Buyer’s Remorse . . .

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eric
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If electric cars are The Future how come one in five who own them are returning to the Past?

They are replacing their first electric car with a non-electric car, according to a study by University of California Davis researchers, quoted from at length in a recent news article published by Business Insider.

According to the study, “roughly one in five plug-in electric vehicle (owners) switched back to owning gas-powered cars” – after experiencing real life with an electric car.  As contrasted with the hype about electric cars.

The omissions about electric cars.

Most people have no idea what they’re in for – because they haven’t been told what they’re in for.

This is not by accident.

They hear and read about things like “ludicrous speed” – which is true, electric cars are extremely quick because electric motors are very powerful and their power is immediate and (usually) the drive is direct, i.e., there is no transmission between the motor and the drive wheels, which connect directly to the electric motor(s).

They hear that range has increased, which it has.  Ten years ago, most EVs could only travel about 100 miles – or less – before they ran out of juice. Today, most can go 150 and some can go farther.

Assuming you don’t drive them very fast.

But that’s not what they aren’t telling you about. For the same reason that realtors sometimes won’t tell you about the neighbor that comes with the house they’re trying to sell you.

As with the threat of the ‘Rona – which is almost never put into context – one rarely hears the truth about what it takes to recharge an electric car. And the wait for it.

And why.

Most people do not understand electricity, even in layman’s terms. What is the difference between a three-way and a four-way circuit? A 15 and a 30 amp breaker?

They just know you plug in a toaster.

But there are different kinds of plugs for electric cars – and the wait varies hugely depending on which kind you plug into. On which kind of plug you have access to.

Every home – except Amish homes – has 115 volt AC outlets and you use these to plug in things like TVs, lights and small appliances. Most homes also have circuits designed to handle higher-load appliances such as electric stoves, heat pumps and so on.

In electric car argot, this is Level 1 charging – and it takes overnight to recharge an EV plugged in this way.

Level 2 is a specialty 240 volt circuit – which almost no homes have ready to be plugged into, because most home electrical panels weren’t built with this kind of service in mind. Some (but not all) home panels can be modified to be capable of Level 2 charging – at your expense, which is another thing EV prospects are rarely made aware of prior to their purchase – but even then, the wait to recharge is hours long.

A Tesla “supercharger” – packing 480 volts of direct (not alternating household) current  – can get you back on the road in an hour or so but these are proprietary (Tesla-only) and home wiring cannot handle that kind of current. You must drive to a “supercharger” – and wait, there.

Then go home – or wherever you were headed. Assuming no one was already plugged in ahead of you. Then you wait for them, first.

This is not convenient – as one in five electric car owners have discovered.

Business Insider interviewed Kevin Tynant, who writes for leftie Bloomberg News and – at last – the discovery has been made.

And published.

Tynant describes plugging in – and waiting on – a new Ford Mach-E press vehicle, the electric five-door crossover Ford is trying to market as a “Mustang.” His home apparently only has Level 1 plugs to plug into. After an hour of being plugged in, Tynant told Business Insider the not-Mustang had recovered enough charge to travel . . . three miles.

“Overnight, we’re looking at 36 miles of range.”

I could have told him so.

The last electric car  sent to me to test drive arrived on a flatbed – because unlike Tynant, I don’t live near the press car pool, within the range of most electric cars on a single charge. To get to my house from the press car pool is a highway drive of about 240 miles – at 75 MPH. Most electric cars cannot make that drive – without an extended stop. So, they truck the EVs here – using not-electric trucks (a whole ‘nother story)

Once here, there’s only a Level 1 garage wall outlet at my place to plug in which means that – like Tynant – I must either be willing to wait a long time (overnight, at least) or drive somewhere else – and wait there.

How many people are willing to do that?

Not one out of five, at least – according to the study quoted by Business Insider. Which is interesting on a number of . . . levels.

The first level being that most of those who have electric  cars are favorably inclined toward electric cars. They are the so-called “early adopters” – which also means they are people willing to put up with issues that would be deal-breakers for other buyers. Examples include subpar fit and finish, minor and even major glitches, poor service – and so on. People who love a car will put up with such quirks.

But the wait is too much – for 20 percent of them.

And this is in California – where it’s easiest to own an EV because of the weather (not too hot, not too cold – either of which reduce an EV’s range, necessitating more frequent waits) and where there are more Level 2 and “supercharger” places to recharge than anywhere else.

Which brings us to the next level.

If one out of five – if 20 percent – of the people most willing to put up with the electric car’s other issues aren’t willing to put up with the wait, what does it portend as regards the willingness of ordinary buyers who just want a car – one that works – to put up with it?

