Imagine if every gas station had to be physically connected, via pipeline, to a refinery – and you will begin to see the improbability of their electric vehicle equivalents. And then you will begin to understand why “electrification” is about diminishment – of the dispersed, convenient and highly individualized system of personal transportation Americans have come to take for granted.
Like their former freedom to travel without arbitrary molestation – among so many other freedoms lost because they were taken for granted, too.
Think, first of all, about how you deal with running out of gas. How matter-of course it is to walk down to the gas station with an empty gallon jug and come back with the fuel, which you then pour in the tank. Now imagine the same with an electric car that has run out of juice.
How do you carry a kilowatt-hour of electricity back to the electric car?
Now scale it up and think of a tanker truck hauling say 3,000 gallons of gasoline from a refinery or distribution point to the gas station, 50 miles distant. How does one transport an equivalent in electricity to a “fast” charger – or anywhere else?
It must be cabled there.
Think on that a moment. Think about the difficulty and expense of the one vs. the other. The tanker truck can go anywhere the road allows, allowing a gas station to be built anywhere there’s a road. This is why there are gas stations everywhere – or near enough to allow people to drive practically anywhere. This, in turn, is why America is still the land of the open road, a place where anyone with a set of keys can go anywhere they like without having to think much at all about how they will get there – and get back – because there is certain to be a gas station along the way.
The gas, once transported by the tanker, can then be stored in underground tanks for weeks or months, ready to fuel thousands of cars in just minutes. The stored fuel does not energetically decline, either. If 3,000 gallons are in the underground tank, those 3,000 gallons will have the BTU equivalent of 3,000 gallons of gas a week from now. Just as those gallons did not lose any BTUs while being trucked from the refinery to the gas station. There are no “losses in transmission,” because that does not happen with stored liquid fuel transported from point A to point B.
You end up with what you began with.
Electric car batteries store electricity, of course. But the electric car equivalent of gas stations do not – because they cannot. It is not technically or economically feasible to store the equivalent of say 3,000 gallons of gasoline in the underground (or above ground) storage tank equivalent for storing the energy-equivalent of electricity, to be “pumped” into EVs in need of a charge.
Something on the order of massive capacitors would be needed, something that doesn’t exist or which simply isn’t practical.
Even if such capacitors did exist, you’d still need some way to transport all that power from the generating source, such as a utility plant – the EV equivalent of a refinery – to the ultimate distribution point; i.e., the EV equivalent of a gas station; i.e., the “fast” charging station. But that, also, is not technically or economically feasible at this point because there is no EV equivalent of a tanker truck that can store anything equivalent to the energy content of 3,000 gallons of fuel and transport it from the generating source to the “fast” charger.
The energy must be continuously conduited from the generating source to the end-user source, exactly the same way electrical power is conduited to your home, via wires, that tether your home – along miles of road – all the way back to the utility plant where the electricity is produced.
Some will state the obvious – that there are already wires connecting private homes to the source of power and, therefore, there is no need to wire up the EV equivalent of the approximately 145,000 gas stations that currently dispense fuel to non-electric cars all across the United States.
The problem is no homes – or trivially few, at any rate – have the capacity needed to charge a 400-800 volt EV in less than eight or nine hours. In order for them to have such capacity, they’d need to have their capacity upgraded. But even if that were feasible – technically as well as economically – it is only one side of the power-distribution problem.
The receiving side. 
The other side is the sending side; the existing wiring that conduits electricity from the utility plant/substation to private homes. It is inadequate to conduit the enormous increase in electrical power that would be needed to facilitate the “fast” charging at home of millions of 400-800 volt EVs.
And it doesn’t address the problem of being able to “refuel” – i.e., recharge – away from home, anywhere you’d like to go without having to think about whether you’ll be able to get there – and back.
There will not be the electrified equivalent of gas stations out in the middle of nowhere, far from home – because there is no cabling to transfer the necessary power there. Solar panels easily power low-wattage devices such as LED lights and laptop batteries. They did not easily power 1,000 pound electric car batteries. It would take an acre (probably more) of them to summon the electric equivalent of 3,000 gallons of gas.
