Posted on 06/16/2024 9:40:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Were one to listen to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, or Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, one might come away with the impression that electric vehicles (EVs) are so popular, the government’s intention of mostly replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with EVs by 2030 was a foregone conclusion.
After all, the Mummified Meat Puppet Administration (MMPA) tells us they’ll build a half million fast chargers across America by then to handle the load, and they’ve allocated $7.5 billion we don’t have to that noble endeavor.
Confronting Secretary Pete with the fact that in two years his bureaucracy has managed to build only seven or so—one billion plus per charger!—produces much sputtering and stammering and no answers. As the meme goes, he’s so bad at his job, Americans actually know who the Transportation Secretary is, but more on that later.
Hertz unloading its EV fleet has been much in the news. Americans have a nasty tendency not to buy, or even rent, vehicles they don’t trust and don’t want. And now, even General Motors is beginning to bow to reality:
General Motors is trimming its expected sales and production of all-electric vehicles this year, as U.S. adoption of EVs occurs slower than expected.
GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said the company now expects production of its all-electric vehicles to range from 200,000 to 250,000 this year, down from a previously announced range of 200,000 to 300,000. The company has recently said it will produce volume to match demand, which is growing more slowly than had been forecast.
Jacobson thinks EVs make up about 8% of the market, which is less than EV cheerleaders have been claiming, and about the historic average. Don’t trust those numbers. Trust demand:
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
C’mon man! His kids have 2 fathers and it’s still Father’s Day! (In the Central Time Zone anyhow.) Lay off of the chestfeeding faggot, will ya?
No one trusts the government to ensure enough charging or generation infrastructure.
Around the turn of the 20th Century there were a few electric cars.
Baker Electric 1899–1915 (50 miles range)
Studebaker Electric 1902–1912 30–80 miles range
Detroit Electric 1907–1939 (80 miles range)
Henney Kilowatt 1958–1960 unknown.
So they just had to wait about 120 years for their time in the sun to arrive with the EV fad again.
Maybe the new ones will catch on 120 years from now.
There might be a collapse, but there will always be those who believe, and will do whatever it takes to keep driving theirs. Believing that they’re saving mother Gaia.
And there is so much central command and control by the feds of our energy infrastructure that I wouldn’t trust investor owned utilities to make the generation, transmission, and distribution capacity available, either.
>> So they just had to wait about 120 years for their time in the sun to arrive
“Time in the sun”... is that a subtle solar power plug? ROFL.
Mrs. Tick and I were coerced into renting an EV a year ago. The car itself was marvelous! (Hyundai Genesis IIRC) But the “keeping it fueled” issue was a total nightmare. It was a useful learning experience... an EV is definitely not in our future.
In a recent report a huuuuge percentage of first-time EV buyers will not be repeating their mistake.
There was also a recent story of a family moving to another State. The drive with their internal combustion engine truck took about 14 hours. Once they had finished moving most of their belongings, they returned to drive their EV to their new home. It took....four days. I doubt they will also be purchasing another.
>> I wouldn’t trust investor owned utilities to make the generation, transmission, and distribution capacity available, either.
Your distrust is valid, IMHO. There’s too much fed money being pumped into the system to believe utilities — investor-owned or otherwise — are making rational forward-looking decisions. And that goes for many other entities besides IOU (in my locale, local government is an example).
Oh noes!
Oversized electric golf cart fanbois not pleased.....
RE: Your reference to solar cars....
There was an Israeli who invented a method of linking solar panels on top of a VW car to an engine. “Citicar” in 1980.
Was talked about for a while but didn’t lead to much success. Probably would require a weight like a couple of bank safes to produce a large car’s or a truck’s (not even a semi’s) power requirements.
Story:At the engineering department at Tel Aviv University in Israel, Arye Braunstein and his colleagues created a solar car in 1980 (pictured below). The solar car had a solar panel on the hood and on the roof of the Citicar comprised of 432 cells creating 400 watts of peak power. The solar car used 8 batteries of 6 volts each to store the photovoltaic energy.
The 1,320 pound solar Citicar is said by the engineering department to have been able to reach up to 40 mph with a maximum range of 50 miles.
https://www.automostory.com/first-solar-car.htm
The lack of charging stations is a bit of a red herring. If we just build a lot of charging stations we’ll be in EV nirvana. That’s just one of the numerous unsolvable issues with EVs.
Interesting! Thanks for the link.
I am 100% in favor of engineering efforts like those depicted. They’re learning exercises.
And I’m 100% against politicians imposing controlled economies and lifestyles based on fantasies like “fighting” Anthropomorphic Global Warming. They are totalitarian exercises.
FRegards
I worked in the electric power business from 1973 to 1998 and I worked with many senior utility execs in power generation. I saw first hand how the utility executive staff morphed from being engineering and performance oriented to sucking up to the rabid environmental lobbies. There was zero pushback against the extreme environmental lobbying groups; nothing but constant caving in. There was zero pushback against the fanciful dreams of “green” energy. I got so fed up I left the power business around 2000. When the PUCs and governments said “go green,” they replied “Yes SIR!” There was virtually no honest, critical engineering and economic analysis of the feasibility of powering the country with wind and solar or of the consequences of premature retirement of fossil and nuclear plants.
It was sickening, to say the least.
amusing - apparently the vehicle was there all night. got rescued by an ICE SUV or similar:
17 June: 7news Australia: BYD electric vehicle driver’s embarrassing mistake on Perth’s City Beach
by Dominique Tassell
The incident was then shared on Facebook page The Bell Tower Times, where the comments made light of the situation.
“Beach Your Dreams,” one person joked — referencing the BYD brand being the capital letters for the slogan Build Your Dreams.
“Bog Your Dreams?” another person suggested...
https://7news.com.au/news/byd-electric-vehicle-drivers-embarrassing-mistake-on-perths-city-beach-c-15045122
The cynical part of me believes that it would be a bait and switch and intenional lack of power capacity would be used to control and keep people in urban areas.
The fad has worn off.
Throw in DEI (government coerced or self-inflicted), and it’s hard to have faith in any companies these days.
Trhen throw in the same greenies who want EVs to save Mother Gaia screaming bloody murder about constructing power lines to bring their precious wind/solar power from the boonies where it's generated to the cities where they live. And adamantly opposing nuclear plants. And tearing down hydro dams.
I once had a girl-friend, graduated Summa Cum Laude from Radcliff, who genuinely believed that electricity was magic. Me being a baby engineer, the relationship didn't last long.
Reading assignment: Shorting the Grid by Meredith Angwin.
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