I will be hosting this live video event.
Advertisements for electric cars and trucks are EVERYWHERE now, but it seems that few people are looking at the real challenges of production, operation and ownership. A new study from Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago shows that the implementation of electric vehicles has had almost a negligible impact on the consumption of gasoline – amounting to about two days worth of gasoline consumption reduction in the last 10 years. See our WUWT post by Willis Eschenbach on that subject here.
Essentially, electric vehicles have had negligible impact of the use of fossil fuels in transportation over the last decade. Meanwhile, there’s a massive push to meet a “Net Zero” goal by 2050 by implementation of wind and solar technologies in the hope they will power the future of transportation.
In this episode of Climate Change Roundtable, Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken, and host Anthony Watts will discuss the futility of electric vehicles and the plan to power them in the future.
Tune in LIVE at NOON Central Time on Friday December 9th – watch below or direct link here.
I sincerely hope the automakers going whole hog making worse-than-useless electric cars end up stuck with parking lots full of them, unsold.
And that those they sell are rapidly traded in for gas powered cars once people find out how poor the electric cars are at meeting their transport needs.
I read a bad report on a Ford F150 Lightning Electric Pickup.
It was a personal experience of a guy who just recently bought the car and he says the F150 lightning is sorely lacking in cold weather.
I think Ford has even come out with an advisory telling owners to use the heated seats in lieu of using the truck’s heater, to save electricity.
I can see a role for 100% EV;s in urban areas for ‘town cars’ that poeple use for local trips or for local commercial delivery vehicles and even busses. But given that most private vehicles are used for both daily commute and longer journeys the range risk is quite real. The crazy think is that due to the low energy density of even Lithium Ion batteris vs hydrocarbon fuels you need about 20 times the mass of the former to yield the range of the latter. THat basically doubles the mass of the car. Heck, what could possibly go wrong twith that especially with EVs being sexed up for rapid acceleleration. SUV’s become as heavy as Humvees and then re tweaked up to be Hoon Vees (Hoon being an Aussie terms for selt important reckless idiot driver).
In Oz the aveeage daily passenger vehicle use is only about 30 km/day ( just a bit less than 20 miles . day) so who really needs battery range more than say 50 km for 90% _ of the time. Plug In Hybrids seems the logical course with 90% + of travel on battery and only the long trips on the IC engine but at its most efficient performance. My Peugeot diesel sedan averaged 5.5 litres / 100 km on long haul trips vs 8 or more around town.
To much like common sense for the political-media complex?
Like 45% of UK households I don’t have off road parking. How do I charge my plug in hybrid?
Maybe they’ll install hand cranks in the front- remember the old hand cranks to start the engines more than a century ago? Of course it won’t be to start the engine- you’ll have to crank it for some hours. But you’ll be proud of your self for helping to save the planet.
That means that 55% of UK households are willing to park one tonne of Lithium/ion batteries inside or next to their homes while charging??
“I can see a role for 100% EV;s in urban areas for ‘town cars’ that poeple use for local trips or for local commercial delivery vehicles and even busses.”
Sure, for those wealthy enough to afford an EV.
And with off street parking in an “urban” area too. In other words, not likely for the vast majority.
Buses?! Forget it. Unless you have billiard table flat roads and San Diego’s climate, the range issue is a huge one for buses hauling heavy passenger loads.
Ditto for package delivery trucks. Not gonna do well delivering holiday packages in Minnesota.
And then of course there’s that tendency to burst into flames. I wouldn’t want to be a passenger on one of those things!
Speaking of Minnesota, I don’t think people in our area (MB, MN, ND), despite absolutely flat roads, are going to be rushing to buy EVs. They recently installed about six Tesla chargers and two “others” in a town 50km south of Winnipeg on the main highway up from the border. Guess they didn’t think cars could make it to Winnipeg from Grand Forks ND (130 miles) without a charge. I was in the parking lot there on Wednesday about 36 hours after a light snowfall. With no marks in the snow by the chargers it was obvious none had been used in that time. Of course with it being -30C that morning if anyone had been driving their EV on that route, they would likely have needed a charge unless they were just using their heated seats!
In that case an EVdoes not need to be capable of highway speeds or safety standards and could be much lighter and more efficient. In most cases an electric trike would be sufficient. City cores would not have to be ICE friendly. I am in favor of less ICE traffic in cities. I live in a rural area and am often disgusted with city air quality.
The city air quality has little to nothing to do with ICE traffic.
Thanks to all the pollution control equipment that comes standard with modern cars, for most large cities, the air coming out of an ICE is cleaner than the air going in.
The “pollution” is coming from industrial and office complexes within the city.
