Electric vehicles are trendy but not very Earth-friendly, affordable or emission-free
Paul Driessen
Tesla may be synonymous with electric vehicles right now. But within a few years, GM, Volvo and many other manufacturers will be making mostly or only EVs, because they’re emission-free, climate-friendly, socially and ecologically responsible, and more affordable every year. Which explains why we need subsidies to persuade people to buy them, and mandates to force people to buy them.
President Biden wants all new light/medium-duty vehicles sold by 2035 to be EVs. Vice President Harris wants only ZEVs (zero emission vehicles) on America’s roads by 2045. Various states are considering or have already passed similar laws; some would even ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2030. Climate Czar John Kerry will likely be happy to buy EVs to expand his fleet of twelve cars, two yachts, six houses, and the private jet he flies in to accept climate crusader awards.
AOC would use her Green New Deal to “massively” expand electric vehicle manufacturing and use. She herself now drives an EV, most likely a $48,000 Tesla Model 3 Long Range (350 miles per charge).
Mini AOC also has an EV, pink and suitably sized for a 10-year-old. She launched her GND and bought her mini-car after viewing, “like, the most important documentary on climate change. It’s called Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. That’s not me saying it. That’s science!” she explained. “My Green New Deal will cost, like, 93 trillion dollars. Do you know how much that is? Me neither. Because it’s totally worth it. If sea levels keep rising, we won’t be able to drive to Hawaii anymore!” (Not even in her EV!)
For some people EVs are an easy choice. But why the hefty subsidies? Why do the rest of us need mandates and diktats – and a new Henry Ford dictum, letting consumers have any kind of car they want, as long as it’s electric. Regardless of needs or preferences. (But at least we can choose the color.)
More important, who’s actually getting the subsidies? and who’s paying for them? What other costs and unintended consequences are Big Green, Big Government, Big Media and Big Tech keeping quiet about?
A 2021 Tesla Model S Long Range can go 412 miles on a multi-hour charge; its MSRP is $80,000. The Model Y all-wheel-drive is $58,000. A Nissan Leaf is “only” $34,000 but only goes 149 miles. Mileage of course assumes temperatures are moderate and drivers aren’t using the cars’ heater or AC. Similar sticker-shock prices apply to other EV makes and models, putting them out of reach for most families.
To soften the blows to budgets and liberties, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wants to spend $454 billion to install 500,000 new EV charging stations, replace US government vehicles with EVs, and finance “cash for clunkers” rebates to help at least some families navigate this transportation transformation.
Politicians are being pressured to retain the $7,500 per car federal tax credit (and sweet state tax rebates) now scheduled to lapse once a manufacturer’s cumulative vehicle sales since 2009 reach 200,000. EV drivers also want other incentives perpetuated: free charging stations, access to HOV lanes for plug-ins with only the driver, and not having to pay fees that substitute for gasoline taxes to finance the construction, maintenance and repair of highways they drive on.
A 2015 study found that the richest 20% of Americans received 90% of these generous EV subsidies. No surprise there. Clearly, lobbyists are more valuable than engineers for EV manufacturers and drivers.
This perverse reverse-Robin-Hood system also means subsidies are financed by taxpayers – including millions of working class and minority families, most of which will never be able to afford an EV.
Any cash for clunkers program will exacerbate the problem. By enabling sufficiently wealthy families to trade fossil-fuel cars for EVs, it will result in millions of perfectly drivable cars and trucks that would have ended up in used car lots getting crushed and melted instead. Basic supply and demand laws mean the average cost of pre-owned ICE vehicles will soar by thousands of dollars, pricing even them out of reach for millions of lower-income families. They’ll be forced to buy pieces of junk or ride buses and subways jammed with people they hope won’t be carrying next-generation COVID.
The United States will begin to look like Cuba, which still boasts legions of classic 1960s and ‘70s cars that are cared for and kept on the road with engines, brakes and other parts cannibalized from wrecks and even old Soviet cars. Once the states and federales ban gasoline sales, even that will end.
