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. Central planning never works, and won’t work this time either. The reason is that the would-be central planners don’t know enough, and can’t ever know enough, to put together all the elements to make a fully functioning economic sector.
Mark Tapscott has an interesting piece today at PJ Media titled “Three Huge Reasons Why Electric Vehicles Will Never Dominate American Roads.” Tapscott’s reasons are all good ones, which I would summarize as (1) despite vast government subsidies and rebates, EVs are still far more expensive than gasoline-powered cars, (2) even with greatly increased sales, the existing gasoline-powered cars will not go away and will still be on the road and the dominant vehicles in 2035 and even 2050, and (3) the increased amounts of necessary minerals for the batteries, from lithium to nickel to cobalt, are never going to materialize. Key quote:
[All the] federal tax credits are available to help obscure the fact that EVs remain extremely costly for consumers and offer unproven maintenance and reliability records. No wonder that, despite the immense pressure being put upon consumers to buy EVs, they still only make up about seven percent of all new-vehicle purchases.
Let me generalize from that. The current automotive sector of the economy represents thousands of elements coming together via private markets to satisfy customer demand. Each of the elements falls into place because someone perceives an opportunity to make money by providing that element. As just one example, gas stations don’t exist because the government ordered them up, but because entrepreneurs perceived that they could make money by building the stations and buying the pumps and making gasoline available at that location at a price that would cover all costs and allow for a profit.
Contrast that to what is now supposed to happen for electric vehicles. The government is allegedly going to be paying for some half a million charging stations around the country. Maybe that’s happening, but I don’t notice any of them around where I live. And why does the government have to do this? If the demand were there, entrepreneurs would already be installing the stations. It turns out that the stations are quite expensive to construct (at least the “fast charging” variety), and then you can’t really mark up the electricity that has to be purchased from the local utility. So it has to be done with government subsidy.
And in the next step, the same thing happens with the charging stations that happens with every other government-ordered business: the stations break down, and since no one makes more money to be sure they keep running, they don’t get fixed. Among many, many articles on this subject, here is one from August 2022 at The Verge, headline “Electric vehicle owners are fed up with broken EV chargers and janky software.”
JD Power surveyed 11,554 electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid vehicle owners from January through June 2022 for its second annual Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging Study. Despite big growth in the number of public EV chargers in the US, EV owners say the overall experience still sucks.
Well, check out the state of elevator operations or plumbing in the New York City Housing Authority projects. This is how socialism works.
Similarly, who has the incentive to be sure that there is sufficient electricity on the grid to recharge all the EVs when the owners want to charge them? In the gas car arena, oil companies make big money by finding and refining and delivering the product to the places where the customer wants to buy it. Over in the EV arena, the same jurisdictions like New York and California that presume to order up an all EV fleet also organize their grid on a central planning/regulated price model. Reliable fossil fuel power plants are ordered to be closed, and replaced with intermittent wind and solar generation. The all-knowing regulators then order that everything shall be electrified, and somewhere the little people are supposed to respond and make it happen, without any appropriate economic incentive. We shall see.
Inside EVs on January 18 reports that EVs had a big increase in sales and market share in the U.S. in 2022, going all the way to a 5.8% market share, after only a 3.1% share in 2021. The article somehow omits to mention how much of the sales increase was driven by the latest rounds of massive government subsidies. I have no doubt that the 5.8% can increase somewhat further over the next few years, particularly as government subsidies turn into a gusher. But ultimately a successful economic sector requires market incentives at all levels of the food chain. EVs don’t have that, and they almost certainly never will — except in the highly unlikely event that consumers suddenly decide that the advantages of EVs are so great that they are willing to pay double and more for a car. I’ll place a solid bet that market penetration of EVs will stall out at a low level well before 2035.
Don’t worry, the coming ban on gas stations will solve the EV dilemma.
That really is the goal of the climatists cult, to have all the non-elites out of ICE vehicles and taking public transportation. Or using bicycles, walking, or living in the crowded cities. Easier to keep track of and control. Perhaps, a major revolution or two might change those outcomes. But, that is what it is gonna take. Maybe.
For each gas station on a typical highway in France, that is every 40 km, are we going to install
The numbers are my estimate for typical everyday trafic, not for holiday departure.
I think it was Marc Morano who made the insightful observation that a common fuel nozzle has a power rating of 10MW. My local fuel station has 12 multi-fuel pumps. So can refill veicles at peak rate of 120MW. Or minus a bit due to the time it takes to pay for it.
So a typical fuel supply station is equivalent to a mid size steam turbine or a large gas turbine. There are more than 20 such refuelling stations within 10km of my home.
That observation alone underlines the challenge of converting ICE vehicles to BEVs.
Generations to come may consider the 20th and 21st centuries as being a period of squandering a precious resource. But petroleum is such a convenient energy source.
I live in rural Oregon can’t make where I want to go on 300 mile range and I’m not going to wait 30 minutes to 2 hours to charge up. That is if I can find a charging station when I’m not on the interstate.
Saw an ad recently where Kevin Bacon was touting some electric vehicle that could recharge to 80% capacity in 18 minutes. Big deal, I thought, I can fill my car to 100% capacity in less than 10 minutes, basically anywhere in the country. The time I give up my gasoline-powered cars is when I get fitted for a pine box.
What kind of charging point is that?
How much does it cost to install it?
Incomplete advertising should be considered false advertising.
What the ad doesn’t tell car owners is that by charging the battery that fast, they are drastically shortening the battery’s life span.
They are also probably risking a catastrophic battery fire as well.
Constant rapid charging degrades your battery much faster so you get to replacement time quicker. Thank you says Mr Tesla 🙂
Which is why Elon Musk was touting the:
https://www.tesla.com/videos/battery-swap-event
That was: June 21, 2013!
Where is his vaporware now?
Picture the scene:
You drive your brand new sparkling EV into the battery swap centre, a week or two after buying it. They swap out your healthy new battery for one that is 5 or 6 years old, has been subjected to who knows how many fast charges and previous swaps, has less than 50% of the range and will not hold a charge for as long as the brand new battery they have just removed. What’s not to like?
I, too, have made the same comment, add to which, how are you going to fit a Tesla battery into a tiny car? How would they charge those batteries? A massive rack, pulling MWs of power.
Imagine pulling up at a swap out station, and being told, you’ll have to wait for one to charge up, or they don’t have a battery in your size.
And of course, such stations would have to be manned 24/7/365.
Also, I can just see it, you’re running low, and there are only a handful of stations, within a 100-mile radius.
They do dream.
Not to mention the cost of such a swapping station.
First you need the heavy equipment that is strong enough, yet accurate enough to quickly remove and replace a battery that weighs 1000 to 1200 pounds without damaging the mounting brackets or the electrical connections.
Not just one of those, but a dozen or so at a single charging facility.
Then there are the batteries.
If we assume that the station is going to fast charge the batteries and that fast charging takes 20 minutes while replacing the battery takes 5 minutes.
This means that the station is going to need to be charging 4 batteries for every swap station. 10 swap stations means that the station will need to have on hand, 40 batteries at all times. Which means that in addition to the cost of the the swapping station, you can add the cost of 40 batteries to when you first set up one of these stations. Beyond that, you have to make sure that your electricity supplier is prepared to handle enough electricity to be fast charging 40 batteries at the same time. We’re talking a small substation will have to be built every time you build a new swapping station.
Now let’s assume that you don’t want to destroy the batteries that fast. The station will slow charge the batteries instead of fast charging them.