Something not good – for the electric car. For The Future that’s supposedly inevitable because oh-so-desirable. Turns out, it’s not – for one out of five. Such a rate of abandonment – the UC study uses the word, discontinuance – would be cause for an all-hands-on deck meeting if any other kind of car was being abandoned by so many buyers. The executives would ask the obvious question:

Maybe this isn’t such a good idea?

It’s one thing to sell a handful of balky exotics – electric or not – to a small number of people who love them, regardless. But it’s a problem when you need to sell hundreds of thousands – millions – of balky exotics to people unwilling to put up with them.

.  . .

Got a question about cars, Libertarian politics – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!

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Related posts:
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  2. Recharge Anxiety
  3. Mandatory “Anger Management” For Gun/Ammo Buyers
  4. Electric Boogaloo!
  5. Part-Time vs. Full Time Electric Cars

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78 COMMENTS

  1. From the BI Article:

    “It should not be assumed that once a consumer purchases a PEV they will continue owning one,” Hardman and Tal wrote. “What is clear is that this could slow PEV market growth and make reaching 100% PEV sales more difficult.”

    Translation: “We need more guns!”

  2. Add my neighbor to the list. She’s a techie and was giddy over the tesla, for a few months. Now she admits she won’t be getting another one, cause she started asking me about different cars and I said ‘wait a minute, you loved the tesla’. I bet the no-rebuy number is a lot more than 20%.
    You’re right Eric, marketing, and little engineering/practical knowledge is getting to a lot.

  3. Eric,

    Have you seen the article from The Hill about Bidens Paris agreement pledge? Really informative yet brief. Nice to see a left of center source being a little bit honest on this issue. Sorry I couldn’t post a link, the spam filter wouldn’t let me. It’s called,
    “Biden’s Paris Agreement commitment will be tough on Americans- and ineffective”

  4. On: Tynant describes plugging in – and waiting on – a new Ford Mach-E press vehicle, the electric five-door crossover Ford is trying to market as a “Mustang.”

    It’s the Mustang 3. They didn’t kill it the first time around, they won’t be fooled again.

    • Hi J,

      Ford, of course, owns the Mustang name and so has every legal right to put it on anything it likes. I also have every legal right to drop a deuce on the Mona Lisa – assuming I owned it. But in both cases, a kind of crime has been committed – against good taste, at the very least.

      Calling a four-door crossover a “Mustang” is also silly from a purely editorial point of view. It is like calling a grass-thatched, dirt-floored hut a “building.”

  5. Check this out. Lotus has an $3.4 million electric hypercar coming out, it’s fast. Top Gear has a video review, but they only quickly mention that when driven on the track, it runs out of juice in 30 miles.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CcxnlXca3wA

    My Lotus Elise does twice that off a 10 gallon tank, and refuels in less than a minute, and I track that thing an awful lot. I couldnt finish a single track day with this multi million dollar car, though I bet the 30 miles would be very exciting!

  7. I was one of those that went back to ICE. There were some nice features of electric as a commuting vehicle but that was it. Way too many other downsides. Biggest concern I had was getting thing repaired long term. However, the range was very dependent upon the weather, the heater/AC were horrible, and I really wasn’t really saving all that much over gas.

    • Hi brushmor,

      “There were some nice features of electric as a commuting vehicle… Way too many other downsides”.

      Too bad they tanked the Volt (the only sensible approach to EV’s as a primary, not specialty, car), all of the upsides, none of the downsides of an EV. Makes one think that maybe the agenda is not enhancing convenience and mobility while also “saving the planet”, but something else entirely.

      Cheers,
      Jeremy

    • Hi Brushmor,

      hanks for your first-person input on this business. I’d like for the full story about EVs – not just the pros but the cons, as would be the case for reporting about any other car – to be reported.

      I do my best to balance the other side!

  8. Hey Eric,

    “The omissions about electric cars.”

    Perhaps the mot egregious “omission” about EV’s is the emissions they produce, which will increase dramatically should they become widely adopted. It is fraudulent to call these things ZEV’s; they are REV’s (remote emission vehicles). As I and others here have pointed out many times, the enormous infrastructure changes necessary to power a majority EV fleet will produce a staggering amount of the dreaded “greenhouse gases”. This is never honestly talked about in the mainstream press because, if it were, it would expose the lie that the push to EV’s is about “saving the planet”.

    Cheers,
    Jeremy

      • Hey Eric,

        Glad you like it! The other one I use, with the particularly self righteous, is CPV (coal powered vehicle).

