Posted on 10/29/2025 4:37:58 AM PDT by Red Badger
....and the MSRPs of ICE vehicles will be artificially inflated by every manufacturer for years to come to subsidize the folly of the EV failure....
I think It is important and useful to share those experiences, at least I find them so.
The way I see it though, the problem is, while our electrical grid can handle the level of use educated and dedicated users such as yourself can put on it, it is in no way, shape constructed to provide that volume of energy draw to the users who would be forced to use it.
The fight over the EV mandate by 2035 in California (where I last saw 12% of the vehicles on the road are EV) is ongoing, but the point is they (and other blue states like my own) are fiercely pushing these, even though there are absolutely no plans to upgrade the infrastructure to make it even remotely possible.
No plans (except on paper, possibly) to upgrade the infrastructure that delivers the electricity. No plans (except on paper, possibly) to increase electrical energy generation.
2035 is now ten years away. California, with the largest economy in the United States, cannot supply water for drinking or crops reliably. They cannot provide water to fire hydrants. They are chasing industries out of the state. They are making it impossible to build new energy generation or even upgrade the power infrastructure.
Hell, they have a plan to renovate the State Capitol building which is in various states of deconstruction, and many people feel that project is going to turn out like the idiotic high speed rail system, go tens of billions over budget and never get built.
All this in the largest state economy in the union.
Everyone else is just punting this down the road, the only people who appear to be doing more than cow-farting into the wind when it comes to energy are the people in Trump’s administration, who are fighting tooth and nail with governments like the California state government and being opposed by environmentalists and globalists at every stage, just like those in California.
I use California as an example because they are ostensibly the most ambitious, but if they haven’t begun planning ten years ago to upgrade their energy infrastructure and implementing it, there is zero chance they are going to do that for ten years in the future.
Granted, there could be breakthroughs of some kind in battery or charging technology that would allow you to go further on the road and charge faster, but until those breakthroughs are made and are commercially viable and offered, they are just talk.
Again, I admire your pluck in making this choice for yourself and putting in the effort to make it a reality, but it isn’t going to work your way if another 40% (pulling that out of a hat) registered vehicles in your state go electric without the corresponding upgrades in energy generation or infrastructure upgrades, you may be able to charge at home, since I recall you have spent the time and money to be able to do that, but outside your home range it isn’t going to work for you.
That is a GREAT quote, FRiend...Heinlein knew of what he spoke!
What scares me is an industry that owes its success to capitalism so easily gave in to socialism. All the automakers who acquiesced can go under for all I care.
Simply put? Everyone who WANTS one, HAS one by now.
Why? Multiple reasons:
1) As I said, most charging is done at home.
2) Most home charging is done at the same time, in the wee hours of the night shortly before the EV is needed for the day's drive (i.e. commute to work). This is because EV owners are incentivized to extend longevity of the battery by making it not sit for hours at the recommended "full" charge of 80%. Thus almost everyone sets his EV scheduler to be charged up at the time you drive it away the next morning (maybe half an hour before). Thus, almost everyone's EV will be charging from, say, 2 AM to 6 AM.
3) Unlike the DC fast level 3 roadside charging, the home level 2 charging doesn't have automatic scalability based on power resources. If you're at a fast roadside charger rated for 350kW (my EV does max 240kW so that's the most I expect), your charging may be slower because of not only multiple EV's charging at the same time (i.e. an 8 charger array full of EV's charging), but also if other power demands in the area are draining the grid. In other words, the roadside charging has a bult in protection to keep the grid from being overtaxed by charging (so the grid can still be good for other needs). Home level 2 chargers don't do that.
You're right. I'm a one-off because I pull less power from the grid now (avg 373 kWh / month) than I did before I made my house all-electric and switched our driving to being mostly electric (avg 1,363 kWh / month while I was also buying natural gas and buying a lot of gasoline). So I'm now less of a drain on the common resources of power and natural gas and gasoline. Few people have a mindset of trying to be more self-reliant, certainly not people who believe in almighty government like most EV owners.
You probably know this but ‘Tell It Right’ has written thousands of words to us all justifying his EV purchase. And as you put forth he has every right to his position. But as you also say, we will all be dead and dust before the world is majority %-age EVs. The realities of the physics needed for that utopia are unattainable barring some miraculous discovery of unlimited potential (dilithium crystals ??) ;-)
Where I live in Iowa, we’re starting to see more and more of the gasoline powered Gators on the street. You can buy one for $10-15k, seat four people and drive around town provided you stay in the 35 mph streets.
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