Apologies to those without access to off street parking, I get it. Here in Oz that is very, very rare so PHEV’s seemed a logical alternative. As for small commercoal vehicles I was talking about small two seater vans deilvering post, packages, groceries or other small cars like a Mini Minor size thing.
Of course the real go to alternative in Oz is higher average density housing and better public transport because that is a toxic problem here putting more cars on roads choking them up and driving up the cost of housing leaving the coming generations stranded from what us baby boomers enjoyed. SFA to do with climate change etc. Our cities hav at least half the population density of say LA and a qauarter to a tenth that of comparable european, aamerican and developed asian cites (tokyo, Homg Kong, Singapore etc)
Drivers with a short commute and multiple cars in the family (one ICE) who can charge overnight at their home and afford the purchase price are the sweet spot for EVs. I’m guessing 20% at most meet that criteria. The death of ICE cars is greatly exaggerated.
In other words, they’re useless. Most people don’t have the luxury of “special purpose,” limited use vehicles, aside from the rich.
Jay Leno, for example,, can squander lots of money on such a “toy,” given a barn sized garage full of vehicles. The average person or family cannot.
What if the “primary” vehicle is in an accident or has a mechanical problem? With the “second” vehicle also being gas powered, it can be used as a “no compromises” substitute; a bev would pose considerable limitations in that role.
And I wouldn’t put the “sweet spot” as you described anywhere NEAR 20%. If it was 5% that would be a lot. A much higher priced, limited utility toy like a bev is a luxury item, not something to be relied upon for day to day use, even in two car families.
Well, yeah, pretty useless. How many of us can afford a car with such limited uses? My ICE vehicles are suitable for 100% of my trips. Even if an EV were suitable for 90% of my driving, it would be a foolish purchase.
Google algo will put this video in far away hard to reach land. Goggle hates deniers more than it loves money and power. EVs should not be subsidized and must pay road repair taxes.
I missed the live at noon, now I cannot access it.
A niche solution powered by hydrocarbon fuels.
More like a niche non-solution to imaginary problems. Solution to what?!
I think electric vehicles are the one thing out of this climate alarmist mess that is half-way working. I used to be more skeptical, but I can now see that EVs are probably going to be with us for a long time. I think there is a lot of potential to reduce traffic congestion in cities and for some cities, provide a significant improvement to air quality. We also need to keep in mind that all of the automakers are on the EV train, and they are for profit businesses. If we ever get truly autonomous vehicles that will provide a boost for EVs because they will be able to go charge up by themselves.
that is half-way working.
There is another name for projects that are half way working – Projects of Concern.
Questions tend to get asked and the word ‘cancellation’ gets used.
potential to reduce traffic congestion in cities
Not following your logic on that point. You replace a real car with an electric car and you are still left with a car on the road.
autonomous vehicles that will provide a boost for EVs because they will be able to go charge up by themselves.
(insert Skynet joke here)
How? They don’t have hands? How they going to plug themselves in? You visualising some sort of car sized docking station the vehicle and see guide itself into? So every EV owning home will have a dedicated dock that can only be used for the EV car?
What if you home doesn’t have off street parking? What if you rent?
Maybe Tom.1 is assuming EVs will be out of reach for most and consequently there will be fewer cars on the road.
Or maybe assuming they’ll all be sitting in charging stations for so much longer than gas powered cars are in gas stations so they’ll be fewer on the road…
Tom
The only way EVs could reduce congestion or even charge themselves is if they are Level 5 autonomous — we are decades away from that mass participation scenario. Robert Poole has written that until nearly all cars are autonomous congestion will probably worsen due to the different driving styles [people vs robotics; AI’s are notoriously slow drivers ].
EV penetration (of light duty vehicles) is still quite small – thankfully – because our electric grid is not ready. And this not talking about inadequate public charging stations.
Finally, the automakers are likely hedging their bets & virtue signalling since presently the government is showering them with subsidies for cars, and billions for the batteries that power them. Where we will get the the minerals for the batteries [China?!] or even the electricity to juice them up remains to be seen. Having a reliable electric grid does not seem to be a priority of the current administration.
If they were halfway working, a $7500 rebate at the point of sale starting in Jan 2004 courtesy of Uncle Sam would be unnecessary.
Fine, you drive one, but I don’t want a government taking the decision about what I drive for me. Nor do I want to subsidise others to drive something which isn’t suitable for my circumstances.
“all of the automakers are on the EV train, and they are for profit businesses”
Thanks to vast subsidies and tax breaks.
Automakers are “on the ev train” (perhaps not the best choice of words there) ONLY because of government “force feeding” of evs into the market. Without government subsidies and direct and indirect mandates, no automaker would be going whole hog into making inferior products vs. what they are already selling.
