Pepe Le Pew and the Electric Car

Hi AM,

The main problem is a compounding problem. Very cold weather has a significant effect on range; if you keep on driving in the very cold, this gets worse. Use of electrically powered accessories adds to this. These are non-problems with non-electric cars. It’s about 17 degrees outside right now where I live. My truck hasn’t lost any range from just sitting overnight in this cold. It will go just as far in the cold as it would if it weren’t cold – and use of the heater cost me nothing.

Once again, a clear example of the functional/practical inferiority of the electric car. So why are they being forced down our throats? Because they have to be.

Preach it, Yukon!

There were also carbureted little runabouts like the Honda CRX Hfi of the ’80s… also capable of 50-plus MPG. With a carburetor. I’ve written previously about the tragedy that is the fact that cars have regressed in value/efficiency over the past 20-something years. This trend is accelerating, too.

Pete Buttigieg says if you’re worried about the price of gas to go out and buy a $50,000 electric car.

I will tell you about another great car: the Toyota Corolla. Last year my wife saved up her Biden and Trump bucks and replaced her aging 1997 Suzuki Sidekick Sport. When the clutch bracket failed and I had to fix it by removing it and rewelding the sheet metal (crap ) bracket assembly (that holds the brake, clutch levers) we decided that was it, lets get rid of it.

So we studied Craigslist for months and decided on a Toyota Corolla, we drove up the I-5 through Portland, Tacoma and Seattle to get to Bellingham and bought her a 2004 mint condition Corolla from a retire FedEx pilot who kept the car garaged. It was like showroom condition. It has excellent air conditioning, Toyota’s outstanding cruise control, surround speaker option, and it gets 42 mpg – even though it is the 1.8 liter 4 cylinder engine.

So remember that, the mid 2000 Corollas get excellent fuel economy. Now what is the big difference between the Geo Metro and Corolla? Weight. The Metro weighs 960 lbs less! 2640 – 1680 = 960 lbs. Both econo cars. So I do not understand why manufacturers are building such heavy vehicles.

Back in the 1980s the Sprint (pre-Metro) only weighed 1600 lbs

Curb weight 620–750 kg (1,367–1,653 lb) see wikipedia page

1986 Chevrolet Sprint
Engine: 1.0-liter 3-cyl.
EPA rating: City 44, Hwy. 53
Combined: 48

MSRP $5,580

A Mk 1 VW Golf 1800 lb., was fitted with a Mk 4 VW turbo ALH diesel, it was fast, 0 to 60 in about 6 seconds and got 65 mpg highway. That is better then an EV in lots of ways.

Do the same thing with a VW pickup (the Caddy), then you have the utility of a pickup and 60 mpg on the freeway, maybe the best small vehicle ever made. forget about 5000 lb EV’s.

The VW ALH 4 cyl 1.9 lt. turbo diesel was so good it was swapped into lots of small trucks, etc., more then 450 lb ft torque possible, great fuel economy, can last 500,000 miles.

this one has a gas engine
https://dailyturismo.com/10k-all-motor-1980-volkswagen-caddy/

Hi Vonu!

This EV problem is a multifaceted problem. Cost, obviously, is one of the big ones. Another is the problem of finding the power to make all this work – assuming the intent is to make it work. The third is the regression of mobility the EV visits upon us. We go less far; we’re tied closer (and for longer) to where we can charge.

This latter alone leaves me sometimes sputtering with incomprehension – trying to understand why anyone would consider it anything other than a regression.

The people on the bottom got ten cents, the billionaires got 4 trillion dollars richer since the hoax started, was that the whole purpose? Just more theft…… 100’s of thousands of small businesses went bankrupt, all their business went to the billionaires corporations….there is some angry people out there……

As you may now well know, Tesla drivers are much more likely to get into an accident than other vehicles. Though Elon Musk doesn’t want you to know about this little fact,

It is in the marketing plan:

A) They are green

So a lot of stupid climate change leftists buy them

B) They do 0 to 60 faster then any car in the world

So lots of lead foot speedsters buy them so they can blow off any car on any road, they are the king of the road and they can do it without making a sound. All owners talk about is how fast their car is. Slow drivers wouldn’t bother buying them, there is lots of cheaper slower EV’s.

I have a friend with a tesla, he charges at a tesla super charger at a mall, he says it costs almost as much to fuel as an ice car.

Someone here said it costs him $40 a month to charge at home, in 10 years the total cost would be $4800.

I heard that they will do variable pricing for superchargers in the future. Peak hours, they might charge $1 per minute to use it and $0.50 if you leave your car parked after its charged. For example if it charges in 30 minutes, but you are having a 1 hour lunch it would charge you $30 for power & $15 for not retrieving it immediately.