        Cheers,
        Jeremy

    • Hi, Jeremy,
      You’ve got it right. 🙂
      I like to call them PSVs (Pollution Shifting Vehicles), or else VSDs (Virtue Signaling Devices), typically driven by airhead librulls (but i repeat myself) with MMTB (More Money Than Brains) in “upscale” “clean” locations far removed from the power plants in AZ, UT & NM which generate the electricity and consequently pollute the air in Grand Canyon Nat’l Park and other national treasures not commonly visited by the airheads in Santa Monica.
      It *is* sad. 🙁

    • Jeremy,

      “Remote Emissions Vehicles”

      What agency will issue lockdowns for these?

      CDC and NIH are big in the news lately. FAA with the Boeing debacle before that. EPA poisoning rivers awhile ago.

      What about NOAA?

      Shouldn’t we be hearing about the atmosphere? When will NOAA get in the heavy handed game of tyranny?

      Coupled with their false weather predictions, the lockdown dujour on account of remote emission fears should be able to create widespread panic.

      And compliance.

      I think the time is rapidly approaching for the velvet glove to come off of the iron fist of NOAA.

      30% chance of precipitation. Shelter in place! NOAA suspects variants have mixed with the atmosphere in remote emissions areas and mutant strains may be headed your way. Stay indoors!

      You can probably tell I miss Clive Cussler. But his fiction can live on in reality fighting the evils of remote emissions.

      • Already happening.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Corners_Generating_Station
        >The Four Corners Generating Station originally consisted of five units with a total rated generating capacity of about 2,040 megawatts. Units 1, 2, and 3 (permanently shut down in 2014 as part of a $182 million plan for Arizona Public Service Co. to meet environmental regulations)
        >In November 2010, APS announced that it would purchase the SCE share of Units 4 and 5, add air pollution control systems to these units, and shutdown Units 1, 2, and 3.[8] This transaction and shutdown were completed in 2013.[4] Following the shutdown of Units 1 through 3, the capacity of Four Corners is 1,540 megawatts.
        >According to the decree the plant will reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, pay $1.5 million in civil penalties and $6.7 million in healthcare and other mitigation costs for the people in the affected parts of the Navajo Nation. The law suit was based on pollution of Class I areas under the Clean Air Act in Grand Canyon National Park and 15 other areas of the National Park Service
        >Arizona Public Service announced it would be decommissioning the Four Corners Generating Station ahead of schedule by the end of 2031.

        • turtle blues,

          “Already happening.”

          I’m talking about simply giving NOAA the chance to punish people for no particular reason.

          A continuation of the current crisis.

      • Hey Tuan,

        I love it. Yes, “remote emissions” will be suddenly “discovered”, and used by all of the agencies (representatives of the SIC) to advance the “heavy handed game of tyranny”. Still, we must, per Albert Jay Nock, attempt to reach the “remnant”.

        Cheers,
        Jeremy

        • Meanwhile, here in the People’s Republic of California, warehouse owners are being held responsible for the emissions of trucks which visit their facilities (no, really, I did not make this up). CARB/SCAQMD have decided that all such trucks must be “zero emission” battery powered vehicles, which do not (yet) exist, so the warehouse owners, who in most cases do not own and operate fleets of trucks, are being taxed (i.e. penalized) because the truckers who roll up to their loading docks are driving (guess what?) diesel powered trucks.
          Guess who pays. That’s right, the consumer, in the form of surcharges by warehouses.
          And where does the money go? Why, it disappears into the maw of government, never to be seen again by humans.

          • Of COURSE the Kaliforincating Gauleiters never would make the “non-polluting” battery trucks account for the hidden power plant emissions, would they? Then, if they really were interested in “emissions”, they’d be comparing apples and apples.

            No, this latest directive confirms they are more interested in power, raw directive power. Power to make others bend to their will. Sound familiar? HIstory does not repeat, but it does rhyme.

            • You called it, Old Tech.
              Absolute power, derived, and funded, by “taxing” for non-compliance with acts impossible to perform.

    • I’ve called them HEV’s (Hidden Emission Vehicles), since they’re like a “Frost-Free” freezer, not really frost-free, just frost-hidden.

      Like a frost-free freezer, for the Karens and Kens, as long as I see no frost, I have no frost! Power plant emissions don’t count, it’s all about my feelz for doing my part.