8 hours to charge a battery instead of 20. If the swap time remains 5 minutes, 12 batteries per hour times 8 hours, the station will need to have storage/charging places for 96 batteries for each swapping station. Once again, assume 10 swapping stations, to make the station comparable to a typical gas/diesel filling station, means your swapping station will need to have on hand, at all times, 960 batteries. At 15K US$ each, that’s quite an investment.
I’m assuming that the total power requirements will be about the same. More batteries being charged, but less power is required for each individual battery.
The idea of battery swapping is a non-starter.
Slow charge is certainly more economical (if you don’t pay for batteries).
The more batteries you have, the less you need.
Your numbers are completely off for a large number of batteries. You have not accounted for the time of battery cycle. There is no reason for your calculation to be based on number of cars per minute.
For any normal station, cars per day must be much lower than cars per minute.
Five minutes?
At a roadside EV charging station?
Impossible!
Not even robotic stations could manage swapping a car EV that quickly. Theoretically, a robotic operation would operate just like automatic car wash installations.
Pull up. Find car registration, credit card, enter key personal information into the entry device…
Anyone who has done this for a simple car wash knows this.
Car wash operations are good examples. Sure, it may only take 5-10 minutes for the actual physical car wash, all of the prep before and after takes far longer.
Then there are the physical and legal issues.
Even slight damage to a lithium battery can have catastrophic results.
A catastrophe that can involve the entire EV battery operation.
Each EV car battery is custom designed for specific model. Often month and year of manufacture are critical information to identify the correct part.
Making the whole lithium battery speculation pure fiction. Ten charged batteries on hand for replacing drained batteries?
Make that ten charged batteries for every manufacturer and model variation over the years of that model’s manufacture.
No-one will perform race car speed equipment swaps for the general EV using public, ever.
“Make that ten charged batteries for every manufacturer and model variation over the years of that model’s manufacture.”
Take your ICE car to a battery place to get a new battery. They have to know the exact size of the battery (length, width, height), the placement and type of connection terminals, the orientation of the connection terminals, the cranking or reserve power needed for the engine, the type of mounting the battery requires in the car. Then you have to disconnect the old battery and install the new one (after finding it in the inventory). Pete forbid they just had a run on batteries for 1990 F-150 pickups, you might have to wait anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days for the inventory to be replenished.
I am just always amazed and amused by the apparent lack of real world experience so many people on the internet display, especially CAGW advocates.
“I am just always amazed and amused by the apparent lack of real world experience so many people on the internet display,”
pretty ironic coming from someone who was apparently unaware of the real-world experience of real-world swapping stations!
“Take your ICE car to a battery place to get a new battery. They have to know…”
Instead of trying to analogize to other things, why not look to the “real world experience” of actual swapping stations (NIO’s in China) that are already in operation as to how they do things.
“They have to know the exact size of the battery (length, width, height)”
Nio swappable batteries are all designed to be the same exact physical size. (It’s a concept you might have heard of called standardization)
“the placement and type of connection terminals, etc “
All the Nio cars that use the swap stations are designed so that the placement and type of connection terminals etc are the same from car to car. (It’s a concept you might have heard of called standardization)
“Then you have to disconnect the old battery and install the new one “
I’m pretty sure they makers of the swap station are aware of that, after all that’s the whole point of a swap station. And when the cars are designed with ease of swapping in mind, actually doing the swap shouldn’t be much of an issue in either effort or time.
“(after finding it in the inventory)”
You seem to think that the “inventory” would consist of dozens of different batteries of different sizes and shapes. Nio’s all use the same size and shape battery packs. As long as there’s a single battery in the inventory, it shouldn’t be hard to find. And since the “old” battery will end up in the inventory that the “new” battery came from, there’s literally always a stream of batteries going into the inventory. The only potential issue is the charging time of the old batteries before they can reenter the inventory vs the removal of batteries from the inventory.
Now, keep in mind, Swap stations like Nio’s are only “workable” when the cars are designed to a standard specification that has ease of swapping built into it. With the exception of one model of Tesla, none of the US manufacturers have designed their cars with ease of swapping in mind, and the specifications of the batteries (size, placement, etc) not only differ from manufacturer to manufacturer but often differ for cars from the same manufacturer!
“pretty ironic coming from someone who was apparently unaware of the real-world experience of real-world swapping stations!”
If those real-world swapping stations were economically feasible they would be everywhere.
“Nio swappable batteries are all designed to be the same exact physical size. (It’s a concept you might have heard of called standardization)”
ROFL!! So Nissan batteries are the same size as Tesla batteries? When did *that* standardization happen? If battery standardization were a real-world thing you would only find one size battery at your local auto parts store for your ICE vehicle!
“All the Nio cars that use the swap stations are designed so that the placement and type of connection terminals etc are the same from car to car. (It’s a concept you might have heard of called standardization)”
So your swapping stations are all going to be manufacturer specific? You have to go to the Tesla swap station or the Nissan swap station or the Honda swap station?
You mean *that* kind of standardization?
“You seem to think that the “inventory” would consist of dozens of different batteries of different sizes and shapes. Nio’s all use the same size and shape battery packs.”
And you think Nio’s are the only EV’s in existence?
“With the exception of one model of Tesla, none of the US manufacturers have designed their cars with ease of swapping in mind, and the specifications of the batteries (size, placement, etc) not only differ from manufacturer to manufacturer but often differ for cars from the same manufacturer!”
ROFL!!! You just pooh-pooh the fact that dozens of different batteries would have to be in the inventory and then turn around and admit that dozens of different batteries would have to be in the inventory!
Unfreakingbelievable.
They will keep the battery history (all charging events, public places, high speed charges, robots) in the individual battery computer and in a central database. They might restrict the service to those cars with complete history of any shocks or even complete telemetry like Teslas.
They will photograph each item in and out, etc.
“Five minutes?
At a roadside EV charging station?
Impossible!”
While the whole process (swap time plus the “before” and “after” stuff you talk about via-a-vis car washing) takes about 10 to 12 minutes or so, the claim was specifically about just the “swap time”, and 5 minutes is correct as that’s about how long NIO’s “swap time” is and about how long Tesla’s “swap time” took. So, when you address the actual claim, it’s not “Impossible!” as existing real-world swap stations in actual use show. For one’s credibility, It’s best to not claim something that is actually happening as being impossible, just saying.
“Not to mention the cost of such a swapping station.”
Don’t be silly, in the green utopia, cost isn’t an issue as the government pays for everything. (never mind that it’s the taxpayers that ultimately pay the bills).
“First you need the heavy equipment that is strong enough…..”
Yeah, so? Musk actually had a working prototype of his swapping station idea back in 2014.And NIO, as of October 22, 2021, has built and put into operation over 551 NIO Power Swap stations in more than 60 cities in China. Clearly making such “heavy equipment” and building such stations isn’t the “impossible” problem you want to think it is.
“The idea of battery swapping is a non-starter.”
Even putting aside Musk’s prototype station as the one-off it turned out to be, the reality of the existing 551 battery swap stations in China makes your post a laugh. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in agreement with you on most of the problems of EVs, but when you make bad arguments about the “impossibility” of something that actually exists in reality (albeit with lots of government subsidies), it only detracts from your better arguments (to put it nicely). Don’t over egg the pudding. Stick to arguments that are supported by reality instead of pushing ones that are refuted by it.
What does it matter? Drive a few hundred miles and that battery gets swapped out for another, and another, and another…
Maybe you just don’t get a battery when you buy a car. You buy a car, and then the vendor “refills” it for you to drive away.
You will own no electrochemical energy storage device, and you will be happy.
“Maybe you just don’t get a battery when you buy a car. You buy a car, and then the vendor “refills” it for you to drive away.”
