Posted on 01/19/2019 10:58:22 PM PST by SunkenCiv
As we reported just the other day, Tesla quietly hiked rates for Supercharging in most states. Keep in mind that this impacts all Tesla Model 3 owners, as well as owners of new Tesla Model S and X vehicles who purchased their vehicles without utilizing a referral code.
Thanks to hardcore EV fans like Teslanomics’ Ben Sullins, we have an update on how states were affected by the new rate hike, as well as the actual percentage of increase.
As we explained the other day, states like Illinois have seen over a 60 percent increase, from .15/kWh to .25/kWh. States like California that already had higher rates weren’t hit so hard (.20/kWh to .26/kWh).
It turns out that some states saw an increase of over 100 percent, and several saw the 100 percent (doubling) increase.
The states facing the biggest percentage increase include Washington, Oregon, West Virginia, Idaho, and Utah. Washington took the biggest hit, with a 127 percent increase.
Crazy little thing called supply and demand. And those two stories are from March. This is the new one:
Tesla drastically increases Supercharger prices around the world
Fred Lambert
Jan. 18th 2019 8:02 pm ET
https://electrek.co/2019/01/18/tesla-increases-supercharger-prices/
Herein lies the ultimate problem with EVs as they increase their share of the transportation base, how to charge them! Here in California with the confluence of too many people, and a nutcake RAT government, having enough generating capacity to “fuel” our growing EV “fleet” is a burgeoning problem. So the State is playing with a two-edged sword. 1.) The don’t have and don’t want to build the electrical generating capacity to be able to service EVs, But 2.) the continue to encourage people here to buy them to “save the environment!” I guess solar installations may be at least a partial solution. Our son has used a Nissan Leaf EV for a couple of years as a commute vehicle. He coupled that decision with one to install solar on his home. It works. He just got rid of the Leaf and replaced it with a Chevrolet Bolt. I know everyone pisses and moans about GM here, but he tells me that in every respect, the Bolt is way superior to the Leaf. For one thing, the Bolt will go 300 miles on a charge, about twice that of the Leaf. Looking for a “plug” when you are away from home and about out of juice can be stressful. It’s not like looking for a service station.
In the final analysis, the whole thing is about energy. Also, here, in NorCal PG&E is filing for bankruptcy as a consequence of the devastating fires. You can bet that the State is going to act to preserve them, with the “route to preservation” being hiking utility rates.
Every time I look at the morning rush hour, and NPR is pontificating about coal mines, or hydro-electric dams and fish runs, I look around and wonder where all the amps that are supposed to drive all these cars are supposed to magically appear from.
Oops, perhaps EV are only for the Party leadership...
If anyone seriously wants something other than a gas vehicle, a hybrid makes the most sense in all the different ways you’d practically compare.
The entire concept of the law of unintended consequences is lost on the Left particularly the Ruling Class Left.
The Left delights in ridiculing and demonizing industry particularly utility companies.
“The electric company is so cruel turning off the power of people that don’t pay their bills!”. “People have to choose between food and electricity”.
Yes, it is true, the electric company does turn people’s power off if they don’t pay their bill. The electric company has bills to pay as well. If the electric company isn’t payed for their product they can’t pay their creditors and go they go bankrupt.
But this is lost on Leftist states like California. California like other states regulates what PG&E can charge for electricity. Lost on California is the fact that PG&E will try to cut cost so that they can still make a reasonable profit so that their investors don’t sell their stock and lower its market value.
One of the first things to go for an electric utility hurting for cash is tree trimming and right of way maintenance (the land under high tension lines). The consequences of this is that trees grow under the transmission lines. What happens then? Fires.
Trees eventually get tall enough that they will contact transmission lines and those lines will short to ground through a tree setting it ablaze.
Forest fires and burned homes are the result.
If the state won’t permit the electric company charge the consumer enough money to do proper maintenance and still make a profit the company will cut back on maintenance. It is a simple fact of economics. The company will do what is necessary to survive for as long as possible. They will gamble that nothing bad will happen.
The same equally applies to PG&E’s gas lines.
Leftist pandering to popular feelings of animosity to power companies are really to blame for the fires in California.
The only reason for this rise in price is, Tesla is no longer going to eat the cost of electricity for customers, and that is related to the greatly increased sales, thanks to the intro of the Model 3. Tesla's already dropping prices to offset the lower fed rebate amount.
EVs are not zero emission -- they merely move the point source from the tailpipe to some smokestack somewhere. Even photovoltaics have to be manufactured and that takes energy of various sorts, including extraction, processing, and transportation.
The infrastructure buildout will have a bootstrapping effect, however, and once photovoltaics make economic sense (preppers already use 'em, but they ain't cheap) for homeowners (and the word is, stata and local gubmint thugs raise property assessments on homes so equipped), home charging will become practical, and DC without conversion back and forth is a more efficient means of charging the vehicles at home.
