Posted on 04/28/2021 7:42:21 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
The Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) has informed a Senate Commerce subcommittee on transportation that the Biden Administration’s penchant for electric vehicles is starting to get under its skin. The union is recommending that the United States avoid setting any timeline for the proposed banning of internal combustion vehicles because it might cost a staggering number of jobs.
Ann Wilson, MEMA’s senior vice president of government affairs, said vehicle restrictions were unrealistic before 2040 and would obliterate entire segments of the auto industry without providing concrete assurances that the environment would be improved. While the latter claim can be argued endlessly, the former is pretty difficult to refute.
This is something anyone paying attention to the automotive sector could have seen coming from miles away. As manufacturers began praising EVs for their simplicity and noting how they used far fewer moving parts than their gasoline or diesel equivalents, suppliers should have been asking themselves if the fuel injectors they produce will have a place in an electrically driven society.
But the answer is obviously no. Electric cars generally require fewer components and less labor to manufacture and will undoubtedly result in major changes for the workforce. MEMA estimated losing 30 percent of the supplier industry’s traditional workforce if the United States transitioned over to EVs. That’s hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of good-paying jobs. In 2020, a study by the National Platform for the Future of Mobility (NPM) informed the German government that 410,000 jobs connected with the automotive industry could be lost by the end of this decade under the nation’s current trajectory. American losses would be substantially worse.
MEMA is recommending a mixed approach where manufacturers can continue making ICE’s more efficient while developing hybrid and battery-electric models to a point where they will naturally overtake fuel-burning automobiles as the dominant mode of transportation. It’s still targeting a zero-emissions future, just one that doesn’t require placing massive restrictions on the industry.
Automakers, who stand to benefit from having to pay fewer assembly workers and equipment manufacturers, are more willing to embrace electrification and many have already set targets for ditching products requiring fuel tanks. But it’s not clear how much of that is for show. While digitizing cars plays into the industry’s obsession with monetizing driver data, electrification doesn’t seem profitable in the short term without government help and it seems to shift an incredible amount of the auto sector’s power over to battery companies and energy concerns. We’ve been under the impression that some of the largest manufacturers put on a pro-EV face and frequently support government initiatives just to avoid ruffling feathers and getting slapped with regulations.
While completely ridiculous, appeasement is a fairly common practice with plenty of recent examples. Pipefitting unions backed Joe Biden for president, despite his vow to stop production on the Keystone XL pipeline and put members out of work. So did the United Mine Workers of America, with its leadership embracing a federal energy plan that prohibits coal mining last week. Union boss Cecil Roberts even admitted that it would probably cost the industry jobs but that it was important to be part of the “conversation” and ensure the environmental wellbeing of the planet.
Meanwhile, China is on pace to build several hundred new coalfired energy facilities over the next ten years and shares our air.
UAW leadership, which traditionally endorses Democrat candidates, also backed the Biden administration. But members have been hypercritical of the push toward electrification for years and it’s been a common talking point whenever they go on strike. We’ve only seen this swell with worker’s unions around the world gradually starting to rally around the issue — though it always seems to be the highest-ranking members that are the last to join the cause.
States have also been taking sides, with roughly a dozen governors promising to adopt the Californian proposal to end the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. However they are not just attempting to prohibit sales within their own borders, they would ideally like to see the federal laws put into place that would create national restrictions.
“The U.S. is in danger of losing our competitive edge due to a lack of clear national policies” said Wilson. “For the U.S to be a leader in automotive innovation and transportation, we must work collaboratively to develop a comprehensive national vision and strategy.”
MEMA’s testimony is available here.
Union rank and file are MAGA.
“If you have natural gas, a natural gas generator would be a good way to charge your EV during a power outage.”
for those of us in the country and don’t have access to natural gas, a dual fuel (LP gas/gasoline) might be the trick. such a generator supplied by a 500 gallon or 1000 gallon LP tank may allow one with a EV car to drive around while ICE vehicles sit as the gas stations are closed because of lack of power.
China controls 80% of the global battery market, and almost 100% of the raw materials for EV batteries.
China. The CCP.
> I can’t make my own gasoline, period.
True, gasoline is difficult to synthesize at less than an industrial scale.
However, isobutanol is fairly simple to create and purify via the ABE process, and works well as a drop-in replacement for gasoline in all modern automotive gasoline engines.
