. The decision
has infuriated green car campaigners, including former Top Gear host Quentin Willson, who described
the ruling as 'bizarre and very unhelpful'.
Ford
Announces Billions of Dollars in Losses on Electric Vehicle Range — Worse Than
Expected. There is more bad news for electric vehicle manufacturers. After
declaring its annual results a success, Ford has revealed that it incurred a loss of
$4.7 billion on its electric vehicle range, more than the $4.5 billion the company
predicted in the middle of last year. [...] Such failures have become a common occurrence for many
electric vehicle companies, despite the Biden administration providing billions in government
subsidies and favorable industry regulations. Ford's biggest rival, General Motors (GM),
incurred losses of approximately $1.7 billion in its electric vehicle division during the
final quarter of 2023 alone. In October last year, GM revised its production ambitions,
abandoning its target to manufacture 400,000 EVs by mid-2024 due to concerns over profitability and
market demand.
Ford
Lost $4.7 Billion On EVs Last Year, Or About $64,731 For Every EV It Sold. How bad is the EV
business? Yesterday afternoon [2/6/2024], Ford Motor Company reported that the operating loss
it incurred on its EV business in 2023 exceeded its total profit for the year. That
shocking fact comes directly from the company's earnings report, which carried the headline, "Ford+
Delivers Solid 2023..." The Dearborn-based auto giant had an operating loss (also known as EBIT, or
earnings before interest and taxes) of $4.7 billion on its EV business last year.
Meanwhile, the company reported net income (profit) of just $4.3 billion, on revenue of
$176 billion. The company also reported operating income, or what it called "adjusted
EBIT," of $10.4 billion. Calculating the company's per-EV operating loss requires only a
bit of simple division.
The
Demise of the Electric Vehicle. The nation's recent deep freeze stranded many
expensive electric vehicles (EVs) with drained batteries, often in front of charging stations
equally disabled by the cold. Warmer areas like California, where some 39% of EV car owners
reside, do not abuse their batteries with the harsh seasonal winters that threaten many regions of
the nation and world. Electric vehicle sales were quite chilly even before the arctic blast,
despite price drops and government subsidies. The cold weather troubles reveal why the market
for this vaunted technology may continue to cool.
Electric
van maker once valued at £10 billion collapses into administration. A
British electric van maker once valued at $13 [billion] (£10 [billion]) has gone into
administration after burning through $1.5 [billion] without having sold a vehicle. Oxfordshire-based
Arrival has appointed administrators at EY to find a buyer for the business, blaming "challenging
market and macroeconomic conditions". Arrival's Nasdaq flotation in 2021 was the biggest ever
for a British company but shares have fallen by 99.98 [percent] as it became clear that the company
was unable to service its debts. "The group's liquidity position has been impacted by challenging
market and macroeconomic conditions resulting in delays in getting the group's products to market,"
the administrators said.
Rowan
Atkinson blamed for poor electric car sales. Rowan Atkinson has been blamed for poor
sales of electric cars in a report by the House of Lords. Atkinson, known for Mr Bean and the
Blackadder series, found himself the centre of a real-life drama on Tuesday. The Lords'
environment and climate change committee was told that the actor, 69, was partly at fault for
"damaging" public perceptions of electric vehicles (EVs). New petrol and diesel cars are set to
be banned from 2035 under the Prime Minister's net zero strategy. That ban is supposed to
encourage motorists to start buying EVs, but adoption has been slower than the strategy's advocates
have hoped. "One of the most damaging articles was a comment piece written by Rowan Atkinson
in the Guardian which has been roundly debunked," the Green Alliance pressure group told peers.
The High Cost
of 100 Percent Electric Vehicles. The complete electrification of Colorado's
light-duty vehicle fleet, combined with total residential heating electrification and Colorado
Governor Jared Polis's goal of a 100 percent renewable electricity grid by 2040, would cost
Coloradans up to $695.3 billion through 2050. The additional generation capacity needed to
support total light-duty vehicle electrification alone would cost approximately $74.6 billion
through 2050. Colorado electricity customers (residential, commercial, and industrial) would
see their average monthly electricity bills increase to $907 through 2050. They would peak at an
average of $1,279 in 2040. To meet Colorado's present-day electricity demand and the additional
demand created by electrifying light-duty transportation and home heating with only wind, solar,
existing hydropower, and batteries, the state would need to install more than fourteen times the
generation capacity currently on the grid.
Martha's
Vineyard [was] Declared "Low Income" so It Can Save Money on EV Chargers. Martha's
Vineyard is a remarkable place — a quaint little island of elites where the median home
price is around 1.5 million. Barry Obama has a massive estate there, as do many
well-heeled elites (despite the alleged risk of rising sea levels). And now they are eligible
for subsidies (your money, not theirs) to add EV charging infrastructure. The handouts reduce
the cost of EV charging infrastructure (public or private) in low-income or non-urban areas by
about a third, including the Vineyard and Nantucket — where median home prices are a
hair over 2 million). And doesn't that make good sense? Elite enclaves are where the
EVs would be. Few others can afford them or have the disposable income to embrace their
impracticality. Martha's Vineyard isn't large so a full charge could last long enough to
virtue signal to all the neighbors. Many of its more well-heeled inhabitants are elsewhere
during the colder months when EVs lose range, not that these aren't much more than yard sculptures
for many. Parked out front (putting them in the garage is dangerous) to be observed by guests
holding half-filled glasses of chardonnay and a small plate of whatever was on the last charcuterie
board they passed.
The
West's humiliating electric car climbdown has begun. France's President Macron had a
plan to make millions of electric vehicles a year. Chancellor Scholz planned to put
15 million on Germany's roads by 2030. President Biden trumped the lot with a
$174 [billion] plan to make the US the world leader. Even Boris Johnson —
remember him — had a £1 [billion] plan to beef up our charging network.
Rewind only a couple of years, and almost every president or prime minister was making electric
vehicles the cornerstone of an industrial strategy. And yet, this week we have learned that
Renault is abandoning plans to separately list its electric vehicle (EV) and software business,
while Volvo is winding down its Polestar electric sports car subsidiary. In reality, amid an
onslaught of Chinese competition, and falling sales, the West's electric vehicle dream is quickly
unravelling — and we need to relearn all the lessons in why grand, state-led industrial
strategies never work.
Crash
tests indicate nation's guardrail system can't handle heavy EVs. Electric vehicles
that typically weigh more than gasoline-powered cars can easily crash through steel highway
guardrails that are not designed to withstand the extra force, raising concerns about the nation's
roadside safety system, according to crash test data released Wednesday by the University of Nebraska.
Early
testing shows EVs smash through guardrails like bulldozers. [Scroll down]
If metal guardrails and concrete barriers "may be no match" against the force of an E.V., I don't
have much hope for the flesh and bones behind my car doors. Does anyone remember when the
left went to war against soccer moms and their evil SUVs? Heavier cars ostensibly meant more
fatalities in accidents, the extra weight meant more wear and tear on the road, and they had higher
CO2 emissions than sedans — they were dangerous and destructive, and had no business
being on the road. Oddly, the same left that sought to ban SUVs is silent when it comes time
to E.V.s, which have the exact same attributes, only worse!
Biden
classifies Martha's Vineyard, elite locales as 'low-income' for [an] absurd reason.
The Biden administration is classifying some of the country's most elite and exclusive locales as
"low-income" areas, making them eligible for electric vehicle (EV) charger subsidy programs.
The administration's EV charger tax credit program — made possible by the Inflation
Reduction Act (IRA), President Joe Biden's signature climate bill — is specifically
designed to route subsidies to "low-income" or "non-urban" areas of the country. The
"low-income" emphasis for eligibility aligns in spirit with the Biden administration's wider
pursuit of so-called "environmental justice," which is effectively the combination of social
justice ideology and green policy. Numerous elite hangouts and locales — including
Montauk and Fishers Island in New York, and parts of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket in
Massachusetts — are among the areas that the administration has classified as
"low-income" and eligible for receipt of EV charger subsidies, according to a Daily Caller News
Foundation analysis of the Department of Energy's (DOE) interactive eligibility map.
A
Dim Ray of Hope Emerges for Cities Who Stupidly Invested in EV Bus Fleets. EV bus
maker Proterra was supposed to become one of the crown jewels of the Biden Green New Deal policy
suite, given that it was the nation's pre-eminent manufacturer of battery electric buses purchased
by dimwitted virtue-signaling local officials all over the country. But last summer, Proterra
became mired in bankruptcy proceedings, leaving these officials to try to explain to their voters
why the buses they bought for as much as $1.2 million each currently sit idle and broken down
in garages around their cities. In Asheville NC, as I wrote here last week, 3 of 5 costly
EV buses sit idle and in disrepair due to a variety of software and hardware issues, with no reactivation
in sight since the parts and software fixes would have to be supplied by the bankrupt busmaker.
The
electric vehicle fiasco has become dangerous. When Sadiq Khan promised to clean up
London's air by introducing electric buses, did he factor in the black smoke which poured out of
the Number 265 as it burst into flames in Putney on Wednesday? That followed two very similar
fires in the past fortnight which consumed vehicles from the same fleet. Paris has already
had to withdraw a fleet of electric buses after a couple of fires, while in Venice-Mestre last
October 21 people died after an electric bus caught fire and plunged off a flyover.
The "race to net zero", as the politicians like to describe it, isn't just expensive; it is
dangerous. It isn't only electric buses which burst into flames, of course — Ken
Livingstone's infamous bendy buses also had a habit of catching fire, and they were diesel-powered.
But when electric vehicles catch fire they can be a lot harder to put out due to "thermal runaway"
where one overheating cell leads to the neighbouring cell, setting off a chain reaction.
Tesla
Semi trucks hauling corn chips. Many dismiss my writing about why battery electric
trucks can't replace diesel trucks because commercial electric trucks exist. Most famously
the Tesla semi trucks, which are under a trial at the PepsiCo Frito-lay plant in Modesto
California. It is hard to imagine an easier test to pass. It would be hard to find a
lighter cargo. Lay potato chips weigh 56 kg/cubic meter (m3), lighter than rice Krispie's
90 kg/m3, corn chips 178 kg/m3 or marshmallows 210 kg/m3. There will be no hills,
central California is flatter than the Midwest. The roads are in excellent shape and so great
for rolling efficiency, and wind so calm there is little aerodynamic drag. The 15 Semis
in Modesto hauling chips can go 425 miles, but the 21 in Sacramento can go just 100 miles
hauling PepsiCola (Reuters 2022). No one knows the price, performance, maintenance, or
time to recharge yet. It's all a big secret.
Toyota
Chair: Don't Force People to Buy EVs. "Customers — not regulations
or politics — should make that decision" to buy an electric vehicle, according to the
latest report on Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda. Despite generous government subsidies for the
manufacture and purchase of electric vehicles, Toyota has concentrated its research and development
on other alternative power trains, like hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells. "I have continued to
say what I see as reality... if regulations are created based on ideals," Toyoda said in a similar
statement last year. "It is regular users who are the ones who suffer," like the billion Earthlings
who live without electricity, as Toyoda said this week. Despite his opposition to EV
mandates, lefties and other would-be world-savers ought to love Mr. Toyoda, who sounds like a
committed panicmonger when he says that "the enemy is CO2." But then, much to the left's chagrin,
he also says he favors a "multi-pathway approach" to reducing reliance on gas and diesel.
The Editor says...
There is no sensible reason to forfeit "reliance on gas and diesel," if the U.S. potentially has a
plentiful supply of both. Running cars on gasoline has worked quite well for at least 75 years,
and a lot of influential people are relying on the system (the oil business, the refineries, the
automobile business, the trucking industry, etc.) staying in place just as it is.
Wednesday's
Energy Absurdity: Another Week, Another Failed EV City Bus Fleet. I've been
chronicling these absurdities in the energy space for 18 months now and have published well
over 300 pieces about them during that time. I have honestly lost count of how many of those
stories have focused on massive wastes of taxpayer dollars by virtue-signaling local officials who
insist upon pouring millions of dollars into fleets of electric city or school district buses, only
to see them crash and burn in complete and utter failure. By now, such stories would have to
number in the dozens. And lo and behold (or, 'low' and behold, as one laid-off LA Times
'journalist' wrote on Twitter the other day), here's another to add to the list.
John
Kerry slaps the 'disinformation' label on the real inconvenient truths of EVs. John
Kerry consistently shows how dangerous and uncaring he, and all the other people pushing the
radical green agenda to move the world backwards, really are. If all these people who go to
the United Nations gabfests and Davos, Switzerland really were worried about their carbon
footprint, they would just use Zoom meetings, instead of flying in their private jets to stay in
five star hotels, enjoying every luxury, delicacy, and amenity the world has to offer. Kerry
recently said he really doesn't care if people don't want to switch out their gas-powered vehicles
for electric ones, because they will be forced to do it anyway. Isn't that what dictators
do? Force the people to do things against their will? Freedom of choice seems to be a
foreign concept to them. Kerry says [...] the only reason that people don't want electric
vehicles is because of "disinformation."
Monday's
Energy Absurdities: Life is Hard for EV Owners These Days, D.C. Edition. Last
Tuesday, I gave you a story out of Chicago about Tesla owners finding it [nearly] impossible to
charge their car at public charging stations in the freezing, icy cold. That story told of
drivers spending hours waiting in line at charging stations only to finally find they aren't
functioning in the nasty weather or broken down entirely when it was their turn at the "pump."
[...] Now comes a similar story out of the leftist mecca of Washington, D.C., but this one is going
to be harder for EV fans to dismiss out of hand, since it is reported by the reliable Democrat
propaganda agents at the always-tiresome Axios. The headline of this one is understated,
since it carries unfortunate news for one of the left's preferred industries: "Low temperatures
create problems for D.C. electric vehicle drivers," it reads. Oh. You don't say.
The
Biden Admin's Multi-Billion Dollar EV Charging Program Has Short-Circuited. The Biden
administration has designated billions of taxpayer dollars to build electric vehicle (EV) chargers,
but lagging market demand and government red tape are getting in the way, according to experts who
spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
announced Thursday that it was awarding $150 million to upgrade existing public EV chargers,
just one week after announcing another $623 million in subsidies to states to bolster EV
charger construction. The grants from the FHWA are part of two EV charger programs
established by the Biden administration in the November 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,
the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling
Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program, which were designated collectively
$7.5 billion for charger construction and upgrades.
Electric
Vehicles Enter the 'Total Failure' Phase of Their Existence. As RedState reported,
Ford has cut the production of its "Lightning" electric pickup truck in half. Why?
Mainly because no one wants to buy them. [...] Who could have guessed that paying $55,000 (and
that's with EV subsidies) for a stripped-down, base-level truck that overheats when you tow things
and can't drive over 300 miles on a single charge wouldn't appeal to the average F-150
buyer? Certainly, people who use their trucks for work have found little to no use for such a
pointless monstrosity. It's not just the Lightning, though. The entire EV industry is
getting hit by reality right now. [Tweet] There is no better example of government idiocy
than the top-down push for electric vehicles, which at this point has cost American taxpayers tens
of billions of dollars. They were a solution to a problem that didn't exist, and even then,
they turned out to not be a solution at all. It's not just about cost either. How
useful is a car that loses most of its range when it gets below freezing?
Somewhat related:
Terrifying
video shows how e-bike battery ignited an inferno in a NYC store. A video posted by
the FDNY shockingly reveals how a charging lithium-ion battery sparked a raging fire in a Queens
e-bike shop this month. The video, from King Electronic Hub in Richmond Hill, shows a
charging lithium-ion battery surrounded by scooters and boxes shooting up a thick cloud of gray
smoke, followed by sparks, according to a clip posted on X by FDNY.
Electric
cars and heat pumps seem destined to make us freeze. It's been a pretty cold week in
the northern United States, with temperatures down to minus 18 Celsius in Chicago. But it
will have felt even colder, I dare say, if you have been standing around waiting to charge your
Tesla. One owner complained of waiting five hours in a queue to charge his vehicle as low
temperatures sapped the batteries of electric cars and made it more difficult to charge them.
He said he counted 10 cars being towed away as they couldn't be charged. In one case a
motorist said he had plugged in his electric car for two days running, three hours at a
stretch — and still his car was saying it had zero per cent charge.
Retired
Military Officials Say Biden's Electric Vehicle Push is Putting National Security at
Risk. A group of 17 retired military officials is warning that Joe Biden's hard push
for electric vehicles is putting America's national security at risk. Among their chief
concerns is that EVs increase America's reliance on China, but there are other potential problems
as well. Biden and Democrats have been actively working to destroy the fossil fuel industry
since the moment Biden took office. They are beholden to the climate change activists of
their party's base who are absolutely obsessed with the issue.
Ford
Slashes Electric Truck Production, Because Nobody Wants Them. Full disclosure:
I'm a Ford guy. I've driven Ford cars and trucks since the late '70s. These days, most
American cars and trucks are pretty good; if you drove cars made from about 1975 to 1985, you can
remember what pieces of [junk] the Big Three were turning out in those days, but I kept my brand
loyalty through the dark times, and still do today. American vehicles today are all pretty
comparable, quality-wise, and with a Ford, I already know the ergonomics, which knobs and buttons
do which things, and so forth. My wife and I have ignored the electric-vehicle (EV) nonsense,
in large part because we live in rural Alaska, where such a vehicle would be on the wrong side of
useless for much of the year — like this morning when we woke up to -7 degrees
Fahrenheit. [...] The F-series is Ford's most successful property, which is why it's kind of
baffling as to why they would go all-in on an EV version, which is pretty useless for most people
who want a pickup for the kinds of things people use pickups for — especially if they
need something reliable in winter weather.
'Climate
Change' Puts Biden's EV Mandate On Thin Ice. The polar vortex gripping the nation has
exposed a fatal flaw in President Joe Biden's push to force Americans into electric cars. EVs
don't work well in the cold. Several news stories out of Chicago this week report how EV
owners have been struggling to keep their cars charged as extreme cold saps their batteries of
energy, extends charging times, and forces owners to wait for hours to get an open charger.
"Several motorists told local news outlets that they had been stranded at charging stations in the
cold with cars with dead batteries, while successful charging was taking far longer than
usual. They also claimed that many of the charging stations were not functioning," Newsweek
reports. One motorist reported that he'd seen "at least 10 cars being towed away after their
battery died, with too much energy being expended keeping the car warm while drivers waited."
EVs [are]
Unsuitable As Primary Transportation. Sure, there are exceptions (e.g. Florida
south of roughly Orlando) and most of California. But not most of the rest of the
nation. The reason is simple: You cannot charge them when the battery is below
32F — that is, freezing. The control system in the vehicle prevent it for a very
good reason: If they didn't the battery would be damaged and might catch fire down the
road, so the computer prevents that from happening. If its reasonably below 32F
then the vehicle's software can use various strategies to warm the battery up some. For
example, intentionally dissipating power in the motor(s) without moving the vehicle (e.g. opposing
fields) which of course generates heat and the motor's cooling system can circulate that into the
pack. Once the pack is above 32F you can charge it. But these strategies fail when its
-10F out and worse, windy besides because the heat is dissipated faster than you can
generate it.
Electric
Vehicles: Running on Empty. The widespread transition from gasoline-powered,
internal combustion (or "ICE") vehicles to electric vehicles ("EVs") has been a foregone conclusion
for years now, at least according to our ruling class and its obsequious media mouthpieces.
Instead, as predicted by people who instinctively resist government actions designed to "save the
planet," there is a massive EV bust occurring. Pretty much any company not named Tesla is
seeing its EV future crash and burn.
2024
Promises the Expansion of the Green Energy Scam. [Scroll down] On this
side of the pond, we have California banning the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035 and a wave
of blue states lining up behind them. This at the same time the state is asking existing
electric car owners not to charge their cars while leaning on fossil fuels to stave off the return
of rolling blackouts. The reality is that the green energy revolution is a fiction.
Green energy is incapable of providing the energy requirements developed nations require and the
green energy movement is a cult. In fealty to that cult, Western nations are wasting hundreds
of billions of dollars every year on "green energy" programs — most of which fail.
Tesla supercharging
station packed in Oak Brook, dead cars line parking lot due to frigid temps. Electric
vehicles may be the way of the future, but many EV owners are having trouble dealing with Chicago's
bitterly cold temperatures. Public charging stations have turned into car graveyards over the
past couple of days. "Nothing. No juice. Still on zero percent," said Tyler Beard,
who has been trying to recharge his Tesla at an Oak Brook Tesla supercharging station since Sunday
afternoon. "And this is like three hours being out here after being out here three hours
yesterday." Beard was among the dozens of Tesla owners trying desperately to power up their cars
at the Tesla supercharging station in Oak Brook. It was a scene mirrored with long lines and
abandoned cars at scores of other charging stations around the Chicago area. "This is
crazy. It's a disaster. Seriously," said Tesla owner Chalis Mizelle. [Video clip]
Public
Charging Stations Turn into Electric 'Car Graveyards' in Bitter Chicago Cold.
Electric vehicle owners in the Chicago area have not been able to charge their overpriced method of
transportation in the bitter cold this week, leaving scenes of dead electric cars littered across
public charging stations. It turns out buying a worthless car to virtue-signal for the
environment has unintended consequences. Fox Chicago reported Monday the charging stations
have turned into electric car graveyards over the past two days as temperatures in the Windy City
and its suburbs have dipped to the negative double digits. One man, Tyler Beard, to the
outlet he had been trying to recharge his Tesla at an Oak Brook Tesla supercharging station since
Sunday afternoon.
The
Biggest Evidence for the Folly of the EV Push May Be Happening Right Now. Throughout
the Biden presidency, there's been a constant refrain that eliminating fossil fuels will solve all
our environmental problems. A big part of that narrative is the push to encourage, cajole,
and force everyone into buying electric vehicles (EVs). [...] But there's a huge flaw in the push
for EVs that is playing out right now. It's called winter. "All cars lose efficiency in
the cold weather," explains Andrew Garberson at Recurrent. "However, drivers only really worry
about it when it comes to electric cars, since the lower efficiency translates directly to lower
range. For EV owners in colder climates, like northern portions of the United States and
Canada, daily driving and charging behaviors must be adjusted in winter months."
Twilight
of the Democrats. The recent revelation that Hertz is dumping about 40% of its
electric vehicle fleet because people don't want to rent them and they're about twice as expensive
to maintain as gas-powered vehicles — somehow got past the guardians of correct thought
(a.k.a. censors). Perched on top of this unpleasant revelation is the other current story
about the record cold weather affecting the northern Midwest and Northeast. Seldom is an NFL
game ever rescheduled because of weather, but the Bills-Steelers game has been postponed due to
extreme cold. Go figure. Concurrently, the credibility-challenged media are continuing
to vomit up revelations of 2023 being the warmest year "on record." Not mentioning at all that
we've only had thermometers for 300 years. The earth is a lot older than that.
A
cold El Nino winter reveals yet another problem with electric vehicles. We live in an
insane world in which our governments are forcing us to buy EVs to "save the climate." That's why
it's important to focus on just how awful EVs are, and this winter is forcing that focus on a lot
of foolish people. Let me count the problems with EVs:
• The batteries require child slave labor.
• Mining the materials for the batteries is one of the most violent environmental acts around.
To sound like a leftist, you're almost raping the earth, and it's a burden borne by third-world countries under heavy Chinese influence.
• The batteries, when they die, are often too expensive to replace, killing the cars.
• When the batteries catch fire (and they do, often), that's it for the car.
• If you think ordinary batteries are terrible for landfills, EV batteries are worse, way, way worse.
• The electricity for EVs must come from somewhere, which usually means fossil fuels.
• Repair costs are incredibly high (which also drives up the overall cost of
car insurance for everyone as EVs flood the roads and insurance companies have to adjust to deal with these costs).
• EVs are generally less reliable than traditional gas-powered cars.
And then there's the entire charging issue. When I'm traveling, and I see that I'm low on gas, I pull into a gas
station, and it takes me less than five minutes to fill my tank. That's not how recharging an EV works.
Up
To One Third Of Power Needed To Charge Up E-Car Battery Gets Lost. Germany's online
Blackout News here reports: "Charging losses for electric cars ranges from 9.8% to 38.2%, depending
on the model." That means, on some models, nearly one third of the electricity to charge a
lithium-ion HV battery gets lost. When charging, the "current flows against the internal
resistance of the battery, generates heat and is lost." Losses occur when AC current gets
converted to DC, but also in the cables and connections. "These losses have a direct impact on
charging time and costs. A 20 percent loss means a 20 percent longer charging time
and 20 percent higher costs," reports Blackout News.
Life
Would Get Worse if Climate Alarmists Carry Out Their US Agenda. First, if the federal
government bans gas-powered cars, individual transportation would get less reliable and more
expensive. Americans prefer gas-powered cars over the electric cars favored by climate
alarmists. In November, a coalition of nearly 4,000 auto dealers sent a letter to Biden
explaining that his plan to force Americans to buy electric vehicles won't work. The auto
dealers warned that "the supply of unsold [battery electric vehicles] is surging, as they are not
selling nearly as fast as they are arriving at our dealerships — even with deep price
cuts, manufacturer incentives, and generous government incentives." Despite subsidies to
encourage manufacturers to make electric vehicles and tax credits for drivers to buy the cars, only
7% of new vehicle sales are electric, compared with Biden's goal of 60% in 2030 and 66% in 2032.
Hertz
will sell a third of its EV fleet to buy gasoline cars instead. Rental car company
giant Hertz, which made big news in 2022 when it announced it planned to buy 175,000 electric
vehicles from General Motors to diversify its fleet, now says it plans to sell about a third of its
global EVs this year and use the proceeds to buy gasoline powered cars instead. In a
government filing Thursday, Hertz Global Holdings Inc. said it started selling about 20,000 EVs
from its U.S. fleet last month. It said it will continue the sale throughout the year, citing
higher expenses on EVs related to collision and damage, as well as lower than anticipated demand
for EVs, which erodes resale values, as reasons for the shift.
Electric
Double Decker Bus Bursts into Flames in London Rush Hour. An electric double decker
bus burst into flames in London this morning, causing rush hour chaos as terrified witnesses
reported hearing a "huge bang".
Officials
probe electric double decker bus inferno after vehicle 'exploded' and burst into
flames. Officials today launched an investigation after one of Sadiq Khan's electric
buses exploded during today's rush hour. Terrified residents in Wimbledon described a massive
'bang' after a double decker burst into flames during this morning's commute, sparking chaos on the
roads as black smoke filled the streets. Astonishing video obtained by MailOnline shows the
dramatic moment firefighters battled to put out the inferno.
The underbelly
of electric vehicles. While electric vehicles are essential to reducing carbon
emissions, their production can exact a significant human and environmental cost. To run, EVs
require six times the mineral input, by weight, of conventional vehicles. These minerals,
including cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese, are finite resources. And mining and
processing them can be harmful for workers, their communities and the local environment.
The
Electric Car Con Explained. The U.S. car fleet accounts for a mere 1.0% of global
energy demand (5% x 19%), declining to 0.8% by 2050. So even if the U.S. shifts 100% to
electric-powered cars, the maximum climate impact in 2050 is a meaningless 0.2% (22% x 0.8%)
reduction in global CO2 emissions from the current electric grid, up to a maximum of 0.5% assuming
solar, wind, and hydro can, implausibly, power 60% of electric demand. In other words, there
is no factual basis to claim that the government mandate to switch to electric cars will have any
material impact on global CO2 emissions. [...] Put simply, cars are not a meaningful source of
global emissions and electric cars do not and cannot curtail the continued reliance on fossil fuels
in electric generation. On top of this, counting all sources, the U.S. is responsible for
only 14% of all global CO2 emissions, declining to 9% by 2050 due to rest of world economic growth.
The Editor says...
Abbreviations corrected by The Editor. Discussion: Carbon dioxide is abbreviated
CO2 — Capital C, capital O, 2. Preferably with a subscript 2.
It's a chemical compound of carbon and oxygen. The oxygen atoms outnumber the carbon by two-to-one,
yet the news media habitually (and ignorantly) calls CO₂ "carbon." The symbol "Co"
stands for Cobalt, which is something else entirely.
Electric
buses: another bankrupt green boondoggle. Electric buses are just like electric
passenger vehicles: they're not ready for prime time, only more so. Proterra buses are a case
in point. Cities that wasted money on them found they had far less range then advertised.
They commonly couldn't complete even short, flat routes specifically designed for them. The
enormous weight of their batteries cracked frames, and getting parts from the factory was virtually
impossible. But to make up for their failures, they were far more expensive than reliable
diesel buses. Proterra went bankrupt in August of 2023. President Biden gave Proterra
at least $10 million, and lauded it as the future: "when you start making a
thousand buses a year, you're going to need more room for customers." That makes as little
sense as anything Biden is saying these days.
A battery-operated locomotive is never a good idea, unless you can pick it up with one hand.
Failures
of Latvia's new electric trains serve as a warning for the rest of us. For the most
part, I don't care how things are done in Europe. One exception is Latvia, [...] What is the
biggest story in Latvia in the first week of 2024? The failure of new electric trains there,
replacing old electrics. The new trains are operated by a company called Vivi. and the trains
were built by Skoda Group, a Czech company. [...] And of course, I've noted before that liberals
adore trains because they only go where there are rails. In a practical way, it's beneficial
in North America to see how Latvia is enduring its electric train problems. Meanwhile, the
electric trains debacle is a Latvian cultural phenomenon.
The
electric vehicle doom loop. The inevitable, planet-saving, path to universal electric
vehicle (EV) ownership is becoming increasingly cratered. Some 4000 dealers recently begged
President Biden to stop pushing EVs. They can't give them away. About half of all Ford
Dealers refuse to stock them, and more than 50% of Buick dealers recently went out of business
rather than sell them. Ford has largely bet its EV future on the F-150 Lightning
pickup. It's a sucker's bet. Ford recently announced it was cutting its EV production
plans in half. [...] It's a doom loop: there's little demand for EVs, which average $67,000
each, and Bidenomics has driven interest rates to unaffordable heights. Limited EV range
demands millions of chargers, but because there are so few EVs there's no profit in chargers.
Finally responding to market forces rather than government coercion, manufacturers have chopped EV
production and investment in Chinese battery plants. Only Americans in the top 7% in income
can afford EVs, and they already have all they want. As if that weren't enough, EVs have an
alarming tendency to spontaneously burst into unquenchable flames.
Cold
kills city's electric bus fleet, mandated by 'global warming'. Scandinavia in recent
days has experienced a blast of cold weather like few in recent years. The temperature fell
to minus 40 degrees Celsius, which coincidentally is about the same minus 40 on the
Fahrenheit scale, a reading not seen regularly even in cold-weather climes like Montana and North
Dakota. Turns out they could use a bit of "global warming" to keep their fleet of electric
buses out of the garage. A Substack report said officials in "the city of Skellefteå
where they 'only' had -34C this morning, have been investing in electric buses, to save the climate
of course! Their goal is to replace all diesel buses with electric as soon as possible."
But the city was canceling its buses routes "because of the cold weather — the buses
have to be parked indoors to warm up. They say that the electric buses are struggling to keep
warm in the cold weather."
The Editor says...
[#1] Minus 40 degrees is exactly the same, not just "about the same," on both the Fahrenheit and Celsius
scales. [#2] One must wonder how the municipal officials didn't put two and two together before
ordering electric buses: Sweden gets cold in the winter, and electric vehicles don't like cold weather.
Everyone in the world should understand that by now.
[The]
Collapse Of [the] Used EV Market Spells Doom For Biden's Electric Car Dreams. Just as
President Joe Biden starts showering hundreds of billions more of taxpayers' money to "electrify"
the nation's fleet of automobiles, the bottom is falling out of the EV market. The latest
indication is the sharp drop in prices for used EVs. A report from iSeeCars.com, a search engine
for auto buyers, found that the average price for all cars declined 5% in 2023 compared with 2022.
The Editor says...
Five percent is a slump, not a collapse.
Why
Dealers Remain Skeptical About Electric Vehicle Sales. Electric vehicles are a
crucial part of President Joe Biden's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate
change. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new emissions standards that aim to
have two-thirds of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2032. However, over 4,000 dealers,
including more than 300 from Texas, have signed an open letter urging Biden to reconsider these
regulations due to lagging consumer demand. Despite initial enthusiasm from early adopters,
the sales of electric vehicles have slowed down, resulting in a surplus of unsold inventory at
dealerships. Despite price cuts, manufacturer incentives, and government support, electric
vehicles are not selling as quickly as they are arriving. Dealers argue that the attempted
electric vehicle mandate is unrealistic based on current and projected customer demand.
Poll:
Connecticut voters oppose electric vehicles sales mandates. A majority of Connecticut
voters oppose a Democrat-led push to phase out the sale of gas-powered vehicles in the state,
according to a new poll. The poll commissioned by the Specialty Equipment Market
Association — a trade association representing aftermarket auto manufacturers and
retailers — found that nearly 60% of the voters surveyed opposed proposed legislation to
phase out the sale of gas- and diesel-powered cars and trucks over the next decade. "Voters are
primarily concerned that the state's infrastructure cannot support an influx of electric vehicles,
that electric vehicles are unaffordable, and that a ban would restrict individual choice,"
pollsters wrote in a summary of the results. "While Connecticut voters are concerned about climate
change, a majority are unwilling to drive only electric vehicles."
Electric Vehicles, the
Blood Diamonds of the Climate Cult. Since New Year's Day one year ago, the "electric
vehicle transition" has gone from being a foregone conclusion to being a rolling failure.
Auto manufacturers who bought into the hype are looking at a catastrophic financial miscalculation,
and typical car drivers have gone from being curious (at best) to being generally negative about
purchasing EVs. I believe that the conservative media's pushback against EVs has had a considerable
impact. In other words, 2023 was a very good year — a year in which we turned opinion
against electric vehicles. The people who want a boutique, status-symbol EV can continue to buy
Teslas. (But can we please kill off the taxpayer subsidies for Tesla?) For all the rest, let
2024 be the year when legacy automakers throw in the towel on the eco-communist EV experiment.
Freighter
Fire Off US Coast Is Finally Extinguished After Days of Burning, Cargo at Center of
Disaster. After lithium-ion batteries burned in a large cargo ship's hold for a
number of days, the U.S. Coast Guard said late Saturday that the fire was out and directed the ship
to anchor near Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The 19 crew members of the ship, Genius Star XI, were
uninjured and technicians from the Salvage and Marine Firefighting team remain onboard to ensure
the fire doesn't return, according to a Coast Guard press release. "This protected anchorage
... will allow the vessel to remain stable, minimizing risk of any re-flash of the fire as we
continue our response," Capt. Chris Culpepper said in the press release, which said an
investigation into the fire's origins will begin once response efforts wrap up. Genius Star
XI was shipping lithium-ion batteries from Vietnam to San Diego.
Canada
to mandate that only zero-emission vehicles be sold by 2035. CBC, Canada's national
public broadcaster, recently reported that the Canadian government will release final regulations
mandating that all new passenger cars sold in Canada by 2035 must be zero-emission vehicles. [...]
The regulations are meant to ensure that automakers produce enough affordable electric vehicles
to meet the demand?! What a crock! That is beyond preposterous! The demand
for electric vehicles is lagging far behind what "experts" predicted — and what our
elite leaders wish to see. In a free market, automakers would always produce enough vehicles
to meet demand, to maximize revenue. The EVAS is a tool of a command economy, designed to
force consumers and automakers alike to bend to government wishes, all other considerations
[notwithstanding].
In
Pete Buttigieg's reality, EVs dominate. [Scroll down] Reality provides a
different perspective. Some 4000 dealers recently begged President Biden to end his EV
push. They can't give away the EVs rusting, and sometimes combusting, on their lots.
Half of Buick dealers took a buyout rather than sell EVs. About half of Ford dealers refuse
to stock EVs. Losing something around $5 billion on EVs in 2023, Ford has backed out of
its battery plant deal with China and has halved its future EV production plans. GM,
recognizing reality, and like Ford, likely recognizing an impending stockholder revolt, is also
substantially cutting back its EV dreams. Electric Bus maker Proterra, a company Joe Biden
lauded as the future, went bankrupt in 2022, going the way of Solyndra and many other Obama/Biden
green fantasies, taking untold taxpayers billions with them.
Surprise:
EV Chargers Will Cause Issues On Northern Power Grids. What could possibly go wrong
with lots of outside chargers in cold weather areas and power generation that is insufficient?
[...] They'll be adding a ton of electricity [demand] into the grid. Where's it going to come
from? How will the grid handle it? How will it handle it in cold climates? This
is going to get ugly. And that's not even accounting for that gas and diesel vehicles already
have a hard time in that kind of cold.
Study
forecasts challenges of electric vehicle chargers on northern power grids. A study is
revealing some of the challenges that electric vehicles will pose to northern power grids —
and it'll likely be revised now that Canada has a plan for phasing out the sale of gas-powered cars
and trucks. "At no point in our studies did we consider 100 per cent electric vehicle
adoption," said Michael Ross, a researcher at Yukon University who is leading the study.
Ross, an industrial chair in northern energy innovation, said his research is looking at slow to
high adoption rates of electric vehicles in Dawson City and parts of Whitehorse and Yellowknife.
So far, it's showing some of the ways residential power grids will be strained if people in those
neighbourhoods add Level 2 electric vehicle charging stations to their homes, he said.
Philadelphia's
Fleet Of Electric Government Cars Is A Total Disaster: Report. Philadelphia's
plan to procure electric vehicles for official city business has reportedly hit a snag: Too
many city workers are charging their work vehicles at the same time, clogging up the city's limited
pool of charging stations. Public charging locations in Philadelphia are often swamped
throughout the day, with long lines of electric car users and city employees waiting to access the
minimal number of stations, NBC 10 Philadelphia reported. "It's like, man, you got to be here
40 minutes, 50 minutes, and then you got to spend another hour here to charge," Kevin
Taylor, an Uber driver who has been driving an electric car for two months, told the news station.
"It would be nice, you know, for them to have a way to charge overnight in like their own facility,"
Abe Burger, another electric vehicle user waiting for a charge, told NBC 10 Philadelphia.
New
testing finds electric vehicles fall short of EPA range estimates. New testing shows
that some popular electric vehicles fall short of their government-estimated driving ranges,
underscoring anxiety Americans have about the range of electric vehicles. The U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency range estimates listed on electric vehicle window stickers and at
fueleconomy.gov don't have separate city and highway ranges, as they do with conventional cars and
hybrids. Consumer Reports, the nonprofit research, testing, and consumer advocacy
organization, put electric vehicles to the test. To find out how much range EV models get in
highway driving conditions, Consumer Reports put 22 of the most popular new EVs through a new
highway-speed range test. The test involved driving fully-charged vehicles at a steady speed
of 70 mph and only stopping when each vehicle's battery was completely depleted and the
vehicle was inoperable, according to the nonprofit.
Ford
Slashing EV Production in Half Next Year. By now, most of us have seen the reluctant
reporting from media outlets checking in with vehicle dealerships around the United States.
Car lots are filled with electric vehicles, many with their original sales prices reduced.
Most people simply aren't interested in purchasing an EV despite any mandates being issued by state
governments or the White House. There are various reasons for this, including the high cost
of these vehicles (despite generous, taxpayer-funded rebates) and the uncertainty of there being
sufficient charging stations to keep them running. Now Ford has seemingly woken up to the
reality of the situation. In 2024, they will be drastically cutting their production of their
"best-selling" EV, the F-150 Lightning. This year, they were producing 3,200 trucks per
week. Next year the figure will fall to 1,600.
Auto
dealerships turning into EV boneyards? Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a
new report, revealing this: ["]Electric-vehicle sales growth hit a speed bump in the
U.S. this year, and the impact is being felt throughout the industry.["] The authors of
the article suggest that the "relatively high prices" of E.V.s might have something to do with the
people's "hesitancy" to make the switch — because apparently the average $54k for an
E.V. (which is $5k more than the average gas vehicle) is only a "relatively high" cost for a
car. They also noted that because of the "speed bump" in sales, the inventory isn't
moving. Shocker. Under Bidenomics, few have the money to dump into a vehicle that can't
really be trusted.
Investors
Are Turning On A Key Pillar Of Biden's Climate Agenda. Investors are backing off of
electric vehicle (EV) charging companies, a key player in the Biden administration's wider climate
agenda, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday [12/26/2023]. Major companies in the
industry — including ChargePoint, EVgo and Blink Charging — have seen their
stock prices tumble over the past year as investors worry about their profitability, a sign of
potential trouble for an industry that the White House is counting on to reach its aggressive
longer-term EV targets, according to the WSJ. The administration has set aside billions of dollars
to boost the industry, which it will need to thrive in order to develop a nationwide network of
charging stations. ChargePoint's stock price is down 74% in 2023, while EVgo and Blink Charging
have seen their shares lose 21% and 67% of their value, respectively, according to the WSJ.
Over
36,000 gallons of water used for electric vehicle fire on I-65. An electric vehicle
crashed and caught fire Monday night in Autauga County. According to the Pine Level Fire
Department, units were called to a traffic accident with a vehicle fire around
11:15 p.m. At the scene, firefighters found a Tesla Model Y in flames. The Alabama
Law Enforcement Agency was already on the scene and had closed the interstate. The driver was
uninjured and had escaped the vehicle before the fire department arrived, officials say.
Supercharged
loss: EV charger companies watch profits plummet as drivers pump the brakes.
Several electric vehicle charging companies are experiencing sharp declines in their share prices,
with some projecting significant annual losses as sales for EVs level off and market leaders worry
about the future of the industry and economy. ChargePoint Holdings reported that its shares
dropped 74% in 2023 and missed its initial revenue projections for the third quarter, according to
the Wall Street Journal. Blink Charging and EVgo shares also have dropped 67% and 21%,
respectively. Many charging executives have expressed concerns that customers are wary about
higher costs and delayed deliveries of electric vehicles, as well as the overall state of the
economy. Though more EV chargers are in use, buyers are not as keen to purchase the vehicles.
Transporting
EVs with the ever-reliable diesel engine. Haven't we all seen diesel-powered trucks
deliver diesel-powered generators, to charge dead E.V. batteries? How does a company get the
lithium to build the battery? Diesel earth-moving machinery of course. What happens
when freezing temperatures cause an E.V. to break down? What kind of tow truck comes to the
rescue? When exposure to salt water causes a dangerous malfunction and the car rolls backward
into a bay, what kind of vehicle pulls the car up from submersion?
Power
Outages Force Maine to Delay Vote for Electric Vehicle Mandate. Democrat Gov. Janet
Mills desperately wants to adopt the standards similar to California. The mandate would
require "43 percent of new cars sold in Maine be zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs by model year 2027
and 82 percent by model year 2032."
Minnesota
cities went for EVs in public transit, but the buses couldn't handle the cold.
Minnesota cities worked to shift toward clean energy in public transit, but complications from
acquired electric vehicles have prompted significant overhauls and additional expenditures to keep
the buses operational. In Duluth, Minn., technicians installed diesel-powered heaters on
electric buses as the city's electric fleet struggled to perform. In 2015, the city received
a $6.3 million federal grant, according to MinnPost, for seven battery-electric buses from
Proterra, which were delivered in 2018. Proterra, which went bankrupt in August, sold 550
buses. The company enjoyed outspoken support from the Biden administration, but the buses
have given transit districts across the country extensive problems. Many of the buses, which
were purchased with sizable federal grants, have broken down, and repairs have been slow going as a
result of a lack of parts. The Proterra buses in Duluth struggled to make it up steep hills
and to keep riders warm in winter.
Only
Half of All Ford Dealers Agree to Sell EVs Next Year. Ford said on Thursday that half
of all 1,550 Ford dealers chose to sell electric vehicles in 2024 — down from two-thirds
that said this time last year that they would opt in to sell EVs for 2023. The other half of
Ford dealers will sell — and service — ICE and hybrid models. "EV
adoption rates vary across the country, and we believe our dealers know their market best," Ford
spokesman Martin Günsberg told the Detroit Free Press. The slack buy-in from Ford
dealerships comes even after Ford relaxed its requirements for dealers in the EV dealer program
last January that mandated fewer L2 chargers and extended installation deadlines. Certified
Ford EV dealers were once required to spend $500,000 for a single public DC fast charger, or
$1 million if they wanted to be in the Elite tier of EV dealers. The extra $500,000 was
for another fast charger and demo units, among other things. But the high price tag caused
Ford dealers to balk.
Half
of U.S. Buick Dealers Take Buyouts Rather Than Sell EV's. The market for electric
vehicles isn't as robust as climate cultists and their media minions would have Americans
believe. A few weeks ago, I reported that car dealerships across the country were begging
Biden to use his pen-and-phone to rescind the mandate to end unrealistic EV mandates that have
sprung up in blue states. In another article, I noted Congress budgeted $7.5 billion to
build tens of thousands of electric vehicle chargers across the country, and none had yet been
built. Since then, one tax-payer funded EV charging station was built. In London, Ohio,
and apparently, no one is using it. There are even more signs that the American public
is pushing back against this net-zero nonsense. General Motors is relearning an important
lesson in capitalism: Smart businesses don't sell things customers aren't buying.
GM
driving about half of its Buick dealers out of business with demand for upfront cash investment to
handle electric vehicles. The decline and fall of General Motors, which sees it
heading toward liquidation from its status as arguably the most powerful corporation on earth more
than half a century ago, is entering a new phase. The federal government's mandated
conversion to electric vehicles is taking another big bite out of its organization. [...] GM's
pathetic condition today, as an obedient ward of the state, contrasts sharply with its heyday in
the 1950s and early 60s, when it had to restrain itself to only half of all auto sales in the US
lest the federal government be forced to try to break it up on antitrust grounds. Anyone
wishing to understand the tragi-comic fall of General Motors should start with the 1989 book
Rude Awakening, by the brilliant Maryann Keller, a chronicle of monumental mismanagement.
Half
of Buick Dealers Take Buyouts to Avoid Having to Sell GM's Electric Cars. Almost half
of Buick dealers across the United States have opted to take buyouts from General Motors (GM) to
avoid having to sell Electric Vehicles (EVs) at a time when consumer reports show Americans are
increasingly turned off by the cars. According to GM, almost 1,000 of its nearly 2,000 Buick
dealerships across the U.S. chose to take buyouts from the parent company rather than investing
potentially millions into retooling and prepping dealers to service and sell EVs. The buyouts
mean that GM will now have just about 1,000 Buick dealerships across the nation as the automaker
moves forward with adhering to President Joe Biden's green energy agenda.
Fire
breaks out in GM's EV plant and executives go with the vague 'battery materials' as the
culprit. In 2021, shortly after signing the $1.2 trillion "Bipartisan
Infrastructure Deal" into law, Joe Biden set off on a public relations campaign to sell the agenda
contained therein, making it all the way to Detroit for the grand opening of General Motors' new
E.V. assembly plant, known as Factory ZERO.
Are
Electric Vehicles the Wave of the Future? [Scroll down] Today, electric
cars are being built and sold to fight carbon dioxide. This basic goal is simply
madness. Carbon dioxide is plant food. One has to wonder if electric vehicles are
actually reducing carbon dioxide. In one demonstration, when a reporter asked about the power
source, he was informed that they just plugged it into a socket on the side of the building.
At the same time, there was an official there from the utility company, and he pointed out that the
local electricity was provided by a coal-fired power plant. So you can see that absolutely
nothing was accomplished, as the coal-fired power plant was still producing carbon dioxide.
That does not even consider that many of the components of an electric vehicle are produced in
places like China, which have few pollution control requirements. Consider that the machinery
used to mine the ore is producing carbon dioxide, and then the trucks that haul the ore to the
refinery, and then the carbon dioxide produced by the refinery, and finally the factory to build
the batteries and such, each stage using electricity. In China, much of the electricity is
produced by coal-fired power plants.
Electric
Vehicles Are Much More Costly than Commonly Claimed. Electric Vehicles (EV) have been
much in the headlines recently, from stories detailing the difficulties with charging them to
losses suffered by major automakers pushing them at the behest of the Biden administration, to EV
fires, the dependence on China for critical components used in EVs including their batteries, range
and function issues, and beyond. [...] Recent surveys show that more important than their limited
range and hauling capacity, their tendency to fail in bad weather and spontaneously combust, or any
other issue, the upfront price of an EV is the factor driving automobile and truck consumers'
decisions concerning whether to purchase an electric vehicle. Car buyers enter the market
knowing EVs, even with generous taxpayer-funded tax credits, carry an up-front price premium.
But it turns out the higher up-front costs are only part of the story. In fact, a new study
from the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) indicates EVs are even more expensive —
much more expensive — to drivers, taxpayers, and the economy as a whole than anyone
previously calculated, much less publicized.
Canada
will require all new cars to be zero emissions vehicles by 2035. All new cars in
Canada will have to be zero emissions by 2035, the government will announce next week when it
unveils new vehicle regulations, the Star has learned. But rather than being a way to force
new technology on consumers, it's being sold as a way to guarantee that people who want EVs will be
able to get them more quickly. The new regulations, called the Electric Vehicle Availability
Standard, will shorten the lengthy wait times for EVs that have been dampening consumer demand,
said a senior government official whom the Star agreed not to name because they were discussing
policy that hadn't been made public yet.
What
Climate Zealots Don't Understand About EVs and Winter. Here in Wisconsin, where fewer
than one-tenth of 1% of vehicles are fully electric, it's rare to see an EV outside the city.
That's why the latest international climate conference, Conference of the Parties (COP28), which
advocated widespread adoption of electric vehicles, should have Wisconsinites concerned. When
the temperature drops below 40 degrees, which occurs over 200 days per year in Eau Claire,
electric vehicles experience a reduction in range and efficiency, with losses of up to 40% when the
heating system is in use. My visit to my local automotive shop to have the tires rotated on
the family Ram truck was unaffected by the 13-degree Fahrenheit weather. While the truck was
up on the lift, Liz Fox, a service adviser at the shop, told me that while not many electric
vehicles come in for repairs, when they do, repairs typically take longer and are more expensive
than repairing internal-combustion engine vehicles.
States
are adopting California's e-truck rules, which industry says will increase consumer
costs. Maryland has become the 10th state to adopt California's Advanced Clean Trucks
rule even though 19 state attorney generals and a coalition of stakeholders are suing the
Golden State to stop it. The trucking industry warns that the mandate comes with a host of
problems, many of them similar to those consumers have seen with electric vehicle mandates for
passenger cars. In 2022, according to the American Trucking Associations, 72.6% of the
nation's freight moved by truck. With large amounts of consumer goods shipped by trucks, the
rules will add costs to freight, which will ultimately be passed down to the consumer, the industry
warns. Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted California —
and only California — a waiver that allows the state to enforce regulations that will
require half of all heavy-duty vehicle sales to be electric.
Half
of electric cars fall short on their official range by as much as 50 miles. Bad
news for EV owners with range anxiety: [...] half of electric cars go don't even go as far as makers
claim. A real-world test of 22 of the most popular electric cars has found that 10 fell short
of their advertised range. The biggest difference between quoted and actual ranges was
observed in a 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Lariat Extended Range, which starts at around $70,000.
Biden
Finally Built an Electric Vehicle Charging Station. People Aren't Using It. The
Biden administration touted the opening of its first taxpayer-funded electric vehicle charging
station as proof that "Bidenomics is delivering for Americans." Just days after the opening, the
station sat empty. The inaugural station - which opened on Dec. 8, two years after the
administration allocated $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle chargers across the
country — is located in London, Ohio, a small town situated just southwest of
Columbus. The station features an Arby's, a Cinnabon, and plenty of merchandise for
truckers. It also features few to no users. "At about 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, nobody
was using the chargers," Inside Climate News reported after visiting the station.
White
House tells federal workers to rent green EVS, or take the bus or train. President
Joe Biden made another move Thursday to push his electric car agenda and live up to his nickname as
'Amtrak Joe' by pressing federal employees to rent electric vehicles and take more trains. In
a directive Thursday, federal employees were told to rent EVS on official travel when costs are
less or equal to comparable gas-powered vehicles and where charging is accessible.
Additionally, federal workers were instructed to take rail for trips less than 250 miles when
cost-effective and feasible rather than flying.
The
electric vehicle fire is extinguishing itself. Onerous electric vehicle mandates have
threatened to crash not only the economy, but our electric grid. Joe Biden's handlers want X%
of all vehicles to be electric by X year, which is always an impossibly few years in the future.
[...] Until recently, American auto manufacturers were politically attuned to the Mummified Meat
Puppet Administration's EV/Climate Crisis goals, but even when one is saving the planet through
government mandates and deficit spending, reality inevitably catches up. Reality in the form
of 4000 dealers writing President Biden to tell him they can't sell or give away the EVs infesting
their lots, so perhaps it would be a good idea to please reign in those mandates? Another bit
of reality is the current average EV sells for $67,000 dollars. When all but a handful
of Americans can't afford an EV even if they want one — and most don't — EVs
aren't going to sell, which is the dealer's polite point.
Biden
Finally Built an EV Charging Station but There's One Little Problem.
[Scroll down] But this is not where Paul Harvey would tell you that you know the
rest of the story. The very first Bidencharger is located at a truck stop in London, Ohio,
that features "an Arby's, a Cinnabon, and plenty of merchandise for truckers," according to the
Free Beacon. It opened on Friday, Dec. 8, just three days after I so recklessly claimed
that the Green New Deal Lite hadn't built any EV charging stations. Please, I hope you can
find it in your heart to forgive me. But this being a Biden boondoggle, you have to know
there's going to be a catch, and here it is: "At about 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, nobody was
using the chargers," Inside Climate News Admitted. This comes as no surprise. If I were
spending my own money on EV chargers, I'd put the first one where there are plenty of EV drivers
around to generate a return on my investment. A truck stop on the outskirts of Columbus seems
like an unlikely place to find a Tesla charging in the middle of the day.
They're
Stacking Up. It's nearly 2024 and there's a two-month-plus supply of
cars — many of them 2023 models — waiting to be sold before they become last
year's models. Most of these waiting-to-be-sold models are electric cars that aren't selling
because (drum roll, please) buyers don't want them. Never before in the history of the
car business has the cart been put before the horse — as it has when it comes to
electric cars. Government has been interceding between car buyers and car manufacturers for
more than half-a-century, imposing requirements that new cars must have equipment such as seat
belts and air bags and back-up cameras, irrespective of the buyer's desire to pay for them or his
lack of desire to have them in his car. It has decreed bumper-impact standards and
even gone so far as to require that speedometers be dialed back to register no faster than 85 MPH.
But not until just recently did the government (feeling its oats, no doubt) go for broke and
order the car manufacturers to build only one type of car — the electric
car — and never mind whether people will buy them.
Is
Britain facing an EV car finance bombshell? It is the way eight out of ten motorists
finance their new cars, but are Personal Contract Purchase deals good value for money[,] especially
for people considering buying an electric vehicle (EV)? In the 12 months [ending] October
2023, some £17 [billion] was loaned by financial institutions to motorists looking to
purchase a new car. Of these, one in five new cars sold in Britain is an electric
vehicle. According to the motor industry, some of these, such as the Seat Mii Electric, are
losing more than half of their value within 12 months. This collapse in value is prompting
concern among financial experts.
The
Church of the Climate Change Cult is losing some of its Flock.
[Scroll down] Most individuals who keep up on the news and purchase an EV know their
electricity system will need an upgrade to ensure their household will have the ability to fast
charge them. That upgrade when done by many households puts an increased demand on the grid
meaning the electricity supplier must increase available capacity by adding more generation.
That issue recently surfaced in Germany due to the closing of their coal and nuclear plants while
pushing EV sales and electric heat pumps for households; both of which will increase electricity
demand. Add to that the Ukraine/Russian war causing Russian to cut off the supply of natural
gas to Germany and one can imagine the negative affect on reliable energy. As a result of the
foregoing the action being taken is significant as was recently reported: "In Germany, the
network regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, is now taking steps to throttle the electricity delivered
to EVs and heat pumps to alleviate pressure on the grid." The article went on to state:
"Going forward, the country's 880 local grid operators won't be able to block new heat pumps or
wall-chargers for EVs in their service areas. In exchange, they get to throttle the devices
when power demand threatens "acute damage or overloading of the network".
Dem
governor withdraws electric vehicle mandate in stunning blow to environmentalists.
Democrat Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is withdrawing his plan to mandate future electric
vehicle (EV) purchases after the proposal received bipartisan pushback from lawmakers on a key
legislative panel. Lamont ultimately pulled the proposal just four months after unveiling it
and characterizing it as "decisive action to meet our climate pollution reduction targets."
In July, Lamont unveiled the proposal, tethering Connecticut's emissions standards to those set in
California, which mandates that every passenger vehicle sold is electric by 2035, the most
aggressive target of its kind nationwide. "Common sense has prevailed," Connecticut Senate
Republican Leader Kevin Kelly said in a statement. "The Governor's decision to withdraw the
regulations is a reasoned approach to address the growing concerns raised by working and
middle-class families. Adopting California emission standards which ban the sale of
gas-powered cars is a substantial policy shift which must be decided by the General Assembly."
Joe,
we can't sell them. How is that electric vehicle promotion going? Well, the car
dealers can't sell them. [...] So what's going on? The simple answer is that they can't sell
electric vehicles no matter how much the Biden administration wants you to buy one or how many
commercials they run during the football games. They can't move them, as they say in the car
business. They sit on the lot. Like Disney, the companies are not listening to their
customers. Disney makes movies that no one wants to watch. The car makers are making
cars that no one wants to buy.
Report:
Electric Vehicles Have 80% More Problems than Gas-Powered Cars. Electric vehicles
(EVs) have vastly more problems that arise than gas-powered cars, a new report of American
consumers reveals. The survey from Consumer Reports, which asked owners of about 330,000
vehicles about issues they faced over the last year, found that EVs have almost 80 percent more
problems than gas-powered cars using traditional combustion engines. Most problems consumers
face with EVs, the report suggests, are long charging times, a lack of charging stations in
general, issues with the lithium-ion battery, outer and interior parts not fitting precisely, and
engine failures.
Car
Dealers Warn Biden: 'Unrealistic' Green Agenda Must Be Abandoned, Americans Not Buying Electric
Cars. Car dealers across the United States are warning President Joe Biden that his
"unrealistic" green energy agenda must be abandoned, mainly because Americans are not buying
Electric Vehicles (EVs) as the administration expected. Executives with car dealerships from
Massachusetts to Alabama to Wyoming sent a letter to Biden this week, urging his administration to
drop EV mandates and green energy requirements on the auto industry, citing a lack of interest
among American consumers in EVs. "... we are asking you to slow down your proposed regulations
mandating battery electric vehicle (BEV) production and distribution," the car dealers tell Biden: [...]
The Editor says...
Why call it a "battery electric vehicle?" Is there any other kind?
A
Bridge Too Far: EV Explosions? The lies regarding EVs abound everywhere on the
Internet. [...] I have found on average one truthful internet entry for every 30 or so fictitious
claims affirming the value, efficiency, and safety of these problematic vehicles. The
salespeople at the dealership I patronize are at their wits' end trying to clear their lots of EVs,
which, despite government incentives and tax credits, are becoming increasingly unpopular.
Inventories continue to pile up. The reasons for their unpopularity, as detailed in part in a
previous article, are glaringly obvious:
• What is called "range anxiety," assurances to the contrary are deceptive
• Inordinately long recharging periods
• Complete inadequacy of the electrical grid
• High unit price
• The exorbitant cost of maintenance and running costs, despite the false promises
of EV promoters; the true cost of fueling an EV would equate to $17.33 per gallon of gasoline.
• The prohibitive cost of battery replacement
• Negligible resale value
• Child slave labor in Africa to produce the 60 pounds of cobalt, 30 pounds
of lithium, 130 pounds of graphite, and nearly 500 pounds of steel, aluminum, manganese, nickel,
plastic, etc. needed for a half-ton EV battery
• The enormous waste of scarce water resources per kilo of lithium
• Though routinely denied by interested sources — left-wing fact-checkers,
government agencies, electric car firms, and profiteering automotive organizations — electric
vehicles are indeed fire-prone and burn at tremendous heat, making [extinguishment] difficult and prolonged.
Lithium-ion batteries tend to become unstable.
Inside
Britain's biggest EV hub, where electric car drivers say charging is a nightmare.
Britain's enormous new super hub for charging electric vehicles (EVs) has a major shock in store
for eco-punters — it's more expensive than fuel. Drivers claim that using the
nation's largest 'Gigahub' is much more costly than charging at home and paying can be a
nightmare. The site at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre (NEC) has 180 charging points
operated by BP Pulse UK, a subsidiary of the oil giant. At any given time most of them are
standing idle, but increasing numbers of motorists are finding their way to the hub that was
proudly opened by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt earlier this year. Sitting next to a Starbucks Drive
Thru on a car park at the NEC, a two-minute detour off the M42, the hub leaves some drivers
grappling with its system and struggling to pay.
Govt
To Pay £350 For EV Chargers in Flats!! [Scroll down] So, to recap,
if you live in a flat and therefore cannot charge your EV in your drive, the government will pay
you £350 towards a charging point in your home! I assume they expect you to stick your
car in the lift and push it into your kitchen to charge up. What planet are these idiots
on? We are not stupid, Government! We know that your real objective is to force us all
out of our cars, by hook or by crook. Except, that is, for the elite who will be allowed to
travel anywhere they want, anyhow they want.
You
Just Won't Believe the Electric Bus Story Out of Edmonton. The litany of cities run
by virtue-signaling dimwits throwing away big dollars on electric bus fleets that don't work grew
longer this week up in Canuck country, in the beautiful Canadian city of Edmonton. There, the
local newspaper, the Edmonton Journal, reports about the broken-down bus fleet in a story
headlined, "More than half of Edmonton's $60-million electric bus fleet not roadworthy." Oh,
you don't say. Even better is the subhead, which tells the reader, "Proterra, the American
company the city purchased the electric buses from between 2019-2022, is in Chapter 11 filing for
bankruptcy protection. Edmonton's on a list of creditors, seeking $1.3 million and
fulfillment of service and warranties." Oh. LOL. Hey, at least Edmonton's
virtue-signaling elites didn't do what Jackson Hole, Wyoming did last year. There, the city
council made up largely of California transplants (what a surprise, right?) trashed their entire
diesel-powered fleet in favor of electric buses, and more than half of those were reported to be
non-operative and unable to get repairs done over the summer.