  9. Nice article Eric,

    I’m in the process of replacing all of the batteries in my son’s electric dirt bike. The supposedly 40 minutes of constant driving on a full charge, which takes 12 hours, is now down to less than 10 minutes. I’m also beginning to notice the battery charge on my Milwaukee drill set is not lasting as long as it did new.

    I’d be curious of the mileage per charge people are seeing on the 5yr + old evs. My guess is many are seeing less mileage per charge now than when they were new. My 25 yr old Ranger gets essentially the same gas mileage today it got when it rolled off the assembly line in late 1995.

    • Batteries degrade, this is normal.

      I’ve been doing some high power lithium ion stuff for years, and I’m quite familiar with how they work. Most simple electronics, like tools and probably your son’s dirt bike try to use 100% of the safely usable capacity of the battery, discharging it to 3.0V per cell and charging up to 4.2V per cell. Any less or more than that and the battery is damaged. Using the full range like that kills batteries FAST.

      If you use the middle 80% of capacity, not charging up those last 10% and not discharging the last 10% remaining, you increase the battery life by almost 100 fold. Tesla does this.

      If you use the middle 60% of capacity, you increase it a lot again, but I’m not sure of the multiple.

      What’s particularly bad is letting the battery sit at 100% state of charge.

      So, if you want long life, you need bigger batteries which you underutilize, but they will degrade, just more slowly.

      • So i have batteries i can’t fully use, can’t fully charge, can’t leave them on the charger for too long, can’t leave the batteries fully charged for too long, they need to be really big, and you need a lot of them, need hours in between charges when I do drain it, and if I follow everything perfectly i’m still going to have derogation and at some point loose mileage/time on those batteries.

        Yet i can use every drop of fuel in my truck, fill it to capacity, keep, it filled for weeks on end and it still will work the same way with the same mileage per tank full today that it will 10 or 15 years from now. And people wonder why many of us refuse to give up our ICE vehicles.

        • You summed it up about correctly 🙂

          Most modern, high quality LiPo chargers will let you set whether you want a full charge, or 80% or 90%, typically. Likewise, LiPo batteries _must_ have a cutoff circuit that prevents voltage from going below 3.0V per cell, but this can be set at a higher voltage.

          These smart cutoffs and smart chargers add cost, so they’re not included in things like tool batteries to save cost, but at this point, most expensive batteries have them.

          I like EV’s as a technology, they’re good for some duty cycles, like in a daily use commuter car, but they’re not feasible as an all-around car, and since I’m not rich, I choose gasoline since I can’t have an extra “sometimes car”.

      • Perhaps you can tell me about the Antigravity Battery for cars? I like the idea of saving 12+ Kg of weight but at over $800, I have been reluctant to make the plunge. I’ve read some great reviews but I’m not certain how biased they are. My oldest car is a 2013 Audi and it still has its original Lead Acid battery. Can the Lithium car batteries match this longevity?

        • I have a super light car which people like to optimize for weight, so I’m quite familiar with these batteries.

          I wouldn’t get one, its too expensive.

          These are Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries. They’re about the most tolerant and durable form of lithium ion. However, all lithium batteries need careful charging and discharging to remain healthy. The Antigravity batteries seem high quality, they have a charge controller and a cutoff built into the battery to prevent the kinds of issues that would cause battery damage. So, I’m sure it would work great, but I’m not sure of the longevity, but it should be similar to a lead acid.

          Lead acids in cars are porous to allow for huge starting currents. When you drain these down, sulphur salts build up in those pores, reducing their cranking amps. The lower it gets discharged, the more this happens, so the battery going completely flat will severely hurt its life.

          Lithiums don’t suffer like this from low states of charge, providing you don’t get them below the critical voltage. So, a good lithium battery will cut off the power before you get there, returning to normal after it’s charged up.

          Instead of spending so much money on my car, I just got a smaller lead acid for $90. If I forget to turn off my lights, it’s dead in 15 minutes, but it starts the car just fine.

          • Thank you for the information. I appreciate your time. I have thought about a smaller battery but even one with half the amps of the battery in the car now can’t match the light weight of the Lithium. I have a fixation for weight in my cars but you’re right, the Antigravity is really expensive for something I probably wouldn’t notice if someone secretly changed my current battery for a Lithium.
            Thanks again.

  10. The word of the day and future is “shortages.” Microchips, steel, rare earth materials, rubber, chicken, rubber chicken (made that up) and so on. The universal excuse for the nothing available at any price Randian play out.

    • Its strange and the media isn’t talking about it – but for the first time I think in my life at least there are large scale SHORTAGES of stuff in the US…. the chips are a big one, but other little things. Was reading about pool chemicals being in short supply. The other day I think it was George Gammon on his podcast was talking about how its ages to wait for an Uber now anywhere (where once you could get an uber in 5 minutes).