Instead of running out of gas, people will in future run out of room.
There are some EV chargers capable of “fast” charging EVs along the major roads and within major cities – where they piggyback on existing or very nearby high-load electrical infrastructure. But that is not the same as having gas stations wherever people need or want to be able to go – and get back from – without thinking much or even at all about it.
“Electrification” means giving that freedom up.
It means not only having to plan every trip around your state of charge – and the waiting for it – but also being corralled within the range of your electric leash. It means not being realistically able to live far away from where you work, in order to be able to afford a single family home with some land, out in the country. It means living closer to where you work, in a smaller home – with less (if any) land – that costs more – so you’ll have to work harder, longer.
It means the end of randomness. Of just going – whenever, wherever.
This is what “electrification” will mean – if we let them get away with it.
. . .
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“The tanker truck can go anywhere the road allows, allowing a gas station to be built anywhere there’s a road. This is why there are gas stations everywhere – or near enough to allow people to drive practically anywhere.”
That does not happen to be the case, because there’s a boot-strapping problem. You don’t get that sort of access until AFTER something IC powered builds that sort of near-universal road infrastructure (because steam rollers, oxen and the like also needed supporting infrastructure in place first, or had to settle for building much more limited coverage; Eisenhower’s expedition is instructive about this). Before that, something else was needed. Historically, railway networks made it practical to get petrol delivered nearly anywhere, which was first done because chemists used to stock petrol to sell as a home dry cleaning preparation, which in turn let amateur motorists get it nearly anywhere (once the railways’ own boot-strapping problem was solved by canals and sea or lake transport delivering enough coal to enough places to allow local railways to reach the critical mass needed for viable railway networks to form).
Hi P.M. –
Yes, but the roads exist. They don’t have to be built from scratch, that is. For EVs to “work” a whole new EV charging infrastructure would be needed. Leaving aside all of the other EV problems.
TODAY the roads exist. But you forget that the motto of a nihilist isn’t “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” but “if it ain’t broke, break it”. How else can they “build back better”? Once they break the whole IC infrastructure, ecosystem, and all, your problem is GOING to be the boot-strapping problem.
Hi Eric
Not only that. Most of the electric distribution grid would have to be upgraded. Thats going to be REALLY expensive. Especially since we no longer manufacture most of the gear required here. Take a wild guess where those factories have been moved to?…
That’s leaving entirely aside how much lithium and other such would be required. Not to mention that the Cultists solar and wind systems aren’t suited to provide base load power.
Keep in mind that the top leaders of this death cult, know all these things. They simply don’t care how it impacts the lives of billions of people. They see lower living standards for the general population as a feature, not a bug.
Always remember that the main carbon they want to remove is us. No matter what it takes.
Hi BJ,
Absolutely – in re the death cult; i.e., the death-of-us cult. It is difficult for most people to really get this – not because they’re stupid or lack insight but rather because they’re not sociopathic. They do not get evil people. It is the innocence of the person waiting to be “relocated to the east” . . . it is simply inconceivable that they are gassing whole populations. And yet, they did.
Once this is understood everything becomes clear.
From google search “One acre is approximately 4,046 square meters, so if you have an acre’s worth of solar cells, then you will receive about 4,046 kilowatt hours of electricity each hour, or 24,276 kilowatt hours a day.”
Eric, I hate our current crop of evs but if I had 1 acre of solar panels in a rural area it could fully charge 20 electric hummers per hour mid day, 40 teslas per hour, or 100 small evs per hour. Obviously not as much power on cloudy days, or at night. But such a station could charge up hundreds of vehicles every day with only attendants to serve coffee/food and maintain the store, no need for trucks to haul diesel. Except id put in a diesel generator or 2 for night time charging which would cost a lot more money.
The problem is your math is based on peak output not average output.
Actually, that math is based on average PV solar power plant performance and assuming the cars are taking a full charge. So 1 acre of solar in a sunny location is literally equivilant to thousands of gallons of fuel every day except winter/rainy season. Said station could operate entirely off grid and without a huge power backup if customers charged up in the mid day sun.
