American Vet

It’s hard to tell what is most preposterous about President Joe Biden’s new mandate that two-thirds of all new cars sold in 2032 must be electric vehicles. The competition is tough.

Is it the huge shortage of critical minerals needed to meet such a goal? Is it that our electrical grid has nowhere near the capacity to charge that many electric vehicles? Or maybe it is the fact that the charging infrastructure does not exist and has no chance of coming into being in eight short years.

Take your pick.

The bottom line is that you should be prepared to spend money preserving your existing combustion engine vehicle form. If Biden has his way, all you’ll find on the market eight years from now will be $70,000 paperweights.

More than 80% of drivers do not want to buy an electric vehicle. Who can blame them? Not only are they expensive — the average EV costs just under $70,000 — but without a special plug installed at your house, it can take 50 hours to charge an electric car. It can take 10 hours even if you invest in a 240-volt outlet.

The fastest commercial outlets take 20 minutes, several times as long as filling your tank with gasoline, and good luck finding a working charger. The University of California, Berkeley, studied the San Francisco Bay Area’s public chargers and found that more than 1 in 4 doesn’t work. A 2022 national study by J.D. Power placed the broken public charger rate at 20%.

But remember, that is the rate of broken chargers that exist. There are 3 million electric vehicles on the road and 103,000 public chargers. That’s a 29-1 ratio. A California Energy Commission study recommended a 7-1 ratio. That means hundreds of thousands of new charges would have to be installed nationwide just to meet current needs. Considering the laborious permitting process that Biden has reimposed on infrastructure spending, there is simply no way that infrastructure will be built in time.

Even if you find a working charger, the electrical grid may not be able to meet demand from all the new electric cars that people are supposedly going to buy — upward of 2 million per year, based on current new car sales. Environmentalists talk of how much oil the United States will save from going electric, but just because oil isn’t being burned doesn’t mean energy isn’t being consumed. Studies estimate that electrical demand will go up by at least 25% thanks solely to electric vehicles. Where is that energy going to come from? Not from wind and solar power.

Where will all the lithium, copper, and cobalt come from that are needed to make batteries for electric cars? Biden has put environmentalist activists in charge of the Interior Department, so those critical minerals won't come from American mines.

A recent Scientific American study found that world production of lithium would need to triple overnight to maintain — not build, just maintain — an all-electric American fleet. The copper needed to meet the mandate would require more copper to be produced over the next 25 years than has been produced in the last five millennia.

The minerals are going to have to come from overseas, almost certainly from China. No country benefits more than China from the gap between Biden’s environmental daydreams and cold hard economic reality. The U.S. might even be at war with China between now and 2030.

Finally, even if you can afford an electric car and you can find a working charger and the energy grid hasn’t collapsed, don’t drive your new BidenMobile in the cold or up a hill. Electric batteries are 25% less efficient in freezing weather and 40% less efficient if you want to heat the car so you don’t freeze while driving.

So enjoy your reliable gas guzzler. In eight years, you may not be able to replace it. Thanks, Biden.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/uncle-joe-has-a-car-you-cant-refuse

Kevyn

Automobile manufacturers are spending billions in research and development of better cheaper batteries and recycling existing batteries so that the materials can be reused. If you look at things like cordless tools 20 years ago they were not very dependable, now most contractors use them exclusively. This is due to increased quality power and efficiency in the batteries. Similar vast improvements in automobile batteries is happening as we speak. If I were buying a new car right now I would look for a plug-in hybrid, they have been available for almost 10 years. This allows the ability to commute locally on battery power but switch to internal combustion automatically if it’s needed for longer trips. Eventually there will be no need for these vehicles or internal combustion vehicles. This is a change that’s coming and coming more rapidly than you realize. And no amount of whining and sniveling is going to change that curve.

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

There is big change coming, and I guarantee that the liberals won’t like it.
When the electricity is shut down due to an emp, nothing newer will work. Only the old jeeps and such.

Kevyn

An EMP will take down any vehicle with electronic ignition so unless you have a
Car built before the mid 70s you are just as screwed

son of witless

The government had nothing to do with the improvement in cordless tools.

saltwind 78 Loc: Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

American Vet, Obviously you don't believe that there is an existential crisis going on with g****l w*****g. Unless we take drastic action now, our great grandchildren may not live on the same earth that we live on today. I don't know about you, but if a terrible depression comes about because of rebuilding the economy, or other terrible things that may have to be done, we will get over it, as we always have in the past. When they start swimming on the ocean beaches in Kansas, or growing pineapples in Alaska, it will be too late to save the earth from heating up.
As we say in New York City, foregetaboutit!

microphor Loc: Home is TN

Where's the Biden's family electric cars, surely they can afford them? I know Joe drove an electric ford, but does he own one?

BIRDMAN

You’re like a broken record. They’ve been saying what you’re saying since the late 1800s

American Vet

Yes, I have heard that there is an existential crisis going on with g****l w*****g.

I heard about it in the 60's.

And the 70's

And the 80's

And the 90's etc etc etc

It is presumptuous to think that man can have any significant impact on that "crisis".

And it is completely stupid to believe that the government can "fix it".

Maxim

You nailed it American Vet. I heard the same in the 60s, 70s, 80s,..... The only existential crisis I am concerned with is nuclear war. That's pretty much the end of civilization as we know it. It's 100% politics. The best clean energy available is nuclear energy. Until the "energy experts" in DC figure that out, the only way forward is with coal and oil. Wind and solar are cute, but their place in real energy production is second tier at best.

I heard Buttegieg (sp? don't care) say that the "grid" will need to be upgraded. He has no idea what he is talking about. Upgraded?? Try 100 years. That's roughly what it took to get oil, coal and electrical distribution to where it is today. Try imagining in 10 years those waiting to charge at a hiway fueling stop like Buc-ee's on a holiday weekend. I'll keep my gas-eater until Dear Leader forces me into a government e-car.

American Vet

The best path for American to become energy independent is by using the HUGE capabilities we have. Then begin research into other options in a careful, controlled manner - instead of rushing crazily into wind/solar and their well-documented inadequacies and failures.

Wonttakeitanymore

Dave the money and limit jet traffic

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

That’s what I said.

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

What were you saying about Kansas?

Marty 2020 Loc: Banana Republic of Kalifornia

I remember solyndra!