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A week ago I wrote about a Hertz President Circle member charged $277 for returning a rented Tesla without filling it with gas. That’s the second-most Hertz thing ever, after getting arrested because the rental company reported the car you rented stolen. And just like getting arrested just for being a Hertz customer – and Hertz refusing to admit its mistake lest the police stop believing them when they file false police reports – appears to be anything but a one-off. Being charged exorbitant rates for not filling up the gas on an electric vehicle seems to be a systemic...

Were one to listen to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, or Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, one might come away with the impression that electric vehicles (EVs) are so popular, the government’s intention of mostly replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with EVs by 2030 was a foregone conclusion. After all, the Mummified Meat Puppet Administration (MMPA) tells us they’ll build a half million fast chargers across America by then to handle the load, and they’ve allocated $7.5 billion we don’t have to that noble endeavor. Confronting Secretary Pete with the fact that in two years his bureaucracy has managed to build...

President Biden has repeatedly told the American public he's going to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations by 2030—and he even signed the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which allocated a whopping $7.5 billion toward the effort. (And people ask, why is inflation so high?)However, like many of Joe’s initiatives, it isn't working out so well.Buttigieg Flails Trying to Explain Why Only 8 EV Charging Stations Have Been Built by Biden AdminTransportation Secretary “Mayor Pete” had a variety of excuses, telling CBS' "Face the Nation" host Margaret Brennan in late May that, “Now, in order to do a charger, it's...

Originally, Ford had said in 2021 that it would start production in 2025. Full production at a Ford EV factory in west Tennessee that was to deliver the company’s F150 Lightning electric pickup truck is being delayed. State Sen. Page Walley, a Republican, told the "Tennessee Outlook" full production of the vehicle line was being pushed back by nine months as a result of a “read on the economy.” Ford said in 2021 that it would start production in 2025. Now the electric pickup trucks aren’t expected to be delivered to dealerships until 2026, according to the "Outlook." Ford lost...

Study reveals nearly half of US EV drivers want to return to ICE cars and nearly one-third, globally. The media is baffled.

Across the U.S., thieves have been targeting electric-vehicle charging stations, intent on stealing the cables, which contain copper wiring DETROIT -- Just before 2 a.m. on a chilly April night in Seattle, a Chevrolet Silverado pickup stopped at an electric vehicle charging station on the edge of a shopping center parking lot. Two men, one with a light strapped to his head, got out. A security camera recorded them pulling out bolt cutters. One man snipped several charging cables; the other loaded them into the truck. In under 2½ minutes, they were gone. The scene that night has become part...

General Motors is trimming its expected sales and production of all-electric vehicles this year, as U.S. adoption of EVs occurs slower than expected. GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said the company now expects production of 200,000 to 250,000 EVs this year, down from a previously announced range of 200,000 to 300,000. ... Jacobson said GM expects EVs to make up 8% of U.S. sales industrywide this year. That’s lower than many other auto analyst forecasts, which expect EVs to represent around 10% of industry sales in 2024.

Just before 2 a.m. on a chilly April night in Seattle, a Chevrolet Silverado pickup stopped at an electric vehicle charging station on the edge of a shopping center parking lot. Two men, one with a light strapped to his head, got out. A security camera recorded them pulling out bolt cutters. One man snipped several charging cables; the other loaded them into the truck. In under 2½ minutes, they were gone. The scene that night has become part of a troubling pattern across the country: Thieves have been targeting EV charging stations, intent on stealing the cables, which contain...

This announcement out of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin's office yesterday is pretty cool news. In 2021, under the benevolent eye of uber-prog Democratic black-face aficionado Gov Ralph Northam, the completely Democratic-held VA legislature decided to commit the state to follow the California emission standards, which, as everyone knows, are tougher than the federal ones. Progs of a feather flock together. In 2022, doubling down on their infinite wisdom, VA lawmakers saw fit to impose what's known as CA's Advanced Clean Car II regulations on their fellow Virginians. In essence, what that was going to do was impose a 100% EV...

25 refrigerators. That’s how much the additional electricity consumption per household would be if the average US home adopted electric vehicles (EVs). Congressman Thomas Massie—an electrical engineer—revealed this information while discussing with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, President Biden’s plan to have 50% of cars sold in the US be electric by 2030. The current and future grid in most places will not be able to support each home running 25 refrigerators—not even close. Just look at California, where the grid is already buckling under the existing load. Massie claims, correctly, in my view, that the notion of widespread...