E- boats are better for fishing cause they are quiet and dont leak oil/fuel. You could have solar powered marinas. And not risk spilling fuel into the lake.
The term “average performance ” is pretty vague. You know the performance varies with sun angle, cloud cover, season, dust conditions. Plus factors like will you have storage, what kind and how much, how much space between active panels which subtracts from your surface area, water requirements to keep the panels dust free, switchgear maintenance, simplified if you are DC-DC but you will need voltage and current regulation, which induces losses, switchgear to swap source from active panels to storage, battery maintenance, etc.
It is not as simple as saying I have an acre of solar panels times (average performance- whatever that is) I can charge xxx number of EV’s.
How many charging stations you think you can support also adds complexity and does nothing for the charge and dwell times.
I’d love to see your math.
Hi Alex.
You just saved me from having to post that myself. 🙂 This subject is quite a bit more complex than some would have one believe. I was going to direct them to this thread for many more of the relevant details.
https://www.quora.com/How-much-solar-energy-is-generated-per-square-metre
Its that lack of attention to details that has resulted in Germany (among others) having the inherent problems with its massive investments in “Green Energy” that they are experiencing.
Haha and I didn’t even cover 1% of the relevant items for concern in a project like this!
Hi Alex.
I noticed. This intersection between science and technology can get complicated fast. With so many variables, its a no wonder that even the engineers can’t keep their cook books up to date. 🙂
Whats even more fun is when you get into the details of their other Sacred Cow. Wind power.
But let us not dwell on such topics of horror… 🙂
Indeed a horror BJ. If the greenies knew how much is used to make one of those monstrosities they’d crap their pants. Most never generate in their lifetime anywhere near the energy used to make them, much less make and dispose of their carcasses.
Hi Alex.
Exactly. Whats REALLY funny is the amount of the various fossil fuels that are involved in the various steps of the process. I suspect that at least some of their leaders are aware of this. But the carbon they are most invested in eliminating isn’t emitted by ICE. Its in form of the almost 8 billion humans that currently inhabit the earth. They are truly a death cult. Anti human and anti prosperity.
I find this to be even funnier
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/07/15/texas-tesla-owners-told-not-to-charge-vehicles-due-to-stress-on-power-grid-n2610300
If they want to they can signal the cars not to charge during certain hours. I wish they would go that far. The lawsuits would be epic, which is of course why they won’t.
But suppose The DOT Secretary decided to issue an order to that effect, would Tesla comply? I don’t see any way they could force it, but imagine someone died because they couldn’t get to the hospital in time because the car wouldn’t charge.
Who would hold the liability?
I imagine it would cause a lot of people to wake up and realize that the EVs are just another instrument of control over the people and their freedom of movement.
Lol the toddler harness stock photo gets me every time, nothin dignified about it
Hi Alex.
Liability? That would be who ever has the least amount of power/influence. It certainly wouldn’t be the Gangs (governments) or their primary cronies(Insurance mafia, mega corps…).
There is another possibility (we’ve seen it before) the courts could simply decree that those suing lack “standing”. We do live in a classic example pf a Banana Republic after all.
As for your last, I seriously doubt it. Most of the people I know who own Tesla’s are Cultists.
There may be a few exceptions (as there are in most things). But they tend to be Good Citizens™ and thus wouldn’t dare to question the Narrative of the minute. The last couple of years have been a demonstration of just how gullible, docile and obedient the vast majority of people are. Keep these quotes in mind.
https://fee.org/articles/12-hl-mencken-quotes-on-government-democracy-and-politicians/
Sadly I agree with you BJ.
I image most Tesla guys would happily sit in the car smiling when the battery goes, sacrificing themselves for Mother Earth. – not the worst idea I have ever heard
Never mind that the power company BARELY keeps the lights on in the middle of summer with all the a/c running……..