      Its almost as if the governments plan to print more money to cover its own fuck ups isn’t such a good idea….

      • Yes, shortages and inflation. 1″x6″x6′ white wood boards at the usual suspect places are averaging $6.50 now. Two years ago, they were ~$2.00. Plywood is even worse. Ditto NM cable (“Romex”), it is the same price as the same length of MC cable, and MC used to be more expensive per foot than NM. I suspect the cable prices are due to NM sales volume being higher than MC, so eventually as the higher copper and aluminum (and plastic) prices make their way to the MC cable on the shelf, we’ll see MC go up too. I understand the wiring price increases are due to raw material increases mostly, but the lumber increases are due to mills shut down for the WuFlu mainly. Advice I’m hearing is do your projects involving wiring or lumber now, the price is only going up, and will not come down soon.

        Yeah, thanks a whole helluva lot Uniparty wankers!

        • ‘1″x6″x6′ white wood boards at the usual suspect places are averaging $6.50 now.’ — Crusty Old TV Tech

          This morning, Chicago Merc lumber futures are limit up again (just like yesterday) to $1,670.50 per thousand board feet. That’s a double in six weeks.

          Hopefully, kindly old Resident Joe will increase the Social Security death benefit from $255 to $10,255, so that families can buy their deceased a freaking pine box coffin, maybe even with optional cherry wood stain and brass hardware (copper futures hit a record high in London this morning).

          *sigh*

          Socialists — don’t they just kill ya?

          • Another excellent consideration. what will the ongoing/upcoming inflation do to the cost of these golf carts?
            Who will be able to afford them?

          • “copper futures hit a record high in London this morning” – Jim H

            Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d’Anconia, call your office…

          • Jim, that is the entire point of how the covid works. We elderlies are supposed to die off first, saving govt. the SS money. We’re already into the second phase where Bill Gates speaks of vaccinating everyone on earth and bringing the population down 2 billion. That’s the first phase of that part since bringing it down to well less than 1 B over the entire earth is the goal. That’s what the shit-eating grinning SOB said on his TED talk.

            The second phase isn’t going as well as they want since so many refuse the jab and they’re threatening all sorts of ways to force the issue. Already though, the vaccines are doing what they’re supposed to, create super-spreaders so they can feel good about it but not that good since not everyone is taking the jab and a great many won’t.

            Last time the wife and I went to the doc, we saw an unusual sight, the waiting room was full, very rare here at the local horspital. The wife told me the vaccines were in and that was the reason. We saw an old classmate of mine who weighs about 400+ lbs and his very obese wife waiting for their second round.

            I won’t be visiting them and will leave wherever I am if I see them(and many others). But the wife and I are cheating. We take Complex Vit. B, C, D3 plus zinc, magnesium plus lutein and zeaxanthin(eyesight). I look for the prices to go WAY up but we’ll just live even more frugally. I don’t plan to live forever and it’s a given I won’t set any records but I just don’t want it to have anything to do with Gill Bates and Fauci and the WHO or any of the rest of the idiot liberals.

            Too bad these guys had no CB radios as they hogged the passing lane pulling the grades forcing the truckers to pass on the right. They would have learned something else in their bs experiment.

            BTW eric, every home has 120 volts of electricity, not 115. It would be tough to get 240 Volts since that’s just two different hot legs of 120 volts. Rarely does a power company only supply 120 volts preferring to add another 4 or 5 volts since things last longer, especially motors and there is a more efficient use of power. 3 phase 480 volts is never 480 volts and commonly close to 500 volts and sometimes slightly over…….or every meter I’ve used has been way off. Same reasoning for the much more than 480 since it’s almost always powering motors and they like it over much better than on the money or especially under(the killer). We once had the lights dim and I checked to find 70 volts. I raced to the main fuse box on the pole since not all our power goes to the house. I called in and they said they’d get right on it. Well, shit happens and it happened the other evening right after dark and everything went out. A tractor hand had run into a pole and broken it. I believe I’d find someone else to run that tractor. The electric company doesn’t pay for that when it’s your fault.

            Now having an electric car like Tesla invented that ran off the electricity in the air would be fine. I guess it could get a little dicey in a bad lightning storm but you’d surely have some way to protect from overload.

            • Hey, Eight,
              You probably know this, based on your post, but for those who don’t…
              Brush motors such as commonly found in power tools will run just fine at 150 volts or so. Due to higher voltage, they will have noticeably higher torque. Caution is advised, but will really get the job done, and likely the brushes will last longer than when run at a lower voltage.

