Posted on 10/31/2022 11:35:07 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Heading into next week’s midterm elections, many Republican candidates are seeking to capitalize on voters’ concerns about inflation by vilifying a key component of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda: electric vehicles.
On social media, in political ads and at campaign rallies, Republicans say Democrats’ push for battery-powered transportation will leave Americans broke, stranded on the road and even in the dark. Many of the attack lines are not true — the auto industry itself has largely embraced a shift to EVs, for instance, and some Republican lawmakers are quick to cheer the opening of EV battery plants in the U.S. that promise new jobs.
But political analysts say the GOP messaging exploits voter hesitancy on EVs that may have put Democrats on the defensive at a time when Americans are especially feeling a financial pinch. EVs cost $65,000 on average, a fact GOP candidates cite.
More than two-thirds of Americans say they are unlikely to purchase an electric vehicle in the next three years, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Democrats are twice as likely to say they plan to purchase one as Republicans, 37% to 16%, respectively.
“There’s still lots of selling to do before EVs catch on with the American people,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and longtime staffer to the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. He described early Democratic messaging suggesting that EVs were an immediate solution to rising gasoline prices as a mistake. “That creates an opening for Republicans in this election, which begins and ends with the economy and inflation.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Most of my cars have been $10,000 and under. I now own a 2016 Honda Accord Sport only because some guy from India ran into my other Honda and totaled it in 2019 and I got some insurance money which I put toward the newer more expensive car ($17,000). Car prices are way up since obama and Biden with the car companies in on it destroying older cars.
No way would I consider paying a minimum of $40,000 or much higher for an electric car that does not have the range and needs you to always worry about charging it with more expensive electricity then gas and knowing that the battery makes the car useless for resale and if you keep it long enough that said battery replacement will be $15,000 and up. Then there are the fires while driving or merely charging.
The socialists are deliberately raising gas and diesel prices to force you into electric vehicles that they will track and control your movements. Meanwhile the economy goes south and prices for everything goes way up and you cannot afford to heat or cool your home just to subsidize electric car owners and insiders who own the solar panels and windmill power plants.
Best post of the day
Ping
Well yes and no. If we had batteries that could recharge as quickly as a gasoline or diesel and would not need changing after 100,000 miles it would be a win-win for everyone, manufacturers included.
But such a battery is not yet commercially available. And very few consumers really want electric cars for this very reason.
It seems like the real reason manufacturers are getting on the electric bandwagon is because they are being forced to do so.
Europe and California will ban petrol cars in just 12 years.
With those two huge markets manufacturers really have no choice but to change.
(We didn’t shoot all the horses when the first few cars were built in 1894)
Ford’s new $11.4B BlueOval battery plant site, in pics the footprint is astounding — there is nothing like seeing the equivalent size of a small city being graded flat in prep for, what, a battery plant? No doubt you can see that thing from space. Oh, the irony.
Ford and GM are just looking at what the government tells them is coming down the road. If I were a CEO of a car company, I would drag my feet making EV's. What's going to happen down the road is the government mandates will change because they have to. We don't have the capacity to even charge this many vehicles for decades.
Many houses today have a car for each parent and a car for each child. Many have 4-5 cars and each would have to be charged and batteried up. Ask an 18 yo if they are willing to give up theirs. IMO, EV won't happen for at least 20 years, even with massive subsidies and disruptions in the economy.
I probably only expressed half my point well.
Its a short sighted (or self serving) move by manufacturers to improve profit, assuming the rest of the world accepts EV’s and the problem of energy is not theirs to solve.
The problem they dont have to deal with is ENERGY. Even with better batteries, it takes the same energy to do the same work. Different methods will have different efficiencies. When you go through the entire cycle of creating, storing, and using the energy, you still cant beat the gasoline engine.
For a gasoline engine, the energy is stored in the petrol, it can remain stored almost indefinitely, and the combustion engine is about 55-60% efficient (if I recall my basic thermodynamics class from 40 years ago.)