There is no additional power on hot summer days. It’s amazing the power doesn’t black out more in the summer. It probably will be soon.
leftist/communist central planning
“Shockingly Naive”: Bloomberg’s Tom Keene Wrecks Biden Official Over Absurd Gas-Price Blame-Game
You know it’s bad when…
In a recent interview on Bloomberg TV, Biden official Heather Boushey, who sits on the Council of Economic Advisers, was asked by host Jonathan Ferro about economically illiterate comments from the administration regarding the price of gas at the pump.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/shockingly-naive-bloombergs-tom-keene-wrecks-biden-official-over-absurd-gas-price-blame-game
Jonathan Ferro is too intelligent to take this bs, you can’t screw with him………he goes after this witch spouting lies…..entertaining…..
EV’s have more than one tether. Not only are you leashed to the nearest High Voltage/High Amperage electrical connection but these things are all wirelessly connected to Borg Central.
Been a bad boy on Facebook? Missed your latest booster vax? Misgendered a purple-hair? Voted the wrong way in the last election? Guess what, you car might be disabled or severely limited in where it will allow you to drive.
And, they know where you are, when you left and how long you were there.
Eric, you are the best voice on this issue, period. This is perhaps the best article to send those seeking a red pill on the EV thing.
Thanks for the kind words, Brandonjin!
I try – and I feel passionately about it, which probably helps. I just wish this EV business was the result of natural rather than artificial forces…
Hi Eric.
Great article. While I tend to subscribe to Grays Law; “Never attribute to malice, what can be explained by stupidity/incompetence”. I’m more and more certain that this entire Climate Change/EV/Electric this that and the other is intentional malice. Looking at what is at stake, and the difference between reality and their hoax, its the only reasonable conclusion I can come to.
If they really believed this nonsense, they would go well out of their way to shift over to modern nuclear power generation. This is a legitimate national security concern. That being the case, given the current system, they could simply mandate that it be done. Anyone who attempted to get in the way would be dealt with (one way or another. This is a Gang after all).
Instead, their flailing around is making matters much worse and setting the stage for an epic collapse. Or revolt. I suspect those behind this don’t really care which happens at this point.
EV’s have a very limited use case. Solar/Wind are not base load power systems. Fossil fuels have so many advantages, that no practical alternatives exist. This is known, and can be demonstrated. Only the Progs control of Government and its Ministry of Truth (mass and social media) and their endless propaganda and out right lies is obscuring the issue.
I’d recommend two books for anyone who wants a balanced look at the benefits AND risks of fossil fuels.
The moral case for fossil fuels and Fossil Future. Both by Alex Epstein.
I have no problem with joining you in this Crusade Eric. 🙂
Thanks, BJ!
As an aside: I get EVs to test drive only every now and then because of the hassle involved in getting them to my place. Not for me – for the delivery services that send press cars out to car journalists. I’m about 220 highway miles away from the press pool, which is up in the DC area. For any non-electric car, it’s a four hour drive, maybe one stop for a quick fill-up along the way. But it’s pushing the outer limits of most electric cars. Even if one can make it to my place, it will be close to discharged when it arrives and since my house isn’t “fast” charge capable, it means waiting until the next day to be able to drive it any distance. So they drive it here to park it here. There are “fast” chargers in Roanoke and Salem – but that’s 35-40 miles away from me. So I’d have to drive down there to meet them – or go there, to wait for them. And then figure out what to do with the car I drove down. Usually, they just flatbed the EV here.
It’s as absurd as “social distancing” and “masking.”
Just this afternoon I was driving my gasoline-powered small SUV home when I noticed a smell reminiscent of burning wires. I figured I probably passed by something emitting that smell, so I ignored it at first. However, after a few blocks, the odor continued. I found myself looking around my car when I could but didn’t see anything amiss. When I got to my turnoff, I caught up to the car in front of me and noticed that it was a Tesla. After turning off and going 1/2 a block, the smell disappeared. Hmmm… I wonder, was it on the verge of catching fire?
This is why I get real nervous sitting at a traffic light near a Tesla and always leave an escape route.