Perhaps even more ironic and perverse, the “zero emissions vehicle” moniker refers only to emissions in the USA – and only if the electricity required to manufacture and charge ZEVs comes from non-fossil-fuel power plants. Texans now know how well wind turbines and solar panels work when “runaway global warming” turns to record cold and snow. Californians have to dodge future rolling blackouts.
For several years now, production engineers have been pondering how to retool plants from ICE to EV engines. They better start thinking about how to retool and power their entire factories – and our planet.
With many politicians and environmentalists equally repulsed by nuclear and hydroelectric power, having any electricity source will soon be a recurrent challenge. Having reliable, affordable electricity will be a pipe dream. Simply having enough electricity to replace all of today’s coal and gas power generation, internal combustion vehicle fuels, natural gas for cooking, heating and emergency power, coal and gas for smelters and factories, and countless other now-fossil-fuel uses, will be a miracle.
Every home, neighborhood and city will also have to replace existing gas and electric systems to handle the extra loads. More trillions of dollars. There’s also the matter of nasty, toxic, impossible-to-extinguish lithium battery fires – in cars now, and soon in homes, parking garages and backup battery facilities.
We’re talking millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, billions of battery modules, thousands of miles of new transmission lines. They’ll kill birds and bats, disrupt or destroy sensitive habitats, and impair or eradicate hundreds of plant and animal species. As electricity prices rise, US factories won’t be able to compete against China and other nations that don’t have to and will not stop using fossil fuels.
Zero emission fantasies also ignore the essential role of fossil fuels in manufacturing ZEVs (and pretend-renewable energy systems). From mining and processing the myriad metals and minerals for EV battery modules, wiring, drivetrains and bodies, to actually making the components and finished vehicles, every step requires oil, natural gas or coal. Not in California or America perhaps, but elsewhere on Planet Earth, especially Africa, Asia and South America, most often with Chinese companies in leading roles.
A single EV battery module needs some 30 pounds of lithium, plus many other metals and materials totaling at least 1,000 pounds: from commonplace iron, copper, aluminum and petroleum-based plastics, to “exotics” like cobalt and multiple rare earth elements. An EV requires three times more copper than its ICE counterpart; a single wind turbine needs some 3.5 tons of copper per megawatt of electricity.
And every 1,000 tons of finished copper involves mining, crushing, refining and smelting some 125,000 tons of ore – and removing thousands of tons of overburden and surrounding rock just to reach the ore. The same is true for all these other materials, especially rare earths. Try to imagine the cumulative global impacts from all this mining and fossil fuel use – so that AOC, Al Gore, Leo Di Caprio and other wealthy, saintly people can drive “clean, green, climate-friendly” electric cars. (That’s OK. Mini AOC can’t either.)
Even worse, many of these materials are dug up and turned into “virtuous” EVs, wind turbines and solar panels – in China, Congo, Bolivia and other places – with little regard for child labor, fair wages, workplace safety, air and water pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, endangered species and mined land reclamation. It’s all far away, out of sight and out of mind, and thus irrelevant. And amid all this is the touchy issue of Uighur genocide and their people being sent to re-education/slave labor camps, to help meet China’s mineral, EV and other export markets.
How long will we let real social, environmental and climate justice take a back seat to EV mythology?
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.
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I recall the story of the early steam locomotive in England. Flaming cinders coming out of the stack were starting fires in the countryside, so Parliament passed a law stating the stack gas had to be vented back into the firebox. An earlier version of AOC no doubt voted for that one!
As a long time air quality regulator, the primary purpose of a battery vehicle is to relocate the air pollutant emissions from a non-attainment area to a power plant in an attainment area. So, for example, electric battery vehicles on the Los Angeles area plugged in to coal fired power plants in the Four Corners area of Arizona, New Mexico, etc. For the rest of the country that doesn’t live in a bowl with a lid on it, they are completely irrelevant.