As of now, average supercharger price is $0.25 per kwh so it would cost $10 to 25 to fill a typical tesla depending on which battery you have and how low it is. So currently cheaper per mile than an econobox. Unless you consider other factors.

Well, think about this (and this is a 2019 CRV 33 mpg) they have hooting and spasing about better fuel economy for the past 50 years and then they reward you with a Fuel-efficient surcharge upon registration, around 70$ and mind you this is on a vehicle that gets at best 33 mpg. I have no idea what the “surcharge” would be on a EV I can only imagine it would be onerous.

Amen, Roger!

I’ve argued the same for as long as both have been going on. People have every right to do as they like (provided they’re not harming anyone else by so doing) but they have no right to force anyone else do as they like…

That’s true, Johnny –

And Nissan doesn’t need to get the government to pay customers $7,500 to “buy” Versas, either! And even so, my understanding is that Nissan has lost money on every Leaf “sold” so far…

Using the tax code to favor purchase of EVs has the net effect of INCREASING the price of the EV, so the tax “saving” to the purchaser is ILLUSORY. Never mind the other hidden, however real, costs of Uncle Sam’s “rent-seeking”.

I also didn’t see a mention of the actual cost at the owner’s residence, or where he parks at work, to re-charge the vehicle, reflected in paying at the meter and in the monthly electric bill. Those who say, “well, I can charge at work for FREE” ignore that SOMEONE paid for the charging station, it’s maintenance, and the “free juice” dispensed. Never mind the utterly immorality and blatant hypocrisy of stick the OTHER taxpayers like you and I with that cost so the EV owner, often at least upper-middle-class or better in financial stature, can virtue-signal.

If EVs as a widespread automotive consumer option made economic sense, it’d not be necessary for the Government to be involved, period, no more than purchasing that inexpensive Nissan Versa (my #1 son has one, a 2018, bought used a few years ago and now he’s paid it off) or even my 2020 (con) Fusion, which has the simple four-banger, a turbocharged version of the same engine I had in that 2014 Ford (out of) Focus I traded in for it. Since I’d taken the settlement for that defective dual-clutch transmission the Focus had, and got a decent “incentive” (worth about twice what just an outright cash payment was), which was NOT offered on the hybrid, never mind that the hybrid version, also loaded with other gizmos I saw little need for, as the Fusion I wanted had enough, was TEN GRAND more. At the time, that extra ten grand would have landed a decent used pickup (not too sure these days), so the economics of hybrid versus conventional were quite straightforward. Even though gasoline costs have jumped nearly two bucks a gallon here in NorCal since then, I’m still way the hell ahead over the projected life of this vehicle.

Johnny boy -I can go a month on a tank of gas if im limiting myself to trips id take in an ev. An considering insurance, registration, etc there is no point where a currently available commuter ev + gas backup makes sense. What makes more sense is a plug in hybrid. Or an NEV if you dont go outside of a 20 mile radius

Did Calos ever fix the 90K CV gift( wait, thats right He is still in hiding after nearly putting Nissan under.
My Preacher and Hubby used to buy new Nissans and put probably 250K trouble free miles on them that is until the last Sentra (two rubber band CVT replacements in around 200K miles) no more sez the Hubby”EX Navy{son is now an Admiral- strongly resembles Tom Cruise) they ended up with a well-used Volvo wagonish thing lets hope they have good luck with that.
The thing about free charging, someone else does pay for that as much as I love PV electricity it makes absolutely no sense at this late stage to invest in those things, I also have a concern for the smug preppers( if and when the grid goes down) do they think the wiring and electronics on the PV panels will not be affected?)
In this country perhaps we would be better off not being smug and making our own little fortresses, instead spending time to get to know our Neighbors and working toward enough harmony to make it unlikely that a “Rogue State” will cripple us at any event, one big EMP event and we are pretty much instantly back into the Mid-19th Century? Do we wish to live that ,I think not.I apologize for rambling and straying from the subject, Perhaps as “Winnie the Pooh” sez , this stuff requires” large thinking”, the mess in LA is a harbringer of things to come, lets pray we can get these things sorted out.
As “Gump’ said “I’m going home now”(paraphrase) above all try not to get entangled with the state

You have to admit, the Toyota hybrids have proven to be well-engineered vehicles. One thing to keep in mind: like any hybrid, the replacement cost of that battery pack, which, admittedly, most conventional powertrains have also become, render a vehicle worth, say, $12K one day, a hopeless pile of junk the next. IF you can get a salvage yard to take your now-moribund hybrid.