That’s basically how the real-world battery swap stations in China work. You don’t “own” the batteries, instead you have a battery subscription (about $200/month) which allows you to swap out the battery as needed at any of NIOs’ over 250 power swap stations located across 60 cities in China.
How heavy are the batteries? Who is going to do the actual switch- the car owner or the station owner? I thought EV batteries were very, very heavy so this all makes no sense. And make the change in just minutes?
Musk will make robots!
But then the robots won’t work as expected…
They seemed to work perfectly well at the task for the few years that his prototype station was up and running. NIO’s robots (over in China) seems to work pretty well as well considering they’ve got 250+ Power Swap stations operating throughout 60 cities.
Where will the electricity come from to charge the reflll battery?
I wonder if Meijer stores are making a profit on all the charging stations they installed?
This is where a lot of people who never study accounting make a big mistake.
They assume that as long as Meijer is selling the electricity to the car owners at a price higher than Neijer is purchasing that gas, then it is making a profit, and that is true.
The problem is that the cost of the electricity is not the only cost involved.
First there is the cost of buying and installing the charging station. The station has to earn enough money to pay back those costs in a reasonable amount of time.
Secondly, there is the cost of maintaining the charging station.
A lot of people get all bent out of shape when they find out that grocery stores are selling food at a markup of something like 20 to 25%.
They don’t realize that the profits from the sale of food has to cover the cost of the building and parking lot.
It has to cover the utilities used to heat/cool and light the building. The cost of the employees in the building, including the ones the shoppers never see such as management, HR, maintenance, etc.
Then there is the cost of the delivery system that gets the food from producer to the sales floor.
Finally there is the cost of produce that goes bad before it can be sold, not to mention the cost to replace items that were stolen.
Musk has a habit of pronouncing things that are being researched as if they are already being produced.
That’s stereotypical of Sillycon Valley.
The Chinese EV manufacturer Nio has introduce a smart swap out battery system in China and recently opened one in Norway. You lease the battery which reduces the initial cost of the car. Monthly cost about £200/ $240. Not sure but I think you have to book your swap time. Remains to be seen how well it works.
PS The system is fully automated
To whoever gave me a down vote I wasn’t endorsing just informing 🙂
Ouch, I spend less than $160 per month for two gas vehicles, one car and one pickup truck. Some months I don’t even spend $100
The battery pack is part of the structure, I bet he realized a swap out version would add a lot of weight to the car.
“Are electric vehicles about to sweep the country”?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Hell no.
Thanks, Rick C. Your answers made me laugh.
Regards,
Bob
It should be pretty clear that the best solution is a plug-in series hybrid with a 40-mile EV range and an ICE range extender, charged at home every night. It would be functionally equivalent to an EV for urban use and an ICE for long trips. Less use of critical materials and no gigantic battery to haul around. Cheaper, faster, better.
Too bad if you don’t have off street parking…..
45% of UK households don’t.
A study of hybrid cars found few people bothered to plug the thing in, they just ran them on the petrol/diesel engine.
Sorry, disagree.
Other than for a small number of city dwelling virtue signalers who can recharge for free in their employer’s car park; the best sollution, by a country mile, is the ICE.
And it isn’t even clear that, on a full life cycle basis, EVs will reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (if you think that’s worth a dime.)
Guvmints in the West decided years ago that normal Tungsten light bulbs were naughty and must be replaced by those twisted fluorescent bulbs full of Mercury. In the UK they spent hundreds of millions (thanks, taxpayers!) promoting the wretched, dismal, dangerous things.
A couple of years later, LCD lights appeared (thanks private enterprise!)
Guess which type of light bulb people WANT to buy today?
The twisty fluorescent lights idea is more sensible than EVs for the vast majority of drivers.
Not even considering the amount of minerals and the child slaves in the Congo.
When the US congress outlawed, in a phased in manner, incandescent light bulbs, I bought a couple of cases of 60 W bulbs. By the time LEDs came on line, I still had incandescent lamps to use up. I NEVER bought the crap spiral fluorescent lamps.
BTW, the law was passed to ensure GE could recoup their costs of a new factory to make the crap lamps. Crony Capitalism at its finest. GE already knew LEDs were coming soon, and needed to act fast, and they did.
Just think of all the mercury contamination due to this GREEN initiative. Have you ever read the directions for cleaning up after a broken fluorescent
lamp?
It pretty clear that the best solution is to completely abandon the silly idea that CO2 can increase the global temperature. It would be life saving for many countries, money saving for all countries, and time saving for everyone.
I totally disagree with you Paul.
You still have the cost and weight of two engines and a battery to replace a single engine in an ICE car.
But your ICE engine only needs to be about 5HP to propel your car at highway speed, that’s 5 mechanical engineering horsepower, not car salesman horsepower. Plus a couple more to recharge the battery for electric motor acceleration. Then you can top up the battery overnight at home. One of the untold advantages of hybrids is the much smaller battery pack required, and the reduced weight of which saves so many $/kg that it pays for the ICE engine (that is also much smaller than a solo ICE engine would be). Hybrids seem like a reasonable way to go from a fuel cost saving perspective, no subsidies required….
It depends very much on the Cd, but 35 HP to maintain 70 mph on level ground seems to be fairly representative.
That’s still a lot less than most modern vehicles put out.
No thanks, I don’t want “plug in” anything, since that just translates to “underpowered when the battery isn’t charged.”
And am not interested in parking anything with Lithoum-Ion batteries in or near my garage or home.
Once again, someone envisions dilettante urban housewife vehicle usage as solving all of the transportation needs for the general population, across America…
Using activist calculated urban daily driving averages is delusional for designing a vehicle for the general public.
Vehicles should and usually are designed to meet the full needs of customers.
I have neighbors that love their EV hybrid vehicles.
Toyota added a speed reduction after the complete motor system (gas+electric+split+electric), obviously because the electric motor alone wasn’t able to climb some roads.
Also, the price of magnets – probably.
(There is no gear shift on these Toyota so you can’t reverse. You can only go backward on 100% electric.)
You know what tells me the EV market is a fiction? Used car sales. I don’t know the numbers but I would consider how many new cars are purchased vs how many used cars are purchased in any year. I don’t see the used EV market, does anyone else?
As I see it, used EVs will typically come on the 2nd-hand market a while before their batteries expire. That’s because of the astronomical cost of replacing a battery. But 2nd-hand buyers won’t get their fingers burned too often, and the price of 2nd-hand EVs will go through the floor. ie, there won’t be much price difference between 2nd-hand and scrap. Might be a big market, though, in battery-tweaking, ie. legally or illegally extending the life of a battery. Now some may say that’s technically impossible, but I’ll bet that some very smart people are working on it already (but not the ones who sell new batteries).
That is what I’m thinking, once you approach the end of the batteries life the whole car would seem to be nothing but a liability. I see people being charged to recycle them and charged a lot. It’s a lose lose no matter what.
A “dead” battery might just have many dead cells but also a lot of healthy cells… Can these be rewired?
Please don’t even attempt this. The most likely outcome is the battery will burst into flames when you force the case open. Its one of the reasons recylcing them is next to impossible economically.
The problem with re-routing is that they wire multiple cells in series in order to the voltage they need. Then they wire a bunch of these “stacks” in parallel in order to get the current needed.
If a single cell in a stack goes bad, the stack becomes non-functional. The problem is that if you route around the bad cell, then that stack has one less cell than the surrounding stacks. As a result of this, the voltage from this one stack is less than the voltage being generated by the surrounding stacks.