Nothing
Good Comes from Biden's EV Ploy. The biggest economic push for electric vehicles
(EVs) appears to be to move them out of dealer inventory lots despite government subsidy
perks. EVs are now some of the slowest sellers on dealership lots. In September, it
took retailers over two months to sell a plug-in, compared with around a month for gas-powered
vehicles and only three weeks for a gas-electric hybrid. The slowdown is also problematic for
taxpayers and car companies that are plowing billions of dollars into new battery plants and
factories to build more profit-losing EVs. These investments were made when many of those
models were in high demand and had long wait lists. One of the companies that we taxpayers
generously subsidized ungraciously took the money and ran overseas. [...] Meanwhile, a once-hot
market for EVs appears to be losing its charge altogether. Ford has temporarily cut one of
the production shifts for the electric pickup and has paused construction of a $3.5 billion
battery plant in Michigan.
Waste
of the Day: U.S. Will Give $12 Billion To Auto Makers To Retrofit Plants For
EVs. The Biden administration is so enthusiastic to push electric and hybrid vehicles
on the public that the Energy Department is offering $12 billion in grants and loans for
automakers and suppliers to retrofit their plants, Reuters reported. Energy Secretary
Jennifer Granholm recently made the announcement, telling reporters "While we transition to EVs, we
want to ensure that workers can transition in place, that there is no worker, no community left
behind." Granholm is the former governor of car-manufacturing state of Michigan. The
Biden administration hopes to meet its goal of having EVs represent at least half of all new car
sales in the U.S. by 2030. Besides EVs, the funding can be used for factories that make
efficient hybrid, plug-in electric hybrid, plug-in electric drive and hydrogen fuel cell
vehicles. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union just ended a six-week strike that cost
automakers an estimated $10 billion, and Energy Department grants and loans to convert existing
auto plants to build electric vehicles could help win them over.
The
True Cost of EVs Is More Than The Sticker Price. The goals of President Joe Biden's
administration are lofty: among them, nationwide vehicle electrification within 20 years.
To reach that goal, the administration has recently proposed new fuel economy regulations that will
help ensure that 67% of new passenger cars sold are electric vehicles by 2032. The problem is
that this green dream is physically impossible to achieve in the next 10 years, and our new
research at the Texas Public Policy Foundation shows how much Americans are already paying to try
to achieve it. EV advocates often claim that with the right balance of expensive subsidies
and coercive regulations, we can quickly summon new battery and EV technology on a massive scale
and make EVs cheaper than gas-powered cars. What they don't admit is that these subsidies and
regulatory favors, not counting the new subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act that are beginning
to take effect this year, are already costing Americans at least $22 billion annually, which is
almost $50,000 per EV that is sold.
Stellantis
Recalls 32,000+ Hybrid Jeep Wrangler SUVs After Several Catch Fire While Parked.
Automaker Stellantis on Wednesday announced a recall of more than 32,000 of its hybrid Jeep
Wrangler SUVs because they pose a potential fire risk. As part of what the company described
as a routine review of customer information, Stellantis determined that eight of the hybrid
Wranglers had caught fire while they were turned off and parked. Six of the vehicles were
being charged when the fires started. The company said it doesn't believe anyone was hurt in
the fires. The recall covers 2021-2024 models of the Jeep Wrangler 4xe SUVs. All other
Wrangler models have been deemed safe by Stellantis, which maintains its U.S. headquarters in
Auburn Hills, Michigan.
What
We Can Expect Next. It's becoming very obvious that the push — just
the right word, as it's not happening freely — to "electrify" cars is getting pushback,
in the form of people not buying electric cars at the rate the pushers want. It is probably
true that most of the people who wanted an electric vehicle already have one. This amounts to
about 10 percent of the people, which makes sense given the expense (and limitations) of
electric vehicles. So what about the other 90 percent? Or even if it's "only"
70 percent? There are lots of EVs being made. But that's not the same as being
sold. Ask Ford. Ask every automaker — Tesla excused —
that's been pushed to make EVs before there was demand to support it. The pushing
grows more aggressive, too (via regulations such as the ones going into effect less than two years
from now requiring every vehicle to average close to 50 MPG that have the effect of pushing
anything with an engine off the market) even in the face of undeniable evidence that the
willingness of people to buy EVs is nowhere near what the pushers want. Which is for almost
everyone — themselves excepted, of course — to be tethered to a battery
powered device that is tethered to a single, centralized power source that can be metered according
the whims of the pushers.
My
Journey from Frustration to Outrage to Seething Anger. [Scroll down]
However, two issues are my biggest triggers: First, it enrages me that just by the usurpation
of administrative decrees, the lie of Climate Change is now ruling our economy. The left's
one-sided imposition of "cures" for this false problem only has one purpose: To stop the
production of oil and gas while failing on purpose to consider replacements for that energy to keep
us alive. Nine states have now doubled down and said that, by 2035, only EVs can be sold
within their borders — a position they hold regardless of the impossibility of building
enough EVs and electric generating capacity to meet the need, even if we all agreed 100%
to do it. The real goal is forcing citizens onto public transportation, which places
individual movement under governmental control.
Ford
Cuts Jobs, Investment for Michigan Electric Vehicle Battery Plant Linked to Chinese
Firm. Ford Motor Company and China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL) are
already cutting jobs and financial investment at an Electric Vehicle (EV) battery plant set for
Marshall, Michigan. In February, Ford announced the collaboration with CATL —
China's premier battery supplier — to build a $3.5 billion plant in the small community
of Marshall that executives said would create 2,500 jobs. A few months ago, Ford executives
said they were putting the plant on pause though the company will now resume construction.
Ford
Motor Company Pulls Back on Its Commitment to Electric Vehicles. Seems that that
since Ford Motor settled with the United Auto Workers a couple of weeks ago, their enthusiasm for
switching to an all-electric vehicle fleet by 2035 has waned a bit. [...] Now I really can't blame
the executives over at Ford Motor for thinking that maybe investing a ton of money and time into
something that is not nearly as strong as they believed is not the route to go. The U.S.
economy continues to put up solid numbers, but the public's feeling about said economy is not very
good. Plus, electric vehicles' biggest cheerleader in the government is currently Joe Biden,
and his leadership on this and in a number of other areas is not very inspiring.
Are
EVs a Doomed Technology? Electric vehicles have been around for 100 years or
so. They lost out to gasoline powered cars because gasoline powered cars are better. Is
that ever going to change? [...] Politicians are demanding that we switch to EVs while at the same
time transforming our electrical grid by turning to wind and solar generation — which is
impossible, and won't happen: [...] You might assume that someone has gotten out a pencil and paper
and figured out how a transition to "green" energy, accompanied by a transition to EVs, can
possibly be implemented. But you would be wrong. There is no plan, no demonstration
project, no set of calculations, no plausible feasibility study. The whole thing is a fantasy
which will cause ever-increasing damage if politicians insist on pursuing it.
Submerged
Tesla Model X at Florida boat ramp burns underwater. A couple drives their Tesla
Model X to the Polk Street boat ramp in Hollywood, Florida, to unload a jet ski. The wife
backs the trailer and jet ski into the water, the husband gets the jet ski into the water.
While the husband is on the water on the jet ski, the Tesla begins flashing a warning to the wife
to get out of the Model X. The car's electronically powered doors are closed, and whatever
malfunction is occurring won't permit the doors to open. Apparently, the wife didn't know
about the manual release for the doors, so the husband rocks up and gets her out before the Model X
ends up submerged. [...] After the SUV slides into the water, its battery catches fire, with toxic
gases and flames erupting from the water's surface. The ocean hates batteries.
The Editor says...
The ocean doesn't hate batteries; The batteries in an electric car can't tolerate the
ocean. If you own an electric car, you should know better than to drive it anywhere near a
boat ramp, especially around salt water. Also, I thought trailer hitches were not an option on
electric cars, because towing reduces the already-meager range of the car.
Tesla
Quietly Deletes Clause in Cybertruck Sales Contract After Backlash on Internet. Is
Tesla rolling back its ambitious plans for its Cybertruck vehicle? The electric vehicle
manufacturer moved to enact a "no resale" clause on contracts to sell the electric truck earlier
this week, according to Business Insider. "You agree that you will not sell or otherwise
attempt to sell the Vehicle within the first year following your Vehicle's delivery date," the
company required in its terms and conditions. [Tweet] Tesla reserved the right to buy back
vehicles listed for resale under the term, or impose financial penalties on those selling
them. Critics of the policy questioned its legality.
[The]
Fire that killed 3 generations of NYC family [was] sparked by [a] lithium-ion battery.
A massive blaze that killed members of three generations of a Brooklyn family over the weekend
stemmed from a lithium-ion battery used to power an electric scooter owned by one of the victims,
FDNY officials said Monday [11/13/2023]. The ignited battery created a "wall of fire" that
made it extremely difficult for residents to escape 242 Albany Ave. in Crown Heights —
where the three-alarm blaze erupted shortly after 4:30 a.m. Sunday, killing matriarch Albertha
West, 81, her son Michael West, 58 and grandson Jamiyl West, 33, the FDNY said. "The
volume of fire we see from these batteries creates untenable conditions both for residents to get
out, but also for [FDNY] members to get in," Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said at a news
conference announcing the cause of the inferno.
Do
You Want Electrical Vehicles And Solar Panels Made By Child Slaves And Forced Laborers?
The next time Joe Biden or any politician pushes electrical vehicles or solar panels, ask them where
they stand on slavery because the elements that run electrical vehicle batteries and the minerals that
go into the creation of solar panels could be made off the sweat and tears of slave laborers as young
as six years of age. Everyone in the climate change world and anti-human trafficking arena knows
this but the climate changers may be banking on the average person not knowing this. When state
legislators claim they are working for clean energy, it is best to ask how they are going to achieve
that and how are they going to prevent an increase in slavery to achieve their clean energy goals.
Michigan is shooting to reach 100% clean energy by 2040, but now, Michigan House Republicans are
proposing to stop the funding of any projects that involves child slaves and forced laborers mining
for the minerals to assemble the solar panels and electrical vehicles battery parts.
Electric
Vehicles Are Much More Costly than Commonly Claimed. Electric Vehicles (EV) have been
much in the headlines recently, from stories detailing the difficulties with charging them, to
losses suffered by major auto makers pushing them at the behest of the Biden administration, to EV
fires, the dependence on China for critical components used in EVs including their batteries, range
and function issues, and beyond. [...] Recent surveys show that more important than their limited
range and hauling capacity, their tendency to fail in bad weather and spontaneously combust, or any
other issue, the upfront price of an EV is the factor driving automobile and truck consumers'
decisions concerning whether to purchase an electric vehicle. Car buyers enter the market
knowing EVs, even with generous taxpayer-funded tax credits, carry an up-front price premium.
But it turns out the higher up-front costs are only part of the story. In fact, a new study
from the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) indicates EVs are even more expensive —
much more expensive — to drivers, taxpayers, and the economy as a whole than anyone
previously calculated, much less publicized.
Electric
Bus Loses Power Going Up Hill, Rolls Backward and Crashes Into Line of Cars. Electric
vehicles sure do seem safe and effective. Or am I mixing my propaganda? According to
social media user Xian Ke, a Google-operated electric bus suffered a power loss on Monday morning
while attempting to scale one of San Francisco's many hills. The out-of-control bus then
rolled down the hill and crashed into nine vehicles. Monday on X, formerly Twitter, Ke posted
a 10-second clip of the crash's aftermath.
Study:
EV's are Cars for People Who Don't Need to Drive (as much). Mass adoption of electric
vehicles (EV) is a key part of plans to decarbonize the United States' energy system. As EV
ownership in the U.S. increases, understanding how much EV owners are driving their cars informs
everything from climate and energy models to U.S. policy and energy planning. Thus far, the
assumption among modelers and regulatory bodies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has
been that EV owners drive their cars about the same number of miles as owners of gas
vehicles. New research published in Joule, however, challenges that assumption and suggests
we may be overestimating emissions savings from EVs. In one of the largest studies on EV
mileage to date, researchers at the George Washington University and the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory examined odometer data from 12.9 million used cars and 11.9 million used SUVs
between 2016 and 2022. They found that battery electric vehicle (BEV) cars were driven almost
4,500 fewer miles annually than gas cars.
Five
things the Biden administration has attempted to restrict. [#4] Gas-powered
cars: The Biden administration has been a strong advocate of electric cars and phasing out
gas-powered vehicles, with the Department of Transportation's proposed fuel efficiency rules being
a recent example of this push. The proposed rule would raise standards for fuel efficiency to
66 miles per gallon for cars and 54 mpg for trucks by 2032, something National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration acting Administrator Ann Carlson has said is "good news for everyone."
"The new standards we're proposing today would advance our energy security, reduce harmful
emissions, and save families and business owners money at the pump," Carlson said. "That's good
news for everyone."
The Editor says...
A gas-engine car would almost have to have a styrofoam frame and aluminum-foil doors to get that kind of gas
mileage. Such a car would only be safe at school zone speeds or less. Who gave the Department of
Transportation the authority to issue such an edict? Who among us believes that 54-mpg cracker-box
cars will "save the earth?"
Prominent
car rental company reneges on promises of an EV fleet citing 'twice' the cost. First,
talk about waste — typical from the movement that claims to be all about recycling and
reusing. E.V.s are a hallmark part of the "green" cult forcing policies to save the planet...
yet they push for cars that by design, are one-and-done rides when they get into an accident?
Cars that had a massively detrimental effect on the earth to mine for the minerals needed to
power them? Cars that will have another negative impact, when they take up a noticeable
portion of real estate either in a dump or in an "E.V. graveyard" like we see in China?
According to recent data, there are right around 20,000 car wrecks each day in the U.S. —
what happens if they're all E.V.s, like the left wishes? These people are totally demented.
Second of all, talk about unaffordable. The U.S. is around $33 trillion in debt, and with
our status as the world reserve currency, when we're in debt, we're stealing from the rest of the globe
too. The E.V. industry is already tremendously subsidized, and the idea just isn't good enough
to make it — can we just cut our losses and be done with it?
Hertz
rolls back aggressive electric car plans. US-based rental car company Hertz announced
back in 2021 it was ordering 100,000 Tesla electric vehicles (EVs) by the end of 2022, though in
reality it's still far from this number. As reported by CNBC, Hertz currently has only 50,000
EVs in its fleet, with 35,000 of them being Teslas. Hertz Global CEO Stephen Scherr said
during the company's recent third-quarter earnings call that "our in-fleeting of EVs will be slower
than our prior expectations". Around 11 percent of Hertz's entire global fleet comprises EVs
currently, however the company won't reach the previously stated goal of 25 percent by the end of 2024.
California's
EV Conundrums. [T]he list of conundrums to California's EV mandate is growing:
• Lack of sufficient number of buyers, outside the elite profile of existing EV owners
• The Governments' lack of ethical, moral, and social responsibilities, by
encouraging the social injustice of subsidies for well-off people who can afford EVs, continues
exploiting the human rights of workers with yellow, brown, and black skin in the supply chain that
are mining for exotic minerals and metals in poorer developing countries to support the green
movement in wealthy countries.
• Conditions have grown so dire for the supply chain of raw materials
needed for EV batteries that Washington is cracking down on EV components that have links to
Chinese Uyghur slave labor that are helping to build EV's.
• Due to EV battery fire potentials, questionable means of transporting EV's from foreign manufacturers to the USA consumers.
• Concerns about occasional electricity from wind and solar being able to charge EV batteries.
• The limited life of the EV battery compared with conventional vehicles, the limitations of EVs during emergencies such as fires, floods, and power blackouts.
• China restricting exports of graphite, a key mineral used for making EV batteries.
• Auto makers will continue to face challenging supply chain issues to make
all the parts and components of EV's as the supply of oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil
will be in shorter supply. The typical car today is made with about 260 pounds of plastics.
Another
EV Home Charger Company Goes Into Receivership. Dozens of customers waiting to have
electric vehicle home chargers installed by an Irish company have been left in limbo after
receivers were appointed to it[.] Some people who paid up to €700 for an installation by
Cork-based Smartzone fear they will be left out of pocket. The company previously announced
plans to put 25,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging points in homes across Ireland by 2025. It
had also partnered with Electric Ireland, which used the company as its recommended home charger
installer, and offered customers a €100 discount if they signed up. However, many people
have reported issues with Smartzone, with some waiting months for the installation process to be complete.
The
EPA's War Against Cars. The EPA states that cars currently emit an average of 400 grams
of CO2 per mile. The proposed regulations would reduce allowable CO2 emissions to
82g/mile by 2032. By the EPA's own calculation, the only way to meet this standard is for U.S. auto
companies to sell at least 67% of the entire fleet as electric vehicles. In sharpest
contrast, electric car booster IEA forecasts that EV sales will account for a mere 20% of U.S. cars
sales in 2030. And even that estimate is looking too optimistic based on recent events. EV
sales currently account for about 8% of U.S. new car sales, or less than 5% excluding California,
even with mammoth subsidies of $7,500 per car, billions in incentives and tax credits to
manufacturers to support lower sticker prices. Yet despite all, EVs are not selling as
planned, as evidenced by excess inventories. With price cuts the Big Three are losing money
on EVs hand over fist. Even Tesla, the only manufacturer other than Chinese BYD that can make
sustainable profits on EVs, has seen its stock decline in the past two months by $240 billion, as
investors recalibrate. The reality that EVs are unwanted in mass numbers, too expensive and
oversupplied is beginning to set in. [...] Environmentalist take note: your clean car is
majority powered by "evil" fossil fuels.
The Editor says...
The avoidance of CO2 emissions is pointless and futile. Carbon dioxide is plant food. It is not
a pollutant. If the U.S. government says carbon dioxide is a harmful pollutant, that is a lie.
There are many natural sources of carbon dioxide that can never be stopped by legislation, and there are several
other countries in the world (within the same atmosphere) where there is no concern at all about CO2 emissions.
The
DNC Con Job to Come. Our problems are caused by policies. These are not
Biden-Harris-specific policies; they have become standard-issue, party-platform, shared official
policies. To advocate anything else would get one kicked out of the party. [...] Both our
nation and the entire Western world are suffering from the intentional destruction of the auto
industry, formerly a prodigious employer that raised the standard of living of hundreds of millions
of people, by governments forcing the industry to switch, en masse, to the utterly impractical,
geologically and economically unsustainable concept of the lithium battery-powered E.V.
Consequences
of American Communism. In typical communist fashion, the federal government's
intervention into private-sector businesses by mandates for solar and wind energy along with
industrial mandates to build a pre-determined amount of electric vehicles (EV) are bringing those
industries to the brink of ruin. Ford has lost billions trying to comply. The grid
cannot provide enough power to run the country as it is and demanding that solar and wind make up
for the shortfall is utter stupidity. No one wants to buy the EVs Biden declared as necessary
and many insurance companies are recognizing that they can't afford to insure them at any cost,
because they might spontaneously catch fire and/or explode or their $20,000 batteries might fail
after a minor fender-bender. Being forced to insure them might bring the auto insurance
industry to bankruptcy. How long before the federal government further demonstrates
communistic tendencies and mandates that people buy them, either through direct orders or by
outlawing gasoline-powered autos? All unconstitutional, all illegal, but we've seen what
weight that carries with an outlaw government.
Net
Zero's Dirty Secret: Child Labor in Congo's Mines. There are many dirty little
secrets of "net zero" goals, but perhaps the worst one is the massive child labor in Congo's
mines. Children are enslaved and overworked so that self-righteous leftists can drive
Teslas. The "climate crisis" is a total scam, as is "green energy," which is actually toxic
for the environment. The batteries in electric vehicles (EVs) are also very toxic to make and
dispose of. In fact, "Driving Electric" stated in 2020 that cobalt is necessary for all EV
and plug-in hybrid car batteries. "Around 60% of the world's cobalt comes from mines in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the metal is sometimes dug out by hand in unregulated
conditions, often by child labourers," the website admitted. According to "Ethical Consumer"
in 2022, the percentage is even higher: "70% of the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic
Republic of Congo." Unfortunately, child labor is a massive problem in the Congo.
The
Great 'Green Energy Transition' That Wasn't. One of the textbook marketing flops of
all time was the Ford Edsel sedan, which was heralded as the hot new car in the late 1950s.
All the automotive experts and Ford executives said it was a can't-miss. Henry Ford (the car
was named after his son) guaranteed hundreds of thousands of sales. But one big thing went
wrong: Nobody ever bothered to ask car buyers what they thought of the new car.
As it turned out, they hated it. So instead of sales of 400,000, Americans bought 10,000, and
the model was embarrassingly discontinued. The obvious lesson for the industry: You
can't bribe Americans to buy cars they don't want. Given the all-in approach to electric
vehicles at Ford and General Motors, it's clear that Detroit never got the message.
Texas
Public Policy Foundation Unmasks the True Costs of Electric Vehicles. With news
reports showing Electric Vehicles stockpiling in car lots, unsold, all across the country, it's
curious that California Governor Gavin Newsom just announced the state surpassed its zero-emission
vehicle (ZEV) truck sales goal two years ahead of schedule. And how did California accomplish
this? According to the governor, "California has distributed more than $780 million to help
fleet operators purchase ZEV trucks." Newsom and the state's environmental lobby are pushing
to phase out all internal combustion trucks and big rigs, as they claim that trucks account for
over a quarter of the state's on-road greenhouse gas emissions. But, people don't want what
Gov. Newsom is selling — not electric trucks or electric vehicles. And
notably, the Ford Motor Company is losing over $70,000 on each EV it currently sells.
Under-Powered:
New Study and Financial News Show Failing EV Market Will Only Overcharge Taxpayers.
For far too long, we have been enduring persistent lobbying from the left concerning the majesty
and Eath-saving benefits of electric vehicles. That politicians and the heft of the federal
bureaucracy are pushing this on the nation is all that is needed to understand this is a costly
boondoggle. [...] The collective effort to force us onto the electrical grid has been
pervasive. Automakers have been crafting EVs for decades, blue states pass laws trying to
force our hands into buying overpriced battery-op cars, and pro-plug-in politicians attempt to
fabricate demand by pushing out government-backed rebates like showroom coupons. All of these
examples hint at inherent problems with EVs. Another factor with this topic is common
sense. The main reason given for moving us onto EVs is the environmental benefits, but we
need to ignore that the so-called "clean" vehicles need to have batteries charged with "dirty"
power. Then you have California which wants to mandate that only EVs be sold in the coming
years, a state that regularly has rolling blackouts and has requested residents refrain from
charging their cars during peak periods.
Joe
Biden's Green Energy Flop: Automakers Realize Americans Are Not Buying Electric
Vehicles. After investing billions into a green energy agenda mimicking President Joe
Biden's federal rules, American automakers are quickly learning that Americans are not buying
electric vehicles (EVs) at the rates they expected. A comprehensive report in the Detroit
Free Press details how the latest data reveals that while the Biden administration is pushing hard
for automakers to turn out EVs, car companies are unable to sell the models. Data from
Edmunds.com shows that in September 2022, for example, EVs sat on dealership lots for just 21 days
before they were sold. Today, EVs are sitting on dealership lots for 65 days.
Australia
Warns Ferries about EVs. Australia's Maritime Safety Authority has issued a domestic
commercial vessel safety alert on the risks of ferrying battery powered cars (EVs), download it
here. Each ferry operator must conduct a risk assessment for their vessel to ensure that they
are capable of dealing with potential EV fires. They list the risks of carrying EVs as
follows:
• High voltage shocks
• Direct jet
flames
• Fires develop in intensity quickly and rapidly reach their maximum
intensity (typically within 2-3 minutes)
• Toxic gases
•
Gas explosion (if the released gas accumulates for a while before being ignited)
• Long lasting re-ignition risk (can ignite or re-ignite weeks, or maybe months after
the provoking incident)
• Once established fires are difficult to
stop/extinguish
• Thermal runaway
They go on to add that EVs are
approximately 25% heavier than vehicles with internal combustion engines. This should be
considered when placing the vehicles on the ferry or ship to minimize the potential impact on
vessel stability.
Electric
vehicles may be worse for the environment than gasoline-powered vehicles. Electric
vehicles require enormous damage to the environment just to produce their batteries —
250 tons of mining is required for a single battery, according to Real Clear Energy.
Switching to electric cars would require a radical expansion of mining across the world, and the
minerals for the car batteries will be refined mainly using the coal-powered electric grid of
China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. Yet states are starting to mandate
electric vehicles. Nine states, including California, have now decided to ban
gasoline-powered cars by 2035, requiring that all cars sold be electric instead.
Ford
to delay spending $12 billion on EV expansion due to slowing customer demand. Ford
announced Thursday [10/26/2023] that it will delay about $12 billion in planned spending to
increase EV manufacturing capacity. Ford CFO John Lawler made the statements in a media
briefing. The major U.S. automaker had expected electric vehicle sales to increase at a much
higher pace, according to CNBC. Persistently high interest rates are slowing the pace of
demand for EVs, Reuters reported this week. On Thursday, Ford reported an operating loss of
$1.3 billion in its EV division during the third quarter. In the statement, the auto maker
said that customers are unwilling to pay the premiums for EVs over that of gas or hybrid vehicles,
which combine characteristics of battery and gas power.
EV
Market Is Looking [Bad]. Business is a brutal sport when you already have a product a
majority of your customers want and you are only trying to lure them to choosing yours. Where
business turns into a death match is when you've bought into manufacturing a product which already
had limited appeal, but, even as your competition and costs increase, it's losing what little
appeal it had to begin with. This is the conundrum now facing the electric vehicle
industry. As the buying public becomes more familiar with EVs — their
manufacturing process, pluses and drawbacks — electrics seem to be losing even their
shiny luster of new and cool. As it stands now, EVs are at risk of becoming a niche market
instead of dominating the roads as envisioned.
Toyota
Chairman Says People Finally 'Seeing Reality' That Electric Vehicles Aren't Key To Carbon
Neutrality. Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda says because of sagging demand for
electric vehicles in the U.S., the industry is beginning to recognize that EVs may not be the key
to carbon neutrality. "People are finally seeing reality," Toyoda, who stepped down this year
as Toyota CEO after 14 years, told reporters this week at the Japan Mobility Show. He also
said that the automotive industry should hedge its bets by continuing to make investments in cars
other than EVs. "There are many ways to climb the mountain that is achieving carbon
neutrality," Toyoda said. He added, "I have continued to say what I see as reality," warning
that "if regulations are created based on ideals, it is regular users who are the ones who suffer."
Despite EV sales continuing to grow, the rate of growth has slowed from last year, as buyer demand
cools, causing inventory to pile up for certain manufacturers.
The Editor says...
Electric cars are extremely expensive, very heavy, easily damaged beyond repair, easily destroyed by flood water,
and can't travel very far between charges. And the power to recharge it may come from a coal-fired power
plant anyway. There is no rational reason to buy an electric car, as long as the United States is
(that is, it used to be, and someday could be) a petroleum superpower. The only reason
given for the switch to electric cars is the avoidance of carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is not
a pollutant. It is not something to avoid. It is beneficial, not harmful. Moreover, your
electric car is statistically insignificant compared to the CO2 production (along with genuine air pollution)
coming from China and India. Even if somebody gave you an electric car, it would cost more to
operate it than the gas-engine car you now own. And if somebody gave me an electric car,
I wouldn't dare park it in my garage, because their lithium batteries tend to spontaneously combust.
Has
EV Boom Jumped The Shark? Many people have climbed aboard the electric-vehicle
bandwagon, lured by promises of pristine air and cheap, easy-to-use electricity that make EVs seem
inevitable. But now, after years of spending billions on subsidies and shaming people into
buying into our inevitable all-electric future, some are slamming on the brakes —
surprisingly, including many of the biggest companies in the industry. The global companies,
recipients of massive subsidies to support fossil-fuel abolition, are backing away from their
support. General Motors, faced with a strike, just abandoned its EV strategy, while the
AutoBlog points out that Mercedes "is finding that customers aren't as excited about new EVs as it
is." Elon Musk's Tesla lost an estimated $28 billion in value after reporting what were called
"disastrous third-quarter earnings." Ford, faced with dramatically slowing sales, just announced it
will delay $12 billion in EV investments.
What
Is the Long Game for the EV Push? There are now nine states dotting the country who
intend to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035, with more expected to join.
Banning their use altogether isn't far behind, since vehicles do wear out; most statistics conclude
the average life expectancy is 12 years. This means that in less than 24 years, if you
live in one of these nine states, you will not have any choice but to buy an E.V. Too bad if
you cannot afford one. If you still have a gasoline vehicle, who knows how many gas stations
will be left, since these are privately-held franchises that must make a profit or close their
doors. Therefore, the infrastructure to support unlimited E.V. travel for every resident of
these nine states (and more) must be in place nationally. Good luck with that. I am
sure rural America, currently unaffected by any state law of their own mandating E.V.s will be
happy to jump all over it, and spend their tax dollars to ensure the city "greenies" can find a
charging station when they need one.
True
costs of EVs revealed by bombshell report out of a Texas think tank. The electric
vehicle industry is barely making it with all the cushy subsidies, grants, and backroom
deals; imagine if these car companies were actually forced to manufacture a sellable and profitable
product, and produce their own wealth instead of just stealing ours? [...] Yesterday, Fox News
reported on a "sweeping first-of-its-kind" Texas Public Policy Foundation analysis put together by
"energy experts" Jason Isaac and Brent Bennett, which revealed that the actual cost of rechargeable
cars and the E.V. industry is, in reality, much higher than they're leading us to believe. [...]
Now, if the energy experts in Texas are right, each car is costing almost $50,000 more than they're
telling us over a ten-year period, which obviously works out to about $5,000 a year. However,
I'm not sure the report accounts for this but it's certainly a relevant point, the U.S. dollar is
losing its value at an astonishing rate, so in reality, I presume that over the course of ten
years, this number is actually even higher.
GM
and Honda ditch plan to build cheaper electric vehicles. A little more than a year
after announcing an ambitious plan to co-develop a lineup of affordable electric vehicles, General
Motors and Honda are scrapping the deal — or at least just that one aspect of the
deal. Announced in April 2022, the plan was to build a series of affordable EVs on GM's
flexible EV platform with its Ultium-branded battery packs. At the time, GM and Honda said
they expected to begin production of "millions" of these affordable EVs by 2027. "After
studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment,
we are ending development of an affordable EV," Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in the interview with
Bloomberg, which was the first to report the news.
American
consumers aren't buying the climate change hysteria the Biden administration is
selling. You can lead an electorate to the electronic vehicle charging station, but
you can't make them plug in. That's the lesson President Biden is learning as American
consumers reject the "green" future the administration has been trying to mandate through the EPA's
proposed emissions standards and billions in EV subsidies and tax credits. The American
people, however, just aren't buying the climate change is "even more frightening than a nuclear
war" line Biden is selling." This week," reports the Daily Mail, "Ford said it would lay off about
700 workers at the Detroit plant that manufactures its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck, and
GM pushed back production of the Chevrolet Silverado EV, citing slowing demand."
Organization
demanding forced transition to EVs also opposes mining practices needed to procure the minerals to
build the cars. One need only take a very quick and superficial look at the "green"
movement to rightly deduce the "greenies" are a bunch of morons — they're either
incapacitated with their hands glued to the road, protesting something by throwing soup all over a
Vincent Van Gogh painting, or, demanding a forced transition to battery-powered vehicles, wind
turbines, and solar farms... while also demanding no mining take place for the minerals needed to
power such initiatives. [...] I'm thrilled that the group is dumb enough to fight their own agenda,
and is waging lawfare to stop the development of land for lithium mines; what's concerning though
is that I suspect, in some way or another, they're at the public trough gorging on my money,
funding these lawsuits through federal grants or subsidies.
Electric
cars risk becoming uninsurable. Electric cars risk becoming effectively uninsurable
as analysts struggle to put a price on battery repairs, the researcher for the car insurance
industry has said. Jonathan Hewett, chief executive of Thatcham Research, the motor insurers'
automotive research centre, said a lack of "insight and understanding" about the cost of repairing
damaged electric car batteries was pushing up premiums and resulting in some providers declining to
provide cover altogether. Electric cars can be particularly expensive to repair, costing
around a quarter more to fix on average than a petrol or diesel vehicle. Experts have
previously warned electric vehicles are being written off after minor bumps because of the cost and
complexity of fixing their batteries. Mr Hewett said: "The challenge is that we have
no way of understanding whether the battery has been compromised or damaged in any way.
Car
parking spaces will have to be bigger because of electric car fires. Car park spaces
should become wider and burning electric cars dunked in baths of water, under proposed government
guidelines to prevent battery fires spreading out of control. Ministers have been told that
battery-powered vehicles pose a medley of risks in indoor car parks, which could render 1960s-era
fire safety laws dangerously out of date. Areas of concern addressed in a
government-commissioned report included explosions of flammable vapour clouds emitted by electric
vehicle batteries, as well as jets of fire and toxic water run-off from firefighting. The
report, from consultancy Arup, which makes a series of recommendations for changes to fire safety
rules, said that there was a "high degree of uncertainty" about data on the fire risks of electric
cars and that it is "not yet understood" whether their batteries become more of a fire hazard with age.
Edinburgh
couple fume as they are handed £17K bill by Tesla as they 'drove in rain'. An
Edinburgh couple say they are "in shock" after claiming Tesla gave them a £17,000 bill to fix
their battery that was 'damaged by the rain'. Johnny Bacigalupo and Rob Hussey told how they
have been faced with the massive bill when their £60,000 electric car stopped working when
the capital was faced with extreme weather last week. Following "frustrating" correspondence
with the company, which boasts Elon Musk as its largest shareholder, the pair say they are still
being asked to fork out £17,374 despite claiming no fault on their part.
The Editor says...
Rain is not "extreme weather." It is not unreasonable to presume, without asking the salesman at
the dealership, that an automobile should be able to withstand wet conditions on the road.
CEO
of bankrupt rechargeable bus company retains post as an esteemed advisor to the Biden
regime. I'm no financial guru, but I would think that someone who steered a private
company into bankruptcy, despite receiving billions of taxpayer dollars to prop it up,
probably isn't the most qualified advisor on economic, fiscal, and trade issues — but
Joe Biden seems to disagree. Gareth Joyce is the CEO of Proterra, a company that manufactured
rechargeable buses thanks to more than $8 billion in seed money given to it by the federal
government, and one that declared bankruptcy this summer. But apparently, Joyce still finds
gainful employment on our dime, thanks to Biden's apparent mission to hire the most incompetent,
unfit, and clownish cabinet in American history. (Sam Brinton, Karine Jean-Pierre, Richard
Levine, etc.)
America
to Ford: Your Electric Trucks Can Drop Dead. Over at the Ace of Spades HQ blog,
my favorite, contributor Buck Throckmorton regularly covers the ongoing disaster that is the
government-imposed artificial market for EVs. His latest post was today, and it's
hilarious. Buck notes today that with sales of the F150 Lightning tanking, Ford has now
canceled all dealer stock orders for the vehicle. Dealers are stuck with thousands of trucks
they cannot sell. As Buck puts it, dealers are "choking on a 97-day supply of Lightnings
nationwide with 3,632 for sale." Ideally, dealers stock a 60-day supply of vehicles they need
to sell. So, as noted above, Ford announced it won't be sending any more 2023 F150 Lightnings
out to dealers. They will remain at the factory for "additional quality checks."
Unintended
Consequences: The California Electric Truck Mandate. If you own a trucking
company that picks up shipments from California ports, you now have to deal with the consequences
of a new law designed to reduce your carbon footprint. Trucking is one of the vital
ingredients in our infrastructure that virtually all parts of the economy rely on. About
two-fifths of all containerized imports to the US come through one of California's twelve
commercial ports. According to a recent report in National Review, beginning January 1,
any trucker doing "drayage" (the technical term for transporting stuff to or from a seaport) in
California can only buy zero-emission vehicles, although they can hang on to their existing diesel
fleet for a while. Trucks don't last forever, however, and evidently the court of wisdom
otherwise known as the California legislature decided this was the best way to get truckers used to
the additional coming mandate that in 2035, all trucks entering California seaports and intermodal
rail yards (where the containers are loaded onto trains) must be zero-emission types.
Switzerland
plans to ban electric cars from the roads in a bid to reduce energy consumption.
Switzerland will ban the use of electric cars for 'non-essential' journeys if the country runs out
of energy this winter, the government has announced. Emergency plans drawn up in the event
the Swiss are hit by blackouts also call for shop opening hours to be reduced by up to two hours
per day, heating systems in nightclubs to be turned off, and other buildings to be heated to no
more than 20[°]C. Crisis measures could see streaming services and games consoles banned,
Christmas lights turned off, and all sports stadiums and leisure facilities closed.
Switzerland fears an energy shortage in the coming months because it is highly dependent on imports
to get it through winter.
Shipping
Company Bans EVs, Due To Their Propensity To Burst Into Flames. Electric vehicles are
so prone to spontaneously bursting into flames — which are virtually impossible to put
out — that a Norwegian shipping company has banned them from its ferries, citing a ship
that sank last February after the EVs it was carrying caught fire and couldn't be extinguished.
Time
to Tell America's Climate Cult 'Stop!' [Scroll down] But we also need to
maintain an economy to feed, clothe, and house hundreds of millions of people and ensure our
national security. We can't do those things if we overburden the nation's electric
grid. We can't do those things relying on "renewables" such as wind and solar
power — not even with the best of those technologies that we have available today.
And we can't do that with Americans abandoning their gasoline-powered internal combustion engines
in favor of electric vehicles (EVs) that most of them can't afford and that require a charge from
an overburdened electrical grid. We might be able to generate all the required electricity
that the climate cult demands with nuclear energy and a massive investment in the electrical grid,
but progressives abhor the former and have made no provisions at all to pay for the latter.
At an average cost of $64,000, the cost of the EVs that the climate cult would have us all adopt is
now, and will likely continue to be, well beyond the financial means of most Americans.
They're also extraordinarily heavy, going from hundreds to thousands of pounds more than
gasoline-powered cars. That makes EV crashes far less survivable than their gas-powered
counterparts and raises concerns about the structural integrity of roads, bridges, and vertical
parking garages. That's to say nothing of how vulnerable an "all EV" economy would make
us. First, the inputs necessary to make EVs are at risk, as they come largely from a
geopolitical adversary, China. Other EV inputs depend on mining in countries in the Third
World where China is aggressively developing geostrategic advantage, but where we have no other
interest except for EV inputs. The United States simply can't rely on that supply chain.
The
great electric car experiment has taken a dangerous turn. When Alfred Sloan, the
former president of General Motors, promised a "car fit for every purpose", he presumably didn't
have the kidnapping of passengers in mind. Yet a man's electric car broke down in spectacular
fashion this week and began driving itself, leaving the motorist with no ability to brake.
Only by slowly, intentionally, crashing into a police van did it finally stop. [...] Road safety
groups have long described electric cars as "silent killers", with research suggesting they are
around 40 percent more likely to hit a pedestrian than a conventional vehicle. Last month,
firefighters were called to a car park in Sydney after a lithium battery, which had been detached
from an EV, ignited a blaze. Such incidents are not entirely uncommon. Structural
engineers have raised fears that older designs of car park building cannot cope with the weight of
EVs, some of which have batteries weighing half a tonne, while councils have been told to check the
weight limit on bridges to ensure they don't collapse under the strain of these new, gleaming vehicles.
Jackson's
public transit service falls back on the ever-reliable diesel engine. Underneath the
foreseeable fiasco is a scandal that views like a Solyndra rerun, and a grotesquely wasteful
government — and as if Solyndra-esque plotlines and a federal government taking our hard
earned money to prop up both parties on either end of a business deal from which a vast
majority of the country does not benefit weren't realities obscene and condemning enough, the
latest act in the unfolding rechargeable vehicle drama of Jackson's START system now can add a 100%
failure rate of the product to the list. Cowboy State Daily's Kevin Killough penned an
article last week covering the news: [...] What should serve as egg on the face for the dopes
behind this scheme is it's not like the "100% failure rate" comment is a crafty attempt to
manipulate an anti-E.V. narrative, like it would be if the "fleet" were only comprised of one bus;
but this fleet is eight buses, all of which we can reasonably expect will never run again,
given Proterra's recent bankruptcy.
EV
Mania Spreads Across The Nation's Bluest States. A new report from BloombergNEF
reveals the ten states with electric vehicle sales at or above 10% of all new passenger car sales
in the first half of 2023. All states that meet the threshold are some of the country's bluest'
states that also support aggressive 'green' policies. In Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Nevada,
Colorado, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Virginia, one in every ten new cars sold in the
first six months of the year was electric. As for California, 25% of new cars sold were
EVs — about three times the national average.
We'll
all pay the price of soaring EV insurance. Something strange happened last week: the
Guardian published an article which was worth reading. It concerned the massive insurance
costs owners of electric vehicles (EVs) are facing. [...] You might think: 'Why should I care since
I don't drive an EV?' Well, when the politicians see that high insurance costs are putting people
off buying the EV which they are determined to push on us, they'll yet again attack petrol and
diesel car owners.
'The
quotes were £5,000 or more': electric vehicle owners face soaring insurance costs.
Driving an electric car should be a win-win, saving money and the planet. So David* was
shocked when the insurance on his Tesla Model Y came up for renewal, and Aviva refused to cover him
again, while several other brands turned him away. When David did secure a new deal, the
annual cost rocketed from £1,200 to more than £5,000. "My insurer was Aviva from
July 2022 to July 2023, but when it was coming up for renewal, I received a letter stating that
they would not be covering the Tesla Model Y any more," David says. "I am a member of a Tesla UK
owners forum, and lots of other people seem to be having the same issue." In the Facebook
group, members share stories of horror renewal quotes, with increases ranging from 60% (up to
£1,100) to a staggering 940% (a jump from £447 to £4,661, according to a
screengrab shared by one driver).
Electric
car charging chaos rages on with drivers vowing to ditch EVs and 'go back to diesel'.
Electric vehicle drivers are reportedly getting into furious debates with each other because of a
lack of charging points, with some even vowing to give their EVs back. Some drivers are even
claiming they need to wake up in the middle of the night to charge their vehicle when demand for
chargers is at a lower rate. Experts have been critical of the spread of electric car
charging stations around the country, with London and the South East of England having almost half
of all UK chargers. Some are concerned that the North of England, as well as Wales and
Northern Ireland, are being left behind with the charging infrastructure.
[The]
Largest EV Charging Station In [the] World [is] Powered By Diesel-Powered Generators.
The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger station is an impressive beast. With 98 charging bays,
the facility in Coalinga, California, is the largest charging station in the world. In 2017,
Tesla CEO said that all Superchargers in the automaker's network were being converted to solar.
"Over time, almost all will disconnect from the electricity grid," Musk posted on X, formally
known as Twitter. Superchargers charge vehicles up to the 80% sweet spot in as little as
20 minutes, but to provide that kind of power for nearly 100 bays takes something solar can't
provide — diesel generators.
The Editor says...
Even if all the diesel generators are replaced with solar panels tomorrow, what happens when you need to
charge your car at night? The diesels fire up again!
The
Irony of "Green" Charging Stations: The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger Station.
Touted as the world's largest charging station with a whopping 98 charging bays, one would expect
this facility to be the epitome of green energy. After all, back in 2017, Tesla's CEO Elon
Musk proudly declared that all Superchargers in the automaker's network were transitioning to
solar. [...] But as it turns out, the reality is quite different. [...] That's right. Diesel
generators. The very antithesis of the clean, green energy that Tesla and other electric
vehicle (EV) proponents have been preaching about. Investigative journalist Edward
Niedermeyer made the startling discovery that these diesel generators were conveniently tucked away
behind a Shell station. And when reporters from SF Gate tried to ascertain just how much of
the station's electricity came from these generators, Tesla remained conspicuously silent.
The Editor says...
Moreover, the diesel generator(s) will have to be periodically refueled by a diesel-guzzling truck.
DOT
announces $100 million EV project to prioritize 'disadvantaged' communities. If the
federal government (but especially the Joe Biden edition) is behind a project or an initiative
using your neighborhood as the canvas, red flag. As we learned from a Judicial Watch
Corruption Chronicles piece last week, the Department of Transportation under the Biden regime
posted a new federal grant announcing an additional $100 million "to prioritize the repair and
replacement of EV charging stations throughout the U.S." From the article: ["]The
venture will 'ensure disadvantaged communities benefit from upgraded charging infrastructure,'
according to the Department of Transportation (DOT), which is doling out the money. The
costly EV charger project is part of the administration's Justice40 Initiative which requires 40%
of all federal government investments to flow to 'disadvantaged communities that are marginalized,
underserved, and overburdened with pollution.'["] Fighting chronic underprivileged
circumstances by saddling the people in these "disadvantaged communities" with more debt and
hazardous installations? Fighting pollution with more pollution?
EV
Battery Factory Will Require So Much Energy It Needs A Coal Plant To Power It. A
$4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery factory in De Soto, Kansas, will help satisfy the
Biden administration's efforts to get everyone into an EV. It also will help extend the life of
a coal-fired power plant. Panasonic broke ground on the facility last year. The Japanese
company was slated to receive $6.8 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, which has been pouring
billions into electric vehicles and battery factories as part of its effort to transition America
away from fossil fuels. The Kansas City Star reports that the factory will require between
200 and 250 megawatts of electricity to operate. That's roughly the amount of power needed
for a small city.
Rolls-Royce
to stop manufacturing gasoline cars by the end of the decade, teases electric car.
Rolls-Royce, the British manufacturer of very large and very expensive cars and SUVs powered by
12-cylinder engines, announced Wednesday that it will stop selling gasoline powered vehicles by
2030. From then on, Rolls-Royce will be all electric. The automaker also announced the name
of the first electric Rolls-Royce, the Spectre, which will go on sale in about two years. In
an earlier era it might have seemed shocking that a Rolls-Royce would power a car with anything
less than a muscular petroleum-fueled piston engine. However, the "Architecture of Luxury,"
the engineering basis for all Rolls-Royce models introduced since 2017, was designed to work with
electric power, as well.
Joe
Biden's Words Come Back to Haunt Him as Wyoming Town's Entire Electric Bus Fleet Breaks
Down. Joe Biden boasted two years ago that the CEO of a major electric bus
manufacturer was making him "look good" and federal dollars poured into the company. Now
those words have come back to haunt him as an entire town's electric bus fleet backed by the
company broke down. The Cowboy State Daily reported Tuesday that Teton County and the town of
Jackson wanted a low-emission transit system for the county. The Southern Teton Area Rapid
Transit (START) system, a joint operation between Jackson and Teton County, had bought eight
electric buses to complement its fleet of 31. But the entire bus fleet broke down so the
town's transit system is now solely relying on its diesel fleet. The last of the electric buses
went out of service two months ago and some of the broken buses have been awaiting parts for months.
UAW's
Real Enemy Is Forced EV Conversion. Speaking at a convention in April, United Auto
Workers President Shawn Fain identified what he considered the union's "one and only true
enemy — multibillion-dollar corporations and employers that refuse to give our members
their fair share." He may be attacking the wrong enemy. The UAW is now engaged in a strike of
historic proportions against America's big three auto manufacturers: GM, Ford, and Stellantis
(owner of Chrysler). But it's the Democratic Party's climate activists who pose the most
significant threat to American auto workers today — the forced transformation of the
U.S. auto industry from gas to electric-powered vehicles (EVs). As for the strike, the UAW's
demands include a stunning 40% pay raise over the next four years. According to CEO Jim
Farley, that increase would put Ford "out of business." Yet, in a response that hardly seems
miserly, Ford has offered a 20% increase over the life of the contract and an immediate 10% increase.
E-Buses
Bought From Now-Bankrupt Manufacturer By Blue Enclave Are Now All Out Of Commission.
A Democratic enclave in Wyoming purchased electric buses to reduce emissions, but the buses are
indefinitely inoperable after their manufacturer went bankrupt earlier this summer, the Cowboy
State Daily reported. Jackson, Wyoming, and Teton County formed the Southern Teton Area Rapid
Transit (START) system, which bought eight electric buses from Proterra to add to its fleet of 31
diesel buses, the Cowboy State Daily reported. Proterra, which itself was at the center of a
conflict of interest controversy including Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, went bankrupt in
August, and START's eight e-buses are now out of commission given that the manufacturer can no
longer readily supply the parts needed for repairs.
Can
You Spot The Difference Between The Menendez And Biden Foreign Influence Scandals?
[Scroll down] A number of astute people noted how CNN was credulous to the point of
absurdity, but near as I can tell, no one has yet noted that CNN's "fact check" needs... a fact
check. "On the allegation that these dinners with Joe Biden 'resulted in cars,' [Hunter Biden
business partner Devon] Archer said the businessman Rakishev wired Hunter Biden the exact amount of
money that Hunter used to buy a Porsche. This car has nothing to do with Joe Biden," notes
CNN. To start, the $142,300 wasn't used to buy a Porsche — it was used to buy a
Fisker Karma, an EV sports car made by an automotive start-up that got $192 million in loans from
the Department of Energy to, among other things, take over an abandoned General Motors factory in
Wilmington, Delaware, which is coincidentally the Bidens' hometown. Fisker defaulted on those
massive loans, costing American taxpayers $132 million, and Hunter later traded the Karma for a Porsche.
How
the game is played: Ford pauses MI EV battery plant construction, UAW in freak-out
mode. While a shamefully pandering POTATUS shambled alongside smirking Shawn Fain,
United Auto Worker president, at a picket line in Michigan this morning, one of the D-3
protagonists in this workers' melodrama was busy assessing ongoing business options and came to the
conclusion one of them needed some reassessing. [...] In spite of what passes for warm fuzzies in
union contract negotiations, Ford upped the ante this morning. In a surprise move, the
corporation announced it was "temporarily" halting construction on the new bazillion dollar EV
battery plant it's building in Michigan with — SURPRISE! — a Chinese company.
10
Reasons Not To Own An EV. From California to New York to Washington, Democrats are
using the coercive force of government to herd Americans into electric vehicles. Here are 10
reasons why we should resist both this egregious abuse of power as well as the social pressure that
demands we all go electric: [#1] The mandates are an egregious abuse of power.
Where do government officials, both elected and unelected, derive the authority to tell Americans
what vehicles they cannot own and what vehicles they must own? There is none. Yes,
there are laws intended to keep dangerous cars and trucks off the streets for safety reasons.
But no automobile is a threat just because it burns gasoline or diesel. Dare we say that
those who buy an EV are complicit in securing for the state a power it was never intended to have?
Ford
Gets Cold Feet, Pulls Plug on Multibillion-Dollar China-Backed EV Battery Plant. The
Ford Motor Company announced Monday that it is pausing construction on a massive electric battery
plant in Michigan that involved a Chinese EV battery company. Notably, the plan had been
originally considered for Virginia, but Gov. Glenn Youngkin opposed it due to China's
potential influence in the plan, arguing that "CATL and the Chinese Communist Party would have full
operational control over the technology." Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer had no such
qualms, however, and welcomed the plant with open arms as her state government pumped $1 billion
into the project. [Tweet] [...] Although Ford has thus far not given an exact reason for the
shutdown, one has to ask why such a plan was considered in the first place. The People's
Republic of China is our number one competitor in the world, and should relations deteriorate
further, it's not wise or strategic to put them in a position of such power in our crucial
automobile industry. Couldn't they find an American company that could do the job?
UK's
Keen Grasp of Obvious: 2030 Mandate on Electric Vehicles Is Unachievable. British
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, after first announcing a mandate requiring all fossil-fueled vehicles
sold in the U.K. after 2030 to be electric, succumbed to pressure from the Conservative Party and
within his own government and announced Wednesday a delay until 2035. His goal remains net zero by
2050. Sunak's goal continues to be based on his view that "climate change" is real and can be
affected by what humans do. That remains debatable, but you wouldn't know it from watching or
reading British media, which, like U.S. media, regularly refuse to present arguments from
scientists who disagree. Asked about the effect of a government mandate for electric
vehicles, one cabbie said he doesn't like to turn on the air conditioner during summer for fear he
will run out of electricity before his workday is done. Another told me he has a good deal at
a parking lot that includes a charging station, which he uses for an overnight top-off. Few
others have such an option. What about lengthy road trips or emergencies when the car battery
is depleted?
'Devastating'
cost of EV industry takes center stage in two news stories this week. [Scroll down]
["]According to the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services, extinguishing a
burning tesla can take as much as 40,000 gallons of water.["] 40,000 gallons? I
did some quick math, and on average, a kitchen faucet pours out 1.5 gallons per minute —
that means extinguishing one car fire uses as much water as your kitchen sink running nonstop for
about 19 days straight. I don't want to hear "green" politicians lecture me about waste ever
again. [Roselyne] Min only notes that the "fastest-growing fire trend" is associated with
e-bikes and scooters, but it's worth stating that it's not because e-bikes and scooters are
inherently more dangerous; rather they're just far cheaper than a car (meaning more regular
people can purchase them), and this statistic comes from London, a city rife with traffic
congestion and commuting issues. So, we can rightfully infer that the more accurate statement
is the "fastest-growing fire trend" is E.V. batteries. (The toxic plume of hydrogen
fluoride was news to me, but all the more reason to fight this agenda tooth and nail.)
No
one wants an electric car. Labour couldn't care less. Despite the opprobrium
piled on Rishi Sunak by Labour MPs, the opposition has been wrong-footed by the Prime Minister's
announcement that some Net Zero targets are to be watered down. Sunak confirmed yesterday
that he intends to push back the ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars from 2030 to 2035,
and the ban on the sale of new oil boilers from 2026 to 2035. For all the sound and fury from
the backbenches, including some members of his own party, there's been a touch of uncertainty in
Labour's response. It's almost as if the party is no longer quite sure about the country's
enthusiasm for a green economy. On the one hand, the announcement is merely responding to
consumers' concerns that they're going to be asked to pay more than they can afford to combat
climate change, not to mention the suspicion that they're being asked to do a lot more than
some of the largest global producers of CO2 emissions, like India and China.
How much
of a con are electric cars? In case you haven't noticed, the future is not flying
cars as perpetually dreamed of, but instead involves driving household appliances around with an
expression of ill-researched superiority on your face, whilst ignoring child labour, devastating
environmental impact of open-cast mining in Africa, and that so-called greenhouse gas emissions
during production of an electric car are nearly 70% higher than petrol cars. It also takes
about 100,000 miles of sweating about how much charge you have remaining before they become more
co2 neutral than a petrol car. SUVs may continue to take five minutes to overtake, if you can
get past their body-builder width, but they now have an E in their name so everything is
alright. It's electric, so it saves the planet.
Electric
car sales switch into reverse. Hopes for the mainstream adoption of electric cars
have been punctured by figures revealing a fall of more than 11 per cent in the sale of
zero-emission vehicles to private buyers. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has
said that motorists are holding back from the switch because of continued uncertainty about whether
a government ban on petrol and diesel cars will be enforced, the cost of electric vehicles, the
cutting of financial incentives, and fears about the lack of a public recharging network.
Ministers and the industry have previously hailed rising sales of electric cars as a sign that
Britain is ready to move from the "early adopter" stage of battery electric vehicle (BEV) ownership
to mass market.
Why
drivers are losing interest in electric cars. In his promised review of net zero
policies, Rishi Sunak has already ruled out postponing the proposed ban on the sale of new petrol
and diesel cars [beginning in] 2030. Indeed, from the end of the year manufacturers are going
to be under a mandate to make sure that a certain proportion of their sales are
electric — although the details have not yet been published. But what chances of
the car industry actually getting there? While sales of electric cars might seem to be
healthy — the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) records that 193,221
pure electric cars were sold in the first eight months of 2023, up 40 per cent on the same period
in 2022, the details tell a different story. Sales to corporate buyers are buoyant,
encouraged by a favourable company car tax regime. But sales to private buyers are
faltering. In the first half of the year, 37,000 private buyers bought an electric car, down
from 41,800 a year earlier. It is painfully clear that electric cars are not yet selling
themselves on their merits.
You'd
have to pay me to buy an electric car. Who remembers those simpler, happier days when
the consumer was king? Retail outlets used to offer goods for sale and customers would just
choose the stuff they liked. [...] This is how Western capitalism used to work, without often
badgering or "nudging" consumers in particular, state-approved directions. Not any
more. These days the panjandrum intermediaries are usually in the driving seat, almost
literally when it comes to sales of electric vehicles (EVs). Battery-powered vehicles have been
flying out of showrooms thanks in large part to the fleet and company car sectors; parts of the
market where the end users are not the folk who do the buying. Generous tax breaks have led
to middle managers and delivery men up and down the land being presented with EVs when the time has
come for them to get new wheels. But recent sales figures show that it is a different story
when it comes to private buyers. In the first half of this year just 37,000 battery-powered
vehicles were sold to them, compared to 41,800 in the first half of last year. An astonishing
75 per cent of new registrations is now made up by fleets and business owners.
Volkswagen
cuts jobs as demand for EVs plunges. Volkswagen is cutting almost 300 roles at a
factory in Germany as demand for electric cars dwindles, reports The Telegraph. The
redundancies are being carried out at the car giant's plant in Zwickau, where a further 2,000
temporary workers are also at risk of losing their jobs. Volkswagen's Zwickau factory only
produces electric vehicles, which have fallen in popularity due to high inflation and faltering
government support. The job cuts, which were first reported by the German press agency
DPA, come as the company prepares for an influx of cheaper electric cars from China.
Biden's
Electric Vehicle Obsession Became a Major Roadblock in Auto Worker Negotiations. Joe
Biden and the Democratic Party's obsession with electric vehicles has indirectly created a
significant roadblock in the ongoing labor negotiations between United Auto Workers and America's
car manufacturers. We're on the verge of an unprecedented work stoppage in Detroit that could
cost billions. The contract is set to expire at 11:59 PM tonight. It's not just that
issue, but it's one where automakers appear to be sticking to their guns. Union workers want
a 40 percent pay increase, while car manufacturers like Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis wish
to use their record profits to shore up electric vehicle production. The union has somewhat
backed off on that demand, now asking for something in the mid-30s regarding salary increases. Some
new EV models are expected to be rolled out soon — a labor strike could torpedo the rollout.
Another issue is that auto workers feel abandoned by Joe Biden and the Democrats.
Pete
Buttigieg Struggles to Find Reliable Electric Vehicle Charger. United States
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, an ardent proponent of electric vehicles (EVs), admitted
he has trouble finding reliable electric vehicle charging stations while he is traveling on the
road. Buttigieg complained to the Wall Street Journal about public EV charging
stations as President Joe Biden's administration launched an effort to revamp the more than 6,000
charging stations that are "temporarily unavailable." "We've definitely had that experience,"
Buttigieg said about pulling into EV charging stations, only to realize they are out of service.
"Matter of fact, had it just a few days ago at a park in town."
Why
your new electric car won't have a spare tire. Ira Newlander of West Los Angeles has
been thinking about replacing his 1997 Ford Explorer with a hybrid or fully electric car, but
there's something bugging him about the market these days. Like many Californians who've been
waylaid by a flat tire far off the beaten path, Newlander wants his new car to come with a
spare. But the vast majority of battery-powered and hybrid cars don't have one.
Newlander expressed his frustration to Honda in a recent email, urging the company to put a
full-size spare in its electrified cars. "I have conducted an informal survey of family and
friends," Newlander, a retired court reporter, wrote. "The consensus is that saving 40 or 50 pounds
for a full spare on a vehicle weighing 1.5 to 2 tons is silly. It is immaterial compared to
the risk of being caught in the middle of nowhere without a real spare. It turns a discussion
about the spare into a discussion of despair."
The
'Climate Emergency' Is a Hoax. The Biden administration, however, appears not to be
concerned about the widespread poverty and massive starvation that will be caused by the
unavailability of cheap and reliable energy in underdeveloped countries, or the inflation caused by
the skyrocketing prices that are crushing Americans "barely able to afford one meal a day". [...]
The Biden administration also does not seem concerned that it is killing wildlife, sea life and the
fishing industry by installing offshore wind turbines along the Atlantic seaboard, or that
mandating electric vehicles will throw virtually the entire auto maintenance industry out of work
(EVs do not need routine maintenance), or that lithium batteries not only explode but cost
thousands of dollars to replace. The administration even wants military equipment, such as
tanks, to be electric, as if there were charging stations in the middle of foreign deserts in the
event of a conflict. Moreover, according to NBC News, volcanoes, unimpressed with executive
orders, "Dwarf Humans for CO2 Emissions."
Nobody wants an electric car.
The petrol car is being turned into an unaffordable luxury, out of reach of most ordinary people -
and given that electric vehicles won't work for many of us the era of the car may be coming to a
close. Over the last few years, the Government has thrown everything it can think of at
forcing us to switch to electric vehicles. There are big subsidies on offer, both for the car
itself and for a home charging port. There are tax breaks for company vehicles, long since
phased out for the petrol equivalent. There are exemptions from resident's parking permits,
and from the increasingly bewildering array of congestion and clean air charges that now mean
driving from one British city to another involves almost as much paperwork as getting a visa for
North Korea. And from next year onwards, the auto manufacturers will have to meet a target of
selling 22 [percent] electric vehicles, rising to 52 [percent] by 2028, ahead of a complete
ban on the sale of new petrol cars by 2030.
The
inevitable EV implosion. The electric vehicle honeymoon is over. Don't expect
the marriage itself to last much longer either. The mass conversion from internal combustion
engine vehicles (ICEs) to electric vehicles was never more than a Democrat/environmentalist
hallucination anyway. It was the most ill-conceived government policy objective in modern
history. The transition should have been a non-starter. It's riddled with numerous deal
killers. It's like having a dozen fatal diseases all at the same time. Any goal as
massive as a total conversion from ICE vehicles to EVs requires careful planning and infrastructure
preparation. It would necessitate a rapid doubling of electricity generation and grid
expansion. In today's world that's impossible.
Granholm's
EV Road Trip Turns Into an Entitlement Clown Show, Family Forced to Call Police. What
happened on the trip says everything about the Biden team's delusion and entitlement. The
trip revealed immediately that the system is not ready to handle even what they have to deal with
now, much less with the number of vehicles that you would have to cope with with the complete
switchover that they want. [...] There weren't enough chargers to deal with the demand, and they
tried to block out other people to reserve a spot for Granholm at the faster charger. That
screams entitlement and thinking they get to do that because of their power. When you're
stealing a spot from a family with a baby, you just might be pretty scummy. They're denying a
family the very service they claim to be helping to provide because the family was in the way of
their PR stunt. And the Biden team did it with a vehicle that wasn't even electric.