Kemaris,
That doesn’t make much sense to me. A major reason why EVs have not developed more quickly is because, without a reliable source of renewable energy supplies, the demand on electricity from fossil fuels, for recharging purposes, would escalate, thus making it more difficult to reduce CO2 emissions.
For those who live in a suburban house with solar panels on the roof, a future EV with improved batteries, that costs no more, or little more than current ICE models of similar size, will have significant benefits, especially for those who buy a new house which has the entire roof amalgamated with solar panels during construction, and also if the entire roof is sloped towards the sun.
The total electricity produced during sunlight hours would probably be far more than the household consumes, considering that the solar panels on most houses cover about 1/8th to 1/4th of the total roof area.
As batteries become more affordable, more durable, and safer, such a house, with a special room designated for batteries, could provide more than all the electricity required, 24 hours a day, including all the electricity required to recharge their EV, except when travelling long distances on holiday.
The money saved on car maintenance, because EVs cost less to service that ICE vehicles, plus the ‘effectively’ free energy to recharge the car for daily use, plus the excess energy which is fed into the grid, even at unsubsidized, wholesale prices, could pay for the additional cost of the solar panels and roof construction, and battery-storage room within perhaps half the guaranteed lifetime of the solar panels and batteries.
We’re not quite there yet, but that’s a goal which I believe ‘science’ is capable of achieving, considering the progress that has been made during the past 20 years.
Rubbish
Do you believe in recycling ‘rubbish’? Try it. (wink)
Vincent, you have grossly overstated the amount of energy that can be generated by solar panels. I live in Glasgow and if I covered my entire house in solar panels, it would never provide all of my electricity needs. Even in summer I can go weeks without seeing the sun. Glasgow is at 56 degrees north, so the amount of sunlight I see in winter is very small.
Even for people who live in a sunnier location, it is extremely unlikely that they could get all of their electricity from solar panels.
Bill,
There’s a misconception that solar panels won’t produce any electricity on a cloudy or overcast day. However, it’s true that some solar panels are more efficient than others, under cloudy conditions. According to the following article, the Monocrystalline solar panel seems to be the best option for those who live in areas with little sunshine.
“Monocrystalline solar panels are the most efficient type of solar panel. These products are top of the line because of their 20% efficiency rate—the highest of all solar panels. Monocrystalline solar panels, which have a black tint, are the best option for commercial use, and they are acknowledged for their sleek, appealing look. Although it is an expensive solar panel, it gives maximum performance no matter what the outdoor conditions are, so you will never have to worry about losing productivity due to the weather.”
https://www.activesw.com/best-solar-panels-for-cloudy-days
However, I don’t think it’s necessarily true that the Monocrystalline solar panel really does give maximum performance whatever the weather conditions. This is probably just advertising. However, there is a valid point that the heat generated when the sun is directly shining, reduces the efficiency of the Monocrystalline panels, whereas the cooler temperatures during cloudy days will tend to increase the efficiency, which might compensate for the lesser amount of direct sunlight.
Vincent, I never said that solar panels don’t produce any electricity on cloudy days. They just won’t produce much. They certainly won’t produce as much as you think. Do you have any evidence that a typical house in the northern hemisphere can produce all of its electricity from solar panels? You have stated that this is so without providing a link to support your assertions.
In cities, many people live in flats. Where will they get their electricity from?
My daughter lives on a boat on the river, with all those things.
It’s in the south east.
(London area, where access to all sorts of modern things is easy).
The use of electricity for more than slight amount in the evening (eg, running a notebook) or a small invertor, causes her to go totally paranoid.
Luckily the boat also has a diesel engine.
However-
When starting the diesel becomes a problem, (low tired batteries- every 3-4yrs), then it’s the end of the world.