This in turn causes the current being generated by the surrounding stacks to flow backwards into the lower voltage stack. This in turn causes the batteries in the lower voltage stack to over charge and eventually fail, usually catastrophically.
“The problem is that if you route around the bad cell, then that stack has one less cell than the surrounding stacks”
The “solution” would then be to route around the same number of cells in the other stacks to keep them in equilibrium in order to avoid the issues you mentioned.
Agree, the target market is the top 25% households. There will be a good market for the 3-year lease models ($70K car for $35K) with the want to be top households. After their 3 years they will still have some value $20K. The next buyer may get some good years out of it, but he may need to pay to get rid of it. $70K depreciation in 10 years (cheap at half the price as they say, chuckle).
Think you meant WILL get their fingers burned too often.
Electric forklifts are common in warehouses. When the batteries are toast 6 years later, they are worth scrap steel price plus the value of the charger that needs to be sold with the forklift or nobody will buy it.
Look at the prices of these used parts, e.g., battery packs for $6500 to $18000.
https://www.ebay.com/str/dennisautoparts?_pgn=1
It appears none of the budget insurers in Australia now cover Teslas. They did a couple of years ago but are not willing to renew policies at any price. They must have had some bad experiences.
https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/why-a-tesla-is-so-hard-and-expensive-to-insure
Some car ferries now refuse to take battery vehicles. I travel across Bass Strait on an ocean going ferry and they are required to ask if the vehicle is battery powered. They still let them on but I gather they are parked in a location where they can be better segregated in case of a fire.
Owning a BEV is a cross to bear. Owners must enjoy self harm to take them on – or at least persist with ownership after the fantasy evaporates and reality sets in. They are more driveway ornaments than road transport.
“They still let them on but I gather they are parked in a location where they can be better segregated in case of a fire.”
I imagine a new car ferry design will emerge where a section of the foredeck can be hinged to the side with fast acting hydraulic rams that can tip all the EV’s into the water if they see one start to smoke from the bridge. If one goes, the chances of putting it out before any others catch are slim, so they’ll all have to go. The owners of the Felicity Ace would be an eager customer for such a design.
We used to push burning aircraft over the side of aircraft carriers. Especially brake fires as the magnesium wheels could burn thru multiple decks. So throwing a Tesla over the side is safest approach.
I’ve read that on some ferries, the driver and passengers can stay in their car during the voyage if they desire.
I guess they won’t allow that if your car is an electric.
Do you waste time waking up the driver and getting him out of the car, or do you just push the car into the drink, driver and all?
Fit the car with ejection seats and have the passager wear antifire diver outfits, like they do in the Navy.
Spirit of Tasmania. I did not know that, interesting stuff..
I hope “segregated” means “positioned to quickly be pushed overboard.”
Nothing short of that (pardon the pun!) will solve the problem.
And when you do, who will the buyers be? The used EVs will not only sport all the deficiencies of the new ones, but those disadvantages will all be amplified by the degraded and sooner to need replacement at exorbitant cost battery pack.
“Yes, you can get this USED EV for a fraction of the price! With even less range and a higher risk of inextinguishable fire!”
You could try to sell the inextinguishable fire part as: spectacular fireworks!
Or an amazingly efficient heating system 😉
This is merely anecdotal, but still interesting: I know personally three people who have bought EV’s (one electric SMART car and two Teslas). They can’t wait to get rid of them, and will never buy another.
Eventually those cars will be found on used car lots MINUS the battery but ready for a new combustion engine to be installed.
Do EVs qualify as part of salary packaging in the USA like in UK and Australia?
Initial cost, charge times, charger availability, range/$ remain the weak points of EVs. Today they are ideal for urban areas that can afford them and get around the shortcomings.
They are ideal for nothing but the garbage dump for bad ideas.
They’re not even very ‘green’, which might start putting off people who are worried about the environment.
Who are few, compared with the virtue-signallers! And a high proportion of those cars are company-owned!
The whole problem with EVs, is that they are only viable for use in the narrow temperate strip along the Pacific Coast and in wealthy East Coast neighborhoods with heavily supported charging and short trip lengths. All the “smart people” tend to live there and care not to see the limitations of their emotional support vehicles. If all the rubes would just move to Malibu or Chevy Chase, all the countries transportation problems would be solved.
On a serious note; I have been seriously thinking of starting a “go fund me” type of campaign to form an organization like AAA (American Automobile Association) used to be. It’s mission would be to lobby to keep ICE infrastructure and realistic regulations on vehicles going forward. Do you see anyone contributing $5-$20 to help create the non-profit to get the ball rolling?
Good idea.
They’ve already picked the low-hanging fruit. The rest won’t be so easy unless the technically-illiterate politicians win and make it mandatory!
Already mandatory in the UK. From 2030 new ICE only vehicle sales will be stopped. We will only be able to buy new hybrids. Then from 2035 new car sales will be EV only.
These rules will certainly last long enough to kill off the car industry in the UK. But that is all they will accomplish.
We are down to one remaining EV maker; the UK is a hard region to export from, and we need two versions of each model. No one is going to design new EV cars here, or build them, facing headwinds like that.
Long before 2035 the infeasibility of an EV fleet will become apparent. The deadlines will be dropped but the car makers will be gone for good. We will still buy ICE cars but they will probably come from India or China.
Oh, and we’ll probably switch to driving on the right.
There is far, far too much invested infrastructure to switch driving sides in the UK. Enough of the world still drives on the left to make it a viable market for any manufacturer out there who wants in. The real hurdle will be, as always, government over-regulation.
According to the UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders 8 out of 10 cars produced in the UK are exported to over 140 different markets worldwide
The price difference is huge
Compact EV with low reliability
and durability per J. D. Powers surveys
Tesla Model 3
Lowest possible MSRP: $43,990 (includes recent price cut):
————————————————————————————
Mid-sized hybrid with high reliability
and durability per J. D. Powers surveys
Toyota Camry LE Hybrid (53 / 51 mpg)
Lowest possible MSRP: $28,080
Due Diligence: I own a 2016 Toyota Camry SE ICE.
It has never required repairs and has had no faults.
We have owned Toyotas for years–since 1975 to be exact, the year my husband bought his first in college. Have well over a million miles, maybe two million–two have each gone to over 320,000 miles before we gave them up. All ICEs. Yes, a few repairs, but well worth it for the extra miles and years. And all our adult kids are Toyota owners as well. I doubt I would consider anything else.
Yes, Richard, and that price comparison holds for practically any pairing of equivalent ICE to EV, new or used. For example, you can buy a nicely equipped Ford F150 XL for $42-50,000, while an F150 Lightning runs $90-100,000. Two years ago, I bought a pre owned, premium equipped turbo six BMW for half the price of a comparable used Tesla. Gas mileage isn’t great (that wasn’t my main motivator), but I’d have to own the vehicle for 30 years before its cost of ownership might approach that of the used Tesla. That is, there is no payback, a negative ROI. I expect that the vast majority of EVs are fleet sales, personal leases and wealthy virtue signalers. Rental companies sell off their cars long before the worst EV problems manifest. Wealthy owners are accustomed to flipping cars often, and practically nobody buys their car at the end of their lease.
Nearing end of life (low salvage or resale value), the poor will buy these hand-me-down EVs and get slammed with insurmountable maintenance and battery replacement costs.
I have a 2015 Toyota Prius (hybrid not plugin), also no repairs and no faults.
California has not “… adopted a ban on gasoline-powered cars by 2035.” California has “… adopted a ban on [NEW] gasoline-powered cars by 2035.”
It makes a difference.
That is so true.