Jennifer
Granholm's EV antics go horribly, hilariously wrong when an angry Georgia family calls the
cops. The Bidenites can't really afford any more bad press, but trodding on the
little guy for a cheap publicity stunt earns exactly that. [...] Wait, hold the phone —
a "nonelectric" vehicle? So in order to complete an EV road trip, Granholm brought along an
accompanying armada of gas-powered cars? The only possible explanation I can surmise
is that she needed to ensure the success and safety of the trip, and therefore a fleet exclusively
composed of EVs is out of the question; talk about a carbon footprint! (Double, or more,
in fact.) Now this is not to say I accept the lie that carbon is a pollutant, I'm simply
arguing from their position. Although EVs don't directly produce emissions, generating the
electricity required to power the car does. Isn't this the same Granholm that wants to take
my dishwasher, gas stove, and ceiling fan? Secondly, the entitlement. Sending the
help on ahead to make sure the secretary can breeze in without having to wait in any lines?
Lines are for the little people, obviously, not the stars like Secretary Granholm.
EV
drivers have the sads because of no-amenity charging stations. I just returned from a
half-day road trip. We tanked up twice and, both times, we headed for the building attached
to the gas tanks. There, we had clean restrooms (complete with toilet paper) and, if we so
desired, access to a bit of food and drink, too. Not great food and drink but, when you're
tired, hungry, and thirsty, good enough. All those things are lacking when you're hanging out
for an hour at a roadside charging station for your EV, and EV drivers are not happy.
Heh. Autoblog reprinted the original Business Insider story, along with one of the greatest
online article captions ever: "EV owners are fed up with charging stations that lack a single
amenity — I had to pee in a bush." The story was a hoot: [...]
Bank
to Stop Giving Loans [for] Fossil Fuel Cars. We are now at the point where a major
bank has announced they will stop giving loans for new petrol and diesel cars under the excuse of
climate change. [Beginning in] 2025, customers of Bank Australia will no longer [provide]
funding to buy new cars that run on fossil fuels.
Tesla
breaks down mid-turn and causes more than nine hours of travel chaos. A Tesla has
caused chaos for more than nine hours on an A-road after it broke down mid-turn and could not be
moved. The £60,000 electric car caused delays on the A36 near Salisbury after it failed
and became stranded in the middle of the road. A team of workmen was unable to physically
move the white Tesla Model 3 Performance, which ran out of power and broke down mid-turn.
Motorists using the busy road, which connects Salisbury to Southampton, faced delays for up to nine
hours as the broken down car had blocked the Lyndhurst Road junction. The handbrakes of
electric cars, and some other modern cars, are controlled electronically, unlike those of
traditional petrol and diesel cars, which are mechanical. This means that the handbrake often
locks when the power fails and the car cannot be pushed or towed.
Why
wind and solar power are running out of juice. [Scroll down] Then there
are electric vehicles. Ford, which has bet heavily on its electric Lightning pickup and
Mustang and received a $9.2 billion government-subsidized loan in January, revealed that it has
lost $60,000 for every EV it sold in the first half of this year. Rivian, another EV company,
managed to reduce its losses per EV to around $33,000, a big improvement over the $67,000 loss per
EV in the first quarter of the year. Proterra, a Bay Area-based manufacturer of electric
buses and batteries that had a $10 million loan forgiven by the Biden Administration, just filed
for bankruptcy.
Idalia
exposes yet another problem with EVs. The local ABC News outlet published [a] report
that shows video footage of not one but two Teslas that burst into flames days after the flooding
was over. One of them isn't even recognizable. [Video clip] There is a video
on the linked Weather Channel page that's really worth a look. It offers some of the same
warnings to owners of EVs. "Anyone whose EV came into contact with salt water during Idalia
should move their vehicle out of the garage immediately." Owners were being warned to move
their EVs at least fifty feet away from any structure. That's how serious of a fireball can
be created. Authorities said that the fires don't happen immediately, but tend to break out
several days or even up to two weeks later. Apparently, as the salt water dries up it
can leave behind a trail of salt that can form a "bridge" between the terminals of the EV's
batteries. And if that causes the electricity to arc across, your battery is burning and
you're off to the races.
The
hidden energy crisis. America is wrestling with the worst energy crisis in its
history, a period of high prices and limited supply. According to the Brookings Institution,
in 2022, the average U.S. residential retail electricity price was 15.12 cents/kWh, an 11% increase
from 13.66 cents/kWh in 2021. In the first three months of 2023, the average U.S. residential
monthly electricity bill was $133, or 5% higher than for the same time in 2022. There is
confusion with savings or cost expectation of solar and wind conversion, also government decisions
have impacted the natural gas and energy supply. While electric vehicles are a much-touted
solution for replacing oil, [a tank of] gasoline or diesel fuel contains 40 times the energy as
a state-of-the-art battery.
The
Electric Car Debacle Shows the Top-Down Economics of Net Zero Don't Add Up. It is
becoming increasingly apparent that the car industry has misjudged the scale of demand quite badly,
says Ben Marlow in the Telegraph — and that is just the latest example of where the
top-down economics of Net Zero are inevitably failing.
The
electric car debacle shows the top-down economics of net zero don't add up. Sadiq
Khan's controversial Ultra-Low Emissions Zone scheme for London was supposed to put the rocket
boosters under electric car demand. With the Mayor pressing ahead with a highly contentious
scheme that forces non-compliant petrol and diesel car drivers to pay an eye-watering £12.50
a day to drive into the capital, the expectation was that hundreds of thousands of motorists would
rush out to their nearest forecourt and snap up an electric version, triggering an explosion in
sales of Nissan Leafs, Teslas and other battery-powered models. There was a spike in
registrations of electric vehicles in July but otherwise the electric car boom that politicians,
manufacturers, and campaigners insist is around the corner, remains something of a myth.
True, sales are steadily increasing but not in the vast numbers that proponents of electrification
anticipated or would like to see.
Chinese
owners of planned Michigan EV plant make staff in the Communist state pledge allegiance to the
Party. The Chinese owners of a company developing a taxpayer-subsidized $2.4 billion
electric vehicle battery facility in Michigan make staff pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist
Party and wear Red Army uniforms, reports suggest. Gotian High-Tech the Chinese parent
company of Gotion Inc took staff on several corporate retreats to CCP revolutionary memorials in
Anhui Province, China in 2021, the Daily Caller reported. During the trips workers wore Red
Army outfits and pledged to 'fight for communism to the end of my life' footage posted on the
Chinese battery manufacturer's website shows.
Electric
vehicles plagued by logistical issues, but few mention the elephant(s) in the room.
The push to exchange gas for electric in transportation is an idea that has ironically placed the
proverbial cart in front of the horse. While the problems of an inadequate power grid, too
few charging stations, short range, high costs, long recharging times, and battery fires are real,
there are two gigantic issues looming that rival them all. Current state and federal gas-tax
regulations siphon off more than $53 billion a year in tax revenue; for reference, about 67 cents
from every gallon of gasoline purchased in New York, and around $1.18-per-gallon in California.
Those taxes account for more than a quarter of the expense of road and highway costs around the
nation. No such system of taxation exists for electric vehicles. For every ten-percent
reduction in gas vehicles being replaced by electric, a resulting decrease of more than $5 billion
in tax revenue will occur. Add this to the long list of issues that the rush-to-electric crowd has
failed to address. But the second concern is a direct threat to our freedom, our autonomy, and our
God-given right to be left alone, the abuse of which fits nicely into the leftist wish-list of control.
Biden
admin mulls more intervention in the market with new overtime pay 'rules'.
[Scroll down] President Trump reduced regulations as fast as he could, and Joe Biden is
increasing regulations as fast as he can. As soon as Biden took office he decided his
mission was to reduce drilling and push the green agenda to destroy companies that use natural
resources to produce reasonably priced energy, and the prices started skyrocketing. Crude oil
is used in over 6,000 products, and every business and person uses energy. Now, not enough
people are buying expensive, impractical, and inefficient electric vehicles powered by a flammable
pollutant (go figure), so the Biden administration proposed another new rule, one of impossible
fuel standards which will decimate gas-powered vehicles and send costs even higher. They show
every day how little they care about what people want and can afford.
How
to Know There is no "Climate Crisis". Want to know for sure — and be able
to prove — there's no "climate crisis"? Just point to the EV — the
supposed cure for it. Specifically, point out the problem. Not the range. Nor the
time it takes to recharge one of these battery powered devices. Those are
limitations — and hassles — bought into by the people who own an EV. The
thing that gives the lie — to the idea that we must all drive an EV because of the
supposedly looming "crisis" — is the fact that EVs are excessive. None of
them are designed to minimize the use of electrical energy or resources. Think on that
a moment. [...] Every single one of them is overweight and over-powered. They all brag on how
quickly they accelerate and that quickness is consumptive, is it not? Whether you are
burning gas or electricity, it burns faster when you use it to get several thousand pounds of
vehicle moving quickly. Such capability is certainly appealing. It is fun to get to 60
in 2.9 seconds. But if we are facing a crisis, how can designing a vehicle around an
attribute as non-essential and frivolous as being able to launch itself quickly be anything other
than a clue you are being lied to about the supposed "crisis"?
Europe
hits roadblocks in the race to switch to electric cars. European countries are
struggling to persuade people to switch from combustion engine cars to electric ones, experts
warn. Europe sells 10 times more electric cars today than it did just six years ago,
according to the International Energy Agency, but its fleet is cleaning up too slowly to meet its
climate goals. Governments across the continent are struggling with the price-tag of electric
vehicles, which can cost several thousand euros more upfront than comparable ones that burn fossil
fuels. "What we have learned is that it's not enough just to incentivise electric vehicle
purchase and ownership," said Julia Poliscanova, an analyst at campaign group Transport and
Environment. "You also have to disincentivise the purchase of conventional cars at the same time."
The EU's move to cleaner cars is part of its promise to cut planet-heating pollution 65% from
1990 levels by the end of the decade, and hit net zero by 2045. But even as it has slashed
emissions in its power sector, putting up wind turbines and shutting down coal plants, emissions
from road transport have risen steadily in the background.
No
One Wants EVs and Lots Are Filling Up. The Ford EV 150s are still having problems selling.
As a truck, it's lacking. One dealer in New Jersey said no one wants the EVs, and lots are
filling up. In the following interview, an EV truck owner explains that he had to dump his
$115,000 Ford truck on a road trip and called EVs the "Biggest scam of modern times." Dalbir Bala
said first of all, the charges were much more expensive than gas, adding that it took twice as long
to charge as advertised. He left his truck at a dealership during a road trip and rode off
with a rental.
I
Rented A Tesla For A Week And Am Totally Sold On Gas-Powered Cars. While planning a
week-long trip to the Seattle area recently, I wondered aloud to my husband if we should rent a
Tesla. Neither of us had ever driven an electric vehicle before. The price difference
between the long-range Tesla Model 3 and a standard mid-size gas-fueled vehicle was pretty
negligible. We agreed it would be an interesting learning experience despite our objections
to the eco-agenda to phase out gas-powered vehicles. We also don't believe EVs are
particularly environmentally friendly since they need batteries that require the strip-mining of
rare earth minerals such as lithium and cobalt. The World Economic Forum knows this very well
and is likely looking for heavy limits on EV mobility after eliminating gas-powered vehicles.
Those
EV Shortcomings Aren't Shortcomings at All. The modern Left has a dream —
that soon, very soon, every vehicle in the world will be electric, running on a heavy,
cobalt-laden, lithium battery that needs to be charged up somewhere with electricity derived from
an out-of-sight coal plant. Every few trips, we old-fashioned ICE-drivers stop at a gas
station for a quick fill-up. It takes two or three minutes, maybe five or six if we need to
go into the store for a soda or a coffee; then we're back on the road. We rarely see the EVs
charging up while we fill our normal cars with fuel. It takes too long, so they don't usually
do it at the gas station. The EV's current average, we are told, is eight hours to a "full
charge," whatever that means. It might be a couple hundred miles, maybe less, maybe
more. Some chargers charge faster, some vehicles take longer. If it's like any other
kind of rechargeable battery (and they're too new to be sure, but it makes sense), then as each
battery ages, it will take longer and longer to charge up, and the mileage per charge will slowly
decrease. That's just how batteries work.
China's
Automakers to Skirt Tariffs, Fill U.S. Market with Electric Vehicles. Some of China's
biggest automakers are looking to skirt United States tariffs and flood the nation's auto market
with cheap Electric Vehicles (EVs) — a move that would further crush American auto
workers and the domestic plants where they work. According to Automotive News, Chinese-owned
Volvo Cars is hoping to use the little-known Duty Drawback Program to "recoup import duties and the
25 percent U.S. tariff assessed on the Chinese-made Volvo EX30 crossover and Polestar 2 sedan
against exports of the U.S.-made Volvo EX90 and Polestar 3 crossovers."
Electric
vehicle fires pose significant challenge to firefighters. Electric vehicle purchases
in Colorado are soaring, with EV registrations in 2022 up by 822% since 2016. But some firefighters
say they're going to need a lot more resources if these vehicles keep coming at that rate, because
they still don't know the best ways to extinguish the flames if an electric vehicle catches
fire. Firefighters have had more than 100 years to perfect the art of putting out a fire
involving a vehicle with a gas motor engine. But those traditional tactics don't work on
electric vehicles because they use lithium ion batteries to run instead of gas. Lithium ion
battery fires are more tricky to put out, sometimes reigniting several hours, days or even a week later.
Man's
Hellish Family Trip With an Electric Truck Is a Warning to All. We've discussed
sporadically about electric cars and how they're a crock. It's a vanity project for car
manufacturers because no one wants them. Ford only keeps production going because its
gas-powered divisions make enough profits to keep this operation going. The car company is
losing billions on its push into electric vehicles. Yet, the greenies and environmentally
conscious remain gung-ho about these cars even though you must burn fossil fuels to charge them.
[...] One man learned that going green is a crock the hard way. Dalbir Bala, a resident of
Winnipeg, bought an electric Ford F-150 for $85,000 and was forced to abandon it after discovering
it wasn't worth the cost. Moreover, it's not for working people who must spend an arm and a
leg installing the charging station in their home. This individual spent around $130,000 on
this green initiative, with the bonus of discovering that the fast charging stations only charge
his batteries up to 90 percent. It's more expensive to recharge these vehicles than
refueling a gas-powered car.
The Editor says...
If you can only charge the batteries up to 90 percent, that means the batteries are, effectively,
only 90 percent as big as the dealership told you they were.
Is
It Time to Ban Electric Vehicles? The New York Fire Department recently reported that
so far this year there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, which have injured
66 people and killed 13. According to FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, "There is not a small
amount of fire, it (the vehicle) literally explodes." The resulting fire is "very difficult to
extinguish and so it is particularly dangerous." Last year there were more than 200 fires
from batteries from e-bikes, EVs and other devices. A fire ignited at an e-bike shop and
killed four people near midnight on the morning of June 20. Two individuals were left in critical
condition. The fire commissioner has warned New Yorkers that such devices could be very
dangerous and typically explode in such a way that renders escape impossible.
Control
Is the Aim, EVs Are the Game of the Moment. From its lowliest municipal employee
through its appointed officeholders to its highest elected officials, government at every level
thrives on control and that makes it all the more striking to watch what happens when things don't
go the way it wants them to go. Sometimes, it's amusing, as illustrated by the reactions of
New Jersey residents who obviously haven't subscribed to the electric-vehicle madness radiating
from President Joe Biden and his followers, but at the same time, there's more to it than
humor. Ford is confronting that inconvenient truth although it's not quite clear that the
automaker has really learned a lesson from the experience. In fact, it could probably pick up
a pointer or two from what's happening with electric vehicles in China. What actually
happened there is less than certain — it could be the fault of the manufacturers or the
rental/ridesharing industry might be to blame or it could all be a China-bashing hoax —
but the question that just has to be asked is "if electric vehicles are so wonderful, then why
haven't these cars been sold?"
Power Vacuum.
California Senate bill 233 [...] which has passed the Senate and is now winding its way through the
Assembly — states that all new electric vehicles to be sold in California after 2030 be
"bi-directional". Because the state has decided to essentially go all electric without having
the ability to actually provide enough electricity, the climate warriors have gotten a bit creative
and now see the millions of EVs in the state as tiny batteries to make up for their
incompetence. Currently, not every EV can send power back to the grid (like home solar panels
that ship excess power to their local utility.) The bill — almost certain to pass
because it's stupid and this is California -- would change that. The bill, however, is only
the first step in the process of being able to drain your EV as the actual technology to get the
electricity back onto the grid, well, does not actually exist. As with so many other Golden
State climate-related projects, it is based on being able to do it someday... probably... maybe.
California
Has Another Planet-Saving Idea. There are two entirely foreseen (to sentient beings)
consequences of the E.V. (electric vehicle) mandate. The first is that California's
electricity shortage will be getting worse — much worse. Those E.V.s use a lot of
juice to recharge, and they will all be plugged in at the same time — when people get
home from work. The second consequence is that the market for obsolete, gas-guzzling,
smog-producing used cars is going to explode in California — increasing greenhouse gas
emissions in the state that is trying to eliminate greenhouse gases. Luckily, California is
known for its innovators, and they've come up with a creative solution to their electricity
shortage. Just mandate that all the new E.V.s incorporate bidirectional charging —
as Senate Bill 233 proposes. This means that when the cars aren't being driven, their
batteries can either be recharged from the grid or discharged into the grid. Therefore, the
stored energy in millions of parked electric cars can be used to meet the state's electricity
shortfall during times of peak demand. When my car is plugged in at night, it can be used to
charge my neighbor's car. After his car is fully charged, it can be used to charge my
car. It's genius! [...] It's the solution inventors never thought of: perpetual motion by
legislation. More energy out than energy in, by mandate. Just require by law that
electricity be pushed back and forth between batteries to come up with the power they need but
don't have. It's a little like using two credit cards to meet a budget shortfall —
only done with electricity.
Man
forced to ditch Ford EV truck during family road trip to Chicago. A Canadian man is
calling electric vehicles the "biggest scam of modern times" after his frustrating experience with
an electric truck. Dalbir Bala, who lives in the Winnipeg area, bought a Ford F-150 Lightning
EV in January for $115,000 Canadian dollars (around $85,000 U.S. dollars), plus tax. Ford
said the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) on the vehicle is $77,495 U.S. dollars.
He told FOX Business he needed the vehicle for his work, but also wanted something suitable for
recreational activities such as driving to his cabin or going fishing. He also wanted an
environmentally friendly vehicle as owning one is "responsible citizenship these days." But Bala
was quickly hit with the reality of owning and operating an EV soon after the purchase. The
vehicle compelled him to install two chargers — one at work and one at home —
for $10,000. To accommodate the charger, he had to upgrade his home's electric panel for
$6,000. In all, Bala spent more than $130,000 — plus tax. Not long after the
purchase, Bala got into a minor accident which, he said, required "light assembly" on the front
bumper. Bala took the vehicle to the body shop and did not get it back for six months.
He said no one from Ford answered his email or phone calls for help.
Utah
and Oregon Now Require GPS Trackers on EVs in Lieu of Registration Fee, Tax Drivers by the
Mile. State governments have historically generated revenue to maintain roads,
traffic lights, and the like by adding a tax at the pump. Owing to the federal
government-prodded transition to electric vehicles (EVs) to combat something called "climate
change," states stand to lose out on this source of revenue as EVs obviously don't require gasoline
to operate. Utah's novel solution is to charge a "per-mile fee" for EVs with a government GPS
tracker attached to monitor movement. [...] For a little added Orwellianism, the
DriveSync® app also assigns a "driving score" based on how fast the slave citizen
accelerates, brakes, corners turns, and drives. The app records bad driving behavior and
shows it to the slave citizen on a digital map.
The Editor says...
The same tracking system can also tell the government where you go, and how many times you've been there before.
In fact, that information might be the main idea, not the tax revenue. Of course, your cell phone tells them
where you are, too, because you never go anywhere without it, do you?
Joe
Biden's bus to nowhere. It's amazing how Democrats tout certain green companies to
the public, pump government billions into them, buy the stock, cash out the stock
... and then watch them go bust. It happened with Solyndra under the Obama administration.
Now it's happened with Proterra. Seems the corrupt, impunity-laden Biden administration is no
stranger to pump-and-dump stock schemes, which is what Fox News's Jesse Watters said was happening.
[Video clip] Apparently these companies exist to benefit Democrats, to give them some of the
cash stream that comes of these monster government spending bills that are done in the name of 'going
green.' Without this government money, these green vessels wouldn't get out of the harbor.
NYC
fire officials probe if e-bike battery is behind latest deadly fire. A 93-year-old
New York City woman died, and another was rescued, when fire and smoke filled a building.
Firefighters said one focus of the investigation is on an e-bike battery that might have exploded
into flames. If so, it would add to the mounting number of deaths city officials blame on
malfunctioning e-bike batteries. With some 65,000 e-bikes zipping through its streets, New
York City is the epicenter of battery-related fires. There have been more than 100 such
blazes so far this year, resulting in at least 14 deaths, already more than double the six
fatalities last year.
Guess
where California plans to get energy to 'stabilize' its power grid? It's not fossil
fuels. It's not nuclear power. It's not even wind or solar, although the state will
undoubtedly keep expanding both. The answer? California's largest electric utility PG&E
wants to suck the batteries of electric-vehicle owners plugged into charging stations to stabilize
the grid during unstable periods. The Ford F-150 already allows for bidirectional charging,
but that was sold as a benefit to the owner as a kind of independent generator for households
during blackouts. PG&E wants to use it to commandeer all EV batteries and use their power to
prevent grid collapse.
The Editor says...
This is close to the ultimate bait and switch: You pull up to the charging station with the
reasonable expectation that it will charge your car's battery, which it probably needs urgently, or
you'd charge the car at home. Instead it discharges your battery and contributes the
juice to the grid. For the greater good, you see. (Will they pay you for your "contribution?"
Not a chance.) This leaves you stuck right where you are until "they" flip the switch remotely and
allow you to purchase some more electricity, including enough to replace that which was just stolen
from you. And you'd better hope that the shifty bystanders don't realize you're a sitting duck, because
nobody goes to jail any more in California for assaulting rich white people, thanks to the same politicians
who told you to buy an electric car and save the earth. This tragic novel writes itself!
Electric
Bus Company Proterra Backed Heavily by Biden Administration Files for Bankruptcy.
Proterra, an electric bus company that received heavy backing from President Joe Biden's
administration, filed for bankruptcy on Monday [8/7/2023]. The Burlingame, California-based EV
company has been a source of controversy for the Biden administration because Biden's Energy
Secretary Jennifer Granholm hyped the company in her official capacity despite the fact that she
previously served on Proterra's board and held over a million dollars worth of stock in the company
even after she was confirmed as the head of Biden's Energy Department.
EV
Owners Suddenly Realize They're Being Conned. Three California residents last week
filed a lawsuit against Tesla for what they claim is false advertising over the car's range.
But why stop at Tesla? And why just sue over false claims about range when every other claim
about EVs is also a lie? The lawsuit comes in the wake of a Reuters report contending that
Tesla had been goosing the range displayed on its dashboard and created a "diversion team" to deal
with all the customer complaints about faulty batteries. The filing claims that "Had Tesla
honestly advertised its electric vehicle ranges, consumers either would not have purchased Tesla
model vehicles, or else would have paid substantially less for them." But this isn't new
news. There have been several reports over the years about the wildly inflated EV range claims.
New
data shows temperatures above 86 F begins a precipitous decline of EV performance.
Okay, so let me get this straight regarding the "quirks" of electric vehicles. If you're
fleeing a natural disaster, like a hurricane for instance, the nature of the design might impede
efficient and safe evacuation; or they might simply explode, because exposure to salt water can
link the positive and negative battery terminals, causing a short circuit. Well, if they're
just sitting there too I guess, there's still a heightened risk of spontaneous explosion with a
long-burning, extra-hot, inextinguishable fire. They don't really work in "cold" weather, and
now, according to new data, "excessive heat can greatly diminish electric vehicle range" too?
Recurrent, an auto company based in Seattle has a mission to "accelerate the overall adoption" of
EVs, and to do so, strives to provide "transparency and confidence" in pre-owned EV
purchases. This past Friday, the enterprise released a research report titled, "Deep
Dive: Lithium Ion Batteries and Heat" which included a hilariously absurd graphic (although
undoubtedly it wasn't meant to be taken as such) that showed the "optimal temperature" range to
avoid issues, and that scope was limited to between 59 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit.
Will
Insurance Costs Derail the EV Revolution? Four hundred ninety-eight electric vehicles
(EVs) and over 3,200 other vehicles, including 350 Mercedes Benzes, were bound for Egypt on the
Fremantle Highway when one or more of the EVs caught fire, costing at least one seaman his life and
injuring several others. Curiously, the Dutch coast guard had initially reported that only 25
of the vehicles were battery-electric models. At last report, the Dutch coast guard admitted
that it has been unable to put out the fire and that the ship has taken on water and is "listing"
and on a trajectory toward a capsize. [...] But all in all, this was a freak accident, a
one-off. This stuff never happens. Right? Actually, it does. Just a year
ago, the "Felicity Ace" sank as it was being towed from the site where 13 days earlier a fire had
broken out on board. That ship, too, was transporting EVs and internal-combustion
vehicles — including 15 Lamborghini Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae supercars valued at half
a million dollars apiece. Also lost were 1,117 Porches, 1,944 Audis, 561 Volkswagens, 189
Bentleys, and 70 other Lamborghinis. And just a month ago, two firefighters died battling
flames that broke out on another roll-on, roll-off (RORO) cargo ship docked at Port Newark in New Jersey.
Electric
Vehicle 'Spontaneously' Catches on Fire While at High-End Auto Dismantler. A Tesla
that had been sitting for months after a wreck "spontaneously" ignited into flames on Wednesday in
California as it was being prepared to be dismantled. The Sacramento Bee reported the fire
started just after 5 p.m. in the city of Rancho Cordova at a high-end scrap yard.
Firefighters were called out to the location of the fire and discovered a black Tesla Model S
lifted on a rack and in flames.
Most
EVs Cost More to Drive Than Their Gas-Powered Rivals: Study. Most electric
cars, crossovers, and trucks cost more to drive than their traditional gasoline-powered
counterparts, according to a new study that highlights the wisdom of considering the real-world
costs of operating a vehicle before making a buying decision. Acquiring a vehicle is likely
to be a person's biggest purchase after buying a house. With a growing range of electric
vehicles now part of the offering, consumers are spoiled for choice — that is until bans
on gasoline-powered vehicles start going into effect in some states in coming years. But
while many advocates of electric vehicles (EV) claim operating cost affordability as an argument in
favor of ditching internal combustion engine (ICE) cars and trucks, a new study from Anderson
Economic Group (AEG) has hit the brakes on that argument.
Driver
says he was 'trapped' in hot Tesla after battery died. An Arizona man says he was
trapped in his Tesla in the extreme heat after the power died and he didn't know how to
escape. Investigators at Scripps News Phoenix found dozens of drivers have filed complaints
with federal auto safety regulators who are urging car owners to learn how to manually get out in
an emergency. "It's definitely a safety concern; it was one of the hotter days," said
73-year-old Rick Meggison. He said he was stuck in his Tesla Model Y in his garage back in June.
The Editor says...
I might feel sorry for him, except that if you own a Tesla, you probably have a cell phone at hand 24/7.
"Green"
Jobs At Ford And GM Will Cost Taxpayers As Much As $7.7 Million Each. Thanks to the
staggering amounts of money that's being doled out under the Inflation Reduction Act to incentivize
the production of electric vehicles, America's biggest automakers — General Motors and
Ford Motor Company — are building battery factories. Those new factories, one in
Spring Hill, Tennessee (GM) and the other in Marshall, Michigan (Ford), will create a total of about
4,200 new jobs. But creating those jobs will cost federal and state taxpayers nearly $22 billion.
Thus, each new "green" job at the GM plant (which the company is developing with Korea's LG) will cost
taxpayers $7.7 million. Each job at the Ford plant will cost some $3.4 million.
Report:
Power Companies Could Remotely Switch Off EV Chargers To Reduce Grid Stress. Energy
providers could have the option to switch off home EV charging stations remotely to reduce pressure
on Queensland's electricity grid. The proposal is part of the Australian state's Queensland
Electricity Connection Manual (QECM), which provides a framework for the grid's operation.
Section 8 of the QECM proposes that EV charging equipment may be limited or switched off by
operators Ergon Energy and Energex (distributed network service providers or DNSPs) if it has an output
of more than 20 amps — a standard domestic single-phase EV charger uses 32 amps.
The use of such "demand management" schemes is largely unique to Queensland and is also used on residential
pool cleaning machines, hot water systems, and air conditioning units under the Peaksmart program.
Queensland,
Australia, Shows American EV Owners Their Future. Electric Vehicles and COVID cures
have a lot in common. If the government endorses them, there is a long list of bad things
they are not telling you or denying when anyone dares to tell the truth. We've got hundreds
of articles on Electric Vehicles and the Net Zero lie, and yet people continue to accept the plan
as deployed by the State. Eliminate affordable options, replace them with incompatible
solutions, and make using them more challenging (or impossible). But you don't have to
believe me. Just look to states like California or, in today's example, Australia.
Queensland is proposing demand management schemes monitored and implemented by electricity
providers. Translation: when what we forced you to purchase stresses out the infrastructure
that we did not first replace (or upgrade), we will turn your EV charger off to take the pressure
off the system. Assuming you can even afford to charge it.
Jeremy
Clarkson Blasts Electric Cars over Safety Concerns. In a recent critique, television
star and car enthusiast Jeremy Clarkson has voiced serious concerns about the safety of electric
vehicles, calling them "bloody dangerous." His concern goes beyond cars to other devices powered by
batteries, like electric bikes. Clarkson writes, "People have died, and that's not surprising
when you learn that a fully charged e-bike contains the same explosive energy as six hand
grenades." In a recent critique of electric vehicles published in the Sun newspaper,
Jeremy Clarkson, known for his forthright opinions on automotive matters, has cited numerous
incidents of electric cars and bikes catching fire, including fires on ships carrying electric
vehicles. He raises questions about the safety standards of these vehicles and the potential
risks they pose to the public.
Auto
carrier ship burning off Holland now reported to have had nearly 500, not 25 electric vehicles on
board. The saga of the Freemantle Highway, a special purpose auto carrier ship
that has been on fire off of Holland for almost a week, killing at least one crew member, now
raises even deeper suspicions about the role of lithium ion batteries, used in electric cars, as a
source and aggravating factor in the blaze. In a report published here on AT 5 days ago, we
cited reporting from CBS News that as many as 25 electric vehicles may have been among the more
than 3000 cars being transported from Germany to Egypt. Now comes news that 20 times more
battery powered vehicles were l board, via The Truth About Cars.
Ford
set to lose $4.5 billion on electric vehicles this year, despite increased revenue.
Ford Motor Company announced it is projected to lose a whopping $4.5 billion from electric vehicles
(EVs) this year, up from the previous projected loss of $3 billion. The company released its
second-quarter financial results on Thursday. The U.S.-based automaker's EV division, called
"Ford Model e," has lost $1.8 billion so far this year, according to Fortune. The projected
$4.5 billion loss is over twice as much as Model e's $2.1 billion loss in 2022. The
company recently announced that the price of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup trucks will be reduced
due to cheaper raw battery materials.
Ford
Is Losing $66,446 On Every EV It Sells. In March, Ford Motor Company announced that
it lost $2.1 billion on its EV business last year. Those losses were double the losses it had
on EVs in 2021. As I noted in a video I posted on TikTok on March 23, Ford made 61,575
EVs in 2022. Thus, the company lost about $34,000 on every EV it sold last year. I also
noted that the costs of making EVs aren't falling. Last year, the cost of battery packs for
EVs went up by 7%. While the 2022 losses were huge, warning signs show plenty of potholes lie
ahead. Indeed, it appears Ford's 2022 losses were only a warm-up lap. Yesterday afternoon,
Ford reported a $722 million loss on its EV business over the first three months of 2023.
During that span, Ford sold 10,866 EVs, meaning it lost $66,446 for every EV it sold.
GOP
Sen. Marshall: Biden's 'Schizophrenic' Policy Pushes EVs While Allowing Chinese
Chargers, Blocking Mining. On Friday's broadcast of the Fox Business Network's
"Kudlow," Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) [...] said, "This is the next chapter of Joe Biden's
schizophrenic policies, which all seem to enrich China. I say schizophrenic, he wants us to
go from 0 to 100 miles an hour in converting all of our cars to EVs, but he won't let us mine the
lithium and copper that we need to make those batteries. He won't let us be able to make
affordable steel in this country that we need to make those cars with. So, all of these
policies basically enrich China. Schizophrenic in the sense that he says, when they develop
policies, when we set laws to spend these trillions of dollars, it's supposed to be made in
America. But guess what? His other policies keep us from making it in America and
enrich China. Sean, sometimes I just throw my hands up and say, I don't know what this
president is thinking."
Biden
Admin Fires Next Regulatory Salvo In Its Push For EVs. The Biden administration
proposed a new and ambitious set of fuel economy standards for cars and light-duty trucks Friday,
its latest move to prod American consumers towards adopting electric vehicles (EVs). The
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a subagency of the Department of
Transportation (DOT), unveiled the updated Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which
would require cars and lighter trucks to improve their respective fuel efficiencies by 2% and 4%
starting in 2027, according to a DOT press release announcing the proposal. The rule would
also mandate work vans and pickup trucks to increase their fuel efficiencies by 10% each year,
starting in 2030, according to the DOT press release. If manufacturers fail to meet the
stipulations of the proposed CAFE standards, they will have to pay punitive fines to the
government, according to the rule's text.
Electric
Vehicles: Ford's Warning. The creation of a mass market for EVs in the West was never
going to be straightforward, which is why it would have been better to let one develop naturally
(or even with a little government help here and there: it's not unknown for government to play some
role in the development of innovative technologies). Instead, Western governments have embarked on
a rushed transformation away from the internal-combustion engine without taking much heed of the
consequences other than so far as the climate is concerned. (And switching to EVs won't make too
much difference to the climate in the short term, or perhaps even longer, either, but shhhh ...)
It would be wrong to expect a smooth road ahead as the switch proceeds (carmakers have been
warning that the proposed speed of the transformation may give rise to severe difficulties), but
the nature of some of the bumps we are already seeing is at least worth noting. One of those
has been evidence that some EV manufacturers, their coming production quotas possibly in mind (or
maybe they are looking for early-mover advantage, or both), have been overproducing.
Report:
China Looks to Flood U.S. Market with Cheap Electric Vehicles. Chinese automakers are
looking to flood the United States market with cheap Electric Vehicles (EVs) as President Joe
Biden's administration has made a rapid all-electric, green energy push without having first
ensured domestic manufacturing capacity. According to Axios, Chinese automakers like BYD
Co. Ltd., Li Auto, Xpeng Motors, Nio Inc., and Geely are looking to the U.S. market to sell
cheap EVs to Americans as the Biden administration makes its push for an all-electric economy.
The same thing happened in February 2022 with the sinking of the Felicity Ace.
Cargo
ship carrying 3,000 vehicles burns out of control in North Sea; fire 'caused by electric
car'. The race is on to prevent the sinking of a cargo ship off the Dutch coast which
is carrying almost 3,000 vehicles, including 350 Mercedes-Benz, as it burns out of control with an
electric car believed to be behind the deadly fire. At least one crew member died and others
were injured after fire ripped through the Fremantle Highway, a 18,500-ton car-carrying
vessel. Rescue helicopters and boats evacuated 23 crew members from the Panamanian-registered
ship. Officials have said there are 'many' wounded. Some suffered broken bones, burns
and breathing problems and were taken to hospitals in the northern Netherlands, emergency officials said.
'Out
of control' fire aboard a massive car-carrier ship spotlights the calamitous consequences of
electric vehicles. Seventeen miles offshore from an island belonging to the
Netherlands, a nearly 20,000-ton vessel loaded with vehicles is burning "out of control," and
officials are in a race against time; Lea Versteeg, spokesperson for the Dutch coast guard,
reportedly said, "we're currently working out to see how we can make sure that...the least bad
situation is going to happen." A Daily Mail article out yesterday reported that at least one
crew member had died while "many" others were injured, while another outlet identified the site of
the chaos as a priceless ecological gem.
If I bought a $91,000 truck, I'd have to live in it.
Ford
lowers prices of F-150 Lightning electric trucks by up to $10,000 as EV sales falter.
Ford Motor has cut prices of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup trucks by up to 17 percent Monday,
July 17. This is another sign that the growing inventories and tight competition are soothing
the market for electric vehicles (EVs). The company said the cutbacks, which lowered the
Lightning's starting price by nearly $10,000 to $49,995, were due to lower material costs and the
company having more factory output. Some versions will get a higher price cut than
others. Ford provides seven versions of the F-150 Lightning, including Pro, Platinum Extended
Range and Lariat. The F-150 Lightning Pro, the vehicle's cheapest version, now costs $49,995,
marking a $9,979 price cut from the previous price. The Platinum Extended Range, the most expensive
version, has dropped its price by $6,079 to $91,995. Ford shares dropped 5.9 percent
Monday after the price cuts were announced.
Orwellian
or Kafkaesque? Kafka's brainchildren are recklessly coughing up tyrannic edicts while
using for an excuse the artificial hysteria being generated over reasonably normal weather.
The Biden administration has recently announced that all military vehicles will run on
batteries as of 2030. Since the purpose of fighting a war is to not lose, vast
quantities of diesel-powered field generators will be needed to keep the caissons rolling
along. Governor Hair Gel of California has followed along by announcing a ban on the sale of
gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. The trick with this is to have enough lead time so the
victims of such nonsense will have forgotten the original announcement — and will be
more surprised than angry when they realize they've been screwed. As of next January,
California's already legislated ban on the sale of gas-powered gardening equipment will take effect.
Unsold
electric cars are piling up on dealer lots. The auto industry is beginning to crank
out more electric vehicles (EVs) to challenge Tesla, but there's one big problem: not enough
buyers. The growing mismatch between EV supply and demand is a sign that even though
consumers are showing more interest in EVs, they're still wary about purchasing one because of
price or charging concerns. It's a "Field of Dreams" moment for automakers making big bets on
electrification — they've built the cars, and now they're waiting for buyers to come,
says Jonathan Gregory, senior manager of economic and industry insights at Cox Automotive.
Big Ethanol vs. Electric Vehicles.
One of the more entertaining spectacles in Washington these days is the industrial-policy
competition between the climate and ethanol lobbies. The Biden Administration this week
handed both sides a victory, yet as usual neither is satisfied. The Environmental Protection
Agency on Wednesday finalized its long-awaited renewable fuel standards for 2023 to 2025. The
standards dictate how much ethanol and other so-called biofuels must be blended into the nation's
fuel supply. Refiners have to buy credits if they don't meet quotas, which raises the price
of gasoline. Corn farmers, ethanol producers and Iowa politicians are irate becausethe EPA
didn't increase the mandated volume for conventional renewable fuels. "The rule is totally
inconsistent with this administration's climate agenda because everybody knows that both biodiesel
and ethanol is environmentally positive," Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said.
Electric
Cars Are a Scam. The left likes to treat skeptics of electrical cars as if they were
Luddites. Truth is, making an existing product less efficient but more expensive doesn't
really meet the definition of innovation. Even the purported amenities and technological
advances EV makers like to brag about in their ads have been a regular feature of gas-powered
vehicles going back generations. At best, EVs, if they fulfill their promise, are a lateral
technology. This is why there is no real "emerging market" for EVs in the United States as
much as there's an industrial policy in place that props up EVs with government purchases,
propaganda, state subsidies, cronyism, taxpayer-backed loans, and edicts. The green
"revolution" is an elite-driven, top-down technocratic project. And it's increasingly clear
that the only reason giant rent-seeking carmakers are so heavily invested in EV development is that
the government is promising to limit the production of gas-powered cars artificially.
Have
We Reached Peak Virtue Signaling With EVs? The cars that were going to save our world
from the scourge of carbon-based global warming are, says one media outlet, "piling up on dealer
lots" because they can't be sold. Maybe we're finally at the point where most if not all of
those who are desperate to demonstrate their green cred already have an EV and don't need another
battery-powered adult toy. Even though "the auto industry is beginning to crank out more
electric vehicles (EVs) to challenge Tesla," Axios reported Monday, "there's one big problem: not
enough buyers." Two days later, Market Watch said that as "EV sales stall ... there's a 'step
back from euphoria.'" While Tesla Inc. and BYD Co., a Chinese conglomerate, have strong growth
numbers, the rest in the industry, which has been incentivized to build, build, build by government
mandate, can't sell their EVs.
Britain
should place a big bet on the petrol engine. Ministers should be hailing it as a
major vote of confidence in the economy. King Charles should be clearing his diary to make
sure he is available for the opening ceremony. And the broadcasters should be leading the
news with it. In normal circumstances, you might expect the announcement that two major
global corporations will headquarter their new €7 billion joint venture in the UK to be
greeted as a huge win for the country. The trouble is, the Renault joint-venture with China's
Geely has been designed to produce petrol and hybrid engines and not fashionable battery powered
cars. But hold on. With the rest of the world pouring vast subsidies into electric
vehicles, spending money the UK cannot hope to compete with, it is increasingly obvious that the UK
should make a big bet on petrol. It may not be popular with the green elite, but it is a lot
more likely to be successful.
EV
sales in the dumps. If you are selling electric vehicles and your name isn't Tesla,
good luck getting your car off the lot. Unsold EVs are stacking up in dealerships, even once
hot-selling cars like the Mustang EV (which, by the way, I think is truly ugly). Inventories are
saturated with EVs — up almost 350% this year as manufacturers respond not to market
signals but to government mandates that are being pushed by the Biden Administration. Tesla
pretty much owns the electric car market at the moment, and every other manufacturer is working
feverishly to catch up. That is a tough place to be though, since fewer than 7% of cars sold
these days are EVs, and the demand just isn't there for a massive expansion in sales. Auto
manufacturers though, are having to make massive investments in order to hedge their bets —
if Biden gets a second term then the chances that regulations will force them to push unprofitable
and, frankly, inferior EVs will be nearly 100%.
Hundreds
of Thousands Voice Opposition to Biden Rule on Gas Cars. More than 180,000 Americans
sent in comments on the Biden administration's stringent emissions rule, which threatens to remove
cheaper and more reliable gas cars from the market in favor of less popular electric
vehicles. A total of 15,995 Americans submitted comments opposing the new rules through a
portal created by Heritage Action for America, the grassroots arm of The Heritage Foundation,
representing 8.7% of all comments.
Damaged
electric cars [are being] 'quarantined' over fears they will explode. Electric cars
that sustain minor bumps are being kept 15 meters apart in repair yards over fears they might
explode, adding to insurance bills. Government guidelines recommend electric vehicles with
damaged batteries should be "quarantined" from other vehicles due to the risk of battery
fires. Damaged batteries pose a risk of "thermal runaway" where the energy stored in the
battery releases rapidly, creating temperatures of up to 400°C. But the practice threatens to
increase costs for the insurance industry by more than £600m, costs which ultimately could be
passed onto drivers in increased premiums, according to a report by automotive risk firm Thatcham Research.
This
rush to electric cars is a colossal mistake. We may soon regret the radical and
absolutist embrace of electric vehicles (EVs). Governments across the world are planning to ban
sales of new petrol and diesel cars, and to take older, gas-guzzling vehicles off the road.
The Biden administration is proposing strict new pollution limits, as well as vast state subsidies,
to accelerate the US's transition to EVs. Replacing the massive $3 trillion global car
industry is an extremely high-risk economic gamble, particularly for the West. It could also
threaten the mobility of all but the richest among us. And all this is being risked for
environmental benefits that may prove far less robust than is often claimed. This is not to
say that EVs won't help us to reduce CO2 emissions or to clean the air. The problem is that,
at least in the immediate future, they should not be the only option available to consumers.
Toyota, for instance, has argued that there are other, more affordable and quicker ways to reduce
emissions than transitioning exclusively to EVs. While Toyota is investing in electric
batteries, it also hopes to continue offering hybrid and hydrogen-powered cars in the coming
decades. For stating this openly, it has come under fire from green lobbyists and politicians.
Automakers
Are Calling Out Biden's EV Fantasy. The Biden administration is getting significant
pushback from auto industry representatives over its anticipated tightening of EPA rules governing
tailpipe emissions. In a draft memo leaked this week, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation
(AAI) refers to the proposed standards as being "neither reasonable nor achievable in the timeframe
provided." Honestly, that describes pretty much the entire energy/environment agenda of this
presidency. Specific to this latest EPA crackdown, AAI — which represents most EV
makers in the U.S. other than Tesla — notes that the "proposed rules effectively assume
that everything 'will go perfectly' in the transformation to EVs between now and 2032. The agency
unrealistically assumes, for example, an over-abundance of battery critical mineral mines, critical
mineral processing capacity and battery component, cell and pack production facilities lead to
continued battery price reductions. The recently released Q1 2023 Get Connected EV report
shows how China dominates those areas."
Here's
Another Reason To Hate EVs. 'As fuel taxes plummet, states weigh charging by the mile
instead of the tank." That was the headline of a recent AP story, which should scare
freedom-loving citizens everywhere. And you can place the blame squarely on
government-subsidized EVs for this terrible new development. The background is that state and
federal gasoline taxes aren't raising "enough" money these days to pay for roadway construction and
maintenance. And a big reason for the growing shortfall is the increase in electric
vehicles. EVs get massive tax subsidies to convince people to buy them, but their owners
don't pay gasoline taxes, for the obvious reason that they never have to fill up. The more
EVs on the road, the less revenue the gas taxes raise. So the policy geniuses in Washington
have a solution: Impose a per-mile tax.
More
about Odometer taxes.
Joe
Biden Just Lost The Support Of The Largest Auto Union Over His Electric Vehicle Push.
The United Auto Workers (UAW), representing over 400,000 members, has decided to withhold its
support for President Joe Biden due to his administration's aggressive promotion of electric
vehicles (EVs). The union, which is deeply rooted in the auto industry, demands concrete
commitments from the Biden administration to safeguard auto industry jobs before it considers
endorsing the president's re-election bid. In an internal memo circulated within the UAW,
President Shawn Fain underscored the union's stance. Fain made it clear that the UAW expects
national leadership to have the back of the auto industry before it pledges its support.
Electric
Cars Are An Expensive Scam. The left likes to treat skeptics of electrical cars as if
they were Luddites. Truth is, making an existing product less efficient but more expensive
doesn't really meet the definition of innovation. Even the purported amenities and
technological advances EV-makers like to brag about in their ads have been a regular feature of
gas-powered vehicles going back generations. At best, EVs, if they fulfill their
promise, are a lateral technology. Which is why there is no real "emerging market" for EVs in
the United States as much as there's an industrial policy in place that props up EVs with
government purchases, propaganda, endless state subsidies, cronyism, taxpayer-backed loans, and
edicts. The green "revolution" is an elite-driven, top-down technocratic project. And
it's increasingly clear that the only reason giant rent-seeking carmakers are so heavily invested
in EV development is that government is promising to artificially limit the production of
gas-powered cars.
Electric
cars 'cause twice as much road damage as petrol equivalents'. Electric cars cause
twice as much stress to roads as petrol equivalents, which could increase the number of potholes
amid a growing crisis in Britain, according to a survey. A study led by the University of
Leeds found the average electric car puts 2.24 times more stress on roads than a similar petrol
vehicle[,] and 1.95 more than a diesel. Larger electric vehicles can cause up to 2.32 times
more damage to roads. The stress on roads causes greater movement of asphalt which can lead to
small cracks and eventually potholes.
U.S.
taxpayers paid millions to electric vehicle maker that just went bankrupt. A
manufacturer of electric vehicles which received millions in U.S. taxpayer funds via grants and tax
breaks has filed for bankruptcy. Ohio-based Lordstown Motors Corp. (LMC) announced on Tuesday
that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Inside EVs reported last week that the
ex-CEO and founder of LMC, Stephen Burns, sold all of his remaining stock in the EV startup in
three separate transactions between May and June. LMC had received $4.5 million from
JobsOhio, a private nonprofit that collects funds through a government-mandated monopoly on
spirituous liquor sales, according to Cleveland.com. The company also received $20 million
in tax credits to be paid out over 15 years by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority, according to
Business Journal Daily.
Ford
to Cut At Least 1,000 Jobs to Offset Cost of Shifting to Electric Vehicles. Ford
Motor Company is planning to terminate at least 1,000 salaried employees and contract workers to
offset the cost of investing in electric vehicles. Over the past year, the automaker has cut
more than 3,000 jobs across the U.S., Canada, and India. The majority of the job losses were
in Michigan, where Ford's headquarters is located. "People in certain agency positions across a
few skill teams were notified by their employers that their assignments at Ford have ended," Ford
spokesman T.R. Reid told the Free Press. "The changes are consistent with the Ford+
plan — aligning capabilities and roles with product and service priorities and, in the
process, reducing costs." Ford has declined requests from multiple news agencies to provide
numbers on exactly how many employees will be affected by the layoffs.
Media
notices EVs [are heavy]. In the world of all things wonderful and green, the biggest
push has been to hasten the demise of the internal combustion engine and the chirpiest assessments
have been how EVs will save the planet. From California to New York state to the federal
government and internationally, the powers that be have been on a tear to declare the ICE deadly
and obsolete, while the EV in all its incarnations is the future. Perhaps the bloom is coming
off of that overly optimistic and premature rose. Some EV business models aren't motoring
along as well as previously anticipated, even with subsidies and buyer incentives.
Democrats are really good at solving problems that nobody has, and responding to lobbyists that nobody knows.
Biden
Admin. Splashing $1.7 Billion on Electric and Low-Emission Buses. The U.S.
Department of Transportation announced Monday it is releasing some $1.7 billion in grants to fund
new electric and low-emission buses across the country. The taxpayer dollars come from the
2021 infrastructure bill signed into law by President Joe Biden, AP reports, with the money going
to transit projects in 46 states and territories. [...] This is not the first time this
administration has professed a love for electric buses, as Breitbart News reported, with Biden
claiming back in 2021[,] "Diesel [from school buses] pollutes the air ... and causes our students
to miss school."
The Editor says...
I challenge you to find any school official anywhere who has ever heard of a student who missed school
because of diesel smoke from a school bus. The tailpipe is in the back end of the bus for a reason.
Energy
Absurdity: When Billions in Subsidies Can't Keep EV Charging Stations in Service.
Great report Saturday at WickedLocal.com, detailing how range anxiety is negatively impacting the
sale of electric vehicles (EVs) in Massachusetts and across the U.S. It seems that not even tens of
billions of subsidy dollars can keep notoriously unreliable EV charging stations operating in good
service, even on major highways like the Massachusetts Turnpike. The story's writer details
the case in which Mass. officials contracted with a company called EVgo to install and maintain a
paltry 6 high-speed chargers along the Turnpike's path several years back, but those went the way
of the Dodo after, as an EVgo spokesperson said, the contract "long since expired."
The Green
New Deal is full of holes, with AOC leading the charge to fall into them. When first
elected AOC didn't know the three branches of government, but proved her qualifications by speaking
propaganda and leading people to fall into holes. Of what holes am I speaking? The
first three we need to examine are the size of 307, 267 and 900 football fields, respectively.
These humongous holes are located at the Bayan Obo mine in China, which is the world's biggest rare
earth element (REE) mine. REEs are used in everything from iPhones to EVs to LED lights to wind
turbines. The low abundance REEs in the earth's soil are fundamentally necessary for all "green
new energy." The waste-to-yield ratio in mining REEs is 2000:1, which is 13 times more than
mining copper. Each EV auto battery involves digging up 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust.
Anybody who hauls heavy loads already knows this.
EV
Range Dips Nearly 25 Percent While Carrying [a] Load: AAA. The range of electric
vehicles can fall by up to a quarter when made to carry heavy loads, according to a study conducted
by the American Automobile Association (AAA) on Ford's EV pickup truck F-150 Lightning. In an
unloaded state, the 2022 Lightning had a driving range of 278 miles. However, with a payload
of 1,400 pounds, the driving range dropped to 210 miles, a decline of 68 miles or 24.5 percent
from the unloaded range, according to the June 13 study. Such payloads are equivalent to hauling
around 20 bags of concrete mix. AAA advised that prospective buyers of EVs who are likely to
carry heavy loads regularly should "consider the impact this can have to their driving range."
Law
soon requires new Illinois homes to include electric vehicle charging capabilities. A
new law in Illinois soon requires electric vehicle charging stations in the garage of new or
renovated homes. Critics say this will increase costs. State Sen. Sara
Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, filed Senate Bill 40 to keep Illinois on its path to having one million EVs
on the roads by 2030. The bill was signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker Friday with an
effective date of Jan. 1, 2024. In 2021, Pritzker signed the Reimagining Electric Vehicles in
Illinois Act into law, which incentivizes EV production across the state. There are also
state tax incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles.
The Editor says...
What's next? Why not require every new house to have a basketball goal in the driveway, a dog house
in the back, and built-in Christmas lights? The answer is obvious: If the home owner wants that stuff,
he will buy it later. Not everyone will buy an electric car — unless the Democrats rig every
future election, which isn't out of the question.
California
Can Either Charge Its EV Fleet Or Keep The Lights On. Can California transition to a
portfolio of 100% renewable energy sources and still generate enough electricity to meet the
state's future needs, including the addition of millions of electric cars on the road? Using
the state's historical trends to project forward, the answer to these questions is no.
Californians will face acute electricity shortages soon if policymakers insist on implementing its
current suite of policies. California is already incapable of generating enough electricity,
importing 30% of its current electricity needs from other states. With respect to current
generation sources, nearly 60% of California's in-state electricity generation is produced by
natural gas and nuclear power plants. Including conventional hydroelectric generation, which
does not count as a renewable source for purposes of California's policies, nearly two-thirds of
the state's current electricity comes from disfavored generation sources. It is doubtful that
California will be able to generate sufficient electricity to meet future energy needs using only
the favored generation sources; and it is not even close.
Chinese
Battery Plant In Michigan Gets Biden Admin Approval. The Biden administration is
permitting Gotion, a Chinese electric vehicle battery company, to move forward with the
construction of a new plant in Michigan with $175 million in direct taxpayer funding, according to
Fox News. Gotion — a subsidiary of parent company Gotion High-Tech —
had previously halted development of the Mecosta County battery plant earlier this year and
requested a federal review, after intense criticism about the company's ties to China and concern
from local residents, Fox reported. On Tuesday, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States (CFIUS) decided that the proposed plant was not a covered real estate purchase under
the Defense Prohibition Act, which ultimately deemed the company a non-threat to national security.
California
to fall far short of energy needed to power EV mandate, report says. California will
fall 20% short of generating the necessary electricity to meet the state's 100 percent electric
vehicle mandates, according to a new report released by the California free-market think tank, the
Pacific Research Institute. "California's green energy mandates will require more energy from
the electricity grid instead of fossil fuels, making it less likely that the grid can generate the
necessary power," Dr. Wayne Winegarden and Kerry Jackson, the study's authors, said in a press
release. "These policies jeopardize California's energy security and, without a miracle leap in
technology, are setting us up for future energy shortages." Governor Gavin Newsom signed an
executive order in 2020 mandating that all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in California
starting in 2035 must be zero-emission vehicles.
The
public opinion tide begins to turn against electric vehicles. We have been swimming
upstream for years here at American Thinker, arguing that conversion of the automobile fleet to
electric vehicles is a mistake, harming the environment more than helping it, and utterly
impractical for a variety of reasons, including charging time and an entirely inadequate electrical
grid, already at the breaking point. Yet the green image (and the subsidies) continue,
impervious to the reality. With the sole exception of Toyota, the auto industry has bought in
to the conversion, even as losses mount for almost everyone but Tesla. However, there are
signs that the gravity of the practical problems with E.V. conversion are sinking in.
Government
Grand Theft Auto. Are you ready for the government to take away your car? New
proposed regulations on automobile emissions from the Environmental Protection Agency would require
60% of new car sales to be electric vehicles by 2030 and 67% by 2032, compared to the fewer than 6%
that were on the road in 2022 — for no environmental benefit. Those who like
electric vehicles, or EVs, are in luck. But those who prefer gasoline-powered cars will see
significant increases in their costs, both for new and used cars. Some prefer
gasoline-powered cars because they are more affordable. The electric version of the base
version of the Ford F-150 pickup truck, the best-selling vehicle in America, costs an additional
$26,000 over the gasoline-powered one. Tesla's EV base prices start at $39,000 for a Model 3
and go up to almost $100,000 for a Model X — prices much higher than most families can
afford. Plus, gasoline-powered cars can be refueled in five or 10 minutes at a gas
station. Recharging an electric vehicle can take 45 minutes. If someone is in front of
you at the charging station, the wait can double.
Toyota
study shows electric vehicles may be unnecessary to lower CO2 emissions. Virtually
alone among major auto manufacturers, Toyota has been a skeptic about the conversion of vehicle
fleets to battery-powered electric vehicles. For people incapable of thinking 2 or 3
steps ahead, EVs are "zero emission" and therefore "save the planet" from CO2 (presumed to control
the earth's temperature despite no statistical correlation). But this leaves out the
environmental and CO2 cost of generating and transmitting electricity (mostly by burning coal in
the US and many other countries), manufacturing (and recycling) the enormous batteries, and the
energy and wear and tear cost of the much-heavier cars that result. Energy losses due to
resistance in power lines generates heat and costs a substantial fraction of the energy input
before the consumer uses the output. Nonetheless, rival manufacturers such as Ford and GM
have leapt into the transition and are investing bullions and enduring billions in losses to
convert their products to EVs.
The
$200 Billion Electric School Bus Bust. Let's do the math. The $1 billion in
rebates pledged is to help purchase 2,500 electric school buses in some 391 school districts around
the nation. But there are in fact about 500,000 school buses transporting children to and
from school, to and from ball games and other events, nearly every school day. By simple
calculation, this suggests it will take a $200 billion investment just to replace existing
school buses — which must be done, Kamala tells us, by the 2030 deadline or else
CHILDREN WILL DIE. Do factories, batteries, and other raw materials exist to build (or retrofit)
500,000 school buses — and every other vehicle in America today — by 2030?
By 2050? Does that much money exist? Does that much electricity exist? To be sure,
the demand (from mostly leftist school boards) is out there. Nearly 2,000 school districts
applied for the free money last year, pushing the demand SO HIGH "that the EPA had to double the
amount of funding" from the initial pledge of $500 million." Should Kamala keep her job in
2024, the EPA's Clean School Bus Program is committed to handing out another $4 billion over the
next five years.
The
Auto Industry In Jonestown. On April 12, 2023 the EPA released its most recent
proposed regulation of automobile emissions. The document is titled "Multi-Pollutant
Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light- Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles." It is
262 pages long in the standard Federal Register single-spaced three-column format, thus designed to
be virtually impossible to read for anyone who is not getting paid to do it. But the heart of
the proposed new rule is that, over a period of a few years, it is to become difficult-to-impossible
for automobile manufacturers to continue to sell any significant number of internal combustion
engine vehicles. Of course EPA never states that explicitly, and makes the game as
difficult as possible for any layman to decipher.
Electric
cars actually cost MORE to run than petrol vehicles. They were hailed as a cheaper —
and greener — alternative to petrol-run cars. But it has now emerged that electric cars can
now cost more to run than their gas-guzzling counterparts — and could plague Britain's roads with
potholes. With rising electricity prices, recharging cars at major public points can now cost almost
£50 — often making them more expensive to run than a petrol alternative.
'Charge
Outdoors:' Jaguar Recalls All I-Pace EVs in the US over Battery Fire Risk. Automaker
Jaguar has announced a comprehensive recall of all its I-Pace electric vehicles in the United
States, citing a potential risk of battery fires. The company is also advising customers to
park outside until repairs are made and charge their vehicles outdoors so they don't burn their
houses down. Electrek reports that Jaguar has announced a broad recall of all of its I-Pace
electric vehicles in the United States due to a potential risk of battery fires. This action
was taken in response to worries expressed regarding a potential battery problem resembling the one
that forced a previous recall of the Chevy Bolt EV. Jaguar is advising customers to park and charge
their vehicles outside due to the fire risk until repairs are completed.
School
official laments electric buses cost '5X more' and are riddled with 'performance
issues'. One Michigan school official admitted his district's move to using electric
buses was less than the government has touted it to be. Emile Lauzzana, the environmental
sustainability director of Michigan's fourth-largest school district, recently told the Ann Arbor
Public Schools Board of Education that the district's electric bus fleet has had "a lot of downtime
and performance issues." "It's been a tough 2 1/2 years with this program,"
Lauzzana said. "We've been learning a lot about this technology," Lauzzana also said.
"Electric buses are approximately five times more expensive than regular buses, and the electrical
infrastructure, which was originally estimated to be only about $50,000, give or take, for those
four buses ended up being more like $200,000."
The Editor says...
The numerous problems with electric vehicles have been well known for many years. If you purchased
an electric vehicle anyway, you are to blame when they exhibit "performance issues." If it took you
2½ years to figure out that chargers are expensive, charging is slow, and performance is poor
in cold or hot weather, you shouldn't be in charge of public transportation in any way.
Biden
Spent $1 Billion To Get Schools Electric Buses. This Michigan District Says Theirs Hardly
Work. Michigan's fourth-largest school district is having "significant" performance issues
with its expensive electric buses, issues that come after the Biden administration spent $1 billion
to "transform America's school bus fleet" with electric models. During an April 19
presentation to the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education, the district's environmental
sustainability director, Emile Lauzzana, highlighted a number of issues with the district's
electric bus fleet. Those buses, Lauzzana said, have "a lot of downtime and performance
issues" and aren't "fully on the road," despite the fact that they are "approximately five times
more expensive than regular buses." The infrastructure upgrades required to use the buses,
meanwhile, were "originally estimated to be only about $50,000" but "ended up being more like
$200,000," according to Lauzzana. "I have a number of colleagues in different states who are
facing similar challenges," the district official lamented.
Electric
Trucks Are Worse than Diesel Trucks. The purpose of trucks is to move stuff. By
just about every measure, electric trucks are worse at moving stuff than diesel trucks are.
That's the takeaway from today's newsletter by Rachel Premack for FreightWaves. She's
writing about a California regulation that will require all new drayage trucks (trucks that operate
near ports) to be zero-emissions, starting next year. The entire drayage fleet is required to
be zero-emissions by 2035. And people in the trucking industry and in the utility industry aren't
quite sure how that's going to happen.