              Tip: You can either step up from 120, or step down from 240, works either way. If you really do have 120V @ the power pole, then a 30% step up transformer will give you (1.3)(120) = 156VAC
              To step down from 240 would be 150/240 = 0.625

              If your power is weak, such as at the end of a long temporary power setup on a construction site (my own experience, and the reason I have a transformer), the transformer will boost the voltage up closer to where it should be, and save your equipment.

              I have been on construction sites where the putative 240V measured 180V actual voltage at the most distant end of temp power. The supposed 120V was too weak to be usable for standard power tools.

              The plugs are all twist lock, and 240V plugs are different from 120V. No problem. Make an adapter pigtail, feed the “240V” (actually 180V) into the high side of the transformer, stepping it down by 30%. 180/1.30 = 138V. Problem solved. My Skil 77 runs great at 138V.

              But you *could* “hot rod” the 120V (actual) in your garage/shop, if you had a mind to. Use at your own risk, and don’t come crying to me if you manage to cut your leg off.

            • Morning 8,

              All the voltage listings are +/- 10%.

              When you’re close to a transformer you might have to use 130v bulbs.

              Those green boxes from the power company have a big ass wireround resistor so they can regulate what comes into a building.

              So in theory you can pump in 132 volts and with the drop, still have 108 volts at the very last plug.

              The “Ugly’s” book will come in handy when you’re in a position of making your own electricity.

              And now a word from our sponsor, Mr. Safety.

              Keep your left hand in your pocket when working with hot wires. Testing romex should be done with the right hand only by licking the thumb and pinky finger and touching the black wire with one and the white or bare wire with the other.

              This time and money saving tip has been brought to you by Mr. Safety.

        • What I fear is that we are now in the inevitable hyperinflation. With lumber prices quadrupling, food doubling, metals at record highs, I fear we will see another quadrupling in the next 6 months and on up the asymptotic curve. I personally have prepared as well as I can, but nobody can really be prepared for what’s coming. Especially with Bolsheviks in power.

      • The shortages are the impact of shutting down an entire economy and paying people to stay home. It took 9-12 months for the shortages to occur. How long before they stabilize? Many people are still home collecting unemployment. I don’t see the government taking this perk away. We have a manpower problem. No workers to manufacture, no dock unloaders to off load the products, not enough drivers to transport the materials, and very few retail workers or tradesmen to initiate the sale and install the final product.

        There is no economic boom coming. The math doesn’t add up. Wall Street was estimating one million jobs for the month of April. We got 266k and an increase to 6.1% unemployment. The professional sector lost almost 80k jobs last month. A loss of jobs is always bad, but the professional sector is usually the highest paid out of all of the industries. I would watch this number for May and to see if it was a fluke or we have something dangerous on the horizon.

        • With nanny gov paying people to stay home, illegals flooding in like water into the hull of the titanic driving down wages again, companies fearful that at any moment fraudci will declare another shut down and no shortage of people who are just looking for a handout i would say those numbers are just going to get worse.

        • Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos (a.k.a Jeff Bozo) gets away with classifying delivery drivers for Amazon, driving Amazon Prime trucks, as “independent contractors,” thus screwing them out of all benefits, while he personally makes $100 billion out of this manufactured “crisis.”
          anyone else smell a rat, here?

        • RG, some states are pulling out of the Federal unemployment program; South Carolina did this week. The Gov said there were too many people getting too much money to stay home and workers were hard to find. Yes, there was much gnashing of teeth and renting of clothes over this.

          Lancing the boil is painful but, must be done to correct the infection of socialism.

          • Hi Mark,

            Thanks for the SC update. I didn’t know this until reading your post. It looks like Montana is also doing something similar. I drove back from FL today and almost every place we stopped at has a “Now Hiring” sign on the door. The work is there if people want it.

            It looks like we have a new crisis rising (at least those of us in the SE US) with the closure of the Colonial Pipeline today. Those twiddling their thumbs on the sofa sucking up the unemployment may regret their decision when those signs are removed shortly….hard to get to work when 45% of the gasoline supply has been disrupted.

            • Glad I have a few gallons stored. This also shows just how vulnerable our entire “advanced” civilization is to being thrown back to the stone age. Imagine what a few EMP weapons would do. Ironically the U.S., who would be most vulnerable to such an attack, is the leader in developing this technology. This country is like Clevon Little at the beginning of Blazing Saddles, backing into the barn saying “stop or he gets it”.