You will still be able to buy a ‘used’ vehicle over the border in Nevada and drive it in California. How do the rabid left totalitarians in government, running(sic) California intend to prevent that?
But you won’t be able to register it in CA (without adding Ca Smog Equipment) and registering it in Nevada or Oregon will require an in state residential address.
Of course CA Smog equipment will be no longer available… And replacement parts will no longer be manufactured
Sounds like mail box addresses are going to skyrocket in Nevada and Oregon then Bryan.
Been there, done that. I moved to CA in the late 90’s and was going to register my car (that I had brought from my home state of Maryland) but then I found out I’d have to pay an extra $500! Well, all I had was little more than the clothes on my back and I had rent due and wouldn’t see a paycheck for the next three weeks, I did nothing. And I continued to do nothing….for the whole five years while I was out there. I got a waiver for emissions testing from my home state for “travel for work”.
I’ll just say that enforcement was non-existent. I never got pulled over or stopped (neither did anyone else….the “legendary” Highway Patrol of TV fame was no where to be found….) and so no problem. Traffic enforcement (this was the LA area) was (and probably still is) a joke.
Anyone who has friends or relatives in a nearby state (or even not nearby, like I was) where they can use the address can do the same thing I did.
Some advice: Don’t do anything to make your vehicle stand out. There was a local radio station where if you put their bumper sticker on your car you could win prizes. I was tempted, but I resisted the temptation because that would draw attention to my car. And of course, despite nearly non-existent enforcement, don’t do anything crazy while driving.
All ICE vehicles in the US meet the California standards (if they have been maintained), as the car companies build cars for one market only. There is no “Ca Smog Equipment”. And if one buys a used ICE vehicle in California, it has already met the air standards.
“Of course CA Smog equipment will be no longer available… And replacement parts will no longer be manufactured”
If there’s a demand for it, some enterprising individuals will find a way to make the parts and sell them (even if you have to cross the border to a neighboring state to get the work done). California can’t impose it’s bans on other states, only the governments of those other states (or the federal government) can hope to do that).
I heard many years ago that cars bought out of state could not be registered in California unless they had 7000 miles on the odometer, expressly to discourage people buying out of state.
Oh just like everything else – they’ll “ban” it.
As the law stands now, people will be able to purchase used ICE vehicles in California. As long as there are any.
This will be California in 2050:
Similarly there is a difference between 7% “of new car sales” and the percentage of EVs to ICE vehicles now on the road.
Some of you should travel overseas sometime. The EV uptake is astonishing. Far cheaper running costs, better performance, and better for the environment. No subsidies are necessary. Hypercharger networks that recharge to 80% in less than 20 minutes. It’s a brave new world and I don’t want to drive an ICE ever again.
What do you have?
I lived in Saudi Arabia for five years, where were you, maybe Munich, Germany”?
I think it’s a troll. Comes here, shits, then goes away
Pull a stunt like that charging an EV and you will ‘travel’ – in a hearse.
Looking strictly at available supplies of materials…
Copper
Steel
Nickel
Lithium
Neodymium
There are only enough materials being mined to manufacture about 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 battery EVs yearly.
HOWEVER
There are over 2.2 billion cars, trucks and busses in service today that would need to be replaced
Not to mention all the Oil and Gas extraction required for petrochemical stocks to create the needed light weight components and the coal for strong steel and refined silicon.
According to CNBC copper is running out https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/07/there-isnt-enough-copper-in-the-world-shortage-could-last-until-2030.html
According to WIKI the great and powerful global copper mining sits at 18,000,000 tons as of 2015. And global reserves are 700,000,000 tons
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_copper#:~:text=Total%20world%20production%20is%20about%2018%20million%20metric,will%20outstrip%20the%20amount%20extractable%20from%20the%20ground.
EVs alone require 180lbs or roughly 11 cars per ton of copper. Current copper mining capacity would be sufficient to build 198,000,000 … IF it wasn’t utilized for making
Copper wire
Extension cords
Electric circuits
Transformers
Small electric motors
…Drills
…Tooth brushes
…Saws
…Lawn mowers
…Weed Hackers
…Hedge trimmers
…Razors
etc…
Plumbing
Jewelry
Coinage
Cooking pots and pans
Generators
WIND TURBINES
and many other things that need to be created or replaced yearly
With all other demands on the mineral, there likely isn’t sufficient copper mined to build more than 20,000,000 EVs yearly without increasing copper mining.
Again 2.2B cars, trucks and busses on the road will need to be replaced. At 20M per year that’s 110 years. (with how many replacements in that span of time)
Soooo who gets one and who goes on foot???
Increasing the number of EVs on the road means a major increase in the capacity of the electric grid.
Don’t see how EVs are better for the environment.
1) Require more mining than conventional ICE vehicles
2) Required minerals mined by children in countries with no environmental protections
3) Heavier road weight from 1/2 ton battery packs
4) Do not produce plant fertilizing gasses
Certainly NOT better for the environment
I have to laugh. The greens squealed for decades that cars could reach 120mph, 50mph above most national speed limits. “Why does anyone need a car that can go faster than 70mph and accelerate to 60mph in 7 seconds?”
Yet whenever they justify EV’s one of their principle claims is “better performance“.
You are welcome to your EV mate. Just don’t shove them down everyone else’s throat which is precisely what governments are planning to do.
Let’s say you travel to Europe.
“No subsidies are necessary”
Not true, 17 out of the 27 EU member states offer incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles.
“Hypercharger networks that recharge to 80% in less than 20 minutes”
Just one in seven of all EU charging points is fast.
42% of all charging points for electric cars are concentrated in only two EU countries: the Netherlands and Germany.
These two countries together make up less than 10% of the entire EU surface area.
“The EV uptake is astonishing”
EV’s make up just over 1% of the total number of passenger cars in the EU.
Keep taking the Soma…
How? Explain yourself, please
People like Simon don’t think for themselves. They just regurgitate the narrative when ever they are confronted by a non-believer.
Don’t hold your breath. Trolls like that never explain themselves.
You are delusional.
The only reason running costs are lower is because you aren’t paying taxes on the electricity to support the roads you are using.
Better acceleration perhaps, however being a lead foot drastically cuts your range.
The myth that they are better for the environment is only true if you buy into the lie that CO2 is a problem. Beyond that, your electric results in more CO2 being put into the atmosphere, not less.
If no subsidies are necessary, why do they keep increasing the subsidies? In every country where subsidies have been reduced, the sale of electric cars has plummeted.
Yes, fast charging is available, if you don’t mind destroying your battery.
Why am I not surprised that someone touting electric cars would use the phrase “Brave New World”?
That “fast charging” (that still takes 3-4 times as long as filling a gas tank, to get you 80%of ready overstated and inadequate “range” as opposed to 100%) can’t be done all the time. Once you’ve used up your “fast charging” allotment, you’ll be sitting around for 30-45 minutes rather than 20.
And “better for the environment” is utter nonsense. File that notion under “out of sight, out of mind.”
“Far cheaper running costs”. But how much did the car cost?
From an electrical engineer who was working on a 2026 EV program until he retired in late 2022:
Fellow engineers are pessimistic about the EV they are creating for several reasons. Engineers typically are over optimistic about the new ICE products they are creating. This pessimism is unprecedented. It is caused by the price and low performance of the vehicles themselves.
High price
Very inconvenient refueling
Range reduced by 30 percentage points by charging at 10% and not charging above 80% to preserve battery life
Impossible to predict percentage charged gauge
Loss of range in cold weather can reach 40% tp 60% in extremely cold northern Minnesota cold weather testing
Loss of up to 2% to 4% of charge every day while sitting in a very cold garage or parked outdoors at an airport
Customers will want to add a 240-volt charging circuit in their garage — 120 volts charging is too slow.