How
electric car propaganda preys on the disabled. Chicken Little, a beloved character
from children's literature, was famous for his frantic warning that the sky was falling because an
acorn fell and hit him on the head. [...] This story sounds an awful lot like the climate change
rantings of today. They call to rid ourselves of things like gas stoves, incandescent light
bulbs, and coal-powered electric plants. There is also a move to end the production and use
of gas-powered engines, as it's supposedly "settled science" that these things are truly horrible
for the environment. There is a frantic push toward an all-electric energy future, especially
one powered by unreliable solar and wind sources, to save us from the nefarious bogeyman of global
warming — all while the real polluters have no intention of hamstringing their economies
in the same way. In reality, U.S. carbon emissions are dropping (we contribute 11%), while
those in Asia, specifically India (6%) and China (27%), are soaring. At the forefront of this
utopian future is the electric car — deemed by some as the savior of the environment
because it has zero carbon emissions and uses no fossil fuels.
Every
Electric Vehicle Enriches Communist China.. President Biden's policy requiring 67
percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States by 2032 to be electric vehicles (EVs) will
only continue to benefit the Chinese monopoly over the market. China has become the largest
electric vehicle battery producer in the world by "figuring out how to make battery components
efficiently and at lower costs," explains the New York Times. China is, moreover, the world
leader in the manufacturing of EVs by some distance. By 2030, China will manufacture more
than double the number of EVs than all other nations combined. Most of the raw materials that
support the batteries are refined by the Chinese Communist Party, such as lithium, manganese,
cobalt, graphite, and nickel, compared to the United States, which has "little processing capacity"
for raw materials. The most important component in an EV is the cathode — a
battery's positive terminal which is responsible for costs and range — and yet the
United States manufactures one percent of them.
Electric
Vehicle Illusions. A dozen states have joined California and many countries in
passing legislation to ban the sale of conventional cars and push everyone into electric vehicles
(EVs), many within the decade. Similarly, in a feat of regulatory legerdemain, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency has proposed emissions rules that would effectively require
automakers to sell mostly EVs. And of course, the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act, a.k.a.
the Green New Deal, gushes subsidies across the EV ecosystem. The rush to subsidize and
mandate EVs is animated by a fatal conceit: the assumption that they will radically reduce CO2
emissions. That assumption is embedded orthodoxy not just among green pundits and
administrators of the regulatory state but also among EV critics, who take issue with a forced
transition mainly on grounds of lost freedoms, costs, and market distortions. But the truth
is, because of the nature of uncertainties in global industrial ecosystems, no one really knows how
much widespread adoption of EVs could reduce emissions, or whether they might even increase them.
EPA's
almost bare-naked electric car mandate. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
last week proposed new greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for model years (MYs) 2027-2032
passenger cars, light trucks, and medium-duty trucks. The standards are de facto electric
vehicle (EV) mandates. Automakers cannot comply without rapidly phasing out internal
combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and rapidly increasing sales of battery-powered vehicles.
Naturally, the EPA protests that, unlike California's motor vehicle program, which officially bans
the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035, "the GHG program in this proposal is performance-based
and not a ZEV [zero-emission vehicle] mandate" (87 FR 29255). In fact, like the
California program, the EPA program compels automakers to manufacture and sell increasing
percentages of ZEVs, only at a slower pace. It does this by establishing fleet-average GHG
emission standards that automakers can meet only by squeezing ICE vehicles out of their
fleets. The EPA's program is not a bare-naked EV mandate, but almost.
If
the battery is the key to an EV future, China's got a lock on it. The race to build a
better (translation: cheaper) battery for the soon-to-come wave of electric cars has barely
begun. But The New York Times has already declared a winner. In a thoroughly
researched article this week in the Times, called "Can the world make an electric car battery
without China?," the reporters conclude that the Chinese have already captured the prize.
They are "so far ahead mining rare minerals, training engineers and building huge factories that
the rest of the world may take decades to catch up." Bold predictions, but reporters Keith
Bradshaw and Agnes Chang take pains to back them up, by detailing China's super ambitious chain of
production, from taking raw materials out of the earth to actually building the vehicles that use
the lithium ion batteries.
Why
would anyone believe these people can control temperatures, sea levels, and storm activity forever?
The people who say they can control the climate forever if we are forced to buy electric cars and give up a lot of other stuff somehow can't figure out how to have AM radio stations without interference from electric vehicles. [...] Does anyone think they can solve all the economic and environmentally harmful issues related to electric vehicles? Here is some information about electric vehicles that the complicit media will not be allowed to see. This information is as censored as the stories showing Biden family corruption.
[#1] America's electric grid already "faces a capacity shortfall.["]
[#2] During electric capacity shortfalls, or blackouts, EVs can't be charged.
[#3] Rural areas lack charging infrastructure, causing EV advocates to refer to them as "charging deserts."
[#4] The large battery packs required to power EVs make them 33 percent heavier than internal combustion engine vehicles. "I am concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death to all road users from heavier curb weights" warns U.S. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy.
[#5] "Thermal runaway" can cause intense and unpredictable battery fires in EVs, exposing first responders to both heat and electrical hazards.
[#6] When EV batteries burn (or combust), they are extremely difficult to extinguish. Texas firefighters used 40 times more water to douse a burning Tesla than they would have used extinguishing a regular ICE vehicle fire.
[#7] Charging stations can also represent an increased fire risk unless homeowners install new, dedicated circuits as "older home wiring may not be suitable" for EV charging.
[#8] Battery packs on electric vehicles may not be repairable if they are damaged during an accident.
[#9] EV battery ranges vary but are generally inconveniently short. Actual ranges average 12.5 percent worse than listed on price stickers, while ICE vehicles averaged 4 percent better.
[#10] Expected travel ranges and drivability drop significantly in winter, which could leave drivers stranded in the cold.
[#11] Reported travel ranges are far shorter in the summer when temperatures climb above 86°F.
[#12] Travel range expectations drop fast if you use accessories like air conditioning, heat or the [FM only] radio.
[#13] EV batteries are expected to last 10-20 years in a perfect climate. But hotter climates and fast charging can overheat the battery and can reduce life expectancy significantly. Battery replacement costs range from $5,000 to $20,000.
[...]
[#20] Production of lithium for EV batteries has substantial environmental impacts. Massive mining operations threaten sensitive high desert areas in South America where it takes over 580,000 gallons of water to produce one ton of lithium.
[#21] Recycling options are still limited and expensive for EV batteries. Many of the materials in EV batteries cannot be economically recycled, which means they will be landfilled, or mandated recycling will push battery prices higher.
Charge!
Incompetence or malice? This question is consistently posed to us by readers responding to
the staggering idiocy of our political class, especially as it pertains to energy policy.
Perverse though it might sound, many would be more comfortable if the unworkable policies and
unscientific nonsense emanating from our elected officials were part of some dark and purposeful
criminal conspiracy. [...] In a corrupt system, leaders who achieve political power are selected
for their unique combination of fervor and ignorance. They genuinely believe that they
know better, and they absolutely are that dumb. Last week, Department of Energy Secretary
Jennifer Granholm declared her candidacy for Rube of the Year before the Senate Armed Services
committee: ["]Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Wednesday that she
supports efforts from the Biden administration to require the U.S. military to implement an
all-electric vehicle fleet by 2030, telling lawmakers that she believes 'we can get there.'
Granholm's remarks came during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing following questions from
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who asked the Biden administration official whether she supports the
military's adoption of an 'EV fleet by 2030.'["]
Will Electric
Vehicles Disappoint You? No doubt many taxpayers have already developed a
healthy skepticism if not distaste for government-subsidized electric vehicles. But consumers
may also have reason to beware, based on a recent report from automotive magazine Car and
Driver. Also in the news is one more reminder that it can be a bumpy road to the energy
transition envisioned by the White House. [...] Fortunately many car shoppers seemed to be aware of
the vehicle's problems long before the federal officials who kept urging them to buy. Now
there seems to be another concern that goes beyond Chevy. Regardless of the manufacturer,
taxpayers looking to get some of their money back from the feds by purchasing a subsidized e-car
should be careful to restrain their expectations.
Ford
Is Losing Roughly $60,000 For Every Electric Vehicle Sold. Ford lost tens of
thousands of dollars per electric vehicle sold in the first quarter of 2023, as the division
remained on track for roughly $3 billion in yearly losses, according to the company's Tuesday
evening earnings report. Ford's electric vehicle division — which was separated
from its traditional gas and professional-grade vehicle departments in a late March
reorganization — lost $722 million in the first three months of 2023, while selling
just 12,000 units, according to the company's first quarter earnings report. This amounts to
a roughly $60,167 loss for each vehicle sold, according to calculations made by the Daily Caller
News Foundation.
Another
Democrat war on consumers. For mobility, America in the 20th century lived through a
transition from horses to fossil fuels. Except for supplying roads, the government was hardly
involved. No coercion or subsidies were necessary. Private enterprise, the free market,
voluntary exchange, and the profit motive were enough to provide the oil, oil refineries, and
filling stations. And it all happened organically and without centralized control.
Government is far more powerful and intrusive than we would like it to be. Nevertheless, its
power has limits, especially when its policy objectives are unrealistic or impossible. The
federal and some state governments have announced a goal of eliminating fossil fuel vehicles.
The federal government is demanding that 67 percent of new vehicles sold be electric by 2032.
California regulators recently voted unanimously to ban the sale of new diesel trucks as of 2036.
Electric vehicles have been available for several years. But so far, less than six percent of
vehicles in the U.S. are electric. The percentage of electric trucks is close to zero.
This
Might Be The Worst Idea Joe Biden's Ever Had. President Joe Biden wants all Pentagon
vehicles to be electric by 2030 — in just six years and seven months. America's
fearless leader previewed this policy on Earth Day 2022. "We're going to start the process
where every vehicle in the United States military, every vehicle, is going to be climate-friendly —
every vehicle," Biden said in Seattle that April 22. "I mean it." Energy Secretary
Jennifer Granholm just reiterated this objective. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) asked Granholm
at an April 26 Armed Services Committee hearing, "Do you support the military adopting that
EV fleet by 2030?" "I do, and I think we can get there," Granholm replied.
The Editor says...
I sure hope the Russians and the North Koreans and the Chinese and the Iranians provide plenty of charging stations
on all the battlefields. Otherwise, the U.S. will have to bring along a bunch of enormous diesel-engine
generators. But the Pentagon has already thought of this, right?
Ohio
man gets $42,000 repair bill after fender bender in electric truck. Landscaper Chris
Apfelstadt of Columbus, Ohio, shared a post in a Facebook group for Rivian fans recounting how
while driving his electric truck one day, he was struck from behind at a "relatively low speed."
No airbags inflated, he noted, and purported pictures of the accident show only minor damage to
the rear bumper of his pickup. "I figured the repair would be expensive but had no idea!"
Apfelstadt wrote on Facebook. He went on to say that the insurance company for the woman who
rear-ended him assessed the damage, estimated the repairs would cost $1,600 and wrote him a check
for that amount. Turns out, they were more than $40,000 off the mark.
Study:
Electric cars losing value twice as fast as gas vehicles. The value of some of the
most popular electric cars is depreciating at twice the rate of petrol cars, a new study has
found. When someone buys a new car, the value will naturally decrease over time given the
wear and tear of the vehicle, as well as the mileage and age. But, for some electric car
owners, they could be seeing the value of their car depreciate at twice the rate of petrol
cars. According to a new study, EVs on average will lose 51 percent of their purchase
value from 2020 to 2023, compared to just 37 percent for petrol vehicles. This equates to
a massive £15,220 loss for electric car owners, with petrol drivers seeing a decrease of £9,901.
The Editor says...
A car is a bad investment, unless you can buy it for next-to-nothing, so of course it will lose value;
but in most cases an automobile is a necessary cost of doing business or maintaining employment.
Study:
EVs do help air pollution, but really only benefit the wealthy. A new study shows
that electric vehicles are helping make the air cleaner in California. But it's only
benefiting the wealthy. The study published on Wednesday was done in collaboration between
the University of California at Berkeley, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the
University of Miami. Researchers measured more than 400,000 rebates from 2010 to 2021 to
determine how successful California's Clean Vehicle Rebate Project (CVRP) has been in actually
reducing emissions. The study found that electric vehicles have been successful in reducing
emissions of nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, but the benefits are primarily only
in wealthy communities, leaving lower-income communities in the dust. This is due to the
unequal distribution of electric cars between these groups, and if things don't change, the authors
argued it will lead to more environmental, financial and social inequity.
The
[British] Government's electric vehicle obsession is a war on motorists. First the good
news: car sales are looking quite perky, in spite of the cost of living crisis. In the first
four months of the year 627,250 new cars rolled off the forecourt. Over the same period in 2022 it
was 536,727. But now the bad news, at least for the government: sales of electric cars
are running out of juice. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has downgraded its
sales forecast for electric vehicles. It now expects 18.4 percent of total sales to be
pure electric cars, rather than 19.7 percent as previously forecast. And in my view,
even this new projection looks optimistic. So far this year only 15.4 percent of sales
fell into this category, a smidgeon up from 14.4 percent in the same period last year.
Still the most popular by far are the pure petrol models.
How
Long Before Environmentalists Start Attacking EVs? Today, you're not allowed to say a
bad word about electric cars. They're planet savers, after all. Environmentalists tell
us so. But there will come a day — in the not-too-distant future — when
the climate change fanatics will decide that EVs are planet killers, too. [...] Turns out, only
certain EVs are now acceptable to environmentalists. "Electric vehicles are on the whole
better for the planet than gas-powered vehicles, but bigger, heavier, and less efficient EV models
have more environmental impacts than smaller ones," the [Los Angeles] Times editorial board
sniffed. It is now calling on regulators to not just force car buyers to give up their trusty
internal combustion engines, but trade them in for "small, zero-emission cars that most people can
afford to buy." It won't be long before green mobs start slashing tires of electric trucks
and SUVs. At some point, no electric car will be good enough. Environmentalists will
"discover" that building car batteries is massively damaging to the environment. They will be
shocked to learn that EVs aren't "zero emission" at all, because the electricity used to charge
them still largely comes from fossil-fuel-powered generators. They will decry the fact that
EVs are making human-right-abusing despots fabulously rich. They will say EVs aren't doing
nearly enough to stop the climate "crisis."
California
to Ban Diesel Truck Sales by 2036. California suffers from a homelessness crisis, a
drug epidemic, high taxes, and affordability issues, but there's one thing the state's residents
won't have to worry about in the future: diesel trucks. That's because state regulators on
Friday approved a rule that would forbid the sales of diesel vehicles by 2036 and require all
trucks to be zero emissions by 2042. The California Air Resources Board also unanimously
approved the Advanced Clean Fleets rule which will require delivery and garbage trucks to be electric.
CA
musing on mandating your EV be able to help power the grid. This news is going to go
in the Does California EVER Think Anything Through file, because I have seen no clear-cut
proof that they do. [...] In a twisted way, this makes sense for a state that already can't keep
the lights on — use all those lovely, honkin' yuge batteries in EVs sitting in driveways
to take the load off the grid (vehicle-to-grid/V2G) or help consumers either keep their own
electric bills down or function during an outage by powering their house with the Tesla in the
driveway (vehicle-to-home/V2H). As CA legislators think, "If it works for 5 people, we can
make everyone do it." What doesn't make sense is, again, CA can't keep the lights on.
Vicious circle. For your car battery to be charged enough to run the house or help take the
load off a failing grid, it has to be charged/juiced up to discharge.
Portland
to ban gas-powered delivery vehicles from 16 blocks downtown. Portland is about to be
one of the first cities in the U.S. with blocks dedicated as a zero-emission delivery zone, thanks
to a $2 million grant the city received. The Portland Bureau of Transportation announced
Tuesday that the money will support creating a 16-block area in downtown where all deliveries must
be made using zero-emission vehicles. These vehicles can include electric vans and trucks,
cargo bikes or hydrogen-fueled vehicles.
The Editor says...
News bulletin: Downtown Portland shares the atmosphere with the rest of the world. This
stunt, (much like electric cars themselves) will benefit no one in the long run.
The
Staggering Scale of the EV Transition. Take power-grid transformers. These
essential voltage-converting components are designed to cool down at night, when power consumption
is typically low. But with more people charging their EVs at home at night, the 30-year
design life of a transformer will drop — to perhaps no more than three years once mass
adoption of EVs takes hold. Transformers can cost more than US $20,000 each, and they're
already in short supply in many countries.
10 Most
Glaring Problems With Electric Cars. [#9] Range anxiety is among the biggest
sources of hesitation for car buyers when it comes to EVs, especially if the driver intends to
cross states and go to less-urbanized areas every once in a while. As of early 2023,
continuous improvements in EV battery technology have already increased the average EV driving
range to over 210 miles for a single full charge. However, to put this range in perspective,
a $26,000, gas-engine Camry can travel over 600 miles on a full tank. The $28,000 Nissan Leaf
EV can go for 149 miles while the $90,000 Tesla Model S can travel 405 miles, both on a
single charge. The average American driver travels approximately 35 miles per day, so a
210-mile range can last for a full work week without charging — if all stars are aligned, of
course. Any side trips or emergencies — or even short bursts of spirited driving
during the daily commute — will drain the EV battery faster and will make you plug in
much earlier.
EVs
Fall Short of EPA Estimates by a Much Larger Margin Than Gas Cars in Our Real-World Highway
Testing. A new paper published by SAE International uses Car and Driver's real-world
highway test data to show that electric vehicles underperform on real-world efficiency and range
relative to the EPA figures by a much greater margin than internal-combustion vehicles. While
the latter typically meet or exceed the EPA-estimated highway fuel economy numbers, EVs tend to
fall considerably short of the range number on the window sticker. The paper, written by
Car and Driver's testing director, Dave VanderWerp, and Gregory Pannone, was presented this
week at SAE International's annual WCX conference. It points to a need for revised testing
and labeling standards for EVs moving forward. "Basically we've taken a look at how vehicles
perform relative to the values on the window sticker, looking at the difference between what the
label says and what we actually see in our real-world highway test," explained VanderWerp. "We see
a big difference in that gap between gas-powered vehicles and the performance of EVs. The
real question is: When first-time customers are buying EVs, are they going to be pleasantly
surprised or disappointed by the range?"
Imprisoned:
Climate police want EV batteries to have less capacity so electric car owners can't travel very
far. It is not enough for people to just switch from gas-powered cars to electric
vehicles (EVs) in order to fight global warming. The climate brigade also wants to forcibly
limit the range of people's EVs to ensure they do not drive "too much" and kill the planet. A
consortium of professors from California and members of the so-called "climate community" are
pushing to make EV batteries less powerful in order to stop climate change. They also want to
make passenger cars smaller, which they claim will "makes the roads far safer because smaller cars
have fewer and less severe crashes." "Making bus routes, metros, and electric bikes faster,
safer, and more convenient will disproportionately support low-income and non-white community
members — who are more likely to live near high traffic areas and bear the environmental
health burdens of relatively poorer air quality compared to higher-income and white counterparts,"
the group further said.
The
many disadvantages of electric cars. It is a myth that electric cars are green
because they have no exhaust emissions. The fact is that, depending on the region, most
electric grid power stations use fossil fuels such as dirty coal, gas, and petroleum. So,
electric cars are not a green sustainable solution for now. Under moderate temperatures most
electric cars suffer from a limited average range of about 350 miles on a full charge, although
some high-priced models can travel as far as 500 miles. This makes long trips by car rather
difficult, especially since there is a dearth of electric charging stations along the interstate
highways and within city limits. [...] According to the AAA, during cold weather electric vehicles
often lose over 12% of their mileage range but it can be a loss up to 41% with the heater on full
blast. Even worse is if you are stuck in a snowstorm on the highway your car will have to be
towed and you risk the possibility of freezing when your car battery gives out.
Government
Fiat Will Not Make Electric Cars Viable. The unelected bureaucrats in the Biden
administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have announced a plan to wave their magic
regulatory wand. These obviously "woke" EPA global-warming ideologues aim to mandate new
tailgate emission standards that require two-thirds of all new passenger vehicles sold in the United
States by 2032 to be electric. On April 8, 2023, the New York Times, in a story
that appeared to be an obvious trial balloon, published the news that the EPA was planning to
implement "the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that
all-electric cars make up as much as 67 percent of the passenger vehicles sold in the country by
2032." The source for the story was the typical unnamed "according to two people familiar with the
matter." Clearly, the Biden administration and the newspaper expected push-back, given that the
New York Times article announcing the news also cited industry statistics indicating
electric vehicle (EV) sales still languish under 6 percent of total passenger vehicles sold
in the United States.
Heavy
electric vehicles could put pressure on parking garages, experts warn. Parking
garages across the US could be at risk of collapse over the weight of heavier electric vehicles,
experts warned, as one such garage fell in Lower Manhattan, killing one person and injuring
five. Chris Whapples, a structural engineer and consultant working on new regulations for
multi-story garages in the UK, said officials need to understand how the rise in EVs will affect
current car parks. "I don't want to be too alarmist, but there definitely is the potential for
some of the early car parks in poor condition to collapse," Whapples told The Telegraph.
"Operators need to be aware of electric vehicle weights, and get their car parks assessed from a
strength point of view, and decide if they need to limit weight."
Biden's
Electric Car Target Has a Problem — Many Americans Don't Want Them. Some
41 percent of U.S. adults would not buy an electric car, according to an April 12 Gallup poll of a
random sample of 1,009 people. This, if extrapolated to the wider population, would represent
around 106 million Americans who are against a key plank of Joe Biden's vision of a green
economy. While this comprises a sizeable minority, the survey, conducted between March 1-23,
found that a majority of 55 percent either currently own or were considering owning an electric
vehicle (EV). Those against buying an EV tended to be older, and 71 percent of those who
identified as Republican voiced their opposition compared with just 17 percent of Democrats.
A
Time for Charging. The Biden administration's effort to impose electric vehicles on
the car-buying public should at least be noted. It is taking place under power delegated to
the Environmental Protection Agency by Congress under the regime of administrative law that
controls so much of the way we live now. [...] Electric vehicles themselves degrade the environment.
Substituting them for cars with internal combustion vehicles will not alter "the climate" in the least.
The
hidden costs of electric vehicles. The White House has turned to strict emissions
standards in order to get electric vehicles from the current 7% of new auto sales to 50% by 2032.
But as the national gas price finally dipped below $4, it's just one less incentive to consider
purchasing an electric vehicle. In the current infrastructure and economy, the real-world
cost of powering an electric vehicle is still far greater than comparable internal combustion
engines, and the hidden costs are many. Remember the old saying, "Time is money?" Well,
most electric vehicle drivers need up to a full day to charge a fully depleted electric car
battery. Even rapid partial charges take five to ten times longer than it takes to fill up a
gas tank. What's more, depending on where one lives, most people won't want their car to get
below about a 20% charge and risk being stranded somewhere they can't recharge, so the true usable
range is much less than advertised. While electric vehicle owners can proactively "top off"
batteries daily, longer commutes throw that out the window (let alone typical family road trips).
Joe
Biden's Electric Car Dream Is A Lie. Regarding electric vehicles, President Joe Biden
cannot simply use his bully pulpit to preach EVs' virtues. Gift-wrapping them in lavish
taxpayer-funded subsidies is not enough for Biden, either. So, this dictator rules by
fiat. Rather than ask Congress to enact a pro-EV law, Emperor Biden issued a decree on
Wednesday, via the Environmental Protection Agency. By 2030, 54% of new passenger vehicles
must be electric. Just two years later, that mandate would grow by more than one-fifth, until
67% of new cars and light trucks are electric in 2032. This edict bludgeons personal freedom,
is terminally grandiose, and defies economic reality.
Robin
Hood in reverse: Biden green agenda raising prices for consumers, profits for Dem
donors. President Joe Biden announced plans on Wednesday to require that two-thirds
of all U.S. car sales by 2032 be electric vehicles and impose the "strongest-ever" emissions
restrictions on gas cars. Like much of the Biden green agenda, the proposals stand to raise
costs for everyday Americans while swelling profits for Democrat megadonors. A recent CNBC
survey found that 58% of Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, and 70% feel
financially burdened due to inflation, rising interest rates and more. At the same time, the
average cost for an EV as of February was around $58,385, according to CarEdge. Cars are
already more expensive than ever. Average monthly payments for new vehicles hit a record high
of $730 in the first quarter of 2023, a more than 11% increase year-over-year. As more
Americans are pressured into buying EVs, increased demand will only drive those prices higher,
prompting responses from Republican lawmakers on behalf of consumers. "Electrification" is the
"road to higher prices" for everybody, said Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso, ranking
member on the Senate Energy Committee in response to the 1,475 pages of new rules unveiled
Wednesday by the EPA.
America's
Coming Energy Crisis. In 2021, Biden signed an executive order that decreed that all
federal contracts for goods and services to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Some states and businesses
are following Biden's lead. California and six other states intend to ban the sale of
gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. California also wants to ban the sale of gas-powered water
heaters and furnaces by 2030. Now the Environmental Protection Agency has piled on. The
agency is proposing vehicle pollution limits for 2032 that are so strict that they will force roughly
two thirds of new vehicles sold to be electric. This may sound glorious to climate warriors,
but they have no idea what they are getting us into. Transitioning to net zero involves
decarbonizing electrical generation, industry, and transportation all at the same time.
It also involves creating net-zero carbon buildings, even though none presently exists.
Progressives
[are] Not Interested in the Good of the Country. Does establishing completely
illogical and unobtainable requirements for EV (electric vehicle) ownership help the country, the
environment, or the economy? No, obviously not. Mining for the rare earth metals used
in EVs is far more destructive to the earth than safe, reliable American fossil-fuel
extraction. The rare-earth materials and battery production comes from other countries,
including Communist China, so it hurts our economy and makes us more vulnerable to and dependent on
bad actors. Assuming that progressives even know any of this (many are likely totally
ignorant), would it matter? No. They think that pushing the Green agenda helps their
short-term electoral power grab and that's their end game.
USPS
Balks at Dem Plan to Turn Post Offices Into Electric Car Charging Stations. The U.S.
Postal Service is pushing back against a pressure campaign from Democrats to turn thousands of post
offices into a network of electric car charging stations for the public, saying the plan would slow
down mail operations and conflict with its mission to provide "prompt, reliable, and efficient
postal services." House Democrats want to install public electric vehicle chargers at
thousands of post offices, turning USPS into a nationwide charging network — a proposal
that has reportedly "excited" Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. "We already own the property,
the postal service has these vehicles and we could make them available to the public as well," said
Rep. Marcy Kaptur in 2021 (D., Ohio). The news comes as the cash-strapped and understaffed
agency has faced demands from the Biden administration to increase its investment in green
energy. Last month, the USPS said it would buy over 9,000 electric vehicles for its fleet and
14,000 charging stations.
Biden's
EV mandate will force Americans to drive more expensive, less capable cars. If EVs
were actually as good as their advocates say, they wouldn't require lavish subsidies —
let alone Biden's mandate on top of lavish subsidies. Forcing EVs = harming Americans[.]
Today's EVs, despite promises that they would already surpass gasoline vehicles, are not
cost-effective for the vast majority of Americans. That's why despite huge government
subsidies, only 6% of us buy EVs. Mandating EVs violates our rights and hurts the poor most
of all. EVs may become even less cost-effective in the future due to rising electricity
prices and growing shortages that are occurring as reliable power plants are shut down in favor of
unreliable solar and wind, as well as increasing raw material prices (due to artificial,
government-created demand for batteries). Range issues and recharge times are a logistical
nightmare, even if you can afford a home recharge station. This is why EV owners tend to use
EVs in addition to gasoline cars.
Hybrid
Vehicle Battery Explodes During Fire, Knocks Firefighters to Ground. A hybrid vehicle
fire caused a small explosion at a home in Erie Tuesday morning. Mountain View Fire Rescue
officials tweeted that dispatchers received a report of a structure fire on Marlowe Circle in the
Morgan Hill neighborhood of Erie at 8:16 a.m. Tuesday. Firefighters found a hybrid
Jeep 4XE hybrid smoking inside a garage. When crews put water on the vehicle, the battery
caused an explosion, blowing the garage door off its track.
Joe
Biden's EV Edict Isn't Just Harmful, It's Fascistic. According to the contemporary
left, it's "authoritarian" for local elected officials to curate school library collections but
fine for a powerful centralized federal government to issue an edict compelling a major industry to
produce a product and then force hundreds of millions of people to buy it. President Biden is
set to "transform" and "remake" the entire auto industry — "first with carrots, now with
sticks" — notes the Washington Post, as if dictating the output of a major industry is
within the governing purview of the executive branch. The Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) is proposing draconian emissions limits for vehicles, ensuring that 67 percent of all
new passenger cars and trucks produced within nine years will be electric. This is state
coercion. It is undemocratic. We are not governed; we are managed.
Biden
unveils toughest-ever car emissions rules in bid to force electric vehicle purchases.
The Biden administration unveiled the most aggressive tailpipe emissions ever crafted as part of
its sweeping climate agenda and efforts to push Americans to buy electric vehicles (EV). The
vehicle pollution standards, proposed Wednesday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
announced by the White House, will impact car model years 2027 through 2032. The White House
said the regulations would "protect public health" by achieving carbon emission reductions of
nearly 10 billion tons by 2055 and would save consumers an average of $12,000 over the
lifetime of vehicles. "Cars and truck manufacturers have made clear that the future of
transportation is electric," the White House stated in a fact sheet. "The market is moving."
The Editor says...
[#1] If gasoline-engine cars are outlawed, consumers won't buy electric cars because "the market
is moving." They will only buy electric cars because that's their only choice.
It's impossible for me to imagine that the Socialist Democrats could ever win a fair election,
after they add the abolition of gas- and diesel-engine vehicles to their platform. Who would
vote for that? Nobody. But this is the way socialists govern: Ideas like electric
cars are mandated overnight, and the socialists hope we'll get used to the idea by the
next presidential election. [#2] The Socialist Democrats are lying, as usual, about
the benefits of this edict. Carbon dioxide is not carbon. Reducing the amount of
"carbon [dioxide] emissions" is not an achievement. Yes, carbon dioxide goes into the
atmosphere, but it is not a pollutant, and it doesn't stay in the atmosphere forever: It's
plant food for all those rain forests the environmentalists like so much. Crippling our
economy and our freedom in order to reduce CO2 emissions is pointless, as long as China is emitting
more CO2 than all other countries combined.
Say
Hello To The EPA Motor Company, Say Goodbye To Freedom. History may someday record
today as the beginning of the end of the internal combustion engine — and of individual
liberty in the U.S. According to news reports, the EPA is scheduled to release proposed auto
emissions standards today on new car sales so stringent that the only way for automakers to meet
them would be to shift two-thirds of their fleet to electric. But wait. How can a
regulatory agency do that? Consumers aren't demanding electric cars. Lawmakers didn't
vote to force them on the public. The Environmental Protection Agency knows better, though,
and, unless it's neutered, plans to force EVs on you — for your own good.
Europe
Abandons All-Electric Car Mandate. The EU's reversal allows "the sales of new cars
with combustion engines that run on synthetic fuels," which sounds very environmentally
friendly. But synthetic fuels are similar to gasoline or diesel, so the decision allows
internal combustion cars to continue being produced. While electric cars will still be
produced and incentivized, there is no longer a 100% mandate by 2035.
Biden
Bans 53% of Americans From Buying Cars. The New York Times reported that the
Biden administration will abuse EPA regulations to eliminate most real car sales by 2030. The plan
is to force 67% of car sales to be electric by 2032. Most Americans won't be able to afford them,
but they'll have no other options. Even the cheapest electric cars, which are still far more
expensive than their real car counterparts and are just one battery problem away from turning into
mostly unusable junk, are out of the price range of the majority of Americans who need an income of
$80,000 to make an EV auto loan work. That's fine in Washington D.C. where the median income
of $83,567 is the highest in the nation, but will entirely price much of the country out of the new
car market. 53% of Americans earn less than $75,000. Some of the 16% who earn from
$50,000 to $75,000 may be able to make an electric vehicle purchase work if they squeeze, cut back
on food and clothes for the kids, but the remaining 37% will be completely locked out.
Biden
considering cracking down on gas cars after stripping EVs of tax credits. The Biden
administration is weighing an aggressive proposal to implement the tightest-ever federal
regulations governing tailpipe emissions in an effort to boost electric vehicles. The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to announce the new standards, which will impact
cars manufactured between 2027-2032, next week during a ceremony in Detroit, Bloomberg reported on
Thursday, citing officials briefed on the proposal. In a statement, the EPA confirmed the
standards are designed to incentivize consumers to purchase electric vehicles (EV).
The Editor says...
When they say, "incentivize," they mean "force."
Tesla
Models Among EVs With Worst Predicted Reliability: Consumer Reports. Consumer
Reports recently published its updated reliability report pertaining to the most unreliable
electric vehicles on the market today. As has been the case in the past, the Tesla Model S
and Tesla Model X are both on the top 10 list. The Hyundai Kona Electric actually got the nod
as the least reliable, according to the publication. Just behind the Hyundai electric
crossover is the very similar Chevrolet Bolt EUV, followed by the Bolt EV hatchback.
IRS
Says Major Changes Are Coming to Electric Vehicle Tax Credits Next Month. The
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced Friday that it would propose rules that would make it more
difficult for a number of new electric vehicles (EVs) to qualify for tax breaks, according to a
news release. Starting April 18, the IRS will enforce a domestic sourcing requirement for
minerals and components used in EV batteries, the agency said. Analysts say that a number of
new EVs won't qualify for a clean vehicle tax credit of $7,500 that was implemented under the
Inflation Reduction Act that was passed last year. The act "allows a maximum credit of $7,500
per vehicle, consisting of $3,750 in the case of a vehicle that meets certain requirements relating
to critical minerals and $3,750 in the case of a vehicle that meets certain requirements relating
to battery components," the IRS said. "The critical mineral and battery component requirements
will apply to vehicles placed in service on or after April 18, 2023, the day after the Notice
of Proposed Rulemaking is issued in the Federal Register."
Net
zero is a Trojan horse for the total destruction of Western society. I love my
electric car, dear reader, I really do. [...] But I'm lucky. I can easily charge it and I
never drive long distances with it. The Government's plan to impose a UK-wide ban on the sale
of new, pure petrol cars in just six years and nine months' time is insanely detached from
reality. The country and the technology are nowhere near ready for a full roll-out.
Sticking with this preposterous timetable will impoverish and inconvenience millions and trigger a
seismic, anti-green popular revolt. The EU has already backtracked: after lobbying from
Germany, Brussels will allow some internal combustion engines powered by e-fuels. We must go
further and scrap the deadlines altogether. The future of driving is zero emissions, but we
should trust capitalism to deliver it when the time is right.
Lucid
Motors to lay off 1,300 employees in latest cost-cutting move. Electric vehicle
startup Lucid Motors is battling more problems as the automaker plans to lay off part of its
workforce this week. The California-based automaker is reportedly said to be "laser-focused
on cost" and an internal memo obtained by the news blog Insider says that about 18% of staff will
get a pink slip. Federal SEC filings confirmed the number of layoffs and that an email was
sent to employees by Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson notifying them of the cost-cutting move.
Those
EV charging stations are not performing. More states around America are moving toward
mandating the use of electric vehicles in an effort to "end fossil fuels." But all of those
vehicles have to be recharged on a regular basis. People with the ability to do so have
primarily been charging their vehicles at home with slower Level 1 or Level 2 home chargers using a
household outlet. But people living in some apartments don't have that option and people who
regularly take longer trips have to rely on the availability of commercial Level 3 fast
chargers. The Boston Globe recently conducted an investigation to find out just how many such
charging stations are available and how well they work. The results were nowhere near as
great as the government would have you believe.
Inside
the world of electric-vehicle charger pricing. To capture the current state of EV
charging, the [Boston] Globe did an informal survey of the pricing and performance of DC (Level 3)
fast chargers around Greater Boston over the past three months. While most current EV owners
charge at home overnight using slower Level 1 and 2 chargers, DC fast chargers are critical for
longer trips and for people who can't charge at home. Based on the experiences of a reporter
charging four different vehicles across five charging networks, a few themes emerged.
Reliability is a major issue, with chargers going offline for weeks or months at a time. Some
stations charge by the minute rather than by the amount of electricity consumed, leading to
unpredictable pricing. Others have multiple subscription plans or charge different rates at
different times of day. Overall, there have been some significant price increases over the
past few months.
EV
batteries lack repairability leading some insurers to junk whole cars after even minor
collisions. A scratched or slightly damaged electric battery might be enough for some
insurers to write off entire cars, as for many electric vehicles there is no way to repair battery
packs after collisions. As a result, the consumer — who likely acquired an
electric vehicle wanting to reduce monthly costs — faces higher premiums and some
countries are starting to see electric vehicle batteries piling up in scrapyards, according to
Reuters. Matthew Avery, research director at automotive risk intelligence company Thatcham
Research, said the goal of electric vehicles was sustainability, but the inability to be repaired
is creating a whole new problem. "We're buying electric cars for sustainability reasons," Avery
said, Reuters reported. "But an EV isn't very sustainable if you've got to throw the battery
away after a minor collision."
EVs
are the Yugo of the 21st Century. Way back in the mid-1980s, communist Yugoslavia
exported the Yugo, a compact car that sold for around $4,000. It was so poorly made that bumping
into a pole at 5 mph could total it. Fast forward to today, and a new class of cars has a
similar problem. A minor accident can cause a total loss, even if the car's been driven only
a few miles. The only difference is that these cars aren't cheap imports from some
godforsaken socialist state. These are state-of-art electric vehicles that come with an
average sticker price of $55,000. Why are insurance companies totaling low-mileage EVs that
have been in a fender bender? For the same reason you could total a new Yugo when backing out
of a parking spot. The cost of repair is exorbitant.
Germany
Rebels Against EU Ban On Petrol Cars. Germans want to save the climate. They're
just reluctant to take the potentially painful steps this would require. A growing backlash
over climate-friendly policies is now hitting the German Greens, putting wobbles into the country's
three-party ruling coalition. Not only has Germany been causing a ruckus at the EU level in
recent weeks by mounting a last-minute blockade to a proposed ban on combustion engines, but the
country is also facing a domestic political fight over phasing out gas and oil heating systems, as
well as pushing forward the coal exit. [A]ll those disputes are linked to fundamental
disagreements between the Greens and their two coalition partners, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social
Democratic Party (SPD) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), over how the EU's climate-protection
targets should be implemented and what consequences and costs this will have for industry and citizens.
Holding the
right people responsible for the global energy crisis. America's grid is in decline
and about to get far worse due to policies that 1) reward unreliable electricity, 2) prematurely
shut down coal plants, 3) criminalize nuclear, and 4) force electric vehicle use. The root
cause of our grid's reliability problems is simple: America is shutting down too many reliable
power plants — plants that can be controlled to produce electricity when needed in the
exact quantity needed. And it is attempting to replace them with unreliable solar and wind.
[...] At a time when reliable electricity is scarce and about to become far scarcer, the Federal
government and certain state governments are trying to force us to use electric vehicles —
which would lead to major increases in electricity use at certain times of day.
Rivian
Electric Truck Owner's 'Honeymoon Phase' Ends When It Gets Stuck in Snow. The owner
of a Rivian R1S electric SUV was overjoyed to have his dream electric vehicle after waiting for
years. But after owning the car for just days, it got stuck in the snow and immobilized by a
safety feature, leading to a $2,100 bill to transport it to a repair facility. Business
Insider reports that a recent incident involving an owner of a Rivian R1S has forced the maker of
the electric vehicles to examine its customer service more carefully and think about making changes
to improve the user experience. The owner of an R1S truck, Chase Merrill, encountered a difficult
situation when his electric SUV got stuck in deep snow and a safety feature rendered it immobile.
Man
Waits 3 Years for Dream EV - Days After Getting It, He's Hit with Brutal News.
[Chase] Merrill had driven the R1S to his family's place in the Adirondacks and decided to drive it
on an unplowed, snow-covered road to the property. When he hit a snow drift, the R1S proved
it was hardly up to the task. "I hit about 2½-feet of snow and it just stopped right
there," Merrill told Insider. [...] Anyone who's been in this situation before knows what you do,
even if you're just in a Volkswagen Golf. As you're being pulled out, you sit in the driver's
seat, rocking the car back and forth, trying to get some traction. Merrill wasn't buckled in
at the time, nor did he need to be: He wasn't exactly at risk for a high-speed collision stuck in a
snow bank, after all. However, this combination of factors triggered one of the R1S' "safety
features" — which bricked it, getting the SUV stuck between the neutral and drive gears,
Insider reported.
Electric
Vehicles Bleeding Red Ink: Ford Is Losing Billions on EVs. Ford Motor Company says
its electric vehicle (EV) unit, "Ford Model e," is losing billions of dollars, and should be viewed
as a startup company. Model e has lost $3 billion before taxes over the last two years, and
is expected to lose another $3 billion this year as the company invests in the new technology,
according to a report by Associated Press. In 2021, Ford's Model e unit had pretax losses of
$900 million. And in 2022, that number was $2.1 billion.
Ford
expects $3 billion in losses from electric vehicle business unit this year. Ford
Motor Company said Thursday it expects to lose $3 billion from its electric vehicle business
unit this year. However, the U.S. automaker said it nevertheless expects to have an 8% return
on electric vehicles by 2026. Ford said it was overall able to make slightly more in 2022
than the year before, with before-tax profits of $10.4 billion versus 10 billion.
Most of the profit came from the United States, where it earned $9.2 billion compared to
$7.4 billion in 2021. The company also earned roughly $400 million in South America,
broke even in Europe and lost $600 million in China last year.
Man
says Tesla burst into flames from the inside 10 minutes after picking it up from body shop.
In what could turn out to be an unusual case of caveat emptor, Ali Hasan of Texas found the interior of his
Tesla Model 3 electric car in smoking ruins a mere 10 minutes after picking it up from a body shop
to repair some exterior damage. A couple of incidents necessitated repairs to the automobile, which
lost its rear bumper, wheel covers and sustained underbody damage in deep water in August 2022. In the
previous year, the car had been involved in an accident, resulting in some damage to the front end of the
vehicle. Strike three for the Tesla seems to have been what happened after it left the body shop.
"To my eye, everything looked just fine," Hasan told Carscoops, an online magazine for auto enthusiasts.
He continued, "While I was driving down the highway, I noticed smoke coming from the right passenger seat, and
it kept getting worse as I drove it half a mile to get it off the highway." The cause of the fire has yet
to be determined and Hasan isn't ready to blame the body shop, although he understands the inclination to do so.
1500
Scientists Say 'There Is No Climate Emergency'. [Scroll down] The reality
is that the climate changes naturally and slowly in its own cycle, and solar activity is the
dominant factor in climate and not CO2. We can conclude that carbon emissions or methane from
livestock, such as cows, are not the dominant factors in climate change. In essence,
therefore, the incessant UN, government, and corporate-media-produced climate hysteria in relation
to carbon emissions and methane from cows has no scientific basis. Please note that I have no
commercial interest in stating that climate change is not caused by CO2. In truth I am against
'real' pollution, and the reality is that the CO2 component is not a pollutant.
Unfortunately, many misinformed environmentalists are driving around in electric cars, the battery
production for which has caused vast amounts of 'real' pollution via the industrial mining and
processing of rare earth metals, and the consequent pollution to land, air and water systems.
Note that the UN does not focus on the thousands of real pollutants that corporate industrial
globalisation creates.
Delaware
Voters Overwhelmingly Oppose Gas-powered Car Ban. Without legislative action,
Delaware state agencies are reviewing banning gasoline-powered cars and trucks, and banning natural
gas and propane hookups to new buildings. Both actions are discussed in "Delaware's Climate
Action Plan." Regulatory action has already started forcing vehicle manufacturers to stock 35% of
electric vehicles (EV) in Delaware in only three years, eventually allowing only EV sales.
Drivers will not be able to register a new gasoline or diesel-powered vehicle in Delaware by 2034.
A survey conducted by Ragnar Research in February 2023 found that 73% of Delaware voters opposed
the gasoline and diesel-powered vehicle ban, with only 18% supporting the ban. Follow-up
questions showed 60% strongly opposed while 9% strongly supported the ban.
Electric
Car Manufacturers Remove AM Radios Claiming Safety Concerns. Some electric vehicle
(EV) manufacturers are scrapping the AM radio from their cars, claiming safety concerns.
Although conservative talk radio dominates AM radio ratings, it is also considered a critical
safety tool, as it is one of the primary ways that federal, state, and local officials communicate
with the public during natural disasters and other emergencies. Automakers such as Ford and
Tesla have ditched the AM radio from their newer EV models, arguing that the motors on EVs
interfere with AM frequencies, creating buzzing and signal fading, according to a report by the
Wall Street Journal. But former emergency officials are warning that scrapping the AM
radio would mean EV drivers could miss important safety alerts.
The Editor says...
I worked in broadcasting for 48 years, so I have some opinions. [#1] This is exactly the kind of
radio interference that the FCC was created to prevent. [#2] If you can't listen to AM radio
in your car because of all the interference, what does that do to the car behind you? I'll have to
keep my car radio tuned to an empty AM frequency, e.g., 530 kHz, to see if I can hear electric cars as they
pass by. [#3] If the AM radio is a safety issue, why isn't the FM radio a hazard, too?
Perhaps the primary "danger" of AM radio is conservative talk shows, and the EV manufacturers have found a way
to censor it. [#4] Hardly anybody listens to AM radio any more; not like they used to.
AM radio was king, until about 1974, when FM radios started appearing in cars. Then FM really took off.
The death of AM radio was delayed for about 20 years by Rush Limbaugh, but now it's on the way out again.
In the event of a storm, anybody who's hungry for government "information" and "protection" will turn on their
TV — which will probably already be on, because they never turn it off — and in the case
of the storm chasers and weather nuts, they'll either listen to ham radio channels or tune to the robotic
announcer of NOAA Weather Radio for an endless series of alert tones and dire warnings. In the
middle of a thunderstorm, you won't hear much on AM radio.
AM radio
in Electric Vehicles. I have been reading with interest the ongoing discussion about
AM radios in Electric Vehicles. Rather than rehash the what, I thought it would be nice to
dig into why it is happening. My first thought is that many of the electronics use PDM or PWM
to control various stages of charging, converting, or discharging the storage system. [A] quick
review of a typical EV basic diagram shows that there are several systems involved[.] Searching
through various chip makers' data sheets on Li-ion battery chargers, DC voltage to voltage converters,
regenerative braking systems, traction motor inverters, and so on shows that all of those systems
use PWM. Some of those PWM frequencies are right in the AM band, while others are not. That
explains why different manufacturers have different takes on AM radios in EVs.
One thought
on "AM radio in Electric Vehicles". I am firmly of the belief that this issue has
nothing to do with interference. Instead, it has everything to do with auto OEM's decision
some 10 or 15 (maybe 20) years ago that the entertainment center of a car's dashboard was valuable
real estate, and that anyone who wanted to be on it had to pay up. Satellite radio was the
beginning of this, where automakers wouldn't put the then-separate companies of Sirius and XM
Radio's receivers into their dashboard unless the company paid them for it. Not long after, a
similar dynamic came to pass with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. From the get-go, automakers
have loathed the "free ride" that AM/FM have gotten into this valuable "real estate".
The Editor says...
Here's a follow-up to comments I made above: I've been listening to the hum and crackle on 530 kHz
and 1710 kHz for a few days now, and I haven't heard any signals in the vicinity of the three electric cars
I've seen in that time. I don't know what your city is like, but around here, electric cars are far less
than one percent of the cars on the street. It is difficult to imagine that the affluent and left-leaning
types who buy electric cars would be inclined to listen to anything on the AM radio band, i.e., country
music, Spanish music, Catholic stations, and 50,000-watt "news and talk" stations that are almost non-stop
commercial breaks.
Delaware
Voters Overwhelmingly Oppose Gas-powered Car Ban. Without legislative action,
Delaware state agencies are reviewing banning gasoline-powered cars and trucks, and banning natural
gas and propane hookups to new buildings. Both actions are discussed in "Delaware's Climate
Action Plan." Regulatory action has already started forcing vehicle manufacturers to stock 35% of
electric vehicles (EV) in Delaware in only three years, eventually allowing only EV sales.
Drivers will not be able to register a new gasoline or diesel-powered vehicle in Delaware by 2034.
A survey conducted by Ragnar Research in February 2023 found that 73% of Delaware voters
opposed the gasoline and diesel-powered vehicle ban, with only 18% supporting the ban.
Follow-up questions showed 60% strongly opposed while 9% strongly supported the ban.
After
a Botched EV Push, General Motors Is in Deep Trouble. General Motors vowed to surpass
Tesla as the number one EV maker in the U.S., and its plans look rock solid on paper. In
reality, the carmaker is struggling to produce the GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq, its
Ultium-based EVs, in significant numbers. To make matters worse, GM has announced a voluntary
separation program to trim its workforce. I once believed that GM had everything needed for a
successful EV program. The Detroit carmaker invested billions in overhauling its factories
and building new ones. Its EV plans looked rock solid, with more than a dozen EV models
planned, some in the mass-market segments. GM even started partnerships with battery makers
and raw material suppliers to ensure it has everything in place for a successful execution of its
EV plan.
Bertarelli-backed
Volta Trucks seeks $264 million in pre-IPO round, says CEO. Volta Trucks, the
electric-truck maker backed by billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli, is in advanced discussions to raise
as much as 250 million euros ($263.58 million), its CEO told Reuters. The Swedish start-up,
whose clients include DB Schenker and Petit Forestier, is working with advisers at Perella Weinberg
Partners to secure the funds, in what it hopes will be its last equity raise before an initial
public offering (IPO) as soon as next year, Chief Executive Essa Al-Saleh said. Talks involve
corporate investors and large asset managers, Al-Saleh said, adding that existing shareholders may
also take part in the funding round.
Electric
Vehicle Startups Running Out Of Juice As Demand Lags, Production Stalls. Electric
vehicle startups are increasingly strapped for cash and have little margin for error to ramp up
production this year before their reserves are depleted, The Wall Street Journal reported
Monday. Startups across the sector are facing significant shortfalls as they begin to ramp up
production, the WSJ reported. Although electric vehicle sales surged in 2022, startups
generally underperformed compared to traditional automakers last year. Californian startup
Rivian Automotive — which saw significant executive turnover in 2022 — was
valued at roughly $12 billion when it went public in 2021, but spent about $6.6 billion
in 2022, the WSJ reported. Despite plans to spend a further $6 billion in 2023, the
company is forecasted to miss Wall Street's production estimates and its stock has plummeted 80%
from its price at its initial public offering.
This is not entirely off-topic:
Massive
5-Alarm Fire Sparked by E-Bike Destroys Bronx Supermarket. A massive 5-Alarm Fire
raged through a supermarket in the Bronx this Sunday afternoon, leaving multiple people
injured. An e-bike with a lithium-ion battery was what caused the fire at Concourse Food
Plaza in Fordham Heights, destroying it. Fire started at approximately 10:40 a.m., according
to the FDNY the e-bike was in the back of the supermarket, it was discovered burned and charred.
Here's the
dirty, rotten truth about EVs. EVs aren't "zero emissions" vehicles. All an EV
does is shift the emissions elsewhere — namely, over to gigantic monopoly power
companies that burn natural gas, coal, garbage or, horror of horrors, employ nuclear fission.
Plus, making electric cars releases far more CO2 than is emitted in the production of conventional
cars. EV enthusiasts say these aren't problems because over its lifetime, an EV will produce
fewer total CO2 emissions. But that claim depends on a wide range of variables —
such as the range of an EV, how long the batteries last, the energy source used to produce
electricity, etc. — that can dramatically affect the EV's carbon-cutting picture.
One study by the University of Michigan found that EVs can emit more CO2 than conventional
cars. It said that depending on the fuel used by power plants in a given area, an EV can
produce as much CO2 as a gas-powered car that gets just 29 miles per gallon. EVs aren't
cheaper to operate. Another selling point of EVs is supposed to be that, while they are far
more expensive to buy, they are cheaper to drive. But that depends entirely on the relative
cost of electricity and gasoline.
The
Electric Vehicle-Blackout Connection. [Scroll down] What we have arriving,
too soon no matter when, is a convergence of an expansion of EVs with what amounts to a powering
down of electricity production due to that "mismatch" of resource retirements. EVs are of
course must-haves in California, and we don't mean that in a consumer-demand sort of way. The
peacock governor, with the support of the unelected members of the state Air Resources Board, has
dictated that all new cars and light trucks sold in California starting in 2035 must be
zero-emissions vehicles, or ZEVs, (which don't exist). That's about 12.5 million
battery-operated automobiles sucking power from the grid, 15 times more than there are
today. A year later, all sales of new medium- and heavy-duty trucks will have to be ZEVs,
too, which narrows the options down to plug-in EVs and essentially nothing else. While
California roads are filling up with EVs, the state is transitioning to a fully emissions-free grid
by 2045. And, no, that won't include nuclear power, unless the politics of California change
quickly. Consumers will have to get along with electricity that is powered by the sun and
wind ... and not much else.
US
Postal Service to purchase EVs from Ford after automaker signs deal with Chinese battery
firm. The United States Postal Service announced Tuesday that to fulfill its "urgent
need" for delivery vans, it plans to purchase thousands of electric vehicles from Ford, weeks after
the automobile manufacturer agreed to a multibillion-dollar partnership with a Chinese battery
maker. In December 2022, the USPS and senior White House officials introduced a plan to
acquire at least 66,000 electric delivery vehicles by 2028 to replace the mail company's "aging
delivery fleet of over 220,000 vehicles." After a "competitive search," the USPS locked down a
contract this week to purchase 9,250 Ford E-Transit Battery Electric Vehicles, which it anticipates
will be delivered in December 2023. According to the recent announcement, the vans are
"domestically sourced" and manufactured in Kansas City, Missouri. Approximately $3 billion
in Inflation Reduction Act funds will be used to cover the $9.6 billion vehicle investment.
Electric
vehicle drivers get candid about charging: 'Logistical nightmare'. YouTube
personality Steve Hammes leased a Hyundai Kona Electric sport utility vehicle for his 17-year-old
daughter Maddie for three reasons: it was affordable, practical and allowed Maddie to put her
cash toward college, not fuel. Now, the upstate New York resident has a dilemma many EV
owners can relate to: finding available charging stations far away from home. "We're going
through the planning process of how easily Maddie can get from Albany to Gettysburg [College] and
where she can charge the car," Hammes told ABC News. "It makes me a little nervous. We
want fast chargers that take 30 to 40 minutes — it would not make sense to sit
at a Level 2 charger for hours. There isn't a good software tool that helps EV owners
plan their trips."
The
False Promise of Electric Cars. In January last year, Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Stellantis, the
world's fifth-largest carmaker (it was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot), described
electrification as "a technology chosen by politicians" and said it was "imposed" on the
auto sector. By contrast, the triumph of the internal-combustion engine (ICE) over a century
ago was organic. [...] Bans on the sales of new ICE vehicles will be coming into force from 2035 in
Europe and, with California having taken the lead, in parts of the United States. Europe's
ban will also cover hybrids, one of the better, less disruptive pathways to lower greenhouse-gas
(GHG) emissions. But like many of the religious cults it resembles, climate fundamentalism is
characterized by a perpetual quest for purity. Tainted by gasoline, the hybrid had to
go. Japan is taking a different course. Its hybrids have done well, and their
manufacturers argue that their technology has more to offer. Like, for instance, the chairman
of India's largest automaker, the Japanese tend to be skeptical that there is only one route to a
more climate-friendly automotive future. Toyota, for example, sells a hydrogen-fuel-cell car.
Where's the electricity?
Today, the huge dark cloud over EV projected sales is the availability of electricity to charge
batteries which leads us to the quote for the foreseeable future. Where's the
electricity? The Elephant in the EV sales room that no one wants to talk about is the limited
amount of electricity available to charge the EV batteries. [...] Today, even with less than one
percent of the vehicles on the roads being EVs, there is a limited amount of electricity:
• During a Texas heat wave in July 2022, Tesla asked its customers to avoid
charging their cars at peak times.
• During a California heat wave in September 2022, Governor Newsom, the same
guy that wants to ban the sale of gasoline cars after 2035, asked owners not to charge their EV batteries.
• Sweden's new government has abolished state subsidies for electric cars and plug-in hybrids.
• The UK is ahead of most of the world, protecting its electrical grid with Smart Chargers and
setting up Separate Meters for the EV charging users to pay for a new grid!
Using
Electric Vehicles as Grid Storage: Another Green Fantasy. The push for
electrification of the entire economy — electric cars and trucks, electric heat and hot
water, and even electric stoves — is relentless. [...] Greens envision most of that
electricity will come from wind and solar power, along with hydrogen-burning generators that don't
yet exist and battery storage to meet the demand for power when the wind doesn't blow and the sun
doesn't shine. Recognizing that building enough battery storage facilities will be
prohibitively expensive, a new push has developed: using electric vehicles as a source of
back-up power storage to meet electricity demand. It's called "vehicle-to-grid" (V2G)
technology and means using the millions of electric vehicles that consumers and businesses will be
forced to buy to supply electricity to the grid when wind and solar do not. Proponents claim
it will make the electric grid stronger and more reliable, and provide a quick path to the
"net-zero" future that supposedly will save the planet. But like other green energy
fantasies, the math doesn't add up.
What's
behind the push for electric vehicles? Several studies have shown that when factoring
in the production process and electricity generation needed to charge the batteries, EV conversion
can be more damaging to the environment that gas vehicles. [For example,] Rare Earth Mineral
Mining Problems — The mining of rare earth minerals such as lithium and cobalt for EV
batteries causes a great deal of environmental damage. Much of this is done in foreign
counties that don't have good environmental oversight. Furthermore, to meet the international
goal of two billion EVs by 2050 would require triple the amount of annual lithium currently mined
for all purposes. Disposal of spent batteries can have toxic environmental effects and
mitigation of this issue hasn't been thought through or planned. Given that some U.S.
states are mandating that new gas vehicles be completely phased out, how is the supply of lithium
and other minerals going to keep up? California has already passed a mandate that new gas
vehicles cannot be sold after 2035 with states such as Washington, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon,
and Vermont expected to do the same. Finally, the mining of lithium and other needed elements
for EV batteries is creating a humanitarian crisis, with documented evidence of significant child
slave labor involved with this mining.
Electric
Vehicles Are Not the Future. The mania for electric vehicles is a fad that is driven
100% by government regulation. The consumer verdict on EVs has been in for a century.
Some of the earliest cars were battery-powered, but they lost out to gasoline-powered cars because
gasoline-powered vehicles are better. Those who have been paying attention understand that
there is zero chance that our existing motor vehicle fleet will be converted to EVs. Mark
Tapscott sums up some of the reasons. I want to focus on just one of his points, the fact
that the lithium batteries needed to replace our current vehicle fleet would require ridiculous
amounts of mining of minerals, particularly lithium, the price of which is already sky-high.
How do liberals intend to accomplish this unprecedented global mining project? Answer: they don't.
Are
Electric Vehicles About To Sweep The Country? It seems like all the smart people have
made up their minds that the future of automobiles belongs to electric vehicles. In August
2022, California, by regulation, adopted a ban on gasoline-powered cars by 2035; and in September
2022, New York promptly followed with its own ban, also by regulation, and also set for 2035.
And at the federal level, in 2021 the Biden Administration ordered that all agencies move toward
100% procurement of electric vehicles, also by 2035. Meanwhile, by means of a thicket of
regulations — from vehicle mileage standards to pollution caps and more — the
administration overtly seeks to force manufacturers to convert their lineups to EVs as fast as
possible. So, are electric vehicles about to sweep the country and become the dominant form
of transportation? I bet against it. This is just a specific instance of the general
principle that it is always wise to bet against central planning of the economy. EVs may be a
successful niche product for a small number of wealthy consumers, but the idea that they will fully
replace gasoline powered cars in short order is the dream of central planners, who think they can
implement their dream by coercion.
Three
Huge Reasons Why Electric Vehicles Will Never Dominate American Roads. The campaign by the Western elite
in the U.S. and Europe to force everybody else to stop driving cars and trucks powered by fossil-fueled internal
combustion engines and adopt EVs instead is a product of the elite's policy choices, not ours. No matter that
hundreds of millions of Americans own and depend upon their cars and trucks to earn their livings, go where they can
purchase the basic necessities of life, and visit any place they choose to go to in this vast land. President
Biden has made a regulatory policy decision that half of all vehicles sold in America will be EVs by 2030. He is
spending billions of tax dollars to install half a million EV charging stations around the country to serve the
anticipated explosion in demand for electric "refills." And federal tax credits are available to help obscure the
fact that EVs remain extremely costly for consumers and offer unproven maintenance and reliability records.
New Age Idols.
Call it whatever you like, but the United States today is in the grip of several manifestations of a kind of idol
worship. [...] Another manifestation of the failure to heed facts and common sense is the slavish devotion to electric
vehicles (EVs) as a remedy to climate change, which we have previously discussed. The data show clearly that EVs'
net lifecycle benefits with respect to emissions are very small, but the infrastructure costs — electric grid
updates, urban and highway charging capability, generating capacity — are measured in the multi-trillions of
dollars, even if purchase subsidies are ignored. Add to those the mineral supply constraints for batteries, the
everyday challenges — you can't walk to the fuel stop and get a can of electrons — and the
industry and employment disruptions, and what results is the biggest boondoggle-in-progress in human history.
The
Greens Aren't Just Coming for Your Gas-Powered Car — They're Coming for All Cars. Late last
month, Joe Biden was mocked for posting a photo of himself in an electric vehicle (a GMC Hummer) that costs $110,000 and
up. And for touting a $7,500 federal tax credit that doesn't apply to vehicles that cost over $80,000. In other
words, the 46th president was ripped for confirming the stereotype that electric cars are a vanity passion for rich
green liberals. But what was less noticed, at least by the right, was that left-wing greens didn't like Biden's
photo-op, either. You see, Middle Class Joe insists that he wants to replace internal-combustion vehicles with
electric vehicles (EV), but the hardcore greens — including those within his own administration —
want to get rid of cars, period.
Couple Attempts Road Trip in
Electric Car, Ends Up Needing to Recharge Twelve Times. A 1500-mile road trip took four days and caused
'range anxiety' — which I guess is a thing now — for a couple who attempted to do a basic car
thing with an electric vehicle. I think this joint from Axios was supposed to be pro-EV, as it's meant to
illustrate how road trips with an electric vehicle are perfectly, quote, "doable." Contrary to a number of reports that
EV struggle to perform basic car and truck functions as opposed to their more reliable gas-powered counterparts.