Put it this way,- solar panels without backup diesel power are for idiots, or for people who like to freeze on a boat in the dark.
Try it some time!
It will give you a wonderful vision of Carrie the princess’s world just round the corner when Bojo is dead or just in mega dementia land (more than he has now that is!)
Just try a weekend with a chemical toilet and solar cells GRIFF!
I don’t believe that EV’s cost less in maintenance than ICE. My ten year old Accura MDX has not been in for engine service (other than oil changes) for it’s entire life. I have had ancillary repairs for things like suspension, rear view mirror, fog lamp replacement, etc. The heavier EV’s would probably see *more* suspension repairs, than my MDX.
I have talked to my dealer’s service dept about engine repair. They say that Honda engines very seldom need repair over their service life. It’s typically other things like air conditioning, alternators, etc that are attached to the engine. EV’s wouldn’t offer much better than this!
From CarMD, sourced from OBD-II codes, the most common car repairs. NONE of these are needed on EVs.
What year of vehicles were these sourced from? Engine design has changed significantly since 2000.
As I said elsewhere, it should be obvious that the “most common” repairs are repairs done on the most common type of car – 99.5% of vehicles in the US are ICE so they’re obviously going to be more common by a very large margin.
Correct about the proportion of vehicles, and it makes my point about the threat to dealer service revenues posed by EVs. Yes, there will still be repairs, but a lot fewer of them. Talk to any car dealer, and they see what’s coming and are worried about it.
I can’t see how it make any such point – without a repair rate per car (or per 1000 cars) you can’t even MAKE the comparison.
Fine, reject it. I know that EVs need less work. So do you, but your bile is clouding your intellect.
Let’s make note of who chose to resort to personal attacks, while refusing to provide a metric for accurate comparison.
You obviously don’t have solar panels or an EV. Thas for the brainless comedy, but wouldn’t it work better at CNN?
I do have solar panels, but not an EV. My house was built in 2010 and the construction company offered me some solar panels at a good price, so I accepted them because the feed-in tariff was so generous at that time (in Australia).
However, the panels cover only about 1/10th of the total area of my roof. Despite this, my electricity bill is significantly less that what I used to pay before 2010, and when I go on holiday for a significant period, the next quarterly bill is usually in credit, because of the generous feed-in tariff.
Today is very cloudy and overcast. The inverter shows the panels are working at 25% capacity. I haven’t done any precise calculations about the additional benefits of Monocrystalline solar panels, but it’s reasonable to suppose if my entire roof were covered with Monocrystalline panels, I would be getting more than 10 times the amount of electricity, which would cover all my electricity needs if I had battery storage in the house and used an EV.
The Monocrystalline type of panels are usually guaranteed for 25 years and are estimated to have a potential lifespan of 50 years.
The cost and durability of battery storage is the main obstacle.
Vincent, the main reason your electricity bill has gone down is principally because of the outrageously generous feed-in tariff not because you are generating a lot of solar energy. You also live in Australia which cannot be compared to northern Europe. Of course, if everybody adopted solar panels, all the subsidies for solar panels will be cancelled because the cost would be astronomical.
Two years ago, I did a calculation to see if I could save money by installing solar panels on my house. My calculation showed that I would never recover the cost of installing the solar panels over their expected lifetime. People in sunnier countries might actually make money but I don’t live there.
The prosperity and advances of modern societies in the developed world are from free market capitalism.
China and Russia have adopted capitalism to catch up to the US and Allies economies.
Free market should mean no government interference picking winners and losers: eg; subsidising EV and penalising ICEV, subsidising unreliable energy and penalising power station competitors that for very good reasons continue to hold most market share of electricity supply.
A lot of chatter about clean, cleaner and cleanest. E V s are as non-green as any other vehicle. Green of course is a euphemism for, we don’t know what we are talking about.
Just like with “free”, “green” and/or “zero-emissions” actually means “green at the point of use”. They don’t care about the impacts elsewhere.