For an EV, the electric power must first come from solar (not enough, daylight dependent, 15% efficient), wind (40% eff, weather dependent), nuclear (35% efficient) or hydro (best source at 90% eff but vilified by environmentals), or fossil fuel (40% eff for coal and oil, 55% eff for natural gas). If the electric motor is motor is 85% efficient, and you didnt lose anything to unused capacity on the grid (which you would), the result is still less than 55% overall. I think its much less but the point is you got less work at higher cost. You also 1) lost the ability to travel 450 miles at a clip, with a load, at high speeds due to EV battery limits, 2) lost the ability travel 1000 miles in a day because it cost you half of that travel day to recharge, 3) at some point you create a new enviro-hazard with old batteries.
Newsome has us (Cal) required to be all EV by 2035.
I heard an energy analyst say that we should need about ten nuke power plants to provide the additional electricity that this will require. We currently have zero planned.
California is governed by people with the mentality of children. We need a new fresh water supply and we need electric power plants. They are doing nothing about either.
[Hybrid cars] are a very elegant engineering achievement.
* * * *
Greetings to you, alloysteel, from Japan where my wife and I just picked an apartment in Utsunomiya, an hour’s bullet train ride from downtown Tokyo.
I noticed a lot of hybrid here. And sure enough when I googled it I discovered hybrids are the majority of cars — 60% — in Japan. And that’s opposed to 7% in California.
https://theicct.org/hybrids-break-through-in-the-japan-auto-market/
This city of 500,000 is clear of pollution and remarkably the pedestrian and bicycles are not second-class citizens to cars — as they are in congested cities like Atlanta.
Interestingly, the VOLUME of cars on the road in this city is much lower than you’ll find in the U.S. Railroads are a big deal here. Executive commuting to Tokyo is done by rail rather than car.
Of course, gasoline prices are high and other expenses of having an auto are high. A healthy percentage of cars on the road are boxes on wheels — often with smaller wheels.
And so the effect is that the roads are relatively empty — very little traffic by comparison to U.S. cities.
Even still, Utsunomiya’s local government will soon begin light rail service (San Fran cable cars anyone?) between the big train station — with its high end shopping outlets — and the small city to the east of it.
Transportation innovation and flexibility are a big reason Japan has a vibrant economy.
Aware of ‘why’ our ‘betters’ consider this answer to their
woes only goes to prove neither they, or their ‘ideas’ should
EVER be permitted to exist in this nation of free man, free
America.
Thanks for the ping.
You're right, YOU can do math, and you understand everything that's produced/manufactured has an 'energy signature'. I'm impressed.
You’re right, YOU can do math, and you understand everything that’s produced/manufactured has an ‘energy signature’. I’m impressed.
Woe to the Chevy Volt owners when their battery gives out. Then there is the environmental cost. Mining for lithium and the other rare earths, the toxic waste from the disposed batteries. I’m sure there are going to be huge waste disposal fees for discarded batteries. All in all, I say EVs are going to be a novelty for the foreseeable future.
They have the population density, public behavior, and law enforcement, that makes mass transit work.
A former Musk engineer is working on ways to recycle EV batteries - if he succeeds it could be a game changer. Other than better battery technology we agree - - a novelty.
All in all, I say EVs are going to be a novelty for the foreseeable future.
A former Musk engineer is working on ways to recycle EV batteries - if he succeeds it could be a game changer. Other than better battery technology we agree - - a novelty.
But wait, there’s more. Billions of taxpayer dollars that will be wasted on charging stations that will never be used because they will be in “underserved communities” or vandalized for the valuable metals.
Yikes! Another great point.
Hey, V.K. I tried to make myself brighter. Ouch! :-)
Japan is a country that cares about the environment.
In stores and restaurants, EVERYONE wears masks. The government is NOT requiring masks. So it’s the public at large demanding masks and so companies are responding to that.
And yet, there’s no clamor for all-electric cars. Why?
Is it because the environment is already being protected by hybrid cars and other less drastic measures of protection?
The U.S. elites and bureau cats need to get out of their bubble and look around.
Excited that Musk has bought Twitter. That move may have saved his company because all-electric cars are a consumer fetish that will steadily vanish — especially if the subsidies goes away.
Yes and the Japanese wear cheap ass disposable surgical masks through which most viruses pass through quickly - the one thing I don’t respect about them (and I otherwise respect the Japanese a lot).
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