Three things stood out that, in an attempt to sell people on taking a road trip in your EV, make it sound like a
miserable experience. The first is having to drive in the freezing cold because having your heat on might drain
your battery faster: "A Kia engineer told us that the cold would put extra stress on the battery, draining it faster
than normal. So I used only the heated steering wheel and heated seats while driving — no cabin heat."
The Editor says...
Before you bought the car, did you ever wonder where the "cabin heat" comes from in an electric car?
Will
our sudden appetite for electric-powered everything cause a trash crisis? I have designed many innovative
and successful products over my long engineering career, so when I started my own manufacturing company 25 years ago, it
was with the premise that all products carry a lifetime warranty, no questions asked. This forced me to think
about longevity in design. [...] Now let's apply this observation to electric vehicles. The price tag to replace
batteries on most real-world experience is five digits. This is typically far more than the value of the vehicle
at 100,000 miles, so it is usually no longer economically feasible to replace. [Another website] works hard to claim
it's no big deal, that batteries will cost less in future years, and that aftermarket competition will drive price
down, but it also admits they're only good for eight years or 100,000 miles. Carfax as well as other sites claim
the average vehicle depreciation rate is about 20% in the first year, and 15% per year after that, so let's do the math;
A Chevy Bolt costs that costs around $28,000 new will be worth about $7,200 in 8 years, $5,200 in 10 years.
The cost to replace the battery? $16,000. People should be lining up for that deal, right?
Therefore, the useful life of an EV? Pushing it... maybe 10 years. Then it's scrap.
Illinois
bills seek to require EV charging stations in new and renovated homes. Two proposed legislation in
Illinois seek to require new and renovated homes to have electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, a change that could
make new houses more costly. House Bill 2206 states that the Capital Development Board shall adopt rules requiring
each newly constructed residential building in the state that includes a garage "to have enough electric generating
capacity in the garage to charge an electric vehicle." Senate Bill 0040, on the other hand, requires new
single-family residences or small multifamily residences to have at least one electric vehicle capable parking space for
each residential unit that has dedicated parking, unless any subsequently adopted building code requires additional
electric vehicle capable parking spaces or installed electric vehicle supply equipment.
By
Forcing Americans Into Electric Vehicles, Leftists Ensure Road Trips' Demise. As leftists push Americans
to make the cumbersome and extremely expensive switch to electric vehicles, they forget that Americans already can go
wherever they want, whenever they want, thanks to gas-powered cars. Why would they give that up and pay more in
the process? An Axios article titled "Electric car road trips are perfectly doable — if you plan ahead"
is a prime example of leftist tone-deafness. To get more Americans to go electric, an Axios journalist went on a
road trip to show readers how, erm, easy it is to embark on the great American road trip with an EV. Yet, the
globetrotter admits, the trip was "not without its challenges." This includes dealing with "glitchy charging
equipment touchscreens, billing questions and inoperable plugs" as well as "juggling route-planning apps and billing
accounts with various charging companies." Not to mention having to wait roughly an hour each time your EV has to
charge, depending on the quality of the charger. For seasoned road-trippers, for whom time is of the essence, this
is an immediate turnoff.
For some electric
vehicle owners, recharging now more costly than filling up. Here's how much electricity prices have surged
in parts of New England this winter: For some drivers of electric vehicles and hybrid cars, it's now more expensive to
charge up than to fill up. Power rates across the region have jumped an average of 30% since last summer, while
gasoline prices have receded well below their peak in June of 2022. Web engineer Matt Cain, who lives in Amherst,
Massachusetts, said he ran a price comparison when his electricity bill shot up in January and found that his overall
costs for utilities had climbed a whopping 50%. "We have a Prius Prime that we normally drive around town, and we
drive most of it on electricity. It's now 50% more expensive than fueling it with gas," he told CBS MoneyWatch.
Here's
What Will Fund Electric Vehicle Charging Stations You Won't Use. Charging at home is a favored feature of
electric vehicles (EVs). But public charging stations are needed for long trips and to maximize market penetration of
EVs. However, it's unlikely that charging fees can cover the capital and operating costs of public chargers or
make money for investors. According to Kelly Blue Book, Americans purchased more than 800,000 new electric cars
last year, or about 5.8 percent of all new cars sold. EV sales grew by 65 percent over 2022. The
Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 extended and expanded tax credits for EV purchases and for residential and commercial
charging stations. Some predict that electric vehicles will become more than half of the vehicles on the road by
2050. Last week, Travel Centers of America, or TA, announced that it would open 1,000 EV charging stations in 200
locations over the next five years. TA's announcement follows similar announcements from convenience store chains
Pilot and Love's. These new chargers will add to the more than 160,000 currently in operation in the US.
Outlawing Diesel
Trucks Makes No 'Green' Sense. A serious question that should precede such a major decision is, does it
make sense to deploy electrically powered trucks on a large scale over diesels, especially for long-haul use?
Assuming the consequent increase in electric power demands are met and recharging infrastructure is built —
hardly a small feat — there are still a number of other factors to consider, such as recharge time, range (on
a full charge), economics (including battery replacement and cargo displacement due to battery size and weight), energy
efficiency, and environmental impact. Proponents of electric vehicles concede that impact is sensitive to the way
in which electricity is generated. Big diesel trucks can carry 300-gallon fuel tanks and have an average range of
over 2,100 miles. Refilling a diesel tank takes relatively little time compared to battery charging, which is
prohibitively slow with standard electric charging. A fundamental problem with battery charging is the state of
charge approaches full charge inverse exponentially. That means the battery achieves a partial charge quickly, but
charging decreases proportionally to the state of charge, and a full charge can take many hours. As a result,
high-power fast direct current charging (DCFC) has been developed to mitigate the delay, but it is expensive and still
not widely available.
5
Reasons Biden's Electric Vehicles Are A Boondoggle. The process to manufacture electric vehicles is so
environmentally toxic between the mining and assembly that it takes years of driving before emissions are reduced,
according to a deep dive by RealClear Investigations in October. "The electric car's biggest disadvantage on
greenhouse gas emissions is the production of an EV battery, which requires energy-intensive mining and processing, and
generates twice as much carbon emissions as the manufacture of an internal combustion engine," RealClear reported.
"This means that the EV starts off with a bigger carbon footprint than a gasoline-powered car when it rolls off the
assembly line and takes time to catch up to a gasoline-powered car." Even then, the American power grid used to
charge the car still relies primarily on fossil fuels. In other words, the car runs on coal. [...] When California
was faced with a record-breaking heat wave last summer, state regulators begged residents not to charge their cars to
avoid breaking the power grid. The request came days after policymakers moved to ban gas-powered cars over the
following 13 years. If residents can still charge their vehicles produced by China, they had better
hope their batteries last. Replacing an electric car battery can cost between $4,000 and $20,000. The weight of
the batteries, meanwhile, wears out the tires 20 percent faster than gas-powered alternatives.
Study
shows electric vehicles are a scam propped up by government. With the exception of the COVID shots, there
is perhaps nothing in the economy that has gotten more tailwind in terms of government support than electric
vehicles. Whether it's the subsidies, the mandates, the inflation of the cost of gasoline, or the construction of
cumbersome electric charging infrastructure, the government has done everything it can to turn a product that is
inherently costly and impractical into something accessible to the public. Yet despite it all, a new study shows
fueling these cars is more expensive than most gas-powered cars, even with record high gasoline prices, which were
induced by policies from the same green energy. Now is the time to end all subsidies and mandates on behalf of
this pathetic industry.
How
'modern-day slavery' in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy. Smartphones, computers and
electric vehicles may be emblems of the modern world, but, says Siddharth Kara, their rechargeable batteries are
frequently powered by cobalt mined by workers laboring in slave-like conditions in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. Kara, a fellow at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at the Kennedy School, has been
researching modern-day slavery, human trafficking and child labor for two decades. He says that although the DRC
has more cobalt reserves than the rest of the planet combined, there's no such thing as a "clean" supply chain of cobalt
from the country. In his new book, Cobalt Red, Kara writes that much of the DRC's cobalt is being extracted
by so-called "artisanal" miners — freelance workers who do extremely dangerous labor for the equivalent of
just a few dollars a day.
Good
luck qualifying for that tax break Joe Biden is touting on that EV he wants you to buy. Just yesterday,
Joe Biden's official Twitter account posted that the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified and that
citizens can receive a tax credit of up to $7,500 for a new electric vehicle (EV). Along with the message was a
photo of Biden driving a GMC Hummer EV. [...] We dig deeper. Does Biden's Hummer EV qualify for the scheme?
The $7,500 credit scheme is applicable to new vans, sport utility vehicles, and pickup trucks that cost $80,000 or
less. The GMC Hummer EV costs between $87,000 and $110,000, hence doesn't qualify for the credits. [...] The
average cost of an EV is roughly $66,000, which means few vehicles qualify for the scheme. Some vehicles listed on
the IRS website as potentially eligible for credit actually fail to qualify because they are expensive. Another
problem is that there isn't an explicit definition regarding which vehicle is subject to that $55,000 cap and which
vehicle is subject to a $80,000 cap. The IRS states the categories are based on the criteria for fuel economy for
gas-powered vehicles standards, but these classifications seem arbitrary and confusing. There were other problems
with the information on the IRS website. The plug-in hybrid Ford Escape was listed as having an $80,000 price cap
for more than a week before the cap was changed to $55,000. The Treasury Department claims the original price cap was
a typo. You would have hoped the content on the website was reviewed before publishing.
E-bikes
spark garage fire, cause $250,000 damage in Vail. Firefighters in Vail rushed to put out a garage fire on
Juniper Lane early Saturday morning after the homeowner called to report an odor of burning electrical equipment.
When crews arrived, smoke was coming from the garage door. Once inside, they discovered the fire coming from the
corner where two e-bikes were located. The fire was under control in 10 minutes. Damage is estimated at
$250,000 which includes damage to the garage, the vehicles parked inside and the e-bikes.
California's
plan to power EVs has one glaring shortcoming. You may have already heard about California Governor Gavin
Newsom's announcement last year that his state will ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. Restrictions on
how many non-electric vehicles can be sold will begin in just three years. This is making all of the climate
alarmists very happy, of course, but there is a significantly large fly in the ointment of this plan. In order to
charge up roughly 12.5 million EVs on a daily basis, the state will need to have a lot of electricity available on
the power grid. But nobody seems to have run through all of the numbers with the Governor. Some people who
actually did the math work with the Institute for Energy Research, and they have some bad news for Governor
Newsom. The state's plan is based on "a myriad of assumptions" about its electrical grid, and a lot of those
assumptions are simply unrealistic in a very big way.
Biden:
The 'Great American Road Trip Is Going to Be Fully Electrified'. President Joe Biden on Monday promoted
electric vehicles again as part of his administration's push for green energy, smiling gleefully in an EV with a mask
hanging underneath his chin. "On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified.
And now, through a tax credit, you can get up to $7,500 on a new electric vehicle," Biden said alongside an accompanying
image, showing the president smiling in a Hummer EV. The image shows Biden with a mask under his chin and an
individual in the passenger seat who remained masked up.
The Editor says...
It is a safe bet that the "individual in the passenger seat" was a federal agent, and he was steering the car, not Mr. Biden.
The
Congolese mines where kids are paid $2-a-day to dig for cobalt. For years, big tech companies like Apple
and Tesla have assured the customers of their glossy stores and showrooms that all their goods are ethically sourced and
sold. But a new series of images taken from inside mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where
90 percent of the world's cobalt is mined and used to make the batteries that power our tech-led lives, raise
uncomfortable questions. Cobalt is the chemical element found in almost every tech gadget that uses a
lithium-powered battery on the market today - a smartphone, tablet or laptop requires a few grams of it, while an
electric vehicle requires 10kg.
California
Firefighters Use 6,000 Gallons of Water to Put Out Tesla Fire on Highway 50. A Tesla Model S burst
into flames on Saturday afternoon in California while driving on Highway 50, causing two eastbound lanes to close,
officials said. The electric vehicle was traveling at "freeway speeds" when its battery compartment
"spontaneously" caught fire, the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District said on Twitter. The incident happened
around 3:41 p.m. Firefighters called in two fire engines, a water tender, and a ladder truck, and used
approximately 6,000 gallons of water to extinguish the blaze as the battery cells "continued to combust," fire officials
said. They also used car jacks to lift the vehicle in order to put out the fire underneath it.
Electric
cars: Square peg, round hole. The big story of 2023 just might be the clash between the global elites who
have imposed electric vehicle mandates and the worldwide "irredeemable deplorables" for whom an electric vehicle is not
on their shopping list. The federal government, many state governments, and much of the automobile
industry — and their counterparts worldwide — have decreed that the world abandon the internal
combustion engine in favor of the (often-coal-fired) electric vehicle. Mandates for banning new sales of
conventional vehicles are as plentiful as schemes to disallow further production of "evil" fossil fuels that brought a
total transformation of the world economy in little more than a century. Moreover, most automakers have pledged to
end production of conventional vehicles within the next few years. While sales of EVs "boomed" last year, the
6 million EVs still comprise less than half a percent of the world's 1.4 billion vehicles.
It's
Now Cheaper to Drive 100 Miles in a Gas-Powered Car Than in an EV. The Biden administration is always
telling us that the best thing we can do is buy an electric vehicle. In fact, various members of the
administration treat it almost flippantly — it's a no-brainer that you should buy an expensive electric car
or two. Doing so will rescue the planet from certain environmental collapse and will save you loads of money, even
though the average cost of an electric vehicle was $66,000 as of August of last year. Plenty of people are falling
for it, and it's easy to see why. The siren song of the tax credit is hard to ignore, and the idea of not having
to contend with rising prices at the gas pump is attractive. But is it all true?
Electric
Vehicles Are an Ideologically Driven Economic Misadventure. As more motorists own electric vehicles (EVs)
and experience problems operating them, evidence shows that the movement to abandon gas-powered vehicles is
ideologically motivated and unsupported by rational economic calculation. In January 2023, four Wyoming state
senators and two representatives introduced Senate Joint Resolution No. SJ004 to ban the sale of EVs in Wyoming by
2035. The proposed legislation stressed that "Wyoming's vast stretches of highway, coupled with a lack of electric
vehicle charging infrastructure, make the widespread use of electric vehicles impracticable for the state." The
proposed legislation also noted that "the batteries used in electric vehicles contain critical minerals whose domestic
supply is limited and at risk of disruption." Moreover, the Senate Joint Resolution explained that "the critical
minerals used in electric batteries are not easily recyclable or disposable, meaning that landfills in Wyoming and
elsewhere will be required to develop practices to dispose of these minerals in a safe and responsible manner."
Finally, the legislation was premised on the reality that "the expansion of electric vehicle charging stations in
Wyoming and throughout the country necessary to support more electric vehicles will require massive amounts of new power
generation to sustain the misadventure of electric vehicles."
Nolte:
Brits Pay More to Charge Electric Car than to Gas Up. Per mile traveled, our British friends are now
paying more to charge their electric cars than to gas them up. [Tweets and stuff] So, according to this hilarious
story, "Topping up the e-Corsa's charge by 80pc on a slow charger at peak times results in a cost of 16.18p per mile."
But. The "costs (of a petrol Corsa) at around 14.45 pence per mile[.]" Question: What's left to feel smug
about after it costs more to drive your electric car than a car-car?
Enthusiasm Fading
for Electric Vehicles. The recent announcement that electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Tesla has cut its
prices by between six and 20 percent just to maintain its production goals and market share is the latest
manifestation of the fading enthusiasm for electric vehicles. In essence, the result of government meddling in the
private market is now showing up in such moves. In 2021, for example, auto executives were "very optimistic" about
EVs, expecting them to capture as much as 70 percent of the total automotive market by 2030. A year later
that optimism had subsided considerably, with those same executives cutting their expectations to 40 percent.
The latest report from international accounting firm KPMG reveals that car dealers expect EVs to capture just over
20 percent of the total automotive market by 2030.
You're
better off walking than relying on useless, unreliable vehicles and chargers that never work. As I watch
my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child's
hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our dead car safe before abandoning it a mile short of
home, full of luggage on a country lane, it occurs to me not for the first time that if we are going to save the planet
we will have to find another way. Because electric cars are not the answer. Yes, it's the Jaguar again.
My doomed bloody £65,000 iPace that has done nothing but fail at everything it was supposed to do for more than
two years now, completely dead this time, its lifeless corpse blocking the single-track road. I can't even roll it
to a safer spot because it can't be put in neutral. For when an electric car dies, it dies hard.
14 absurdities
on full public display. [#7] The world now agrees with me that electric cars are as useless as they
were when they were first introduced over 100 years ago. No one with functioning brain tissue would buy an
electric car except as an expensive joke. Despite all the propaganda, lies and tax breaks they are more expensive
to buy and run than diesel and petrol cars. They're useless if you need to travel more than a few miles from your
home. The idea that we'll have electric lorries and electric aeroplanes is laughable.
Fire
hazard: Ferry company bans electric cars. The listed Norwegian shipping company Havila has banned
electric, hybrid and hydrogen cars from its ferries. After a risk analysis, it was concluded that the risk to the
safety of the shipping fleet was too great. If a car catches fire, the fire [cannot] be extinguished. The
shipping company travels the so-called mail ship route along the coast of northern Norway. The tours are important
for Scandinavian passenger and cargo traffic and are also very popular with holidaymakers. The risks for ships
from the transport of electric cars have been discussed since the Felicity Ace sank off the Azores last February.
E-vehicles on board had caught fire and the blaze could not be extinguished. Finally, the huge ship sank with
thousands of electric cars and vehicles [including] Porsches and Bentleys.
The
Case for Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles. All-electric battery vehicles (BEVs) have become all the rage,
particularly with the political class, who see them as a magical means to combat climate change. [...] In the policy
push toward BEVs, little consideration has been given to the benefits of an attractive alternative: hybrid vehicles,
which also deliver significantly lower CO2 emissions relative to conventional gasoline-powered vehicles. Hybrid
vehicles come in two forms: hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), such as the well-known Toyota Prius, and plug-in
hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), such as the Toyota Prius Prime. In decreasing order of CO2 emissions, HEVs have lower
emissions than conventional gasoline vehicles, PHEVs have lower emissions than HEVs, and finally, BEVs have zero
emissions from the vehicle itself. BEVs, however, have a high emissions footprint in the manufacturing process
prior to delivery of the vehicle, and then afterward in the production of electricity to charge the vehicle
(called "well-to-wheel emissions"). So BEVs are not, as often touted, "zero-emissions" vehicles. They
produce, instead, what is called a CO2 equivalent.
Man drives
electric Volvo 350 miles to see REAL cost and 'numbers just didn't add up'. The development and demand for
electric cars has been growing, but there's still an ongoing debate about just how worthwhile the more
environmentally-friendly vehicles are. In an effort to find out how easy they are to drive and how the cost
compares to petrol or diesel cars, Steven Smith set out on a real-world experiment to put one of the vehicles to the
test. [...] Steven set off for his journey with the Volvo 100% charged, which cost approximately £20 to charge at
his home — although it's not actually recommended to charge the car to 100% in order to prolong its battery
life. The Volvo has an on-paper range of 273 miles, but Steven quickly discovered that this didn't seem to be
the case as he only had 180 miles showing for the actual range when he set off with a full battery. After
driving for an hour and 40 minutes, Steven made his first charging stop at Taunton Dean services on the M5, where he
arrived with 25% battery and 45 miles remaining. He waited for 40 minutes for the battery to charge to
60%, costing £19.62 for another 55 miles. [...] With a full charge at home, a fast top-up at services, a slow top-up
in Bristol and a super-fast top-up on the way back, the entire [350-mile] journey cost Steven £88.07 [$109.19].
The Editor says...
Imagine a gas station where the price of fuel is higher if you pump it into your gas tank faster.
That's the same thing as the rapid-charge stations charging more for fast delivery of the same battery charge.
Man
plugs in electric truck, learns it will take a week to charge. A man plugged in his electric vehicle at
home and learned that recharging it would not be a timely venture. YouTuber TFLEV shared that on Sunday, while at
home, he plugged in his brand-new electric Hummer truck, which has a 250 kwh battery, only to find that it would
take several days for him to get a complete charge. "Time to complete charge, Friday at 8:30 a.m.," the
YouTuber said. "And range increase is 1 mph."
The Editor says...
[#1] Range is measured in miles, not mph. [#2] This story appeared on westernjournal.com over three months ago.
A link to the westernjournal story was put up on this website on October 3, 2023.
Wyoming
looks to ban sale of new EVs. I will admit that when this headline popped up in my feed, I immediately
thought it was satire from the Babylon Bee or something similar. "Wyoming is set to BAN sales of new electric
vehicles by 2035 to 'ensure the stability' of its oil and gas industry." But given the number of blue states that
have already mandated the use of electric vehicles and banned the sale of gas-powered cars and trucks by 2035 (or
sooner), it was probably inevitable that a red state would decide to turn the tables. Nobody expects this to
actually happen and one of the Republicans in the state legislature who is supporting the resolution described it as
"entirely symbolic" and even "tongue in cheek." But they have a point to make and this is how they're choosing to
do it.
Women
Expect: To Have Gas Stoves. Women like their gas stoves — even Dr. Jill Biden —
and they all think it is ridiculous to ban them. But who knew, two weeks ago? Okay. So the green
transition stubbed a toe on the gas stoves issue. Trouble is that when it comes to "EVs," another vital step in
the green transition, women are all in. They tell you proudly of their "EVs" and how they are up on the jargon,
such as being "iced" at a charging station by a MAGA F-350 truck occupying the charging space. But women should be
terrified by "EVs." Suppose a nice liberal lady goes to the Seattle Symphony in her "EV" and it's a really cold
night and she has to stop at a charging station on the way home in a supermarket parking lot at 11:00 p.m. and
there are drug dealers about? Of course, there are three charging stations in the basement of Symphony Hall, but
good luck getting ahead of the Gold Membership patrons — or matrons, as the case may be. But, ladies,
what happens in ten years when there are 50 charging stations in the basement of Symphony Hall and one of the "EVs" has
a battery fire — in a basement parking garage full of EVs with nice explodable lithium batteries?
The
Coming Future Of Electric Vehicles: Something Here Does Not Add Up. I'm carving myself out a niche as the
guy who does a few simple calculations to check if the grand schemes of our central planners make any sense. So
far I've taken that approach to the question of energy storage to back up a wind/solar electricity grid, and on that one
the schemes of the central planners most definitely do not add up. But the energy storage question,
although involving no math beyond basic arithmetic, does have some complexities. How about something somewhat
simpler, like: If we convert our entire automobile fleet to all-electric cars, where is the electricity going to come
from? With the big push currently on to get rid of internal combustion vehicles and replace them with electrics,
surely someone has done the calculations to be sure that the electricity supply will be ample. Actually, that does
not appear to be the case. Once again, the central planners have no idea what they are doing.
British
parking association: weight of electric cars causes collapse of parking garages. Electric cars do not have
a heavy gasoline or diesel engine "under the hood," but a compact, lightweight electric motor. But because of a
hefty battery pack, EVs are often bulky. An electric car sometimes weighs as much as 500 pounds more than a
similar model with a traditional powertrain. This can create dangerous situations, according to the British
Parking Association.
South
Korea fines Tesla $2.2 mln for exaggerating driving range of EVs. South Korea's antitrust regulator said
it would impose a 2.85 billion won ($2.2 million) fine on Tesla Inc for failing to tell its customers about
the shorter driving range of its electric vehicles (EVs) in low temperatures. The Korea Fair Trade Commission said
that Tesla had exaggerated the "driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to
gasoline vehicles as well as the performance of its Superchargers" on its official local website since August 2019 until recently.
Tesla
Mobile Supercharger Burns Down On New Year's Day. Tesla owners charging their vehicles on New Year's Day
at a Supercharger station in Baker, California witnessed a mobile Supercharger burn to the ground. There's no word
on what started the fire, but Electrek has reached out to the local fire department and is waiting for a response.
These mobile Supercharging stations are comprised of a mega pack on the back of a trailer with multiple Supercharging
outlets attached. Tesla often employs them at particularly busy Supercharger locations during the holidays in
order to ease congestion and reduce waiting times.
We will destroy the earth
in the name of "Green Energy". [Threat reader] MiningWatch Canada is estimating that "[Three] billion
tons of mined metals and minerals will be needed to power the energy transition" — a "massive" increase
especially for six critical minerals: lithium, graphite, copper, cobalt, nickel and rare earth minerals[.] [...] Mining
requires the extraction of solid ores, often after removing vast amounts of overlying rock. Then the ore must be
processed, creating an enormous quantity of waste — about 100 billion tonnes a year, more than any other
human-made waste stream. Purifying a single tonne of rare earths requires using at least 200 cubic meters of
water, which then becomes polluted with acids and heavy metals. On top of that, imagine the destruction and energy
required to obtain these essential metals:
18,740 pounds of purified rock to produce 2.2 pounds of vanadium
35,275 pounds of ore for 2.2 pounds of cerium
110,230 pounds of rock for 2.2 pounds of gallium
2,645,550 pounds of ore to get 2.2 pounds of lutecium
Also staggering amounts of ore are needed for other metals. By 2035, demand is expected to double for germanium;
quadruple for tantalum; and quintuple for palladium. The scandium market could increase nine-fold, and the cobalt
market by a factor of 24.
Videos
of Teslas malfunctioning in below-freezing temperatures go viral. Multiple stories of Tesla vehicles
experiencing major malfunctions in freezing temperatures during the holidays have gone viral. In a video uploaded
to Twitter on Dec. 23, Canadian meteorologist Rachel Modestino demonstrates her inability to open her vehicle's
driver-side door as the latch, which must be popped out of the door to use, had frozen shut. Her video has
garnered over 4.2 million views and 40,800 likes.
Man
Exposes 'All the Bad Things' About His Tesla Model 3 - 'I'd Rather Own a Petrol Car Again'. If there's
ever anyone who's cut out to be an electric vehicle owner, it's not @lukeerwintv of TikTok fame. The creator is
best known for his videos of giving back to others on the social media website, but he recently got a Tesla
Model 3. To say that he's unhappy with things is an understatement. In the first video —
filmed on a sunny day inside the car and posted on Dec. 27 — the creator describes how the large glass
roof makes it "boiling hot" inside the car. [...] Next up: the features you need to pay to unlock. According to
the U.S. Sun, self-driving features like Smart Summon or Full Self-Driving require additional payment to be
unlocked — somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000. (Although it's unclear whether this is in Australian
or U.S. dollars.) Then there's the issue of Tesla's Superchargers, which provide Level 3 quick-charging at
designated stations — provided, of course, that you're willing to pay. "Now if you think the Tesla
Superchargers are cheap — or free — they're actually not," Luke said. "So, to charge this
car, would cost about $30 for 30 minutes to 100 percent.
EV
skid row! How LA's 'Electric Avenue' has become overrun with homeless. A conservative commentator
has warned electric vehicle drivers in Los Angeles that charging stations for their $60,000 cars are littered with
homeless encampments. Alexandra Datig shared a video of her driving in downtown LA on Wednesday, with one of the
local Blink EV charging stations surrounded by trash and tents. 'When you live in Los Angeles, it's better to have a
charging station at home for that $60,000 EV,' Datig wrote on Twitter.
NYC
Electric Garbage Truck Plans Hit Wall After Trucks "Conked Out" Plowing Snow After Just Four Hours. In a
move that absolutely nobody could have seen coming, New York City is scrapping its brilliant idea for electric
garbage trucks after finding out the truck simply "aren't powerful enough to plow snow". The pipe dream of
converting the city's 6,000 garbage trucks from gas to electric in order to try and limit carbon emissions (because
[there are] no other problems that need to be dealt with in New York City right now) is "clashing with the limits
of electric-powered vehicles," Gothamist wrote this week. The city's current trucks run on diesel and can be
fitted with plows in the winter. Despite the shortcomings, the city Department of Sanitation has already ordered
seven electric rear loader garbage trucks, custom-made by Mack, the report says. Those trucks cost an astonishing
$523,000 each and are to be delivered this spring.
2023
tax credits for EVs will boost their appeal. Starting Jan. 1, many Americans will qualify for a tax
credit of up to $7,500 for buying an electric vehicle. The credit, part of changes enacted in the Inflation
Reduction Act, is designed to spur EV sales and reduce greenhouse emissions. But a complex web of requirements,
including where vehicles and batteries must be manufactured to qualify, is casting doubt on whether anyone can receive
the full $7,500 credit next year.
A
one-time journalist's Tesla rumination is ill-informed and remarkably funny. At the L.A. Times, John
Blumenthal, a "former magazine editor," has written an unintentionally funny, ill-informed, politically-correct,
ludicrously pretentious op-ed entitled "I bought a Tesla to help the environment. Now, I'm embarrassed to drive
it." [...] The batteries in Teslas (and in all those electric cars greenies are demanding, sometimes by statutory fiat)
are made under filthy and despicable circumstances. The necessary cobalt for batteries comes from primarily
Chinese-owned mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where workers, often children, are virtual slaves, and the
environmental pollution is staggering. There's also that whole electricity issue. Where in the world does an
"educated" journalist like Blumenthal think electricity comes from? The Electricity Fairy? Zeus and his
lightning bolts? Nooo. It comes from electric plants that usually burn either coal, oil, or natural gas, all
of which are fossil fuels. [...] Tesla buyers are deluded, incurious people who think they're earning points to get into
green heaven when they buy one. They are the modern equivalent of the faithful who purchased indulgences from
corrupt medieval friars.
EPA
cracks down on trucking industry to push an all-electric fleet. You read that right: in a world where cold
weather prevents EVs from charging, water exposure leads to spontaneous combustion, and inefficient technology leaves
people stranded, comrades in the bureaucracy want to force the entire diesel trucking industry to comply with the Green
agenda measures. For reference, a trucking industry website stated that there are "more than 15 million commercial
vehicles" in the U.S., and "76% are powered by diesel engines." Simple math would therefore show that the EPA set its
sights on 11,400,000 commercial trucking vehicles that make our world go round. An overwhelming majority of us are
utterly dependent upon truckers and their diesel engines; they are the lifeblood of our First World (although rapidly
deteriorating) economy... and the big government elites know this. Forced compliance with the latest "regulations"
from the EPA would see the entire fleet of the trucking industry switch to electric, and with that, the government would
have unfettered control.
Used Tesla
Prices Plunge As Demand Evaporates. Readers have been well informed about the impending auto market
disaste. The latest domino to fall is the days used Teslas could demand lofty
premiums, which is now in the rear-view mirror as demand falters and supply increases. According to Reuters,
citing new automotive pricing data from Edmunds, average prices for used Teslas in November were $55,754, down a
whopping 17% from a July high of $67,297. The steep decline comes as the overall used car market is only down 4%
in the same period. [...] Teslas were all the rage during the pandemic and the Ukraine war. As gasoline and diesel
prices skyrocketed earlier this year, demand for Teslas spiked. But now, since fuel prices recede, borrowing rates
soar, and Tesla output increases amid a crowded EV space, the price of used Teslas is falling faster than any used car
on the market.
Video:
stranded in a 'bone-chilling' blizzard thanks to an electric vehicle. Domenick Nati's debacle began in
19 degree weather (cold, but not that cold), and only ended when a gas-powered car came in and saved the day.
However, his experience highlights quite a profound yet mostly unnoticed inconsistency on the left: if humans are
causing climate change, and in turn that climate change manifests as natural disasters like hurricanes and snowstorms,
then why force a transition to electric vehicles, where ultimately, people are put into perilous situations when a
natural disaster inevitably hits? [...] Following the left's own "science", natural disasters are supposed to become
increasingly prevalent — therefore, a shift to an electric fleet would be monstrously irresponsible.
Put everyone in a hypersensitive electric vehicle that can't function in extreme temperatures or harsh weather, just as
the extreme temperatures and harsh weather conditions ramp up?
Tesla
owner says [his] car would not charge in freezing weather. A Virginia radio personality said he had to
cancel Christmas plans because his Tesla S electric car would not charge during the ongoing freezing weather that has
afflicted much of the United States. Domenick Nati told Insider that he plugged his electric car into a
supercharger on Friday when it was 19 degrees outside. The car's battery level was at 40% at the time. "Two
hours went by and not much changed," Nati told the outlet. "It was very slow and the numbers got lower as the
temperature dropped. Eventually, it stopped charging altogether." Nati said he tried charging the car at home,
but having no luck there he went to another supercharger Saturday afternoon.
Guess
What: Electricity Isn't Free. One of my favorite indicators of ignorance are the people who buy
personalized license plates, or affix stickers, for their electric cars that say "Emission Free." Even if you
ignore the enormous environmental impacts associated with manufacturing an electric car (which are significantly higher
than a gasoline-powered car), if you live in a state that generates a lot of its electricity from coal, you are
essentially driving a coal-powered car. The next most ignorant view is that at least you don't have to buy
expensive gasoline! People seem to forget that electricity isn't free, from whatever source.
I thought this was common knowledge:
Electric
vehicles lose efficiency in cold weather, motor club warns drivers. With a winter storm bearing down on
the Midwest, Triple A has some advice for motorists, including drivers of electric vehicles. [...] With a winter storm
bearing down on the Midwest, Triple A has some advice for motorists, including drivers of electric vehicles. "When
it dips to 20 degrees and the HVAC system is being used to heat the inside of the vehicle, the average driving
range is decreased by 41 percent," Hart says. That means instead of getting 100 miles of combined urban
and highway driving, the range at 20 degrees would be reduced to 59 miles.
Study:
Diesel vehicles are more climate-friendly than electric cars. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
is causing a stir with a study that takes away the aura of climate friendliness from electric cars. According to
this, such compact class cars consumed around 175 grams of CO2 per kilometer in the first half of 2022 due to the
electricity generated and the production. A modern diesel, on the other hand, emits 153 grams of CO2 per
kilometer. If the last three German nuclear power plants are taken offline in April 2023, the scientists predict a
value of 184 grams of carbon dioxide — 20[.]3 percent more than with a diesel.
Postal
Service pledges move to all-electric delivery fleet. In a major boost for President Joe Biden's pledge to
eliminate gas-powered vehicles from the sprawling federal fleet, the Postal Service said Tuesday it will sharply
increase the number of electric-powered delivery trucks — and will go all-electric for new purchases starting
in 2026. The post office said it is spending nearly $10 billion to electrify its aging fleet, including
installing a modern charging infrastructure at hundreds of postal facilities nationwide and purchasing at least 66,000
electric delivery trucks in the next five years.
Oregon
bans sales of new gas-powered passenger cars by 2035. Policymakers for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
on Monday approved a rule that prohibits the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger vehicles in Oregon by 2035. The effort comes
as Oregon plans to cut climate-warming emissions by 50% by 2035 and by 90% by 2050, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. The
transportation sector accounts for nearly 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon.
The Editor says...
I thought Greta Thunberg said we would experience a worldwide climate catastrophe by 2031. Is she also making plans for 2035?
Toyota
President Admits 'Silent Majority' in Auto Industry Are Leery of Massive Electric Vehicle Push. President
Joe Biden, the radical environmental lobby and government agencies across the nation are making a heavy push for
Americans to switch to electric vehicles, but it seems car industry insiders are not so sure it is all such a good
idea. On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal published comments by Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda who
noted that the idea that everyone could so easily dump gas-powered vehicles for electric ones is simply not as feasible
as the activists and government officials seem to imagine. Toyoda warned that many insiders, who he says represent
a "silent majority" in the auto industry, are quietly wondering if it is a smart move for car makers to look toward
retooling exclusively for electric cars and thinking that is the future of the industry. "People involved in the
auto industry are largely a silent majority," Toyoda said. "That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK
to have as a single option. But they think it's the trend so they can't speak out loudly." Notice that last
bit. Toyoda is saying that intelligent and informed industry insiders know full well that EVs are not the only way
to go for a myriad of reasons.
U.S. finalizes $2.5 billion
loan to GM, LG battery joint venture. The U.S. Energy Department said on Monday it had finalized a
$2.5 billion low-cost loan to a joint venture of General Motors Co and LG Energy Solution to help pay for three new
lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing facilities. Reuters first reported in July the planned loan to Ultium Cells
LLC from the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program. The loan will help
finance construction of new lithium-ion manufacturing facilities in Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan, supporting 6,000
construction jobs and 5,100 operations jobs at the three plants.
Maker
of Electric Jeep Vehicles Closing Illinois Plant and Moving to Mexico. Stellantis is a multinational
automaker contracted for the electric version of the Jeep Cherokee. Citing high costs to produce electric
vehicles, on Friday Stellantis announced a decision to idle the Belvedere, Illinois plant starting on Feb. 28,
2023, and notified 1,350 workers of the layoffs.
Electric
vehicles [are] futile as a solution to [the] 'climate crisis'. Direct taxpayer subsidies for EVs have cost
$10 billion to date. The U.S. government also just approved spending an additional $7.5 billion on
EV charging stations. The subsidy math shows: $10 billion + $7.5 billion =
$17.5 billion. Divide that into the 750 million gallons (.750 billion gallons - BG) reportedly
saved based on the Argonne Lab study and we get .750 BG/$17.5 billion = $23.3 dollars per gallon.
The verdict is: thanks to government EV subsidies, we're spending $23 for each gallon of gasoline saved.
Swiss
look to ban use of electric cars over the winter to save energy. The European Union jumped on the electric
vehicle craze well ahead of other parts of the world, particularly after the Paris climate accord. But in typical
socialist fashion, they weren't content with simply encouraging people to switch to EVs. Many European countries
almost immediately started making plans to ban gas-powered cars and trucks and make EVs mandatory. Lots of
Europeans wanted to get out ahead of the curve and began snapping the newer models up. But then came the start of
the war in Ukraine, cutting energy supplies just as Europe was trying to wean itself off of fossil fuels. Now, in
a rather embarrassing reversal, Switzerland is considering legislation that would ban people from driving electric
vehicles except in urgent conditions over the winter because there simply might not be enough juice on the grid to
recharge them.
Man
Stunned When He Sees Bill for Charging Hummer EV. There is the idea going around that electric vehicles
are an efficient and inexpensive alternative to gas-powered vehicles. With the price of gas soaring in the past
year and pressure to find an "eco-friendly" alternative to gas cars, electric vehicles are promoted as the future of
driving. But one man illustrated that the reality is much more complicated when he posted a video on YouTube
showing how much it costs to charge a Hummer EV. On Nov. 10, Kyle Conner, who runs the YouTube channel
Out of Spec Reviews, posted a video in which he revealed the cost of charging the Hummer EV Edition 1 from zero to
100 percent. [Video clip] Charging the vehicle's 200-kWh battery using the basic rack rate from
Electrify America cost $96.32 — and that is without the taxes, which can bring the total price to over $100,
Conner said.
The Editor says...
The article doesn't mention where Mr. Conner lives, but if he is in California, the $96+ cost
to recharge is not much out of line with the price of a tank of gasoline for a Hummer. An electric vehicle doesn't
operate at no cost: It's a trade-off between a battery and a gas tank. Also between a five-minute fill-up and
an overnight charge. Also between tailpipe emissions and power plant emissions. Also between ordinary aluminum
and steel construction versus lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and lots of copper.
Ford
Electric Truck Owner Hears 'Loud Pop' at Charging Station — Then His Worst Nightmare Happens.
An electric Ford F-150 Lighting owner who describes himself as "Into Electric Vehicles" had to get out of his
electric vehicle when it stopped working after a public charger "fried" the vehicle, he said Sunday [11/27/2022].
"Lightning bricked today at an [Electrify America] charger," Twitter user Eric Roe wrote Sunday afternoon. "I'm
1000 miles from home, the EA charger when [sic] black, and my Lightning won't move. I'm screwed."
Climate
Change Policy Makes Europe Too Expensive for Low-Cost EV Manufacturing. There is money to be made by
corporations within the climate change agenda, and there is money to be made by producing goods with low-cost wages and
cheap materials. Eventually, if you keep following this to its natural conclusion, the entire yellow zone becomes
a service driven economy. Multinational corporations in control of government are what the BRICS assembly foresaw
when they first assembled during the Obama administration. When multinational corporations run the policy of
western government, there is going to be a problem. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) saw
President Obama sub-contracting, actually giving away, U.S. trade policy. In the bigger picture, the BRICS
assembly are essentially leaders who do not want corporations and multinational banks running their government.
BRICS leaders want their government running their government; and yes, that means whatever form of government that
exists in their nation, even if it is communist.
Electric
truck stops will need as much power as a small town. Next month, Tesla plans to deliver the first of its
electric Semi trucks — able to haul a full 40 ton-load some 500 miles on a single charge.
These massive batteries-on-wheels may accelerate the transition to electrified transport, but those responsible for
delivering the power are starting to ask: Are we ready for this? Probably not, according to a sweeping new
study of highway charging requirements conducted by utility company National Grid. Researchers found that by 2030,
electrifying a typical highway gas station will require as much power as a professional sports stadium — and
that's mostly just for electrified passenger vehicles. As more electric trucks hit the road, the projected power
needs for a big truck stop by 2035 will equal that of a small town. Even the authors who planned the study were
caught off guard by how quickly highway power demands will change. A connection to the grid that can handle
more than 5 megawatts takes up to eight years to build, at a cost tens of millions of dollars.
EV (Electric Vehicle)
Precautions. While environmental activists have been very vocal regarding the uncertain, projected future
dangers of climate change based on the outputs of unverified climate models, they have been far less vocal regarding the
clear and present dangers of Lithium battery fires, both in EVs and in grid-scale storage installations.
Fortunately, there appear not to have been any fatalities in EV fires, except when the vehicle was involved in a
crash. However, there have been numerous instances of spontaneous vehicle fires, some during charging and others
when the vehicle was parked. There also appear to have been no fatalities in EV transit bus fires, which have
occurred both when the buses were being charged and when they were parked waiting to begin a scheduled route.
There have been no reported battery fires in transit buses while carrying passengers. There have so far been no
reported incidents of battery fires in EV school buses. A fire aboard the trans-Atlantic vehicle ship Felicity
Ace, which was carrying approximately 4,000 vehicles including numerous EVs, destroyed the ship and its cargo. The
cause of the fire is uncertain, though it appears likely that a spontaneous EV battery fire was the cause. EV
batteries were certainly a major contributor to the fire, which the ship's crew were not able to control. There
have also been Lithium battery fires in grid-scale storage batteries.
20,000
Vehicles Under the Sea: Inside the Felicity Ace Disaster. [Scroll down] According to Portuguese
authorities, the Felicity Ace was about 100 miles from the Azores, a constellation of small islands west of the
Iberian Peninsula, when the ship made a morning distress call to report a fire in the cargo hold. [...] Experts have
speculated a battery fire might have brought the Ace down. Overwhelmingly, modern EVs draw power from
lithium-ion batteries — a fuel source that yields longer vehicle range at the risk of notorious chemical
fragility. Several EV makers have had to recall cars amid reports of vehicles spontaneously combusting. Two
years ago a Taycan combusted while parked in a Florida garage, damaging the building's structure and exposing parts of
the vehicle's frame. In the bowels of a car carrier, a chain reaction from such a fire could be devastating.
For years, insurers have been sounding the alarm on the risk of massive ship fires, which, along with explosions,
account for a quarter of the maritime casualties for "total loss." They say firefighting capabilities have not kept
pace with the rate of freighter supersizing.
Electric
Vehicle Makers Are Quietly Switching to a Battery Type That Has Even Less Driving Range. As more car
manufacturers race to try to produce electric cars, the cost of the batteries to power these cars can be
prohibitive. But many manufacturers are considering using a cheaper kind of battery in order to cut costs and
enable more production. However, though using a cheaper kind of battery would be more cost-efficient, the battery
range of vehicles would decrease, the Wall Street Journal reported. The typical batteries used in American and
European EVs are lithium-ion batteries. But these are made with very expensive materials such as cobalt, nickel
and lithium, Reuters reported.
Two
critical and 36 others injured after blaze on 20th floor of NYC high-rise apartment block caused by e-scooter battery.
Thirty-eight people were hurt, with two suffering life-threatening injuries, after a fire broke out inside a 37-story building in
Manhattan on Saturday. The FDNY reported that a three-alarm fire erupted from the battery of a micro-mobility device —
an e-scooter or an e-bike — at around 10:30 am on the 20th floor of an apartment building at 429 East 52nd Street.
Officials said at least two dozen residents rushed to the roof while others hung out of their windows to try and escape the fire.
Saving
the world with lithium? Four times a week an e-bike battery catches fire in New York. Six people
have died in New York this year so far due to house fires started by e-bikes.
First-time
EV owner shares 'cautionary tale' after it took 15 hours to drive 178 miles. After Colorado resident Alan
O'Hashi purchased his all-electric Nissan Leaf — and became a first-time electric vehicle (EV)
owner — he thought he was ready to embark on the first leg of a 2,600-mile road trip across Wyoming.
But the eager traveler was faced with a harsh truth after a 178-mile route took 15 hours to complete, when normally it
would clock in at two-and-a-half hours. "I was rudely awakened when I determined that the charging wasn't as rapid
as some people would lead you to believe, likely the dealers," O'Hashi said in an interview on "Varney & Co." Friday,
"and I think people like myself, we go into it a bit blindly." O'Hashi blames the road bump on a combination of
part user error and part "lack of adequate infrastructure" in the car's charging capabilities.
The
Electric Car Scam Summed Up Nicely In Less Than A Minute. There aren't enough natural resources in the
world to make battery-powered cars for everybody. And that's only one of the insurmountable problems with electric
car mandates. [Video clip]
Green
Boondoggle: Connecticut's Electric Bus Fleet Still Out of Service After Summer Battery Inferno. A fleet of
11 electric buses belonging to CT Transit in Connecticut is still out of service following a massive battery fire that
occurred in July, the state's Department of Transportation says. In July, a battery fire caused an electric bus to
burst into flames in Hamden, Connecticut. Luckily, no one died in the inferno, although two transit workers and
two firefighters were hospitalized as a result of the blaze, and a federal investigation was triggered. In
September, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a preliminary report detailing how the electric bus
operated by CT Transit became engulfed in flames while parked at a maintenance facility, according to a report by
NHPR. "The battery electric buses remain out of service while the investigations are ongoing," DOT spokesperson
Josh Morgan said.
Fires
from exploding e-bike batteries multiply in NYC — sometimes fatally. Four times a week on
average, an e-bike or e-scooter battery catches fire in New York City. Sometimes, it does so on the street, but
more often, it happens when the owner is recharging the lithium ion battery. A mismatched charger won't always
turn off automatically when the battery's fully charged, and keeps heating up. Or, the highly flammable
electrolyte inside the battery's cells leaks out of its casing and ignites, setting off a chain reaction. "These
bikes when they fail, they fail like a blowtorch," said Dan Flynn, the chief fire marshal at the New York Fire
Department. "We've seen incidents where people have described them as explosive — incidents where they
actually have so much power, they're actually blowing walls down in between rooms and apartments."
European
Union Bans Sale Of Gas Vehicles In 2035. Citizens of individual nations in Europe: does this make you
happy? Your nation didn't ban them. Bureaucrats in the EU did, using their unaccountable power to force you
to comply. The EU was not established for this kind of mandate on citizens lives, but, this is what happens when
you give a centralized government power. They take more and more and more[.] [...] I've perused many articles
about this, and not one features a reporter asking members of commission if they are now driving an EV, and, if not,
when they are going to ditch their fossil fueled vehicles and go EV. How will they power these vehicles?
Europe is already energy poor, with big concerns about how people will heat their homes this winter. They've cut
nuclear power (even St. Greta is fine with nuclear), cut natural gas (some thanks to Biden pushing Putin to invade
Ukraine), cut coal, and many citizens are having to rely on burning wood. Where will the power come from?
Bye-bye
trucks? California air regulators to consider phasing out diesel big rigs. California truck drivers
and environmental groups presented their concerns about a proposal under consideration by state air regulators to phase
out the sale of medium and heavy-duty gas-powered vehicles within the next 20 years. The California Air Resources
Board held its first public hearing this week to receive feedback from the public on the proposal, which the board will
likely consider in Spring 2023. If adopted, all new medium and heavy-duty vehicles sold in the Golden State will be
required to be zero-emission by 2040. Additionally, the proposal outlines a phased approach to adding zero-emission
vehicles to certain fleets at the state and federal levels. Under the proposal, half of the vehicles added to
state and local government fleets must be zero-emission starting in 2024 and 100% by 2027.
'Zero
Emissions' From Electric Vehicles? Here's Why That Claim Has Zero Basis. As California, New York,
and other states move to phase out the sale of gasoline-powered cars, public officials routinely echo the Biden
administration's claim that electric vehicles are a "zero emissions" solution that can significantly mitigate the
effects of climate change. Car and energy experts, however, say there is no such thing as a zero-emissions
vehicle: For now and the foreseeable future, the energy required to manufacture and power electric cars will leave a
sizable carbon footprint. In some cases hybrids can be cleaner alternatives in states that depend on coal to
generate electricity, and some suggest that it may be too rash to write off all internal combustion vehicles just yet.
Electric
Hummers Are Selling for More Than $100,000 Over List Price as Wait List Tops 77,000. Interested in
purchasing an electric GMC Hummer? I hope you have a quarter of a million dollars handy — or a lot of
patience. Or both. Because, while the list price set by GMC for one such vehicle was a mere $112,595, the
free market says it's worth twice that. Maybe it's because this particular vehicle was only the fifth to roll off
the production line, and the buyer saw it as a collector's item. (He's probably right about that.) Maybe the vehicle's
near-mint condition, with only 80 miles on the odometer, contributed to the price. Maybe there were other factors
at play that we don't know about.
Electric
vehicle owner learns replacing a tail light costs over $4,000. The owner of a Hummer electric truck was
shocked to learn replacing his tail lights is a rather expensive venture. "Had a shocker today," the owner wrote in a
Hummer EV Facebook group. "A new passenger side rear light for the Hummer EV; $4,040 just to buy it." Car review
website the Drive confirmed General Motor's list price for one tail light is $3,045. Without factoring in
labor, the list price for a set of tail lights runs for nearly $6,100, a cost equaling more than 5% of the Hummer EV's
MSRP. "The taillights in the Hummer EV have small microcontrollers installed within them. These chips control
unique lighting functions in their respective lights," the Drive suggested as a reason for the high price.
"Additionally, the Hummer EV is a fairly limited-run vehicle thus far, meaning parts are generally more expensive until
economies of scale kick in."
The
Argument For Electric Vehicles Just Got Worse. Across the United States, Democrats are working overtime to
force virtually every American into driving an electric vehicle. This is seen across multiple states, such as New
York and California, that plan to outlaw the sales of cars that are non-electric by 2035. Unfortunately for
Democrats, their efforts to get everyone into electric vehicles don't negate all the problems stemming from these
cars. In the wake of flooding in Florida after Hurricane Ian recently hit the state, some electric vehicles are
exploding. Then, in other parts of the country, the charging stations designed for electric vehicles continue not
to work, thereby leaving their owners stranded.
Electric
Nightmare: EV Owner Details 15-Hour Trek to Travel 178 Miles. An electric vehicle (EV) owner who takes
road trips between Cheyenne and Casper in Wyoming has revealed that his first trip of 178 miles took a staggering
15 hours to complete in his electric Nissan Leaf. "It was very difficult. For example, [it took] 15 hours
to get from Cheyenne to Casper," Alan O'Hashi told Cowboy State Daily, adding that this particular trip wasn't taken in the
beginning of the EV era. It was in May 2022. One month later, O'Hashi was able to complete the road trip in
about 11 hours, he said. To put it into perspective, the trip of 178 miles should take less than two and a
half hours traveling the speed limit in a gasoline-powered vehicle.
Founder
of Electric Truck Company Nikola Convicted of Fraud. Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck maker
Nikola, was convicted of fraud after being accused of bragging about nonexistent technology in an attempt to inflate his
company's stock price. "Trevor Milton is a con man," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jordan Estes said. "He lied to investors to
get their money, plain and simple." On Friday [10/14/2022], a federal jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan
found Milton guilty of defrauding investors by lying about the supposed technical achievements of Nikola, according to a
report by the New York Times.
Related:
Nearly
22,000 e-bikes are being recalled due to risk of their batteries exploding. Nearly 22,000 e-bikes have
been recalled due to the risk of exploding batteries. The Ancheer e-bike — which is sold at major
retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Sears — was recalled by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
on Thursday due to its lithium-ion batteries. CPSC has warned consumers that the batteries are known to 'ignite,
explode, or spark,' which poses a risk of fire, explosions, and burns.
Florida
Home That Survived Hurricane Burns to the Ground from EV. After surviving Hurricane Ian, some homes in
Florida are facing a new danger: electric vehicles catching fire due to their batteries being corroded by the
floods. State Rep. Bob Rommel and state Fire Marshal Jim Patronis have been particularly vocal about the
threat of EV fires in the aftermath of the hurricane. Rommel tweeted on Monday about a house that had managed to
outlast the hurricane, but couldn't survive the EV fire that later started in the garage.
South
America's 'lithium fields' reveal the dark side of our electric future. Lithium extraction fields in South
America have been captured by an aerial photographer in stunning high definition. But while the images may be
breathtaking to look at, they represent the dark side of our swiftly electrifying world. Lithium represents a
route out of our reliance on fossil fuel production. As the lightest known metal on the planet, it is now widely
used in electric devices from mobile phones and laptops, to cars and aircraft. Lithium-ion batteries are most
famous for powering electric vehicles, which are set to account for up to 60 percent of new car sales by 2030. The
battery of a Tesla Model S, for example, uses around 12 kg of lithium. These batteries are the key to
lightweight, rechargeable power. As it stands, demand for lithium is unprecedented and many say it is crucial in
order to transition to renewables.
Tesla
Sells 83,135 China-Made Vehicles In September, Setting A Record. Now that Elon Musk appears to be on the
hook to buy Twitter on the original terms he offered, it isn't that much of a surprise to see great Tesla news pouring
in. Just days ago, the company announced that its first semi trucks would be shipping to Pepsi in December (we'll
take the 'over' on that date) and, this weekend, we found out that the company sold 83,135 China-made vehicles in
September, setting a record. The China Passenger Car Association revealed the numbers on Sunday, which mark an 8%
increase from August and "outpaced the more than the 5% month-over-month growth of all wholesale electric vehicle sales
in China", CNBC noted.
First
new cobalt mine in decades opens in Idaho; key component in electric vehicle batteries. A new cobalt mine,
the first in decades, opened in Idaho Friday [10/7/2022] to meet the demand for a key rare-earth mineral used in
electric vehicle batteries and other military and aerospace parts. The mine, operated by Australia-based Jervois
Global, is located near a defunct open-pit cobalt mine. In an effort to be more environmentally conscious, the new
mine is mostly underground and will be capped once its operations eventually cease. Department of Energy
Undersecretary for Science and Innovation Geri Richmond told the crowd gathered for the opening that "We're talking
about building a world class clean energy economy, and this mine, this project ... is key to that vision," according to NPR.
Hurricane
Ian reveals another problem with electric vehicles: They explode after hurricanes. Joe Biden and all his
minions have allowed gas prices to go sky high in a fanatic quest to force Americans into electric vehicles. One
problem: They tend to explode after hurricanes. [...] How many gas-powered vehicles put on that kind of a show after a
hurricane? It goes to show more of the unintended consequences on the road to green Utopia — and why
it's impractical to force such changes without ever considering all the things a consumer might consider. Being
able to get out of a disaster zone in a hurry is pretty important to a lot of people who buy cars. What's more,
it's not the first surprise unintended consequence of having an electrical vehicle in a mass evacuation event.
Over in California, electric cars have ended up pretty useless things during mass evacuations during wildfires.
Electricity is shut down by local authorities to prevent electrical power lines from catching fire, and electrical cars
are on their own. What's more, out in the wilderness, where wildfires and wildfire evacuations are common,
electrical cars, even fully charged, cannot hold their charges for the distance a fully charged vehicle can.
Battling
fires from water-damaged EVs 'ties up resources' in Hurricane Ian recovery, Florida fire dept says. Fire
department officials across Southwest Florida are urging electric vehicle owners to take action after multiple EVs
caught fire due to water damage from Hurricane Ian — a hazard costing emergency services precious time in
recovery efforts. "It's just the allocation of resources that we have to put towards these fires," North Collier
Assistant Fire Chief James Hammond told FOX Business' Madison Alworth in an appearance on "Varney & Co." Friday. "And it
just ties up resources a lot longer." A top Florida state official warned Thursday that firefighters have battled a
number of fires caused by electric vehicle (EV) batteries waterlogged from Hurricane Ian.
Electric
vehicles are exploding from water damage after Hurricane Ian, top Florida official warns. A top Florida
state official warned Thursday that firefighters have battled a number of fires caused by electric vehicle (EV)
batteries waterlogged from Hurricane Ian. EV batteries that have been waterlogged in the wake of the hurricane are
at risk of corrosion, which could lead to unexpected fires, according to Jimmy Patronis, the state's top financial
officer and fire marshal. "There's a ton of EVs disabled from Ian. As those batteries corrode, fires start,"
Patronis tweeted Thursday. "That's a new challenge that our firefighters haven't faced before. At least on this
kind of scale."
Oops,
Electric Vehicles Are Exploding After Water Damage from Hurricane Ian. President Joe Biden, California
Governor Gavin Newsom and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg all want you to buy electric vehicles in the future,
with Newsom even aiming to ban gas-powered cars by 2035. Just be prepared that your new automobile might explode if the
battery gets too wet. Jimmy Patronis, Florida's Chief Financial Officer & State Fire Marshal, tweeted Thursday:
[Tweet with video clip] It's hard to make out exactly what people are saying in the above video, but the reporter
seems to say, "So they've already put on 1,500 gallons of water on this and it's still going." The firefighter on
scene responds, "oh, and this will burn for days." I'm sure that's environmentally friendly. The problem stems
from water getting into the lithium battery, which causes corrosion — which could then cause a fire.
The
New GMC Hummer EV Takes 4 Days To Charge. A YouTuber is claiming that the "quickest charging [electric]
vehicle on the market right now" apparently takes quite a while to charge the battery from home. The brief video
suggests it could take up to four days to fully charge the new 2023 GMC Hummer, which could be an issue for consistent
day-to-day activity let alone in an emergency in a worst-case scenario. [Video clip]
Americans'
support for Biden's electric car push is nearly zero. In response to Joe Biden's insistence that the
fossil fuel industry be eliminated entirely, California officials already have claimed to set in motion their plan to
ban the sales of new gasoline powered vehicles in their state in a few years. New York is moving the same
direction. But Americans aren't. A new poll shows that only 1.4% of voters "believe eliminating gas-powered
cars and moving to electric vehicles is the best solution." The poll is from Convention of States Action, which
worked with The Trafalgar Group, on the new results.
Electric
Cars Are Not "Zero-Emission Vehicles". The notion that electric vehicles are "zero-emission" is rooted in
a deceptive narrative that ignores all pollutants which don't come out of a tailpipe. Assessing the environmental
impacts of energy technologies requires measuring all forms of pollution they emit over their entire lives, not a narrow
slice of them. [...] Simply stated, switching to electric cars transfers pollution from urbanites in wealthy nations to
poor countries that mine and manufacture their components and to communities with power plants and disposal sites.
In the words of the 2021 paper in the Journal of Cleaner Production, this "transfer of environmental burdens"
causes "workers and ecosystems in third countries" to be "exposed to higher rates of toxic substances." China
dominates the global supply chains for green energy components not merely because of cheap labor but because they have
lax environmental standards that tolerate the pollution these products create. Thus, China supplies 78% of the
world's solar cells, 80% of the world's lithium-ion battery chemicals, and 73% of the world's
finished battery cells.
Man
Plugs $80k+ Electric Truck Into His House, Finds Out It Will Take Over 4 Days to Charge. In a viral video
from a YouTube channel that specializes in electric vehicles, a man who tries to plug the Hummer into his home to charge
finds it will take, at best, one day to charge — and that's with special equipment installed. Without
it, you could be there for four days. The video begins with standard 120V charging — or Level 1
charging, to use official jargon. This is the standard current your home already offers. "Right now it's about
6 p.m. on Tuesday," the man says. "And it says it will be full by Saturday at 10:55 [p.m.], which is four-plus days
of charging. Wow." To be fair, however, this won't be how most Hummer owners will be charging their
vehicle. Level 2 chargers are upgraded home stations which deliver a significantly higher amount of electricity
than your regular home circuit would be able to deliver — but they require special equipment and installation.
NY
Gov. Kathy Hochul's maddening electric vehicle mandate. In an all-too-tellingly-empty stunt,
Gov. Kathy Hochul last week ordered the state Department of Environmental Conservation to issue regulations banning
the sale of gas-powered cars, pickups and SUVs by 2035. It's not just that she'll be long gone by then, or that she
was simply marking National Drive Electric Week by pretending to keep up with California's similarly dubious 2035
only-electric rule. Nor that, as even The New York Times admits, electric cars are still far too expensive and
impractical for all but the rich — with vast technological and industrial progress needed before they make
sense even for the middle class. Not to mention building hundreds of thousands of charging stations (New York now
has just over 10,000) to make mass EV use remotely practical. No: It's that Hochul's policies are already making
electricity much more expensive, and the pain's only begun.
New
York Will Ban Gas Car Sales by 2035, Copying California. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said
Thursday that New York will follow California's lead by banning the sale of gasoline-powered cars and light trucks by
2035. All passenger cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs sold in the state will have to be classified as "zero-emissions
vehicles" by no later than 2035, according to a press release. Hochul directed the state's Department of
Environmental Conservation to begin implementing the new rules that will also require 35% of state vehicle sales to
consist of electric cars by 2026, rising to 68% by 2030.
Electric
vehicles and the evacuation of Florida. Large swaths of Florida's heavily populated Gulf Coast have been
ordered evacuated. The map below, prepared by the Florida Department of Emergency Management, shows the mandatory
areas in reddish colors. The actual evacuation order from the state is found here. At least 300,000 people
from the Tampa Bay Area must leave. It is fortunate that as of the current moment, electric vehicles constitute
only about 100,000, out of nearly 8 million vehicles registered to drive on Florida's roads. What if they all were
electric, the (impractical) dream dream of greenies? Depending on how heavily loaded they were, even assuming everyone
had a full battery charge, cars from southern Florida would start running out of juice after 100 [to] 250 miles.
Running
America on Imaginary Technology. [Scroll down] The electric vehicle (EV) craze has struck the minds
of progressives as the solution to all of our climate problems. Reason and rationality are defenestrated.