I’ve linked to yet another apologist for the hybrids; see the utter bullshit in this particular article. One thing he glosses over: that hybrids have been pushed with GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION.

https://www.ablison.com/pros-and-cons-of-a-hybrid-car/

EV crybabies don’t go to Kansas, John.)?
You’ve heard the term “flyover country,” (which is just full of “deplorables”), right?

It will be a bit like owning a Mclaren they fly in tech’s to repair them, for body damage they use so much exotic material they have to be flown back to the factory for body repair.

Also, brakes last just about forever in an EV. Due to the recharging of the battery on the down hill. There is no cooling system to service or leaks. There is no exhaust system to rust out. You don’t have to buy a new battery (conventional 12 volt). No air filter, no fuel filter, no oil filter. No emissions inspection. I could go on.

Electric motors are better than ICE motors, in some ways, worse in others……
High torque at low rpm.

ice engines have a problem, lack of low end torque but there is lots of them that have a flat torque curve, the torque will be almost the same up to redline, they are well suited to a race track where you want top end power, not as well suited for around town.

electric motors have 100% torque at 1 rpm, but like in the tesla for example which revs to 18,000 rpm, the torque starts falling at 9,000 rpm, they are well suited to in town driving or for short drag races, like the 1/8th or 1/4 mile, up to 120 mph they are quick, over 120 mph an ice car with similar power to weight will be quicker over 120 mph and in the 1/2 mile.

The quickest cars right now are cars like the F1 cars and the Porsche 919 evo hybrid, hybrid combines the two engines to get the best of both.

Well, then, think of how the RAILROAD industry, which has, for 175 years, made its money hauling FREIGHT (yes, there was passenger service, but, save for areas like the Northeast where population density makes it still a viable choice over airline travel, IF the Federal Government weren’t in that business, aka “Amtrak”), has used “hybrids” for over 80 years…the DIESEL-ELECTRIC locomotive. Not only fuel costs, which were cut by about 60 percent over an equivalent power steam locomotive, even one modernized to burn oil or diesel instead of coal, but by decreased maintenance and yard DOWNTIME. If there’s an industry that looks for more cost-effective motive power, it’s the railroads. Same also with the airlines, which did away with piston-engine aircraft not simply b/c jets can typically go faster, but TBO and MTBF numbers with jet engines went way up. I had an old prof back in the day at ol’ Fresno State, “Bodger the ‘Codger’ “, who was then about seventy, he’d gone to work for Pratt and Whitney right after serving in the military in WWII, in 1945, but already had significant experience as an engineer. As part of the team at P&W designed their new line of jet engines, the company president told them, “Product Objective: no P&W engine will EVER fail in a customer’s aircraft.”

The only problem with H2 is that it takes more energy to MAKE it vs. what it yields! H2 doesn’t appear in nature by itself, so it has to be derived from something else. This is usually done by splitting either water (H2O) or methane (CH4). By the time the H2 has been split off, the process cost you more energy than you can hope to get from the H2.

The Japanese government has decided H₂ will replace fossil fuels and provides a large subsity to Toyota for research.

https://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2017/pdf/1226_003b.pdf

That sounds very (not) practical.
Maybe save the $2,000 by cutting a big hole in the floor pan and propelling the car with your feet, Fred Flintstone style?
That should attract all the best looking women in town!

All electric future, eh? 2024 Ford Mustang IC “muscle car”…

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/next-generation-ford-mustang-camera-electric

Repairing Ev’s is a big problem now, nobody knows how to fix them, they are very dangerous to work on because of the very high voltage (lots of places won’t work on them for that reason), they are very complex compared to an internal combustion engine, they are new technology so people don’t understand them, so very difficult to diagnose. If you break down in L.A. there probably will be a repair place that can fix your EV, if you are in a small town somewhere good luck getting it fixed.

In ice vehicles most places would do no diagnosis, tech’s won’t do it because they aren’t paid to do it, so why should they. They would use the parts cannon….just keep replacing parts hoping it fixes it, instead of doing diagnostics properly, the customer got robbed.
Using the parts cannon on an EV could get expensive in a hurry, like a $4000 non returnable circuit board, it would be hard to hide your screw up.

So they are ramming these very difficult and expensive to repair EV’s down our throat.

The dealers might love these EV’s, they can charge a lot more for labor to fix them, the parts are more expensive so bigger profit margins on parts.

Plus they are very expensive so fatter profit margins when you sell them.

No wonder manufacturers are going along with this, there is more profit margin selling expensive vehicles and parts.

If you sell something simple, cheap and reliable there is no profit in it, sell something expensive, full of problems with very expensive parts, and charge a fortune to fix it. Ice was becoming too reliable maybe.