              • Hi Mark,

                I wish I had the genetics – or the steroids? – to become a latter day Humungous, lording over thew Wasteland, ever in search of that fat tank of gas…

  11. Copper price on the COMEX was at 4.52 USD, so you need 452 pennies to buy a pound of new copper. Old 95 percent copper pennies are worth at least three cents each. 150 copper pennies will be about a pound of copper.

    Any electrician is going to expect about 250 dollars for each hour of production, 90 USD per outlet box.

    A 480 volt feed is hefty.

    480 volts with 30 amps will be 14400 watts, 14.4 kilowatts, 150 kilowatt battery, ten hours to charge it to full from zero charge. Half spent battery, five hours to charge to full.

    And you also haul coal to the power plant so there is electricity. You need smooth asphalt roads and rubber tires, grease for the bearings. Cold weather will limit battery life.

    fossil fuels, hydrocarbons, are there every inch of the way. The reasons are obvious.

    One in five EV owners got stranded with a dead battery somewhere and needed a tow.

    Get rid of this thing and thank God it’s gone. About the size of it.

    • It’s even worse than 14.4 KW…

      https://forums.tesla.com/discussion/114714/do-superchargers-charge-at-480v

      The first post in the forum quotes an initial charge rate of 29 KW for the supercharger, and later posts mention the controller starts tapering down as the battery charge increases. Expected behavior from a Li-Ion battery charger. But that initial 29 KW has to come from somewhere while it’s being demanded, so if you do the math for distribution voltages available in an average home…to provide “supercharger-like” charging at home would require 120.8 A at 240 VAC (assuming unity power factor, 1 KVA = 1 KW). That is the total electric service rating for a typical recent construction house (125 A), so you’d better not be running the A/C (20A at 240 VAC for ~3 ton split system), or the electric stove or oven, or electric dryer while “supercharging”! And this assumes one could buy and install a supercharger-like system in a residence. Now, take into account the electric service cannot be run at its installed capacity for hours at a time, you’d have to upgrade the house to something like 200A service. That’s high thousands minimum for more copper in the ground or overhead, and a new panelboard and meter base, etc, and labor. The power company would have to change out the maybe 50 KVA distribution transformer (even though the residences on the transformer may all have “125 A” service, the power company sizes the distro transformer for partial loads) serving the 5-6 residences on its secondary if only one “residential supercharger” was installed. That is tens of thousands minimum. Now, scale that up to say half the residences on that distribution transformer, and you get either more transformers, or one huge monster to replace that small maybe 50 KVA pole pig.

      Electric battery cars are a pipe dream for communist bureacrats hellbent on eliminating prole mobility, bottom line.

      • “Electric battery cars are a pipe dream for communist bureaucrats hellbent on eliminating prole mobility.”

        Well said sir. ☮

      • If you could redeem old copper pennies with no zinc, you will receive three cents in copper clad zinc pennies that will vaporize in no time. Not fair, you need four zinc copper clad pennies, you are relinquishing one all copper penny. In reality, you only are paid two cents, so there has to be additional compensation, three zinc pennies is not enough.

        One old copper penny needs to be replaced with four newly minted pennies.

        Just the way it is.

        “How much is enough? Just a little bit more.” – John D. Rockefeller

      • Presumably, it would be technically possible to install a step-up transformer, 240 VAC => 480 VAC (single phase), plus a power rectifier to get the 480 VDC mentioned as “proprietary Tesla” “fast” charging.
        This would no doubt be *EXPENSIVE*, assuming you could even find the equipment, which may not be possible, IDK. Also, likely bulky, again IDK.
        Even at that, 120/2 = 60 Amps, plus whatever is required to account for the losses in your transformer/rectifier setup, which means you would be using at least 60% of your 100 Amp service to charge you auto.
        This at a time when “gov’t ” busybody weenies (not to mention utility execs) are “encouraging” folks to ditch their a) gas cook stoves, b) gas water heaters, c) gas clothes dryers, and even d) gas forced air heating in favor of “all electric,” whilst the existing electric power grid is struggling, and sometimes failing, to keep up with current demand.
        Meanwhile the oh so virtuous “greenies’ are doing everything they can think of to *prevent* the construction of new power plants.
        Some of us are old enough to remember the 1950s, when GE was promoting the “all electric home,” and nuclear (fission) power advocates were telling us that nuclear (fission) power was clean, safe, and would soon be “too cheap to meter.” Sure.
        Git along with ye, peckerwood. We’ve heard that con before.