GOOD NEWS:
Fast acceleration
(A smaller electric motor would not save much money, so fast acceleration will be typical, not that many people will ever need it)
In my 27 years in product development, I have never heard engineers pessimistic about any product they were working on. Even products that were obviously underwhelming.
I retired in 2005. But my last contact inside stayed on until late last year. He says the EV engineers keep a happy face on in front of their management but not for him. Says the soon to be put out to pasture Toyota CEO best represented what the engineers were thinking — hybrids were much better than EV’s. So that Toyota CEO will be forced to retire on April 1, 2023 and an EV lover will take his place. An Interesting choice of days.
My full article on this subject:
Honest Climate Science and Energy: Article Expanded on Wednesday February 15: An inside view of electric vehicles from an engineer who was designing them
Some engineers expect their industry to require large subsidies from the goobermint. I miss the old days when auto manufacturers used to oppose new government mandates. Now they are passive sheep. An interesting article on the sheep is here:
A Look Back at When They Fought Back – EPautos – Libertarian Car Talk (ericpetersautos.com)
I am astounded by the manufacturer’s compliance with the push for EV’s, they must surely realize that this will mean the eventual demise of their business. If I were the CEO of Ford or GM, I would be preparing to switch production to something that will be in demand after 2030. Candles, maybe.
“I am astounded by the manufacturer’s compliance with the push for EV’s”
They probably all hope to be first-to-market with The New Thing™. Or equivalently, they are terrified someone else will introduce The New Thing and they won’t have one.
It’s the same impulse that motivates development of self-driving cars. They reckon the first one to market will get rich and the rest will go bust.
Is there a market? I guess we’re about to find out.
[Edited to fix a typo]
You have to admit, Musk, played a smart hand, in conning gov’ts to go for BEVs.
They believe that as long as all manufacturers are being hampered by the same government regulations, they will be able to survive.
Not only that but that the same government regulations act as a barrier to entry to potential competitors. Existing businesses love regulations that serve as a barrier to entry.
Internal Combustion Vehicles!
“(A smaller electric motor would not save much money, so fast acceleration”
A prescription for disaster in high-density traffic and wet/ice/snow covered roads. Just talk to some owners of crotch-rocket motorcycles about how easy it is to get in trouble on roads during bad conditions.
“From an electrical engineer who was working on a 2026 EV program until he retired in late 2022“
“I retired in 2005. But my last contact inside stayed on until late last year.”
Um, do you see the contradiction?
Add to all of the above the collection of road taxes on gasoline. As ICE is phased out, what funds the roads? The EV’s will have to be taxed. So…
Price of electricity rises due to charging demand
Price of electricity rises more due to road taxes
Price of electricity rises due to the expense of running a grid with renewables
At some point the market share if EV’s gets high enoug that subsidizing them ALL would bankrupt the country, so the price of the EV’s goes up, and…
It also becomes ruinous to subsidize more and more renewables so the price of electricity goes up even more…
All easy to predict. No one in power will listen until it all comes crashing down.
In the UK ICEVs pay Vehicle Excise Duty (road tax) and Fuel Duty which bring in £37 billion pa to the Treasury. EVs are currently exempt from both these charges. This will inevitably have to change in the not too distant future.
The purpose of subsidies are to transfer money from those who work to the politically well connected.
You dimwits, do you really think the plan is for the non-elites to drive in private cars in the future? No, no, no, no! The great reset will have us crowding into public transport, not crowding out the important folks at charging stations.
What do you think the 15 minute community idea is intended to train us all for?
Public transport? In the UK, if you get a bus or train to turn up, you’re lucky.
Where I live in the US, there is no public transit within 10 miles. That is long walk.
And I am in the most populated county in my state.
Perhaps EVs would seem more attractive to the average buyer if the current owners didn’t drive so slowly. I can’t tell you how many times a day I find the slow poke blocking traffic is in an EV or a Prius.
These are my requirements for a personal vehicle.
Does anyone know an EV that meets those very basic requirements?
I haven’t even mentioned cost!
That’s a crucial point. Normally sales are generated in any market by offering a product that exceeds the performance of the product that it seeks to replace. It launches at a higher price but one that is perceived by the customer to be worth the extra benefits that come with it.
In the case of EV’s the industry is foolishly obsessed with trying to sell products at a higher price which confer no real benefits to the buyers and actually require compromises by them to even use.
Car ads on TV in the U.K. are now exclusively for EVs but It will end in tears for Ford et al.
Gotcha covered…
These are my requirements for a personal vehicle.
1) It must be practical and able to multi task.
…Current EVs can multitask, they Charge and Burn at the same time
2) It must have a range of at least 400 miles
…Current EVs can travel almost 700 miles a day on a car transport
3) It must be able to operate in all weather conditions
…Current EVs can operate in Wind, Rain, Snow, Heat just at a reduced range (unless in the back of a diesel powered car carrier)
4) It must be economic to own and run
…Current EVs are reasonably economical to own and run just have 1 car instead of 2
5) It must be four wheel drive
…Current EVs can be equipped with 1 motor per tire giving 4WD though doubling the copper requirements
6) It must have room for four adults and luggage
…Current EVs have room for 4 ‘Dolts and carry on bags (in their laps)(luggage handled)
7) It must be capable of being maintained/repaired across European borders.
…Hmmm
8) It must be possible to refuel at any time when necessary
…Current EVs can be refueled anytime when needed, at home over 20 hours @ 120V
9) It must be environmentally sound, i.e. low noise, low weight, low emission.
…Current EVs??? Yeah, Riiiight … emissions are dependent on what feeds the grid
10) It must be relaxing to drive without any anxious thoughts about reliability.
…OOOOKKKK might add Range Anxiety just don’t tow anything heavier than a Honda Pull Start for extended range
Does anyone know an EV that meets those very basic requirements?
I haven’t even mentioned cost!
Since they cost the same as 2 cars just buy one
Ha Ha, I particularly like the multi task ability to charge and burn at the same time….
Most EVs are priced well above the average car, making the dollars-and-cents assessment even tougher for most Americans. Throw all of those numbers together and that tells me that less than 15% of U.S. drivers can afford a battery-powered set of wheels.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-18/electric-vehicles-are-out-of-reach-for-most-u-s-consumers#:~:text=Most%20EVs%20are%20priced%20well,battery%2Dpowered%20set%20of%20wheels.
Is anyone asking will the supposed transition make any significant difference to CO2 emissions?
On any typical grid, adding load, as evs must do is met by dispachable generation, not by renewables or nuclear as they run at maximum available output all the time. Most dispachable generation is fossil fuelled. The losses between generation and discharging the battery are very high.
Unless grids can significantly decarbonise, which is slow to implement as installed capacity gives around 30% actual output on average, there can be little if any CO2 reduction? Also there is the practical limit to how much renewable generation a grid can have and remain stable?
From what I have seen, calculations of ev emissions use average grid emissions per unit of generated power. This is wrong and very inaccurate for the above reason and flatters evs (and heat pumps).
This period in history will forever be known as The Age of Irrational Thinking.
No EVs will never be practical, not efficient or cost effective means of transport of people or products.
Where is the energy supply for charging stations going to come from? What will be the source of the electricity and how will an aging and obsolete power grid sustain the demand? What will become of spent batteries?
All valid points, but no mention of the Aptera. I ordered one. The idea of adding forty miles by just parking it in the sun was very appealing. I live in rural Texas and sun is easy, and forty miles is less than my typical day.