25 refrigerators. That’s how much the additional electricity consumption per household would be if the average US home adopted electric vehicles (EVs). (Article cross-posted from International Man.) Congressman Thomas Massie—an electrical engineer—revealed this information while discussing with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, President Biden’s plan to have 50% of cars sold in the US be electric by 2030. The current and future grid in most places will not be able to support each home running 25 refrigerators—not even close. Just look at California, where the grid is already buckling under the existing load. Massie claims, correctly, in my view,...

Just over 1,000 new electric cars were sold here in May, down over 39% on the same month last year. This is the fourth month in a row that new EV sales have dropped. New figures from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) show that just over 10,000 new EVs have been registered across the country so far this year, down almost 22% on the same period in 2023. Petrol cars continue to lead the new car market, with a share of over 33%, followed by diesel at 23%, hybrid (petrol electric) at around 20%, electric at just...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans still aren’t sold on going electric for their next car purchase. High prices and a lack of easy-to-find charging stations are major sticking points, a new poll shows. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they would be at least somewhat likely to buy an EV the next time they buy a car, according to the poll by The Associated Press, while 46% say they are not too likely or not at all likely to purchase one. The poll results, which echo an AP-NORC poll from last year, show that President Joe Biden’s election-year plan...

Flames from an electric vehicle that caught fire overnight damaged some power lines and scorched a home in the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. The fire was reported around 2 a.m. on Rinaldi Street near Haskell Avenue. Firefighters found flames engulfing a Mercedez-Benz, which proved to be difficult to put out. The electrical nature of the fire made it so intense that firefighters requested additional resources, Stringer News Service KNN reported. Flames from the burning vehicle spread to a nearby home and burned some power lines in the area. It was unclear if power was affected at any of...

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg struggled Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation to explain why the Biden administration has only manged to build “seven or eight” electric vehicle (EV) charging stations thus far. As Breitbart News has noted, while the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allocated $7.5 billion for EV stations, as part of building a national EV charging infrastructure, no EV charging stations had been built by the end of 2023.

“We’re facing an unfunded, $1 trillion mandate that carries enormous consequences for the American consumer.” At least that’s what Chris Spear, American Trucking Associations President and CEO has to say about one D.C. diktat coming down from on high in particular, and that is the one mandating that the American trucking industry bend to EPA rules requiring all electric fleets and production lines.Here’s the context, from March of this year:On March 29, 2024, Good Friday, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rolled out its new electric truck mandate, which will require that electric semi-trucks make up an increasing share of manufacturer...

High purchase prices are a major barrier to the wider adoption of electric vehicles. A significant portion of this cost comes from expensive batteries. However, in recent years, automakers have been employing an advanced manufacturing technique known as gigacasting. This method helps offset the high cost of batteries, simplifies production, and reduces the weight of EVs. Nissan will follow Tesla, and several other carmakers like Toyota, Hyundai, and Ford, in adopting this technology. The brand aims to reduce the costs of EV parts by 10% and slash weight by 20%, Automotive News reported. Nissan's EVs using gigacasting are expected to...

Government scientists have shown that they can filter the precious metal from the state's shale gas wastewater: pulling tons of lithium per day, with little left behind. They concluded that Pennsylvania alone could produce nearly half of the total US demand for lithium — starting in the first year — supplying this key compound that's needed to power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles to solar panels. A project on this scale could make Pennsylvania a rust-belt Saudi Arabia, ending US dependence on lithium from China, which now controls 90 percent of the market. People compare it to the Gold...

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found that pedestrians are twice as likely to be hit by an electric or hybrid car than by a gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicle. The scientists have hypothesized that the relatively quiet operations of an electric vehicle as well as high pedestrian density in noisy urban areas could be major reasons. The study uncovered a pedestrian casualty rate of 5.16 per 100 million miles driven for electric and hybrid vehicles, more than double the 2.4 per 100 million miles recorded for traditional gasoline-powered cars.

Electric vehicle (EV) maker Lucid Motors announced that the company would be laying off staff in a bid to lower expenses amid a slowdown in the market. The layoffs will affect 6% of its workforce, equating to around 400 employees, and will trim from all employee levels, including leadership and mid-level management, according to a filing submitted Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Lucid is one of several EV makers to announce layoffs in recent months as consumers decline to adopt the product at the rate expected. The company estimates that it will have to pay out between...