Not true.
So far Tesla depreciation has been slower than the average ICE.
Other electric vehicles much faster.
I would think the used EV value would depend a lot on the condition of the batteries. Affected by the number of miles driven / total charges and the percentage of fast charges.

With a used EV I think you are buying a vehicle and a battery pack. The condition of the battery pack could have a huge effect on the value of the vehicle, being so expensive to replace. I don’t know how you would measure the condition of the batteries, but there must be some way.

Have you looked at Teslas on Carvana lately? The gently used, late model Teslas fetch about as much as brand new ones do! I don’t know about over the long term, but over the short term? Teslas have little or no depreciation

When you drive down the road in your EV don’t think about this……..don’t hit anything, don’t run over debris and don’t get hit (good luck with that, you will be hit by these moron drivers eventually, make sure you aren’t in an EV when you get hit.

The biggest problem with EV’s is the batteries in EV’s are very dangerous, a fire hazard, how they ever got passed for safety standards is a huge mystery.

Lithium-ion batteries have a tendency to overheat and can be damaged at high voltages leading to thermal runaway and combustion. like driving around sitting on top of a huge bomb, make sure you don’t hit anything or get hit while driving one of these abortions.

EV fires are very hard to put out the only way is with the application of huge amounts of water.

Tactically, this may mean using a master stream, 2½-inch or multiple 1¾-inch fire lines, to suppress and cool the fire. Vehicle fires don’t typically call for surround-and-drown tactics, but these are not typical vehicle fires. so you need multiple fire trucks to put out the fire, this is insanity, they should ban these things.

One example: the flames on the Tesla were extinguished, it reignited again. Firefighters began hosing it down with copious amounts of water, up to 200 gallons per minute, but “that did not extinguish the flames,” according to the NTSB. At approximately 9:13 p.m., nearly three hours after the first alarm was received, firefighters had to pour out more than 600 gallons of water per minute. In the end the agency used 20,000 gallons of water. these should bsa banned from the road…..

Then the fire still isn’t put out……..Batteries can be expected to reignite after being put out because they still have stored energy. 15 hours later it catches fire again…
“Battery fires can take up to 24 hours to extinguish”….. the vehicle must be parked under “quarantine” for 48 hours, so that no new fire can break out.
Batteries are difficult to extinguish, and they can burst into flames again several hours later –ATTENTION: in some cases, right up to a week later
……… and they allow people to buy these abortions.

– these things are so dangerous they shouldn’t be sold…..remember the leftist government says 24/7 safe and effective, all lies.

The greater the amount of energy the electric vehicle may contain, the greater the fire risk of electric vehicle fires.
So they want to increase the range but that means bigger batteries which are far more dangerous, tesla is the worst they have 2000 lb of batteries, a huge fire on wheels going somewhere to happen.

The big hidden problem:
they can’t increase the range because the huge batteries are too dangerous, and get more dangerous with increased size, capacity, so EV’s will never have ice vehicle range, so they are too dangerous and useless.

Tiny little electric vehicles with tiny batteries would have been safer, cheaper would have made more sense, these huge EV’s are exactly the wrong solution, but the government is stupid, corrupt, insane.

Here is the biggest problem nobody talks about……
31% of fire departments don’t train for electric vehicle fires. 50% of fire departments say they don’t have special protocols in place to handle electric vehicles after an accident. These EV’s shouldn’t be sold the fire departments can’t even put out the fires, these things endanger everyone.

Remember this while driving your EV:
Drive down the road in your EV, hit some debris, a high bump, a huge pothole (the cities don’t fix the roads anymore, so don’t buy an EV), a raised manhole cover or drive into the ditch, puncture the battery and the battery catches fire.
In addition to crashes, some of the earlier fires involving Teslas were reportedly caused by debris in the roadway puncturing and gouging the undercarriage of the lithium-ion battery pack.

The damaged battery pack exposed the lithium, causing an exothermal reaction and subsequent fire. This hazard was thought to have been solved with the installation of a titanium cover encasing the battery pack, giving the undercarriage more resistance to severe damage. looks like they don’t work too well, remember this while driving your EV.

Most electric vehicle fires are caused by the thermal runaway of a damaged battery. Thermal runaway is the rapid and extreme rise in temperature and when it initiates the same reaction in adjacent cells it is known as ‘thermal runaway propagation. When thermal runaway happens, it can produce smoke, fire and even explosions.