Conventional automobiles powered electrically will not be the future, but small vehicles with solar panel exteriors are a different animal.
A 3-wheeled plastic box that can carry two people and maybe a bag of groceries. No prizes for guessing what 2 letters will be added to the name.
https://aptera.us/
Heavier, more expensive cars. No thanks.
Also, you have to keep the car clean from grime, dust, bird droppings, etc.
Any scratches or abrasion is going to cause the efficiency of those cells to drop.
Solar cells are brittle, and automobile is a high vibration environment, cracked cells are useless cells.
Solar cells are at their most efficient when light is hitting them perpendicular to their surface. Get away from perpendicular and efficiency drops off rapidly. Only a tiny fraction of the cells will be receiving sunlight perpendicularly.
You need to have many cells in series in order to get voltages high enough to be usable. If anyone of the cells in a string break, the entire string is useless.
If you think body work is expensive now, wait until that body work consists of solar cells.
Adding 40 miles per day from the amount of light that hits your car? Dream on.
Sorry, but those aren’t “the future” either – unless you want your “future” to be akin to a dog that spends its life tied up on a short leash.
This doesn’t look real. There are no specs for the Vehicule. I it just a three wheel golf cart?
“All valid points, but no mention of the Aptera”
Call me skeptical, but I don’t put much faith in a company that has already been liquidated once just before their product was “ready” to hit the streets (the Aptera 2e back in 2011).
That said, the concept of a solar powered car does have some appeal as a car for the niche of people who commute to work only to have their car sitting unused in a sunny parking lot all day before heading home.
and I am seeing reports that the EMF from being in a EV is off the charts – Dr.Mercola notes that EMF from 5G damages mitochondria whch provides energy for the body
William,
Wait until someone tells the lads, sitting on a huge battery with potential EMF damage to sperm count is real, then watch what happens to sales.
I have no idea if that is a real issue or not.
Since the only method left for generating reliable electricity after the Barry crime spree is natural gas, it takes about two times as many BTU’s of natural gas as are in a gallon of gasoline to generate enough electricity to go the same distance in an EV. A significant loss of energy occurs by charging a battery. If the electrical vehicle push was real someone would be talking about installing a charging while driving system on major thorough fares.
With the Tesla M3 first hitting Australian shores in 2019 it’s clear after 4 years many have come off lease and used numbers for sale have been climbing rapidly in last few months with 575 for sale on the popular Carsales-
Tesla Model 3 cars for sale in Australia – carsales.com.au
Now they paid $66000 plus ORC for them new and here’s what Redbook say they’re worth depending on the kms range-
2019 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus Auto (redbook.com.au)
You’ll notice the ones trying to get around $50k for them are predominantly private sellers. No doubt because they’re battling to get $40k trade-in for them. Selling privately at $40-$45k cash is tough as most will have a trade-in to consider. So those private asking prices have been coming down as they sit there for months while new Tesla supply has caught up with demand and goodbye FOMO.
Now for the kicker. If instead you bought a 2WD Toyota RAV4 hybrid Cruiser for $42000 plus ORC back in 2019 and now you want to sell or trade it in-
2019 Toyota RAV4 Cruiser Auto 2WD (redbook.com.au)
Trouble is you have a 2 year wait for its replacement so why Toyota aren’t auctioning them off the line globally along with their other popular hybrids beats this market man. Best way for Toyota to command all the inputs they require quickly to satiate the high rollers and get these popular cars ultimately to Mr and Mrs average sooner rather than the ridiculous queue now.
The latest Costco flyer has a brief article on car tires. A sidebar article about electric vehicles notes:
The sidebar notes the Michelin tires they sell have stiffer rubber compounds and robust structures to help offset the 20% greater wear.
So, as I see it, EVs require tougher, thus more expensive, tires. Since the tire manufacturers aren’t likely to manufacture EV-only tires, that expense will be applied across their entire line, thus increasing the cost of tires for us ICE vehicle drivers.
But us ICE drivers will get more miles out of our tires. That might offset the cost.
That’s a good point! I hope you’re right.
Stiffer rubber on a lighter car means less handling capability and more stopping distance due to less friction.
Which means more accidents!
What will plow the roads in winter, plow the fields for food, or transport people swiftly across country when we electrify everything?
How big will a D-9 Cat be with a battery with equivalent energy of its diesel?
Then there’s the Oz NEM grid currently running on 79% fossil fuels with wind at 14% at night meaning any EVs charging are really external combustion engined cars.
AEMO | NEM data dashboard
The climate changers are going to have to get a wriggle on with grid firming storage if that’s to change. Dreamers and fantasists.
The change from ICE to EV is not only going to be a change of motor and energy store. Not even a change in energy filling stations. The nature of batteries and charging means the idea of having a vehicle each which sits around doing nothing most of the time is going. We can’t have as many batteries as there are cars now – not enough copper, lithium, etc. So EVs are going to have to be used 24/7. This means car sharing. When you want to drive somewhere, go to the pool park where your charged car will be waiting for you.
So in other words “You will own nothing, be stuck in a 15 minute bubble, and be happy”.
Yeah, right; good luck selling that vision of the future.
There is an aspect of the comparison of free-market funding and placement of fueling stations vs government operations not mentioned by the Contrarian.
A government station, with no competition, will mindlessly continue it’s narrowly defined and mandated “mission” come “Hell or High Water with no incentive to innovate processes or to change business focus. (e.g. US Postal Service, Amtrack etc).
More that a decade ago, gas station owners realized that the narrow margins on the sale of gasoline (because of competitive pressures) were not sufficient to maintain a profitable business.
So initially some “maverick” realized that by combining gas sales with a 7-11 convenience store they could make ends meet. It did not take long for the industry to follow, such that today’s gas stations typically have many more pumps than they used to and clearly are profitable by virtue of how many new stations are continuing to pop up in new locations.
Can you imaging what we would have today if say by EO Obama had “federalized” all gas stations and put the administration of gasoline vending under central leadership and government worker operation?
used to be having a drivers license was a status symbol for kids ; now not having a drivers license is cool . combined with rising prices and faltering wages maybe auto sales overall will decline ? this would certain please the woke and wef types
So I doubt central planners considered what would happen if they ban the sale of gas powered cars. If this absurd policy actually comes to pass in California there would be a surge in used car prices and used cars from all the other states would be imported to meet demand. Welcome to Cuba.
What’s nice about the USA is that each state is an experiment. If California bans ICE, and makes cars in general hard to use, it will drive some people and business away, but it will attract others in. I’d love to live somewhere where I don’t need a car, and can cycle or scoot or train or carpool safely. But if that’s not you, there’s always Texas I suppose.
I keep hearing people talk about not needing a car. When pinned down they always resort to “I can use Uber” or “I can rent a car”. There isn’t any place *anywhere* you can live without a vehicle, even if it is just going to the local clinic because of the flu. Not many clinics in the high density downtown areas of large cities!
well, those who live in the big cities can probably get by without driving/renting/ubering a car, as most things they want are in easy walking distance and public transportation (bus/train) is a viable option. Anyone who lives outside the big cities, on the other hand, are simply lying to themselves if they believe they don’t need a car.
So, your California doesn’t need a car? Where do you live? If you think anywhere in Kali doesn’t need a car, you are deluded.
“ I’d love to live somewhere where I don’t need a car”
Then you obviously wouldn’t love living anywhere outside of a big city.
“and can cycle or scoot or train or carpool safely”
Well, that leaves out the big cities as well. Not much “safely” with the homicide and crime rates that most of the major cities have been experiencing lately.
