Posted on 12/25/2023 7:19:12 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
To your point, and from Deep State...
“...New passenger vehicles are 98-99% cleaner for most tailpipe pollutants compared to the 1960s.
Fuels are much cleaner—lead has been eliminated, and sulfur levels are more than 90% lower than they were prior to regulation...”
EV policy isn’t about saving the planet any more than CoupFlu policy is about protecting public health.
EV’s are for local driving and More Money than Brains club members.
Huh?
What does this even mean???
And it’ll be REALLY expensive!
I see now.
Well; golf carts maybe.
So do lights.
As an analogy, if you bought Beanie Babies stuffed animals for the purpose of giving toys to your kids, you might be happy with your purchase. But if you bought them thinking they were good investments in the 1990's, you're unhappy with your purchase. IIRC, the Beanie Babies fad never returned and they're now worth no more than any other old stuffed animal toys.
That's the way I see EV values now. The fad is over and a used EV has much of the same degradation the moment you buy it as gas cars. The shortage of supply in the EV market artificially propped up prices to the point that, for a little while, someone could sell a 6 months used EV for more than he bought it.
Our EV still makes us happy because we're in a good situation for an EV to make sense. It was time to replace my wife's old ICE crossover anyway (in other words don't buy an EV or ICE car if you already own cars that are still good). We drive the EV 26K miles per year, with 16K of those miles charged at home (in other words we save more than enough on gas and oil changes to make the cost of the EV worth it). Our 2nd car is an ICE pickup which is good for our pickup chores and the times my wife and I split up for the day (needing 2 cars to go in 2 different directions) and if we one day decide to drive on a long trip that has few charging options. We also have a bunch of solar for our all-electric home (it's important to me to be more energy self-reliant so that the left has less control over our retirement finances with their warmageddon cult and their sky high energy prices). Last but not least, I like the fact that our two cars are energy diverse so that we don't have all of our transportation eggs are in one energy basket. In other words, if the left makes gasoline hard to come by our too expensive to use regularly (IMHO it's still too expensive) -- we can do must of our driving in the EV. If the left makes power hard to come by or too expensive -- we can do most of our driving in the ICE pickup. If they make both power and gas hard to come by -- we can use the EV at least for local driving because of our solar.
At least, that's my take on practical reasons to get an EV and practical reasons to not get one.
Yup. The public never sees this mess.
True that. When our daughter lived on the gulf coast she said the gas stations near her would be out when the power was out from a hurricane. IMHO self-reliance is more important than the usual arguments of EV vs ICE cars.
I agree with EVO that a backup natural gas generator is more practical than an EV for backup power. However if there's a concern as healy pointed out about a backup generator being too loud, then a battery backup would work for a while. For example, in the past 365 days, 83% of our power has been free from solar and battery backup. Some of that 17% of the power I pulled from the grid through the year was me preparing for upcoming storms by making my batteries charge from the grid to be fully charged in case the grid went down (at the times tornado warnings or snow warnings weren't preceded by sunny weather to fully charge the batteries with solar).
But that's works well only if it's a large battery storage (in my case 92kWh) and if your home doesn't need much power (i.e. I have a variable speed heat pump for cooling and heating the home, a hybrid water heater that runs at only 300W, I duct the cold-air output from the water heater so that it's drawn in by my HVAC to spread through the house to save on A/C from then home heat pump, etc.)
Looking back in hind sight, I should have done those kind of energy improvements on the home long before I sat down and did the math on what it would take to make us more energy self-reliant with solar so that the left has less control over my family with their energy policies. I recommend those kind of energy saving steps for someone interested in being able to power his home with backup power -- they're a two-fer in that an energy efficient home helps a generator run the whole house more efficiently if the house doesn't need much power anyway, and you save in power bills in the long run. Stated another way: spending the money on a small backup generator + home energy improvements might be a better investment than spending money on a large backup generator with no home improvements.
Warm that globe! AC units in igloos forever.
The Generac generators are about as noisy as an AC condenser unit. Noise certainly could be a bigger issue for the portable units..
“Compare to an ICE vehicle. Now you can drive up to 200,000 miles with it.”
And a remarkable percentage of an ICE car is recycleable, and this has been true for decades.
You could abandon it on a highway. It will be towed and impounded, and you just forget about it. The impound lot can then deal with it.
“An EV has a life cycle that is more like a computer than a car. After you’ve used it for 3-5 years it is so technologically obsolete that you can’t even give it away.”
and that is precisely what is behind the push to replace reliable ICE vehicles
If you want to drive one, just lease it
It’s a battery. How do you ‘kill’ a car or motorcycle battery, or wear out your phone or laptop battery, and how to keep them alive longer? Same deal.
Anyway the original article is valid. It’s like the sleazy used car guy and the “only owned by a grandma who took it shopping on Saturdays” except in current tech you can’t do a rebuild on a EV battery and be good as new. The cost to replace is more than it’s worth.
Maybe someday, but look at phones, right? Batteries for phones became viable and then makers sealed them right back in ‘for protection’ but mostly so you don’t go keeping your old iPhone 6 or Galaxy 4 alive and realize that you don’t need a new brick and contract :)
[POOF] Here you go Mr. Smith, ready to go.
[POOF] There go those old batteries right there in that truck, Mr. Smith, you don't need to worry about a thing.
See?
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