Posted on 02/24/2023 4:19:45 AM PST by MtnClimber
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.
Bingo
Actually they are better batteries. I'm 100% against the Dims forcing EV's onto people. But to say EV batteries aren't better than they use to be is ignoring the obvious improvements and makes our arguments sound like their full of lies like the arguments Dims make. My EV gets about 200 miles driving highway speeds while keeping the charge range between the recommended low (15%) to the recommended high (80%). And it charges from that low to high in 10-15 minutes at the fast chargers. Obviously the battery tech has improved greatly compared to just 5 or 10 years ago.
But the best way to reduce price is to get rid of the tax incentives and mandates. Government messes up EV's like they mess up everything else government "helps". The tax incentives artificially inflate prices. As does the promised mandates (which are always in the future, but that's another topic). The same with chargers. Let the free market set up chargers -- there's money for entrepreneurs to make from it if the government would quit threatening to set up government chargers.
If you were an entrepreneur thinking about setting up a charger to make money (especially if you had an already existing consumer establishment like a store or restaurant for EV owners to spend money in while they also spend money charging), the main drawback would be worrying about the next Volkswagen settlement creating Electrify America 350kW chargers just a mile away from your new charger, with many EA customers getting free charging for a year or two after purchasing an EV. Stuff like that is suppressing chargers from springing up in many places like gas stations did after ICE cars became a thing.
In a free market for both car types and energy sources there's enough rare-earths in the U.S. for the few people who'd buy EV's willingly, and enough oil for the ICE car drivers (of which I'm one too). Prices for cars would be down and energy to drive them would be down. Government messing up the free market is the enemy to both types of car owners. Unfortunately, most EV owners don't see that. They see the government as the only possible savior against an ICE generated warmageddon.
Electric Vehicles will be part of the total as determined by the Market. No other company can compete with Tesla. At Present world wide Tesla is making a new vehicle every 40 seconds. All of the EV producers out side of China together can’t do that.
The competition is going to be between Tesla EV’s and Toyota Hybrids. All of the other companies out side China will be on lookers trying to keep up.
The hoopla about all EV’s is a crude effort to draw a salary for a few published words
Depends on the trip. Leaving Alabama and going to different parts of Texas are example trips like you describe where there are few charging stations and it's best to take my ICE pickup. But driving from Alabama all the way up into the New England states are routes with many fast chargers to make stopping to charge easy breezy. Especially if my wife is with me and wants to stop every 200 miles or so anyway to walk around and stretch her legs. Thus, a 15 minute charging stop every 200 miles, on a trip with my wife with me in that direction is a good example for taking our EV.
But no trips in the EV to the northeast in the winter. LOL
Depending on your situation, if you're married and need 2 cars anyway, having both an EV and an ICE car might work as well for you as it does for us. Instead of it being a mutually exclusive decision like the Dims make car types (and everything else for that matter), why not have one of each and have the best of both worlds?
By the way, that's the basis for just about all political arguments in the U.S. The Dims frame just about everything as mutual exclusive decisions. They demand we go all in either one way or the other when sometimes the best solution for a family is a combination of options.
"Wall Connector is compatible with Model S, Model 3, Model X and Model Y and is capable of providing up to 44 miles of range per hour of charge, with up to 11.5 kW / 48 amp output, depending on model."
Can you imagine having to pump gasoline for an HOUR, to get 2 gallons of gas (~44 miles, if you've got an SUV or similar)? Also, nut sure how the Tesla Wall Connector is a faster charger than the 240-volt home power outlet, since the wall charger is also 240 volts. But then, I am not an electrician, and for some reason, I can never seem to wrap my head around that whole water analogy to understand volts/watts/amps.
Flaming wrecks everywhere
Exactly, I think an EV and ICE car is the way to go for households that can afford more than one car. Best of both worlds. For households that can only afford one car, ICE is still the best bet.
Oh, I see. You need a 60-amp circuit to get 44 miles per hour of charge. So you’ll need to get a 60-amp circuit installed, because a 20-amp will only get you 12-15 miles per hour of charge. I’d love to see what running flat-out on a 60-amp circuit for 8-10 hours every night does to your electric bill. Actually, I wouldn’t, which is one of the many reasons I’ll never buy an EV.
What kind of torque rush do you get when it is plugged in for hours on end?
I think that's one of the points to the article. If private enterprise saw the potential demand for an infrastructure and services to power EVs, it would be in place and working in very little time.
If such infrastructure and services require government subsidies and "investments," they will arrive in spurts (more infrastructure bills coming through Congress?) and lulls--EV charging stations in many areas will either lie dormant, or they'll eventually break down and become unreliable. The EV "revolution" will never happen if left to government dependency.
Hydrogen? That’s a howler.
Even though it’s a great rocket fuel, handling and storing it is such a hassle that Elon Musk passed it over for methane.
The reasons for winding up with ICE vehicles running on gasoline and diesel have not changed, nor have physics and chemistry.
Switching to something else is a climb up a greasy pole.
Also keep in mind that a 60-amp circuit with both legs (240v) is potentially 4x the current draw of a 110v 30-amp circuit (twice the amps on twice the number of feeder lines).
This is something I've been saying for a while. If government were truly serious about leading an EV revolution, they would open up permits for additional nuclear plants. That's the only "clean" energy that could reliably produce enough power to support all the EV cars on the road.
I have never had an EV so I can only imagine it would be like waiting in line at the driver's license office...every day.
You can always spend $120,000 restoring that 1964 Chevrolet Impala.
Kakistocracy...?
Isaiah Chapter 3:1-5
1 For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,
2 The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
3 The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
Your statement is why a Plug in Hybrid seems to make the most sense to me. A current example of that is the Toyota Rav4 Prime.
It has an EV battery that allows about 40 miles. Perfect for running to the grocery store and back. However, IF that errand trip turns out to be 50 miles the car switches over to the 4 cylinder engine. This engine also operates as a hybrid with the brakes recharging the battery system every time you come to a stop.
That will take some major advances in technology. So far, EVs as a whole just suck.
I’ve been seeing more Teslas around metro Atlanta lately but by more I’m talking 3-4.
But if you live in the southern half of the U.S., are married and need 2 cars anyway, and one of your 2 cars is on its last legs and needs replacing soon anyway (as my wife's was last year), and your power rates are relatively cheap, then an EV is worth at least considering.
And since I just said EV's are worth considering for southerners, that's also a good region to consider solar to make yourself more energy independent. On my most recent bill for February (read: bad month for solar because it's winter which is bad for solar) I pulled 594 kWh from the grid. However in the February 2021 bill (the most recent February before I went solar) I pulled 801 kWh from the grid. Thus in the past 2 years I've lowered my grid pull even though I've gotten rid of my large natural gas bill (by making my house all electric in fall 2021) and most of my costs for gasoline at the pump (by doing most of our driving in the EV since summer 2022). Those two things would normally greatly increase my power demand making this February's bill a lot more than February 2 years ago. But the solar system (installed in May 2021 as a trial run then added onto in August 2022) provided 1,182 kWh of free power on this February's bill.
Until a fellow conservative figures out a way for each of us to drill our own natural gas or oil or mine or own coal, probably the best way for us southerners to insulate ourselves from the effects of the Dims trying to control us with energy is to use decentralized solar. It's not perfect, but it gives my family some buffer between us and the Dims' stupid energy policies making their energy less dependable and much more costly. By doing most of our driving in the EV, the energy freedom from our solar is extended into freedom of transportation as well (at least for round trips no longer than 200 or so miles).
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