You cannot tell progressive politicians that the technology for EV's is still in its infancy. You cannot convince
them that the current state of technology makes them completely impractical and unworkable on a national scale. We
are at the same point in technological history as we were in 1896, when we transitioned from "horseless carriages"
powered by steam and electric motors to gasoline engines. What we see on the EV road today will in no way resemble
what the technology ultimately comes up with. If you examine the facts, you see this is true. Current
technology extrapolated into a nation of more than 250 million registered vehicles on the road will result in EV
chaos. The current electric grid will need to be strengthened by the development of hundreds of new nuclear power
plants. There is no political will in this country to do that, especially among those promoting EVs the
hardest. Hundreds of new windmill and solar farms aren't going to cut it and will negatively impact the
environment and wildlife much more than nuclear.
We
don't need no stinkin' electric cars. California seems to fancy itself a bellwether for the rest of the
country. Not content to ban all gasoline-powered cars by 2035, California's Air Resources Board upped the ante
last week by decreeing that no new natural gas space and waters heaters were to be sold after 2030, and also "proposed
that all big rig trucks must go electric [!]" Not to be outdone, John Deere wants farmers to switch to electric
tractors and combines. [...] Once the phase-out of the internal combustion engine is too far underway to be easily
reversed, we will inevitably be told that we must learn to live with less — fewer cars, boats, ATVs,
appliances, snowmobiles, heat, AC, lawns, food, water — you name it. The only rational conclusion is
that the goal is not to get us into electric cars, but to get us out of our own cars as much as possible, and into
public transportation, bicycles, scooters, walking shoes, and high-density urban housing.
'What
a Joke': Man Tries to Tow with His Electric Truck — Shows How It Was a 'Total Disaster'. While
EV trucks may lessen your "environmental impact," some most definitely fail to perform what should be one of a truck's
most basic functions — towing over long distances. Take the 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning, for
example. Automobile savant and commentator Tyler "Hoovie" Hoover decided to test the Lightning's towing capacity
in a video uploaded to his YouTube channel on Friday. The experiment didn't go so well, to say the least.
Hoover's goal was to drive the truck 32 miles with only an empty trailer in tow, load up his recently purchased 1930
Ford Model A pickup truck and then tow it back the same 32 miles. The automotive aficionado was originally going
to make the trip a second time, so he could load up something heavier to test the Ford's maximum tow capacity.
After the first trip ended in "total disaster," however, Hoover determined it wouldn't even be worth trying.
The
hidden truths about your electric car. [Scroll down] A typical E.V. battery weighs one thousand
pounds and is about the size of a car trunk. It contains 25 pounds of lithium; 60 pounds of nickel; 44 pounds of
manganese; 30 pounds of cobalt; 200 pounds of copper; and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. This type of
battery contains over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells. The majority of these materials are derived from mining
operations worldwide. To manufacture each E.V. auto battery, the following material must be processed: 25,000
pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000
pounds of ore for copper. All told, suppliers must dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust for just one
battery. Sixty-eight percent of the world's cobalt, a significant part of an E.V. battery, comes from the Congo,
where they have no pollution controls and minimal regulation, and they employ children, who die from handling this toxic
material. There are no emissions directly from an E.V. itself. However, there are many from mining
operations. These facts are not generally publicized. E.V.s can and should be part of the solution, but
doing away with fossil fuels is not a viable alternative.
The Editor says...
[#1] The battery components listed add up to 759 pounds, not 1,000 pounds. [#2] The writer says, "E.V.s can and
should be part of the solution," which sounds very nice, but then one must then ask, "They are the solution to what problem?"
Carbon dioxide is completely harmless; in fact, it is essential. Global warming isn't happening; and even if it is, we can't stop it;
and even if we could, it's not worth wrecking the world economy to do so.
Bosch
Warns Electric Vehicle Industry over Reliance on Battery Cells. The head of mobility services for German
electronics giant Robert Bosch GmbH has warned the electric vehicle industry of the reliance on battery cells and
possible shortages in the future. Bloomberg reports that Markus Heyn, the head of mobility services for Bosch, has
warned the electric vehicle industry over its overreliance on a single fuel source — battery
cells — as Europe's energy crisis worsens. Heyn, who's also a board member of the auto parts giant,
told the Monday [9/19/2022] edition of the Stuttgarter Zeitung: "We're currently seeing the consequences of
the gas shortage for Germany and Europe because we prepared too few alternatives. In the automotive industry, we
should use this occasion to ask ourselves what we can do if there should ever be too few battery cells."
Here's
why you may find yourself priced out of the EV market. This year likely will be the first that
electric-vehicle battery costs will go up, rather than continuing the steady decline that they've been on for more than
a decade. And EV buyers are seeing the result: several auto makers, from newcomers such as Rivian Automotive Inc.
to established players such as Tesla Inc. have raised their EV prices. The move has affected all models, from
mass-market electric sedans to coveted muscle cars with deep order books and even Ford Motor Co.'s EV version of the
F-150 pickup truck, the vehicle that has reigned supreme as the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for decades.
Regulators
Overlooked This Crucial Detail About Electric Cars and It Could Have Lethal Results. [O]verall electric
cars aren't all that green. Electronic waste is an underreported issue, and what do you think creates the energy
at the recharging stations? It's not wizards — it's fossil fuels, specifically coal. It's one of
the luxury items coveted by liberal America. California will ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035, though
they're also telling their residents with electric cars to avoid charging them to prevent overloading the grid.
It's the seat of irony. The green future the Left is waterboarding us to accept is quite dystopian and dark, as
they can't keep the lights on. Does our cleaner future look like a Venezuelan rolling blackout because it's
shaping to be that way? Fossil fuels being the recharged fuel for electric vehicles is a dirty secret, but another
deadly peculiarity exists. They're more deadly on the roads. The batteries that give these cars the 300 or
so mile range before recharge are understandably massive and quite heavy, adding a fatality factor should a crash
occur. It's something that regulators glossed over during the research and development stages. When you
increase the weight of these vehicles due to the battery traveling at highway speed, how do you think things will end if
there's a crash? Rotational inertia spells death in so many ways with this situation[.]
The
Extreme Weight Of Large Electric Vehicles Is Going To Be A Very Dangerous Problem. The United States is
already a global leader in traffic-related fatalities, with a thirty-percent jump in the last decade. That's in
contrast to every other developed country, which saw a decline. With that as backdrop, there's some growing
concerns about not just the safety of undercooked autonomous driving, but the extreme weight of larger electric
vehicles. The electric Ford Lightning, for example, is a whopping 6,500 pounds. The Hummer EV is even
heavier, clocking in at 9,000 pounds. It's battery alone weighs more than a Honda Civic. Combine that
incredible weight with amazing acceleration in a country with soaring traffic fatalities and fairly feckless regulatory
oversight and you've got a bit of an obvious problem.
Down
With Electric Vehicles! Are people finally starting to catch on to the fact that electric vehicles are a
terrible idea? I hope so. Bjorn Lomborg makes the case in accessible form in the Wall Street Journal.
To begin with, EVs don't even save much on CO2 emissions: ["]Over its lifetime, an electric car does emit
less CO2 than a gasoline car, but the difference can range considerably depending on how the electricity is
generated. Making batteries for electric cars also requires a massive amount of energy, mostly from burning coal
in China. Add it all up and the International Energy Agency estimates that an electric car emits a little less
than half as much CO2 as a gasoline-powered one.["] What does that up to, in terms of climate?
["]If every country achieved its stated ambitious electric-vehicle targets by 2030, the world would save
231 million tons of CO2 emissions. Plugging these savings into the standard United Nations Climate Panel model,
that comes to a reduction of 0.0002 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century.["] On that basis alone,
the left's mania to make us all drive electric vehicles is insane.
Tesla's Texas Gigafactory is Huge.
This may fall into the "old news is so exciting" category for many of you. I knew that Tesla was building it's
Gigafactory east of Austin, and that it was large, but since I almost never travel to that part of town, until this
video popped up in my YouTube feed, I had no idea how large. [Video clip]
California
Residents Forced to Prepare for Rolling Blackouts as State Leadership Pushes 'Green' Initiatives. The
operator of California's power grid is advising state residents to prepare for rolling outages because of a
heatwave. Governor Gavin Newsom constantly brags about the state's commitment to green energy, but he can't even
keep the power on. How will they power all the electric cars once they ban gas-powered vehicles if they can't keep
the power on?
Should
CA's Ban on New Gas Cars Be a 'Model' For US? Granholm Responds. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
praised California's ban on the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 and said it could serve as a model for the rest
of the country. During an interview that aired Friday with FOX 11 Los Angeles, host Elex Michaelson first asked
whether she liked the regulation approved by the California Air Resources Board to reduce carbon emissions. "Yeah,
I do. I think California really is leaning in," she replied. "And of course, the federal government has a
goal of — the president has announced — by 2030 that half of the vehicles in the U.S., the new
ones sold would be electric."
The Editor says...
The government wants you to drive an electric car because the government does not want you to travel very far, very fast,
or very much. The government would prefer that you ride the train or the bus, and go only to the places served by mass transit.
West
Virginia coal miners help tourists push their dead electric car. An electric vehicle broke down in West
Virginia on Friday, but a group of coal miners were quick to help out. The EV broke down along Corridor H in
Tucker County as the driver was headed to Davis for a weekend getaway. Photographs shared on Facebook by Tucker
County Republican state Sen. Randy Smith shows the car broken down in front of the Mettiki Coal access road on
U.S. 48. "Someone called one of our foreman and told him a car was broke down in the middle of our haul
road," Smith said in his post. Since the plastic underside of the vehicle prevented it from being towed, the
miners decided to push it to the coal mine to charge up.
You must drive electric cars — but please do not charge them.
California
Extends 'Flex Alert,' Warns Drivers Not to Charge Electric Cars. Authorities in California extended a
"Flex Alert" telling residents to conserve energy, including not charging their electric vehicles, on Sunday afternoon
and evening. The alert has been in effect for several days in the midst of a heat wave that is slated to last
through Labor Day. The California Independent System Operator, the manager of the state's power grid, issued the
statewide Flex Alert from 4 to 9 p.m. Residents are urged to set their thermostats to 78 degrees Fahrenheit or
higher, avoid using major appliances, avoid charging electric vehicles, and turning off unnecessary lights.
"Additional Flex Alerts will likely be called as heat will only intensify through Tuesday, with little relief from
triple-digit temperatures seen over the next several days," the operator wrote. "Daytime high temperatures are forecast
at 10-20 degrees above normal in much of the state through the Labor Day weekend and into next week, and record-breaking
heat is projected in some parts of California."
Buick
to offer buyouts to U.S. dealers as brand prepares for all-electric future. General
Motors Co. will offer buyouts to Buick dealers in the U.S. who decide not to opt in to the brand's
plans to be all-electric by 2030, the company confirmed Friday. The news first was reported
by the Wall Street Journal ahead of a Buick dealer meeting on Friday. The buyout program
would be open to all of the brand's 2,000 U.S. dealers, according to spokeswoman Michelle
Malcho. Dealers who accept the buyout still would be able to sell other GM brands, as the
program applies only to the Buick franchise.
Dealership
Quotes $30,000 to Replace Battery in a $10,000 Chevrolet Volt. A Chevrolet Volt owner
in Florida was shocked to receive a $30,000 quote for a replacement battery from a dealership,
reports CarScoops. The quote in question comes from Roger Dean Chevrolet in Florida, and
regards a battery replacement for a 2012 Chevrolet Bolt. The cost of the new battery itself
comes in at $26,853.99. Further charges include $33.98 for coolant and $1,200 in labor. Add
tax and the total bill comes to $30,842.15. It's a steep price, particularly when a brand-new
Chevrolet Bolt with a far larger battery can be had for a base price of $26,595. The enormous
figure raised questions when the quote was posted online, with commenters on Reddit and beyond
raising questions as to its authenticity. However, fact-checking website Snopes was able to
confirm with the dealership that the quote was indeed legitimate.
Californians
[are being] Told Not to Charge Electric Vehicles Days After State Banned Gas-Powered Sales by
2035. The California ISO warns that excessive heat could stress the energy grid,
leading to blackouts. [...] Knowing that California deals with blackouts, some California leaders,
led by Gavin Newsom, thought it would be a smart idea to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by
2035. Now, they are urging residents not to charge their electric vehicles due to concerns
about the power grid and blackouts.
10
Facts Electric Vehicle Advocates Don't Want You to Know. There are a host of reasons
why the Left is absolutely determined to force Americans out of their privately owned,
gasoline-powered cars and trucks and into unreliable public transportation and costly Electric
Vehicles (EVs), none of which have to do with "saving the environment." The central reason the
Left loves EVs is that the process of forcing Americans to convert to electric-powered
transportation will destroy forever the incredible freedom and prosperity associated with privately
owned gas-powered vehicles. The future will instead be centrally controlled by rich elitists
and their corrupt politicians, power-hungry bureaucrats, and ideologically driven "experts."
Spike
in U.K. energy prices push cost of running EVs above gas-powered cars. Charging
electric vehicles in Britain soon will be more expensive than filling up gasoline-powered cars
thanks to soaring electricity costs — an economic switcheroo that could be a harbinger
of shrinking financial benefits for Americans who go green. British energy regulators told
electricity consumers to expect to pay 80% more beginning Oct. 1. The national price cap on
residential electricity will send the average bill from about $190 per month to an estimated $343
per month, or more than $4,000 per year. The shocking price hike stems from the nation's
limited reserves and Russia's cutoff of one of the region's major sources of electricity
generation: natural gas. British energy prices eclipsed those of many other Europeans because
the nation lacks domestic energy storage and production of natural gas, nuclear and renewables,
making it more reliant on imports.
Unelected
Bureaucrats Unilaterally Impose the Green New Deal. Last week, a bank in Australia
announced that it would no longer lend money for the purchase of gasoline powered cars. From
now on, Bank Australia will lend money only to buyers of electric cars. Bank Australia is not
one of the big four Australian banks that control 80% of the Australian market, but the publicity
from this move is expected to rally the faithful. There is no public consensus in the West in
favor of electric cars. They have limited range. They are expensive. Recharging
the battery is extremely time consuming and costly. The batteries often need to be replaced
at a cost that equals or exceeds the price of a new car. The cars constitute a fire hazard
which requires tremendous amounts of time and water to extinguish, often placing garages and
general traffic at risk. Electric cars and their batteries cause greater environmental damage
than the gasoline cars they are intended to replace. Constant promises that improved
technology is just around the corner have never been fulfilled. The public has generally not
shown a willingness to accept these risks, costs, and harms. Without any consensus, activists
seek to impose this drastic change on all of us through the back door. There has been no vote
on the electric car. There is no mandate. Yet, they can push the agenda anyway.
California
has weaponized transportation against its own population. Starting in 2035, it will
be illegal to sell new gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles in the state, with the exception of a
small percentage of hybrid models. But electric vehicles are quite expensive. And so
this policy, which would be burdensome even in a relatively car-free place like New York City, will
be crushing in a state whose entire geography and culture center on the automobile. This new
price might make certain legislators feel good about themselves, but it will price many low-income
Californians, already stressed by high housing prices, out of their commutes as well.
Cash
is king for EV makers as soaring battery prices drive up vehicle production costs. In
the transition from gas-powered vehicles to electric, the fuel every automaker is after these days
is cold hard cash. Established automakers and startups alike are rolling out new
battery-powered models in an effort to meet growing demand. Ramping up production of a new
model was already a fraught and expensive process, but rising material costs and tricky regulations
for federal incentives are squeezing coffers even further. Prices of the raw materials used
in many electric-vehicle batteries — lithium, nickel and cobalt — have soared
over the last two years as demand has skyrocketed, and it may be several years before miners are
able to meaningfully increase supply. Complicating the situation further, new U.S. rules
governing EV buyer incentives will require automakers to source more of those materials in North
America over time if they want their vehicles to qualify. The result: new cost pressures for
what was already an expensive process.
Gov
Glenn Youngkin Vows to Block CA's 'Ridiculous' Gas-Powered Vehicle Ban Slated to Be Imposed in
VA. On Thursday, California Air Resources Board approved a regulation banning new
sales of gas-powered vehicles, as my RedState colleague reported. The regulations require all
new cars, trucks, and SUVs to be powered by electricity or hydrogen by 2035, with one-fifth
permitted to be plug-in hybrid vehicles. The plan stems from CA Governor Gavin Newsom's
executive order signed nearly two years ago. But, the newly approved plan doesn't just impact
the Golden State, it puts 17 other states including Virginia on a path to adopt the regulations.
Youngkin
vows to untie Virginia from California's 'out of touch' electric vehicle shift.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) vowed to block all efforts to ban gas-powered vehicles in
Virginia. His declaration comes after California's Air Resources Board voted Thursday to
implement an executive order by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) that phases out gas-powered vehicles
and bans the sale of them beginning in 2035. Virginia passed a law in 2021 that set the
Commonwealth on a path to adopt California's emissions standards. "In an effort to turn
Virginia into California, liberal politicians who previously ran our government sold Virginia out
by subjecting Virginia drivers to California vehicle laws," Youngkin wrote in a statement posted to
Twitter. "Now, under that pact, Virginians will be forced to adopt the California law that
prohibits the sale of gas and diesel-fueled vehicles. I am already at work to prevent this
ridiculous edict from being forced on Virginians. California's out of touch laws have no
place in our Commonwealth."
California's
Ban of Gas-Powered Vehicles Likely Illegal, Unrealistic. California plans to ban the
sale of gas-powered cars by 2035. In 2021, California required 12 percent of total new vehicle
sales to be powered by batteries or hydrogen. By 2026, their goal is to reach 35 percent.
By 2030, 68 percent. And in 2035, 100 percent powered by batteries or hydrogen. [...]
According to the Independent Women's Forum, banning gas-powered cars is likely unconstitutional.
Mandy Gunasekara states: "First, it could violate the Commerce Clause as it creates unreasonable
burdens on interstate commerce, i.e. the manufacture and sale of vehicles. The Supreme Court has
long held that the Commerce Clause has been a "self-executing limitation" on the power of States to enact
laws which restrict interstate commerce. Second, under the Clean Air Act, California is required
to receive a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in order to set its own, more stringent,
emissions standards."
The Editor says...
If all cars are "powered by batteries or hydrogen," that won't really fix anything. What's the power
source for charging all those batteries? How much power would be needed to produce enough hydrogen to
run an automobile for a month? Is there a Permian Basin of hydrogen somewhere? In a state that
already has occasional power blackouts, where is all that newly-demanded power going to come from?
Mandating
EVs in U.S. would require '18 times current global production of cobalt. In 2018,
about 5.1 million EVs were in use around the globe. That means that cutting domestic gasoline
demand by a third would require the U.S. to deploy roughly 20 times as many EVs as are now being
used around the world. [...] The U.S. has about 276 million registered motor vehicles, or roughly
nine times as many vehicles as the U.K. Thus, if Herrington's numbers are right, electrifying all
of U.S. motor vehicles would require roughly 18 times the world's current cobalt production, about
nine times global neodymium output, nearly seven times global lithium production, and about four
times world copper production.
Ford
Increases Price for Electric Mustang Mach-E by as Much as $8,000. Ford is reportedly
raising the price of the 2023 Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle by as much as $8,000 just a few weeks
after increasing the price of its planned electric pickup truck the F-150 Lightning. Although
the company blames inflation, supply chain problems, and "rapidly evolving market conditions," the
price hikes come just after Joe Biden's climate and spending bill passed including electric vehicle
rebates eerily similar to Ford's price increases. The Verge reports that Ford is raising the
price of the 2023 Mustang Mach-E just a few weeks after increasing the price of its electric pickup
truck, the F-150 Lightning. The automaker stated that it was reopening the order banks for
the electric SUV with an adjusted MSRP due to "significant material cost increases, continued
strain on key supply chains, and rapidly evolving market conditions."
Two
More States Follow California's Decision To Ban Gas Car Sales By 2035. It's only a
day since we reported on California's intention to outlaw sales of new combustion-engined vehicles
from 2035, and already the ripples are being felt across the nation. The California Air
Resources Board (CARB) that governs motor vehicle emissions for the state adopted new rules that
will require 35% of the new cars sold in the state are electric or plug-in hybrids by 2026, with
that percentage rising to 68% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. California has a waiver from the
federal government to set its own air quality rules, and other states are allowed to opt into its
regulations, which are typically more stringent than the national standards.
California
to unveil plan tomorrow that will see sale of new gas cars banned by 2035. California
is set to roll out its long-awaited ban on new gasoline cars on Thursday, which is part of its rule
to have all new cars sold by 2035 to be electric only in an effort to fight climate change.
Governor Gavin Newsom first announced the ban in 2020 as a means to reduce the amount of
smog-induced pollution in the air, which will improve the state's air quality that is the worst in
the US. The move will also make California the first in the world to mandate zero-emission
vehicles on its roads — but many other states and countries have joined the movement,
but have not yet began the ban.
California
moves toward banning new cars running only on gas by 2035. California is set to move
closer to banning the sale of new cars running only on gasoline by 2035, a major step in the
car-loving state's fight against climate change. The expected embrace of the policy by the
state's Air Resources Board during a meeting scheduled for Thursday comes after Gov. Gavin
Newsom (D) set a target in 2020 for cleaning up California's auto fleet. The proposed
regulation would set strict deadlines for meeting that goal, forcing automakers to step up
production of cleaner vehicles considerably, starting in 2026. The requirements would only
speed forward from there, until only zero-emission passenger cars, pickup trucks and SUVs as well
as a limited number of plug-in hybrids are allowed to be sold in the state by 2035.
The Editor says...
[#1] No legislation will ever control the weather, or keep the climate from changing.
[#2] If California is the only state taking action to reduce the CO2 content of the atmosphere, what good
will it do if the other 49 states don't take the same action? What good will it do if China
and India keep pumping out CO2? [#3] If it is still legal to drive a gas-engine car in
California after 2026, what's to prevent someone from buying such a car in a neighboring state?
[#4] California already deals with power outages every year. When everybody is driving
electric cars, what will happen to the power grid?
Report:
Ford [will] Cut About 3K Jobs amid Transition to Electric Vehicles. Ford Motor
Company will lay off approximately 3,000 workers to cut costs while transitioning to electric
vehicles, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday [8/22/2022]. The company's internal
email to employees said it would begin notifying the affected salaried and agency workers in the
next few days, according to the newspaper which reviewed the email.
The Editor says...
I suspect that's a bloc of 3,000 voters (not counting their spouses) who don't care if electric cars save the
planet — especially if they never believed it before.
A
Common Situation Where EVs Fail Miserably. Here in the Upper Midwest, our interstates
are fast and our winters are cold. Speeds north of 70 miles per hour combined with near-zero
(F) temperatures wreak havoc on an electric vehicle's range. While a typical internal
combustion engine (ICE) car might suffer only a 10-15% reduction in highway driving range under
these conditions, a typical EV currently on the market will have its range dip 30-50 percent!
Elevated power output from the motor coupled with electric heating for the cabin increase energy
draw from a cold — and thus reduced-capacity — lithium battery. This
means that a 274-mile rated Kia EV6 might mange just 160 miles of range in bone-chilling cold, a
278-mile rated Mustang Mach-E might get 180, and a Tesla Model Y could optimistically go about 200.
If you're thinking about a winter road trip, maybe to visit relatives for Christmas or Thanksgiving, in
a shorter-range EV like a Kona, Bolt, Leaf, or Niro, forget about it. Compounding the problem of
drastically reduced driving range is the generally inept charging infrastructure along highways in the
Upper Midwest. DC fast chargers are few and far between and when you get to one there's a
decent chance it won't be working.
The
'Electric Vehicles Will Save The Planet' Farce Is Unraveling Quickly. An auto club in
Germany that claims 21 million members ran some controlled charging test electric vehicles to see
how efficient that process was. The results put another nail in the value coffin. Not
only are they expensive to buy and own, but the average charge also wastes up to 13% of the
electricity. Put another way, the consumer is charged for all the electricity required to
fully charge the battery, which is as much as 13% more than the battery can hold. So, imagine
pouring two gallons of gasoline on the ground every time you filled a 20-gallon tank. People
would lose their collective minds. But that will be standard for every charge of every
vehicle in the utopian electric fleet of the future.
GM,
Ford say electric vehicle price increases have nothing to do with Dem spending bill. General Motors (GM) and
Ford, two of the largest U.S. automakers, pushed back on reports Tuesday that recent electric vehicle (EV) price hikes were
related the Inflation Reduction Act. The two companies told FOX Business that recent price increases impacting certain
EV models were influenced by inflation and supply chain issues and were announced before Democrats unveiled the
legislation. Multiple conservative outlets reported this week that GM and Ford had raised the prices of certain
electric models by between $6,000 and $8,500, roughly matching the $7,500 tax credit introduced under the inflation bill.
Electric Vehicles
in a Hurricane? Electric cars could be a nightmare during a massive evacuation. Studies have been done
showing a cascading failure of the power grid if huge numbers of Florida residents simultaneously charged their cars in
preparation for a major storm. EV owners would fare even worse if they stayed behind and were without power for days or
weeks. Anyone else remember Hurricane Isabel in 2003? That storm came ashore in Virginia as a strong Category 1
storm. Yet some of us were without electricity for almost three weeks. In a 2021 article headlined, "Electric
Vehicles Powerless During Hurricanes," Forbes Magazine claimed that electric vehicles would compound the problems of
natural disaster, such as Hurricane Ida that had just wiped out much of Louisiana's electric power.
BMW
Issues Warning: Park These EVs Outside, Don't Drive or Charge Them as They Could Catch Fire. Germany
luxury carmaker BMW has issued a recall notice for a number of electric vehicles the automobile manufacturer built between
2021 and 2022. The notice was posted on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall campaign database on
July 27. The voluntary recall was in response to battery defects in a number of BMW manufactured electric vehicles
built between November 22, 2021, and June 30, 2022, the notice said.
Ford Raises
Electric Truck Price By Up To $8,500 After Democrats Pass $7,500 EV Tax Credit. Ford raised the base price of
its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck Aug. 9 following the passing of a bill by Senate Democrats that included a $7,500
federal electric vehicle tax credit. The base model of the 2023 F-150 Lightning pickup will now cost $47,000, up from
it's original price of $40,000, according to CNN. More expensive models, such as the XLT High/Extended Range and the Lariat
Extended Range have increased in price by $8,500, while other F-150 Lightning designs vary between $6,000 to $7,000 in price
increases, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The
Basic Math Problem that Undoes Global Warming Hysteria. If someone proposes a solution to an "existential
problem" that has no chance of success, should we be forced to take the problem seriously? If the climate alarmists
truly believe there is a climate emergency, then they should be able to answer the first basic question about "the plan."
Are the numbers in the plan even remotely achievable? Remember: based on their screeching, we have only twelve
years before we all die from "man-made climate change." To answer that question, let's break part of the plan into the
most basic math problem: can we replace 25%, 50%, or 75% of the cars on the road in ten years? [...] The automobile
situation in the U.S. alone cannot be resolved in twenty years, let alone in ten years. Here is where the math gets a
little more fun: If we are currently producing 1 million electric vehicles a year, and we are struggling to attain the
materials to hit that number, what is the maximum number of electric vehicles we can produce without a "magic wand"?
Electric
Vehicles May Present Major Problem During Natural Disaster Evacuations: Experts. A report from
Transportation Research published in ScienceDirect headlined "Can we evacuate from hurricanes with electric vehicles?" found
that Florida — which often bears the force of hurricanes — may not have enough power to cope during an
evacuation. "If the majority of the evacuating vehicles were EVs, Florida would face a serious challenge in power
supply," the report said. It added that could affect six out of the nine main power authorities, especially those in
mid-Florida, and "could induce cascading failure of the entire power network" throughout the state. In California, the
two main natural disasters are earthquakes and wildfires. Both are short-notice events that have the potential to knock
out the power grid with no warning, making it especially difficult, if not impossible, to charge a Battery Electric Vehicle
(BEV)," a case study from California Polytechnic State University found.
Myanmar
bears cost of green energy. The birds no longer sing, and the herbs no longer grow. The fish no longer
swim in rivers that have turned a murky brown. The animals do not roam, and the cows are sometimes found dead.
The people in this northern Myanmar forest have lost a way of life that goes back generations. But if they complain,
they, too, face the threat of death. This forest is the source of several key metallic elements known as rare earths,
often called the vitamins of the modern world. Rare earths now reach into the lives of almost everyone on the planet,
turning up in everything from hard drives and cellphones to elevators and trains. They are especially vital to the
fast-growing field of green energy, feeding wind turbines and electric car engines. And they end up in the supply
chains of some of the most prominent companies in the world, including General Motors, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Tesla and Apple.
South
America's 'lithium fields' reveal the dark side of our electric future. Lithium extraction fields in South
America have been captured by an aerial photographer in stunning high definition. But while the images may be
breathtaking to look at, they represent the dark side of our swiftly electrifying world. Lithium represents a route out
of our reliance on fossil fuel production. As the lightest known metal on the planet, it is now widely used in electric
devices from mobile phones and laptops, to cars and aircraft. Lithium-ion batteries are most famous for powering
electric vehicles, which are set to account for up to 60 percent of new car sales by 2030. The battery of a Tesla Model S,
for example, uses around 12 kg of lithium. These batteries are the key to lightweight, rechargeable power. As it
stands, demand for lithium is unprecedented and many say it is crucial in order to transition to renewables. However,
this doesn't come without a cost — mining the chemical element can be harmful to the environment.
The
inconvenient truth of electric vehicles. [Scroll down] Second, currently, the materials used to
manufacture E.V. batteries are typically mined in Africa by child labor under the harshest conditions imaginable.
Children are typically forced to sift through piles of material in an effort to secure the scarce materials (cobalt, lithium,
and nickel) required for battery production. Children as young as two years old transport, wash, and crush minerals to
earn half a dollar a day. The problem of child labor used to source E.V. battery materials has been known for several
years, yet we look the other way. In addition, the mining process in not environmentally friendly and in itself
contributes to global warming. Third, all E.V. batteries have a limited service life, at the end of which they must be
disposed of in our landfills, as the recycling options, unlike with my petroleum-powered vehicle, are extremely
limited. Millions of electric car batteries will retire in the next decade. What happens to them? How do
batteries not end up in a mountain of waste and further contaminate the environment?
Gasoline,
Electricity, and Biden's Fuel for the Inflation Fire. [W]ind turbines and solar panels may be the magic beans
of the green agenda, but they can't produce anything close to energy output with the reliability of fossil fuels. So,
electricity is in low supply, and not only is the demand so high that prices are spiking, but electric companies cannot even
meet the current demand for it. The Biden administration's "solution" to this is to incentivize the purchase and use of
electric vehicles, which, for the average family, would consume four times as much electricity as the average home consumes
for air conditioning. Science writer Stan Cox is among the many left-wing opponents of air conditioning who argue that
all the electricity used to power Americans' air conditioning is "helping push the fast-forward button on global warming."
That's bad for the planet, we're incessantly told. But even if you cut out air conditioning your home altogether to
offset the electricity cost of your fancy new electric vehicles, you're still consuming three times as much incremental
electricity as you did before. Somehow, that's not "helping push the fast-forward button on global warming," but it's
good for the planet.
Electric
Vehicles Cost More Than You Think. The true cost to fuel EVs is opaque to most consumers, because: First,
E.V. drivers must consider the cost of the energy consumed from both home and commercial charging. This requires
decomposing energy consumption by charging source while accounting for complicated tariffs and fees. Second, consumers
must add the cost of the charger and its installation if they intend to charge at home. Third, electric vehicle owners
avoid paying the federal road taxes charged on fuel. However, half of all U.S. states now require a special E.V. tax in
lieu of the state road taxes included in the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel. Fourth, drivers must travel to and from
E.V. charging stations, especially when traveling away from their home area. Because these are far less ubiquitous than
gas stations, the additional miles required cost both time and money. Fifth, many E.V. users consider their charging
"free" because some commercial charging is subsidized by government agencies, utilities, and businesses. However,
electricity and charging equipment are clearly not "free," and consumers need to understand how they pay for this service.
Journalists
Hook RV Up to $93K Electric Truck, Found It Wouldn't Even Make 100 Miles Before Needing a Recharge. Democrats
have touted electric vehicles as the way of the future, but they have failed to address the setbacks of the still-developing
technology. A new experiment has once again highlighted the problems leftists have failed to address. Journalists
from MotorTrend set out to test the towing capacity of the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck, and their findings were
less than inspiring. From the start, journalist Eric Tingwall was less than confident in the truck's towing
abilities. [Video clip]
Electric
Police Cars [are] 'Running Out of Juice' on [the] Way to Rural Emergencies. A British police force that has
embraced the use of electric vehicles says they have operational limits when a charging station is nowhere in sight.
The revelation came from Gloucestershire Police and Crime Commissioner Chris Nelson, according to the Daily Mail. The
issue comes into play the most often when officers are in rural areas, he said.
GM
joint venture gets $2.5 billion government loan to help build EV battery cell plants. General Motors' joint
venture with LG Energy Solution is on track to receive a multibillion-dollar loan from the U.S. government to build battery
cell plants for electric vehicles, including one going up in Lansing. On Monday [7/25/2022], the Department of Energy
announced "a conditional commitment" for $2.5 billion to GM and LG's 50-50 joint venture called Ultium Cells LLC. "While
this conditional commitment demonstrates the Department's intent to finance the project, several steps remain, and certain
conditions must be satisfied before the Department issues a final loan," the DOE said in a blog posted Monday.
WEF
Calls for an End to Private Car Ownership. The World Economic Forum (WEF) is calling for the end of private car
ownership in the name of saving the world from climate change by reducing the need for green tech resources. "We need a
clean energy revolution, and we need it now," the WEF begins its article. According to the WEF, critical metals, such
as cobalt, lithium, and nickel — all of which are used in "clean energy technologies" — are in short
supply. And while the WEF says recycling old tech that uses these metals could lessen the impact of shortages, it's
simply not enough.
The Editor says...
Wait a minute. They were going to save the world from global warming by switching to "green tech resources," and now they
want to save the world from global warming by "reducing the need for green tech resources." Here's how to reduce the demand
for "green tech resources:" Go back to gasoline! Then deal with global warming when it becomes a tangible problem —
which will never happen.
Another Electric Bus
Bursts Into Flames. Liberal social engineers adore both electric vehicles and public transportation.
Meanwhile, as we have seen before, an electric bus just burst into flames: ["]An electric CTtransit bus caught on
fire at the bus depot in Hamden [Connecticut] on Saturday morning [7/23/2022].["] Although it is not known for
sure what caused the fire... ["]...fire officials said it's typically difficult to put out fires caused by
lithium-ion batteries 'due to the thermal chemical process that produces great heat and continually reignites.'["]
Army
tests electric Humvee for future battlefield use. The Army picked General Motors to provide them with a GMC
Hummer EV for a test drive as the service looks to fill a requirement for a light- to heavy-duty battery electric vehicle to
reduce the military's reliance on fossil fuels in garrison and in the field. GM's all-electric pickup-model Hummer
features 1,000 horsepower with a 24-module, double-stacked Ultium battery pack. It offers almost 330 miles of combined
driving range with its first edition and can go from 0-to-60 mph in as little as 3 seconds, according to the company.
The Editor says...
[#1] Zero-to-60 in three seconds isn't very useful in Army work, is it? Let's hear about the range of the truck
between charges. How many times can the truck make a zero-to-60 start before the battery dies? [#2] Let's hope there
are plenty of diesel-powered charging stations on the battlefield. [#3] I wouldn't want to be a sitting-duck soldier waiting
for the truck to recharge. [#4] Nobody seems to have any questions about how much this will cost, and what problem is being
solved by making this change. [#5] The battlefield is no place to experiment with white elephant technology. The fellas
at Fort Hood will figure out how useless electric vehicles are, and all the research and development money will go down the drain.
US Postal Service Set to Make 40
Percent of New Mail Trucks Electric. The United States Postal Service (USPS) has announced plans to make at
least 40 percent of its new delivery fleet electric. Back in February, the USPS had already said that it would procure
165,000 New Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) trucks from Oshkosh Defense, of which 10 percent would be electric. But
in a July 20 news release, the organization announced a new plan to buy 84,500 vehicles, of which 40 percent are estimated to
be battery electric vehicles (BEVs). The 84,500 vehicles will include 50,000 NGDVs and 34,500 commercial off-the-shelf
(COTS) vehicles. Of the 50,000 NGDVs, the minimum BEV percent is set to rise to 50 percent, up from 10 percent.
The 34,500 COTS vehicles will be purchased over a two-year period.
Rumor:
Ford Canning 8,000 Workers. Can You Guess Why? Word on the mean streets of Detroit is that the Ford Motor
Company is planning on axing 8,000 salaried workers in order to boost profits to help fund future electric vehicles (EV).
Buttigieg
Whines About Americans Not Wanting Electric Cars. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made an appearance on
CNBC Wednesday morning and whined about Americans not wanting to give up their gas fueled vehicles for electric alternatives.
[Tweet] Worse, when asked about the dire consequences of the Biden administration's war on oil and gas, Buttigieg justified
the potential for deaths as simply part of the transition to alternative energy. [Tweet] Meanwhile, electric vehicle
owners are being warned not to charge their batteries during certain hours for fear of blackouts.
EVs
Are Not the Future. Have you noticed that when it comes to EVs, the smartest guys in the room — the
ones who study energy/technology trends, run successful energy-tech investment firms, and more importantly, the guys who
actually build the things — are uniformly dubious about their future?
Florida
family drives into electric car problem: a replacement battery costs more than [the] vehicle itself. A family
in Florida drove into a major problem after buying a used electric vehicle: the replacement battery for their dead car wound
up costing more than the used car was purchased for. Avery Siwinski is a 17-year-old whose parents spent $11,000 on a
used Ford Focus Electric car, which is a 2014 model and had about 60,000 miles when it was bought, according to KVUE.
The teenager had the car for six months before it began giving her issues and the dashboard was flashing symbols. "It
was fine at first," Siwinski said. "I loved it so much. It was small and quiet and cute. And all the sudden
it stopped working."
Don't Fall For It (EVs). Let's
start with home charging. You know, where you park most of the time. If you own a house then you're in for an
electrician to come by. If you're lucky your electrical panel is in the garage in a reasonable and convenient location
to where the car is parked most of the time and you have a spare double-breaker slot in the panel. If either is
not true then the cost of installing a 240V outlet where you can charge said car is wildly expensive; if the panel is full,
for example, you will need a subpanel to be installed which is going to run a couple thousand for the electrician to
do so and, if the existing panel is in finished space the wall has to be ripped up as well. Ditto on ripping up walls
if the location is inconvenient; properly securing the wiring requires accessing the studs. If there's drywall in the
way then it has to be ripped out and then replaced. Incidentally if you live in an apartment, or anywhere without
actual owned garage space — not deeded, owned — forget it.
The
End of Private Car Ownership. Biden is trying to bring back Obama's mileage standards that were estimated to
raise car prices by 20%. The goal is to "nudge 40% of U.S. drivers into electric vehicles by decade's end." Will 40% of
Americans be able to afford electric cars that cost an average of $54,000 by 2030? Not likely. Nor are they meant
to. Biden's radical 'green' government, which includes Tracy Stone-Manning, the former spokeswoman for an ecoterrorist
group as the head of the Bureau of Land Management, isn't looking to nudge drivers into another type of cars, but out of
cars. Gas prices are a way to price Americans out of car ownership under the guise of pushing EVs.
Biggest
Reason Why People Aren't Buying Electric Cars Revealed in New Survey. A survey discovered that charging
logistics is the primary reason why Americans aren't buying electric vehicles. Consumer Reports, which said it surveyed
around 8,000 Americans, found that 61 percent said they wouldn't seek to own an electric vehicle because of charging
logistics while 55 percent cited the number of miles a vehicle can go per charge. [...] "We found that 14 percent of American
drivers say they would 'definitely' buy or lease an electric-only vehicle if they were to buy a vehicle today," said Consumer
Reports. "That's up markedly from the 4 percent who said the same in a 2020 nationally representative survey from CR of
3,392 licensed U.S. drivers." According to recent figures from Kelly Blue Book, the average price of a new electric
vehicle hovered at roughly $56,000. In contrast, the average price of a new compact was about $25,000 at about the same
time. The average price of a new, non-electric SUV was $34,000, while the electric version was nearly $45,000.
Meanwhile, a recent report from data analysis and advisory firm J.D. Power, however, found that electric vehicles and plug-in
hybrids may have more problems than internal combustion engines.
Rivian
Electric Vehicle Manufacturer Planning Layoffs. Two things about this report showing Rivian is planning layoffs
for its workforce. First, the larger 'layoff' issue is going to be more prevalent as the economy contracts and consumer
demand declines. There is almost no expanded investment going into any Main Street business that sells non-essential
goods. The economic contraction, the drop in consumer demand that indicates a recession, is very real and now very easy
to spot. Second, Rivian is backed by the financing of Ford and Amazon and operates in California, Michigan and Illinois
(three deep blue states). Rivian is also the supplier for Amazon electric delivery vehicles having previously announced (in
2019) a deal to purchase 100,000 vehicles from Rivian. Additionally, Rivian has lost 69% of its market value this year.
Fatal
Electric Car Crash with a Parked Semi So Horrific a Special Crash Investigation Unit Has Been Assigned. Another
fatal accident involving an electric vehicle left two Lompoc, California, natives dead last week near Gainesville, Florida.
A 66-year-old female and 67-year-old male inside a 2015 Tesla Model S exited Interstate 75 and entered a rest stop on
Wednesday, Fox Business reported. The vehicle proceeded to crash into the back of a parked 18-wheeler, and both
people in the Tesla died. Both a local law enforcement agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
are investigating the tragic event, but neither has confirmed whether any of the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)
were engaged when the crash occurred. [...] If investigators determine ADAS were involved in the Wednesday crash, it would be
the 38th crash involving ADAS to be investigated by the NHTSA since 2016.
Studies
Show the Electric Vehicles Democrats Insist You Buy are Worse for the Environment and Lower Quality. Many
people believe electric vehicles are higher quality than gas-powered vehicles and are emissions-free, which makes them much
better for the environment. But two recent studies have shown that electric cars have more quality issues than
gas-powered ones and are not better for the environment. J.D. Power has produced the annual U.S. Initial Quality Study
for 36 years, which measures the quality of new vehicles based on feedback from owners. The most recent study, which
included Tesla in its industry calculation for the first time, found that battery-electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid
vehicles have more quality issues than gas-powered ones. According to J.D. Power, owners of electric or hybrid vehicles
cite more problems than do owners of gas-powered vehicles.
E-Vehicles
Are Like Covid Vaccines: Sold to the Public Based on Wildly Unrealistic Exaggerations. Breitbart
[presented] a report on Youtubers who compared an electric Ford F-150 pickup and a gasoline engine GMC Denali Ultimate
Edition to see how far each could tow a trailer. The results of the electric Ford pickup remind me of the promises made
by the COVID vaccine manufacturers: wildly exaggerated and probably more harmful than beneficial. As the video shows:
you'd have to be a moron to buy either knowing what we know today.
Auto
Expert Uncovers Hidden Truth About EV Range Claims — Owners Should Be Seething. President Joe Biden's
administration wants the United States to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 — and a big part of that plan
involves a switchover to electric vehicles. EVs, we're told, are the way of the future. Gone are worries about
"range anxiety," we're told. These vehicles can put in some serious miles on a single charge — and the
government's building more charging infrastructure along the highways every day. Neil Winton, however, says that's a
load of hooey. Winton is an auto industry analyst and senior contributor to Forbes. He says that while EVs may
look ideal if you're just going by the manufacturer's spec sheet, the real-world performance of these cars is very
different than what's promised when it comes to range.
NHTSA
opens the 37th Tesla crash probe. Safety officials have opened a 37th probe into a Tesla crash after a couple's
car slammed into the back of a Walmart truck, shearing its roof off. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) is investigating the wreck, which happened at the Paynes Prairie Rest Stop just south of Gainesville, Florida, on
Wednesday. Its female driver, aged 66, and her 67 year-old male passenger were killed. The pair were visiting
from Lompoc in California, and neither their age nor their relationship to one another has been disclosed, in accordance with
Florida state laws.
Watch:
YouTubers Claim Experiment with Electric Truck Ends After Mere 85 Miles. A group of YouTubers called Fast Lane
Truck tested electric and gas-powered trucks to see how far they could haul a trailer, and the results seemed to speak for
themselves. The test was between an electric Ford F-150 pickup and a GMC Denali Ultimate Edition featuring a gas
engine, the Independent Journal Review reported Thursday. [...] Fifty miles into the journey, the electric pickup reportedly
could not reach Colorado Springs, so the driver later headed toward Castle Rock. But the gas pickup's computer
apparently said it had 129 miles of range, which was enough to get back to Longmont.
Journalists
Tow Camper Behind Electric Truck, End in Stunning Failure When They Only Make it 85 Miles. [Scroll down]
The F150 charged up and the GMC filled up before taking to the road. The electric truck's computer estimated 160 miles
of range, which included calculating for the size and weight of the trailer. The gas-powered GMC's computer, also
taking the trailer into account, estimated 264 miles of range. Off they went, with the goal of the F150 getting 147
miles down the road to a fast-charging station in Pueblo, Colorado. But that estimate was optimistic. The
electric truck had only traveled 6 miles when the computer recalculated range from 160 to 150 miles, cutting things very
close if it was to reach Pueblo. That called for a change of plans — the new charging stop was Colorado Springs,
about 45 miles closer. After going 50 miles, the electric truck recalculated its range to indicate it couldn't
even make Colorado Springs.
Dark
clouds on the horizon for electric vehicles. The first dark cloud is the supply chain for lithium to build EV
batteries: Lithium's pivotal role in electric vehicles makes it an important commodity in meeting global targets to cut
carbon emissions, and it was added to the EU's list of critical raw materials in 2020. However, the European Commission is
currently assessing a proposal by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to classify lithium carbonate, chloride, and hydroxide
as dangerous for human health. The EU proposal doesn't ban lithium imports, from developing countries where the same
lithium carbonate, chloride and hydroxide are currently NOT categorized as dangerous for human health. But if
legislated will add to costs for processors from more stringent rules controlling processing, packaging, and storage.
The decision is expected to be reached by early next year[.]
Some
Countries Are Having Second Thoughts About Electric Car Mandates. As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, over 190
nations pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050. To achieve this, some have enacted target dates by which all new cars
must be zero-emission. But many of those same countries are now having second thoughts. Yesterday [6/28/2022],
the European Union (E.U.) approved a plan to end all sales of vehicles with internal combustion engines by 2035. The rule
would apply to both gasoline and diesel and is intended as a step toward achieving complete carbon neutrality by 2050. But
according to Reuters, five smaller E.U. member nations privately advocated for postponing the ban. The countries in
question — Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania — advocated putting off the total ban to
2040, with slightly more modest bans on specific types of vehicles in the interim. The letter cited concerns over the
feasibility of hitting target dates, specifically that "adequate and tailored transition periods need to be established." One
Bulgarian official stressed "significant differences" in what smaller E.U. nations can accomplish.
Look
At The Line To Charge Your Tesla. If you think the pain at the pump is hard to deal with, just take a look at
the leftist Utopia where everyone drives a Tesla and how long the lines are at a charging station. Remember, to get an
80% charge for your Tesla, it takes 40 minutes of plug power at a typical charging station, so these poor saps have a long
wait. [Video clip]
Own
an Electric Car? Thank a Slave. California wants to replace of all of its gas and diesel powered vehicles
with E-cars. But the state's electrical grid can't even handle the present load. California anticipates blackouts
and brownouts at least through 2025. Adding a million E-cars to the mix is an epic George Jetson and flying cars fiction and
will, inevitably result in larger and longer blackouts and brownouts. The other part of the fiction about E cars is
that batteries are made with a massive amount of raw material, mined by diesel-driven equipment, and slave labor.
Notwithstanding the dream that E-Cars are produced in Santa's magic workshop, they are not. All of the raw minerals and
elements needed for EV batteries are strip-mined. Liberals happily drive their E cars while scolding truck drivers,
almost certainly never consider the environmental and human cost of the battery powered "clean vehicles." Almost all of
the known deposits of cobalt are found in the Congo. Slaves/Child laborers harvest those raw materials. The
conditions for miners range from horrid to barely humane.
Questions the Climate Police
Won't Answer. How come nobody talks about how electric cars can explode, cause fires that can't be put out,
and can electrocute you? Isn't this the same Left that sued the tobacco industry for hiding all the bad news about
smoking causing lung cancer not so long ago?
A
lot of Americans are getting fooled all of the time. [Scroll down] Looking back over the years,
Granddaddy would be flabbergasted about the huge number of people who can be fooled into thinking that an electric automobile
creates no impact on the environment. I guess that folks don't mind if one electric runabout results in a gaping
hole in the earth halfway around the world? Do the owners of these swank autos realize that child labor is employed in
many of the mineral mining operations that make those car batteries possible? Evidently, they couldn't care less, just as
long as they are able to virtue signal to their friends and neighbors that they are environmentalists and guardians of the planet?
Tesla
Locks Driver Inside Before Bursting in Flames, Driver Kicked Window to Escape. A Vancouver-area driver claims
he kicked the window of his almost brand-new Tesla Model Y to escape a dangerous vehicle fire after the car lost power and
trapped him inside. In a 12-minute video that has since gone viral, Jamil Jutha, the driver of the Tesla, said that the
electric vehicle's (EV) battery suddenly "died," noting that he wasn't sure what happened. "All of a sudden my car just
shut down, it just said 'error error error,' and then all of a sudden the battery started smoking," Jutha said in the video,
as flames are seen in the interior of the vehicle. Jutha was driving towards Mountain Highway in North Vancouver,
Canada, on May 20 when the Model Y that he bought about eight months ago suddenly shut down, Vancouver-based CTV News
reported.
Thousands
of Electric Vehicles Recalled in US Over 'No Start Condition'. Ford announced it is recalling nearly 50,000
electric vehicles in response to a defect with the cars' batteries, which could lead to a loss of power while driving.
The automotive firm instructed dealers to stop selling Mustang Mach-Es produced between May 27, 2020, and May 24, 2022,
that do not have the proper repairs. Ford said it is working to develop a fix for the 48,924 cars that have experienced a
loss of power, overheating, and startup problems. "In the affected vehicles, it is possible that the high voltage battery
main contactors may overheat, which can result in an open contactor or welding condition. Should the contactors weld
closed while driving, a powertrain malfunction warning light will be illuminated on the next drive cycle, along with a no
start condition," the company said in a letter. According to Ford, the issue stems from a battery main contactor that
can overheat and may remain stuck open or become welded.
The Editor says...
Maybe you could just push it down a hill and slap it into second gear. That's what I used to do back in the 70's.
Ford
Recalls EV Model, Warns of Serious Danger to Drivers. Ford is recalling its flagship Mustang Mach-E electric
vehicle. Again. This time, the recall affects roughly half of the nearly 100,000 Mustang Mach-Es sold, according
to The Wall Street Journal. The company announced the move in a letter to dealers on Monday. Vehicles
manufactured between May 27, 2020, and May 24, 2022 — 48,924 cars manufactured over two years — are
being recalled because it's possible the cars could overheat and lose power or fail to start.
Six
Major Problems With "Green" Transition. German economist Hans Werner Sinn identifies six major problems with
Europe's fanciful plan to transition to wind and solar energy: [...] Problem No. 5: E-cars are not clean[.] One problem
today already, using Germany's current electric energy supply mix, electric cars are emitting far more CO2 over their lifetimes
than conventional combustion engine vehicles. Yet, governments are aiming to force citizens to drive e-cars.
In many countries, this will lead to more CO2 emissions, and not less.
Team
of Fools: Biden's Cabinet Picks Prove He is Unfit to Lead. I have written extensively about Biden's
shortcomings. Nothing exceeds his capacity for choosing the wrong people. [...] Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, for
example. "Granholm's credentials for the job appear to be that she has swallowed Biden's climate agenda hook, line, and
sinker, and especially his affection for electric vehicles," says Liz Peek. "It certainly wasn't her deep understanding
of U.S. energy markets. She apparently knows nothing about U.S. oil production or how world energy markets work."
She believes that climate is the nation's number one challenge.
Is
it immoral to drive an electric vehicle? Of all the crazy policies we see implemented around us, from
decriminalizing theft to teaching children to change their "gender," perhaps the craziest is government's determination to
force us to drive electric vehicles. EVs like the Tesla are perfectly fine cars, or would be if they weren't subsidized
or mandated. But they are terrible for the environment, and the conditions under which their materials are mined raise
serious ethical questions. [...] Fossil fuels are vastly cleaner, in part because they are so efficient. And electric
vehicles, once the mining and attendant environmental degradation are complete, run overwhelmingly on fossil fuels and
nuclear power: [...] The extraordinary amounts of mining needed to produce electric vehicles are not only environmentally
disastrous, they also carry large human costs. The cobalt that is needed for every electric vehicle comes mostly from
the Congo and is produced largely by child labor.
Is
it ethical to purchase a lithium battery powered EV? [Scroll down] Today, a typical EV battery weighs
one thousand pounds. It contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese,
30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminium, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000
individual lithium-ion cells. It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to
manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the
cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up
500,000 pounds of the earth's crust for just one battery.
Democrat
senator says it doesn't matter — to her — how high gas prices are. If you want to know
just how ignorant, aloof, and removed your rulers are from the everyday life you lead, look no farther than Sen. Debbie
Stabenow (D-Mich.). [p...] Talk about tone-deaf! Does she know who her constituents are? Does she care? The
poor gal had to wait "a long time" to "finally" get her expensive new electric vehicle (and drive it to her brownstone in a
tony Georgetown neighborhood... or to wherever she lives in the Capital City). But when she did [...], it "didn't matter"
to her how expensive gasoline had become. She added, "And so I'm looking forward to the opportunity for us to move to
vehicles that aren't going to be dependent on the whims of the oil companies and the international markets." The
"opportunity" for us to move to expensive vehicles whose batteries cost around $10,000 and that may take hours to
recharge? Vehicles that aren't "dependent on the whims of the oil companies and the international markets"? You
can't be more ignorant or disingenuous than that.
Let
them buy Teslas: Electric car owner Stabenow says gas prices don't matter. Sen. Debbie Stabenow
(D-MI) said it "doesn't matter" how high gas prices go because she drives an electric vehicle, sparking backlash as gas
prices in the United States climb to record highs with no short-term relief in sight. Stabenow's remarks came during a
Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday to discuss Biden's budget for the upcoming fiscal year. When the subject
turned to record-high fuel costs in the U.S., Stabenow chimed in: "I do have to say, just on the issue of gas prices,
after waiting for a long time to have enough chips in this country to finally get my electric vehicle, I got it and drove it
from Michigan to here this last weekend and went by every single gas station, and it didn't matter how high it was," the
Michigan Democrat said.
Neither the price of electricity nor the price of gas matters to her, because she makes $174,000 a year.
Democratic
Sen. Debbie Stabenow brags that it doesn't 'matter' to her how high gas prices are because she drives an electric vehicle.
Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow said that record-high gas prices 'don't matter' to her because she has an electric vehicle
as she urged Americans to by eco-friendly vehicles and decrease reliability on greedy oil companies. Her comments came
on the day the average price per gallon of gas in the U.S. reached a new high of $4.92. In Michigan the average sits
higher at $5.17 per gallon, according to AAA's tracker. 'On the issue of gas prices — after waiting for a long time to
have enough chips in this country to finally get my electric vehicle — I got it and drove it from Michigan to here this last
weekend and went by every gas station and it didn't matter how high it was,' the Michigan senator said.
Reporter
Asks General Motors CEO Where The Charging Electricity Comes From For Their New Chevy Volt - Her Answer Is
Hilarious. Okay, so she did try to whitewash her accidental admission by switching it to "natural
gas" — which is not much different, according to the climate mafia — at the last second. Still,
General Motors (GM) spokesperson Kristin Zimmerman has become something of an internet sensation for letting the cat out of
the bag that their new "electric" car is charged by a power plant that runs on coal, so basically, their new car at the
moment would actually run on about 95 percent coal. During an unveiling of the new Chevy Volt, Zimmerman demonstrated
for the media how the supposedly "green" vehicle is simply plugged into a power source for energy. And this power
source, at least in Michigan, is mostly burned coal. [Video clip] If you watch the video closely, you can
see the precise moment when Zimmerman realized she had walked right into a trap. She thought about it for a second and
came to the realization that her company's supposedly "green" vehicles are worse polluters than their gas-powered
counterparts. "For those of you who didn't put it all together: Electric cars run off electricity, electricity
provided by a power plant, a plant that runs primarily off coal, which actually is a worse pollutant than a gas-powered
engine. This has been known for years, as a paper that came out back in 2015 revealed that most electric cars
throughout the country are powered by electricity that comes from coal.
WSJ
Electric Vehicle Road Trip [was] a Disaster. The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend on a four-day
road trip from New Orleans to Chicago and back in an electric vehicle (EV) that ended up as a disaster — one that
left the author grateful for her ordinary car, even at today's high gas price. The Journal article, by Rachel
Wolfe, was titled: "I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did
Sleeping." In it, the author described planning the journey, using the PlugShare app to map charging stations and
estimate charging times, based on the relative strength of each public charging station. She noted that more charging
stations should, in theory, be available in future, thanks to the federal government's new infrastructure bill.
I
Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping. I'd
made long road trips before, surviving popped tires, blown headlights and shredded wheel-well liners in my 2008 Volkswagen
Jetta. I figured driving the brand-new Kia EV6 I'd rented would be a piece of cake. If, that is, the
public-charging infrastructure cooperated. We wouldn't be the first to test it. Sales of pure and hybrid plug-ins
doubled in the U.S. last year to 656,866 — over 4% of the total market, according to database EV-volumes.
More than half of car buyers say they want their next car to be an EV, according to recent Ernst & Young Global Ltd.
data. Oh — and we aimed to make the 2,000-mile trip in just under four days so Mack could make her
Thursday-afternoon shift as a restaurant server. Given our battery range of up to 310 miles, I plotted a meticulous
route, splitting our days into four chunks of roughly 7½-hours each. We'd need to charge once or twice each day
and plug in near our hotel overnight.
The Editor says...
[#1] Driving 2,000 miles for no reason doesn't sound like fun — in any car. [#2] Charging the car at hotel every night
does not leave an accurate indication of what it's like to own an electric car and charge it at home, and pay the
electric bill yourself. [#3] If everybody (other than me) drives electric cars, and the hotels offer "complimentary"
charging stations, what's that going to do to the cost of a hotel room? [#4] Three charge-and-discharge cycles
per day is too many. That battery can only be charged a limited number of times before it has to be replaced.
[#5] Try this same trip in the winter and see how far you get.
Green
Energy Chickens Coming Home to Roost. Take the obsession with electric vehicles. Their batteries require
rare-earth elements like cobalt and lithium that have to be mined, processed, and transported using diesel-powered machinery,
bulldozers, and trucks, which of course spew more CO2 into the atmosphere. The great majority of these rare-earth
elements are mined and processed outside the West, especially in China and Congo. This creates a dangerous dependency
on geopolitical rivals and enemies. Next, for electric cars to advance beyond a taxpayer subsidized novelty and replace
gas- or diesel-powered vehicles, electric grids will have to be enlarged substantially, and charging stations will have to
multiply. Available, reliable electricity supplies will have to grow by orders of magnitude presently unattainable.
And batteries with much more storage capability will need to be developed. Worse, our current most reliable energy
sources — nuclear and natural gas — which could help us reach those goals are being proscribed and
replaced with unreliable wind and solar energy, which produce energy less than 20% of the time.
Tesla
Owner Exposes Dark Secret About Electric Cars. Economists have long understood that there's no such thing as a
free lunch, but perhaps it's time for electric-car enthusiasts to learn that lesson as well. While tree-huggers and
leftists alike tout Teslas and other such vehicles as a panacea for the ills of fossil fuels, they ignore the devastating
environmental wreckage the manufacture and use of these vehicles leave in their wake — even when it comes to
something as simple as their tires. Brad Templeton, a senior contributor at Forbes, recounted his own eye-opening
experience with his electric car's habit of chewing through expensive treads at breakneck speed. After boasting about
the many ways electric vehicles are superior to traditional internal combustion-powered vehicles, Templeton noted that the
need for new tires at short intervals was an undeniable drawback.
Unsafe
At Any Speed? Electric Cars Keep Catching Fire. In Vancouver, Canada, in late May, a Tesla Model Y burst
into flames while the driver was waiting for a light at an intersection. He had to kick out a window to escape.
Around the same time, a new Tesla burst into flames in Brooklyn, Illinois, and a week before that a Model 3 caught fire in
California City, California, while it was parked in a driveway. In April, a deadly lithium-ion battery fire occurred in
a Tesla car crash in Houston. Last year, a Tesla caught fire while charging overnight in a garage, which the Washington
Post described as "one in a string of recent examples showing what can happen when electric cars are left parked in garages
to charge overnight" and which promoted electric vehicle (EV) makers to warn "owners not to leave the cars charging
unattended in certain circumstances, or sitting fully charged in garages."
Electric
cars cause 'more pollution' than petrol and diesel. Alastair Lewis, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at the
University of York, argued that particulate matter emitted from electric car tyres is a massive risk to public health.
He argued that it posed a larger problem than CO2 emissions coming from petrol and diesel cars. Mr Lewis added:
"PM 2.5 is considered to cause the largest amount of damage to public health... Nitrogen dioxide [from diesel fumes] comes
second. "When everybody owns a low emissions vehicle, low emission zones become a toothless control lever to try to
manage air pollution. "London in the future when we have a largely electrified fleet of vehicles," he told the Telegraph.
The
World Bank's Impractical Electric Car Claptrap. The UK Government insists that combustion engine vehicles will
be banned from production, importing, and sale by 2030. But a global semiconductor shortage has produced a projected nine
percent slump in electric vehicle sales in the UK. Motorists are modelled to save £700 on fuel for making the switch to
EVs. However, road pricing and tolls have been proposed to replace Treasury revenue once fuel duty becomes obsolete.
Therefore, the gap between petrol and electric car running costs may close. Electricity costs could even eclipse fuel prices,
should the renewables generating electricity fail. There are also infrastructure impediments to overcome. The ban
would require 400,000 charging points to be installed across the UK by 2030, up from the only 35,000 that were in place as of
last year. Many rural areas remain 'charging blackspots', inaccessible for EVs on long journeys. Annual installation
must increase ten-fold to meet the Department for Transport's promise that 'drivers will never be further than thirty miles from
a rapid charging station'.