Here in WA the insanity rules supreme:
https://crosscut.com/environment/2022/05/washington-first-state-require-all-electric-heating-new-buildings
Meanwhile Gov. Dimslee, and our “mom in tennis shoes” Sen. Patty-cakes Murray (the tennis shoes was her hook to get elected, no joke) want to tear out the Snake River dam system:
https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/opinion/opinion-snake-river-dam-insanity-will-destroy-washington-prosperity/
So, go all electric but remove 8% of our clean generation capability. We were to have a network of nuke plants decades ago but the WPPSS screwed the pooch resulting in one of the largest municipal bond defaults in history.
‘Set the throttle on full and shoot for the sun,’ seems to be a common refrain among the watermelons of the left coast. Hope when the time comes you guys and gals emancipate yourself from the tyranny of the few.
Washington state has a lot going for it with the exception of Seattle. We had a 3 hour layover in Seatac terminal 1. A more foul and dirty airport than one would expect to find in the third world.
Been through JFK lately? Its a national embarrassment.
It seems as if the whole countries becoming a national embarrassment Alex.
Electric heat is about the last thing that should be. Not only expensive, if its out, you got no heat.
After a tornado in 2008 (thankfully in the summer), the power was out over a week. I still had nice hot showers during the whole electric outage because my water heater is natural gas not electric.
If anything more major appliances should be going FROM electric to natural gas. Going to change out my electric cooktop with natural gas soon. Natural gas is better for cooking to boot too.
Hi Rich,
Yup. My house has a heat pump – which I almost never use, because the “heat” it emits is both tepid and expensive. Wood heats. Also propane – the latter without any work on my part. But wood I can cut myself – after felling trees in my woods. It makes me feel warm to know I won’t freeze on account of that, even if the electricity is turned off!
We did that bit with all electric homes back in the sixties. Convenient, maintenance free, blah blah. Too bad it turns out electric heat and hot water cost 5 times as much as natgas or #2 fuel oil. I knew a few guys back in New England who made a good living converting electric heated homes to gas or oil.
‘The tanker truck can go anywhere the road allows, allowing a gas station to be built anywhere there’s a road.’ — eric
Even where tankers can’t go, workarounds exist.
In central Argentina, ascending a sketchy dirt road to a tiny mountain village in the Sierras de Córdoba, suddenly I noticed the fuel gauge was on E.
Damn! My bad!
Would there be fuel there … or would we be screwed, blued and tattooed?
I hadn’t a clue, but it was too late to turn back.
Not one gas station could be found in the remote village. But asking round, we were directed to a fellow in a residential block.
From a 55-gallon drum, he extracted some precious ‘nafta’ into a large glass beaker. Proudly he showed me the perfect correspondence of the meniscus with the 10-liter mark before pouring it in: honest measure offered here.
What if we’d gotten stuck in that high-altitude Nowheresville, my wife asked afterward, appalled by my obliviousness.
‘Dios proveerá,‘ I deadpanned, with a casual shrug.
If it takes eight hours to charge the battery, all things equal, it should take eight hours to gas up the tank.
It’s only fair. Has to pencil out somehow, quid pro quo.
16 cups in a gallon, a cup a minute, 16 minutes to add one gallon, times 18 equals 288 minutes or 4.8 hours to fill your tank with fuel. A cup of fuel every minute and a half then, you can’t take advantage of EV owners like that, you’ll run circles around them and keep on trucking while they’re stranded.
Every ICE vehicle needs to have an installed generator to produce electricity so you can charge an EV stuck on the road. If you pass an EV with a dead battery and don’t stop to help, it’ll be a felony and 90 days in the jailhouse.
The stupid is on fire, just like a Tesla.
That’s been the fatal flaw of EV’s all along. Having a glorified golf cart to run errands around town and let it recharge (slowly-low load) overnight at your house would be fine; now picture the miles long lines of cars on every highway at rush hour all trying to get a “fast” charge and the already maxed out grid will just vaporize.