Your post 5 relies far too much on facts and logic.
The ultimate goal is for California to take over PG&E.
“Trees eventually get tall enough that they will contact transmission lines and those lines will short to ground through a tree setting it ablaze.”
Well in the most recent Paradise, CA fire, the problem has been identified as the failure of a transmission tower. And the problem here was that the tower was one of a number of towers in the same transmission line that had been identified as structurally unsound. Further information says that the tower in question should have been replaced several years ago, but wasn’t.
For a number of years PG&E has had maintenance issues in both their electric and gas distribution systems.You may have read that they had a conflagration in San Bruno, CA where an entire block of home were destroy by a gas fire which was caused by PG&E’s not making a replacement of an aging Hp gas line. Furthermore, down in Carmel, where we have a second home, in the process of relining the gas lines there, they blew up a house. We found them moving our gas meter from the side of the house beyond the kitchen exit door to the front of that area, which would have blocked egress. The issue was that the meter was located under a kitchen window which could be opened. It had been there causing no problem since the home was built in 1940. When I told them that they could not put the meter where they had relocated, they put it back in the original location, promising to put a vent line on the regulator to get it away from the window. That was three years ago, and they have never installed the vent. At the end of the day, after several lawsuits were settled, PG&E completely repaved our street along with a number of others. They have had bad management for years. Their CEO just resigned. Go figure!
“The infrastructure buildout will have a bootstrapping effect, however, and once photovoltaics make economic sense (preppers already use ‘em, but they ain’t cheap) for homeowners (and the word is, stata and local gubmint thugs raise property assessments on homes so equipped), home charging will become practical, and DC without conversion back and forth is a more efficient means of charging the vehicles at home.”
CA is in the process of legislating mandatory solar installations on all new homes. The other thing that’s going on here is all our high schools have their student parking lots covered with solar arrays. None of this makes economic sense, at least not at the present. They are doing it because just like a dog licking his balls, they do it because they can.
>> If anyone seriously wants something other than a gas vehicle, a hybrid makes the most sense in all the different ways you’d practically compare. <<
Unless you mean a plug-in hybrid, forget it. I get about 40 MPG from my Priuses, close to 50 MPG on the highway. But they’re virtually unserviceable. A brake repair job costs $3,000. Which is too bad, because hybrids create a LOT less wear on the engines.
Now, with my fuel usage patterns, a PHEV (Plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle) would probably get me over 100 MPG, since I’d almost never need to go in gas mode.
As far as why the Left supports people not paying their electric bill and they are against the electric company, the video below explains it. The Left has one philosophy. There are oppressors and the oppressed. That’s it. The world looks simple to them. (The video uses the left’s move against Israel as the example. I remember when the Left was 100% pro Israel.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwaM7F2UVWg
Bad management, as seen from the outside, can be a symptom of lack of resources to do the job right.
A maintenance manager is given a budget every year and he told to decide what to fix on that budget. He must to decide what is most critical and what can wait based on the information available to him.
A company that is making a decent profit can afford to fix more things than one that is struggling.
Is the bad management at PG&E or Sacramento? After watching California slowly implode for several decades, I more than half suspect it is in Sacramento.
That was when Jews were big Democrat donors.
The Jews have since been surpassed by Arabs.
Just go to any city and look at the new hospital additions with Arab names on them and colleges with new Arab studies departments. Both of these sectors of our economies are Democrat strong holds.
Petrodollars are buying the Democrat party and our government.
My big brother had a supercharger on his ‘72 Chevelle. We would take it the Sonic that looked just like that picture and cutie pies on roller skates would bring your milkshake right to your car with a tiny plastic animal perched on the lid.
Can one of those new fangled electronic cars get from KC to Denver on one set of batteries?
“Petrodollars are buying the Democrat party and our government. “
I wasn’t aware of Arab’s giving money, but I am not surprised. What I am aware of is that now America is one of the world’s leading oil producers it is absolutely vital that we convert our economy to zero oil usage in just ten years.
Amazing how that works.
i think the state is fine with the shortage of fuel. They don’t want people freely traveling around anyway, out of their sectors. Too hard to control them when they are all over the place. That was a UN initiative back in the 90s; Agenda 21 I think.
The Petro dollar really has little to do with our dependence on oil. It has to do “forcing” the world to use dollars to purchase oil. That makes the dollar the de facto reserve currency for the world. This insures that the dollar can be inflated, so as to make paying debt back cheaper over time. This is the entire concept behind keeping inflation around 2%.
If we become the worlds largest oil producer, it simply keeps the scheme going.
Sorry to digress off the main topic, but this is important to understand.
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