Green
Energy Industry Is In For A Rude Awakening. Leading renewable energy groups, large solar and wind companies and
politicians have supported lavish subsidies and credits for green tech. In the U.S., Democrats have pushed for an
additional $100 billion in renewable energy subsidies over the next decade as part of the Build Back Better Act. "The
whole thing has been sort of a government created industry, from the get go," Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for
Energy Research, told the DCNF in an interview. [...] "The media hasn't covered the cost of nickel, cobalt, aluminum,
manganese or lithium," Kish told the DCNF. "Lithium batteries, for example — if you want to call gasoline the
fuel of internal combustion engines, lithium is the fuel of electric vehicles." [...] "Put very simply, all the world's cell
production combined represents well under 10% of what we will need in 10 years," RJ Scaringe, Rivian's CEO, told reporters in
April, according to the WSJ. "Meaning, 90% to 95% of the supply chain does not exist." Kish noted that the price of
lithium has risen 1,000% over the last two years.
How's your carbon footprint now?
Tesla
Bursts Into Flames at Stoplight, Driver Forced to Kick Out Window to Escape Electric Car Fire. One minute,
Jamil Jutha was driving his 2021 Tesla Model Y through North Vancouver. The next, he was battling to escape its
smoke-filled interior. The incident took place Friday when the eight-month-old vehicle suddenly shut down, cutting
power to all of its electronic parts, according to CTV News. "The doors wouldn't open. The windows wouldn't go
down," Jutha said. Smoke began to fill the interior. Although Teslas have a mechanical release for emergencies,
Jutha said it was not easy to use, particularly amid the panic of a potentially life-threatening incident.
Ford
Reports Devastating Losses Thanks to Electric Vehicle Gamble. Major U.S. automaker Ford blamed its sizable
investment in electric vehicle (EV) company Rivian for its dramatic revenue decline in the first quarter of 2022. Ford
reported revenue of $34.5 billion between January and March, a 5% decline relative to the same period in 2021, and a net loss
of $3.1 billion, according to the company's earnings report released Wednesday. The Detroit automaker said its large
investment in Rivian accounted for $5.4 billion in losses during the first quarter.
CO2
Added to the Environment - Electric Car Versus Gasoline Car. Two cars of approximately the same size are
driven, measurements are made, and conclusions are drawn.
California's
electrical grid has an EV problem. California energy officials issued a sobering warning this month, telling
residents to brace for potential blackouts as the state's energy grid faces capacity constraints heading into the summer
months. And since the state has committed to phase out all new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 — well ahead of
federal targets — the additional load from electric vehicle (EV) charging could add more strain to the electric
grid. "Let's say we were to have a substantial number of [electric] vehicles charging at home as everybody dreams," Ram
Rajagopal, an associate professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, who authored a recent study
looking at the strain electric vehicle adoption is expected to place on the power grid, told Yahoo Finance. "Today's
grid may not be able to support it. It all boils down to: Are you charging during the time solar power is on?"
The Editor says...
Here's the bottom line, if you haven't figured it out already: If you rely on solar panels, you can't drive an
electric car in the winter, when the days are short. If you rely on windmills, you can't charge an electric car at
night, when the wind all but ceases. You can't charge your electric car at the same time that you and everybody else in
town wants to use electric appliances; that is, right after you get home from work. At last, when the time is right,
you'll need a few hours to get the car fully charged. Compare this to the time it takes to fill up the gas tank on a
gas engine automobile. "Renewable energy" and electric cars are incompatible.
Kamala
Harris, EPA unveil $500 million to ditch diesel school buses for electric models. The Biden administration is
making $500 million available to school districts to transition the nation's gas-guzzling diesel school bus fleets to
zero-emission electric busses. The bucket of money is part of a broader tranche of $5 billion set aside in last year's
infrastructure spending for low- and zero-emission school buses over the next five years. This is the first time that
the administration has tapped into those funds to help schools go green.
Newsom's
electric car nirvana collides with reality. Gavin Newsom is bi-polar. He wants to get us into all
electric homes and cars. At the same time he is limiting and destroying energy sources — causing brownouts
and blackouts. If we had 8 million more EV cars and 2 million all electric homes, we would have to ration electricity
to a few hours a days and maybe one charge of your EV each week. Newsom is providing the foundation of the collapse of
the California economy. [...] This year's increase in electric car sales was, no doubt, spurred in part by a steep hike in
gasoline prices, as well as subsidies — which poses an interesting dichotomy. Newsom has decried those fuel
price spikes and wants the state to offset them with payments to motorists, which would reduce some of their motivation to
buy electric cars." Not only would there be a severe limit on the energy you can use, but the cost of available energy
will skyrocket.
Electric
Car Fail: Over 25% of Charging Stations in Deep Blue Region Do Not Work. President Joe Biden and his
administration have attempted to convince Americans that electric vehicles will solve all of our problems, but a new study
found one leftist city was vastly unprepared for a complete switch to electric vehicles. The study was led by retired
University of California, Berkeley, bioengineering professor David Rempel working with volunteers from the nonprofit
organization Cool the Earth, according to Fox Business. It took place between Feb. 12 and March 7. Researchers
cited multiple complaints from electric vehicle owners about charging stations in the area as the motivation for the
study. It assessed 657 electric vehicle charging plugs at 181 public stations in nine counties around the deep-blue,
Democrat-dominated San Francisco Bay Area.
Electric
utopia takes a deadly U-turn. Electric vehicles have been pushed hard as a solution to the world's faux climate
emergency, but in India they have turned into killing machines. Many EV bikes and scooters have been bursting into
flames across the country. The frequency of such incidents has increased considerably since spring 2022. In my home
state of Tamil Nadu, a man and his daughter were killed when their EV scooter caught fire. You might think it as a
one-off incident, but that is not the case. In March, an EV bike (from the brand Ola) parked in a busy commercial area
caught fire. A Twitter user shared a video where the vehicle can be seen consumed by the fire from its lithium-ion
battery and circuits. Another video from Chennai (formerly known as Madras), shows an EV scooter of the same brand
going up in flames, the fourth such incident in the city in as many days. A stern warning of penalties has been issued
by the government.
Two
Electric Buses Spontaneously Explode, Entire Fleet Taken Off the Road. A state-owned public transport operator
in Paris, France, the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, has pulled out 149 electric buses from its fleet after
two of them spontaneously exploded within the same month. The RATP decided to temporarily retire the electric vehicles
after the second explosion occurred around 9 a.m. on April 29 near the François Mitterrand Library, according to
reporting from the local newspaper Le Parisien and a RATP news release. Footage of the bus engulfed in flames in
Paris's 13th arrondissement was widely circulated on social media.
Do you own Tesla stock?
Elon
Musk's Tesla to Cover Travel Costs for Employees Seeking Out-of-State Abortions. Elon Musk's Tesla is covering
travel costs for employees who get out-of-state abortions, joining the ranks of several other companies that have introduced
similar reimbursement policies in the wake of multiple states passing pro-life legislation. Since 2021, Tesla has
expanded its "Safety Net" program and health insurance offering to include "travel and lodging support for those who may need
to seek healthcare services that are unavailable in their home state," according to the company's "Impact Report," released
Friday [5/6/2022].
Electric
Bus In Paris Spontaneously Explodes. Readers have heard of Teslas spontaneously exploding over the years (read:
here) but never an electric bus until now. Last Friday, a video surfaced online of French public transport operator
RATP's bus bursting into flames within seconds in Paris. The fire illustrates the dangers of EVs. Luckily the bus
wasn't crowded, and passengers were able to exit quickly.
Renters
can find no place to plug in electric vehicles. All Hillary Schubach wanted to do is something good for the
environment. But after switching to driving a plug-in electric sedan, she quickly realized a new complication of
apartment living: access to a charging station. Schubach's hardly alone. Even as it appears electric car
sales are hitting a tipping point, those living in apartments and condominiums around the nation can find it difficult,
expensive or outright impossible to find a way to plug in when they're at home.
The Editor says...
Fake news alert: How many people have enough money to buy an electric car, but cannot afford to buy a house?
How many people buy an electric car without thinking about where they will plug it in?
When your neighbor buys a $50,000 electric car and only then discovers that she has no place
to charge it, are you more likely to commiserate or laugh?
Tesla
Model 3 Blows Up ... Twice ... on Busy Highway. This past weekend, a Russian man named Alexey Tretyakov and his
two children collided with a parked tow truck while driving down a highway in Moscow. Luckily, no lives were
lost — Tretyakov reportedly is suffering from a broken leg — but the car wasn't so lucky. Not
long after the collision, Tretyakov's Model 3 exploded. Twice. [Video clip] Teslarati reports that the
driver "was using a 'driver-assist' feature and a 'trimmed' version of Autopilot," so this likely limited the Model 3
semi-autonomous abilities to lane-keeping and little else. While there have been several fires involving Tesla
vehicles, this is the first reported fire involving the latest Model 3.
Prepping the Mind. [Scroll down]
The electric car and green energy, the "solutions" to problems that don't exist are so devoid of reason, they can't be for
the purposes their proponents claim. The electric car alone represents devastating environmental problems, millions of
cars with immense batteries all over the Western world (the only societies wealthy enough and stupid enough to buy them)
rotting when the price of a new battery for the old car is recognized in 5-10 years. There they sit, leaking toxic
chemicals mined all over the world and put into these distribution units called cars. They leak into the earth their
proponents are theoretically trying to save. The electric car and green energy (like solar and wind) represent weapons
of cultural destruction, absorbing all of the power on one hand and failing to produce enough on the other a combination of
which can turn places like Phoenix into ovens unfit for human life.
GM
reportedly stops providing battery pack replacements for the Chevy Spark EV. General Motors will reportedly no
longer provide battery replacements for the all-electric version of the Chevy Spark, according to a report from EV-Resource
(via InsideEVs). The Chevy Spark electric vehicle (EV) was first released in 2013, and GM continued to make new models until
2016. A GM district executive confirmed to EV-Resource that the company is "no longer going to supply that [the Spark
EV's] battery." GM's inventory of Spark EV battery packs has reportedly run out as well, and the company doesn't plan on
making any more.
MARTA
unveils electric buses for Earth Day. MARTA celebrated Earth Day by unveiling its first electric buses.
The agency unveiled the buses Friday [4/22/2022] at a ceremony at its Edgewood/Candler Park station. It showed off
three electric buses, which will be put into service May 1 on Routes 2 and 102 out of its North Avenue station. In
2019, MARTA received a $2.6 million Federal Transit Administration grant to buy six electric buses and the infrastructure to
charge them. They replace 2005 diesel buses and will reduce MARTA's emissions of greenhouse gases and fine particle
matter, which has been linked to a variety of health issues.
The Editor says...
[#1] Okay, but the electricity to charge the buses has to come from somewhere. [#2] Can an electric bus run around the city
all day (often completely empty) without recharging? [#3] How many hours does it take to recharge a bus?
'Green Energy'? Let's Do the
Math. Rather than argue climate politics and ideology, let's look at math, the language of the universe.
Americans own approximately 270 million private gasoline vehicles (GVs) and drive 3.2 trillion miles per year, consuming
123 billion gallons of gasoline. Why? Because we want to. Because we (still) are free to do what and go as and
where we want. Democrats don't like this. They prefer that we little people live in little boxes wedged-in with a
hundred other little boxes, next to the (subsidized) light rail and the (un-air-conditioned) workplace and the (un-air-conditioned)
grocery store selling bugs instead of food. President Brandon read from his teleprompter that he wants to build 500,000
EV charging stations. By comparison, our 279 million GVs require only 115,000 "charging" (gas) stations.
"Charging" a GV for the next 400 miles takes about 10 minutes. Absent fast chargers, charging an EV for the next
400 miles can take up to eight hours. Spending less time per person charging requires having more stations —
about four times more. How much CO2 will be expelled into the atmosphere to build this costly infrastructure? As with
windmills, arguably more than using them will reduce.
Electric
Cars [are] not Ready for Showtime. All said and done, it should become clear to various parties that the newer
generation of electric vehicles is no better, environmentally speaking, than late-model automobiles powered by the
much-maligned internal combustion engine. The goal of saving the Earth from ungrounded fears of "climate disruption"
attending CO2 emissions pales in contrast to the massive disruptions by a transportation system whose dependence on EVs that
will trigger dreaded brownouts.
Mines,
Minerals, and "Green" Energy: A Reality Check. Among the material realities of green energy:
• Building wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity, as well as batteries to fuel electric vehicles, requires, on average, more than 10 times the quantity of materials, compared with building machines using hydrocarbons to deliver the same amount of energy to society.
• A single electric car contains more cobalt than 1,000 smartphone batteries; the blades on a single wind turbine have more plastic than 5 million smartphones; and a solar array that can power one data center uses more glass than 50 million phones.
• Replacing hydrocarbons with green machines under current plans — never mind aspirations for far greater expansion — will vastly increase the mining of various critical minerals around the world. For example, a single electric car battery weighing 1,000 pounds requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials. Averaged over a battery's life, each mile of driving an electric car "consumes" five pounds of earth. Using an internal combustion engine consumes about 0.2 pounds of liquids per mile.
Is
it Time for an Electric Car? Based on their advertising, it seems that every automotive manufacturer has
decided that I need to drive a battery-powered vehicle. This is at a time when internal combustion engines have become
much more efficient and refined, with pollution almost eliminated. I grant you we are going through a time of expensive
fuel. There is, however, plenty of supply and eventually, prices will come down. We just need the will to extract
it from the ground which can be done with less impact on the environment than for instance, mining rare earth elements needed
for car battery production. There is also the issue of the electrical grid. Places like California already have
rolling blackouts. Remember the huge power outages in Texas after a winter storm several years ago. At least
those affected could still drive. I also understand that at least currently (no pun intended) most neighborhoods lack
the electrical infrastructure to handle multiple fast chargers in each home.
Washington
State Plans to Outlaw Most New Gas-Powered Cars. SB 5974, which was recently signed by Democrat Gov. Jay
Inslee, establishes that "all publicly owned and privately owned passenger and light duty vehicles of model year 2030 or
later that are sold, purchased, or registered in Washington state be electric vehicles" and creates an "interagency electric
vehicle coordinating council." During the bill signing this week, Inslee said that the measure is climate-related and
will "move us away from the transportation system our grandparents imagined and towards the transportation system our
grandchildren dream of." Reports indicate that electric vehicles are cost-prohibitive for many Americans, with an average
price for an electric car hovering around $50,000. According to local media, just 1.3 percent of cars on the road in
Washington state are battery-powered.
Washington
State Looks to Ban New Gas Cars. The Democrats' war on the internal combustion engine isn't just solely an
obsession with the radical Left and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). It's being exported to the state legislatures
now. It's also not shocking that most left-wing states are adopting such measures that are Green New Deal-influenced.
In Washington, there could be a ban on new gas cars. [...] [N]ot everyone has $50 [to] 60,000 lying around to blow on these uber-liberal
luxuries. Second, it's not green. How do we dispense the spent electric car batteries? Also, what charges them?
It's not like there are energy genies in the charging ports. Burning fossil fuels is what keeps electric cars going.
Electric Vehicle Batteries.
For those of you excited about electric cars and a green revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries and also
windmills and solar panels. A typical EV battery weighs one thousand pounds, about the size of a travel trunk. It
contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of
copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells. To
manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the
cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of
the earth's crust for one battery."
Study:
Electric Cars Can Actually Do More Damage to Environment Than Diesel Engines. Another study has called into
question the environmental benefits of electric vehicles, citing the amount of carbon pollution emitted when making lithium
ion batteries. Depending on where it is manufactured, an electric vehicle can emit more carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere than an efficient conventional car, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Berylls Strategy
Advisors. The problem centers around the development of lithium-ion batteries, which largely power electric vehicles.
EV
race ignores Russian, Chinese mineral speed traps. U.S. and European electric vehicle (EV) companies are racing
to cash in on markets driven by dependence upon government subsidies which, in turn, rely on scarce and costly materials
needed for batteries controlled by foreign adversaries. Mining required for those EV batteries will soon dominate the
world production of many critical minerals, and already accounts for about 40% and 25%, respectively, of all global lithium
and cobalt. Take nickel, for example, of which Russia produces about 7% of the global supply and 20% of the world's
class 1 (98% pure quality) used both for advanced electric vehicle batteries and stainless steel production. In March,
after prices soared 66% to more than $100,000 a metric ton, the London Metal Exchange suspended nickel trading after a
three-month contract price more than doubled.
Pelosi's
Husband Buys $2M in Tesla Stock as Dems Push Green Handouts. Nancy and Paul Pelosi are making a killing on the
Hill. If there's a dime to be made on an inside trade, that's where you'll find Nancy and her husband Paul. Their
corrupt trading practices have been well documented here on the DD and elsewhere — but here's a reminder:
"The Pelosis participated in at least 10 IPOs," GAI President Peter Schweizer told Jesse Watters on Fox News. "The fact
that a politician's family is allowed to participate in an investment that when it goes public generally doubles in value is
a real indicator that there's a problem." Most recently, and crazy enough not for the first time, Paul Pelosi "rolled the
dice" on some Tesla stock. Since Pelosi's purchase, Tesla's share prices have increased nearly 19% to over $1,036 a
share. Is he just that good? Or could there be something else at play. It's something else.
In this case, TN stands for Tamil Nadu, India.
Father,
daughter killed in TN as e-bike on charge explodes. An electric bike plugged in for charging overnight exploded
early on Saturday in Vellore resulting in the death of a man and his daughter. They were found lifeless in the bathroom
of the house where they had shut themselves in to escape the smoke and fire. Police said photographer Durai Varma, 49,
had bought the bike a couple of days ago and on Friday night plugged it in for charging in front of his house on the
outskirts of Vellore city. It was parked next to his petrol bike. He and his daughter Preethi, 13, then retired
for the night. Police said that around 2 am on Saturday, the electric bike exploded leading to a fire. The fire
fed on the petrol in the bike next to it and soon spread inside the house.Thick smoke engulfed the small house that did not
have proper ventilation. Police suspect the father and daughter panicked because of poor visibility in the thick smoke
and took refuge in their bathroom.
The
Democrats Are Trying to Hide a Very Dirty Secret About Electric Cars. The Left views electric cars like the
Rings of Power. It's predictable but also pathetic. Driving electric cars saves the environment, says the
left-wing drone. It emits next to nothing regarding carbon emissions, except that it does. Do liberals think we
don't know that this whole fad is a con game? Where do you think the energy that powers the batteries comes from?
Fairies? Electric cars aren't as efficient as gas-powered vehicles, but you pay more because... of feelings.
[Forget] that. Green energy is a backdoor to communism from greenies who talk more about controlling the means of
production than saving Mother Earth. Clean energy is a grift and political crony project aimed at giving fat cat donors
tax breaks. Solyndra forever ruined this industry. I don't care what anyone says, it's all a long miserable
exercise in subsidizing sub-par products. Coal is what powers your electric car. Do liberals even know that?
With
Push For Electric Vehicles, Democrats Pursue The Paris Hilton Strategy On Energy. At record-breaking gas prices
slapping families with a projected $2,000 in additional transportation costs this year, the switch to an electric vehicle may
sound tempting — were it not for the nearly $60,000 price tag. This plus the illogic of destroying U.S.
energy independence from the most reliable an inexpensive sources makes Democrats' lack of concern about gas prices a version
of Paris Hilton's famous Photoshopped T-shirt meme, "Stop being poor."
Democrats
Don't Want You To Know How Much Fossil Fuel It Takes To Power Electric Cars. Amid inflationary U.S. federal
spending, restrictions on domestic oil production, and the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, millions of Americans are
suffering the consequences of the Biden administration's dysfunction at the gas pump. Instead of investing in American
energy, Democrats are actively suppressing the American energy industry and then telling Americans to spend their savings on
overpriced electric cars to solve their problems. But the left isn't being honest about the environmental and financial
costs of those trendy electric vehicles. Last Thursday [3/10/2022], Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky took
to Twitter to remind Americans that these cars are not as environmentally friendly as Democrats insist they are. [Tweet]
To advance their climate agenda and deflect backlash about rising gas prices, Democrats are telling Americans that driving
electric cars is for the greater good of the environment, fully knowing the charging stations for these cars are not fossil
fuel free. In reality, one of Tesla's Supercharger stations was reported to get 13 percent of their energy from natural
gas and 27 percent from coal. Power plants burn coal to generate electricity to power electric cars and emit a higher
fossil fuel footprint than the left would care to admit.
Leftist
comedy: 'Punching down' to mock the misery of Biden's inflation. [Scroll down] According to the latest
data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the annual mean wage for a full-time wage or salary worker in the United
States is $53,490 per year. The average cost of an electric car is $55,000. The price of an electric car is around
$19,000 higher than that of a regular gas-powered vehicle. A Tesla car costs around $75,000. For average
Americans, the price of a Tesla is more than their annual in-hand salary. The increasing expenditure owing the Biden's
inflation makes saving almost impossible. Hence owning a Tesla is an impossibility.
Biden's
America: The inmates are running the asylum. How does one sanely describe what has happened to the United
States since Joe Biden was inaugurated? The nation has been effectively ruined by the policies of Biden's band of
incompetents; every Cabinet member is a disaster, promoted for his previous record of failure. Not one of them is
qualified for the jobs they've been given. [...] Consider Jennifer Granholm as energy secretary. She is inexplicably
ignorant about energy, where it comes from, and what it costs. Buttigieg as transportation secretary, the failed mayor
of South Bend, has not a clue about transportation beyond telling all Americans to buy electric cars. Chances are he
has no idea about the costs and downsides of E.V.s. Considering the problem of disposal of the batteries when they die,
electric vehicles do far more damage to the environment than fossil fuels. Biden's ridiculous promise to end American
dependence on fossil fuel is a stupid pipe dream. Fossil fuel is the engine of democracy, of civilization. To
suggest we can live without it is pure sophistry.
Let
Them Drive Teslas. When [Vice President Kamala] Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete get together, it's
Platitudicon. As it was this week, when, as the reality of imminent historic gas price spikes was hitting Americans,
the duo spent the day promoting electric cars, the Green New Deal and the Environmental Protection Agency's
soon-to-be-tightened emissions standards. When it comes to energy, the Democrats adopt a bizarre elitist
disconnect: Propelled by theological belief in end-of-days climate alarmism, they assume that Americans will join them
in losing all sense of perspective and proportionality. Despite the perpetual championing of electric vehicles, less
than 1% of cars, SUVs and light trucks on the road in the United States are electric. The average cost of an electric
car is $55,000. Even with layers of subsidies that artificially bring it that low, the average price of an electric car is
around $19,000 higher than the price of an average gas-powered vehicle. The average Tesla goes for around $75,000.
WH
Gets Nailed Big Time for Biden's Hypocrisy on Electric Vehicles. Joe Biden has been pushing the virtue of
everyone having an electric vehicle. As we previously reported, he even argued that loosening the restrictions on oil
production wasn't the solution to rising gas prices or oil volatility from the Russian war on Ukraine, but people getting
electric vehicles was. [Tweet] That comment was of course delusional — that it's not possible to
change — and for everyone to suddenly just to get electric vehicles, when so many are strapped just keeping up
with Biden's rising prices for everything, and electric vehicle are dependent on coal and fossil fuels. [Tweet]
Fox's Peter Doocy had a great question for White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki when he was grilling her about Biden's spin
on inflation and gas prices. He asked how long did she think "temporary" inflation was going to last?
Even
as Gas Prices Surge, Charging an Electric Vehicle Can Still Be Way More Expensive Than Gassing Up a Car. Those
trying to sell us on buying electric vehicles often claim that drivers can save money by not having to buy gas, but is that
really the case? In many regards, some analysts have their doubts. As the average cost per gallon of gas has
soared past $4.20, and with no end in sight, many of our leaders — including Joe Biden — are pushing
EVs as a cost-effective replacement for gas-powered cars. As Fox Business recently noted, a one-to-one comparison of
the cost of charging an EV versus filling a regular auto with gas showed that EV charging appeared cheaper. But many
other factors need to be included in the math to make a true analysis — factors that many EV advocates are
desperate to ignore.
Biden
shares tone-deaf plan to ensure 'no one will have to worry about gas prices'. President Joe Biden ridiculously
promoted his green agenda and advised Americans to purchase massively expensive electric cars so they will unrealistically no
longer have to worry about buying gas while deterring "tyrants like Putin" from using fossil fuels as a weapon.
"Loosening environmental regulations won't lower prices. But transforming our economy to run on electric vehicles,
powered by clean energy, will mean that no one will have to worry about gas prices. It will mean tyrants like Putin
won't be able to use fossil fuels as a weapon," the president tweeted. "It should motivate us to accelerate the
transition to clean energy," Biden declared according to The Driven.
Buttigieg
Says the Solution to High Gas Prices Is Simple: Just Buy an EV. Our Democrat party overlords know what's
best for us, and all we have to do is simply follow their suggestions. After all, their solutions are so simple.
Take high gas prices for example. So many of us peons worry about the skyrocketing price of gas at the pump, but
America's brilliant Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has a fix for gas prices that's so easy it's almost
ridiculous. Why, you just need to buy an electric vehicle, you silly goose. "Clean transportation can bring
significant cost savings for the American people as well," Buttigieg said in a speech. "Last month, we announced a
$5 billion investment to build out a nationwide electric vehicle charging network so that people from rural to suburban
to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV."
Elon
Musk Hits Joe Biden Hard After State Of The Union. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk blasted President Joe Biden
following his State of the Union address, noting his decision to ignore Tesla in favor of Ford and GM's new electric vehicle
ventures. During his speech on Tuesday evening [3/1/2022], President Biden nodded to Ford and its manufacturing in the
United States. While the White House has frequently lauded the efforts of Ford and GM, Tesla — the world's
largest electric vehicle manufacturer — has often been omitted. The snubbing may lie in the fact that Tesla
is not unionized, as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki hinted last year when she was asked why Tesla was not invited to
an electric vehicle summit in which Ford and GM participated. On Twitter, Musk again pointed out the White House's
willingness to ignore Tesla's role in promoting electric vehicles.
NC
Governor Caught in Flagrant 'Rules for Thee' Moment During Electric Vehicle Promo Event. [Scroll down]
But this week's example is a little different, and comes courtesy of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Cooper, who
will be up for re-election in 2024, has made it a priority of his administration to fight so-called "climate change."
In January, Cooper issued an executive order that, among other things, set "a goal of getting 1.25 million
zero-emissions electric vehicles on state roads by 2030." [...] But unless one had actually heard Cooper previously
speak of his supposed commitment to a "cleaner climate," they wouldn't know it based on how he got to the event in the first
place — via a gas-guzzling motorcade: [Tweet]
Postal
Service to Biden: We'll pass on the electric vehicles, thanks. Last summer, the Biden administration
announced more details regarding the President's plan to promote a massive increase in electric vehicle use in the United
States, replacing internal combustion engine cars with all of their climate-wrecking carbon emissions. In December,
they unveiled an ambitious plan to have charging stations in place around the country to keep the electric vehicles
running. And, of course, Biden instructed all federal agencies to immediately start replacing their gas-powered
vehicles with electric replacements. That was supposed to include the United States Postal Service, which operates one
of the largest fleets of government vehicles in the world. Unfortunately for Uncle Joe, somebody at the USPS either
didn't get the memo or simply ignored it because this week they announced that the Postal Service is moving forward with its
original plan to replace 90% of the fleet with gas-powered vehicles.
USPS
rejects Biden's plea to buy more electric mail trucks. The United States Postal Service authorized the
replacement of its mail truck fleet with nearly all gasoline-powered vehicles, rejecting a plea from President Joe Biden to
include more electric vehicles in its purchase. The move, which was announced Wednesday, signals the independent
agency's decision to move forward with a controversial plan to purchase 165,000 next-generation mail trucks, only
10 percent of which will be battery-electric vehicles (BEV). The USPS determined there was no legal reason to
delay its plans. In a statement, Postmaster Louis DeJoy said the agency would consider adding more EVs to its fleet
sometime in the future. "[W]e will continue to pursue the acquisition of additional BEV as additional funding —
from either internal or congressional sources — becomes available," DeJoy said. "But the process needs to
keep moving forward."
Biden
to outline plans to extract lithium, other minerals needed for greener economy. President Biden will announce
Tuesday [2/22/2022] a series of public and private-sector investments to extract minerals such as cobalt, lithium and
graphite that are needed for electric vehicles and other aspects of the global shift toward a "clean energy economy," the
White House said. The administration expects demand for these minerals to spike 400-600% generally and demand for
minerals used in electric vehicles to jump 6,000% over the next several decades. Mr. Biden is fearful the U.S. is
too dependent on China so he will trumpet new investments after ordering a review of the supply chain a year ago.
"Critical minerals provide the building blocks for many modern technologies and are essential to our national security and
economic prosperity," the White House said in a fact sheet.
The Editor says...
This sounds a lot like "pump and dump" to me.
'We
are afraid': Erin Brockovich pollutant linked to global electric car boom. A Guardian investigation into nickel
mining and the electric vehicle industry has found evidence that a source of drinking water close to one of Indonesia's
largest nickel mines is contaminated with unsafe levels of hexavalent chromium (Cr6), the cancer-causing chemical more widely
known for its role in the Erin Brockovich story and film. The investigation also found evidence suggesting elevated
levels of lung infections among people living close to the mine. Recent years have seen a race between mining companies
to gain control of the world's largest nickel reserves in Indonesia. Nickel, an essential component in electric vehicle
(EV) batteries, could bring transformational wealth to a country where Covid has pushed the number of people in poverty up to 10.19%.
The electric
vehicle plot. The Democrats have set in motion a plan to spend $5 billion over the next five years to build
electric vehicle ("EV") charging stations across America. One of the goals behind that plan is to herd everyone into
the cities where EV works best and where people can be more easily controlled. Indeed, you can see from the funding
that rural states with wide-open spaces receive much less of the funding. The second purpose of EVs is to pump electric
utility investment. Several years ago, the electric utilities and the greens got together in a smokeless room and made
a deal. The greens pledged to support more electric utility investment if the utilities would support the green agenda.
(Some utilities drag their feet a bit, but the vast majority are fully on board.) That included EV, solar, wind, energy
efficiency, gasless stovetop cooking, electric heating, meatless burgers, and you name it.
Biden
issues a completely tone-deaf announcement about electric cars. It's a certainty that Marie Antoinette never
said "Let them eat cake," when she heard about France's peasants starving for lack of bread. However, it's the absolute
truth that, even as 82% of Americans are paying above sticker price for cars, while the last year has seen them struggle with
rising fuel prices, Biden chose to announce that he's going to buy a whole new fleet of cars for federal workers —
600,000 cars, to be precise — all of them electric. The past year has been a tough one for Americans.
Inflation has rocketed, with three primary causes: the government's non-stop money-printing presses; rising fuel prices
that boost the price of everything and hugely increase the cost of driving; and the supply chain shortages, including chips
and other car parts from China. It's no surprise, then, that Edmunds, the market research firm, says that 82% of
Americans who bought a car from a dealership in the past 12 months paid above the sticker price.
Pete
Buttigieg unveils Biden's $5 Billion plan to put charging stations every 50 miles on interstates by 2030. The
Biden administration is putting out new details on its effort to create 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations —
with new efforts to push out funds to have them line interstates at 50-mile intervals. The administration is awarding
$5 billion over five years to states to have them build thousands of electric vehicle charging stations. Another
$2.5 billion will go out in grants to be decided later. It all comes from the $1 trillion bipartisan
infrastructure plan that was enacted late last year and that the administration continues to sell, amid the collapse of
Biden's Build Back Better plan.
Automotive
industry sounds alarm over expansion of e-charging stations. Germany has fallen far behind its targets for
expanding e-car infrastructure and will likely miss its 2030 e-mobility target, according to the German Association of the
Automotive Industry (VDA). An ambitious e-mobility target was a key part of the coalition agreement laid down by the new
German government in late 2021. Part of the vision includes 15 million e-cars rolling onto German roads by 2030 as the EU
plans to ban the sale of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles [beginning in] 2035. The problem is that the reality
on the ground does not match the targets set by the government. The VDA has cautioned that instead of installing 2000
e-car charging points per week — the amount necessary to meet the 2030 target — Germany is only managing 250.
Electric
cars generate polluting particles just like petrol vehicles. Do you remember Britain's 'dash for diesel'? [...]
I was reminded of this by the recent warning from the Environment Secretary, George Eustice, on the 'polluting particles'
produced by battery-powered vehicles. Not from exhaust emissions, but from brake linings, tyres and road surfaces,
because such vehicles are much heavier owing to the presence of the battery. No doubt others experienced a similar
sense of deja vu. For in an effort to signal climate leadership, No 10 is racing to end the dominance of petrol and
diesel-powered cars. Indeed, it is banning the sale of new fossil-fuel vehicles from 2030. Just as it once extolled
the benefits of diesel, we are told now that electric cars are the future — and a crucial fix for climate
change. What it fails to tell us, however, is that electric cars are not the answer for many people, for a host of
practical reasons. These include their upfront cost, limited range, the time it takes to charge batteries, the new
infrastructure needed for charging points and the extra power required to supply them.
The Editor says...
Nobody is ever going to "fix" climate change. There's nothing wrong with the climate changing gradually, and no way to stop it from changing.
The
Inconvenient Truth About Electric Vehicles. America may be headed for a new type of energy crisis. While
fracking technology still gives us relative energy independence, there is a distinct possibility that an electricity energy
crisis awaits us. What if the demand for electricity significantly exceeds the supply over the next decade? We'd
have soaring prices and rolling brownouts. That crisis could easily be triggered by the electric vehicles (EVs) Biden's
administration is pushing. By his Executive Order and an associated Action Plan, Biden's administration calls for 50%
of all new vehicles sold in America by 2030 to be EVs. That means an additional 50 million new EVs on the road in the
next nine years, all in an effort to lower Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, namely CO2.
I
wouldn't exactly call Biden's oil and gas policies treason. [Scroll down] Biden's administration is
doing everything possible to spur on the use of battery-operated electric cars and trucks, as well as solar panels in the
United States.
A. China — the largest lithium battery manufacturer in the world (and lithium batteries
are the lynchpin in the New Green Energy) — benefits immensely.
B. The largest rare-earth mining nations benefit, too. Included in this list are China and Afghanistan.
You remember Afghanistan. Biden literally gave away that country, both to the Taliban and to China, just as he was able to
use the American government to put Green insanity into high gear.
C. Americans now will be intensively dependent on the electrical grid for transportation — an entity
that all of our adversaries have in their crosshairs.
650
km Wintertime Trip With VW E-Car Took 13 Hours, 3 Recharges And Lots Of Warm Clothes. When it comes to
performance parameters like fuel consumption, car manufacturers' brochures often boast figures that in reality are only
possible under really ideal conditions. But rarely are such conditions the case in real life. The result:
disappointed consumers. Electric cars are notorious for their limited range and need of constant
recharging — factors that are often overestimated by buyers. Recently German auto reporter Lisa Brack put
her brand new electric car through a long distance, wintertime test. The result was hardly thrilling. "The result
is sobering — she saves time by consistently freezing," reported the German kreiszeitung.de, on Ms. Brack's test.
Do Electric
Cars Pencil Out? [Scroll down] Interestingly, the piston-engined car also travels farther as it consumes
the liquid energy it carries, because it carries around less weight as it burns up its fuel supply. The electric car,
on the other hand, is just as heavy when it is fully charged as it is when it is fully discharged. There is also no
"energy penalty" for storing liquid energy. So long as the tank isn't leaking, there won't be less energy available
when the piston-engined car's owner wishes to drive somewhere — even if he left the car sitting for a month after
having pumped in those 10 gallons. They do not evaporate or become less energy-dense. The tank requires no energy
to preserve the energy it contains. Electric car batteries, on the other hand, consume energy even when their energy
isn't being used ... to power the car. But it is necessary to power the heater that maintains the temperature of the
battery, which must be kept above a certain threshold in order to avoid damaging it and to maintain its capacity to receive a
charge. Which it will require, after sitting for a month — unless it was hooked up to a charger, using
energy that way. More so, if it's very cold out.
Foreseeable
electric car catastrophes. Imagine: It is September 4, 2035 in Miami and a large Cat. 5 hurricane is
offshore headed straight for Miami. Roughly 7 million persons are in the general area where the hurricane will come
ashore in 24 hours. The governor orders an evacuation of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area of Florida. All of the
cars start heading north on I-95. All lanes a re cleared to head northbound. With Congress and President Cortez having
mandated that all cars built after 2030 must be electric (no hybrids) everyone heads north, but now they are caught up in a
terrible traffic jam. Electric cars are starting to stall out on the I-95 as well as the A1A and the Turnpike as they
run out of power. There are simply not enough charging stations to charge the cars and police monitoring the available
chargers are limiting drivers to 15 minutes. Chargers are shutting down as water shorts out the charging heads on the
cars. The electric cars are turning off their air conditioners to preserve their remaining charge. You are stuck
in the traffic jam all night with the storm headed right at you. No battery, no A/C/ no windshield wipers, no GPS.
All that you can do is call 911 and hope for help, but they can't because all of the roads are blocked with stalled electric
vehicles.
Virginia
traffic jam provides [a] reminder of [the] limitations of electric cars. Scott has already mentioned the
48-mile traffic backup that occurred in Northern Virginia yesterday. Reportedly, cars were stopped on I-95 for more
than 24 hours in freezing temperatures. It must have been awful, but it could have been worse. And, as Charles
Lane explains, it would have been much worse if there had been many more electric vehicles (EVs) in the traffic jam.
Imagine
Virginia's icy traffic catastrophe — but with only electric vehicles. It is a scientific fact that
batteries of all kinds lose capacity more rapidly in cold weather, and that includes the sophisticated lithium-ion ones used
by Teslas and other EVs. Carmakers can, and do, mitigate cold-weather "range anxiety" through various technologies;
Tesla is touting a new "heat pump" to extend winter range. Drivers can save battery power by, say, turning off the
heat. The issue cannot be eliminated, however, as Tesla acknowledges on its corporate website. It's a hassle in
ordinary winter situations but potentially much worse than that on a night like Monday. Any EV driver stuck on I-95 was
right to be anxious — not only about a rapidly dying battery but also about recharging it. Cold would make
that process much more time-consuming, assuming there was a charging station nearby, and that the electric power system
hadn't gone out (as it did in parts of Virginia on Monday).
With
Its Power Grid Under Pressure, California Asks Residents to Avoid Charging Electric Vehicles. Amid a West Coast
heat wave that includes triple-digit temperatures, California's power grid operators have called on residents to not use as
much electricity so as to put less strain on the state's beleaguered grid. In the past week, the California Independent
System Operator (ISO) told residents several times to voluntarily conserve energy, including asking them on social media to
stop charging their electric vehicles (EVs) during peak usage times. The operator also warned users to "[avoid] use of
large appliances and turning off extra lights." "This usually happens in the evening hours when solar generation is
going offline and consumers are returning home and switching on air conditioners, lights, and appliances," wrote the ISO.
And on June 18, the California Flex Alert Twitter page wrote that "now is the perfect time to do a load of laundry," and
urged residents to "remember to use major appliances, charge cars and devices before #FlexAlert begins at 6 p.m. today."
The Editor says...
[#1] Relatively few people drive an electric car, even in California. What happens when everybody has an electric
car? [#2] When there is an insufficient supply of electricity, conservation is not a long-term solution. The only
long-term solution is an increase in generating capacity, which means the combustion of coal or natural gas, or the
use of nuclear energy. Please make your selection soon.
Nope,
No EV For Me. I've never been a big fan of electric vehicles. Oh, I know everybody says they are "the
future" but studies now show the yearly cost of operating an EV versus a gas-powered cars is roughly the same. The
people I know who drive EVs say they love them. A huge battery plant is opening in Chattanooga and the auto industry is
tripped over itself in a quest to build the biggest and brightest but, nope, not me. I am a gasoline guy. Earlier
this week I received a compelling, make-sense story about battery power and normally I would not read such a thing.
This time I am glad I did because it makes "going green" sound more like a sham.
Man
Dynamites His Tesla After Learning He Needs To Pay 23k Dollars For A New Battery. The cost of a new Tesla Model S
is about $95,000, but the experience of blowing one up is priceless. Finnish man Tuomas Katainen bought his Tesla in
2013, and it rode like a dream — for about the first 930 miles. "It was an excellent car," he said.
"Then the error codes hit." After a month in the shop, mechanics said he'd need the "whole battery cell" replaced, at a
price of 20,000 euros, or about $23,900. [Video clip]
Are
Electric Vehicles A Scam? Electric vehicles (EV) continue to represent a greater share of new car purchases,
but their cost, range and charge rate may hinder many consumers from making the transition. While EV's have grown in
popularity over the last decade, gas-powered vehicles still account for the vast majority of cars on the road and new car
sales, according to Pew Research survey published in June. In addition, a 2020 AAA poll determined that nearly 80% of
households with an EV also own a traditional vehicle, suggesting that just a sliver of Americans are making a complete
transition. "One reason to be suspicious of electric cars overall, is that we haven't solved any of the real problems
that we've always thought they had," said Michael Shellenberger, a climate expert who founded the group Environmental Progress.
Lithium
Shortage May Stall The Electric Car Revolution, Another Biden Blunder. The electric car revolution will stall
in the West if supplies of crucial battery elements like lithium fail to keep up with the forecast huge increase in
demand. As with most manufacturing and industry, China currently dominates the battery processing market too, and it is
responsible for about 80% of global battery chemical refining capacity. A possibly overlooked supply problem by the
Biden administration especially considering President Biden just outlined a plan for 50% of new car purchases to be
zero-emissions by 2030. Lithium is a mineral that is key for electric car batteries. The pricing for it continues
to rise in price, which is jeopardizing the ongoing transition to renewable energy outlined by Western governments. The
cost has skyrocketed more than 250% over the last 12 months, hitting its highest level ever, according to an industry index
from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
Elon
Musk offloaded more Tesla shares for $884 million as the stock slid, bringing his selling spree to $14 billion.
Elon Musk offloaded more Tesla shares on Thursday worth $884.1 million, bringing sales by the electric-vehicle maker's CEO to
a total of nearly $14 billion since early November. In his second round of sales this week, the billionaire disposed of
934,091 Tesla shares, regulatory filings showed. That's the same amount Musk sold on Monday, pulling in $906 million —
about $22 million more than the haul four days later. Tesla's stock has tumbled in recent weeks, and on Thursday, it slid
alongside high-growth tech stocks, as investors weighed the Federal Reserve speeding up cutbacks in stimulus and its potential three
interest-rate hikes in 2022. Musk has been on a stock-selling spree since November 8, after polling his Twitter fans about
whether to dump 10% of his Tesla holding. He got an overwhelming "yes" in response.
Kamala
Harris Doesn't Understand how Electric Cars work, Despite Pushing them. In what can only be
described as yet more proof that Kamala Harris is a complete moron; today she attempted to plug in an electric car at a
charging station while asking the question you've probably never heard when it comes to plugging something into a socket,
'how do I know it's working'. Despite there being gauges right in front of her saying it is working, the moron still
blurts out the ridiculous question. "There's no sound or fume," Kamala Harris remarks at an event highlighting the
Biden administration's obsession with electric vehicles. "So... how do I know it's actually working?"
[Video clip]
WaPo
warns: Come and see the systemic racism of electric vehicles. Get ready for some new and woke vernacular
in the EV era. Now we have to worry about "charging deserts": [...] Why might charging stations be more prevalent in
"well to do" neighborhoods, regardless of ethnic diversity? For one thing, it's because EVs are more expensive.
At the moment, the gap between an average EV and an average traditional car is over $19,000. The Biden administration
wants to close that gap by creating more point-of-sale tax credits for EVs, but the up front costs will still be onerous for
working- and middle-class Americans regardless of ethnicity. There are other cost disincentives beyond the price tag
too, especially regarding reliability. When one vehicle might make the difference between earning a living and
unemployment. How many people who don't live in well-to-do neighborhoods can afford to run out of juice in their car?
New
Report Shows Push for Electric Cars Is Actually Killing Rainforests. It was buried during the Thanksgiving
weekend, but CNN managed to commit a random act of journalism, detailing some new climate data that was found to show that
the Earth warming actually began many decades earlier than stated. This revelation manages to both throw off climate
modeling, as well as make the claim that mankind's technology was the root cause of... well, everything going wrong.
Joining in the fray now is NBC News, which has also surprised by delivering another inconvenient truth. A new report
shows that the need for more raw nickel ore — driven by the explosive market for lithium batteries — is
causing the eradication of pristine rainforests in the Philippines. This is not a gradual loss of acreage.
Massive swaths of the forests are being shredded as nickel mines are expanding at a rate far greater than the rise in global
temperatures.
Electric-Car
Maker Lucid Plunges After Receiving SEC Subpoena. Lucid Group Inc shares plunged premarket after it released a
filing that revealed it received a subpoena last week from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about documents
related to its blank-check deal. The Luxury electric-car maker released an 8-K filing Monday morning indicating it
"received a subpoena" from the SEC related to an investigation.
Lithium
Prices Shoot Up, Disrupting Plans for Electric Car Manufacturers. Car manufacturers are finding it increasingly
pricier to manufacture electric vehicles (EV) as the costs of procuring lithium, one of the main components found in every
commercial EV battery, has shot up almost 280 percent since the start of the year. The demand for electric vehicles has
pushed up demand for the metal, and supply has not been able to keep pace. Lithium is a vital ingredient for rechargeable
batteries. The price hike will not only impact vehicles but also mobile phones and laptops. Carmakers are also
struggling to get their hands on raw materials including lithium, semiconductor chips, copper, and aluminum. Experts claim
that lithium will be harder to obtain and investments are needed for mining and producing the requisite amounts. Automobile
manufacturers have been enthusiastic about the move to electric, with many companies proclaiming a complete shift from
fossil-based engines to electric tech as early as 2040 or even 2030.
Death by Politics.
The next fatal move by Biden is beginning the destruction of our power grid. Under the guise of the Green New Deal and
climate change, the president has already begun his war on fossil fuels. You are witnessing a monumental increase in
cost for gas, oil, propane, and natural gas. We will be competing with all the electric cars that he wants for
power. Our electric grid cannot sustain our demand for heat and air-conditioning while servicing the enormous need to
charge electric vehicles.
The
sinister nature of electric cars. The Democrats are doing everything they can to get Americans into electric
cars. However, those cars come with the risk of a serious loss of power — not just for the car, but for
those who buy those cars. We have to begin with asking, why is the governing pushing electric vehicles? And it's
not just cars; it's also trucks. Why are they ignoring hybrid vehicles? If something happens to the electric guts
of a properly designed hybrid car, the vehicle can limp along with its smaller gas engine until it reaches safety. What
happens to a fully electric vehicle if its electrical system fails? Nothing, of course! You're stuck. All
you have is a hunk of metal and plastic. And if you run out of electricity while driving, you can't just get a gallon
gas can to fill the tank until you get to the nearest service station. Again, you're stuck. The next question is,
"Are electric cars cheaper than gas cars?" No, they cannot be cheaper, and that's even if you run them on renewables.
Buttigieg
Tries to Make Families Feel Better About Gas Prices By Offering an Unaffordable Alternative. As the Biden
Administration continues to push American families into alternative energy sources by maintaining pain at the pump,
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is attempting to explain away high gas prices. During an interview with MSNBC
over the weekend, Buttigieg reassured Americans they won't have to worry about an increase in gas prices ever again, so long
as they buy an electric vehicle. "Families who own that vehicle will never have to worry about gas prices again,"
Buttigieg said. "The people who stand to benefit most from owning an EV are often rural residents who have the most
distances to drive, who burn the most gas, and underserved urban residents in areas where there are higher gas prices and
lower income." [...] Rural residents who need to drive long distances are the worst candidates for electric vehicles, which
only charge for a certain number of miles. Outside of major cities, electric charging stations don't exist.
According to Cox Automotive, the average electric vehicle costs at least $55,000.
Buttigieg
Blasted for Urging Americans to Buy Electric Cars to Save on Fuel Costs. Transportation Secretary Pete
Buttigieg raised eyebrows across the country this week when he urged Americans struggling to cope with higher fuel prices to
simply buy electric vehicles. [Tweet] "The people who stand to benefit most from owning an EV [electric vehicle] are
often rural residents who have the most distances to drive, who burn the most gas, and underserved urban residents in areas
where there are higher gas prices and lower income," Buttigieg said. "They would gain the most by having that vehicle,"
he added. "These are the very residents who have not always been connected to electric vehicles that are viewed as kind
of a luxury item." "Everyone can probably afford electric cars in the world that Pete Buttigieg lives in," tweeted
Trump White House communications official Mercedes Schlapp. "Average Americans struggling with record high gas
prices? Not so much."
How
cobalt-free batteries will bring down the cost of EVs. Battery manufactures like Samsung and Panasonic and car
manufactures like Tesla and Volkswagen, along with a number of startups, are working to eliminate cobalt from
batteries. Cobalt is one of the most expensive materials found in lithium-ion batteries and cobalt extraction is
largely concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it is linked to human rights abuses and child labor.
This guy has one solution for everything:
Buttigieg
says once families own electric cars, they will 'never have to worry about gas prices again'. Secretary of
Transportation Pete Buttigieg said that once families embrace electric cars, they will "never have to worry about gas prices
again." Buttigieg explained to MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart Sunday that the Biden administration's Build Back Better
legislation includes incentives for families to switch to electric vehicles. "Most of the physical infrastructure work
was contemplated in the bill that was just signed, but there is more envisioned in the Build Back Better law," Buttigieg
explained. "I'll give you one example: It contains incentives to make it more affordable to buy an electric
vehicle, up to a $12,500 discount in effect for families thinking about getting an EV."
The
Build Back Better Bill Will Give You $12,000 for Buying an Electric Car. Unless It's a Tesla. On Friday,
the House of Representatives passed the Build Back Better Act, President Joe Biden's signature legislation. Despite
being much smaller than it was when initially proposed, the bill is still stuffed with Democratic wish list items, including
policies on climate change, child care, family leave, and immigration. The bill is expected to face opposition, and
likely some pruning, when it reaches the Senate. One proposal jumps out as an obvious contender for the chopping
block. As part of Biden's plan to rein in carbon emissions, the bill contains a provision which would provide a $7,500
tax rebate to any consumer who purchases an electric vehicle (EV), including both all-electric and plug-in hybrids.
However, that amount increases by $4,500 if the car was manufactured in a unionized U.S. factory, as well as by an additional
$500 if the vehicle contains a U.S.-made battery.
Biden's
BBB Bill Will Give You $12.5K if You Buy an Electric Car — Unless It's a Tesla. In yet another
example that powerful teachers unions and labor unions enjoy joint custody of Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, the
ridiculously named socialist monstrosity "Build Back Better" Act contains a provision that provides a tax credit of up to
$12,500 to purchasers of electric vehicles — other than Teslas. Why not Teslas? Three words:
United Autoworkers Union. That's right, America, as reported by CBS News, only electric vehicles made in unionized U.S.
factories qualify for the full $12,500. However, if Tesla it must be, your tax credit would be capped at $7,500.
Biden
Energy Secretary Subject of Ethics Complaint for Promoting Electric Company She Held $1.6 Million in Stock.
President Biden's Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has received an ethics complaint for promoting an electric bus company
she sat on the board of and held over a million dollars of stock in. She did so all while being a part of the executive
branch in Biden's administration. Breitbart reports Granholm, "who oversees moving the country toward an electric
vehicle transportation system and enjoys newfound powers after the passage of Biden's infrastructure package — is
facing scrutiny for promoting Proterra, a Burlingame, California-based electric bus company she sat on the board of and held
240,520 shares of stock in, which garnered her $1.6 million when she finally divested them 157 days after her nomination."
Global
warming scare-mongers refuted as Arctic ice growing, on track to be the most ice in 2 decades. The scariest scenario
of the global warming doomsayers has been the idea that the melting Arctic ice cap would put coastal cities underwater. [...] Joe
Biden and the climate grifters don't care about the data. They want to spend trillions of dollars converting the motor vehicle
fleet to battery-powered electric cars whose power source will be... something. Not quite sure what. Windmills and solar
panels won't work, and the greenies hate nuclear power. It's all a scam.
Joe
Biden Addresses High Gas Prices: Americans Can Save Money if They Buy Electric Cars. President Joe Biden
promoted his efforts to lower gas prices on Tuesday, but he reminded Americans they would save more money on gas if they
owned electric cars. "For the hundreds of thousands of folks who bought one of those electric cars, they're going to
save $800 to $1000 in fuel costs this year," Biden said, referring to the $112,595 electric Hummer pickup he test drove at a
General Motors factory in Detroit earlier this month.
The Editor says...
Brilliant! Save $800 on fuel costs when you spend $112,000. But you'll spend much more than $800 per year on
electricity if you drive your new electric car as much as you would drive a gas-engine model. You will also spend
a lot of time charging your car (during which time the car can't move), as opposed to the five minutes a week that
you'd spend at a gas station.
EV
batteries forecast to threaten world with 'toxic chemicals,' 'landfill fires'. It's one of the biggest
unanswered questions as electric vehicles (EVs) rapidly proliferate: What will happen to all of the degraded
lithium-ion batteries once the vehicles reach the end of their lives? "Recycling" is the optimistic solution offered by
EV advocates and supporters of green technology, but will battery recycling actually make economic and environmental
sense? According to the International Energy Agency, a predicted 23 million EVs sold worldwide in 2030 could lead to
5,750,000 tonnes of retired batteries by 2040, and this waste will keep piling up as EVs replace internal combustion engine
vehicles. The prospect is of pressing interest to a team of scientists and engineers in the UK, which recently
published a paper on the "financial viability of electric vehicle lithium-ion battery recycling" in the journal
iScience. "If recycling remains unprofitable, battery waste mountains could build up, which, if uncontrolled, bear a
significant environmental and safety risk, as toxic chemicals could leak into the environment and landfill fires might
occur," the researchers warned.
Tesla
ranks almost dead-last on Consumer Reports reliability list. Following a tumultuous year for Tesla including a
company relocation helmed by CEO Elon Musk, viral reports of cars on fire and other self-admitted quality control issues,
Tesla has plummeted on Consumer Reports' annual list of most-reliable carmakers. The electric car manufacturer now
ranks 27th out of 28 car brands on Consumer Reports' list, above only Ford-owned legacy luxury brand Lincoln. Much of
it has to do with the overall instability of electric vehicles in general — especially SUVs — which
Consumer Reports' Jake Fisher said during a presentation are the "absolute bottom in terms of reliability," according to
Reuters. But considering that, at one point, the Tesla Model S excelled so much in Consumer Reports' own analyses
that the organization itself said it was "breaking the Consumer Reports Ratings system" due to its excellence, the low rank
is tough criticism for Tesla and its legions of enthusiasts.
Tesla
Stock Price Target Hiked To Street High As House Passes New EV Credits. Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives raised his
price target for Tesla stock to $1,400 from $1,000 in a note to clients late Thursday, as the U.S. House of Representatives
on Friday [11/19/2021] passed a reconciliation bill that includes EV credits for Tesla and other EV makers. Tesla stock
and other EV stocks rose on Friday. Wedbush's price target is the highest on Wall Street, along with the top end of
Jefferies' outlook. Ives says the linchpin to the overall bull thesis on Tesla remains China. Wedbush estimates
China will represent 40% of Tesla's deliveries in 2022.
Rivian,
the Government Unicorn: The EV truck maker is worth $120.5 billion. It has sold 156 vehicles. We
live in the age of free money and endless government subsidy, which is the only way to explain the $100 billion public stock
offering by Rivian this week. The electric truck maker has delivered a mere 156 vehicles, but investors are betting
government won't let it fail. Twelve-year-old Rivian is being hailed as the next Tesla. Yet when Tesla went
public in 2010 it reported $93 million in revenue and was valued at $1.7 billion. Rivian's sales are almost all
to its own employees and it projected at most $1 million in revenue in the third quarter. On Wednesday it nonetheless
raised nearly $12 billion. Shares later surged as euphoric investors rushed in, and at $120.5 billion Rivian is
the fifth largest auto maker in the world by market value. Ponder that one.
New
Study Finds Electric Cars Cost More To Refuel Than Gasoline Powered Cars. The Anderson study noted that Electronic Vehicles (EVs) are,
"often presumed to be less expensive to fuel than their ICE counterparts. There is a rationale in physics for this: due to greater thermal
efficiency, electric motors convert energy more efficiently than combustion engines. However, this cost is only one of five." For a
complete picture, Anderson notes that we consumers must consider:
[#1] Commercial and residential electric power/fuel costs.
[#2] Registration taxes.
[#3] Equipment (e.g., chargers) and installation costs.
[#4] Deadhead miles incurred driving to a charger or fueling station.
[#5] The cost of time spent refueling
The study found:
• There are four additional costs to powering EVs beyond electricity: cost of a home charger, commercial charging, the EV tax and "deadhead" miles.
• For now, EVs cost more to power than gasoline costs to fuel an internal combustion car that gets reasonable gas mileage.
• Charging costs vary more widely than gasoline prices.
• There are significant time costs to finding reliable public chargers — even then a charger could take 30 minutes to go from 20% to an 80% charge.
Something
Big is Coming. [Scroll down] Ostensibly to chat with the Pope about such theological issues as climate
change — apparently the latest religious belief superseding what most people consider Catholicism —
President Biden (who reportedly took 800 staffers with him to the Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland) cruised through
Rome in an 85-vehicle motorcade. What more could you ask to show how seriously Biden takes the issue of greenhouse
gases and fossil fuels? Speaking of "serious," how can you not laugh at a president so stupid that he said, "When you
buy an electric vehicle, you can go across America on a single tank of gas figuratively speaking. It's not gas.
You plug it in." Sure, you do, and you have to plug it in every few hundred miles and wait for hours for it to charge
unless somewhere someone has invented some very very long and sturdy extension cords. And, of course, plugging it in
requires electric power from somewhere, and there's a substantial shortage of it because of the same loony energy policies
that are now forcing up gas and electric power prices around the country and the world.
Biden
Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong. As gas prices soar across
the country, President Joe Biden attempted to explain the benefits of electric cars. Predictably, his explanation was
more confusing than it was helpful. Biden was giving a speech Thursday [10/28/2021] describing his two massive spending
sprees, also known as the Build Back Better plan and infrastructure bill. According to a White House transcript, Biden
was describing the need to replace buses and cars with electric alternatives like rail and electric cars. "When you buy
an electric vehicle, you can go across America on a single tank of gas, figuratively speaking," Biden said. "It's not
gas. You plug it in." [Video clip]
Biden
electric vehicle plan creates environmental danger with discarded batteries, ex-EPA boss says. President
Biden's climate change plan for electric vehicles and renewable energy sources will harm the environment, warns Andrew
Wheeler, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under former President Trump. "[W]e don't know
what we're going to do with the disposal of these windmills or solar panels," the latter of which "in particular, have
hazardous materials in them," Wheeler told the John Solomon Reports podcast Thursday [10/28/2021]. While he said he's
all for using renewable energy technologies such as windmills, solar power, and electric vehicles, the issue is that there's
not yet a sustainable plan for the waste they produce. "Every single energy source has positives and negatives, and
nobody ever looks at the negatives of renewable energy, and we have to have as a country if we're going to push what Joe
Biden wants to do," Wheeler said. "[H]e wants to have 50% electric vehicles by 2030."
COP-26
is a global energy embarrassment. For 26 futile years, the net-zero maniacs have wasted fuel, energy, and
taxpayers' money to bite the hands that provide their food, energy, welfare, and public-sector jobs. Led by E.U. and
AUKUS dreamers, they destroy reliable energy from coal, oil, nuclear, gas, and hydro while forcing us to subsidize
net-negative dreams like solar, wind, wave-power, CCUS, hot rocks, pumped hydro, and hydrogen. All such speculative
ventures should be funded by speculators, not taxpayers. COP-Out-26 illustrates to the realists of China, Russia,
India, and Brazil that the West has lost its marbles and is in terminal decline. For Scott Morrison to surrender
Australia to these green wolves betrays an army of miners, farmers, truckies, and workers in primary, secondary, and tertiary
industries that support him and his Canberra pack. The fakery of COP-Out-26 is well illustrated by the provision of
diesel generators to recharge the batteries of 26 electric cars provided for show in Glasgow. But that's OK "because
the diesels are run on recycled chip fat."
The Editor says...
[#1] Why didn't they just provide 26 diesel trucks powered by "recycled chip fat"?
At least that would have reduced the consumption of lithium.
[#2] Did anyone "trust but verify," and actually check the fuel?
[#3] Why couldn't they bring in generators powered by natural gas?
The pencil-pushing bureaucrats could easily afford it.
Which
is more expensive: Charging an electric vehicle or fueling a car with gas? Last year, Patrick Anderson
went electric: He got a Porsche Taycan EV in dark blue. Anderson, who is CEO of East Lansing-based economic
consulting firm Anderson Economic Group, loves the zippy acceleration and "exciting" features the car offers. He also
gets satisfaction in knowing that driving an EV benefits the environment, he said. But Anderson's joy comes with a dark
side. "They are a wonderful driving experience. But at the same time, they're an enormous burden in time and in
energy in finding chargers and getting them charged," Anderson said. "And you're not really saving much in terms of
charging costs ... you may be paying more."
8
Ridiculous 'Green New Deal' Programs in Democrats' Bloated Spending Bill. [#3] Huge Handouts for the Rich to
Buy Fancy Electric Vehicles: The "Green Energy" subtitle, starting on page 1695, would throw $279 billion in tax
subsidies at a range of predictable things: unreliable wind and solar energy projects, cost-ineffective biofuels like
ethanol, and an "environmental justice" bonus depending on where things are built. The most galling aspect of this
massive exercise in corporate welfare and economic micromanagement is Section 136401, which provides tax credits toward the
purchase of electric vehicles. While much of the rhetoric surrounding the bill revolves around socialist notions of
"economic justice," the details in this section show that Democrats have no problem cutting checks to the wealthy.
Existing tax credits for these vehicles go overwhelmingly to households making over $100,000 per year. Working-class
families are unlikely to purchase a $55,000 sedan or a $74,000 truck. Yet vehicles costing that much are eligible for
the tax credit. Similarly, households earning up to $800,000 qualify for the credit.