Fires while the electric vehicle is stationary (an EV can catch fire even while parked, don’t sleep in it), this can happen from:
Extreme temperatures, both extreme heat and cold
High humidity
Flooding
Internal cell failure
ATTENTION: Overcharging or problems with the charging station (the EV can catch fire), don’t charge it in your garage, what if something goes wrong while charging?
Is that why so many charging stations are out of order? the software shuts them down over any little issue because they can cause fires.

why do they even allow these on the road? the leftist government is pushing these because they are morons and insane,

Fires in gas powered vehicles is far easier to put out compared to an EV and doesn’t take 24 hours to put out. (it is very very difficult for a diesel powered vehicle to catch fire, they are by far the safest)
they soon will ban far safer gas powered vehicles and the best and the safest by far diesel powered vehicles, throw a match in diesel, it won’t even catch fire……..

After 10 years the battery in your EV is near dead, useless, the car is scrap now, no residual value: Lithium-ion batteries are subject to aging, losing capacity and fail frequently after a number of years.
A bigger worry is being cremated in the thing.

Electric car batteries are catching fire and that could be a big turnoff to buyers.

BMW initiated a recall in the United States of 10 different BMW and Mini plug-in hybrid models because of a risk of fire caused by debris that may have gotten into battery cells during manufacturing.
Then, in early October, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into reports of apparently spontaneous battery fires in Chevrolet Bolt EVs.
A few days later, Hyundai announced that it was recalling 6,700 Kona Electric SUVs in the United States, among about 75,000 of that model to be recalled worldwide, after it had received numerous reports of vehicles catching fire while parked.
Tesla faced problems this last year after multiple highly publicized battery fires.

The leftist government is pushing these EV’s like crazy, all they say is safe and effective 24/7 like their mrna vaccine, same thing, pure lies. You are not allowed to know about the safety of vaccines or EV’s.

Container puts out inextinguishable fires in electric cars

https://cfpa-e.eu/container-puts-out-inextinguishable-fires-in-electric-cars/

I used to work in product development in the auto industry, and knew about Fuel System Integrity regulations, but retired long before there were electric vehicles (except golf carts).

301 information:
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/part-571/subpart-B/section-571.301

China implemented new EV fire safety regulations at the start of 2021 — one rule is a 5-minute warning between a thermal event and fire or smoke exiting the battery pack.

I don’t know of any US regulations on EV battery fires yet — does anyone else know?

I do know a retired fireman who heard about EV fires in other districts, and said he’d rather climb a tree to get a cat down than to fight an EV battery fire. He was happy he retired before fighting his first EV fire. So they must be pretty bad.

Exactly, Mike!

There is are no reasonable grounds for objecting to a near zero-emissions vehicle like the Volt – if the “concern” truly is “emissions.” Indeed, I would bet that the total emissions resulting from the manufacture and use of the Volt are lower than those of a Tesla 3. Which by the way also costs about $15k more than the Volt. And this doesn’t factor into it that because the Volt is affordable, more people would be able to drive one – which would have a huge effect on these “emissions” the people pushing 100 percent (and 100 percent unaffordable) EVs down our throats pretend to be “concerned” about.

One of the problem with the Volt and the BMW i3 was a short electric only range and on the highway going up a steep hill after the battery reserve got low, the now ice only engine power was low compared to an ice only vehicle, so sluggish on a steep hill, other then that they were great.

Hi RK,
I’ve read similar things, what I understand is they’re trying to come up with some kind of super capacitor that would charge quickly and not contain a lot of nasty chemicals. Good luck with that.

Hi RK,

Ok, but…

Assuming they do gin up a sheet-battery that can be recharged in ten minutes – that is still twice as long as it takes to refuel any gas-engined car. Maybe I’m just not smart enough to grok how it’s an improvement – desirable – to spend so much effort developing a “technology” that doubles the wait-time to refuel… It’s all so bizarre. Replacing what works better with something that works worse. Has this ever occurred in the history of modern capitalism. Oh. That’s right. We no longer have capitalism!

And – does this “10 minutes” assume a very high voltage charging source? If so, no go (well, no go fast) at home, as most homes do not have the capacity. How will they get it? How will all this juice be generated?

You’re a green dreamer

AC is not free or nearly free

With respect to “thought,” Jim H, there is also the issue that a road trip of any significant distance or time will have to stick to a tightly planned and heavily optimized schedule, with little or no room for any planned or unplanned deviation. You can’t just decide to do things on the spur of the moment, or things like pass up a gas station to make better time. What’s more, if you should get caught in traffic for any significant length of time, it’s not like you can get off at the next exit, refuel in five minutes, take a back road, and get back on the highway. You’ll need to be close to a charger almost all of the time.

Methinks this is more a feature than a bug…but I digress.