Someone with a small farm could make their own butanol to run their cars, but it would probably have problems with the fuel tax laws.
Put them to work building nuclear power plants and upgrading the power grid. Buy Dung’s EV mandates will require both.
In Juneau, for example, there are almost 300 EV owners, and the borough has already placed an order to add an electric bus to its fleet. “
Good for all of them! Now please report back in 3-4 years. I’d seriously like to know the driving stats of some of the cars, especially the bus.
We rarely, if ever get any of that feedback about winter stats, switchbacks to ICE vehicles or any other infrastructure issues.
Here in my neck of the woods. (Wisconsin) The EV’s are stored in the winter. They are Everywhere in the other 3 seasons though. I see fewer hybrids out in winter too. DKW though.
The Tesla battery pack alone contains:
“The most popular battery pack supplied by Tesla contains 7,104 18650 cells in 16 444 cell modules capable of storing up to 85 kWh of energy. In 2015 Panasonic altered the anode design, increasing cell capacity by about 6%, enabling the battery packs to store up to 90 kWh of energy. More recently, Tesla engineers reconfigured the internals of the battery pack to hold 516 cells in each module for a total of 8,256 cells capable of storing a little more than 100 kWh of energy enabling the cars to enjoy a range of over 300 miles.”
Source:
https://evannex.com/blogs/news/understanding-teslas-lithium-ion-batteries
That's just the number of cells, think larger AA battery size...doesn't include the container , battery management system components, internal cell connectors, etc. Then there are the regular car components, suspension, comfort items, body parts, etc. Total way more than number cited.
Granted that max number of assembled components are utilized, but still parts is parts. So that argument doesn't hold.
Good news is that the pine tree air freshener dangles will still have a market.
It’s not about the vehicles.
It’s about the grid.
I guarantee you we’ll have suitable vehicles before we have the grid capacity and infrastructure to supply them.
And consumers will still be screwed.
EV’s, in a truly free-market? I’d be fine with that. But they aren’t the answer to every automotive question. I think there would be on in most near suburban driveways as the daily commuter car. But a lot of families have an SUV or even a Pickup if they’re going to do anything as a family. And forget about EV’s in rural areas. Less practical.
my driveway, my choice...
instead of more mandates, they should eliminate the rules blocking golf carts from city streets.
also, remove safety features, required of automobiles, from the EV’S.
eventually, everything returns to sanity
Please allow me to agree AND disagree with you.
Battery technologies will advance as will the availability of charging locations, but ...
Time to charge comes down to kWh (capacity) of the battery divided by kW of the charging system (rate of charge).
A large ICE has a 100kWH battery, +/-. To charge that in 5 minutes is an impractical volts × amps (watts) number.
Germany is considering deploy 800 +/- V charging stations that will charge a passenger vehicle to full in less than 30 minutes. 800 V AC is “huge” voltage, along with the required amperage. That’s heavy/medium industrial AC supply.
Not impossible, but ...
E.g. even if you upgrade household service to a little over 300 V, ya ain’t getting close to a 5 minute charge time.
Lastly, the thermal effects of a 5 minute charge time to 100 kWh is really something.
Better model is to pull your vehicle into a charged-battery “filling station” and let a robotic arm swap your battery pack.
Correction: ICE should be EV.
We regret the error.
The amount of energy a vehicle needs to travel 500 miles is the same regardless of how fast it is charged (assuming that other factors such as speed, driving style, and environmental conditions are the same). But if you reduce the charge time, say by a factor of 10, you will need 10 times the current (amps) to deliver that amount of energy to the vehicle.
You are dreaming if you think that sort of current capacity, multiplied by millions, will be available any time soon without a massively expensive rebuilding of our energy infrastructure.
While it may well be possible to achieve the charge times you claim, in a practical sense, it isn't going to happen.
That's a business decision. While stationed overseas, we powered the fuel pump from the battery of each vehicle being filled.
Stateside, commercial gas station owners don't want to put in generators because they can't recoup the costs and don't trust the gas jockeys to not burn the place down.
But the UAW went and endorsed the clown.
Solar panels and bird blenders simply can't meet the demand.
Most people living in disaster areas have extra gas on hand. How do you have an extra can of electricity on hand?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.