Tesla
zooms past $1 trillion market cap on bet that the EV future is now. Tesla Inc surpassed $1 trillion in market
value on Monday [10/25/2021] after landing its biggest-ever order from rental car company Hertz, a deal that reinforced the
electric car leader's ambitions to top the entire auto industry in sales over the next decade. Tesla shares surged as
much as 14.9% to $1,045.02, making it the world's most valuable automaker according to Reuters calculations based on its
latest filing. Even Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk expressed surprise at the velocity of the surge. "Strange
that moved valuation, as Tesla is very much a production ramp problem, not a demand problem," Musk tweeted in reply to a
comment by Ross Gerber, co-founder of the investment fund Gerber Kawasaki and a Tesla shareholder.
Net
zero greenhouse emissions is an impossible goal. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are not zero
emission. Battery manufacture is both energy intensive and greenhouse gas intensive. On a lifecycle basis,
including vehicle manufacture, use and disposal, BEVs with large batteries could have worse emissions than comparable
conventional vehicles, although smaller BEVs in areas with low-carbon electricity supplies will have lower but non-zero
emissions than comparable conventional cars. The very serious health issues associated with mining for met-als are
simply exported away from where the BEV is used. Particulate emissions can be almost eliminated in modern
engines. That being the case, tyre wear will soon become the dominant source of particulates, and will be much higher
for BEVs because of their greater weight. [...] If enough people do not buy BEVs because of high up-front costs and charging
anxiety, the UK automotive industry will be destroyed. To replace just cars and vans with BEVs will require total
battery capacity to increase by a factor of well over 200.
Forget
Silver, Nevada Is Now The Lithium State. Lithium is one of the most in-demand commodities in the world
today. With the ongoing shift to electric vehicles (EVs) and clean energy technologies, governments and EV
manufacturers are rushing to secure their supply chains as demand for lithium soars. But, as Visual Capitalist notes,
while the US is lagging behind in the global lithium race, it is only now starting to realize the need to catch up to China's
strong foothold.
The Editor says...
The demand for lithium could easily collapse, if the U.S. government is taken over by sensible people someday, and the
electric vehicle mandates and subsidies disappear. On the other hand, what are the chances of that happening?
Life in
Centrifugal USA. [Scroll down] The President claimed that this tsunami of dollars (parceled out to
favored supporters and interests) would not cost taxpayers one dollar. It wouldn't if you are dumb enough to consider
the stupidest wastes of money "investments." Things like these can serve as examples: [...] [#3] $175 Billion in Subsidies
for Electric Vehicles. Electric vehicles: A technological novelty so good it won't catch on without hundreds of
billions in subsidies. At least, that's apparently what the Biden administration thinks, as its infrastructure proposal
earmarks a "$174 billion investment to win the electric vehicle market." The spending will take the form of
manufacturing subsidies and consumer tax credits, which historically have benefitted wealthy families most. For
comparison, the proposal carves out more for green energy goodies than it does on the total $115 billion to "modernize
the bridges, highways, roads, and main streets that are in most critical need of repair."
Are
Electric Vehicles A Joke? No, not necessarily. Electric vehicles may be fine cars; Teslas certainly are
(while Chevy Volts evidently are not). But the idea that our hundreds of millions of gasoline-powered cars are going to be
replaced by EVs within the next century is ridiculous. Where will the electricity come from? There is no sane
answer to that question, especially since the only plausible solution — an enormous amount of nuclear
power — is off the table. And of course, greatly expanding the electrical grid to accommodate EVs, mining
the lithium necessary for batteries that vastly exceed anything that now exists, and developing an infrastructure of charging
stations adequate to service hundreds of millions of EVs — these are practical matters to which little intelligent
thought has been given. So the current mania for electric vehicles is eminently deserving of ridicule.
EV
Battery Fires Won't Keep Pols from Putting You in Them. Recent news about EV battery fires does not bode well
for California Governor Newsom's executive order to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035. The Bolt, the only EV
that GM is selling in North America, has been "tied to at least nine fires" since early 2020, and Hyundai's vehicles were
involved in about 15 fires. Meanwhile, three Tesla's have burst into flames over the past four months.
So far, 27 EV battery fires and still counting. Firefighters may need 30,000 to 40,000 gallons of water to contain
a Tesla electric vehicle (EV) blaze than they would normally use for a mainstream gas-powered car that was on fire.
General Motors announced in August 2021 that they were recalling 73,000 Chevrolet Bolt EV's in addition to the 70,000 Bolts
that were made between 2017 and 2019. Fixing all 143,000 of the Bolts being recalled for fire risk to replace new
battery modules could, as Morningstar analyst David Whiston told the Detroit Free Press, cost GM some $1.8 billion.
The Major Problem
With EVs No One Is Talking About. When GM earlier this year started recalling Bolts, it issued a warning to
owners of the EV: don't charge your car battery to 100 percent. Normally, this would be easy enough to do. But
what if your charger got hacked? Last year, researchers from the Southwest Research Institute in Texas successfully
hacked the most popular charging system used in North America. The hack limited the charging rate, then blocked
charging, and then overcharged the battery. The reason for the hack: "This was an initiative designed to identify
potential threats in common charging hardware as we prepare for widespread adoption of electric vehicles in the coming
decade," according to lead researcher Austin Dodson. Mission accomplished.
Democrats
are again planning to pay rich people to buy expensive cars. As part of their appalling, budget-busting $3.5
trillion infrastructure bill, Democrats are insisting upon a vast transfer of wealth from less affluent taxpayers to the very
rich. The form that this transfer is taking is a plan to increase the already outrageous $7,500 taxpayer-funded credit
for electric car purchases to a $12,500 credit. [...] Putting aside the fact that electric cars aren't as green as promised,
given their filthy batteries created using materials associated with brutal child labor* and the fact that they often just
transfer pollution from the gas tank to the fossil-fuel-burning electric plant, the incentives are nothing more than money
for rich people.
New
York outlaws selling new gas-powered new vehicles by 2035. A bill signed into law last week by New York
Gov. Kathy Hochul effectively outlaws the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in less than 14 years. The law, Senate
Bill S2758 and Assembly Bill A4302, sets a goal that 100% of all passenger cars, trucks and off-road vehicles will be
zero-emission. The goal is 2045 for larger vehicles, such as medium- and heavy-duty trucks and buses. As A4302
sponsor Assemblymember Steve Englebright, D-Setauket, said on the Assembly floor before the 110-40 April 20 vote passing
the bill: "Zero emissions means that we will see electric vehicles instead of internal combustion engine-driven vehicles
on our roads." It also, though, will allow hydrogen-powered vehicles as those produce water vapors instead of a
carbon-based emission.
The Editor says...
[#1] Water vapor has far more influence in the "greenhouse effect" than carbon dioxide. [#2] Where will all that hydrogen
come from? Is there a hydrogen pump at the 7-11? [#3] What happens to your job if you work at a New York car dealership,
and nobody wants an expensive electric car? [#4] What's to prevent a New York resident from buying a gas-engine car in another
nearby state, of which there are many?
Biden's
climate commitment tested as greens fight Nevada lithium mine. President Biden is calling for an electric
vehicle revolution, but a major mining project proposed for remote western Nevada could soon show whether his administration
intends to walk the talk. All the Australian company ioneer Ltd. needs is final Interior Department clearance to start
work on the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project after announcing Thursday a joint venture with the international mining firm
Sibanye-Stillwater. "We are shovel ready with the approval of this administration," said James Calaway, ioneer
executive chairman, in a Thursday press call.
Elon
Musk upset over proposed Democratic subsidies for unionized electric car companies. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is
criticizing House Democrats and the Biden administration for providing tax incentives for union-made electric cars that won't
help his company or others that are not unionized. Musk and other automakers say the tax benefit will unfairly boost
the business of car companies such as GM, Ford, and Chrysler, which are represented by the United Auto Workers union.
Biden
Has Completed the Most Lucrative and Devastating Treason In World History. America has been sold to the
Chinese. This explains stolen elections and the disaster in Afghanistan. The treason of Biden is
unparalleled. Follow this story as you will see how America has been sold out to Chinese interests. This connects
most of the dots. On the industrial/economic front, lithium is the new oil. The most important use of lithium is
in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and electric vehicles. [...] We are all aware that the
Biden administration announced, immediately after stealing the 2020 election and assuming power announced that Americans
would soon have to give up their "gas-guzzling" cars in favor of electric cars and now we are just beginning to understand
how this climate change principle provides cover for the economic takeover of what will prove to be the most important
mineral of the face of earth. The demand for lithium is projected by most economists to increase at least by a 40-fold
level above 2020 levels by 2040.
Your electric car runs on lithium batteries. Where does lithium come from?
What makes the world go
around? [Thread reader] While the media keeps you fixated on J6, Covid, and how it's always Trump's fault,
you might want to ask about these things. The Biden admin is run by all the same people as the Obama admin. [...] In
order to understand what happened in the span of 1 week, when Biden pulled out of Afghanistan & Pelosi rammed through the
$3.5 [trillion] budget which is the Green New Deal, you have to look back in time. Remember the GND, forces the US on EV's which
run on lithium batteries. In 2011, then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, worked on the Silk Road Initiative.
It connects China to many countries & helps them become #1 super power through trade. It also grows the economies of
Afghanistan, Pakistan & more enemies to the US. [...] While the US military was involved in conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq,
our gov (US taxpayers) also paid for the geological surveys of in Afghanistan and found over $1 [trillion] in rare earth
minerals, including lithium, which is needed to make batteries that are needed for EV's.
GM
'not confident' LG Chem will build defect-free Bolt batteries. General Motors will keep its Orion Assembly
plant idled and not start repairs on the nearly 141,000 recalled Chevrolet Bolts EVs and EUVs until it is confident its
supplier can make a defect-free EV battery that does not pose a potential fire risk. And right now, GM does not believe
its battery-maker, LG Chem, can do that. GM and LG Chem have "hundreds of people" working around the clock, seven
days a week, to find the cause of the defective battery modules connected to some Bolts catching fire without impact, said GM
spokesman Dan Flores.
The
World Will Run Out Of EV Batteries By 2025. While you can cut down your carbon footprint by a massive margin by
switching over to an EV, you just can't get away from using finite resources completely. EV batteries contain a litany
of expensive and finite rare earth metals and minerals, most notably cobalt and lithium, which cause tricky negotiations with
global supply chains and which are not without their negative environmental externalities thanks to sometimes messy mining
operations. The energy revolution's dependence on rare earth metals, which is only set to intensify, has inadvertently
put a huge amount of control into the hands of China, which controls around 90% of the market for some of these resources,
and has shown that it is not afraid to use that power to sway international politics and diplomacy. In fact, it has
been posited that China's dominance of these supply chains, and other countries' reticence of that dominance, could
potentially lead to a new clean energy resource war if world powers don't tread lightly.
GM
recalls every Chevy Bolt ever made, blames LG for faulty batteries. GM has announced that it is recalling every
Chevrolet Bolt made to date, including new electric utility vehicle models, over concerns that a manufacturing defect in the
cars' LG-made batteries could cause a fire. The Bolt was first recalled in November after five cars that hadn't been in
crashes caught fire. After investigating the problem further, Chevy recalled a second batch in July. The problem
was traced to two manufacturing defects that could occur simultaneously. The defects — a torn anode tab and
folded separator — created conditions that could lead to a short in affected cells. So far, the company has
identified 10 fires that involve faulty batteries, according to an AP report.
GM
to spend $1 billion to expand Chevy Bolt EV recall due to fires. General Motors on Friday [8/20/2021] said it is expanding
its recent recall of Chevrolet Bolt EVs to newer models of the electric car due to potential fire risk. The recall expansion is
expected to cost the automaker an additional $1 billion, bringing the recall's total to $1.8 billion to replace potentially
defective battery modules in the vehicles. GM said about 73,000 vehicles in the U.S. and Canada are being added to the recall from
the 2019-2022 model years, including a recently launched larger version of the car called the Bolt EUV. The former recall involved
about 69,000 of the cars globally from the 2017-2019 model years, including nearly 51,000 in the U.S. The expanded recall now
includes all Bolt EV models ever produced, casting a shadow over GM's first mainstream electric vehicle, as it attempts to transition
to exclusively sell EVs by 2035.
What
You Need to Know About Biden's Ill-Conceived Executive Order on Electric Vehicles. President Joe Biden issued
an executive order Aug. 5 calling for half of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be zero-emission vehicles by 2030.
A president can't exactly force Americans to buy an electric vehicle, and Biden largely meant his executive order as a
messaging tool to fuel enthusiasm for his climate agenda. But it threatens to ignore customers along the way.
Electric and alternative fuel vehicles arrived on the scene in the past two decades, yet only accounted for 2% of car sales
in 2019 despite generous federal and state subsidies. So far, electric vehicles and other alternative fuel vehicles
have generally been the lifestyle choice of well-off Americans and urbanites. Studies from the Congressional Research
Service and the University of California at Berkeley show the vast majority of tax credits for buying an electric vehicle
have gone to corporations and to Americans in top income brackets. Buying an electric vehicle is a perfectly acceptable
choice, but we shouldn't pretend that electric vehicles, such as they are now, are the "all-American vehicle."
The Editor says...
[#1] Electric cars are "zero-emission vehicles" only if the electricity they use is generated without any emissions.
Otherwise, the emissions still occur at the central power plant. [#2] The avoidance of carbon dioxide emissions is
futile, as long as China and India are making no such effort.
Strong
Demand for Gas Vehicles Drives Detroit Production Plans, Clouds Biden's 2030 Goal for EVs. Automakers in North
America plan to build more pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles than electric vehicles well into the late 2020s, with
strong consumer demand for gasoline-powered vehicles charting sales trends that run counter to the Biden administration's
goal of boosting electric vehicles (EVs) to half the market by 2030, according to internal production forecasts reported on
by Reuters. President Joe Biden signed an executive order earlier in August establishing the goal of making half of all
new vehicles sold in the United States either hybrid or fully electric by 2030. Biden's order also set a new schedule for
the development of new long-term fuel efficiency and emissions standards to tackle pollution and other objectives.
General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler-parent Stellantis have endorsed Biden's zero-emissions sales target, saying in a joint
statement on Aug. 5 that they aspired "to achieve sales of 40-50 percent of annual U.S. volumes of electric vehicles ...
by 2030," adding that the goal can only be met with more government investment in charging stations and other infrastructure.
Biden's 50 percent goal and the automakers' 40 to 50 percent aspiration includes battery electric, fuel cell, and
plug-in hybrid vehicles that also have gasoline engines.
America's Automotive
Future. Joe Biden, emulating trendsetting blue state governors like California's Gavin Newsom and New York's
Andrew Cuomo, recently has declared that by 2030, new car sales must be 50 percent zero-emission electric vehicles. The
problem with this decree is that it violates the proverbial rule against the government picking winners and losers.
It's one thing for the government to subsidize energy research, or, for that matter, any pure research. Libertarian
purists might object to that, but sometimes these public-private research partnerships can accelerate innovation and help
keep American manufacturers competitive. It's quite another thing, however, for the government to restrict what sort of
technology powers our vehicles, because there's no way we can predict how technology will evolve between now and 2030.
Biden's
Electric Vehicle Plan Without Mining Expansion Is A Big Win For Beijing. President Joe Biden announced plans
Thursday [7/5/2021] to push auto sales to be 50 percent electric by 2030 with new regulations, as part of the
administration's effort to promote cleaner energy. "There [is] a vision of the future that is now beginning to happen,"
Biden said at the White House. "A future of the automobile industry that is electric. Battery electric, plug-in,
hybrid electric, fuel cell electric, it's electric and there's no turning back." That future however, may also feature
swelling American reliance on one of its greatest overseas adversaries: China. Less than five percent of all new
cars on the U.S. market were purely electric vehicles and less than four percent were plug-in hybrids as of June, according
to the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory. Not only will the government-manufactured shift to up that
number by 12 times require massive state subsidies for a slow-growing industry, as Biden promised, but it will exacerbate
American dependence on Chinese mineral production to make the car batteries needed.
Automakers
Team Up With Biden To Force Electric Cars On Consumers. In eight years, half of American car buyers will be
forced to purchase overpriced, underperforming electric cars they don't want, courtesy of the federal government and a
compliant auto industry. That, at least, is what President Joe Biden announced at the White House on Thursday
[8/5/2021], and it's just as we predicted in this space three months ago. With a wave of his pen, Biden ordered that
50% of new cars and trucks sold by 2030 are to be electric. Since the auto companies already have their 2022 model year
cars in production, that means they have less than eight years to figure out how to comply with the most massive, disruptive,
and anti-consumer mandate ever to come out of Washington. The automakers have only themselves to blame for that.
As we noted in early May, they'd already caved to the green police and announced ambitious plans to electrify their fleets,
even though consumers have little interest in buying battery-powered cars.
Biden
to Push for Dirty Electric Cars Our Power Grids Aren't Ready to Support. Joe Biden can't go a single day
without issuing some edict on behalf of his leftist supporters. The man who ran as a moderate Democrat will reportedly
push for about half of all U.S. cars to be electric just nine years from now. [...] Toyota may remain notably quiet about
this. The world's largest automaker has repeatedly warned that our power grids aren't ready to power billions of
EVs. Elon Musk has said the same, and he's atop the world's largest EV automaker, Tesla. Neither Toyota nor Tesla
oppose EVs. Neither do I, for that matter. They just don't think our grids are ready to power them without very
significant investment and overhauls. Who is going to pay for that? Biden's bloated infrastructure bill doesn't
address it.
1 in 5 electric vehicle
owners in California switched back to gas because charging their cars is a hassle, research shows. In roughly
three minutes, you can fill the gas tank of a Ford Mustang and have enough range to go about 300 miles with its V8
engine. But on a recent 200-mile trip from Boston to New York in the Mustang's electric Mach-E variant, Axios' Dan
Primack said he felt "panic" as his battery level dipped below 23% while searching for a compatible charger to complete his
trip. "I was assured that this might be one of the country's easiest EV routes," Primack wrote. "Those assurances
were misplaced." For Bloomberg automotive analyst Kevin Tynan, an hour plugged into his household outlet gave the
Mach-E just three miles of range. "Overnight, we're looking at 36 miles of range," he told Insider. "Before I
gave it back to Ford, because I wanted to give it back full, I drove it to the office and plugged in at the charger we have
there." [...] Roughly one in five plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners switched back to owning gas-powered cars, in large
part because charging the batteries was a pain in the... trunk, the researchers found.
Proterra
Lurches Into Damage-Control Mode in [the] Wake of [Washington] Free Beacon Reports. A slump in stock price and
reports about Proterra's costly electric buses underperforming across the country have sent the Biden administration's
favorite electric battery company into damage-control mode, retaining a top-flight defamation lawyer and inveighing against
"partisan blogs" like the Washington Free Beacon and the taxpayer-funded NPR. Proterra, the electric bus company
linked to several Biden administration officials and top Democrats, has retained the services of high-profile attorney Erik
Connolly, the company said. A Proterra spokesman said Connolly was hired to "address some recent false and defamatory
publications about the company." Proterra also published a statement Monday night that sought to set the "record straight
about mischaracterizations about our Company in recent partisan news blogs that are opposed to the widespread adoption of
zero-emission vehicles."
LA
Times: Maybe we shouldn't follow California's example on electric cars. Two months ago, the New York
Times and CNN raised warning flags on the environmental costs of transitioning to electric cars. Last week, the Los
Angeles Times followed suit, although in this case it's the California dog that doesn't bark that should be of greatest
interest to that question. Even without the obvious questions about energy for recharging, however, the LAT raises a
series of environmental issues with the necessary mining to sustain production of EVs.
With
China Producing Half the World's New Energy Vehicles, Retired Batteries May Bring 'Explosive Pollution'. As
China's new energy vehicle production grows rapidly, with half of global production now coming from China, the huge amount of
retired batteries could bring "disastrous" environmental problems and "explosive pollution," says state-owned media
Xinhua. According to Xinhua, the cumulative retired batteries in China will had reached 200,000 tons (about 25 GWh) in
2020 and will grow to 780,000 tons (about 116 GWh) by 2025. However, more than half of the retired batteries are not
recycled via proper channels, but are "snapped up" by unqualified small factories that don't invest much in environmental
protection, the report says.
California
City Bought Into Electric Bus Company Promoted by White House, Now Considering Scrapping Expensive Fleet After Nonstop
Disasters. One Southern California city's test run of the Proterra electric buses touted by the Biden
administration has backfired. These buses were the "future of mass transportation," according to Biden officials, so we
can only ask: Is this the future we want? According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Foothill Transit agency,
which serves valley areas outside of Los Angeles, reported that not only are the buses' transmission failures too expensive
to repair, but the buses themselves have also melted in the sweltering California heat and one even caught fire in a "thermal
event" in January.
Philadelphia's
electric bus fleet has disappeared. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is one of the deep-blue cities that's been
priding itself in leading the charge against climate change for years now. Back in 2016, they decided to establish a
position as an early adopter of electric vehicle technology on a large scale to reduce their carbon footprint. The city
purchased 25 electric buses from a company called Protera at a staggering price tag of nearly one million dollars apiece and
put them into operation. But barely four years later, every one of the buses had been pulled from service and is deemed
unusable. What went so horribly wrong to produce such a result? As the Free Beacon reports this week, just about
everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
The Editor says...
Hotair.com has this article partially hidden behind a paywall. But the whole point of the article was to report about (and quote
extensively from) an article at Freebeacon.com, which in turn was reporting about a WHYY investigation. This is what's known as
the media echo chamber.
Report:
Philadelphia's Proterra Fleet in Complete Shambles. More than two dozen electric Proterra buses first unveiled
by the city of Philadelphia in 2016 are already out of operation, according to a WHYY investigation. The entire fleet
of Proterra buses was removed from the roads by SEPTA, the city's transit authority, in February 2020 due to both structural
and logistical problems — the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles' chassis, and the battery
life was insufficient for the city's bus routes. The city raised the issues with Proterra, which failed to adequately
address the city's concerns. The city paid $24 million for the 25 new Proterra buses, subsidized in part by a
$2.6 million federal grant. Philadelphia defended the investment with claims that the electric buses would require less
maintenance than standard combustion engine counterparts. [...] Over the past five days, Proterra's stock price has fallen
over 25 percent.
Magic Bus.
Speaking of electric vehicles... Possibly the dumbest thing any country could do from an energy standpoint is to promote
widespread use of electric vehicles, while simultaneously mandating reliance on wind and solar energy, which work less than
half the time. Moreover, governments' politically-motivated reliance on electric vehicles like buses has been a
disaster. This is a typical "green" fiasco: [...] There is no sane reason for any government to buy, let alone
subsidize, these vehicles. It is crony corruption, pure and simple. [...] By rights, companies like Proterra should be
subject to massive consumer and securities fraud lawsuits, and maybe they will be. But political muscle goes a long
way, and Proterra and its ilk are darlings of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party in general.
King
County to require electric vehicle charging stations at new developments. Drivers in unincorporated King County
could start seeing more electric vehicle (EV) charging stations thanks to new legislation approved by King County Council
Tuesday [7/13/2021]. Under the new legislation, new developments like apartment buildings and single-family townhomes or
substantially remodeled developments must have 10% of their parking spots to have EV charging stations and 25% of spaces to
be ready to install charging stations in the near future.
Now
is the Time to Get Serious About Nuclear Energy. California is obsessed with so-called "zero-emissions"
transportation, i.e., electric vehicles. The state passed numerous laws, regulations, and subsidies in pursuit of that
objective. But EVs are not currently free of carbon emissions. Fossil fuels (coal and natural gas) generate most
of the electricity needed to charge their batteries. If nuclear energy generated that same electricity we could
honestly say that EVs generate "zero-emissions." Even Elon Musk admits that there is not enough electricity generating
capacity to allow widespread conversion to EVs. The only way there could be enough capacity is by resorting to nuclear
power. The last remaining nuclear plant in California is at Diablo Canyon and has been operating since 1985. It is the
single largest power station in the state, generating ten percent of California's electricity. Because of the state's
hostility toward nuclear power, it is scheduled to close in 2025. No one knows what will replace that generating capacity.
U.S.
urges 50,000 Chevy Bolt owners to park outside because of fire risks. U.S. auto safety regulators on Wednesday
[7/14/2021] urged about 50,000 owners of General Motors electric Chevrolet Bolt vehicles that were recalled last year to park
outside and away from homes and other structures after charging because of fire risks. Earlier on Wednesday, GM made
the same recommendation and added owners should not leave vehicles charging overnight. The recommendation was prompted
after the largest U.S. automaker said it was investigating reports of two recent fires in vehicles that were recalled in
November for fire risks.
Rodents
chow down on Teslas, causing thousands in damage. Elon Musk may have a rat problem. Fans of the South
African billionaire's electric cars say rats, mice and rodents are chomping down on their Teslas. And despite having
dropped tens of thousands of dollars to buy the pricey vehicles, Tesla refuses to cover the damage[.] Sarah Williams, a
41-year-old physician who lives in Manhattan and uses her Tesla to commute to work in the Bronx, told the Post of an alarming
incident when she took her 2018 Model 3 into Tesla's Paramus, NJ, dealership in mid-May after her air conditioner had
stopped working. "They opened the glove compartment and a rodent fell out," she said. "It's crazy."
Tesla
Reportedly Asked Chinese Government To Help Censor Social Media Posts Critical Of The Company. Readers of Zero
Hedge know that we have been tracking Elon Musk's fading relationship with the Chinese Communist Party for the better part of
the last 18 months. And while we can barely guess what the temperature of the ever-changing relationship is today, one
thing seems to be certain: Musk and the Chinese government are growing closer. And for proof of that, look no
further than a new Bloomberg Businessweek article profiling Elon Musk's struggles in China. While the content of the
article isn't entirely new [...] one portion of the report was stunning: Musk, in true CCP form, reportedly asked the
Chinese government to censor the company's critics.
When
Do EVs Become Cleaner Than Gas-Powered Cars? Most people don't know it, but EVs are not as clean as gasoline
cars right off the bat. In fact, due to the impact of mining many materials used in EV batteries, it takes quite a bit
of driving before you are doing less harm to the environment than gas cars. This was the topic of a new Reuters
analysis piece by Paul Lienert, which sought to point out exactly how long you have to own and drive an EV in order to
reach parity with a gas vehicle. The analysis was performed using "data from a model that calculates the lifetime
emissions of vehicles" developed by the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. The necessity for the analysis is
obvious, because "...making EVs generates more carbon than combustion engine cars, mainly due to the extraction and
processing of minerals in EV batteries and production of the power cells," said Jarod Cory Kelly, principal energy systems
analyst at Argonne.
Tesla
Delivers 201,250 Cars In Q2, Missing Estimates. Tesla stock is mostly flat in the pre-market session after the
company announced it delivered over 200,000 vehicles in Q2, the company said in a press release Friday morning. Its
exact deliveries for the quarter came in at 201,250. The company produced 204,081 and delivered 199,360 Model 3/Y
vehicles, the company said. It produced just 2,340 Model S and Model X vehicles and delivered just 1,890
of them.
New
Tesla model caught fire while driving: lawyer. [Video clip only.]
Dem
Transport Bill Boosts China's Green Energy Sector. House Democrats are ramming a bill through Congress that
could be a boon to China's green energy sector. The INVEST in America Act, a bill sponsored by House Transportation
Committee chairman Peter DeFazio (D., Ore.), could kick millions of dollars to Chinese industry by promoting "green"
technologies, a rapidly developing sector of China's economy. The act gives incentives to businesses that move away
from gas-powered engines and includes measures to implement a nationwide network of electric-charging materials, but it lacks
provisions that those materials will not be made with Chinese slave labor. Committee Democrats gutted those safeguards,
which would have ensured that electric vehicle material procurement would occur in the United States. China possesses
the largest stockpile of rare earth minerals used in electric car batteries in the world.
$2.8M
federal grant to fund Iowa electric buses. The Iowa Department of Transportation will use a $2.8 million grant
from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration to replace nine gasoline or diesel public transit
vehicles with battery-electric paratransit buses, the department announced June 28. The East Central Iowa Council
of Governments (CorridorRides), Heart of Iowa Regional Transit Agency, and Southeast Iowa Bus will operate the buses and
charging infrastructure the grant secures, the release said. Iowa DOT Modal Transportation Bureau Transit Programs
Administrator Brent Paulsen said in the USDOT release that, while some Iowa cities have battery-electric buses, the nine
grant-funded buses are the first of their kind to be deployed in rural Iowa.
Time
for Enviros to Take Their Lithium. Lithium has long been used as a treatment for bipolar mental illness, and
perhaps there is a connection to the environmental mania for electric cars that depend on huge lithium-ion batteries.
Batteries
exploding in burning abandoned Illinois building. Lithium batteries exploded loudly overnight inside a burning
former paper mill in northern Illinois that officials had believed was long abandoned, and fire officials have decided to let
the blaze burn out because they fear trying to extinguish it could trigger more explosions. The fire that started in
Morris Tuesday prompted city officials to order the evacuation of 3,000-4,000 people in some 950 nearby homes, a school,
church and small businesses. On Wednesday [6/30/2021], as thick, black smoke continued to billow from the building,
Police Chief Alicia Steffes said the evacuation order would remain in place until at least 9 p.m. and "might be extended."
Electric
Vehicles On Collision Course With Reality. From the congressional testimony of Robert Bryce:
• I'm pro-electricity, but I am adamantly opposed to the notion that we should "electrify everything" including transportation.
• EVs are cool. They are not new. The history of EVs is a century of failure tailgating failure.
In 1911, the New York Times said that the electric car "has long been recognized as the ideal solution." In 1990, the California
Air Resources Board mandated 10% of car sales be zero-emission vehicles by 2003. Today, 31 years later, only about 6% of the cars in California have an electric plug.
• The average household income for EV buyers is about $140,000. That's roughly two times the U.S. average.
And yet, federal EV tax credits force low- and middle-income taxpayers to subsidize the Benz and Beemer crowd.
• Lower-income Americans are facing huge electric rate increases for grid upgrades to accommodate EVs even though they will probably never own one.
Psaki:
Rural, Disadvantaged Communities To Be 'Focus' of 500,000 Charging Stations for $56K Electric Cars. White House
Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that President Joe Biden is looking to build out half a million electric vehicle
charging stations — focusing on "rural and disadvantaged communities" — as part of his $1.2 trillion
infrastructure bill. It should be noted that the average electric car costs around $55,600, and they are best utilized
in cities. It is not clear how disadvantaged communities could afford them or why rural residents would be interested
in purchasing them.
The Editor says...
I don't own an electric car, but I can confidently assure you that you don't want to be stuck in
a "disadvantaged community," — in other words, a slum in a bad neighborhood full of bad people —
tethered to a charging station, while your car is obviously unable to leave. Especially when your electric car costs
far more than the average onlooker's annual lifetime total non-government income, and anyone
driving such a car probably has a lot of nice things in the center console and the trunk.
Biden's
EV goals maybe fantasy, but the profits the swamp is making are real. The Biden administration lives in an
electric car fantasyland, but the profits they're making off the industry are real. Most hardworking Americans, many
living in rural America, cannot afford an electric vehicle, nor do they want one. Currently, just under 5.4 million
hybrid electric cars have sold in the U.S. as of 2019, comprising only 1.6% of all new light-duty vehicle sales between 1999
and 2019. A Tesla that can drive more than 520 miles without needing a new charge has a starting sticker price of
$141,190 — far beyond the reach of most Americans. Yet, the Biden administration has made it their mission
to push these electric cars on U.S. consumers. They've proposed $174 billion in taxpayer monies to subsidize the
industry and aim to build 500,000 charging stations around the country — an investment, White House press
secretary Jen Psaki said — that would help "rural and disadvantaged communities."
California:
Try not to recharge your electric cars, folks. California is on track to ban the sale of non-electric vehicles
in an effort to "go green" as fast as possible. They're even banning the construction of new gas stations in the next
decade. But a slight hitch may have shown up in that plan, caused by a stretch of high temperatures this summer.
How are the two related? Well, their power grid is being increasingly driven by renewable energy, specifically wind and
solar power. But that leaves the grid teetering precariously on the edge of collapse after the sun goes down. And
that's when a lot of people come home and start turning on their lights and their air conditioners. And they also plug
in their electric cars to recharge. That has the people running electrical power distribution asking everyone to unplug
those cars to avoid a blackout.
California
Asks Residents to Avoid Charging Electric Cars Amid Power Grid Strain. California's power grid operators have
asked the state's residents to conserve electricity in order to put less strain on the power grid amid a major heat
wave. The Epoch Times reported that the California Independent System Operator (ISO) told residents numerous times in
the past week to voluntarily conserve energy, even asking them on social media to avoid charging electric vehicles during
peak usage times. The ISO also said residents should avoid "use of large appliances and turning off extra lights," and
wrote that "[T]his usually happens in the evening hours when solar generation is going offline and consumers are returning
home and switching on air conditioners, lights, and appliances."
With
Its Power Grid Under Pressure, California Asks Residents to Avoid Charging Electric Vehicles. Amid a West Coast
heat wave that includes triple-digit temperatures, California's power grid operators have called on residents to not use as
much electricity so as to put less strain on the state's beleaguered grid. In the past week, the California Independent
System Operator (ISO) told residents several times to voluntarily conserve energy, including asking them on social media to
stop charging their electric vehicles (EVs) during peak usage times. The operator also warned users to "[avoid] use of
large appliances and turning off extra lights."
VW
will stop selling combustion engine cars in Europe by 2035. Volkswagen is clearly a fan of electric vehicles
when it's trotting out machines like the ID.4, but it now has a better sense of just when it will leave fossil fuels
behind. As Reuters reports, VW board member Klaus Zellmer told Münchner Merkur in an interview that the
automaker will stop selling combustion engine cars in Europe between 2033 and 2035. [...] VW's plans put it slightly behind
Ford and GM, both of which plan to drop combustion from key regional lineups by 2030. However, the goals still make it clear
that combustion engines don't have much more than a decade left on the market in some parts of the world. It may be
just be a question of whether or not the charging infrastructure can keep up.
Federal
regulators warn of risks to firefighters from electrical vehicle fires. It's the kind of blaze that veteran
Chief Palmer Buck of The Woodlands Township Fire Department in suburban Houston compared to "a trick birthday candle."
On April 17, when firefighters responded to a 911 call at around 9:30 p.m., they came upon a Tesla Model S that had
crashed, killing two people, and was now on fire. They extinguished it, but then a small flare shot out of the bottom
of the charred hulk. Firefighters quickly put out those flames. Not long after, the car reignited for a third
time. "[...] How do we make this stop?'" Buck asked his team. They quickly consulted Tesla's first responder guide
and realized that it would take far more personnel and water than they could have imagined. Eight firefighters ultimately
spent seven hours putting out the fire. They also used up 28,000 gallons of water — an amount the department
normally uses in a month. That same volume of water serves an average American home for nearly two years.
Tesla apologizes after [a] man
in S[outh] China [was] locked in his car due to [a] power failure. Tesla apologized on Thursday after a man in
Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province was locked in a Tesla Model 3 for 15 minutes on Sunday while charging the
car and had to call someone to break the window to escape. Tesla responded to reports of the incident stating that the cause
was a power failure and it has been actively communicating with the customer to solve vehicle maintenance issues. "We are
very concerned about what happened to the customer. We once again want to express our sincere apologies for not being able
to be at the scene to provide assistance," read a statement issued by Tesla on its official Sina Weibo account on Thursday [6/3/2021].
Electric
truck startup Lordstown Motors warns it may go out of business. Lordstown Motors, the startup electric truck
maker, warned Tuesday [6/8/2021] it is close to running out of cash and may be forced out of business in the next year.
The news, which sent Lordstown shares down nearly 8% in after-hours trading, is a blow to not only the company but also to
the gritty industrial town from which it gets its name. For 53 years, Lordstown, Ohio, was home to a massive General
Motors plant, which GM closed in 2019. It sold the 6.2 million square foot factory, nearly twice the size of the
Pentagon, to start-up Lordstown Motors later that year, which promised to pay union-level wages to workers to build its
Endurance pickup truck. It is due to start production of that truck in September.
Biden
looks abroad for electric vehicle metals, in blow to U.S. miners. U.S. President Joe Biden will rely on ally
countries to supply the bulk of the metals needed to build electric vehicles and focus on processing them domestically into
battery parts, part of a strategy designed to placate environmentalists, two administration officials with direct knowledge
told Reuters. The plans will be a blow to U.S. miners who had hoped Biden would rely primarily on domestically sourced
metals, as his campaign had signalled last autumn, to help fulfill his ambitions for a less carbon-intensive economy.
A
viable alternative to Chinese minerals hegemony. Prompted by a worldwide chip shortage already impacting
automobile production, President Biden in February signed an executive order directing a 100-day broad review of supply
chains for critical materials for semiconductors and large-capacity batteries, including rare-earth elements. It builds
on analyses, reports and executive orders initiated several years ago by the Trump Administration. The stark truth that
this review should highlight is that the U.S. and its Western allies have been left behind at the starting gate in a race only
China seems to have realized was taking place. The Chinese began building their now-dominant supply chain decades ago.
The U.S. has been 100% net import reliant on rare-earth elements, with 80 percent of those imports sourced from China.
EPA
says it will declare a desert flower an 'endangered species' that could halt a mine necessary for electric vehicle
batteries. The idiotic and expensive plans to force electric vehicles down the throats of drivers has run into
an obstacle created by an law that environmentalists demanded. You can't have electric vehicles without lithium ion
batteries, and you can't build all those car batteries without a supply of lithium, which some warn will be inadequate soon.
[...] Lithium is far from the only problem that makes electruc vehicle conversion plans a total fantasy. Electricity
production would have to vastly increase, and solar or wind just can't provide that kind of power. Burn more
coal? Natural gas? Nuclear power? How about those new factories to build those cars and batteries?
Universal
Electric Car Myth Debunked. In one smoldering Tweet, a guy follows the math to debunk the idea that the
electric car will replace the internal combustion engine. The environmentalist's electric vehicle Utopian future is
entirely reliant on the one thing environmentalists refuse to accept — wide-spread nuclear power generation.
White
House Denies Report That Biden Looks Overseas for Electric Vehicle Metals. The White House reacted to a
published report that stated President Joe Biden, to please environmentalists, is planning to import most of the metals
needed for electric vehicle production instead of sourcing from U.S. miners. Reuters reported on May 25 that the United
States would source metals for electric cars from ally countries such as Canada, Australia, and Brazil, citing two
administration officials with direct knowledge of the matter. This was contrary to what the Biden campaign promised
before the election. "The plans will be a blow to U.S. miners who had hoped Biden would rely primarily on domestically
sourced metals," the report stated. The plan also conflicts with the executive order signed last year by former
President Donald Trump to expand and strengthen domestic mining of rare earth minerals and other critical materials.
Trump also allowed the Pentagon to fund private-sector efforts to build a domestic refinement capability for rare earths.
The
huge, destructive green lie. [Another article from 2020] tries to spin E.V. travel positively, but it's so
contorted as to be laughable. It also notes that batteries degrade "over time" so that the "great" 100-mile charge now
could be less later. I can testify to that, for I bought a hybrid in '09, and my mileage has diminished by a third even
though I have fewer than 50,000 miles on the car. Once that battery is dead, it makes for more problems, too.
First, the car's worthless, no matter its low mileage. Second, the battery must be recycled, a near impossible
feat. The difficulty of recycling batteries, once they're no longer useable, is a huge problem. We are creating
slag heaps of toxic garbage. My chemist friend tells me they're working hard to produce sulfur batteries, which
apparently don't need the rare earth components and are easier to dismantle and recycle. They're not yet commercially viable.
Those
Dirty Electric Vehicles And A Bolt Of Green Hypocrisy. There is much more to the electric vehicle story than
the "EVs good, gasoline- and diesel-powered automobiles bad" narrative we've been fed. Truth in advertising would
require electric cars to be shown surrounded by the Pig Pen-esque dirty cloud that they kick up. The birthplace of
most electric cars is the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country where the diamond trade has helped finance civil war.
There, reports the Deseret News, "slave labor" is feeding "big tech's quest for cobalt," an element used in the batteries
that drive EVs. "Our children are dying like dogs," a Congolese mother whose son and cousin died while working in the
Congo's cobalt mines, says the Deseret News. She and others have filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court that "insists
companies are simply turning a blind eye to the egregious abuses that include children killed in tunnel collapses or losing
limbs or suffering from other horrific injuries caused by mining accidents." The United Nations says that "nearly 50%
of world cobalt reserves" are found in the Congo. The Deseret News says the figure is more than 60%.
Tesla
is stuck with over 10,000 cars on factory hold, resulting in a logistical nightmare. Tesla has over 10,000
electric cars that came out of Fremont Factory on a "containment hold" and can't deliver them to customers, according to
sources familiar with the matter. It is likely going to lead to a logistical nightmare at the end of the quarter.
Since Tesla owns its entire distribution network and doesn't sell to third-party dealers, the automaker has been known to
have difficult end-of-quarters where it is trying to deliver as many vehicles from the factory to customers in order to keep
its inventory low. It leads to fairly intense end-of-quarter pushes, but things had finally stabilized during the last
two quarters. Now, Tesla employees are again expecting a crazy end-of-quarter, but this time, it's due to a supply
chain issue.
The
African slavery behind the leftists' green dreams. One of Joe Biden's initiatives is to get Americans into
electric cars. In his first week in the White House, he announced that he wants every car that the federal government
owns to be electric. Moreover, his $2-trillion "infrastructure" plan calls for giving taxpayer-funded rebates to
electric car buyers and to increase the number of charging stations (although without also increasing the amount of available
electricity). What Biden and other Green Deal proponents are ignoring is that the lithium that is an essential
ingredient in electric car batteries comes from slave labor in Africa.
Ford
boosts EV spending, aims to have 40% of volume all-electric by 2030. Ford Motor Co on Wednesday [5/26/2021]
outlined plans to boost spending on its electrification efforts by more than a third and said it aims to have 40% of its
global volume be all electric by 2030, sending shares up 6.5% to a near five-year high. Under a plan dubbed "Ford+"
meant to have investors value it more like a technology company, the No. 2 U.S. automaker said it now expects to spend
more than $30 billion on electrification, including battery development, by 2030, up from its prior target of
$22 billion. It has launched the all-electric Mustang Mach-E crossover, and plans to introduce electric versions
of the Transit van and F-150 pickup. "This is our biggest opportunity for growth and value creation since Henry Ford
started to scale the Model T," Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley said in a statement.
Ford's
electric pickup truck isn't ready for the heartland. Ford's launch of its new electric F-150 Lightning pickup
truck received a serious boost when President Joe Biden became the unwitting spokesperson for the new "green" vehicle [last]
week. The ethics of a sitting president providing free advertising for one company over its competition is a serious
question, but there are other issues with the new brand that Ford will need to address. Pickup trucks remain popular in
America, even among people who rarely do anything that would require that sort of carrying capacity. But the trucks
doing the real work tend to be located in rural, agricultural areas. How well will the F-150 lightning perform out on a
ranch? It sounds like they can haul heavy loads well enough, but many in the target market aren't so sure that the
restrictions imposed by the vehicle's recharging requirements will make the practical.
Tesla
opts for gasoline-powered vehicles for roadside service for its cars in Australia. When you absolutely,
positively have to get there (and back) way out in the outback... They've got a lot of wide-open space Down Under,
places where you can drive a long, long way before you encounter much in the way of human settlement, including electricity
supplies. That may be why Tesla in Australia is using gasoline-powered pickup trucks to go out and rescue Tesla-owners
stranded on the road. Tim Blair of The Telegraph spotted the concession to the reality of needing a driving range
greater than can be handled by an electric truck such as the electric Ford F 150 Lightning, recently driven by President
Biden, that gets as little as 100 miles on a charge when towing.
We Bet F-150 Lightning's
Range Is under 100 Miles when Towing at the Max. Range typically occupies an outsized chunk of the conversation
on any new EV. But, in the case of the F-150 Lightning, which has the bestselling pickup's usual healthy scoop of towing
and hauling capabilities, things get more complicated. Ford is claiming that the range figures for its electric pickup
will come in at 230 miles and 300 miles, depending on whether the standard-range (which we estimate can hold 115.0 kWh)
or extended-range battery pack (150.0 kWh, same caveat) is beneath the bed. Those are EPA predictions, specifically EPA
combined figures, in lightly loaded conditions. Although the Lightning is aided by the aerodynamic effects of its flat
underbody, when running at real highway speeds there's no tricking the air molecules, and a bluff truck is going to suffer.
In our highway range testing, which we conduct at a steady 75 mph, we typically see a range number that's about 20 percent
below the EPA figure.
Economics,
not climate, is the main driver behind automakers' embrace of electric vehicles. Major automakers see vehicles
with electric powertrains as a new moneymaker in the United States, market analysts say. It's a strategic shift driven
less by climate change and more by a desire to compete economically. The newfound electric enthusiasm from automakers
could help President Joe Biden curb emissions from transportation, the highest-emitting sector in the U.S. Biden wants
to put many more electric cars on the roads, pledging to provide point-of-sale rebates for consumers, investing heavily in
building out charging infrastructure, and encouraging domestic manufacturing of the cars and their batteries. His
infrastructure proposal would spend at least $174 billion on vehicle electrification.
Schumer
on electric cars: 'All vehicles on the road should be clean' by 2040. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
(D-N.Y.) says every vehicle on the road should be fully electric by 2040. "There is no way the United States can reduce
its greenhouse gas emissions without looking at how Americans drive," Schumer said on Tuesday. "So I have put forward
an ambitious, comprehensive proposal to accelerate our country's transition to zero-emission vehicles. We've called it
Clean Cars for America. "The goal of that plan is that by 2040, all vehicles should be clean. All vehicles on the
road should be clean. The International Energy Agency, by the way, recommends the world reach that target by 2050, so
we beat them by 10 years, if this proposal goes into effect."
The Editor says...
I'm not sure who the International Energy Agency is, but I do know they're not elected representatives of US citizens, and we didn't
approve of their agenda in any kind of referendum. Their recommendations carry no legal weight, but the serve as a fig leaf for
the Democrats' power grab. And the power grab is based on groundless hysteria about global warming — or whatever they
call it now.
Electric
Ford F-150 Lightning's Battery Weighs Over 1,800 Pounds By Itself. The electric Ford F-150 Lightning is being
revealed in full tomorrow after years of hype, even though it made a surprise appearance today [5/18/2021]. The
battery-powered pickup will be one of the automaker's most important models ever, and it signals the brand's commitment to
EVs by completely transforming the country's best-selling vehicle, full stop. U.S. President Joe Biden toured Ford's
Rouge Electric Vehicle plant on Tuesday to get a better understanding of the company's approach to zero-emission cars and
trucks, unmasking the F-150 Lightning in the process.
Biden
in Michigan Ignores Record Allowing China to Buy Up American Electric Vehicle Industry. President Joe Biden,
while touting his $174 billion electric vehicle (EV) plan, ignored his record of allowing Chinese investors with ties to the
Chinese Communist Party to buy up key parts of the American EV industry. During a speech at the Ford Rouge Electric
Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, Biden touted his record as vice president to former President Barack Obama in relation
to the nation's battery-powered EVs. "Our own Department of Energy pioneered and transformed the battery industry when
Barack and I were in office. And through the Recovery Act's grants and loans, battery prices dropped 80 percent because
we were looking forward," Biden said.
The Editor says...
Grants and loans don't make battery prices drop. The manufacturer gets paid in part by the government and partly by the consumer,
but the overall selling price isn't reduced. If you find $100 in the grocery store parking lot, and then you use it to buy groceries,
that doesn't lower the price of groceries.
Biden
to pitch his $174 billion electric vehicle plan in Michigan. President Joe Biden made the case for his $174 billion
electric vehicle plan on Tuesday [5/18/2021], calling for government grants for new battery production facilities during a visit to a
Ford Motor electric-vehicle plant in Michigan. "We're going to set a new pace for electric vehicles," Biden said, vowing to
reverse what he called the Trump administration's "short-sighted" rollback of vehicle emissions standards while pushing for passage
of his ambitious $2.3 trillion jobs and infrastructure bill. Biden argues the United States is falling behind China,
which is selling more EVs.
The Editor says...
[#1] Beware of one-dimensional statistics. The population of China is 4.34 times the population of the U.S. If
the sales of electric cars (or anything else) in China exceeds the sales in the U.S., it should come as no surprise. In
addition, the government of China may have imposed "incentives" not seen in the U.S., such as, you must buy an electric car or no car
at all. [#2] Whenever a politician expresses concern about the U.S. "falling behind" some other country, a red flag
should pop up in your head. When the issue at hand is extravagant spending on a program with little or no obvious benefit,
that's two red flags.
Batteries are fossil fuel, too!
The
Hidden Risks of Batteries. The meteoric rise of lithium-ion batteries in the transport and IT sectors has been
spurred by demand for technologies that reduce carbon emissions and decrease energy use. While this sounds like a win
for everyone, there's a darker side that could alter the perceptions of ethically minded consumers and create significant
risks for brands. If you look at the production of cobalt and lithium used in these batteries, a stark picture emerges
of an industry exposed to issues such as child labor, modern slavery, and the undermining of land and water rights.
Demand for these raw materials is set to grow significantly.
Tesla
Suspends Bitcoin Payments Over "Concerns About Environmental Impact". After announcing plans to accept payment
for Tesla's cars in bitcoin back in February, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has just announced via tweet that the company will suspend
bitcoin payments over concerns about the environment. As perhaps the biggest booster of bitcoin in corporate America,
Tesla announced during its Q1 earnings report released last month that it made a $272 million profit selling some of the
bitcoin it had purchased on the company's balance sheet. Earlier this week, Musk joked about the possibility that the
firm might accept Doge for payment. In a note published on Twitter, Musk wrote that while he is still personally a
believer in the crypto currency, Tesla has become concerned about the role of fossil fuels in bitcoin mining, a common
criticism made by environmentalists against bitcoin.
The Editor says...
Bitcoin mining uses lots of electricity. So what? Electric cars do, too.
Does only one of them have an environmental impact? Does either of them have an environmental impact?
NYT:
Will electric cars become an environmental catastrophe? Answer: Of course they will, with mining
being among the many other issues in pushing to eliminate internal-combustion engines in favor of an all-electric
fleet. No one who has studied the composition of the energy-storage systems in electric cars could possibly miss the
environmental dangers of such a transformation. The most interesting point of this brief review of one potential
environmental catastrophe is the media outlet raising the issue. Even if it got buried over the weekend, the fact that
the New York Times raises the mining issues is significant.
Automakers
Cave To Biden's Electric Car Dreams, And Ignore Their Own Customers. When President Joe Biden declared that he
wants all cars sold to be "zero-emission" by 2035, carmakers didn't raise a peep of protest. Worse, they are starting
to fall in line with promises to go all-electric, even though the vast majority of consumers don't want these cars.
General Motors made a big splash earlier this year when it promised to sell only electric cars by 2035. "General Motors
is joining governments and companies around the globe working to establish a safer, greener and better world," CEO Mary Barra
said days after Biden was sworn in. "We encourage others to follow suit." Honda later announced plans to make only
battery-powered cars by 2040. Volvo said it will go all-electric by 2030. Ford said in February that it would invest
at least $22 billion worldwide in the next few years to build electric vehicles.
Social
cost of 'green': A loss of fast cars and freedom. Henry Ford's Model T at the beginning of the 20th century
brought a new level of freedom to "the great multitude". Mass produced, affordable and all shades of black. By
mid-century, men of my father's generation routinely conversed under hoods of their cars examining carburetors, spark plugs
and valve covers. In the early 21st century, Rascal Flatts sang "Fast Cars and Freedom." Well, the proletariat can
say goodbye to all that if the Green New Dealers have their way, according to Helen Thompson, professor of political economy
at Cambridge University. You see, the electric vehicles promoted by climate cultists are likely to be too expensive for
working stiffs. Even today's government-subsidized Teslas are purchased largely by those with more disposable income
than most. Ms. Thompson notes that the energy transition being advanced by elite thinkers (using the term loosely)
is unique in that efficient fossil-based energy sources would be traded for inefficient sources — wind, solar, and
in the case of cars, sorely limited battery technology. Inefficiency costs more than efficiency. Sorry, it just does.
The
Dawn Of The E-Vehicle Battery Eco-Disaster. Now it's beginning to dawn on the greens: They've got a
colossal environmental problem in the works — a problem they were warned about long ago and one they've refused to
believe was real because it clashed with their vision of a green utopia. At the moment they are playing it down,
insisting solutions to avert the lithium-ion battery's environmental problem will be found in time.
Elon Musk's racket.
The big automotive news is that Elon Musk's Tesla reported record earnings of $438 million for the past quarter. This
translates to 93 cents per share on $10.39 billion in revenue. Tesla did this despite a semiconductor chip shortage
that is hobbling other car companies like Ford, which had to slash vehicle production at seven plants in North America.
Some see this as proving investors right to give Tesla stock a nosebleed price-to-earnings ratio of nearly 1,700, and thus
making Musk the second richest person alive if not the richest. Our betters also preach that the stock market portends
the future. So it follows that electric vehicles (EVs) are the coming thing, and Musk must be a genius.
Right? Wrong. There's much skepticism about EVs. It's not adequately reported in the news, but they have
serious technical, environmental, and electrical infrastructure problems to solve before they can seriously challenge
internal combustion vehicles on America's roadways.
1
in 5 electric vehicle owners in California switched back to gas because charging their cars is a hassle, new research
shows. In roughly three minutes, you can fill the gas tank of a Ford Mustang and have enough range to go about
300 miles with its V8 engine. But for the electric Mustang Mach-E, an hour plugged into a household outlet gave
Bloomberg automotive analyst Kevin Tynan just three miles of range. "Overnight, we're looking at 36 miles of range," he
told Insider. "Before I gave it back to Ford, because I wanted to give it back full, I drove it to the office and
plugged in at the charger we have there." [...] Roughly one in five plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners switched back to
owning gas-powered cars, in large part because charging the batteries was a pain in the... trunk, the researchers found.
Of those who switched, over 70% lacked access to Level 2 charging at home, and slightly fewer than that lacked Level 2
connections at their workplace.
The
Feds Are Funding Fantasy EV Charging Stations. President Joe Biden wants the Federal Government to build
500,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, at an estimated cost of around $178 billion (not including the probable need
to upgrade existing local and community electrical systems, to handle the extra loads). How might that work? [...] One
possibility is the utilities that sell the juice. After all, a big part of the cost, perhaps the biggest, will be
paying the utilities to upgrade their distribution systems, so that these charging stations can work. This will be
especially true in rural areas, such as along the 50,000 miles of interstate highways and hundreds of thousands of miles of
other major highways. But even urban and suburban neighborhoods will need major upgrades. Or how about having the
gasoline companies do it? They already blanket the country with gas stations. In fact the charging stations could
be at the gas stations, where cars already go.
Lordstown
Motors' "Endurance" All-Electric Pickup Fails To Endure Baja Race. Lordstown Motors' electric pickup truck,
Endurance, did not endure too long in the SCORE San Felipe 250 in San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico, on Saturday
[4/17/2021]. [Tweet] The electric vehicle startup hyped its entry into the Baja, Mexico event for weeks, only
completed less than 40 miles of the 280-mile course before withdrawing.
Electric
Car Drives Across United States — In Only 18 Days. [Even] the Pony Express was able to get mail from
Missouri to Sacramento in only 10 days. In 1860. On horseback. But Volkswagen is very excited about their
electric cars. With 21st Century technology they are able to make what was once a 4-day drive with quick and easily-available
refueling, into a multi-week ordeal where you must obsess about fuel availability.
Congress
is Rolling Out its $1.9 trillion Infrastructure Bill, and Two-thirds of it Has Nothing to do With Infrastructure.
For as much as liberals complain about large corporate subsidies, they cheer on proposals like these that ultimately (and
disproportionately) benefit the very people they resent because: SURPRISE! Electric vehicles are made by large
corporations. Large corporations that reportedly strip the earth for lithium, have huge injury claims, and supposedly
pay pennies a day to their third-world miners/minors. The EXACT same folks that they claim to hate. Congratulations,
you just got played. The funds will go toward manufacturing subsidies and customer tax credits. But here's the most
laughable part: they've allocated more toward subsidizing electric cars than the total $115 billion to "modernize
the bridges, highways, roads, and main streets that are in most critical need of repair."
Washington
state passes bill with goal to phase out gasoline cars. Washington state lawmakers passed a bill on Thursday
[4/15/2021] setting a target to stop sales of gasoline-fueled vehicles there beginning in 2030, five years sooner than
California. The target is not a firm mandate and is contingent on the state adopting a tax on vehicle miles traveled, a
measure to help pay for new transportation infrastructure, according to the text of the bill. The move by the Pacific
Northwest state comes as efforts to boost adoption of electric vehicles are accelerating over concerns about fossil fuels'
contribution to climate change.
US Green Impossibilities.
As of 2019, the US was using 4,400 terawatt-hours of electricity per year. There is also a big push to go to electric
vehicles, and that will require more electricity. The current US generating capacity is about 1,000 gigawatts (GW), of
which about 675 gigawatts (GW) is fossil-fueled. By 2040, the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates we'll need
about 1500 GW of generating capacity. This means we'll need another 500 GW of new generating capacity to get to
1,500 GW, plus 675 GW more to replace existing fossil capacity. That's 1,175 GW of new generating capacity
needed by 2040. As Texas has just proven beyond doubt, no matter if we supply part of this with wind or solar, we'll need
100% backup. Nuclear is not ideal for this, but the new generation of reactors are said to be able to respond quickly
enough to balance out the load when wind and solar fail.
Biden's
Electric Cars Will Have To Run on Chinese Batteries. With blissful abandon, President Joe Biden is proposing a
massive expansion in electric cars, funding 500,000 charging stations for their batteries around the country. There's
only one problem: China controls 80 percent of the globe's essential raw materials — called rare earth
minerals — necessary for the manufacture of car batteries. Meanwhile, the United States has to import
80 percent of these minerals it uses, mainly from Beijing[.] So, in switching from gas-powered cars to electric cars,
we would be switching from energy self-sufficiency to total dependence on China. Instead of Arab sheiks controlling our
destiny, Chinese communist apparatchiks would.
Biden's
'Made in America' electric vehicle push to benefit China. President Biden's push to fill the nation's roads
with electric vehicles would be a boon for China and would increase America's dependence on the communist power, which
dominates the globe in advanced battery production and the mining of rare minerals needed to make those batteries. The
White House is working with congressional Democrats to ensure its infrastructure package includes at least $174 billion for
"made in America" electric vehicles. At least $40 billion would be used to install 500,000 electric vehicle charging
stations across the country.
The Editor says...
Wow. Charging stations cost $80,000 apiece, even if you buy half a million of them at a time. Was that the low bidder?
Are
You Ready For Biden's Ban On Gas-Powered Cars? In the next couple of months, the Environmental Protection
Agency will issue new fuel economy standards that could be impossible for carmakers to meet — without going
electric. That, at least, is what President Joe Biden's EPA Administrator Michael Regan is indicating. In an
interview with Bloomberg last week, Regan talked about imposing rules that meet "the urgency of the climate crisis," and "did
not rule out future emissions requirements that create a de facto ban on new conventional, gasoline-powered automobiles, like
an explicit phase-out ordered by California Gov. Gavin Newsom." [...] anyone. As we noted last year, Biden
promised voters he would do just this — impose regulations on automakers that they could only meet by selling
electric cars. As a matter of fact, he promised that on his first day in office, he'd develop "rigorous new fuel
economy standards aimed at ensuring 100% of new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be zero emissions."
9
Things You Need to Know About Biden's 'Infrastructure' Spending Plan. [#9] $174 billion in subsidies for
electric vehicles. Last but not least, the request for enormous subsidies for electric vehicle purchases and charging
stations represents yet another way the plan plays favorites. Electric vehicle ownership is concentrated among the
wealthy. Increasing the use of electric cars would have a negligible effect on total carbon emissions or cause a
measurable change to global climate.
California's
senators ask Biden to ban sale of gas-powered cars. California's two Senators are pushing the Biden
Administration to set a date after which automakers would no longer be allowed to sell gasoline-powered cars anywhere in the
United States. The letter sent Monday [3/22/2021] by Sens. Diane Feinstein and Alex Padilla to President Joseph
Biden urges him to "follow California's lead and set a date by which all new cars and passenger trucks sold be zero-emission
vehicles." California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in September requiring that all new passenger
cars and trucks sold in the state be zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
The Editor says...
[#1] Electric cars are prohibitively expensive. The only way to sell electric cars is to outlaw all others.
[#2] As the winter storm in February demonstrated, the electricity supply in the U.S. is barely able to keep up with
the demand as it is. The addition of millions of electric car chargers will bring down the grid. If all this really
is coming down the road, you'd better buy a generator now, before those are outlawed, too.
Toyota
Warns (Again) About Electrifying All Autos. Is Anyone Listening? Depending on how and when you count, Japan's
Toyota is the world's largest automaker. [...] Toyota has grown by building reliable cars for decades. When Toyota offers an
opinion on the car market, it's probably worth listening to. This week, Toyota reiterated an opinion it has offered before.
That opinion is straightforward: The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.
Ford
Cancels Ohio Investment and Shifts to Electric Vehicle Production in Mexico. The United Auto Workers are
angered about a decision by Ford to move production of a new electric vehicle from Avon Lake, Ohio, into Mexico. Ford
previously agreed to spend $900 million on a new product line for the Ohio plant; however, according to the UAW the location
has shifted. One way of looking at this change in direction from Ford relates to the cost of producing electric
vehicles. First, it is far less expensive in Mexico (labor, environmental regulation, energy costs, etc); secondly, an
outlook the new Biden administration will not strongly enforce USMCA compliance measures against U.S. multinational
firms. The UAW supported Joe Biden, but his policies will likely undermine their workers. Unfortunately, this was
all too predictable. Partly because Biden-Harris owe Wall Street too much, and the multinationals are once again in
control over the U.S. economy.
Volvo's
first EV is stuck at cargo ports waiting for a software update. Volvo XC40 Recharge electric SUVs are currently
being held at US ports because the company is waiting to ship a crucial software update before releasing them to customers
and dealers, The Verge has learned. The problem appears to be that these XC40 Recharge SUVs — which
is Volvo's first all-electric vehicle — left the company's factory without the Volvo On Call software activated.
Volvo On Call is a subscription service that connects Volvo cars to an owner's smartphone, allowing them to remotely turn
the vehicle on and off, lock or unlock the doors, and access diagnostic information. One customer, who was supposed to
take delivery of his XC40 Recharge at the end of February, tells The Verge his dealer's best guess is that his
SUV may not make it out of the port in Newark, New Jersey until mid-April.