I just drove the 1,000 miles from Anderson, IN to Daytona Beach, FL. Saw only one EV, a Tesla, all that way.
Lots of good reasons it’s not going to happen.
The biggest one being “the product sucks.” EVs have inadequate range that gets worse when you need it most, take eons to get to 80%of that overstated range relative to ICE refueling, and self-ignite into inextinguishable fires.
I’ll drive ICE cars till I’m dead.
Slightly off-topic but it might cause a smile:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/p-o-ferries-spends-230m-on-hybrid-ships-that-cannot-be-charged-at-dover-or-calais/ar-AA17XypW?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=675cbd29e305457ba693cb47ce2d2584&ei=5
So P&O sack 800 employees to save costs then spend £285m in China on part – electric powered ships that cannot be charged at either end of the ferry route for which they were purchased. What was that about green industry creating millions of new jobs ?
How long would it take to recharge, I wonder? I have never been on a cross channel ferry, but I have been on the Isle of Wight ferries many times as my brother lives over there. Those ferries stay in port long enough to offload, refuel and reload, then they’re off on the return journey as they have a schedule to keep, rather like a bus service.
The “Green Dream”.
The reality will be if the grid goes “green” (pinwheels and mirrors) and cars and trucks and railroads and ships and planes go “green”, No one will go anywhere on 4 wheels. No produce or products from more than a few miles away. (15-minute cities?) No need for passports unless you’re willing to take a long walk. (Who will be able to make your bicycle to peddle across the border?.)
My thoughts on EVs is they will end up being a niche type of vehicle, not unlike a motorcycle or a rag top convertible. Or perhaps like a sports car….. There will always be people who will buy these kinds of vehicles (and always have) but they will never be the dominant type of vehicle. They will be more popular in some places than others, for mostly obvious reasons.
All of these vehicles have their fans, despite their drawbacks. But also, pretty much everyone who has one also has a down to earth practical vehicle that they drive to work every day. The motorcycle, the convertible, the sports car and the EV stay in the driveway or garage all week and only come out when the weather is nice and their owners just want to tool around town…
Some things I’ve noticed about EVs in my area (mostly Teslas at this point, as they are easy to spot). One, I only see them in the “nicer” parts of town and only parked in higher end shopping areas. Two, I can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone with a Tesla have children or pets along for the ride. Never seen one waiting to pick up junior at the local school in the afternoon….
This tells me that they are very much like the aforementioned vehicles – in other words, they aren’t the good old family car. And IMO, they (not just Teslas, but other EVs as well) never will be. They will always be second (or third) vehicles. John Q Public will drive his Honda or Toyota ICE car to work every day and take the Tesla out on the weekend when the weather is good.
Even if they somehow miraculously get cheaper, their limitations will still render them as niche vehicles.
If 2019 Tesla M3 buyers are now grappling with serious depreciation problems trying to update(vis a vis Toyota hybrid owners) there’s more signs of niche market for EVs in the Antipodes. The second drop of Hyundai EVs has realised buyer fatigue-
Tech chaos with Hyundai’s latest EV drop left nearly half Ioniq 5s and 6s unsold (thedriven.io)
Then there was the final delayed arrival of the BYD Atto3 SUV pre-orders into Oz last year with the longer range version coming in under $50k drive away. A cheap rival for the similar earlier MG ZSEV before a price rise of $3k for new year orders. However in NZ where the BYD had been introduced much sooner it’s clear what happens once early FOMO disappears at the cheapest end of the EV market-
BYD offers free home chargers in NZ as EV demand appears to weaken (thedriven.io)
Tsk tsk the Chinese aren’t cutting quality corners in order to get the price of EVs down to more affordable levels are they?
BYD Atto 3’s discovered with worrying rust issues – YouTube
We’ll see with your expensive ECEs climate changers as you can’t subsidise everyone into them along with their refuelling stations-
Can Electric Car Charging Be A Business? (forbes.com)
Dreamers and fantasists or stop hogging the bong.
Last time I drove US 54 from Las Cruces to Santa Rosa NM there was snow on the ground. It is a long, lonely stretch of road passing through desert. No way in hell any sane person would take an EV out on that road in those conditions.
In fact the only place I see EVs on the road are near population centers or in the places where there are reasonable short runs between them.
IOW the very people signaling their ” climate virtue” by driving an EV are in fact doing the opposite because, the places most use their EVs for their daily commutes and errands have public transportation!
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/broken-machines-long-waits-reality-charging-electric-vehicle/story?id=97389275
Many redditors agree:
https://www.reddit.com/r/technews/comments/11dcj9k/electric_vehicle_drivers_get_candid_about/
Once gas vehicles are banned or gasoline gets prohibitively expensive ($5/gallon aucks byt is not prohibitive), central planners won’t need to worry about lack of resources for car batteries… for the “good of the planet” they will ban private car ownership (or make it wicked expensive, which essentially makes it non-existent) for most individuals and will tell you to use the “awesome” public transit system they have created… taking away your freedom is a feature, not a flaw.
I am quite reluctant to post about EVs, which is a shame because I own one and know quite a bit about them. However, EVs are a topic that makes people say ridiculous things both pro and con, and I don’t have the energy for the silliness.
So, are you going to post something or not?
I don’t own one. For where i live (north Mojave Desert) I think an EV is pretty limited. I do see a thin stream of them going through (actually, I see them sitting at the chargers) on their ways north or south on I395. And, of course, for every EV I see heading through there are 99 ICE vehicles doing the same. I have a second home up in the (cold) mountains that I split my time at. I figure on a warm day a Tesla could make the round trip. But not much further, and I like to go further. Or I go out to Panamint and Death Valley, and other places that you can’t take an EV without some careful consideration. I could drive any *ANY* car around locally. Traffic is light, and there are lots of well off locals driving old beaters around town. I would rather flog an old Hilux around than a new 50K+ EV.
So, does my situation fit into your experience?
I consider EVs to be niche vehicles, but the niche has expanded as the batteries have gotten larger. Your description of your circumstances sounds like you’re not a good candidate for one. I’m not the EV salesman. If you don’t want one, you shouldn’t be required or pressured into having one.
My longstanding complaint is with both sides for treating this as a cause. To me, they’re just cars with a different system for moving them. I’m not stupid enough to even begin to think of denying the politics, yet my point remains.
EVs are viable for most urban areas, and to some extent in rural areas. I don’t see them as total replacements for gassers unless and until the chemistry changes to dramatically improve battery energy density — at a reasonable cost. Reduced range with loads, hills, and cold, can be solved through more energy density.
I don’t expect that to happen for the foreseeable future, but we shall see. Bottom line: EVs aren’t saviors or the devil. They’re simply battery-operated cars with electric motors. The large majority of the commentary is ridiculously overheated and foolish.
Kartik Gada would beg to differ. Cheers –
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuRX67CJhaOT98Jdjh85CEQ/featured
A quick session with ChatGPT (Assistant) reveals that to electrify the cars for just the US, we would consume the entire lithium mining output of the entire earth for the next 40 years (!). And this assumes lithium is used for nothing else. It also reveals that each state will need two new nuclear power plants to provide the needed electricity bump. I used averages, so these were very back-of-the-napkin calculations, but I was allowing Assistant to use very conservative numbers. I didn’t even bother to include the carbon costs of all this new mining and construction. What a crazy delusional world we live in.
The weird thing was, when Assistant gave me these numbers, it knew how bad this is, and it editorialized that perhaps there would be advances in technology to vacate this sorry reality. For example, it said that “sustainable mining” might make the difference. Gads.