        • Oh, and I guess pulling 60+ amps through most 240 volt plugs ain’t a gonna work, even if the wiring is sized properly, and fed through a (mythical?) 80A 240V breaker.
          And what is the current capacity of the bus bars in a standard 100A panel box?
          Inquiring minds want to know…

          • We routinely do that kind of stuff in industry but the plant service is substantially “stiffer” than residential. Yes you can get a 100A 2pole breaker. The bus bars in a 100A breaker panel are engineered with a substantial safety factor, so well over 100A. The main breaker will control. But your bigger point is spot on- widespread electric cars are a pipe dream. I wonder when reality will bite- just then will be the world’s greatest opportunity to short Tesla…

            • Ernie, turtle, crusty, I think this is the whole point- what better way of rationing transportation then making it hard to charge (and therefore drive) more than a certain amount in a day (or two)….. it will simply be made too expensive or impractical for the pleb to get more than a certain size power connection at home… any need to go further will require stopping at a public “fast charger” which will only charge if youre allowed to charge… as most of these will probably be owned by the state (or very big utilities controlled by the same people)… well you know where this is going…

  12. Depending on where you live, it may be miles to the nearest available 480v current. Maybe a hundred miles. That’s the added cost never mentioned regarding EVs. We do not have the power gird in place to feed a small fraction of them if they become universally mandatory. A wild guess off the top of my head, but perhaps we might have to DOUBLE the grid capacity?

    • John the Kable guy,

      “We do not have the power gird in place to feed a small fraction of them if they become universally mandatory.”

      Sure we do. You remember odd/even days at the pumps?

      That doubles the capacity of the grid. Just like you talked about.

      A seven fold increase is possible by limiting charges to one day a week.

      All possible without adding a single foot of wire.

      Well, sort of.

  13. I was wondering WHY I see a fair number of Teslas on Carvana! Even so, the Teslas don’t depreciate, and they sell quickly-espcially the low mileage ones.

    • Hi Mark,

      A mark and his money… first or second time around!

      PS: My truck isn’t depreciating, either – and it’s nearly 20 years old now. I bought it used for about $7,000 about 12 years ago. I could sell it right now for $4k, no problem.

      When an electric car cab match that – and when I can be back on the road in less than 5 minutes – then I’ll be interested in an electric car. Actually, scratch that. I am not interested in electric cars – for the same reason I am not interested in inflatable women. I like the real thing, in both cases!

      • Most, if not all, of my (pre-owned) vehicles are appreciating.

        My Fiero is worth 3-4x what I paid for it, including repairs.

        My Jimmy would sell tomorrow for at least twice the total I have into it.

        The F350 gets regular offers for 1-2x what I paid.

        I sold all my used up (~350K km) and no longer roadworthy (to me) Sidekick/Trackers, for about break even.

        Now these were used to start with and not new. But the whole lot cost ~1/10 of a Tesla.

        But I doubt the “total cost of ownership” for a Tesla will ever go negative like several of my collection.

        But also, what are the dollars worth today compared to back then? I am probably close to break even when that is accounted for.

  14. ‘it’s a problem when you need to sell hundreds of thousands – millions – of balky exotics to people unwilling to put up with them’ — EP

    Quite. Moreover, the Bidenoids want to power their burgeoning EV fleet with green, renewable power. But their well-heeled, blue-state base is balking, says the WSJ:

    ‘Since 2015, about 300 government entities from Vermont to Hawaii have rejected or restricted wind projects. In March the select board in Scituate, Mass., ordered a wind turbine in the coastal town to be shut down at night from mid-May to mid-October. The problem, according to the Boston Globe: complaints from neighbors who say “they can’t sleep at night because of noise” the wind turbine makes.

    ‘The planning board in Foster, R.I., voted 5-1 on April 7 to ban wind turbines [after nearby] residents warned the board “about constant noise disturbances, vibrations, and loss in home values from turbines in their neighborhood.”

    ‘John Riggi, a town councilman in Yates, N.Y., has been fighting a proposed 200-megawatt wind project for seven years. He told me his community and others “are fighting to keep our lands free from environmentally destructive, culture-killing and unwanted industrial renewable-energy projects.” ‘

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-america-gets-bad-vibrations-from-big-wind-11620251138

    And did the Countenance Divine,
    Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
    And was Jerusalem builded here,
    Among these dark Satanic Mills?

    — William Blake

    Posh folks don’t need this green power crap. Either pawn it off onto gap-toothed red-state deplorables (so their ‘thinking’ goes), or don’t build it at all.

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