As if that isn’t bad enough the uber-greenies around here want to ban that evil natural gas and get everyone to use heat pumps to put even more load on the grid, not to mention heat pumps don’t work worth squat in sub freezing temperatures. Hope these idiots enjoy wearing parkas indoors while I’m nice and comfy with my gas heat. You just can’t get these true believers/cultists to recognize basic facts.
The condo I’m living in (~300 units) heats and cools with water-source heat pumps.
What happens when the temperature of the water loop gets too low in heating season? That’s right, a gas-fired boiler kicks in to warm the water loop.
Stupid. But hey, at least we aren’t heating with dirty natural gas. Oh, wait…we are.
Dan,
Which assumes you can afford wearing the leash in the first place. Which few can. I foresee a huge increase in bicycle sales.
Now the weather-guessers are blaming climate change for their pathetic performance:
https://apnews.com/article/technology-science-weather-montana-billings-45805c9bd89b39307b4fa0ec30ac8a93?user_email=0d8ea5cc3f97bee4373c53a4396cf5d08e3f6f4be7fce3c86b72a7f949785aaa&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=July07_MorningWire&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers
“Those models are going to be inadequate to deal with a new climate,” one said. Right. As if weather forecasts were never wrong until Mother Climate got pissed off at our CO2.
Hi Roland.
If you want more facts and details to hammer the Climate Cultists with, check out the CDN channel on youtube. They also have their own web site (in case they get banned). Dr Robson has a very dry sense of humor, and is always poking the Cultists.
https://www.youtube.com/c/CDN_ClimateDN
Eric, once again you unequivocally make the case that the intent is not to change us all into EVs, but to change us into not driving, at all. 100 years ago, it was not uncommon for one to live their entire life without getting more than 25 miles from where they were born. Looks like a return to that is the goal of the Psychopaths In Charge. So much for “progress”. Looks like we’re going backwards to me. But after all, psychopaths aren’t really human.
My dog can go anywhere it wants–within the parameters of its tether.
Won’t it be great when we’re all subject to the tethering, that makes it easier for the culling? I’m excited.
Ancap,
Especially since you will be disarmed, and have no means of resisting it. Which is why ALL tyrants eagerly endeavor to disarm the people.
Hi John.
I’m certain they will try. But once they start losing a significant number of enforcers, I suspect they will either stop, or their enforcers will turn on them. Especially given what a real 4th gen war would look like here. The Empire has lost every war its been in since WWII. This will be no different.
Culling. With a side of spay or neuter.
The powers that be are pushing economic suicide on this country. Are they they that stupid or diabolical? The thinking person will reason for the latter. Problem is thinking people constitute a small minority in this country. I hate to be a pessimist, but how can you not be?
“Are they that stupid, or diabolical?”
The answer to that would be yes
Jeep Rubicon 4KE. Electric off-road hybrid vehicle:
https://www.jeep.com/wrangler/wrangler-4xe.html
POWERING THE TRAILS
Harnessing the power of the sun, the Jeep® Brand is installing solar-powered charging stations on key trails in the U.S. so you can get a full charge before taking on the trails.
Scroll down a bit to see the 4XE charging in the middle of nowhere on a solar charging station. I guess they think they’ll be putting these things at trailheads? In national parks? Good luck with that… The pristine, untouched wilderness fouled by your… technology. No GORP muncher will agree to that! And how does that charging station get to the site? Big flatbed truck, that’s how. Once installed how long before it’s vandalized by eco-greenies or bored stoners? Heck, just some van-lifers looking for a new house battery?
OMG! Great catch RK, while you’re the resident E-expert, I’m guessing that picture of a solar panel might charge a cell phone in an hour or so. But a E-jeep? Maybe in a few months.
What a ruse! My guess is, those things will only be installed where it’s connected to grip power and the solar panel will be there to keep up the ruse and make people feel good.
Wow!
And your right, to do a car charge all solar would be acre(s) of panels I’m estimating. Then said panels destroy the natural ground cover, etc…….
Double Wow!
That’s a perfect analogy, we will be tied to a leash. But this leash is one that is required to be turned on for us to go anywhere, which means it can be turned off.