If they worked, why do EVs require so many incentives?
If they worked, they wouldn’t be talking about banning the sale of ICE vehicles in a few years.
In Tassie you’ll be able to charge them 7 months of the year if the wind’s up-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/robbins-island-wind-farm-proposal-approved-on-condition-of-5-month-annual-shutdown-due-to-orange-bellied-parrots/vi-AA1545c0?category=foryou
EVs are safe as houses. This is a regular occurrence with the Jaguar i-pace;
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11510357/Jaguar-SUVs-worth-260-000-flames-M1.html
Did you mean “safe as wood framed houses soaked in gasoline in the middle of a wildfire?”
Anyone know how well EVs will operate in extreme cold? Here in Massachusetts we often get several weeks of below 20 F- sometimes below 0 F. What if you don’t have a garage- will they even start?
For starters (no pun intended), their already inadequate (and misrepresented) “range” will get even worse.
Two big problems.
First, when the battery gets cold, the amount of energy you are going to be able to get out of the battery goes way down. And that’s without adding in the load the heater is going to create.
Second, when the batteries temperature drops below around 32F, it can’t be charged. You first have to spend energy to warm it up, then it can be charged.
Mark,
How is the battery warmed up? by the charger? bring it in a garage? so if you don’t have a garage you park it for weeks? If you just use the charger to warm it up- I hope the cost is counted by those pitching the wonders of EVs. Another question- regarding outdoor chargers like I’m seeing around— can they be used if it’s raining?
The only way I can think of to warm the battery would be using electric heaters.
If your EV is parked at the airport, at 32F or less, for a few days, the EV will have automatically tried to keep the battery from freezing, until the battery is near empty.
You get off the plane, get into your EV, nothing happens, likely some lights on the screen, telling you, “you are f…d.”
You use your phone to call for removal to a warm garage. If you get an answer, you are lucky, because there are hundreds like you, in the same boat, at the same airport, etc.
In any case, after many hours of screwing around, you are finally on your way home.
Every-day charging should not be done in your garage.
Use a 60ft, 240 V/40 A rated, power cord, park away from the house, in case your EV catches fire.
I live in Vermont. Often it is 15F, and sometimes -10F, during winter.
It will be a cold day in hell, before I spend any money on an EV
If the Gooberment is behind them, they must be good.
My prediction is that the EV market will pretty much collapse within the next 10 years for a variety of reasons, or if it does not collapse, will not begin to meet the kind of projections EV enthusiasts are making. The reasons being the material supply chain as documented here https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/15/weakest-link-to-ev-growth-is-the-material-supply-chain/, range issues, time required to recharge the battery, battery fires, grid issues, expense and I am sure I am missing other factors. Car companies investing heavily in EV production will be lucky to survive.
EV are simply impractical. Amazing how woke businesses are today. EV makes no sense at all, unless you are using it for an around town vehicle and that is still an expensive toy that does not offer any ROI. After a friend shared an invoice for a new battery, a whooping $27,000 who in their right mind sees any utility in a novelty. Some people must have money to burn nowadays.
Our government, (Biden) thinks we have an infinite supply of ready cash! Or, failing that, he can just start up the printing presses, again, like he did for the ‘pandemic’ “STIMULUS” checks! Does ANYONE, in ANY government, have any common sense?
Biden believes that government has an infinite supply of money.
Hell, that’s $5,000 more than we paid last year for a new car with a life time drive train warranty :<)
The IEA estimates there were 16.5m EVs worldwide at the end of 2021. Under their best scenarios for 2030 they are talking about 200m – 250m.
There are currently over 1.4 billion ICE vehicles worldwide. There is no way that number of vehicles will be EVs by 2050
It would be interesting to examine the plans for the new EV plants and corresponding battery factories in the US. It’s likely that they will be fairly easily converted to ICE plants if things don’t work out for the EV fad.
At present I can’t see myself getting an EV .I have a 7yr Old Skoda Octavia which has been carefully looked after and maintained , on a long run about 60mpg and 40 mpg , £20 road tax . Someone online was trying to convince me how much cheaper an EV would be to run , but it wouldn’t as my Skoda is all paid for and to buy and EV I would need to take out a loan for £30,000 which would cost a lot meanwhile the EV would be depreciating quite quickly especially as it gets to 7 years and the batteries need replacing at a serious amount of money . My 7 yr old Skoda if looked after probably has another 14 years left in it , maybe more . For me buying and EV would be like burning £50 notes in a bucket .
Electric vehicles are simply much, much better in every way than those running on gasoline, diesel or ethanol, and this has nothing to do with the delusion of carbon mitigation and carbon neutrality. They are here to stay.